Scandal SheetBurt Lancaster is eminently hissable as a tabloid publisher in the made-for-TV Scandal Sheet. The current target of
Lancaster's smears is alcoholic actor
Robert Urich, who is on the verge of making a comeback through the auspices of his movie-star wife
Lauren Hutton. Ruthlessly going after
Urich merely for the purpose of selling newspapers,
Lancaster "persuades" impoverished reporter
Pamela Reed, the best friend of
Urich and
Hutton, to help him wield the hatchet. Sublimely trashy, Scandal Sheet is held together by the despicably dynamic performance of
Burt Lancaster. The film was of course made long before tabloid publishers were being lauded as "news analysts" on TV talk shows. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Kill CruiseThis thriller stars
Jurgen Prochnow as an alcoholic sailor who agrees to deliver two young English women to the Caribbean. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide
GoldPeter Hunt directed this old fashioned -- if not reactionary -- action film about gold-mining in South Africa. The story concerns a nefarious scheme to control the international price of gold by sabotaging the country's largest gold mine, flooding it with an underground sea. Hurry Hirschfeld (
Ray Milland) is a cranky but kind millionaire who owns the gold mine. His granddaughter, Terry Steyner (
Susannah York), is a beautiful women suffering from the old ennui. She happens to be married to chief bad-guy Manfred Steyner (
Bradford Dillman), who, along with unscrupulous international tycoon Farrell (
John Gielgud), hatches the plot to flood Hurry's gold- mine. To the rescue comes Rod Slater (
Roger Moore) and his faithful black sidekick Big King (
Simon Sabela), ready to right the wrongs and stem the tide in order to make South Africa safe for cheap black labor. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
Rogue MaleBased on the film Man Hunt, the BBC-produced Rogue Male stars Peter O'Toole as a British aristocrat who attempts to assassinate Hitler. After he fails, he is hunted down by the German Gestapo. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Movie Guide
A Real American HeroThis made-for-TV actioner was designed as the pilot for a series based on the popular Walking Tall films of the 1970s. This time out, a young
Brian Dennehy is cast as the stick-wielding, scrupulously honest Tennessee sheriff Buford Pusser (played in the films by
Joe Don Baker and
Bo Svenson), with
Forrest Tucker repeating his role from Walking Tall: The Final Chapter as Pusser's father. After chasing down a speeding car, Pusser is disgusted to find that its teenaged occupants (two of them dead, two blinded for life) are stoned out of their minds on bad bootleg hooch. Bypassing due process and other such legal niceties, Pusser goes on a one-man rampage of destruction in order to square accounts with the evil disco owner-cum-moonshiner responsible for the tragedy. Making things difficult is the fact that one of the villains of the piece is also one of Buford's oldest pals. A Real American Hero made its CBS debut on December 9, 1978. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Deadly DrifterBased on a novel by Ronald Sukenick, this off-beat, slyly satirical road movie chronicles two decades in the life of a traveling mercenary who philosophizes about American culture and hopes to find himself while carrying out the orders of his enigmatic employer, who gives him assignments via bowls of vegetable soup. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
The Sell OutIn this action-packed spy drama, a retired CIA agent reluctantly returns to espionage at the request of his treacherous student, who messed up and went to the Soviet side. Now the agent wants out, causing both the US and the USSR to send out their best hit men to get him. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
HurricaneThe made-for-TV Hurricane was based on
William C. Anderson's novel Hurricane Hunters, which, in turn, was inspired by events surrounding Hurricane Camille in 1969. The scene is Cassler, MS, where a pair of hurricane chasers, patrol-plane pilot Major Stoddard (
Martin Milner) and seafarer Paul Damon (
Larry Hagman) do their best to rescue the citizens of the community from a devastating storm. Other key characters include: feminist TV weatherperson Lee Jackson (
Michael Learned); old-fashioned (but shrewd) meteorologist Dr. McCutcheon (
Will Geer); Damon's imperiled wife, Louise (
Jessica Walter); and oblivious Bert Pearson (
Frank Sutton in his final movie role). Hurricane originally aired September 10, 1974, as the first installment of a brand-new ABC Movie of the Week season. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Bail OutDavid Hasselhoff plays one of three bounty hunters in search of a much-wanted criminal. The reward is astronomical, so it's understandable that the cops want
Hasselhoff and company to make themselves scarce. No matter what the law throws in their path, however, the three heroes will not be deterred. Bail Out costars
Linda Blair and
John Vernon. Though filmed in 1988, Bail Out wasn't released until 1990, upon
Hasselhoff's success on television's Baywatch. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
