Gary Nelson Movies
- 1993
This police drama is set amidst the warm splendor of Palm Springs. A boozy cop, an eager-beaver rookie, and a local gumshoe must team up to discover the identity and mission of a mysteriously well-connected stranger in town. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Teri Garr, Sam Elliott, (more)
- 1993
In this feature-length reprise of the popular '70s police drama Ironside Raymond Burr returns as the wheelchair-bound police chief. This time, he is drawn out of retirement by a puzzling murder and the San Francisco police department's need to find a new chief. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Raymond Burr, Don Galloway, (more)
- 1992
- R
In this made-for-TV actioner, a stray bullet forced a secret service agent into a wheelchair and early retirement. Much of the story centers on his attempts to adjust to his new life. The rest chronicles his revenge against the gangster that destroyed his life. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1992
In this two-part adventure drama based on a thriller by author Sidney Sheldon, three nuns must run for their lives from a cruel colonel. Their flight leads them straight to a renowned Spanish rebel. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Deborah Raffin, Michael Nouri, (more)
- 1991
Adaptation of Sidney Sheldon's novel features an amnesiac who works to recover her identity and the Greek billionaire who works to make sure that she never does. ~ All Movie Guide
- 1991
Contrary to expectations, The Hit Man is not about a mob torpedo but instead deals with a Spielberg-style moviemaker, played by Dennis Boutsikaris. The villain is a loan shark (Nick Pryor) who's been reducing honest folks to penury. Utilizing the special-effects trickery at his disposal, Boutsikaris arranges a major sting to thwart the bad guy (F/X, anyone?) The Hit Man's crew is a lovable polyglot of misfits, the sort that would make excellent "regulars" were this TV movie a weekly series. Could this have been what the producers of Hit Man had in mind? ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1990
Drawn from the novel by Kate Wilhelm, this made-for-cable thriller stars Melissa Gilbert as a grieving young mother who doubts her sanity after seeing the daughter she lost in a car accident. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide
The second feature-length revival of the Get Smart television series (1965-1970) of blessed memory, Get Smart Again reunited Don Adams as bumbling secret agent Maxwell Smart and Barbara Feldon as his wife, sultry "fellow" agent 99. Smart coerces 99 to drop her public-sector job and join him in thwarting the evil machinations of their old nemesis Siegfried (Bernie Kopell). Other alumni from the original TV series include Dick Gautier as Hymie the Robot, Robert Karvelas (Don Adams' cousin) as Larrabee, King Moody as Starker and Dave Ketchum as the ubiquitous Agent 13. A few concessions have been made to the passage of time (Smart's fabled shoe-phone now has "call waiting"), but the film scores highest on its nostalgic appeal, encapsulated by such catch-phrases as "Sorry about that", "Would you believe?" and "Missed it by that much." Get Smart, Again was first telecast February 26 (would you believe February 27?), 1989. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Don Adams, Barbara Feldon, (more)
- 1988
In this made-for-TV cop drama, a police officer's wife worries that her husband has become so involved with his colleague's problems and lives that he is heading toward a breakdown. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1987
A hardened Chicago cop transfers to a Houston precinct where he is teams up with a relaxed cop causing problems between their differing work attitudes. ~ All Movie Guide
- 1986
Agatha Christie's Murder in Three Acts represents Peter Ustinov's fifth appearance as Dame Agatha's brilliant, insufferable Belgian detective Hercule Poirot. The scene is Acapulco, where retired actor Tony Curtis hosts two separate parties--both of them were blighted by the fatal poisoning of a guest. The police think the butler did it (honest!), but Poirot activates his "little grey cells" to pinpoint the killer amongst a group of wealthy and eccentric suspects. Filmed in Mexico, Murder in Three Acts was the latest (and to some reviewers the least) in a long line of Agatha Christie TV-movie specials produced by Stan Marguiles. Ustinov was Poirot in three of these, having first essayed the role in the theatrical feature Death on the Nile (78). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Peter Ustinov
- 1986
- Add Allan Quatermain and the Lost City of Gold to QueueAdd Allan Quatermain and the Lost City of Gold to top of Queue
After receiving a mysterious gold piece, Quatermain travels to Africa to find his brother, who is searching for a lost white tribe. In his search, Quatermain discovers a lost civilization. This film is a follow-up to King Solomon's Mines. ~ All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Richard Chamberlain, Sharon Stone, (more)
- 1985
Known variously as "Skirty Harry" and "Dirty Harriet," beautiful but tough lady police detective Katy Mahoney (Jamie Rose) patrols the mean streets of Chicago. In her dealings with dope pushers, rapists, and loan sharks, Katy would just as soon dispense with Due Process and blast every outlaw away with her trusty .357 magnum. But Internal Affairs frowns on such behavior, so Katy is forced to adopt a more civil attitude in her efforts to bring a particularly nasty cocaine kingpin, Dona Maria Theresa (Katy Jurado), to justice -- at least until there are no other options available, allowing the heroine to fire away at her heart's content. Condemned for its overabundance of violence when it originally aired April 15, 1985, on ABC, the made-for-TV Lady Blue nonetheless yielded a weekly series, which ran from September 15, 1985 to January 25, 1986. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
The "Baron", played by Johnny Cash, is a legendary pool shark. The "Cajun Kid", played by Greg Webb, is the Baron's long-lost son. Once they're reunited, the Baron and the Kid embark upon numerous adventures, each exploit bringing them closer. Based on Johnny Cash's hit song "The Baron", this made-for-TV endeavor is a blatant attempt to rope the fans of Kenny Rogers' similar TV-movie project The Gambler. Costarring June Carter Cash and Tracy Pollan, The Baron and the Kid premiered November 21, 1984. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Johnny Cash, Greg Webb, (more)
- 1984
Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer: More Than Murder was first telecast January 26, 1984, two days before the premiere of the Mike Hammer series proper. Stacy Keach stars as Spillane's bare-knuckled, chain-smoking private eye, with Lindsay Bloom costarring as his curvaceous secretary Velda. In More Than Murder, Mike's longtime friendly enemy, police captain Chambers (Don Stroud), is wounded during a drug-bust at a poker game. Circumstantial evidence suggests that Chambers himself was in cahoots with the dope dealers. It's up to Mike Hammer to get his longtime antagonist off the hook. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Stacy Keach, Don Stroud, (more)
- 1983
First telecast September 23, 1983, For Love and Honor was the opening episode of the same-named TV series. Cliff Potts heads the cast as First Sergeant Gene Allard, assigned to a small "army town." His brothers (and sisters) in khaki include Shelley Smith as medical corps Captain Carolyn Engel, Gary Grubbs as promotion-chasing Captain Steven Wiecek, and Yaphet Kotto as troubled Vietnam vet Sgt. China Bell. Apparently inspired by the 1982 theatrical feature An Officer and a Gentleman, For Love and Honor concentrated more on the "love" angle than the other commodity mentioned in the title. At first, each episode was self-contained; when viewership dropped off, the series was refashioned as a prime time soap opera. By December 27, 1983, For Love and Honor had left the airwaves, another casualty of the ratings wars (the winner in its timeslot was Falcon Crest). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1983
Based on actual events from 1948 and made into a TV movie in 1983, this story concerns a corrupt Georgia businessman (Andy Griffith) who murders an employee and thinks he has gotten away with it. The local lawman (Johnny Cash) has other plans, but needs to gather enough evidence to prove his case. ~ John Bush, All Movie Guide
- 1983
After a 1981 false-start pilot film featuring Kevin Dobson, a new TV series based on Mickey Spillane's fascistic p.i. Mike Hammer was heralded with the 1983 TV pilot Murder Me, Murder You. This time Stacy Keach steps into Mike Hammer's gumshoes, as Mike is hired to protect grand jury witness Michelle Phillips. It so happens that Hammer and the witness were once lovers, but what Mike doesn't know (until halfway through the film) is that he is the father of Michelle's 19-year-old daughter. When the lovely witness mysteriously drops dead in court, Hammer is compelled to seek out the daughter he has never met--before the bad guys find her first. While the plot convolutions are more in the tradition of Ross MacDonald than Mickey Spillane, Murder Me, Murder You star Stacy Keach may well stand the test of time as the definitive Mike Hammer. He continued the role into a brief TV series, though ex-"Charlie's Angel" Tanya Roberts, cast in Murder Me, Murder You as Mike's curvaceous secretary Velda, would be replaced in the series by Lindsay Bloom. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1982
- PG
Gary Coleman stars as the title character, the bratty son of wealthy parents, who is kidnapped by a pair of bumbling crooks. The experience winds up teaching the pampered boy the realities of childhood. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gary Coleman, Paul Le Mat, (more)
In this moving made-for-cable television drama, Jesse Hallam is a poor and illiterate coal miner (Johnny Cash) who must learn to read in order to get a job in the city. He was forced to leave after one of his daughters becomes terribly sick. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Johnny Cash, Brenda Vaccaro, (more)
An ambitious sci-fier from the Disney folks, The Black Hole takes place in the future. A quintet of space travelers stumble across a "black hole." Not wishing to be sucked into the void, the crew prepares to flee, but stops long enough to investigate a mysterious space vessel near the entrance of the hole. Manning this craft is mad scientist Dr. Hans Reinhardt (Maximillian Schell), who intends to explore the black hole in hopes of finding the universe's energy source. The cast includes Anthony Perkins, Robert Forster, Yvette Mimieux, and others. The Black Hole marked one of the Disney company's first PG-rated films. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Maximilian Schell, Anthony Perkins, (more)
- 1978
Joe Don Baker stars as chief of detectives, Eischeid, in the 4-hour, 2-part TV film To Kill A Cop. Eischeid must contend with a series of seemingly unrelated bank robberies and the vicious murders of two police officers. Eischeid deduces that the culprits are members of a violent African-American revolutionary movement, but he is blocked in his investigation by the politically ambitious chief of police. As time runs out, Eischeid must prevent the planned wholesale slaughter of civilians at the hands of the revolutionaries. Scripted by Ernest Tidyman (The French Connection), To Kill a Cop served as the pilot for the TV series Eischeid, which ran from September 1979 to January 1980. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
