Bernard McEveety Movies

Returning from a trip to New Orleans, Daisy Duke (Catherine Bach) and Lulu Hogg (Peggy Rea) are unaware that they've brought back the wrong suitcase thanks to a mixup at the airport. They're also unaware that the suitcase contains a stolen necklace. Unfortunately, the crooks who stole the necklace are very much aware of the situation--are equally determined to leave no witnesses behind when they retrieve their ill-gotten gains! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Congregating at a French restaurant, the A-Team is reunited with Lin Duk Coo (Mako), formerly the cook at the Vietnamese POW camp where they'd been imprisoned during the war. Naturally, Lin is in desperate need of the team's help, thanks to the villainous machinations of the prison camp's sadistic former commandant General Chow (John Fujioka), who, in league with traitorous ex-soldier Tom Anderson (Marjoe Gortner), is currently smuggling heroin into the country. Disguising himself as a golf caddy, Hannibal (George Peppard) is able to figure out that the drugs are being hidden in bread produced at the Angel Bakery--thereby setting up the climax in which a modified bakery truck functions as a tank! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

One of several syndicated TV miniseries of the 1980s, Roughnecks was part of the same "Golden Circle" project that previously yielded the multipart Wild Times. The title refers to a group of two-fisted oil wildcatters, among them self-made millionaire Paul Marshall (Steve Forrest), his lifelong pal and business partner, Plug Champion (Harry Morgan), and up-and-coming young "roughneck" O'Dell Hartman (Sam Melville). Avoiding the temptation of carbon-copying such previous oil-drilling movies like Boom Town, Flowing Gold, and Tulsa, this two-parter devoted much of its screen time to the hero's efforts to help Marshall's former sweetheart Ida McBride (Vera Miles) save her ranch by bringing in a valuable methane well. In most local markets, Roughnecks was telecast the third week of August (usually the 15th and 16th of that month) in 1980. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Jim (James Garner) reluctantly serves on the jury in the trial of George Bassett (Mills Watson), who has been charged with manslaughter while driving drunk. When a mistrial is declaring thanks to a hung jury, Bassett hires Jim to prove his innocence. The key to the solution would seem to be in the hands of a woman claiming to be the victim's sister--but let's not discount those two brothers (Robert Sampson, James Karen) who run the law firm where George is employed. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The longest (26-1/2 hours), most expensive ($25 million) and most complicated (four directors, five producers, five cinematographers, almost 100 speaking parts, several hundred extras) project made for television up to that time, Centennial was shown in two- and three-hour installments over a period of four months. An adaptation of James Michener's best-selling novel, it told the story of the settling of the American West by looking at the founding of the fictional town of Centennial, Colorado, from the settling of the area in the late 18th century to the present. Emmy-nominated for film editing and art direction, it boasts of sterling performances from Richard Chamberlain as frontiersman Alexander McKeag, Robert Conrad as the French-Canadian trapper Pasquinel, and a surprisingly powerful performance from former football star Alex Karras as compassionate but iron-willed immigrant farmer Hans Brumbaugh. ~ Brian Gusse, All Movie Guide

The Macahans is a two-hour TV movie utilizing characters originally created for the 1962 Cinerama extravaganza How the West Was Won. In his first post-Gunsmoke project, Zeb Macahan stars as frontiersman Zeb Macahan, who in the early 1860s returns to Virginia to visit his family. It takes only the slightest encouragement for Zeb's brother (Richard Kiley) to agree to bring his family along with Zeb on another westward trek. Eva Marie Saint, the brother's wife, isn't keen on leaving her cozy Southern household, but neither is she anxious to be in Virginia when the Civil War breaks out. Narrated by William Conrad (who had coincidentally starred on the radio version of Gunsmoke) and jam packed with action, The Macahans served as the pilot for the subsequent James Arness TV series How the West Was Won, which ran from 1978 to 1979. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Winston Hibler, who produced many of those Disney "True Life Adventures" of the 1950s, was at the controls of The Bears and I. Patrick Wayne plays Bob Leslie, a Vietnam veteran who heads to the Canadian Rockies when he's discharged. Here he adopts three bear cubs, whose mother has been killed. Leslie also helps an Indian tribe reclaim the land that is rightly theirs. The Bears and I was based on a book by Robert Franklin Leslie. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this heartwarming family-oriented adventure from Disney, an adorable orphan named Napoleon (Johnny Whitaker) is sent to live on his grandfather's Oregon farm. There he is befriended by a college student (Michael Douglas) who has come to the spread to work as a goat herder during the summer. One day a traveling circus comes to town and before it leaves, the lion trainer gives the grandfather an aging lion named Major to care for. This makes Napoleon happy until his grandpa suddenly dies. Not wanting to be sent to an orphanage, the boy convinces the goat herder to help him bury the old man. The goat boy then returns to the wilderness while the youngster and his lion try to get by. Eventually the authorities get wind of the death and come to investigate. The boy panics, and he and the lion set off into the wilds to find the goat herder. A young girl named Samantha (Jody Foster making her feature film debut) joins them and they have many exciting adventures. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Killer by Night is reminiscent of such early 1950s film noir exercises as The Killer That Stalked New York and Panic in the Streets. The police of a large city are plagued with two crises at once: A diphtheria epidemic and a triple murderer. With the help of health officials Robert Wagner and Diane Baker the authorities narrow down the source of both the disease and the murders as being the selfsame person. The problem: To track him down with only a skeleton police force at hand. Killer by Night manages to create a claustrophobic, paranoid atmosphere with only a minimum of 1970s-style camera trickery. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A Step Out of Line stars Peter Falk, Vic Morrow, and Peter Lawford, a fairly lustrous lineup for a humble TV movie. The trio of leading men portray average Joes, all Korean war buddies, plagued by a string of bad luck. With creditors hounded them at their very fireside (so to speak), Falk, Morrow and Lawford decide for the first--and last--time in their lives to resort to dishonesty. Pooling their military skills, the boys plot and plan to knock over a bank safe. A Step Out of Line moves confidently towards its anticipated climax, sped along by the expertise of its triple-threat star lineup. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Forced to deny backup to another squad under heavy fire, Saunders (Vic Morrow) is subsequently confronted by the squad's sole survivor, Pvt. Pete Marsini (Tom Simcox). Despite his hatred for Saunders, Marsini agrees to lead him back to the bridge where his squad was wiped out in order to finish a vital reconnaissance mission. Things take an ironic turn when Saunders is trapped under a heavy iron pipe--placing his life in the hands of the resentful (and potentially vengeful) Marsini. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Assigned to a reconnaisance mission, Hanley (Rick Jason) is aided by veteran Resistance fighter Leon Poulon (Fernando Lama), who agrees to cooperate only if the squad takes his younger brother Marcel (Sal Mineo) along. Though Marcel has an all-consuming fear of death, Leon pretends not to notice, certain that the boy will perform heroically when the going really gets tough. But Leon's good intentions may prove fatal when he and Marcel are captured for interrogation by a cruel SS officer (played in deadly earnest by The Mary Tyler Moore Show's future "Ted Baxter"!) ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A curious cross-section of humanity is entombed by a mine cave-in. Among those trapped are two American privates, a pair of German officers, a French girl (played by former child star Margaret O'Brien) and her German-deserter lover, and an embittered Resistance fighter. As Hanley (Rick Jason) and his squad race against time in a rescue effort, the "prisoners" must somehow agree to pull together for their common survival. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide