Jack Marshall Movies

Originally released as Albert and Annie, this low-budget, poorly lighted, non-action, slasher film features Albert (Zooey Hall) as a deranged youth locked up in a mental institution by his super-rich mother until one day he is stopped from watching soft-porn movies in his room, and, upset at this deprivation, he escapes and starts killing women. Albert first returns to his family mansion where he torments and kills the buxom housekeeper. When her nine-year-old daughter Annie (Geri Reischi) comes in from school, Albert sees her as a perfect, innocent female and is compelled to protect her at all costs -- even if it means killing off her impure, older sisters. If his sexual urges take over at night, Albert goes out and kills other "immoral" women -- until the police, through a maddeningly unrealistic bureaucratic maze, track him to a warehouse of mannequins -- and the chase is on, at least for awhile. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Dan Blocker made his first non-Bonanza appearance in nine years in the 1968 TV movie Something for a Lonely Man. Blocker plays a blacksmith, John Killibrew, who leads several Easterners to a boomtown in the High Sierras -- only to discover that the town is slated for extinction because the railroad has decided to bypass the community. Now the laughing stock of his comrades, Killibrew determines to save the town by turning it into an industrial center. To do this, he "borrows" a derailed steam engine from the railroad and drags it into town. When things look the darkest for Killibrew, he takes comfort in the works of Ralph Waldo Emerson -- and the affections of pretty Mary Duren (Susan Clark). Widely regarded in 1968 as one of the best TV movies to date, Something for a Lonely Man retains its low-key appeal a quarter of a century later. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Sam Moran (Richard Boone) is a Honolulu charter-boat captain who leads fishing expeditions in the tropical paradise. When his daughter is found murdered at the party of a wealthy young playboy, he seeks the truth about the murder. Convinced the playboy is guilty, he enlists the help of his friend Kittibelle (Joan Blondell), who runs an alcohol abuse treatment center. Sam runs into a wall of silence obviously built by hush money and islanders fearful of reprisals from the rich and powerful family. The determined dad fights to uncover the information that will land the murderer in jail as he avenges the death of his daughter. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

Herman Munster and his ghoulish clan leave the confines of their 1960s television series The Munsters to try their luck on the big screen in this feature length comedy that chronicles their adventures in merry England where Herman has inherited a large estate. Unfortunately, the Munsters do not realize that their new home is already inhabited by a ring of counterfeiters determined to frighten the family back to the United States. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Those creepy-but-lovable residents of 1313 Mockingbird Lane are on deck for 38 hilarious half-hours during season one of The Munsters. Seen throughout the season are Fred Gwynne as Herman Munster, a softhearted replica of the Frankenstein monster; Yvonne de Carlo as Herman's voluptuously vampirish wife, Lily; Al Lewis as Grandpa Munster, a 350-year-old Dracula clone who spends most of his time cooking up mischief in his laboratory; and Butch Patrick as Herman and Lily's young son, Eddie, a budding werewolf. During the season's first 13 episodes, Beverly Owen appears as the Munsters' beautiful niece Marilyn, the only normal-looking member of the family (though she thinks she's a homely freak). Thereafter, and throughout the rest of the series' run, Pat Priest is seen as Marilyn. Some of the season's funniest entries include "Pink's Pique," in which the gas company is in for quite a shock when they accidentally build a pipeline in the Munsters' dungeon -- er, basement; "Low-Cal Munster," featuring Paul Lynde as a nearsighted doctor who puts Herman on a diet (and who, fortunately for his own sanity, can't see what Herman really looks like!); "Autumn Croakus," wherein Grandpa's nearly four-century lifespan may come to an end at the hands of a murderous widow; "Herman the Great," with Herman becoming a pro wrestler to pay for Eddie's education; "Eddie's Nickname," featuring a magical milk shake which, thanks to Grandpa's bungling, grows a thick beard; "Far Out Munsters," a spoof of "bizarre" '60s rock & roll groups featuring future softcore film producer Zalman King and The Standells; and "Herman the Rookie," the one in which Herman gets a tryout with the Los Angeles Dodgers as manager Leo Durocher and former football star Elroy "Crazylegs" Hirsch look on with mouths agape.
Two of the more fascinating first-season Munsters episodes are "Love Comes to Mockingbird Heights," featuring a cameo appearance by another of Universal's copyrighted monsters, the Creature from the Black Lagoon (aka the Munsters' "Cousin Gilbert"); and "Come Back Little Googie," guest starring child actor Bill Mumy, who had been the series producers' first choice for the role of Eddie Munster -- but whose mother did not like the idea of subjecting her boy to a daily two-hour makeup session. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Young (19-year-old) reggae and rhythm-and-blues singer Johnny Nash stars in this conventional coming-of-age story about a well-heeled, Afro-American teen trying to find his way in a white-man's world. The realities of that world hit Spencer (Nash) hard, and at first he looks for solace and comfort in the black community, especially since like most teens his age going to his parents for support or consultation is out of the question. In his search for identity and meaning, Spencer comes to see the family maid Christine (Ruby Dee) in a way he never did before, and an implied sexual relationship with this kind-hearted, older woman begins to awaken in him a different, more adult viewpoint on life and its traumas. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

In The Giant Gila Monster, most of the plot is given over to a group of hot-rod enthusiasts, headed by nice-guy Chace Winstead (Don Sullivan), who sometimes breaks into song. Before long, the titular gila monster, which is just that -- a real gila monster -- is lumbering about on miniaturized sets terrorizing the community, killing at random, knocking over trains and barns, and in general making a nuisance of itself. When the monster threatens to devour Chace's kid sister, he attempts to dispatch the beast with a hot rod full of nitroglycerin. The Giant Gila Monster was originally released on a double bill with The Killer Shrews. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Robert Mitchum (who also wrote the story and served as executive producer) stars in Thunder Road as Lucas Doolin, a Korean War veteran who returns home and promptly rejoins the family's bootlegging business. His father, Vernon (Trevor Bardette), runs the still and heads the family, while Lucas handles the driving and transporting of the moonshine (mostly to Memphis), and his younger brother, Robin (James Mitchum), takes care of the car he uses to outrun the competition and the Treasury agents; and their mother, Sarah (Frances Koon), keeps the home. Lucas is a better driver than anyone around, and he and Robin have rigged a few tricks on the car that surprise the Treasury men -- but Robin is nearly 17 and tired of just working under the hood; he wants to drive like Lucas. Lucas doesn't want his brother to become a transporter, though, preferring that the teenager stay in school and stay straight with the law. But Lucas is pretty easy to idolize, looked up to by most of their neighbors for his driving skills, among other attributes, and the object of affections of lots of women between Harlan and Memphis, most especially teenaged neighbor Rozanna Ledbetter (Sandra Knight). He appreciates her admiring and lustful gaze, though he has all the woman he can handle and wishes that she were that interested in Robin, who's her own age and just as attracted to her in his own awkward way. Lucas and his family have always been able to outrun the revenue agents, even with a new man, Troy Barrett (Gene Barry), assigned to the territory and out to get him -- they're dedicated and tough, but they're not killers. However, now they're hearing of a new threat in the guise of a Memphis-based gangster named Carl Kogan (Jacques Aubuchon), who wants to take over the Doolins' operation and all the other moonshining activity in Harlan County. He's already offered a lot of money, but the Doolins and most of their neighbors running stills are too independent for that, and now he's sending in muscle, and that gets a young neighbor of theirs (Jerry Hardin) killed. But Lucas was pretty tough before the war, and he learned a thing or two about combat in Korea, and is not about to let either revenue agents or a bunch of strong-arm men from the city get in his way, and he has the car and the firepower to back up those sentiments.

When Kogan goes too far and kills a Treasury man, Lucas also picks up an unintended ally in agent Barrett, whose highest priority becomes indicting Kogan. The problem is that indictments and prosecutions aren't what Lucas is about -- he means to meet shot-for-shot and take more personal action, especially when his family becomes involved in Kogan's machinations. One thing he always swore to any and all within hearing range was that he'd keep Robin from becoming a transporter, and kill anyone who tried to make him one. And when Kogan manipulates a situation where Robin is lured into driving, Lucas means to make good on that vow. Director Arthur Ripley (1895-1961), a music and dance student-turned-editor-turned-gagman and short-subject specialist and academic (whose preceding feature film, 12 years earlier, had been the eerie Cornell Woolrich-based thriller The Chase), working in tandem with second unit directors James Casey and Jack Lannan and second unit photographer Karl Malkames, keeps the action moving at a brisk pace. Robert Mitchum is the center of gravity to the movie, though, which contains the quintessential Mitchum performance, the actor making his work look so easy that he could almost seem lazy if he weren't so magnetic in the role. He helped make Thunder Road into a national success, but the movie always had an extra-special resonance in the South, where it was shot and set. Thunder Road continued to generate annual five- and six-figure ticket sales from drive-ins in the border and Southern states for 25 years after its original release, a factor that caused United Artists and its successor organizations to purposefully delay its release on home video until the end of the 1980s. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide