Kevin McCarthy Movies

It was considered a serious coup at Columbia Pictures when producer Stanley Kramer landed the rights to Arthur Miller's Pulitzer Prize-winning play, and got most of the key members of the Broadway cast for the movie, plus Kevin McCarthy from the original London cast. The one exception was Lee J. Cobb, who'd done the part of Willy Loman on Broadway but, because of his alleged past left-wing political associations, couldn't do the movie -- so Kramer and Columbia went with a proven box office star, Fredric March. He plays Willy Loman, who has spent a lifetime pursuing success, only to find himself a failure at age 60, a victim of poor choices, lost opportunities, and unreasonable expectations, especially for his two sons, and in particular the older one, Biff (Kevin McCarthy). Despite the support of his loving, patient wife Linda (Mildred Dunnock, in the performance of a lifetime), Willy's life comes apart along with his hold on reality, as he increasingly slips between the present and the past, reliving incidents in a desperate search for what went wrong. March brings a good deal of dignity to the role, and McCarthy and Cameron Mitchell are superb as his two sons, but the movie was a failure at the time of its release, partly owing to its difficult subject matter -- the failure of the American dream was not the first item on every moviegoer's list in 1951, no matter how successful the play had been on Broadway or how many awards it won -- and also to March's performance, which was just as likely the fault of director Laslo Benedek; he's sympathetic but too externalized, without Cobb's seething energy (represented in the 1960's television portrayal), and in the second half is too over-the-top in his madness. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

Auto mechanic and wannabe race-car driver Eddie Shannon (Mickey Rooney) allows himself to be led perilously astray in Drive a Crooked Road. Responding to the come-hither looks of sexy Barbara Mathews (Dianne Foster), Eddie is inveigled into participating in a bank heist. Things then go from bad to worse to awful for both Eddie and Barbara, victims of circumstance in a larger-scale scheme masterminded by hoodlums Steve Norris (Kevin McCarthy) and Harold Baker (Jack Kelly). Without ever justifying their actions, Drive a Crooked Road manages to engender plenty of audience sympathy for the hapless hero and heroine. The film was written by Blake Edwards and directed by Richard Quine, the same team responsible for such Mickey Rooney comic vehicles as All Ashore and Sound Off! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The faces are new and the settings up-to-date, but otherwise An Annapolis Story is the tried-and-true "two guys and one girl" formula. Filmed on location at the titular Maryland naval academy, the story centers upon two sibling cadets, Tony (John Derek) and Jim (Kevin McCarthy). The boys battle over the affections of Peggy (Diana Lynn), a triangle that seriously strains their fraternal relationship and compromises their effectiveness as officers-to-be and gentlemen. In the tradition of 1927's Wings, the conflict is resolved when one brother sacrifices his life for the other while serving in Korea. Among the other cadets in An Annapolis Story are Alvy Moore and L. Q. Jones, who twenty years later would team up to produce the cult-fave science fiction film A Boy and His Dog. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Don Siegel's classic exercise in psychological science fiction has often been interpreted as a cautionary fable about the blacklisting hysteria of the McCarthy era. It can be read as a political metaphor or enjoyed as a fine low-budget suspense movie, and it works well either way. Kevin McCarthy stars as Miles Bennel, a doctor in the small California community of Santa Mira, where several patients begin reporting that their loved ones don't seem to be themselves lately. They look the same but seem cold, emotionally distant, and somehow unfamiliar. The longer Miles looks into these reports, the more stock he places in them, and in time he makes a shocking discovery: aliens from another world are taking over Santa Mira, one citizen at a time. Emissaries from a distant planet have sent massive seed pods containing creatures that can assume the exact physical likeness of anyone they choose. When Santa Mirans go to sleep, the pod creatures take on the shape of their victims and then destroy their bodies. The aliens may look the same, but they possess no human emotions and, like plants, are concerned only with propagating themselves and eventually subsuming the earth. Needless to say, Miles and his friends are terrified, but since it's hard to tell who's a person and who's a pod, they're at a loss for what to do, especially when it seems that there are increasingly more aliens than humans. Invasion of the Body Snatchers builds tension slowly and steadily, dealing not in the shock of bug-eyed monsters common to other 1950s science-fiction movies but in the unnerving possibility that the enemy is among us -- and impossible to tell from our allies. The ultra-paranoid conclusion of Siegel's original cut was softened by Allied Artists, who added a framing device that suggested help was on the way. This coda was as effective in blunting the film's grim conclusion as giving a Band-Aid to a beheading victim; few films of the era make it more painfully clear that for these people (and maybe for ourselves), there's no turning back and no way home. Keep an eye peeled for a bit part by soon-to-be-legendary Western director Sam Peckinpah, who plays a meter reader and also (uncredited) helped write the screenplay. Based on a novel by Jack Finney, Invasion of the Body Snatchers was remade in 1978 by Philip Kaufman and in 1993 by Abel Ferrara (as Body Snatchers); and its influence can be felt from The Stepford Wives (1975) to The X-Files. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

In this crime drama, an American gumshoe goes to Johannesburg, South Africa to prove the innocence of a native accused of stealing diamonds. While there, he meets an American beauty who turns out to be the leader of the smuggling ring that framed the native. The detective falls in love and then finds himself faced with a difficult decision--should he follow his heart or his sense of duty? ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

The final film of stars Clark Gable and Marilyn Monroe is an elegy for the death of the Old West from writer Arthur Miller and director John Huston. Gable stars as Gay Langland, an aging hand traveling the byways and working at rodeos with his two comrades, Guido (Eli Wallach) and young Perce Howland (Montgomery Clift). The three men come up with a plan to corral some misfit mustangs and sell them for dog food, but Gay's new girlfriend Roslyn Taber (Marilyn Monroe), a high-minded ex-stripper who has just divorced her husband Ray (Kevin McCarthy) in Reno, is appalled by the plan. Although both Guido and Perce are also in love with Roslyn, she stands by Gay, sure that in the end he will do the right thing, even as he and his pals begin their planned roundup. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide

Based on the novel by Irving Wallace, The Prize takes place in Stockholm, where several laureates gather to accept their Nobel Prizes. At first, the film concentrates on iconoclastic novelist Paul Newman, but he is temporarily shunted to the background when physics expert Edward G. Robinson is kidnaped and replaced by his wicked twin brother. The real Robinson is to be spirited behind the Iron Curtain, while the "fake" Robinson is to disrupt the awards ceremony with an anti-American tirade. Newman gets wind of the plot, and with the help of Swedish foreign office functionary Elke Sommer, he endeavors to rescue the real Robinson and expose the phony-who has yet another trick up his sleeve before the film is over. We'll go along with the fantastic plot convolutions of The Prize, provided we don't have to swallow the premise of another man's voice emanating from that familiar Eddie Robinson mug. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Helen Clarvoe (Joan Hackett) informs her lawyer, Paul Blackshear (Kevin McCarthy), that she has been the victim of threatening phone calls. Helen insists that her tormentor is Dorothy Johnson (Kathy Nolan), the embittered former fiancée of Helen's brother. Using evidence provided by Helen, Paul concludes that Dorothy is indeed dangerous -- in fact, she might even be a murderer. Then comes another phone call: it's Helen again, this time informing Paul that Dorothy is holding her captive in her own home. Based on a novel by Margaret Millar, this episode is capped by a marvelous twist ending that might have worked even better had The Alfred Hitchcock Hour been a radio show. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Gore Vidal adapted his biting and bitter political satire from his hit Broadway play. Franklin J. Schaffner directed and Haskell Wexler provided the sharp-edged cinematography. The story concerns the political back-biting and smear politics involved in a presidential election year scramble by potential presidential party nominees. Lee Tracy (in an Oscar-nominated performance and his final screen role) is Art Hockstader, a dying president who refuses to throw his support behind any of his party's presidential hopefuls. Hoping to get the nod as the party's presidential candidate is liberal do-gooder William Russell (Henry Fonda). His wife Alice (Margaret Leighton) wants to get a divorce from Russell but is delaying the divorce proceedings until after the party convention. Opposing Russell for the nomination is Joe Cantwell (Cliff Robertson), a slick and unscrupulous political monster who will use any bit of dirt to get ahead in the party. When he discovers that Russell once suffered from mental problems, he threatens to use it against him. Russell then finds out that Cantwell once had a homosexual relationship. Russell, who abhors smear politics, now has to decide whether to use the information against Cantwell or bury the secret and risk losing the nomination. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

In hopes of smashing a Red spy ring, Inspector Erskine (Efrem Zimbalist Jr.) poses as Adam Rogers, a foreign service worker. As expected, the undercover Erskine is approached by Chinese agents and asked to spy on his own country. The "maguffin" in this story is a document known as the Forsythe Memo. As often happens on The FBI, star Efrem Zimbalist Jr. is flanked by a veritable honor roll of scene-stealing character actors, including Patrick O'Neal, Kevin McCarthy and Keye Luke. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In Baker City, Ohio, newspaper reporter Barbara Webb (Janice Rule) publishes the photo of a murder suspect (Bill Raisch) whom fugitive Richard Kimble (David Janssen) recognizes as Fred Johnson, the One-Armed Man who killed his wife. As a result, Kimble rushes to Baker City in hopes of collaring the man who has so long eluded. . .while at the same time, Lt. Gerard heads to the same city for the essentially same purpose. The plot takes an unexpected twist when, during a jailbreak, Johnson is seriously injured, and Kimble struggles to keep alive long enough to make a confession--with Barbara as the witness. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

There isn't much disagreement as to whether this spaghetti western is styled after the Director Sergio Leone's Clint Eastwood blockbuster, The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. Ace High, directed by Giuseppe Colizzi, and filmed in Almeria, Spain, is missing at least two ingredients that could possibly lift it up to its predecessor, and they're Eastwood and Colizzi. The plot fits: An outlaw Cat Stevens (Mario Girotti) is saved from the noose and is then hunted by his saviors when he goes back to crime. But Stevens is on a hunt of his own, pursuing three roamers who'd sent him to prison years before. ~ All Movie Guide