Richard Irving Movies

This three-part, seven-hour TV adaptation of Edgar Bulwer-Lytton's 1834 best-seller The Last Days of Pompeii was arguably more faithful to its source than any of the earlier film versions -- and inarguably the most expensive version of all, boasting a 19,000,000-dollar budget and a truly spectacular cast. In recounting the events leading up to the cataclysmic eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 A.D., the film, like the novel, introduces a veritable coliseum full of colorful fictional characters: stalwart Athenian Glaucus (Nicholas Clay), religious-zealot Egyptian Arbaces (Franco Nero), and mighty gladiator Lydon (Duncan Regehr), all of whom vie for the affections of high-born Ione (Olivia Hussey) and lowly, sightless slave girl Nydia (Linda Purl). Also around and about are Ned Beatty as wealthy merchant Diomed, Lesley-Anne Down as belly-dancing courtesan Chloe, and a handful of theatrical stalwarts like Laurence Olivier and Anthony Quayle. Mercilessly drubbed by the critics, who chortled at such dialogue as "Turn the other cheek, Christian lover!" and "Christians. They're everywhere I go. They're spreading through the empire like a pox!," The Last Days of Pompeii nonetheless garnered healthy ratings when it aired over ABC from May 6 to 8, 1984, despite the formidable opposition of the NBC blockbuster miniseries V: The Final Battle. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Exo-Man is a made-for-TV attempt to prolong the Six Million Dollar Man concept into yet another series. David Ackroyd stars as physics professor Nick Conrad, who is shot and crippled while trying to prevent a holdup. Returning to his lab, Conrad invents a superpowered suit that will enable him to reactivate his withered limbs. Six Million Dollar Man creator Martin Caiden was also the brains behind Exo-Man. According to Caiden, undue network interference killed the project's chances of becoming a weekly series. The 2-hour Exo-Man pilot first aired on June 18, 1977. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Originally produced as the pilot for a prospective TV series and based on a novel entitled Gypsy in Amber, this is the story of a detective, who also happens to be a gypsy, who becomes involved in a homicide case when one of his friends, a fellow antique dealer, is charged with the murder. Interesting and unusual premise. ~ Tana Hobart, All Movie Guide

LAPD Officer Newman has not gotten the reputation of a straight arrow by avoiding conflict when fighting for right. In this police drama, his honesty is put to the test when he and his partner discover a international drug ring involving some of the department's highest ranking officers. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

NBC was seeking a little ethnic diversity (a la Shaft) in its Mystery Movie lineup when the network commissioned Cutter. Peter DeAnda plays Frank Cutter, an African-American private eye headquartered in Chicago. Cutter's current assignment is to locate a missing pro quarterback. Stepin Fetchit, an echo from an earlier, demeaning era in black entertainment, shows up in the brief role of "Shineman". Cutter received a single 90-minute showing on January 26, 1972; it failed to make the NBC Mystery Movie cut as a regular entry. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

13-year-old Robert Mueller (Mark Gruner) is obsessed with guns and has a morbid fascination with death. He is also deeply resentful over the fact that his widowed mother Elaine (Diane Baker) has married Paul Hamilton (Ed Nelson). Despite all this, Elaine could never believe that her darling boy was in any way responsible for a recent campaign of terror waged against Paul, even when an unsolved homicide enters the picture. But Paul knows full well that he is next on little Robert's hit list--a fact that Robert does not even bother to keep a secret. Adapted from a novel by Fielden Farrington, the made-for-TV A Little Game made its ABC bow on October 30, 1971. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

It all began in 1960 as a stage play called Prescription: Murder written by whodunit enthusiasts Richard Levinson and William Link. Joseph Cotten starred as a prominent society doctor who smugly believed he had committed the perfect murder when he knocked off his wife. The detective assigned to the case was a slovenly, disorganized seemingly aphasic old coot played by Thomas Mitchell. Secure in the assumption that so cloddish and unprepossessing a detective would ever be smart enough to tumble to his guilt, the doctor allowed the elderly cop to engage in a game of cat and mouse as they affably discussed possible motives and methods related to the murder. But the doc had underestimated the detective, who had a mind like a steel trap, and by the end of the play had ever so politely and unassumingly allowed the murderer to hang himself with his own words. "Prescription Murder" never made it to Broadway, but Levinson and Link revived the property as a one-hour TV drama on the NBC anthology The Dow Hour of Great Mysteries, with Bert Freed in the role of the unkempt but cagey detective, now named Lt. Columbo.

In 1968, Prescription: Murder was remade as an NBC TV movie starring Gene Barry as the homicidal doctor. Originally, Levinson and Link wanted Bing Crosby to take the role of Lt. Columbo, but when Crosby turned them down, Peter Falk was cast in the part -- and as it turned out, the role fit Falk like a glove. The actor repeated his Columbo characterization in another TV movie, Ransom for a Dead Man (1971), whereupon NBC commissioned Levinson and Link to fashion a regular series built around Columbo. Dressed in a tattered, stained raincoat, tooling around in a beat-up, old heap of a car and generally chewing on a unlit cigar, Lt. Columbo (his first name was never revealed) almost invariably arrived on the scene after the audience had witnessed the "killer of the week" (usually a major guest star) committing a murder and cleverly covering his or her tracks so that no one would ever suspect what had really happened. Deferential to a fault (he always addressed the suspect as "sir" or "ma'am," even when making an arrest), forever chattering inanely about seemingly inconsequential details or relating banal anecdotes about his (never-seen) wife, and in general coming off as the biggest dolt and buffoon ever to walk the halls of the L.A. Police Department, Columbo lulled the suspects into a false sense of security. Then, at the crucial moment, Columbo would burrow deeper and deeper into the case, turning up tiny but important clues that the perpetrator had assumed were nonexistent and forever pausing at the door after finishing what seemed to be a thorough interrogation and muttering "Oh, excuse me...just one more question." Virtually without fail, by the end of the episode Columbo had subtly manipulated the oh-so-clever killer into making the proverbial "fatal slip" that sealed his or her doom. Contrary to popular belief, Columbo was never telecast as a weekly series. Debuting September 15, 1971, the property was but one component of the rotating anthology The NBC Mystery Movie, turning out anywhere from six to eight new episodes per year, each one running between 90 and 120 minutes. In this form, the series remained on NBC until the fall of 1977. Twelve years later, Columbo was revived, again as a component of the crime anthology The NBC Mystery Movie. The property continued to be represented in sporadically telecast two-hour doses until 1993, after which Peter Falk would revive Columbo on an increasingly infrequent basis -- usually whenever he felt like it -- during the next decade. ~ All Movie Guide

In this drama, set in the High Sierras, a prisoner's attempt to break out of a prison camp is thwarted by the hunt for a boy lost in the snowy mountains. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Three Guns For Texas is a routine western. Taken from the television series "Laredo," three 30-minute episodes are strung together. The only continuity seems to be the plot of Texas Rangers fighting a renegade band of Indians led by Linda Little Trees (Shelley Morrison). Neville Brand, Peter Brown, William Smith, and Martin Milner also star. The viewer would have to be familiar with the television series, as no character development is given, assuming the public has seen the actors before and is well-versed in the plot. This plodding oater closely resembles the old Republic westerns. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

Prescription: Murder, a 1967 TV movie, represents the first appearance of Peter Falk as the rumpled but crafty detective Columbo. Gene Barry plays a distinguished doctor whose happiness is thwarted by his drunken wife (Nina Foch). Barry is in love with a pretty actress (Katherine Justice), and to smooth the path of his romance he murders his wife and arranges the evidence to pin the blame elsewhere. Enter Columbo, who seems to be slow on the uptake but who in fact is suspicious of the doctor's story. Snooping, prodding, puttering, and forever stopping at the doorway with the inevitable "just one more question," Columbo gets to the truth by playing a psychological trick on Barry, with the grudging cooperation of Barry's mistress. Written by Richard Levinson and William Link, Prescription Murder began life as a Broadway play in the late 1950s, starring Thomas Mitchell in the Columbo part (with a different character name), Joseph Cotten as the devious doctor, Agnes Moorehead as the victim and Patricia Medina (Mrs. Cotten) as the mistress. It would be adapted into a one-hour special on NBC in 1961 (with Bert Freed as the disheveled detective) before finally hitting weekly-series paydirt with Peter Falk in the lead. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

An insurance investigator, a dame with a yen for the finer things in life and a mail robbery gone horribly wrong are the ingredients in this low-budget but highly engrossing film noir. Charles McGraw and Louis Jean Heydt are tough insurance agents but their partnership comes in for some rough sailing when he former falls head over heels for Joan Dixon, a lady apparently not averse to letting herself be wined and dined by an obvious gang leader (Lowell Gilmore). In an attempt to win the lady's favors, McGraw concocts a plan to rob a mail train insured by his own company. Too late does he discover that the girl is perfectly willing to accept him as he is. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

A virtual remake of the earlier The Purple Monster Strikes (1945) and containing an overabundance of stock footage from that serial and G-Men vs. the Black Dragon (1943), this 12 chapter science fiction serial from Republic Pictures featured former RKO contract player Walter Reed as owner of an air patrol company. Along with his lovely secretary, (Lois Collier), Reed is looking into the mysterious doings of a certain Dr. Bryant (James Craven). As it turns out, the good doctor is under the spell of none other than Mota (Gregory Gay), a visiting Martian in search of uranium and other materials needed to power his ferocious weapons of war. Establishing himself in the crater of a volcano, Mota embarks on a terror campaign against the earthlings which seemingly only Reed's Fowler Air Patrol is able to counter. In the end, both Mota and Dr. Bryant are destroyed by one of their own atomic bombs, leaving Reed and Collier able to plan a less stressful future. Cashing in on the enormous popularity of sci-fi in the late '50s, this serial was re-edited and released as a feature film under the new title Missile Monsters. Villain James Craven had played the same role in the earlier The Purple Monster Strikes and was obviously cast in order to match the stock-footage. Roy Barcroft, who had played the title role in "Purple Monster," did not repeat, however, but was still very visible in the re-edited footage. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide