Vic Morrow Movies

In this thriller, a man, who witnessed his neighbor's murder, tries to no avail, to convince the cops that he is going to be the next victim. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Martin Sheen is at his most "James Dean-ish" and Vic Morrow at his most sadistic in the made-for-TV The California Kid. Sheen plays a hot rodder whose brother dies at the hands of sheriff Morrow. It is Morrow's habit to punish speeders by deliberately running them off precipitous mountain curves. Sheen goads Morrow into a no-survivors chase up a steep mountain road--where more than a few surprises await the homicidal lawkeeper. Martin Sheen's souped-up, garishly decorated jalopy gives the best and most consistent "performance" in The California Kid. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This much-laundered adaptation of Mark Twain's Tom Sawyer was first presented as a 90-minute TV special on March 23, 1973. Josh Albee is Tom, Jeff Tyler is Huckleberry Finn, Jane Wyatt is Aunt Polly and Buddy Ebsen is Muff Potter--all acceptable but antiseptic shadows of the Twain original. Only Vic Morrow, oozing venom from every orifice as Injun Joe, conveys the raw energy of the novel. The film was shot in Ontario, with the St. Lawrence river subbing for the Mississippi. Tom Sawyer was carefully scheduled to premiere several months in advance of the expensive Disney theatrical film version starring Johnny Whittaker. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Vic Morrow heads the guest cast as Vic Tolliman, leader of a gang of thieves. Hijacking a gold shipment, Tollman and his henchmen are unaware that the gold has been mixed with deadly uranium. Per the episode's title, Stone (Karl Malden) and Keller (Michael Douglas) have only twenty-four hours to track down the thieves before the entire Bay Area has been fatally contaminated. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In a reversal of the situation in the sixth-season episode "Encore," in which a gangster was persuaded that he had gone back in time from 1971 to 1937, the IMF must jump forward some 27 years in the seventh-season Mission:Impossible entry "Two Thousand." Vic Morrow guest-stars as master thief Joseph Collins, who has stolen 50 kg of plutonium. To find out where Collins has stashed the deadly material, the IMF contrives to convince Collins that he has been in hibernation until the year 2000 --- and that a nuclear holocaust has tranformed the US into a police state. Most of this episode was filmed on location in the ruins of a hospital leveled by the California earthquake of February 1971. Written by Harold Livingston, "Two Thousand" first aired on September 23, 1972. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A group of new prisoners, including a political science professor, Jonathan Paige (Alan Alda), and a student, Allan Campbell (Kristoffer Tabori), arrive at a state prison, along with a new guard, Brian Courtland (Clu Gulager). Paige is a serving a year for manslaughter -- he accidentally killed a driver who had run down and injured his wife -- but his education doesn't prepare him for what he finds in prison. Nor does Courtland understand everything he sees in his new job, where he hopes to do some good. The warden (Dean Jagger) is spoken of as being on "short time," as though he were serving a sentence; the guard captain, Pagonis (G. Wood), is totally cynical about his work and his job; and one veteran guard, Brown (Roy Jenson), seems to be serving some of the prisoners -- and that small group of inmates have more to do with the running of the prison than does the administration. First among them is Hugo Slocum (Vic Morrow), a lifer who controls the flow of drugs and other contraband to the cons, wielding money and power without challenge until Paige gets assigned by the warden to the prison pharmacy, and -- thanks to his own sense of righteousness -- blocks Slocum's pipeline, a move that could get the professor killed. Meanwhile, Paige is trying to understand Lennox (Billy Dee Williams), the lifer he works with in the pharmacy, and discovers in him a true political visionary and leader, who lives the stuff that Paige has only ever lectured about. Lennox is black and proud, and a killer, and also (incidentally) smarter than Paige; he is also respected as a leader by the other blacks in the prison and feared just enough by the whites, including Slocum, to stay alive. Paige should only learn from him, but the professor is too set in his ways and too arrogant in his assumptions to do that. Complicating things further, Slocum has taken a decidedly physical liking to Paige's cellmate, Allan, a college student who is in on a marijuana charge and too naïve to recognize why the tough con is being so good to him until he rejects Slocum's advances. In retaliation, Allan is gang-raped on Slocum's orders, and later kills himself. Nor has Slocum forgotten about Paige or the pharmacy -- when Paige tries to reach out to another inmate, Sinclair (Edward Bell), who shows promise as a writer, Slocum destroys Sinclair's work and targets him, as well. Before he's killed, however, Sinclair reveals to Paige that, as Slocum's sometime bagman and former bookkeeper, he's recorded every transaction for the past eight years -- including every hit ordered by Slocum and how it was paid off, including the bribes to guards to look the other way -- and he passes the book with that record to the professor. It comes down to a do or die situation for Paige and Slocum, as each now has the power and the need to destroy the other to stay alive; the only question is whether Paige will figure out in time that he may have to back up his good intentions with lethal force. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

In this Italian western, an outlaw enlists the aid of his pal and a robber gang to pull off a gold heist. Later, the gang argues about how the loot should be split. The robber gang then absconds with the gold leaving the other pair in the dust. The outlaw and friend set off to capture the treacherous gang. They finally find them in a Mexican town where the residents are celebrating a religious festival. A terrible shootout ensues. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In this action drama, a diamond hunter and a revolutionary leader look for demolitions experts. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

The fifth season of Combat! turned out to be the series' last season on network television -- and the only season to be filmed in color. The opening episode, "The Gun," features a decidedly pre-M*A*S*H Wayne Rogers. A later installment, "The Losers," bears a striking resemblance to the theatrical feature The Dirty Dozen, even though it aired long before the movie was released! As always, viewers can revel in the low-key heroics of King Company leaders Sgt. Chip Saunders (Vic Morrow) and Lt. Gil Hanley (Rick Jason) as they guide the platoon to victory in Southern France in the waning months of WW2. In addition to the aforementioned Wayne Rogers, a stellar roster of guest stars appears in this valedictory Combat! season, among them former child actress Margaret O'Brien, Ricardo Montalban (as a gypsy), Robert Duvall (once more cast as a German) -- and, in the final episode "The Partisan," a young, raw and extremely talented Robert De Niro. ~ All Movie Guide

A wounded Littlejohn (Dick Peabody) awakens to find that he's been kidnapped by four scruffy French children. As a means of survival, the enterprising youngsters intend to "sell" Littlejohn to the highest bidder, just as they've done with several other American and German prisoners in the past. Despite its title, this is not a "cute" episode by any means: the scene in which one of the children grabs a gun and kills an intruder is one of the most harrowing in the series' history. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In the conclusion of a two-part story, Hanley (Rick Jason) has lost ten men in two futile uphill assaults on a pair of well-fortified German pillboxes--and making matters worse, Saunders (Vic Morrow) has been severely wounded and is unable to provide backup. After a third unsuccessful attack upon the enemy stronghold, Hanley tells his superiors that the squad refuses to proceed any further, only to be ordered to keep fighting to the last man. In the final analysis, the survival of King Company depends upon the ingenuity of privates Kirby (Jack Hogan) and Caje (Pierre Jalbert). This episode was directed by series star Vic Morrow, whose vivid, hand-held camerawork rivals anything ever done by such filmmakers as Samuel Fuller and Steven Spielberg. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide