Tom McGowan Movies
- 1956
Amazon Trader can best be described as a featurette: at 42 minutes, it's too long for a short subject, but too brief for a feature. The film was designed by Warner Bros. as the first in a series of off-length films, intended for the lower half of double bills. The plot is comprised of four brief playlets, tied together by the narration of the Amazon Trader, played by John Sutton. In the first, a medical student learns first-hand not to dismiss the ministrations of a witch doctor; in the second, a husband-wife team of explorers search for a "lost" tribe; in the third, a female big-game hunter rescues a native boy from a piranha attack; and in the final yarn, a Devil's Island escapee receives his comeuppance at the hands of headhunters. The poor box-office showing of Amazon Trader effectively killed Warners' plans for any follow-up featurettes. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- John Sutton, Maria Fernanda, (more)
- 1958
Originally intended as a 4-reel followup to the 1957 "docudrama" short subject The Amazon Trader, Manhunt in the Jungle was extended to feature length in hopes of better bookings. The story is based on the 1928 search for explorer Col. P. H. Fawcett, who disappeared somewhere in the Amazon. Robin Hughes stars as Cmdr. George M. Dyott, the man who organized the searching party for the missing Fawcett (James Wilson). The Warnercolor exterior shots of Peru and the Amazon regions are the highlights of the film. Less successful are the dramatic passages, which look like something out of a junior-high production of Stanley and Livingstone. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Robin Hughes, Luis Alvarez, (more)
- 1959
This episode of Walt Disney Presents details the uneasy relationship between human beings and mountain lions (and cougars, pumas, and panthers) in the Rockies. In typical Disney fashion, the story is told from the lion's viewpoint, as we follow cougar cubs Chimbica and Tawny as they learn to survive and in a treacherous terrain full of unexpected predators. Also seen, again from a animal-eye view, is a typical mountain lion hunt. "Killers of the High Country" was filmed on location in Utah. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Winston Hibler
- 1960
A charming, 48-minute tale in the traditional Disney vein, this animal-filled children's story is about a little lost puppy who was mothered by and adopted into an extended family of raccoons. Naturally, the dog bonds with the furry masked bandits and even when the canine ends up back in the care of his real owner, he cannot forget his adopted family. His sentiments are particularly relevant when he finds himself at the head of a raccoon-hunt. To the credit of director Tome McGowan, the animal sequences are so convincing that there is almost a documentary feel to the story. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
The Aristocats was the first Disney Studios animated feature to be produced after Walt Disney's death. A wealthy woman leaves her vast fortune to her four cats: the well-bred Duchess and her kittens, Berlioz, Toulouse, and Marie. Jealous butler Edgar, eager to get his mitts on the cats' legacy, abandons the felines in the French countryside. The four lost kitties are aided in their efforts to return home by the raffish country pussycats Thomas O'Malley and Scat Cat. In keeping with a tradition launched by The Jungle Book (1967), The Aristocats is top-heavy with celebrity voices, including Phil Harris, Eva Gabor, Scatman Crothers, Hermione Baddeley, and the ineluctable Sterling Holloway. Assembled by the "nine old men" then in charge of animation, The Aristocats was a commercial success, essentially proving that Disney animated features could succeed without the involvement of the company's founder. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Phil Harris, Eva Gabor, (more)
A group of wagon train pioneers who are early followers of the Church of Latter Day Saints find persecution at every turn, as they are run out of each new town they hope to call home. With nowhere else to go, they turn their sites to unsettled lands, where they battle both the environment and the native peoples already living there in order to create the community that would come to be Salt Lake City. Following the band of Mormons on their journey, this drama is based on the real life story of their leader Brigham Young. ~ Cammila Albertson, All Movie Guide
- 1981
- R
No less than three directors contrived to piece together this crazy-quilt story (written by Dillinger scripter Phillip Yordan) of a newly-appointed Antichrist who rises up amid a morass of religious wackos, assorted demons, and Nazi war criminals. The identity of this evil agent is discovered by a relentless Nazi-hunter, who eventually convinces a couple of grizzled cops (Cameron Mitchell and original gangster Marc Lawrence) that his story is true. This long-shelved, low-budget occult weirdness was originally seen in condensed form (with the addition of some hokey stop-motion monster effects) in the horror anthology Night Train to Terror and appeared on home video as both Satan's Supper and the aptly-titled The Nightmare Never Ends. Look for Night Court's "Bull," Richard Moll (listed as "Charles Moll" in the credits), as the Nobel-winning (and far-from-bald) author of an atheist manifesto. ~ Cavett Binion, All Movie Guide
- 1983
Tom Conti stars as a drunken Scottish poet who preys upon the lasses of a New England college town by swooning over them with poetry and bedding them with a passion. He'd probably have continued in such fashion for who knows how long, were in not for his encounter with a lovely homespun gal (Kelly McGillis), who sets his head spinning in a lovesick swirl and forces him to get his life on track. ~ All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Tom Conti, Kelly McGillis, (more)
- 1984
- R
This unusual horror anthology mixed edited-down versions of one unreleased feature and two previously released films (Death Wish Club and The Nightmare Never Ends) with newly shot wraparound footage to create a surreal combination of crazed plotting and grindhouse gore. The framing device consists of God and Satan on a train full of breakdancing teenagers telling each other stories about humans. The first story focuses on an institute for the mentally ill that is really a cover for a black market organ-harvesting operation. The second story focuses on a man who falls for a woman who is part of group of people that attempt suicide for fun. The final story tells the tale of a group of mortals who attempt to stop Satan from returning to earth to begin the apocalypse. Each episode combines deranged plot twists with heaping helpinds of sex and violence, resulting in a film that plays like a lysergic and deranged variant on comparatively sedate horror anthologies like Creepshow. Night Train to Terror didn't enjoy a great deal of box-office success, but has gone on to enjoy a lengthy life on home video, where it continues to astound (and confound) viewers with its blood-spattered weirdness. ~ Donald Guarisco, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- John Phillip Law, Cameron Mitchell, (more)
- 1988
- R
Director-producer Peter Maris directed this suspense drama based on a script by Frank Kerr. James Macalla (Chris Robinson) is a prominent university researcher whose mysterious death is not investigated to the satisfaction of his distraught wife, Laura (Linda Purl). Laura sets off to find the real killers and discovers that they are linked to a shadowy band of government operators. The group, Viper, is backed by the CIA in its mission of combatting terrorists. But the group has become a rogue operation whose goal involves the killing of university staffers in order to enrich themselves. Laura risks her own life to expose what is happening. ~ Michael Betzold, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Linda Purl, James Tolkan, (more)
After he inherits a yacht, Chicago businessman Martin totes his family to the Caribbean to claim it. Not having any skill at boating, he hires long-haired, one-eyed low-life Captain Ron, to pilot the heap to Miami. During the journey, the somewhat inept sailor frequently loses his way while becoming a hit with everyone in the family--except Martin. This comedy features Martin Short, Kurt Russell, Mary Kay Place, with Benjamin Salisbury and Meadow Sisto as the two children. ~ Kristie Hassen, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Kurt Russell, Martin Short, (more)
Sleepless in Seattle, the sophomore directorial effort from Nora Ephron, is a light romantic comedy inspired by the 1957 film An Affair to Remember. Tom Hanks stars as widower and single father Sam. When Sam's son, Jonah (Ross Malinger), calls into a talk radio program looking for a new mother, Sam ends up getting on the phone and laments about his lost love. Thousands of miles away, Annie (Meg Ryan) hears the program and immediately falls in love with Sam, despite the fact that she has never met him and that she is engaged to humdrum Walter (Bill Pullman). Believing they are meant to be together, Annie sets out for Seattle to meet Sam, who, meanwhile, contends with an onslaught of letters from available women equally touched by his phone call. Rosie O'Donnell, Rita Wilson, and Rob Reiner also star. ~ Matthew Tobey, All Movie Guide
Searching for Bobby Fischer was inspired by the life of chess prodigy Josh Waitzkin, as written by his father Fred Waitzkin. Josh (Max Pomeranc) is a "regular kid" who begins evincing signs of being a genius at chess. His father (Joe Mantegna) encourages this, hoping that it won't fundamentally change his son's healthy outlook on life. But Josh is taken under the wing of cold-blooded chess instructor Bruce Pandolfini (Ben Kingsley), who indoctrinates the boy in the "Bobby Fischer" strategy. Unfortunately, Pandolfini emphasizes all of Fischer's negative traits, especially his contempt for his opponents. Josh is in danger throughout the film of sacrificing his essential decency, but in a rousing conclusion, the boy is able to successfully blend ruthless competition with good sportsmanship. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Joe Mantegna, Max Pomeranc, (more)
- 1994
- R
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Jennifer Jason Leigh offers an acclaimed performance as humorist Dorothy Parker, who together with such 1920s luminaries as Robert Benchley, Alexander Woollcott and George S. Kaufman, was a charter member of the legendary Algonquin Round Table. The story is related in flashback form, as Mrs. Parker, in Hollywood to cowrite the 1937 feature A Star is Born with her second husband Alan Campbell (Peter Gallagher), recalls her glory days as an Algonquinite. A great deal of attention is afforded Parker's vituperative bon mots, her alcoholism, her self-destructiveness, her suicide attempts, and her affairs with such literary contemporaries as Charles MacArthur (an uncharacteristically unsympathetic Matthew Broderick) and Robert E. Sherwood (Nick Cassavetes). The one person Parker truly seems to care about is humorist Robert Benchley (Campbell Scott), who prefers to keep their friendship platonic. Director Alan Rudolph attempts to convey the ambience of the 1920s by having dozens of that decade's luminaries appear in fleeting cameos, from Will Rogers (Keith Carradine) to Harpo Marx. Also featured in Mrs. Parker are Tom McGowan as the waspish Alexander Woollcott and Andrew McCarthy as Dorothy's near-invisible first husband, Eddie Parker. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jennifer Jason Leigh, Matthew Broderick, (more)
Camp Hope is a summer camp for fat kids; it is also the locale of this Disney family comedy. All of the kids at Camp Hope have a weight problem. It is the one place they can go without feeling different. But when the previous owners declare bankruptcy, the camp is purchased by an obnoxious fitness freak who becomes obsessed with changing his chubby charges into budding body builders. He immediately begins serving them low calorie foods and subjecting them to rigorous exercises. Part of his motivation is greed: he is in the process of writing a book, and filming an infomercial on weight loss. The boys at camp rebel and mayhem ensues. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Tom McGowan, Aaron Schwartz, (more)
Director Mike Nichols teams up with his former partner/screenwriter Elaine May for the first time in many years and for the first time together in films to create this sophisticated, remake of the phenomenally popular French musical farce La Cage aux Folles that stars Robin Williams, Nathan Lane, Gene Hackman and Diane Wiest as two dramatically disparate couples who manage to reconcile their vast differences for the sake of their children who are getting married. Williams plays Armand Goldman, the owner of a popular South Beach drag club known for putting on elaborate showcases starring his long-time lover/wife Albert (Lane) who appears as "Starina." Lately poor flamboyant, flighty Albert has been in crisis over the inexorable onset of middle age. He has been moody, paranoid and unbearably. When he gets too inconsolably distraught, handsome but clumsy houseboy Agador quietly slips Albert "Pirin" tablets (which he explains to Armand are simply Aspirin tablets with the "as" scraped off). Still though Albert can be a royal pain, Armand dearly loves him and the two live happily in their splendiferous apartment above the club. One day Armand's son Val (the result of Armand's single foray into straight sex) comes visiting with joyous news: he has found his dreamgirl and is getting married. The only trouble is, Barbara Keeley's father is the blustery ultra-religious right-wing Senator Keeley (Hackman), the founder of the Coalition for Moral Order. Senator Keeley and his colleagues are not as upright as they seem and when his closest associate is found dead beside a black, underage prostitute, Keeley finds his house surrounded by ravenous newshounds, hungry for dirt. Knowing that they are poised to ruin him, Keeley and his proper but slightly addled-wife (Wiest) decide that a big, elaborate, church wedding will be just the ticket to save his reputation. Barbara has neglected to tell them that Val's parents are gay, preferring to claim that they are members of the South Beach social elite. In a panic, she panics and calls Val who breaks the bad news to Armand and begs him to make the apartment less flamboyant and worst of all to hide Albert (who functioned as Val's mother while the youth grew up) during the visit. Armand is angry, but loving his son, finally, reluctantly agrees, knowing that he will deeply wound his companion. Unfortunately, Albert finds out and as a compromise tries to learn how to be macho so he can pretend to be Val's uncle, he is too much the Great Dame to ever pass as one of the guys and so is banned from the party. Armand then locates Catherine and asks her to masquerade as his wife. She agrees to show up later that evening. Meanwhile their friends busily redecorate the apartment until it looks as if it were done in "Early Inquisition." During the fateful dinner party, Catherine is late and Albert gets uproarious revenge. Achingly comic chaos ensues as Armand tries to hold the increasingly tenuous evening together while outside the newshounds bay and threaten to make even more trouble for Senator Keely. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Robin Williams, Gene Hackman, (more)
Comic actor Rowan Atkinson brought his bumbling character Mr. Bean from television to the big screen with this British comedy. Mr. Bean (Rowan Atkinson) is a well-meaning but not especially bright fellow with a gift for making the worst of any situation. Bean is about to be fired from his job as a guard at the Royal Nation Art Gallery for sleeping on the job, but the Chairman (John Mills) intervenes at the last moment. To insure that his incompetence will manifest itself so completely that there will be no choice but to get rid of him, Bean's superiors come up with a plan -- they'll send him to America to speak at a posh private gallery owned by George Grierson (Harris Yulin), where General Newton (Burt Reynolds) will display the most recent addition to his art collection, "Whistler's Mother." It's even money whether or not the museum will still be standing before Bean is done; as if this weren't enough, while in L.A. Bean is mistaken for a surgeon and forced to operate on an injured police officer. Richard Curtis, one of the film's producers, said after viewing the final product, "It's an unpleasant family movie. I'm very pleased." ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Rowan Atkinson, Peter MacNicol, (more)
- 1998
Tom McGowan makes his first series appearance as Kenny Daly, new manager of radio station KACL. It is bad enough that Kenny irreverently refers to radio shrink Frasier Crane (Kelsey Grammer) as "Doc." But when Kenny insists that all his on-the-air talent perform live commercials for questionable products, it is too much. Outraged, Frasier rallies his co-workers to take a firm stand against the new station policies: After all, Kenny can't fire everyone, can he? Alas, inasmuch as this is the cliffhanger finale of Frasier's fifth season, it looks as if things may not turn out the way Frasier hopes. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1998
Season five of Frasier begins with the entire KACL staff looking for new jobs after the station installs a "salsa" music format and fires them en masse. This situation is particularly painful for radio psychologist Frasier Crane (Kelsey Grammer), especially since it was he who was largely responsible for his co-workers' plight. As he sends out resumes and vainly awaits for potential employers to beat a path to his door, Frasier tries to lessen his grief by spending his spare time in such pursuits as cooking and furniture design -- while everyone around him wonders how much of Frasier's anger, denial, and frustration they will able to withstand. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1999
Christine Baranski makes her first series appearance as Seattle radio therapist Dr. Nora Fairchild, a spoof of a certain well-known, ultraconservative talk-show host. Dr. Nora's outspoken, bullying and predominately homophobic "my way or the highway" radio personality is extremely irritating to many observers, including Frasier (Kelsey Grammer), who to his everlasting regret recommended Nora to the KACL management. Even so, the outrageous Nora dramatically increases the station's ratings -- setting the stage for a riotous showdown between the Doctors Crane and Fairchild. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1999
Niles (David Hyde Pierce) is thrilled when he is appointed art critic for his favorite upscale publication. While Frasier (Kelsey Grammer) is happy for his brother, he is also a tad jealous since he's always wanted to be a critic as well. In fact, Frasier is convinced that he would be excellent in this capacity on his own radio station. But first he must convince management -- or more specifically, the station owner's daughter Poppy (Katie Finneran), who never shuts up long enough to listen to anyone else. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1999
The Christmas Season is also a time of contemplation for Daphne (Jane Leeves). As she prepares for her marriage to Donny Douglas (Saul Rubinek), Daphne wonders if the time has come to clear the air concerning Niles' pent-up feelings for her. As for Niles (David Hyde Pierce), it may be a bleak holiday indeed when his current "significant other" Dr. Mel Karnofsky (Jane Adams) tumbles to a lie he has handed her. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1999
John Ennis and Bryan Callen guest star as "Carlos and the Chicken," the zany new morning team hired by radio station KACL. Stuffy Frasier (Kelsey Grammer) hopes to keep his distance from the duo, who is known for its wild and often sadistic practical jokes. Unfortunately, station manager Kenny Daly (Tom McGowan) has encouraged Carlos and the Chicken to perpetrate their jokery on the rest of the KACL staff -- and guess who their favorite target turns out to be. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1999
By now convinced that her friend Dr. Lawrence (Alan Alda) is in the early stages of Alzheimer's, Weaver (Laura Innes) dolefully conspires with Greene (Anthony Edwards) to force Lawrence to face his problem. A nursing-home fire brings in a multitude of patients and heap of trouble for Carter (Noah Wyle). Carol (Julianna Margulies) goes out on a limb to help the pregnant, heroin-addicted Meg (Martha Plimpton). Dr. Dave (Erik Palladino) may have caused the explosion that has been blamed on Cleo Finch (Michael Michele). And Jeanie Boulet (Gloria Reuben) bids goodbye to the ER. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
