Anthony James Movies

Though based on an Edgar Wallace novel, Traitor's Gate was not part of the long-running British series of second features based on the works of Wallace. Albert Lieven plays a London businessman who doubles as a high-tech crook. He organizes an elite gang of thieves to steal the crown jewels. Their escape at sea is complicated by the rivalry between Lieven and his brother Gary Raymond. Traitor's Gate provides an interesting contrast to The Jokers (67), a "mod" comedy in which another pair of brothers pilfer the crown jewels. ~ Hal Erickson, 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

When Jimmy Price (Jim Brown) wins an upset victory for sheriff, he becomes the first black man ever to hold the job (or any elective office) in anyone's memory in his rural southern county. He also sets off an ominous rumblings as the entire county seems split apart by his presence -- Mayor Parks (Fredric March) offers him the support of his office, but many whites aren't prepared to accept a black man as sheriff, while most of the whites that can accept him aren't saying so too loudly; a lot of older black residents, remembering decades of Jim Crow laws that only lately disappeared, are more confused than encouraged by Price's victory, while younger, more radical black citizens like George Harvey (Bernie Casey) have little use for Price's straight-arrow personality; they expect him to show them favoritism, and when he doesn't, they suspect him of being an nothing but a white man in black skin. Even Price's own wife (Janet MacLachlan) wonders if the cost of his being sheriff is too high. He finds himself alone, walking a tightrope between all of the forces pulling at him, and then the whole situation threatens to explode when he arrests the good-for-nothing son (Bob Random) of a wealthy man from the next county, who has killed a child while driving drunk. Soon the local klavern of the Ku Klux Klan is planning a meeting, and a lynch mob seems to be gathering across the county line to break the prisoner loose and take care of the sheriff. Price finally gets some unexpected help from his embittered predecessor, John Little (George Kennedy) -- Little would like nothing more than to sulk over losing his longtime job, but with his wife's coaxing he realizes that he can't let Price fail without the risk of destroying everything he worked for years to build. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

Oscar winner Strother Martin is cast as Joad Bruder, the father of jailed stagecoach robber Randy Bruder (Anthony Colti). Aware that Joad is holding the Ponderosa money that was stolen by Randy, Joe and Hoss hatch another of their hare-brained schemes to retrieve the loot. Heading to Pineville, the Cartwright boy pose as two members of Randy's gang-a ruse that threatens to burn and crash when the wife of one of the gang members shows up unexpectedly. Originally shown on December 13, 1970, "The Impostors" was written by Robert Vincent Wright. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Fran (Elizabeth Baur) is devastated when word arrives that her cousin Bobby has committed suicide by jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge. But the lack of a corpse, and the sudden appearance of several letters allegedly written by Bobby and declaring his unrequited love for Fran, lead Ironside (Raymond Burr) to suspect that the boy may not have killed himself after all--or that someone else is trying to drive Fran insane with grief and guilt. The episode's highlight is a performance of the original song "Growing Up is Hard to Do". ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

"Who are you?" the dwarf Mordecai (Billy Curtis) asks Clint Eastwood's Stranger at the end of Eastwood's 1973 western High Plains Drifter. "You know," he replies, before vanishing into the desert heat waves near California's Mono Lake. Adapting the amorally enigmatic and violent Man With No Name persona from his films with Sergio Leone, Eastwood's second film as director begins as his drifter emerges from that heat haze and rides into the odd lakefront settlement of Lago. Lago's residents are not particularly friendly, but once the Stranger shows his skills as a gunfighter, they beg him to defend them against a group of outlaws (led by Eastwood regular Geoffrey Lewis) who have a score to settle with the town. He agrees to train them in self-defense, but Mordecai and innkeeper's wife Sarah Belding (Verna Bloom) soon suspect that the Stranger has another, more personal agenda. By the time the Stranger makes the corrupt community paint their town red and re-name it "Hell," it is clear that he is not just another gunslinger. With its fragmented flashbacks and bizarre, austere locations, High Plains Drifter's stylistic eccentricity lends an air of unsettling eeriness to its revenge story, adding an uncanny slant to Eastwood's antiheroic westerner. Seminal western hero John Wayne was so offended by Eastwood's harshly revisionist view of a frontier town that he wrote to Eastwood, objecting that this was not what the spirit of the West was all about. Eastwood's audience, however, was not so put off, and an exhibitors' poll named Eastwood a top box-office draw for 1973. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide

Jay North (Dennis the Menace of television fame) stars as a student who learns more about the birds and bees than the basic schoolroom courses from his teacher (Angel Tompkins). Meanwhile, a homicidal maniac (Anthony James) chooses to harass them. ~ Kristie Hassen, All Movie Guide

If for no other reason than its provocative title, this is the single most famous episode of Charlie's Angels. Our three heroines pose as lawbreakers in order to infiltrate a brutal and corrupt woman's prison farm in the Louisiana swamplands. Their mission: To solve the disappearance of one of the inmates, and to find out why so few prisoners leave the farm alive. Among its other virtues, "Angels in Chains" boasts an impressive supporting cast, including cult-film favorite Mary Woronov and future leading ladies Kim Basinger and Lauren Tewes. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this exciting adventure, three California kids are traveling cross country when their van is stolen. They ask a small-town sheriff for help, but he refuses, so they decide to bring the thief to justice themselves. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Set in the ravaged post-WWIII world, this grim sci-fi fantasy centers on the vengeful quest of a bereaved husband whose wife was raped and murdered by a gang of leather-clad bikers. After getting his revenge, the fellow roars off on the other's bike and along the way encounters another survivor who has food and weapons. They set off together and then find a beautiful young woman who joins them. Though there is strength in numbers, their troubles are far from over for the bikers aren't through with them yet. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

With a cast sure to please cult and horror fans alike, this pseudo-women's-prison film from director Hikmet Avedis is a good bet for genre followers. Pretty Dianne Hull plays Kelly McIntire, a disco bartender who is poisoned as part of a botched murder scheme and sent to a mental hospital. Once there, she is raped by evil orderly Carl (Bo Hopkins), witnesses murders and suicides, and eventually escapes only to be dragged screaming back to the horrors of the fifth floor. Cathey Paine, who played Leslie Van Houten in Helter Skelter, is among the many familiar faces, which also include such horror icons as Robert Englund and Michael Berryman. But the film belongs to Bo Hopkins, who is all smiling menace and who turns in a scary performance and gives the film what force it has, as screenwriter Meyer Dolinsky puts Hull through some rather unconvincing maneuvers in the lead. Still, although there are a number of lapses in logic, they don't detract from the frightening premise that almost any statement or action could be construed as a sign of dementia in the proper circumstances. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide

Inasmuch as Mark Twain thoughtlessly neglected to mention all the "secret adventures" of Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn in his own books on these colorful characters, this CBS TV movie performed a public service by taking up the slack. According to Rascals and Robbers, Hannibal's own Tom (Patrick Creadon) and Huck (Anthony Michael Hall in his first important role) enabled a slave to purchase his sister's freedom, saved an entire town from a confidence scam, came to the rescue of a failing circus, and foiled a particularly scurrilous villain, "in between" their more familiar exploits up and down the Mississippi. A strong supporting cast helps to make this film palatable for Twain purists. Rascals and Robbers: The Secret Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn originally aired on February 27, 1982. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide