Michael Pate Movies

While in the Florida Keys to prevent deposed dictator Luis Berezan's (Michael Pate) return to power, the IMF tragically loses one of its best agents, the lovely Casey Randall. Thus, the team's efforts to thwart Berezan and his Evita-like wife Emilia (Barbara Luna) becomes a personal vendetta. Jane Badler makes her first Mission:Impossible appearance as agent Shannon Reed, replacing the late Casey Randall (Terry Markwell)--whose very existence was, of course, "disavowed" by the "Secretary." Ironically, guest star Barbara Luna, here cast as one of the villains, played a likewise expendable IMF agent in "Elena", a 1966 episode from the original Mission: Impossible. First telecast on February 18, 1988, "The Fortune" was written by Robert Brennan. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Based on a true story about the execution of a psychopathic American G.I. by the U.S. Army in 1942, this wartime drama opens in Melbourne, Australia. U.S. forces and the Australians are at loggerheads, and this antagonism reaches a flash point when Edward J. Leonski (Reb Brown) is spotted running away from the scene of a brutal murder. That action sparks a gun battle between American and Aussie soldiers at a train station that makes it seem as if the two nations are at war with each other. U.S. Major Patrick Dannenberg (James Coburn) covers up the shooting incident and puts top priority on hunting down the killer. It is suggested that orders from the highest echelons of the U.S. military demanded the execution of the killer in order to preserve a working relationship with the Australians. Meanwhile, Aussie Detective Sgts. Adams (Bill Hunter) and Martin (Maurie Fields) are also looking for the murderer, hoping to bring him to justice in an Australian court of law. When Leonski's roommate belatedly turns him in, his attorney gets seriously ill and Major Dannenberg has to take over his defense. There is no doubt the man is mentally unbalanced, as witnessed by his behavior in Melbourne's bars and brothels in the first half of the movie. At the trial, Dannenberg unsuccessfully argues for his client's internment in an asylum for the criminally insane. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Director Henri Safran adapts Henrik Ibsen's stage play to an Australian setting and a turn-of-the-century ambience in this uneven presentation of an illicit love and its consequences. Harold (Jeremy Irons) is a somewhat over-the-edge photographer who has lost out at a career in the sciences. His wife Gina (Liv Ullmann) is an opposite personality type: subdued, quiet, not prone to excessive outbursts. Harold's father the Major (John Meillon) lives with the family, which includes the daughter Henrietta (Lucinda Jones) who is slowly going blind -- and all is as normal as possible until Gregory (Arthur Dignam) shows up and in a two-day period, tragedy strikes. The prig Gregory sees it as his obligation to open up his best friend Harold's eyes with some shocking news: Henrietta is not really Harold's daughter at all, but the offspring of an illicit affair between Gregory's father and Gina. Figuring into this relationship is a wild duck that was once wounded by Gregory's father, and its symbolism looms almost too large over the rest of the complex, claustrophobic household as personalities lead events to their fateful end. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

When a Melbourne toy manufacturer discovers his wife is having an affair, he can't really get too distressed. After all, he's having an affair as well. However, when his mistress decides she wants to get married, his life becomes complicated and his business affairs have to be put on hold. ~ Tana Hobart, All Movie Guide

Based on a novel by Colleen McCullough (The Thorn Birds), this "May-December romance" stars Piper Laurie as Mary Horton, a lonely middle-aged American career woman who hires a handsome, mildly retarded young handyman named Tim (played by 22-year-old Mel Gibson in his third screen role). At first keeping her distance, Mary is drawn closer to Tim as the days pass. When Tim's mother dies, Mary becomes his surrogate mother, a relationship that deepens into romantic love. Tim's older sister Dawn (Deborah Kennedy) resents Mary's "intrusion" into their lives, but Tim's dad Ron (Alwyn Kurts) blesses the relationship, realizing that it is beneficial to both parties. Director Michael Pate avoids all opportunities to cheapen or sensationalize the material; while Tim and Mary do end up in bed, it is a sweet moment, not a prurient one. Tim was produced for Australian television. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Dennis Hopper plays the title character in this true story of a 19th-century Australian gold-digger who is pressed into a life of crime. A six-year stint in jail doesn't provide reform, but does introduce him to an Aboriginal partner-in-crime (David Gulpilil). The duo then proceed to terrorize the province of New South Wales with no lack of violence. The TV version was retitled Mad Dog. ~ John Bush, All Movie Guide

In this adventure, a wild boy is discovered in the Malayan jungle by a married team of doctors. On the way back to civilization the boy is kidnapped by a wicked reporter. The boy escapes his clutches and takes to the Singapore streets to search for the kindly couple that rescued him. When a sultan asks the jungle boy to guide a medical team to the northern wilderness of his province to save the natives suffering from dysentery there, the boy agrees. When they arrive, the tribe at first does not trust the strangers. Only after the boy demonstrates his control over the animals, will the chief allow the doctors to inoculate them against the scourge. After the tribe is saved, the boy goes back to his beloved jungle. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

A priceless collection of Inca gold treasures has disappeared, threatening the financial stability of Santales, a tiny Latin American republic. The IMF is assigned to retrieve the treasures from master thief Jack Cole (Dan O'Herlihy), a task made doubly difficult by the treacherous terrain of Santales and the presence of a traitor in the nation's government. Mark Lenard, best known as Spock's Vulcan father on Star Trek, appears as Colonel Cardoza. First telecast September 17, 1967, "Trek" was written by Laurence Heath. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In the first episode of a three-part story, President Grant (William Bryant) asks Jason (Chuck Connors) to find out the reason that maverick general George Armstrong Custer (Robert Lansing) has been making public attacks against the Grant adminstration's Indian policy. Outwardly, it seems that Custer is concerned only with the safety of the white settlers who have nested in the territory controlled by Chief Crazy Horse (Michael Pate). But as Jason soon learns to his chagrin, his former West Point comrade Custer has an ulterior motive that may result in wholesale slaughter. Excerpts from "Call to Glory" were later combined with scenes from two other Branded episodes, "Fill No Glass for Me" and "Now Join the Human Race", to form the direct-to-video "feature film" Blade Rider: Revenge of the Indian Nations. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In the concluding episode of a three-part story, sinister forces have conspired against both General Custer (Robert Lansing) and Indian chief Crazy Horse (Michael Pate), making a final bloody confrontation at the Little Big Horn all but inevitable. Acting on behalf of President Grant, Jason McCord (Chuck Connors) has received evidence that Indian shaman Sitting Bull (Felix Locher) did not murder a crooked Indian agent as claimed. Racing against time, McCord hurries to convey this information to Custer--who has already gathered his 7th Cavalry for a rendezvous with destiny. Excerpts from "Call to Glory" were later combined with scenes from two other Branded episodes, "Fill No Glass for Me" and "Now Join the Human Race", to form the direct-to-video "feature film" Blade Rider: Revenge of the Indian Nations. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Brainstorm is a somewhat contrived but still well done and frightening thriller written and well-directed by actor William Conrad. Jim Grayam (Jeffrey Hunter) is a young scientist who saves Lorrie Benson (Anne Francis) from committing suicide. They fall in love, but Lorrie's husband Cort Benson (Dana Andrews), who had driven her to the brink of suicide before, discovers that Jim has had a history of mental instability and fabricates obscene phone calls and other actions to create the impression that Jim is unstable. The pair decide to murder Cort, using insanity as a defense. The film has a series of interesting plot twists and a plausible ending, and the performances are generally excellent with Conrad's direction maintaining a good pace and an excellent visual style aided by a good, simple musical score by George Duning. ~ Linda Rasmussen, All Movie Guide

Sam Peckinpah's 1965 feature Major Dundee was recut and rescored for re-release theatrically in 2005, 40 years after its original release. The "Extended Version," as it is known officially, tells essentially the same story as the original but with clearer motivations for the characters (which often seemed vague or obscure in the 1965 edition) and much greater effectiveness. Major Amos Charles Dundee (Charlton Heston) is a West Point graduate who somehow -- it's not clear -- exceeded his orders while serving in the Battle of Gettysburg and, as punishment, has been taken out of combat and put in charge of a Union prison in New Mexico. He then gets word that marauding Apaches under Sierra Charriba (Michael Pate) have raided an American settlement, slaughtering the troops who were pursuing them and kidnapping three young boys, whom they've taken to their lair south of the Rio Grande (and if this sounds a lot like the plot of John Ford's Rio Grande, it's because they used the same story as inspiration). Dundee assumes responsibility for capturing or destroying the raiders and rescuing the captives, but because he has far too few men, he's forced to recruit prisoners, including his one-time friend, Confederate Captain Benjamin Tyreen (Richard Harris), and other "gentlemen of the South," to fill out his ranks. Tyreen and his men despise Dundee, but agree to serve on this mission in exchange for the chance for possible pardon of commutation of sentence (Tyreen and some of his men are facing the rope, for killing a guard in an escape attempt).

The mission takes them deep into Mexico, where they free the children but now find themselves being stalked by the very Apaches that they were hunting, as well as having to fight off the French troops stationed there. And as they quickly see, the French troops, though white and supposedly "civilized" like themselves, treat the native Mexicans in ways that make the Apaches look almost saintly. In the end, this ragtag group of soldiers, malcontents, deserters, traitors, and criminals finds a larger cause in their quest -- bigger even than their own survival -- as they discover something uniquely fine and honorable in being an American, and in American ideals. It takes the sacrifice and deaths of many to get to that point, but the movie -- in this version -- gets us there convincingly, if in decidedly grim and bittersweet fashion. Though based on fiction and shot under incredibly (indeed, legendarily) chaotic conditions, the movie ultimately proves to be a rousingly disturbing examination of what it means to be an American, and the meaning of American ideals. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide