News

Only deep-cut "Twilight Zone" aficionados will know this, but actor Jay Overholts holds the record for the most number of appearances on the show (Rod Serling himself notwithstanding). Counting voice performances, Overholtz appeared in the following:

In "Where Is Everybody?" he played the voice of a radio reporter. In "One for the Angels", he played a doctor. In "A Thing About Machines", he played an intern. In "Twenty Two", he played the voice on a Pa system. In "The Odyssey of Flight 33", he played an airline passenger (pictured above). In "Static", he played a random background character. In "The Jungle", he played a cab driver. And in "Showdown with Rance McGraw", he played a cowboy.

Overholts didn't have much of an acting career beyond those eight episodes, however. He was in two episodes of "Playhouse 90" in 1959 and turned up in a single episode of "Gunsmoke" as an unnamed character.

Gunsmoke was the longest-running prime-time TV western in history, running for 20 seasons from 1955 to 1975. It was highly rated and beloved by fans both during and long after the show stopped airing. Part of what made Gunsmoke so special was the characters that made up Dodge City. Characters like Caleb the farmer. Here’s a look back at Caleb and the actor who played him, John Dehner.

John Dehner | ABC Photo Archives/Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty Images Caleb on ‘Gunsmoke’

Caleb is a 43 year-old-farmer whose wife loves to remind him that he’s a failure. In a seemingly loveless marriage, Caleb and his wife wed after they learned she was pregnant. But the child died early on, setting the tone for Caleb’s sad life.

At a crossroads, yearning for a better life, Caleb ventures into Dodge to visit Marshal Dillon. But when Caleb gets into town, he learns...

Gunsmoke Season 3 was the first to hit the top rank in the ratings from 1957 to 1958, landing it the most coveted spot in all of television. This is a feat that CBS would achieve consecutively over the next few years, marking the most successful years in the show’s history. Here’s a look at the 5 best-rated Gunsmoke episodes from season 3, according to IMDb.

‘Crack-Up’ L-r: James Arness as Matt Dillon and Amanda Blake as Miss Kitty Russell | CBS

IMDb Rating: 8.2

“Crack-Up” aired on Sept. 14, 1957, as the first episode of Gunsmoke Season 3.

A gunman named Nate Springer (John Dehner) spells out trouble for Dodge City when he arrives with the intention of killing somebody. However, he has a certain hesitance that tips U.S. Marshal Matt Dillon (James Arness) off that there’s more to the story. He decides to get to the bottom of who hired him and what is making the professional so nervous.

John Sturges’ Road Show comedy western has more in common with 1941 than The Magnificent Seven, but Kino has MGM’s new remaster and the visual result is spectacular. The Ultra Panavision 70 epic is still a favorite of fans of out-of-control Hollywood filmmaking. Burt Lancaster, Lee Remick, Jim Hutton, Pamela Tiffin and a huge cast lead the charge for a convoy of frontier whisky. It’s all in a fine spirit of madcap fun. . . so where are the big laughs?

The Hallelujah Trail

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1965 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 156 165 min. / Street Date December 13, 2022 / available through Kino Lorber / 24.95

Starring: Burt Lancaster, Lee Remick, Jim Hutton, Pamela Tiffin, Donald Pleasence, Brian Keith, Martin Landau, John Anderson, Tom Stern, Robert J. Wilke, Dub Taylor, Whit Bissell, Helen Kleeb, Val Avery, Hope Summers, John Dehner (narrator).

Cinematography: Robert Surtees

Art Direction: Carey Odell

Costumes: Edith Head

Film Editor: Ferris Webster

Original Music: Elmer Bernstein...

Hollywood acknowledges the existence of America’s proto- C.I.A. intelligence agency with this espionage tale of Yanks working with the resistance in occupied France. It’s basic cloak ‘n’ dagger action, with intrepid Alan Ladd and the daring Geraldine Fitzgerald risking life and limb to plant plastic explosive bombs. The details are fairly interesting: Ladd outwits the Gestapo by working with a turncoat inside their ranks. The outcome is grimly realistic, even if that old Paramount glamour is part of the package. The writer-producer is Richard Maibaum, who would later write almost thirty years’ worth of franchise James Bond 007 adventures.

O.S.S.

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1946 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 108 min. / Street Date August 10, 2021 / available through Kino Lorber / 24.95

Starring: Alan Ladd, Geraldine Fitzgerald, Patric Knowles, John Hoyt, Gloria Saunders, Richard Webb, Richard Benedict, Harold Vermilyea, Don Beddoe, Onslow Stevens, Gavin Muir, Egon Brecher, Joseph Crehan, Bobby Driscoll, Julia Dean,...

In 2001 I wrote, ‘Someday I’ll get to see a good copy of Robert Aldrich’s great movie Apache.’ Kino’s excellent new Blu-ray of a recent MGM remaster brings back the color and the correct screen shape, and even cleans up some wicked frame damage that’s been there for sixty years. The athletic Burt Lancaster will make every man and boy feel like running across whatever landscape is available, leaping like a gymnast from rock to rock. Properly restored, the tale of the rebellious Massai plays better than a dozen politically revisionist westerns, even with Burt as a blue-eyed Apache. The movie solidified Lancaster’s producing career and Robert Aldrich earned his first box office hit.

Apache

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1954 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 91 min. / Street Date December 1, 2020 / available through Kino Lorber / 24.95

Starring: Burt Lancaster, Jean Peters, Charles Bronson, John McIntire, John Dehner, Walter Sande, Paul Guilfoyle.

Cinematography:...

They swim, they play, and they talk. They love George C. Scott and call him ‘pa.’ Mike Nichols’ paranoid sci-fi classic combines Lassie Go Home and The Manchurian Candidate. It works up a good guys versus bad guys conspiracy storyline — until the message arrives that what the adorable dolphins Fa and Bee really need, along with the rest of the natural planet, is for us greedy, murderous humans to just Go Away. Buck Henry’s screenplay overcomes aquatic clichés and cutesy animal traditions to come up with a crowd-pleasing winner.

The Day of the Dolphin

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1973 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 104 min. / Street Date February 18, 2020 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95

Starring: George C. Scott, Trish Van Devere, Paul Sorvino, Fritz Weaver, Jon Korkes, Edward Herrmann, John Dehner, Severn Darden, Elizabeth Wilson.

Cinematography: William A. Fraker

Film Editor: Sam O’Steen

Production Designer: Richard Sylbert

Original Music: Georges Delerue

Written by Buck...

Kurt Vonnegut’s quirky sci-fi novels didn’t always adapt well to film, but George Roy Hill’s 1972 effort is a faithful winner. The filmmaking craft used to ‘unstick’ Billy Pilgrim in time is nothing short of brilliant, highlighting the camera talent of Miroslav Ondricek and the editing skill of Dede Allen. The book even has a built-in sex angle that the film doesn’t shy away from — providing our first encounter with Valerie Perrine as a starlet kidnapped by aliens curious about human mating habits. The somber, sometimes spiritually-defeatist tone of the show represents the book well; it ought to be better known.

Slaughterhouse-Five

Blu-ray

Arrow Video

1972 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 104 min. / Street Date December 3, 2019 / Available from Arrow Academy

Starring: Michael Sacks, Ron Leibman, Eugene Roche, Sharon Gans, Valerie Perrine, Holly Near, Perry King, Kevin Conway, Friedrich von Ledebur, Sorrell Booke, Roberts Blossom, John Dehner, Stan Gottlieb, Karl-Otto Alberty, Henry Bumstead,...

Mamie Van Doren Film Noir Collection

Blu ray

Kl Studio Classics

1957 – 1959 / 1.75:1, 1.85:1, / 216 Min. / Street Date – November 20, 2018

Starring Mamie Van Doren, Anne Bancroft, Lee Van Cleef, Lex Barker

Cinematography by Stanley Cortez, William Margulies

Directed by Howard Koch, Edward Cahn

Mamie Van Doren, née Joan Lucille Olander, was born in Rowena, South Dakota in 1931. In 1942 the family relocated to Hollywood where the camera-ready kid blossomed at the speed of light – a Pantages usherette at the age of 13, she racked up a string of attention-grabbing gigs that led to a reign as Miss Eight Ball and the inevitable merger with Tinseltown’s preeminent lounge lizard, Howard Hughes.

That arrangement generated a distinctly higher-profile for the industrious starlet – from an eye-popping Alberto Vargas pinup to swivel-hipped walk-ons in a series of forgettable potboilers and finally a contract at Universal. A cheeky studio exec christened her “Mamie” thereby hijacking the name of President...

Blown up to Road Show spectacular dimensions, a fairly modest idea for a comedy western became something of a career Waterloo for director John Sturges. But it’s still a favorite of fans thrilled by fancy 70mm-style presentations. A huge cast led by Burt Lancaster, Lee Remick, Jim Hutton and Pamela Tiffin leads the charge on a whisky-soaked madcap chase. It’s all in a fine spirit of fun. . . so where are the big laughs?

The Hallelujah Trail

Blu-ray

Olive Films

1965 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 155 min. / Street Date February 27, 2018 / available through the Olive Films website / 24.95

Starring: Burt Lancaster, Lee Remick, Jim Hutton, Pamela Tiffin, Donald Pleasence, Brian Keith, Martin Landau, John Anderson, Tom Stern, Robert J. Wilke, Dub Taylor, Whit Bissell, Helen Kleeb, Val Avery, Hope Summers, John Dehner.

Cinematography: Robert Surtees

Film Editor: Ferris Webster

Original Music: Elmer Bernstein

Written by John Gay from the novel by William Gulick

Executive...

Do you think older crime thrillers weren’t violent enough? This shocker from 1948 shook up America with its true story of a vicious killer who has a murderous solution to every problem, and uses special talents to evade police detection. Richard Basehart made his acting breakthrough as Roy Martin, a barely disguised version of the real life ‘Machine Gun Walker.

He Walked by Night

Blu-ray

ClassicFlix

1948 / B&W /1:37 flat full frame / 79 min. / Street Date November 7, 2017 / 39.99

Starring: Richard Basehart, Scott Brady, Roy Roberts, Whit Bissell, James Cardwell, Jack Webb, Dorothy Adams, Ann Doran, Byron Foulger, Reed Hadley (narrator), Thomas Browne Henry, Tommy Kelly, John McGuire, Kenneth Tobey.

Cinematography: John Alton

Art Direction: Edward Ilou

Film Editor: Alfred De Gaetano

Original Music: Leonid Raab

Written by John C. Higgins and Crane Wilbur

Produced by Bryan Foy, Robert T. Kane

Directed by Alfred L. Werker

Talk about a movie with a dynamite...

(See previous post: Fourth of July Movies: Escapism During a Weird Year.) On the evening of the Fourth of July, besides fireworks, fire hazards, and Yankee Doodle Dandy, if you're watching TCM in the U.S. and Canada, there's the following: Peter H. Hunt's 1776 (1972), a largely forgotten film musical based on the Broadway hit with music by Sherman Edwards. William Daniels, who was recently on TCM talking about 1776 and a couple of other movies (A Thousand Clowns, Dodsworth), has one of the key roles as John Adams. Howard Da Silva, blacklisted for over a decade after being named a communist during the House Un-American Committee hearings of the early 1950s (Robert Taylor was one who mentioned him in his testimony), plays Benjamin Franklin. Ken Howard is Thomas Jefferson, a role he would reprise in John Huston's 1976 short Independence. (In the short, Pat Hingle was cast as John Adams; Eli Wallach was Benjamin Franklin.) Warner...

“Anybody who goes up in the damn thing is gonna be Spam in a can.” • Chuck Yeager (Sam Shepard), “The Right Stuff” (1983), Written by Tom Wolfe and Phillip Kaufman based on the book by Tom Wolfe (1979), Directed by Phillip Kaufman

Henry Luce: “Now, I want them all to meet my people who will write their true stories. Naturally these stories will appear in Life magazine under their own bylines. For example, “by Betty Grissom,” or “by Virgil I. Grissom,” or…

Gus Grissom: “Gus!”

Henry Luce: “What was that?”

Gus Grissom: “Gus. Nobody calls me by…that other name.”

Henry Luce: “Gus? An astronaut named “Gus?” What’s your middle name?

Gus Grissom: “Ivan.”

Henry Luce: “Ivan…ahem…well. Maybe Gus isn’t so bad, might be something there…All right, all right. You can be “Gus.”Henry R. • Luce (John Dehner), Virgil (Gus) I. Grissom (Fred Ward)“The Right Stuff” (1983)

“Godspeed,...

Man of the West

Directed by Anthony Mann ​

Written by Reginald Rose

USA, 1958

Man of the West was director Anthony Mann’s final Western of the 1950s. As such, it stands as something of a cumulative expression of his generic preoccupations and stylistic preferences, preoccupations and preferences that were consistently integrated in a decade’s worth of some of the finest Westerns ever made. What Mann accomplished in this particular genre during a 10-year period is one of the most impressive chapters in American film history, but Man of the West is more than just a summation of the period; it is as good, if not better in many ways, as the extraordinary pictures that came before it.

Taking over the reigns from James Stewart, who had previously starred in five earlier landmark Mann Westerns, is Gary Cooper, another perennial aw shucks leading man. Like with Stewart, Mann upsets this archetypal Cooper screen persona.

Jane Fonda: From ‘Vietnam Traitor’ to AFI Award and Screen Legend status (photo: Jason Bateman and Jane Fonda in ‘This Is Where I Leave You’) (See previous post: “Jane Fonda Movies: Anti-Establishment Heroine.”) Turner Classic Movies will also be showing the 2014 AFI Life Achievement Award ceremony honoring Jane Fonda, the former “Vietnam Traitor” and Barbarella-style sex kitten who has become a living American screen legend (and healthy-living guru). Believe it or not, Fonda, who still looks disarmingly great, will be turning 77 years old next December 21; she’s actually older than her father Henry Fonda was while playing Katharine Hepburn’s ailing husband in Mark Rydell’s On Golden Pond. (Henry Fonda died at age 77 in August 1982.) Jane Fonda movies in 2014 and 2015 Following a 15-year absence (mostly during the time she was married to media mogul Ted Turner), Jane Fonda resumed her film acting career in 2005, playing Jennifer Lopez...

Shirley Jones Movies: Innocent virgins and sex workers galore (photo: Shirley Jones and Burt Lancaster in ‘Elmer Gantry’) (See previous post: “Shirley Jones: From Book to Movies.”) I haven’t watched The Cheyenne Social Club (1970), a comedy Western directed by Gene Kelly, and starring 62-year-old James Stewart as a cowpoke who inherits an establishment that turns out to be a popular house of prostitution. Henry Fonda plays Stewart’s partner. And I’m sure Shirley Jones, as one of the sex workers, looks lovely in the film. Hopefully, director Kelly gave this likable, talented actress the chance to do more than just stand around looking pretty. But then again … For all purposes, The Cheyenne Social Club ended Shirley Jones’ film stardom; that same year she turned to TV and The Partridge Family. Jones would return to films only nine years later, as one of several stars (among them Michael Caine,...

Jeanne Crain: Lighthearted movies vs. real life tragedies (photo: Madeleine Carroll and Jeanne Crain in ‘The Fan’) (See also: "Jeanne Crain: From ‘Pinky’ Inanity to ‘Margie’ Magic.") Unlike her characters in Margie, Home in Indiana, State Fair, Centennial Summer, The Fan, and Cheaper by the Dozen (and its sequel, Belles on Their Toes), or even in the more complex A Letter to Three Wives and People Will Talk, Jeanne Crain didn’t find a romantic Happy Ending in real life. In the mid-’50s, Crain accused her husband, former minor actor Paul Brooks aka Paul Brinkman, of infidelity, of living off her earnings, and of brutally beating her. The couple reportedly were never divorced because of their Catholic faith. (And at least in the ’60s, unlike the humanistic, progressive-thinking Margie, Crain was a “conservative” Republican who supported Richard Nixon.) In the early ’90s, she lost two of her...

Paul Henreid: From Eleanor Parker to ‘The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse’ (photo: Paul Henreid and Eleanor Parker in ‘Between Two Worlds’) Paul Henreid returns this evening, as Turner Classic Movies’ Star of the Month of July 2013. In Of Human Bondage (1946), he stars in the old Leslie Howard role: a clubfooted medical student who falls for a ruthless waitress (Eleanor Parker, in the old Bette Davis role). Next on TCM, Henreid and Eleanor Parker are reunited in Between Two Worlds (1944), in which passengers aboard an ocean liner wonder where they are and where the hell (or heaven or purgatory) they’re going. Hollywood Canteen (1944) is a near-plotless, all-star showcase for Warner Bros.’ talent, a World War II morale-boosting follow-up to that studio’s Thank Your Lucky Stars, released the previous year. Last of the Buccaneers (1950) and Pirates of Tripoli (1955) are B pirate movies. The former is an uninspired affair,...

Eleanor Parker today: Beautiful as ever in Scaramouche, Interrupted Melody Eleanor Parker, who turns 91 in ten days (June 26, 2013), can be seen at her most radiantly beautiful in several films Turner Classic Movies is showing this evening and tomorrow morning as part of their Star of the Month Eleanor Parker "tribute." Among them are the classic Scaramouche, the politically delicate Above and Beyond, and the biopic Interrupted Melody, which earned Parker her third and final Best Actress Academy Award nomination. (Photo: publicity shot of Eleanor Parker in Scaramouche.) The best of the lot is probably George Sidney’s balletic Scaramouche (1952), in which Eleanor Parker plays one of Stewart Granger’s love interests — the other one is Janet Leigh. A loose remake of Rex Ingram’s 1923 blockbuster, the George Sidney version features plenty of humor, romance, and adventure; vibrant colors (cinematography by Charles Rosher); an elaborately staged climactic swordfight; and tough dudes...

Elia Kazan is one of my top five favourite American filmmakers of all time, and so I decided to ask our staff to rank his films. If you are not yet familiar with the filmmakers work, now would be a good time to start. Kazan was one of the most honoured and influential directors in Broadway and Hollywood history and introduced a new generation of unknown young actors to the world, including Marlon Brando, James Dean, Warren Beatty, Carroll Baker, Julie Harris, Andy Griffith, Lee Remick, Rip Torn, Eli Wallach, Eva Marie Saint, Martin Balsam, Fred Gwynne, and Pat Hingle. Noted for drawing out the best dramatic performances from his cast, he directed 21 actors to Oscar nominations, resulting in nine wins. The source for his inspired directing was the revolutionary acting technique known as the Method, and Kazan quickly rose to prominence as the preeminent proponent of the technique. During his career,...

The Western was a movie staple for decades. It seemed the genre that would never die, feeding the fantasies of one generation after another of young boys who galloped around their backyards, playgrounds, and brick streets on broomsticks, banging away with their Mattel cap pistols. Something about a man on a horse set against the boundless wastes of Monument Valley, the crackle of saddle leather, two men facing off in a dusty street under the noon sun connected with the free spirit in every kid.

The American movie – a celluloid telling that was more than a skit – was born in a Western: Edwin S. Porter’s 11- minute The Great Train Robbery (1903). Thereafter, Westerns grew longer, they grew more complex. The West – hostile, endless, civilization barely maintaining a toehold against the elements, hostile natives, and robber barons – proved an infinitely plastic setting. In a place with no law, and where...

With the entire original run of The Twilight Zone available to watch instantly, we’re partnering with Twitch Film to cover all of the show’s 156 episodes. Are you brave enough to watch them all with us? The Twilight Zone (Episode #77): “The Jungle” (airdate 12/1/61) The Plot: A businessman on a company committee that’s developing in Africa warns of the natives bewitching threats and falls victim to them himself. The Goods: The exotic nature of the episode is not lost even today where our view of Africa is a bit more well-rounded. Alan Richards (John Dehner) has recently returned from the continent and his first order of business is to get rid of a few knick-knacks that his wife has held onto. When she loses it at the thought of losing them in a fire, he scoffs, but the paranoia of a witch doctor’s threats still crawl underneath his skin. As...

The B Noir festival is a hit! It's always a delight to hear about retrospective programming doing well. There are still people out there interested in and trying out old movies in theaters. Or maybe the San Francisco noir crowd is just that strong. I'd written about "I Wake Up Dreaming" a couple of weeks back (read it here); I have since went and saw some of the movies they're playing.

If you're in the Bay Area and you haven't spared the time, there's good news. The festival was supposed to end this Thursday, but I have just been informed that since it is selling out so well, they've decided to add another week of showings!

The list of extra screenings is at the bottom, but before that, I want to recommend trying to get to this Friday's showing of The Devil Thumbs a Ride, which I managed to catch on the fest's opening night.