Andrew J. Fenady Movies

In this mystery, based on a novel by L.A. Morse, retired L.A. detective Jake Spanner enlists the aide of a group of senior citizens to help him find an ex-mobster's daughter. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In The Man With Bogart's Face, an affectionate send-up of the Bogart detective films of the 1940s, Robert Sacchi plays a man who idolizes Humphrey Bogart so much he has his features altered to look exactly like his idol. He then opens up a detective agency under the name Sam Marlowe (an amalgam of the names of Bogart's characters from The Maltese Falcon and The Big Sleep). Sam hires the Duchess (Misty Rowe) as his secretary ("She looked like Marilyn Monroe and made about as much sense as Gracie Allen") and "Sam Marlowe, Private Eye" is in business. Sam gets a meager response until a shooting puts his picture in the paper and business starts to flourish. Particularly attracted to Marlowe's services are a collection of characters -- Gena (Michelle Phillips), an attractive Gene Tierney type; Commodore Anastas (Victor Buono), a Greek shipping tycoon and Sidney Greenstreet lookalike; and the mysterious Mr. Zebra (Herbert Lom doing a Peter Lorre imitation). They are all trying to find the famous Eyes of Alexander -- a priceless set of stones from a statue of Alexander the Great. Also on hand are old Hollywood pros George Raft, Yvonne DeCarlo and Mike Mazurki. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

Mayday at 40,000 Feet is a regulation crisis-in-the-air TV movie distinguished by the accomplished direction of Robert (Hill Street Blues) Butler. David Janssen pilots a 747 chock full of guest stars, battling a snowstorm in order to find his way back to the airport. The plane develops engine trouble, threatening to dump its celebrity cargo in the icy drink. Adding to Janssen's growing list of problems is a maniac who goes on a shooting rampage in the first-class section. It's doubtful that anyone on November 12, 1976 stayed tuned to Mayday at 40,000 Feet upon discovering that its competition on another network was the John Travolta vehicle The Boy in the Plastic Bubble. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Steve Forrest, in his last starring role before moving permanently to series television with S.W.A.T., plays James Devlin, a once-notorious gunman who is wrongfully convicted of murder and sentenced to death. Through an accident -- though the priest Father Alvaro (Rafael Campos) insists it was divine intervention -- he survives the hanging, barely, and is set free, a death certificate having been duly and lawfully issued by the doctor (William Bryant) who examined the "body." A near walking corpse, with an odd, dark fire in his eyes and a strangely low body temperature and heartbeat, Devlin doesn't know what to do with the rest of his life, however long that may be -- he's got enemies still walking around who would like to finish the job, and neither the doctor nor the priest can tell him how long he might live. Having already reformed before he was convicted, he goes the rest of the way and decides to spend what time he's been given, and use the skills he still has as a gunman and soldier of fortune, on the side of the angels, helping people who need it. He quickly finds himself up to his neck in a deadly land war between an ambitious mining tycoon (Cameron Mitchell) and a young widow (Sharon Acker) for the property she owns. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

Murder abounds at a wax museum after the owner decides to sell it, and seemingly waxen figures come alive. By the way, are wax images normally supposed to breathe when being filmed? ~ Kristie Hassen, All Movie Guide

In this made-for-TV film, the rich Dina Hunter (Barbara Eden) believes that someone is out to kill her in order to steal her jewels. However, as she attempts to get help, Dina's fears are laughed off as being paranoid and unfounded. ~ Iotis Erlewine, All Movie Guide

John Wayne toplines this biography of the cattle owner John Simpson Chisum, a controversial figure who was the most powerful man in New Mexico during the Wild West era. A founder and prominent citizen in the town of Lincoln, Chisum is slow to act when ruthless land baron Lawrence Murphy (Forrest Tucker) moves in on several local businesses and takes them over. By the time Chisum and his ally, fellow rancher Henry Tunstall (Patrick Knowles), decide to go to the law, Murphy's already bought and paid for influence there, as well. The only recourse left to the cattlemen is to take Murphy on in all-out range war that embroils everyone in the county, including Tunstall's hand Billy the Kid Bonney (Geoffrey Deuel) and his comrade Pat Garrett (Glenn Corbett). Screenwriter and producer Andrew J. Fenady based the script for Chisum (1970) on his own short story, a very loosely fact-based account of Chisum, Billy the Kid and their involvement in the Lincoln County wars. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide

Told via flashback by a saloon keeper to a census taker in a tiny Texas town, this brutal, adult-oriented western offers the tale of a drifter who settles down to marry a woman he doesn't love so he can get at her inheritance. When that is exposed, the drifter flees and does not return for eleven years. He rides back into town with a fortune that he earned while hunting buffalo. The town's crooked banker and two thugs ride out to greet him. Thinking that the only way the reprobate could have gotten so much money is from rustling cows, they engineer a brutal reception that results in his being branded with a big "T." Naturally, the drifter passes out during his painful ordeal and when he finally comes to and learns the truth about the situation immediately gallops off to get his bloody revenge. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Switching from black and white to color for its second and final season, the NBC western Branded offers 32 more half-hour opportunities for disgraced ex-Cavalry officer Jason McCord (Chuck Connors to prove that he did not run away like a cowardly rat from the infamous Battle of Bitter Creek, of which he'd been the sole survivor. The season opener, "Judge Not", offers McCord the latest in a long line of moral dilemmas, with the life of one of the officers who'd presided at his court martial in Jason's hands. Subsequent episodes worth noting include "Now Join the Human Race", featuring Burt Reynolds as a reservation-jumping Indian whom McCord must persuade to surrender lest a huge battle between the runaway's tribe and the Cavalry ensue; "I Killed Jason McCord", with Larry Pennell as a blowhard who has built up a hero's reputation by claiming that he has shot down that yellow-bellied deserter McCord; and "Yellow for Courage", wherein McCord volunteers as a guinea pig for an experimental anti-diptheria serum developed by a female doctor (Patricia Medina) who, like our hero, is a social outcast. Evidently to boost the series' ratings, the producers contrive to have McCord cross paths with a number of 19th century celebrities during Season Two, blithely ignoring historical accuracy and other such frivolities. "Seward's Folly" features an Wolfe as a man who purchased Alaska for the United States in a story about McCord's struggle to prevent his maps of the new Alaskan territory from falling into the wrong hands. In "The Greatest Coward on Earth", Pat O'Brien plays showman P.T. Barnum, who hires McCord to cash in on his ruined reputation as a circus attraction (and in case you're wondering, Barnum's partner Bailey is played by no less than Dick Clark!). Burgess Meredith appears as fabled journalist Horace Greeley, who after heeding his own advice to "go west" must rely upon McCord to keep him alive in "Headed for Doomsday". And in "This Stage of Fools", McCord accepts a job as bodyguard for a man who had been "branded" by default: actor Edwin Booth (played by Martin Landau), the brother of Presidential assassin John Wilkes Booth. Several of this season's episodes are multi-parters, beginning with the two-part "Fill No Glass for Me", a flashback to days following McCord's court-martial and his rescue of an inexperience Cavalry officer, played by future Mission: Impossible regular Greg Morris. In another two-parter, "The Assassin", McCord operates undercover at the behest of President Grant to prevent a political assassination. And in the lavish three-part yarn "Call to Glory", a subsequent undercover mission nearly places McCord smack in the middle of a certain famous dust-up at the Little Big Horn involving General George Armstrong Custer (Robert Lansing) and Chief Crazy Horse (Michael Pate). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Unjustly booted out of the US Cavalry on a charge of desertion and cowardice--he'd been the only survivor of the fabled Battle of Bitter Creek--former West Pointer and Army captain Jason McCord (Churck Connors spends the first season of Branded wandering throughout the west, ever hoping to clear his name and prove his courage. A few of the people whom he meets in the series first sixteen black-and-white episodes are convinced that he's been wronged; a few others continue to despise him, especially those who lost relatives at Bitter Creek. The opening episode "Survival" dramatizes McCord's first conspicuous post-disgrace act of courage: Rescuing a wounded man (Alex Cord) from death in the desert. Even so, the next episode, "indicated", finds McCord still being dogged by accusations of cowardice, thanks to the interference of a hotshot New York journalist (Claude Akins). Later, "The Rules of the Game" introduces a recurring theme to the series: McCord coming across a kindred spirit in the form of another person who has been negatively "branded" by an unsavory past, in this case a fallen woman played by future soap opera diva Jeanne Cooper. In a similar vein, "The Brave Endures" features singer Tommy Sands as a young West Point cadet who, threatened with court-martial after coming to McCord's defense, being afforded a mere 30 days to recant his words. Other noteworthy first-season episodes include "Coward Step Aside", an unofficial reworking of Howard Hawks' Rio Bravo, with McCord resolving to protect a deserted town from outlaws with only a crippled bartender and a callow teenager (played by Chuck Connors' onetime Rifleman costar Johnny Crawford) to back him up; and "The First Kill", guest-starring Chad Everett as the twin brother of the first man whom McCord ever shot down in battle. Halfway through the season, McCord is afforded the first of several opportunities for redemption by performing a covert mission for President Ulysses S. Grant. Filmed in color, but shown in black and white, the three-part "The Mission" also stars John Carradine as Jason's father General Josh McCord, and Connors' then-wife, Kamala Devi. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this crime drama, three teens are sorely tempted when they stumble across two pounds of pure heroine. They think about the consequences of selling the dope and then try doing it anyway in the hope that they will become wealthy. Unfortunately, none of them are experienced in the dangers of drug dealing and mayhem ensues. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide