L.Q. Jones Movies

Twister made for TV. Although paling to its big-screen rival, Tornado! is made interesting by the performances of Bruce Campbell and Ernie Hudson and manages to sneak in an original plot twist every now and then. ~ Sean D. MacLaggan, All Movie Guide

Outlaws are no match for the famed frontiersman and his pet bear Martha in this Western adventure. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide

Tom Burman's innovative prosthetic special effects (used to greater effect in later horror films) are the saving grace of The Beast Within. The premise concerns a couple honeymooning in Mississippi. Caroline (Bibi Besch) is brutally raped by a hairy, sub-human monster and gives birth to a child named Michael (Paul Clemens), who appears normal until he hits his teens. At 17, Michael begins to feel strange, and his parents take him back to Mississippi to find out if his problems are related to Caroline's long-ago rape. Once in Mississippi, Michael transforms into a ravenous insect-like creature that roams the countryside, disemboweling innocent victims and feasting on their torsos. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

Much to his dismay, Boss Hogg (Sorrell Booke) must rely on the Dukes for protection when he is slated to testify against a racketeer in a Federal trial. With the blessings of FBI agent Pryor (R.G. Armstrong), Uncle Jesse (Denver Pyle) offers to hide Boss from the racketeers' hired gunmen, who have arrived in Hazzard County disguised as Bible salesmen in order to shut Hogg's yap permanently. Meanwhile, Sheriff Roscoe P. Coltrane (James Best) basks in the glory of being totally in charge of Hazzard County for the first time since he turned crooked. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The Conspirators was one of four Columbo feature-length TV specials irregularly scheduled during the 1977-1978 TV season. The titular conspirators are Irish political terrorists, funded by Americans. Clive Revill is an Irish poet who murders an arms dealer (Bernard Behrens) while the poet is gunrunning to his compatriots in Ireland. The murderer is certain that he's thoroughly covered her tracks--until Lt. Columbo (Peter Falk) shambles onto the scene. Columbo: The Conspirators was filmed at a time when Peter Falk was insisting that he would hang up the lieutenant's raincoat for good; no way. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The Angels go undercover at an Army boot camp, with Jill (Farrah Fawcett-Majors) and Kelly (Jaclyn Smith) posing as "grunts," and Sabrina (Kate Jackson) impersonating a nurse. Their mission: To find out who shot a WAC on the firing range, and why. Before their tour of duty is over, the Angels have uncovered a vicious drug-profiteering scheme -- and have placed their own lives on the firing line. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Ironside (Raymond Burr) is reunited with his old friend Dr. Juan Domingo (Desi Arnaz), an eccentric Cuban-born doctor currently residing in a small California town. When not being sidetracked by an odd assortment of patients (which include an expectant duck!), Dr. Domingo likes to dabble in crime-solving, much to the dismay of his nurse Big Sue (Linda Foster) and local police chief Cardiff (L.Q. Jones). At the moment, the good doctor is trying to prove that an alleged heart attack victim was actually murdered while flying his own plane. This episode was originally the pilot for a potential Desi Arnaz detective series called Dr. Domingo, which unfortunately failed to make a network sale. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Though it barely received big-city release (it lay on the shelf for nearly two years before it received any sort of release), The Petty Story did quite well on a regional basis. As indicated by the title, this is the story of the Petty family of stock-car racing fame. Richard Petty, who won over 200 races before his 1993 retirement, stars as himself, while Darren McGavin provides acting relief as Petty's father Lee. The film pulls no punches in charting the turbulent relationship between father and son. For those not interested in domestic melodrama, the film is chock-full of great racing scenes. Also appearing in The Petty Story are Kathie Browne (Mrs. Darren McGavin),Noah Beery Jr. (who went through most of the same paces in Big Fauss and Little Halsey), Lynne Marta and L.Q. Jones. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Fresh from her eight-season run on Bewitched, Elizabeth Montgomery embarked upon a whole new career as everyone's favorite TV-movie star in the ABC production Mrs. Sundance. Shamelessly promoted as a sequel to the movie megahit Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, the film cast Montgomery as Sundance's schoolteacher widow Etta Place, the role played in the earlier movie by Katherine Ross. Like her outlaw husband, Etta finds herself on the lam from the law, with a $10,000 bounty on her head. Resigned to spending the rest of her life in hiding, Etta is ultimately flushed out by the rumor that Sundance is still very much alive (In truth, the authorities never found Etta Place, and even the date of her death is shrouded in mystery). Lensed on location near Lone Pine, California, the film represented the first on-screen teaming of Elizabeth Montgomery and her real-life future husband Robert Foxworth. Mrs. Sundance premiered January 15, 1974. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Outtakes and stock footage from the 1970 Oscar-winner Patton were utilized to flesh out the made-for-TV Fireball Forward, which was the brainchild of Patton producer Frank McCarthy. Ben Gazzara plays a fictional American general obviously patterned on "Old Blood And Guts". Gazzara suspects that there's a Nazi sympathizer in his ranks, and dedicates himself to ferreting out the traitor. One thing Fireball Forward has that Patton didn't is a romantic interest; Anne Francis plays the girl Worth Fighting For. Scripted by Edmund H. North (another Patton) alumnus, Fireball Forward, which first aired March 5, 1972, was the 2-hour pilot for an unsold television series. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

After the intense bloodshed of The Wild Bunch (1969), this comic western fable took the opposite approach to director Sam Peckinpah's continuing examination of the end of the West. Left for dead by a couple of lizard-slaughtering desperados in the middle of the desert, prospector Cable Hogue (Jason Robards) is saved by his unexpected discovery of water "where there wasn't any." Hogue turns the water hole, felicitously located near a stagecoach route, into a thriving business, creating a rest stop for a never-ending series of parched travelers. On his occasional trips to the closest town, he meets chipper prostitute Hildy (Stella Stevens), who joins him in his oasis, completing Hogue's little paradise. But even though Hogue may be able to succeed and avenge himself against his original attackers, there is one thing that he cannot stop: progress. Completed before The Wild Bunch was released, and replete with comical and even musical interludes, Peckinpah's gently picaresque telling of Hogue's rise and fall stands in distinct contrast to the visual violence of its predecessor. The underlying message about the cost of modernity, however, equals The Wild Bunch in seriousness. The callous randomness of Hogue's fate is as shocking as the Bunch's final blaze of glory; as in Robert Altman's McCabe and Mrs. Miller from the same period, a tool of "civilization" provokes a most uncivilized end for an Old West dreamer. Although the film was as light-hearted in approach as the 1969 smash hit revisionist western Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Warner Bros. mishandled the release and it did barely any business; Peckinpah returned to his trademark gore in his next film, the controversial Straw Dogs (1971). Still, The Ballad of Cable Hogue is less an anomaly for a master of violence than an ironically charming chapter in Peckinpah's career-long elegy to the western. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide

This forgettable comedy finds Joe Lightcloud (Elvis Presley) as a mixed-blood Indian with strong ties to his tribe and his father Charlie (Burgess Meredith). Joe tries to get government assistance for the tribe in exchange for permitting the local congressman to graze cattle on Indian land. Maime (Quentin Dean) is the object of Joe's affection, but they are under the watchful eye of her mother Glenda (Joan Blondell), who owns the local saloon. The Jordanaires back up Elvis on a few songs, most notable being "U.S. Male" by guitar-great Jerry Reed. By this time, Elvis was extremely tired of churning out movies with such dismal scripts. Later in 1968, he would make a triumphant return to live performing with his NBC television special which featured Jerry Reed's "Guitar Man." Elvis was playing out the string of films set up by his controversial manager Colonel Tom Parker, who never wanted Elvis to be considered as a serious dramatic actor. Parker even went so far as to take Elia Kazan to task for even mentioning such an idea. It was such thinking that prompted the King Of Rock & Roll to return to the stage once again after an eight-year hiatus. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide