Paul Stewart Movies
He began acting in plays in his early teens, and was already a veteran by the time he joined Orson Welles's Mercury Theater in 1938; among his Mercury credits was a role in the infamous War of the Worlds radio broadcast. Like many Mercury performers, he followed Welles to Hollywood and debuted onscreen in Citizen Kane (1941). In a sporadically busy film career, he went on to play many character roles over the next four decades; he was often cast as insensitive, no-nonsense types, and sometimes played gangsters. He began a second career in the mid '50s as a TV director. ~ Rovi
This comedy is set upon a remote Greek island and is very loosely based on Shakespeare's classic play. The tale centers on a middle-aged New York architect who abandons his wife and moves to the island with his teen-age daughter and his new lover, a Greek singer, in hopes of finding meaning in his life. The only resident of the island is an old hermit, and the father is finally happy until his wife, her lover, his son and others get in a shipwreck and end up marooned on the island with him. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi
- Starring:
- John Cassavetes, Gena Rowlands, (more)
In this biting comedy satirizing Hollywood cynicism from writer-director Blake Edwards, Felix Farmer (Richard Mulligan) is a motion picture director whose career is on the skids. Having just completed a family musical that is sure to be a $30 million flop, Felix knows that his days are numbered and tries unsuccessfully to commit suicide. When he recovers, Felix suddenly has a brainstorm and hatches a scheme to buy the film back from his studio and lens new scenes that will turn it into a pornographic movie with big stars, a sure-fire box office winner. In order to pull it off, he'll need to convince his female lead and wife, Sally Miles (Julie Andrews, not coincidentally the director's real-life wife) to defy her wholesome, squeaky-clean public image by baring her breasts on film. S.O.B. (1981) was the final film of legendary actor William Holden. ~ Karl Williams, Rovi
- Starring:
- Julie Andrews, William Holden, (more)
- 1980
- PG
This comedy was filmed in Miami and follows the exploits of three frustrated misanthropes who try to sue the city after their car hits a pothole and ends up totaled. Unfortunately, the city has protected itself with a little loophole. When legal means fail, the three try other methods. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi
- Starring:
- Gabe Kaplan, Alex Karras, (more)
- 1978
- PG
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In Revenge of the Pink Panther, for the final time, the bumbling but impeturbable Inspector Clouseau (Peter Sellers) maddens his long-suffering boss Dreyfus (Herbert Lom), sharpens his wits and martial skills with his manservant Cato (Burt Kwouk) and foils the bad guys without ever having a clue about what he is doing. In the story, Clouseau allows a gang of drug racketeers to believe that he has been assassinated and dons a series of disguises as he travels all over the world in order to apprehend the culprits. He is assisted by Simone Legree (Dyan Cannon), the former girlfriend of the drug-lord Douvier (Robert Webber). Though it received a very mixed reception from critics, this, the sixth of the Pink Panther series, did very well at the box-office. Sadly, it was actor Peter Sellers' final Pink Panther performance before his death in 1980 (the later film, The Trail of Pink Panther was composed of outtakes from previous Pink Panther films). ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi
- Starring:
- Peter Sellers, Herbert Lom, (more)
- 1978
The Nativity is just what it says it is. This low-key retelling of the Biblical story of the birth of Christ stars Madeline Stowe as Mary and John V. Shea as Joseph. The network publicists assured the viewers that there would be as much emphasis on the "human love story" as the Birth itself. Also in the cast are Leo McKern as Herod, Jane Wyatt as Anna, Paul Stewart as Zacharias, Audrey Totter as Elizabeth, George Voskovec as Joachim and Julie Garfield (daughter of John Garfield) as Zipporah. The made-for-TV The Nativity premiered on December 17, 1978; one day later, Madeline Stowe showed up in a small role in another TV movie, The Deerslayer. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- 1977
- PG13
John Cassavetes' Opening Night stars Gena Rowlands (Mrs. Cassavetes) as end-of-tether Broadway actress Myrtle Gordon. She is about to open in a play written by her old friend Sarah Goode (Joan Blondell), but a series of pre-show setbacks and disasters threaten to destroy not only the production but Myrtle's sanity. The actress is especially rattled when one of her staunchest fans dies in an accident. In the face of bleak reality, just how important is the old "show must go on" ethic? Supporting Gena Rowlands are such veterans of the New York-Hollywood shuttle as Ben Gazzara, Zohra Lampert, Paul Stewart, James Karen, and several friends and relatives of the principals. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Gena Rowlands, Ben Gazzara, (more)
- 1977
Jim (James Garner) is hired by a woman identifying herself as Karen Hall (Barbara Babcock), who claims to be researching the career of Alva Korper, a German film director notorious for his Nazi sympathies during WW2, and for his mysterious death in a suspicious car crash. It soon develops that "Karen Hall" is actually Korper's daughter, and she is one of several shady characters searching for a priceless 18th century painting stolen years earlier by the Germans. With Jim being pursued by everyone from ex-Nazis to French police detectives, and with no idea of what is really going on, he must turn to a college coed (Irene Tsu) majoring in "logic" to straighten things out. The title of this episode (directed by film star James Coburn) refers to the last-act expositional dialogue heard in every mystery story, usually delivered by the hero or (as in this case) the villain. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- 1976
- PG
W.C. Fields and Me is the film version of the Fields biography written by the comedian's former mistress Carlotta Monti. W. C. Fields was a great comedian in vaudeville and early talking films, who was noted for his ability to say the most hilariously cutting and mean things in a cheery, bright tone of voice. He had amazing skills in the manipulation of objects, from pieces of paper to crooked cue sticks. Rod Steiger plays Fields, while Valerie Perrine portrays Ms. Monti. Jack Cassidy is also on hand as Fields' close friend and drinking crony John Barrymore. The film is not above sacrificing facts for a good story, notably in its recreation of Fields' celebrated "dentist" routine which. W. C. Fields and Me depicts the great juggler/comedian as a straightforwardly mean-spirited man, whereas he is generally believed to have been more complex than that. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Rod Steiger, Valerie Perrine, (more)
- 1975
As is customary, Stone (Karl Malden) and Keller (Michael Douglas) are faced with a baffling mystery which they must unravel in the episode's alotted sixty minutes. The game is afoot the moment that the skeleton of a former convict is found during an excavation on Alcatraz Island. There's only one problem: this particular convict was supposed to have escaped from "The Rock" in the 1950s--and in fact, is still purportedly sending letters to his family! Featured in the cast are two seasoned veterans of radio's Golden Age: Paul Stewart and Virginia Gregg. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
The Day of the Locust is anything but a cheerful, light look at Hollywood in the '30s. It recreates both the town as well as the filmmaking world around which much of the town revolved with devastating accuracy. The movie tells the twin tales of talentless wannabe actress Faye Greener (Karen Black) and Homer Simpson (Donald Sutherland), a lovelorn accountant who couldn't care less about movies. Around this framework, a huge and intricate social network is tellingly revealed, until the film's gruesome and tragic ending. Not for those who prefer to hang onto their illusions about the glory days of Hollywood, The Day of the Locust, based on the novel by Nathanael West, is a must-see for serious film buffs. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi
- Starring:
- Donald Sutherland, Karen Black, (more)
An excellent cast, featuring Gene Hackman, Ben Johnson, and James Coburn, highlights this entertaining Western that came and went at the box office, barely noticed by audiences. That doesn't stop the exciting story from capturing the viewer's attention as a disparate group of riders assembles to participate in a marathon 700-mile horse race across the American West at the turn of the century. The standard mutual feelings of distrust give way to respect and grudging admiration as each rider is put to the test. Stunning cinematography and locations, plus a gripping pace set by director Richard Brooks, set this Western apart at a time when the genre was in decline. ~ Don Kaye, Rovi
- Starring:
- Gene Hackman, Candice Bergen, (more)
Live a Little, Steal a Lot and You Can't Steal Love were both alternate titles for the fact-based crime caper Murph the Surph. In the early 1960s, a "celebrity beach bum" named Jack Murphy--aka Murph the Surph--helped mastermind the stealing of the Star of India sapphire from the American Museum of Natural History. The film concentrates on the sociopathic pre-theft activities of Murphy (played by Don Stroud) and his partner in crime Allan Kuhn (excellently impersonated by Robert Conrad). The hollowness of Murph and Kuhn's Miami Beach lifestyle is offset with their never-ending search for "kicks"--the last of which earned them both stiff prison terms. Live a Little, Steal a Lot successfully plays its material for laughs throughout, but in the end both erstwhile criminals seem more pathetic than amusing. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Robert Conrad, Don Stroud, (more)
- 1974
- PG
Two Miami beach bums become notorious cat-burglars in this lively crime drama that is based on a true story. After successfully committing a series of burglaries of some of Miami's wealthiest, the two get bored and decide to steal the Star of India sapphire from the American Museum of Natural History, New York. One of the actual thieves, Allan Kuhn, served as the technical advisor. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi
- 1973
John Marley essays another of his patented "mob boss" characterizations in this episode as a bigwig named Tully. Unfortunately, Tully is saddled with a hotheaded son who insists upon attempting to kill a federal witness. To take the heat off themselves, the mob insists that Tully's kid turn himself in to the FBI--but the kid is disinclined to follow orders. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
The final directorial project the legendary Orson Welles completed during his lifetime, F for Fake is less a documentary than an example of cinematic free association on the topic of trickery. Much of the film is in fact drawn from other sources, most notably an unfinished documentary by Francois Reichenbach on the notorious Elmyr de Hory, whose extremely skillful forgeries of famous paintings caused scandals amongst art collectors and experts. In an additional bit of irony, de Hory's interviewer is author Clifford Irving, who became infamous due to a forgery of his own: a falsified autobiography of Howard Hughes. Welles openly re-edits and manipulates this footage, using it as a spine for his own commentary, arguing that there is an extremely close relationship between art and lying, and citing instances from his own career to prove the point. Through a combination of documentary and staged footage, Welles attempts to illustrate the artifice behind all filmmaking, even that of a supposedly non-fiction variety. ~ Judd Blaise, Rovi
- Starring:
- Orson Welles, Oja Kodar, (more)
- 1971
Chief Ironside (Raymond Burr) wants to find out why a terminally ill convict named Walter Butler (Ray Walston) has been denied parole. The trail of clues leads to Madame Jabez (Barbara Rush), a woman who claims to have supernatural powers. Many strange and inexplicable occurences follow as Ironside matches wits with the cagey Mme. Jabez, who is somehow linked with a missing $50,000 and a troubled parole board member. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- 1970
Irwin Allen, praised in some circles as a science fiction genius and damned in others as a shameless schlockmeister, produced and directed this fanciful TV-movie. Set in the 21st century, the film concentrates on a group of colonists dwelling in a modernistic underwater city called Pacifica. The emphasis is on drama rather than special effects, as we see the deep-sea denizens struggling to cope with the pressures of their new existence--and their own personal animosities. Stuart Whitman heads a large cast of TV veterans, including Time Tunnel regulars James Darren, Robert Colbert and Whit Bissell, and onetime Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea star Richard Basehart (as the US President). Expanded from a short "demo" pilot film, City Beneath the Sea is the one Irwin Allen project that could have matured into a truly worthwhile TV series; unfortunately no network was interested in subsidizing this expensive effort. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- 1969
The IMF must prevent blackmailer Lou Merrick (Donnelly Rhodes) from turning over a file of information on top government officials to the Syndicate. Infiltrating one of the mob's biggest fronts, Phelps and his fellow agents set in motion an intricate mind-transfer experiment to convince Merrick that he is being betrayed by his most trusted associates. In addition to the usual IMF agents, Gerald Hiken guest-stars as Thomas Galvin and Ben Wright appears as Dr. Irving Bergman. Scripted by Jerry Ludwig from a story by Ludwig and Richard Neil Morgan, "Mastermind" first aired on November 30, 1969. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Peter Graves, Leonard Nimoy, (more)
- 1969
Martha Scott guest stars in this offbeat episode as self-styled clairvoyant Francine Miller. All of Francine's recent prophecies have come disturbingly true, including her dire predictions concerning the members of Ironside's team. Now Ironside himself is faced with the dilemma of recovering a valuable DaVinci recently stolen from a San Francisco museum, all the while avoiding the "certain death" (replete with foreboding portents) predicted for him by the redoubtable Ms. Miller. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
Frank Benson (Bob Hope) and his wife, Elaine (Jane Wyman), decide to end their marriage after 20 years. Their daughter, Nancy (Joanna Cameron), announces she wishes to marry her college sweetheart, David Poe (Tim Matheson). David's father, Oliver (Jackie Gleason), is against the union and tries to sabotage the relationship. Nancy ends up pregnant and puts the baby up for adoption. Frank and Elaine become the foster parents to their grandchild. Frank poses as the young couple's guru to get them to raise the child themselves. Leslie Nielsen plays Phil, a divorced man who dates Elaine, while Frank takes up with Lois (Maureen Arthur). Comedy ensues when, at Oliver's urging, Frank and Elaine join the rock group the Comfortable Chair. Another sequence has a chimpanzee beating a frustrated Frank easily in a game of golf. ~ Dan Pavlides, Rovi
- Starring:
- Bob Hope, Jackie Gleason, (more)
With The Mod Squad sweeping the Tuesday night TV ratings in 1968, producers Aaron Spelling and Danny Thomas hoped to get another multiracial adventure series on the air A.S.A.P. Carter's Army was the 72-minute pilot for this project. Set during World War II, the film stars Stephen Boyd as an Army captain who doesn't exactly dislike African Americans-it's just that he holds no special fondness for them. Naturally, Boyd is assigned an all-black company, and is forced to share his command with lieutenant Robert Hooks. Despite seething racial tensions, everyone pulls together to destroy an enemy dam. Originally telecast January 27, 1970, Carter's Army failed to spawn the planned series. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- 1968
In this thriller, Jonathan Fields (Bradford Dillman) awakens in a strange apartment and finds a dead woman floating in the bathtub after he suffered an LSD-flashback the night before. Finding blood upon his hand, he can only wonder how he is involved in the woman's death. He hires private detective Arthur Belding (Harry Guardino) who has him take another dose of LSD in order to see if he can remember what had happened. They learn that Fields' co-worker Lew Haley (Pat Hingle) had slipped acid into his coffee as part of a blackmail conspiracy. Haley was after his girlfriend and after his job in a government think tank. They also learn that his supervisor Dr. Arkroyd (Victor Jory) had been in a relationship with the deceased woman. She too was being blackmailed by Haley, who killed her when she threatened to call the cops. Dr. Arkroyd knew about it all and did nothing. Eventually Fields and Haley fight it out. The blackmailer ends up crashing through a high-rise window and falling to the unforgiving pavement below. Hope Lang, Susan Saint James, James Doohan and Michael J. Pollard also star in this psychedelic murder mystery. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi
- Starring:
- Harry Guardino, Bradford Dillman, (more)
Richard Brooks wrote and directed this stark black-and-white (with brilliantly evocative cinematography by Conrad Hall) study of two drifters who murder a family, based on Truman Capote's non-fiction novel In Cold Blood. The film takes place in Holcomb, Kansas, where four members of the Herbert Clutter family are roused from their sleep and brutally murdered. The killers, Perry Smith (Robert Blake) and Dick Hickock (Scott Wilson), are two ex-cons who plan to rob the Clutters of $10,000 kept in a safe in their home. But Dick and Perry find no safe and no $10,000 and end up leaving the murder scene with only $43. The police, led by Alvin Dewey (John Forsythe) of the Kansas Bureau of Investigation, try to track down the killers. Meanwhile, Dick and Perry take off to Mexico, where Perry has fantasies of prospecting for gold. But when his dreams of prospecting come to naught, Dick insists that they return to the United States. Confident that they have left no clues, they cash bad checks, and the police track them down in Las Vegas. During questioning, their alibis are broken when they are separated and tell conflicting stories. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi
- Starring:
- Robert Blake, Scott Wilson, (more)
- 1966
For reasons which he prefers to keep secret, wealthy industrialist Cameron Burgess (Paul Stewart) hires shady music promoter Clete Hawley (Richard Carlson) to groom a likable but untalented British rock singer named Sandy Chester (Martin Horsey) for superstardom. Soon afterward, Hawley is murdered, and Sandy is charged with the crime. Fortunately, Burgess is a client of Perry Mason (Raymond Burr), who agrees to defend the shaggy-haired suspect in court. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
Filmmaker George Stevens chose Monument Valley, Utah for his exterior sequences in The Greatest Story Ever Told, this ($20 million) adaptation of Fulton Oursler's best-selling book. The "Greatest Story" is, of course, the life of Jesus Christ, played herein by Max Von Sydow. The large supporting cast includes Dorothy McGuire as Mary, Claude Rains as Herod the Great, Jose Ferrer as Herod Antipas, Charlton Heston as John the Baptist, Donald Pleasence as Satan (identified only as "The Dark Hermit"), David McCallum as Judas Iscariot, Sidney Poitier as Simon of Cyrene, Telly Savalas as Pontius Pilate and Martin Landau as Caiaphas. Even Robert Blake as Simon the Zealot, Jamie Farr as Thaddaeus, and motorcyle-flick veteran Richard Bakalyan as Dismas, the repentant thief, are well-suited to their roles. Originally roadshown at 260 minutes, Greatest Story Ever Told was later available in a 195-minute version. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Max von Sydow, Dorothy McGuire, (more)
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