Bill Walker Filmography

The Choirboys

Actors: Charles Durning, Louis Gossett, Jr., Perry King, Clyde Kusatsu, Stephen Macht

Synopsis: Loosely based on former policeman Joseph Wambaugh's humorous novel, The Choirboys determinedly explores the stunted interior lives of a large crew of callous, bigoted L.A. policemen. These men get together to lend one another emotional support. However, the means they choose for this do not Read More

Twilight's Last Gleaming

Actors: Burt Lancaster, Richard Widmark, Charles Durning, Melvyn Douglas, Paul Winfield

Synopsis: Soured on America by his experiences as a POW in Vietnam, General Lawrence Dell (Burt Lancaster) hopes that his government will someday tell the truth about the Southeast Asian debacle, thereby allowing his country to embark upon a healing process. Regarded as a dangerous embarrassment by the Read More

Emergency!: All Night Long

Synopsis: Fed up with low-quality television programs, John (Randolph Mantooth) stays up all night--for several consecutive nights--to develop his own TV game show. Back on the job, John joins Roy (Kevin Tighe) in treating an ex-jazz singer who may have heart problems. Other emegencies on tonight's docket Read More

The Rockford Files: The Hammer of C Block

Synopsis: Isaac Hayes makes his first appearance as ex-convict Gandolph "Gandy" Fitch--and in the bargain, contributes his own character's theme music. Released from San Quentin after 20 years, Gandy hires Jim (James Garner) to prove that he was innocent of the crime for which he was convicted: namely, the Read More

Good Times: The Enlistment

Synopsis: Things look bleak for the Evans household when both James (John Amos) and J.J. (Jimmie Walker) lose their jobs. Determined to provide for his loved ones, J.J. prepares to "be all that he can be" by joining the army. William Christopher, who was appearing semi-regularly as Father Mulcahy on M*A*S*H Read More

The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman

Actors: Cicely Tyson, Barbara Chaney, Richard Dysart, Katherine Helmond, Michael Murphy

Synopsis: Cicely Tyson ages from 19 to 110 in the role of Jane Pittman, a fictional African-American woman whose life began in slavery and ended at the inception of the Civil Rights Movement. Northern journalist Quentin Lerner (Michael Murphy) travels to the racially polarized south of 1962 to interview Ms. Read More

Big Mo

Actors: Bernie Casey

Synopsis: This sports drama is based on the true story of professional basketball players Maurice Stokes and Jack Twyman. When Stokes (Bernie Casey), who is black, is rendered comatose and paraplegic by a head injury, his white teammate Twyman (Bo Svenson) exerts himself mightily to raise money for Stokes' Read More

Fat City

Actors: Stacy Keach, Jeff Bridges, Susan Tyrrell, Candy Clark, Nicholas Colasanto

Synopsis: With a screenplay adapted by Leonard Gardner from his own novel, John Huston's drama examines the meager hopes and resigned dreams of small-time boxers. In limbo between retirement and his youthful prime, alcoholic farm laborer Tully (Stacy Keach) shacks up with fellow outcast Oma (Susan Tyrrell) Read More

Columbo: Ransom for a Dead Man

Actors: Peter Falk, Lee Grant

Synopsis: Peter Falk revived his Lieutenant Columbo characterization, first seen in 1967's Prescription: Murder, for the made-for-TV Ransom for a Dead Man. Lee Grant plays a wily lawyer who murders her husband, then arranges to make it appear that he's been kidnapped. The plan is to allow the body to be Read More

Tick, Tick, Tick

Actors: Jim Brown, George Kennedy, Fredric March, Lynn Carlin, Don Stroud

Synopsis: When Jimmy Price (Jim Brown) wins an upset victory for sheriff, he becomes the first black man ever to hold the job (or any elective office) in anyone's memory in his rural southern county. He also sets off an ominous rumblings as the entire county seems split apart by his presence -- Mayor Parks Read More

The Great White Hope

Actors: James Earl Jones, Jane Alexander, Lou Gilbert, Joel Fluellen, Chester Morris

Synopsis: Although the characters' names were changed, The Great White Hope was a thinly veiled account of the trials and tribulations of boxer Jack Johnson, based on the play by Howard Sackler and directed by Martin Ritt. James Earl Jones stars as boxing great Jack Jefferson, who defeats Frank Bardy Larry Pennell Read More

A Dream of Kings

Actors: Anthony Quinn, Irene Papas, Inger Stevens, Sam Levene, Val Avery

Synopsis: Anthony Quinn plays Matsoukas, a Greek/American ne'er do well, living in Chicago with his long-suffering wife Caliope (Irene Papas). When Matsoukas discovers that his son (Radames Pera) is dying, he decides that the boy needs to get out of the Windy City and recuperate in the more agreeable Read More

Riot

Actors: Jim Brown, Gene Hackman, Mike Kellin, Gerald O'Loughlin, Ben Carruthers

Synopsis: A desperate group of convicts stage a minor riot to divert attention in an escape attempt. Red (Gene Hackman) and two others perpetrate the uprising, but word has leaked out and the riot is quickly changed into a symbolic protest against prison conditions and alleged cruelty by sadistic guards. Read More

The Last Challenge

Actors: Glenn Ford, Angie Dickinson, Chad Everett, Gary Merrill, Jack Elam

Synopsis: In this western, a town sheriff contends with his reputation as the "fastest gun in the West." When a young gunslinger calls him out for a showdown, the sheriff is struck by the fellows resemblance to himself when he was young. He therefore, attempts to talk him out of his foolish career choice Read More

Dimension 5

Synopsis: In this sci-fi spy thriller, a secret agent for Espionage, Inc., is assigned to stop the Dragon, a Chinese communist organization, from detonating a nuclear bomb in Los Angeles. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

The Third Day

Actors: George Peppard, Elizabeth Ashley, Roddy McDowall, Arthur O'Connell, Mona Washbourne

Synopsis: This quirky melodrama opens with an automobile crash. The driver, Steve Mallory (George Peppard), comes out of unconsciousness with amnesia. As his memory slowly returns, he learns that he is a wealthy manufacturer of table china. His wife Alexandria (Elizabeth Ashley) wants to leave him, and his Read More

Second Fiddle to a Steel Guitar

Synopsis: In this musical comedy, an enterprising young husband decides to help out his wife by staging a benefit with Country and Western singers when the Italian opera company she had scheduled suddenly cancels. Mayhem ensues when two bunglers get confused and show up dressed in Italian costumes. Songs Read More

Kisses for My President

Actors: Fred MacMurray, Polly Bergen, Arlene Dahl, Edward Andrews, Eli Wallach

Synopsis: Behind every great woman, there's a man who isn't so sure he's happy to be there -- or at least that's the state of affairs in this gender-switch comedy. Leslie McCloud (Polly Bergen) makes history when she becomes the first woman elected to the office of President of the United States. However Read More

The Twilight Zone: The Masks

Actors: Robert Keith, Virginia Gregg, Milton Selzer, Alan Sues, Brooke Hayward

Synopsis: On the eve of Mardi Gras in New Orleans, dying millionaire Jason Foster (Robert Keith) summons his greedy relatives to his mansion. In a faint but firm voice, Foster informs his niece Emily (Virginia Gregg), nephew-in-law Wilfred (Milton Selzer), and Emily and Wilfred's despicable offspring Read More

Wall of Noise

Actors: Suzanne Pleshette, Ty Hardin, Dorothy Provine, Simon Oakland

Synopsis: This film about characters who hang around a horseracing focuses on the darker side rather than the limelight of the winner's circle. Joey (Ty Hardin) is an ambitious horse trainer who is sleeping with the boss' wife Laura (Susan Pleshette). When husband Matt (Ralph Meeker) discovers the affair Read More

The Untouchables: Bird in the Hand

Synopsis: This is the first of two Untouchables episodes intended as pilot films for the proposed spinoff series White Knights, starring Dane Clark and John Gabriel as US Public Health Service agents Dr. Victor Garr and Dr. Daniel Gifford. The plot gets under way when hoodlum Chicago Arnie Kurtz (Carroll Read More

To Kill a Mockingbird

Actors: Gregory Peck, Mary Badham, Philip Alford, Robert Duvall, Frank Overton, Brock Peters

Synopsis: Harper Lee's Pulitzer Prize-winning autobiographical novel was translated to film in 1962 by Horton Foote and the producer/director team of Robert Mulligan and Alan J. Pakula. Set a small Alabama town in the 1930s, the story focuses on scrupulously honest, highly respected lawyer Atticus Finch Read More

Walk on the Wild Side

Actors: Laurence Harvey, Capucine, Jane Fonda, Anne Baxter, Barbara Stanwyck

Synopsis: This moody and controversial drama takes place in Depression-era New Orleans. Dove (Laurence Harvey) has traveled by bus from Texas to find his wayward lover Hallie (Capucine). He meets young Kitty Twist (Jane Fonda) as the two get off in the crescent city. Teresina (Anne Baxter) gives him a job Read More

The Mask

Actors: Paul Stevens, Claudette Nevins, Anne Collings, Martin Lavut, Leo Leyden

Synopsis: Also known as Eyes of Hell, The Mask, is an inexpensive Canadian horror film is distinguished by a gimmick which relies upon full-audience cooperation. Anticipating Jim Carrey by 30 years, Paul Stevens comes into possession of an ancient mask which harbors Strange Powers. When Stevens places the Read More

Maverick: The Resurrection of Joe November

Synopsis: In New Orleans during Mardi Gras, Bret loses several thousand dollars in a card game with the beauteous Felice De Lassignac (Joanna Barnes). To recoup his losses, Bret accepts a job from Felice's aristocratic husband (Charles Maxwell) to deliver a casket containing the body of a dearly departed Read More

A Hole in the Head

Actors: Frank Sinatra, Edward G. Robinson, Eleanor Parker, Carolyn Jones, Thelma Ritter

Synopsis: Although the main character, Tony Manetta (Frank Sinatra), in this light comedy tends to tip the scales towards being unbelievably unrealistic, the story is pulled off because everyone else is convincing. Tony is a widower in need of a financial bailout for himself and his son, so he asks for help Read More

Perry Mason: The Case of the Blushing Pearls

Synopsis: Disapproving of his son Grove's romance with Japanese girl Mitsuo (Nobu McCarthy), wealthy Hudson Nichols (Ralph Dumke) hires a private detective to frame Mitsuo for the theft of his wife's valuable pearls. He tells the mortified girl that he won't press charges if she will give up Grove (Steve Read More

Hot Spell

Actors: Shirley Booth, Anthony Quinn, Shirley MacLaine, Earl Holliman, Eileen Heckart, Valerie Allen

Synopsis: Anthony Quinn and Shirley Booth play a married couple who cling and claw like cats in a bathtub in this sudsy melodrama set in steamy New Orleans. Booth does most of the clinging as a neglected wife struggling to reassemble her battered marriage to Quinn who plays a faithless husband in love with Read More

Ride a Crooked Trail

Actors: Audie Murphy, Gia Scala, Walter Matthau, Henry Silva, Joanna Moore

Synopsis: Audie Murphy heads the cast of the better-than-usual oater Ride a Crooked Trail. It all begins when gunslinger Joe Maybe (Murphy) is mistaken for a famed U.S. marshal. This wouldn't be so bad, except for the fact that Joe has already drawn up plans to rob the town's bank with his cohort Sam Teeler Read More

Raintree County

Actors: Montgomery Clift, Elizabeth Taylor, Eva Marie Saint, Nigel Patrick, Lee Marvin

Synopsis: Conceived as a Gone With the Wind for the CinemaScope generation, Raintree County wasn't quite as successful as its role model, but it still proved a moneyspinner for MGM. Elizabeth Taylor stars as a spoiled Southern belle who falls in love with pacifistic Indiana youth Montgomery Clift. Though Clift Read More

You Can't Run Away From It

Actors: June Allyson, Jack Lemmon, Charles Bickford, Paul Gilbert, Jim Backus

Synopsis: You Can't Run Away From It is a musical remake of Frank Capra's Oscar-winning classic It Happened One Night, complete with same-named characters and word-for-word scene reconstructions. It all begins when spoiled heiress Ellie Andrews (June Allyson) is literally kidnapped from the altar by her Read More

Everything But the Truth

Actors: Maureen O'Hara, John Forsythe, Tim Hovey, Frank Faylen, Les Tremayne

Synopsis: This very lightweight comedy focuses on young orphan Willie Taylor (Tim Hovey). Upset with the prevarications of the adult world, Willie launches a truth-telling campaign at school, with the blessings of his pretty teacher Joan Madison (Maureen O'Hara). Things begin to get dicey when Willie Read More

A Kiss Before Dying

Actors: Robert Wagner, Jeffrey Hunter, Joanne Woodward, Virginia Leith, Robert Quarry, Howard Petrie, Mary Astor, George Macready

Synopsis: Budd Corliss (Robert Wagner) is an ambitious, poor boy from the wrong-side-of-the-tracks who murders his girlfriend Dorothy (Joanne Woodward) -- making the death look like a suicide -- when her pregnancy eliminates his chances of being accepted by her wealthy family. Her sister Ellen (Virginia Leith Read More

Queen Bee

Actors: Joan Crawford, Barry Sullivan, Betsy Palmer, John Ireland, Lucy Marlow

Synopsis: Queen Bee offers a stinging portrait of a mad, manipulative woman and chronicles her downfall and that of those around her in this dark drama. On first meeting, Eva Phillips (portrayed with delicious viciousness by Joan Crawford) is the epitome of Southern graciousness and charm. She and her Read More

The Big Knife

Actors: Jack Palance, Ida Lupino, Wendell Corey, Rod Steiger, Shelley Winters

Synopsis: Robert Aldrich's screen adaptation of Clifford Odets' stage play reflects the quandary of the writer's later career; the golden boy of the Group Theater in the '30s, when his plays were the toast of Broadway, his talent seemed to wither after a number of years in the screenwriting trenches, and a Read More

The Far Horizons

Actors: Fred MacMurray, Charlton Heston, Donna Reed, Barbara Hale, William Demarest

Synopsis: The Untamed West is the reissue title of the Pine-Thomas production The Far Horizons. This romanticized retelling of the Lewis and Clark expedition of 1803-06 stars Fred MacMurray as Meriwether Lewis and Charlton Heston as Bill Clark. The film doesn't delve much into the real-life animosity Read More

The View from Pompey's Head

Actors: Richard Egan, Dana Wynter, Cameron Mitchell, Sidney Blackmer, Marjorie Rambeau

Synopsis: Miscegenation, that old reliable bugaboo of many a Southern-based novel, is at the center of Hamilton Basso's The View from Pompey's Head. The film version stars Richard Egan as a New York lawyer who returns to his Southern home town to investigate an embezzlement charge. The victim is an ageing Read More

Good Morning, Miss Dove

Actors: Jerry Paris, Jennifer Jones, Robert Stack, Kipp Hamilton, Robert Douglas, Peggy Knudsen, Chuck Connors

Synopsis: This distaff variation of the Goodbye Mr. Chips theme is based on a novel by Frances Gray Patton. While confined to a sickbed, ageing New England schoolteacher Miss Dove (Jennifer Jones) recalls the many students who passed through her classroom. Among her now-grown-up prize pupils are surgeon Tom Read More

The Outcast

Actors: John Derek, Joan Evans, Jim Davis, Catherine McLeod, Ben Cooper

Synopsis: Jet Cosgrave (John Derek) is The Outcast in this big-budget Republic western. Thanks to the chicanery of his crooked uncle Major Cosgrave (Jim Davis), Jet has been cheated out of his father's property and branded a pariah. He spends the rest of the film trying to regain his birthright and clear Read More

Killer Leopard

Synopsis: In this adventure Bomba the Jungle boy helps a Hollywood movie star search the dark, dangerous jungle for her missing husband. As they search, they encounter a man-eating leopard. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Rebel City

Actors: William "Wild Bill" Elliott, Marjorie Lord, Robert Kent, Keith Richards, I. Stanford Jolley

Synopsis: Rebel City is a "B" western with "A" aspirations. Wild Bill Elliot plays gambler Frank Graham, who heads to Kansas in search of his father's murderer. This being 1864, the local military presence is more preoccupied with keeping Southern sympathizers out of the state to worry about Graham's Read More

Jungle Drums of Africa [Serial]

Synopsis: In this adventure, an intrepid explorer and a missionary's daughter embark upon a perilous journey through Africa in order to get the rights to a uranium mine. En route they encounter spies, angry natives, lion attacks, and a brush with voodoo. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

The Mississippi Gambler

Actors: Tyrone Power, Piper Laurie, Julie Adams, John McIntire, Paul Cavanagh, William Reynolds

Synopsis: 1953's The Mississippi Gambler was the third Universal Studios film to bear this title--though with a different plot each time. Tyrone Power plays an all-around adventurer who cuts quite a swath through antebellum New Orleans. In between scenes of gambling, fist-fighting and swordplay, Power woos Piper Laurie Read More

Bomba and the Jungle Girl

Synopsis: Jungle Girl was the 7th entry in Monogram's "Bomba the Jungle Boy" series, based on the pulp novels by Roy Rockwood. This time, Bomba (Johnny Sheffield) tries to find the long-lost remains of his parents. He discovers that the person responsible for mom and dad's deaths was evil native chieftain Martin Wilkins Read More

Night without Sleep

Actors: Linda Darnell, Gary Merrill, Hildegarde Neff, Joyce MacKenzie, June Vincent

Synopsis: Given to violent, unpredictable behavior, composer Richard Morton (Gary Merrill) is an accident waiting to happen. Attempting to drown his problems in drink, Morton awakens with a monumental hangover -- and the nagging belief that he has murdered a woman. Did this, in fact, happen? And was the Read More

The Family Secret

Actors: John Derek, Lee J. Cobb, Jody Lawrance, Erin O'Brien-Moore

Synopsis: A lawyer must make the most difficult decision of his life in this crime drama that begins when the attorney's son inadvertently kills his best friend. No one was around to see what happened and only his family is the wiser. But the death creates a rift in the family. His father wants him to Read More

The Well

Actors: Richard Rober, Gwendolyn Laster, Maide Norman, George Hamilton, Ernest Anderson

Synopsis: The Well is a modest but generally effective plea for racial tolerance. Based loosely on a real incident, the film tells of the disappearance of a little African-American girl in a small, segregated community. Caucasian Claude Packard (Harry Morgan, the nephew of the town's richest man (Barry Kelley Read More

The Harlem Globetrotters

Actors: Thomas Gomez, Dorothy Dandridge, Bill Walker, Angela Clarke, Peter Thompson

Synopsis: The story of the legendary Harlem Globetrotters takes second place to the rise to prominence of All-American athlete Billy Brown (a star Globetrotter, here playing himself). While still in college, Brown drops his education in favor of joining the famed basketball team. Lacking the esprit de corps Read More

Francis Goes to the Races

Actors: Donald O'Connor, Piper Laurie, Cecil Kellaway, Jesse White, Barry Kelley

Synopsis: In this funny sequel to the popular Francis the Talking Mule the loquacious equine and his plucky pal Peter (Donald O'Connor) get a job working on a horse-breeder's ranch and end up saving it from financial ruin when Francis, who has the inside track with the racehorses, provides Peter with names Read More

Peggy

Actors: Diana Lynn, Charles Coburn, Charlotte Greenwood, Barbara Lawrence, Charles Drake

Synopsis: Peggy Brookfield (Diana Lynn) is one of many aspirants for the position of Queen of the annual Tournament of Roses in Pasadena, Calfornia. Also competing is Peggy's sister Susan (Barbara Lawrence). Both girls make the trek from Ohio to Pasadena in the company of their father (Charles Coburn), a Read More

Young Man With a Horn

Actors: Kirk Douglas, Lauren Bacall, Doris Day, Hoagy Carmichael, Juano Hernandez

Synopsis: The life of tragic jazz great Bix Beiderbecke is given the "a clef" treatment in Warner Bros. Young Man With a Horn. Kirk Douglas plays the Beiderbecke character, here named Rick Martin. An ace trumpter player, Martin is one of the few white musicians to flourish in the black-dominated jazz scene Read More

No Way Out

Actors: Richard Widmark, Linda Darnell, Stephen McNally, Sidney Poitier, Mildred Joanne Smith

Synopsis: A pioneering film about racial tensions, No Way Out stars Richard Widmark as a criminal named Ray Biddle, who despises African-Americans. Sidney Poitier (in his screen debut) is the black doctor, Luther Brooks, assigned to take care of the wounded Ray. Dr. Brooks, hired by the police hospital as Read More

Bad Boy

Actors: Lloyd Nolan, Jane Wyatt, Audie Murphy, James Gleason, Stanley Clements

Synopsis: In 1947, Variety Clubs International, a showbiz charitable organization, was responsible for the frothy musical Variety Girl. The organization's 1949 film effort, Monogram's Bad Boy, is a bit on the grimmer side, but not too much so. Most of the film was lensed at the VCI's Boys Club Ranch at Read More

Free for All

Actors: Robert Cummings, Percy Kilbride, Ann Blyth, Ray Collins, Donald Woods

Synopsis: A pleasant comedy with serious undertones, Free for All stars Robert Cummings as erstwhile inventor Christopher Parker. Hoping to secure a patent on his latest invention--a formula that turns water into gasoline--Parker is flummoxed by yards and yards of governmental and bureaucratic red tape. He Read More

Bomba on Panther Island

Actors: Johnny Sheffield, Allene Roberts, Lita Baron, Bill Walker, Charles Irwin

Synopsis: Bomba on Panther Island was the second in Monogram's series based on Roy Rockwood's "Bomba the Jungle Boy" adventure stories. The plot is set in motion when agriculturist Robert Maitland (Henry Lewis) accidentally stirs up restlessness within the native population. The locals assume that Maitland Read More

Larceny

Actors: John Payne, Joan Caulfield, Dan Duryea, Shelley Winters, Dorothy Hart

Synopsis: John Payne is the no-good lowdown rat who tries to capitalize on postwar patriotism and grief. He finagles a war widow (Joan Caulfied) into giving up her savings for a nonexistent memorial. When Payne falls in love with the widow he has pangs of conscience, but he reckons without his con-artist Read More

The Golden Eye

Actors: Roland Winters, Mantan Moreland, Tim Ryan, Bruce Kellogg

Synopsis: The Golden Eye is a Charlie Chan mystery set on a Southwestern ranch. A once-dormant mine mysteriously begins to yield gold, bringing out the worst characteristics of several people involved. When murder enters the picture, Charlie Chan interrupts his vacation and investigates, with the dubious Read More

No Time for Romance

Synopsis: This musical, feature an all-African American cast, was the first musical of its kind to be filmed in color. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Sun Tan Ranch

I Wouldn't Be in Your Shoes