G.D. SpradlinFilmography

Dick

Actors: Kirsten Dunst, Michelle Williams, Jim Breuer, Will Ferrell, Dave Foley, Dan Hedaya

Synopsis: The mystery of the 18-minute-gap in Richard Nixon's White House tapes -- and how it connects to the previously undocumented involvement of two teenage girls in the Watergate scandal -- is the subject of this political comedy. Betsy Jobs (Kirsten Dunst) and Arlene Lorenzo (Michelle Williams) are Read More

The Long Kiss Goodnight

Actors: Geena Davis, Samuel L. Jackson, Patrick Malahide, Craig Bierko, Brian Cox

Synopsis: An ordinary woman discovers that her life was not always ordinary in this action thriller. Samantha Caine (Geena Davis) is a typical, well-mannered single mother working as a schoolteacher when she isn't looking after her children. Nothing on the surface would seem to be remarkable about Read More

Riders of the Purple Sage

Actors: Ed Harris, Amy Madigan, Henry Thomas, Robin Tunney, Norbert Weisser

Synopsis: Based on a popular Zane Grey novel, this well-wrought western centers on a plucky female rancher who incurs the wrath of the local clergy when she boldly refuses to marry a deacon. To get revenge, the town preacher and his followers begin harassing the woman and her ranch hands until a sympathetic Read More

Nick of Time

Actors: Johnny Depp, Christopher Walken, Charles S. Dutton, Peter Strauss, Roma Maffia

Synopsis: A stranger pulled into a deadly scheme races against time to save his daughter in this thriller. Gene Watson (Johnny Depp) is an accountant who comes to L.A. with his ten-year-old daughter Lynn (Courtney Chase) to attend a funeral. On the street, Gene and Lynn are pulled aside by Mr. Smith (Christopher Walken Read More

Ed Wood

Actors: Johnny Depp, Martin Landau, Sarah Jessica Parker, Patricia Arquette, Bill Murray, Jeffrey Jones

Synopsis: Hollywood visionary Tim Burton pays homage to another Hollywood visionary, albeit a less successful one, in this unusual fictionalized biography. The film follows Wood (Johnny Depp) in his quest for film greatness as he writes and directs turkey after turkey, cross-dresses, and surrounds himself Read More

Canadian Bacon

Actors: Alan Alda, John Candy, Rhea Perlman, Kevin Pollak, Rip Torn

Synopsis: In Michael Moore's political satire, the U.S. president (Alan Alda) decides to wage a cold war against Canada in an attempt to reverse his slipping popularity, and, as a result, he drives a small group of incensed Canadians to take matters into their own hands. Alda is the first president in years Read More

Clifford

Actors: Martin Short, Charles Grodin, Mary Steenburgen, Dabney Coleman, G.D. Spradlin

Synopsis: Versatile Canadian comedian Martin Short plays a 10-year old boy in this comedy aimed at younger audiences. The tale is told in flashback to another little boy. Clifford is a manipulative brat. Clifford really wants to visit Dinosaur World in Los Angeles. Clifford wants to go so badly that he Read More

Telling Secrets

Synopsis: Cybill Shepherd takes a ride into the dark side in this two-part TV movie, purported based on a true story. Shepherd is cast as wealthy and seductive Phoenix socialite Faith Kelsey, who opts not to get mad but to get even when her husband, Terry (Christopher McDonald), enters into an affair with Read More

Carolina Skeletons

Synopsis: Carolina Skeletons is based on a prize-winning novel by David Stout. Louis Gossett Jr. plays a former Green Beret colonel who returns to his home town after thirty years. As a child, Gossett was forced to look on in horror as his brother was tried and executed on a trumped-up murder charge. Now Read More

Intruders

Actors: Richard Crenna, Mare Winningham, Daphne Ashbrook, Susan Blakely, Ben Vereen

Synopsis: Hypnotic regression prompts a pair of sisters to recognize that they've been abducted by aliens. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide Read More

Shoot First: A Cop's Vengeance

Synopsis: This police story chronicles the true story of two partners who started out as best friends and later became the bitterest of enemies when one of them becomes corrupted. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

The War of the Roses

Actors: Michael Douglas, Kathleen Turner, Danny DeVito, Marianne Sägebrecht, Sean Astin

Synopsis: Divorce lawyer Danny De Vito warns his prospective client that the story he's about to tell isn't a pretty one, but the client listens with eager intensity -- as do the folks out there in the movie in the audience. The War of the Roses can best be described as a slapstick tragedy concerning the Read More

Nutcracker: Money, Madness and Murder

Synopsis: The 1986-87 TV season was graced by two "dueling" biopics of Frances Bradshaw, the socialite convicted of coercing her own son into murdering Frances' millionaire father Frank. The first was the four-hour At Mother's Request, starring Stefanie Powers as Frances. The second, and superior adaptation Read More

Houston: The Legend of Texas

Actors: Sam Elliott, Michael Beck, Devon Ericson, Bo Hopkins, Michael Gwynne

Synopsis: Sam Elliot stars as Sam Houston, the visionary who nearly single-handedly forged the state of Texas into a powerful entity in its own right. Refusing to forget the Alamo (as if anyone could), Houston led the military in Texas' rebellion against Mexico. G.D. Spradlin co-stars as President Andrew Read More

Resting Place

Actors: John Lithgow

Synopsis: Set in 1972, The Resting Place stars John Lithgow as an Army major who accompanies the body of a young black lieutenant killed in action to the dead man's Georgia home town. Though the local cemetery is for whites only, the town's resident liberal has paid for a plot for the deceased lieutenant. Lithgow Read More

Dream West

Synopsis: A sprawling adaptation of the same-named novel by David Nevin, the three-part CBS miniseries Dream West starred Richard Chamberlain as colorful, controversial American explorer John Charles Fremont (1813-1890). The story detailed the visionary (and occasionally mercenary) Fremont's lifelong war Read More

Call to Glory

Synopsis: Call to Glory was intended as an ABC miniseries, depicting the turbulent 1960s as seen through the eyes of an Air Force family. A pre-Coach Craig T. Nelson stars as Colonel Raynor Sarnac, with Cindy Pickett as his wife Vanessa and Elizabeth Shue and Gabriel Damon as the Sarnac children. The 2-hour Read More

The Lords of Discipline

Actors: David Keith, Robert Prosky, G.D. Spradlin, Barbara Babcock, Michael Biehn

Synopsis: Adapted from a long novel by Pat Conroy, the story is shortened to focus on a harrowing account of institutional racism in the 1960s American South. David Keith stars as Will McLean, a senior student at the fictional Carolina Military Institute. When the school admits its first black student Read More

Tank

Actors: James Garner, G.D. Spradlin, Shirley Jones, C. Thomas Howell

Synopsis: James Garner plays an Army officer who puts his hobby to practical use in Tank. Zach (James Garner) moves to a new post in a backwoods Georgia town. Accompanying him is his family --his wife LaDonna (Shirley Jones) and his son Billy (C. Thomas Howell)-- and his prize recreational activity --a Read More

Wrong Is Right

Actors: Sean Connery, George Grizzard, Robert Conrad, Katharine Ross, G.D. Spradlin, Leslie Nielsen

Synopsis: Based on Charles McCarry's 1979 novel The Better Angels, Wrong is Right is set in a near future in which violence has become something of a national sport and television news has fallen to tabloid depths (a significantly bigger stretch in 1982, when the film was released.) Star Sean Connery plays Read More

The Formula

Actors: George C. Scott, Marthe Keller, Marlon Brando, John Gielgud, John van Dreelen, G.D. Spradlin, Calvin Jung

Synopsis: With George C. Scott and Marlon Brando heading the cast, The Formula should have been far better than it is. Adapted by Steve Shagan from his own best-selling novel, the film is predicated on the concept that a formula for synthetic fuel had been developed by the Nazis during WW II. In the Read More

The Jayne Mansfield Story

Actors: Loni Anderson, Arnold Schwarzenegger

Synopsis: Loni Anderson plays the 1950s sexpot Jayne Mansfield, who starred in films like The Girl Can't Help It and who married bodybuilder Mickey Hargitay (Arnold Schwarzenegger) before a car accident ended her life. A.K.A. Jayne Mansfield: A Symbol of the '50s. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide Read More

Apocalypse Now

Actors: Martin Sheen, Marlon Brando, Robert Duvall, Frederic Forrest, Dennis Hopper

Synopsis: One of a cluster of late-1970s films about the Vietnam War, Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now adapts the Joseph Conrad novella Heart of Darkness to depict the war as a descent into primal madness. Capt. Willard (Martin Sheen), already on the edge, is assigned to find and deal with AWOL Col. Read More

North Dallas Forty

Actors: Nick Nolte, Mac Davis, Charles Durning, Dabney Coleman, Dayle Haddon

Synopsis: In a society in which major league sporting events have replaced Sunday worship as the religion of choice, North Dallas Forty appears like a desecration at the altar. In this film, directed by Ted Kotcheff (The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz), the National Football League is revealed to be more Read More

Maneaters Are Loose!

Synopsis: Based on a novel by Tom Willis, the made-for-TV Maneaters Are Loose! also bears a surface resemblance to the 1973 TV film Maneater. On the verge of bankruptcy, suicidal animal trainer David Birk (Steve Forrest) releases his "pets" -- two ferocious Bengal tigers -- into the woods near the small Read More

And I Alone Survived

Actors: Blair Brown, Maggie Cooper

Synopsis: This TV movie dramatizes a catastrophic event of April 26, 1976. A plane carrying Lauren Elder (Blair Brown), and two other passengers, crashes into Mount Bradley in the Sierra Nevadas.12,000 miles above sea level, the survivors are tortured by their injuries and battered by the elements. Read More

MacArthur

Actors: Gregory Peck, Ed Flanders, Dan O'Herlihy, Marj Dusay, Sandy Kenyon

Synopsis: Star Gregory Peck went into MacArthur disliking the title character that he was slated to play, but emerged from the experience with a deeper understanding and respect for this complex historical figure. The film is framed in flashback, with an octogenarian General
Douglas MacArthur (Peck) Read More

One on One

Actors: Robby Benson, Annette O'Toole, G.D. Spradlin, Gail Strickland, Melanie Griffith

Synopsis: Robby Benson plays a talented but naive high school basketball star who wins a scholarship to a perfection-driven college. Here he discovers that he's way out of his league, easily outclassed athletically by his opponents and by his own team. In addition, he runs up against the sort of Read More

The Godfather Saga

Actors: Al Pacino, Marlon Brando, Robert De Niro, Diane Keaton, Robert Duvall, James Caan, John Cazale

Synopsis: Originally screened as a mini-series on the NBC television network, this epic-length feature combines the entirety of The Godfather and The Godfather Part II with 15 minutes of outtakes from the two films, recutting the material into chronological order (clarifying the complex structure of The Read More

The November Plan

The Oregon Trail

Synopsis: This western chronicles the travails of a pioneer family as they travel west in search of a new life. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

The Godfather Part II

Actors: Al Pacino, Robert Duvall, Diane Keaton, Robert De Niro, John Cazale, Lee Strasberg

Synopsis: Francis Ford Coppola's legendary continuation and sequel to his landmark 1972 film, The Godfather, parallels the young Vito Corleone's rise with his son Michael's spiritual fall, deepening The Godfather's depiction of the dark side of the American dream. In the early 1900s, the child Vito flees Read More

Adam-12: Harbor Division

Synopsis: Season Six of Adam-12 begins with the first of several "remote" assigments for LAPD mobile officers Jim Reed (Kent McCord) and Pete Malloy ({$Martin Milner]). On this occasion, the two cops are assigned to the city's harbor and waterfront, where they run up against a credit-card forger and a Read More

The Only Way Home

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: Jane Hall, Linda Capetta, Louise Chester, Ross Cummings, Maurice Eaves, Lynn Hickey, Jack Isaacs, George Keyes, Tom Kroutil, Beverly Osborne, Francine Shed, Edgar Springer, Mary Gordon Taft, Stanley Zenor

Synopsis: The Only Way Home, a psychological drama made three years after the release of Easy Rider, attempts to take advantage of the earlier film's inexplicable popularity. It tells the story of two young men who set out on the open road after working a series of dead-end, menial jobs. They encounter a Read More

Sam Hill: Who Killed Mr. Foster?

Synopsis: Ernest Borgnine plays alcoholic vagabond Sam Hill in this pilot film for a potential western detective series. Sam Hill is appointed sheriff of a one-horse town, then promptly becomes mixed up in a murder case. The victim was a preacher who was collecting $10,000 to build a new church; the money Read More

The Hunting Party

Actors: Eugenio Escudero Garcia, Rafael Escudero Garcia, Emilio Rodriques Guiar, Christine Larroude, Stephanie Pieritz, Lilibeth Solison, Bud Strait, Marisa Tovar, Oliver Reed, Candice Bergen, Gene Hackman, Simon Oakland, Mitchell Ryan

Synopsis: This infamously violent British Western stars Gene Hackman as Brandt Ruger, a wealthy rancher who goes away on a hunting trip with a group of friends. While he's gone, a thug named Frank Calder (Oliver Reed) kidnaps Melissa (Candice Bergen), Brandt's wife, under the mistaken impression that she's Read More

Bonanza: The Trouble with Trouble

Actors: Lorne Greene, Michael Landon, Dan Blocker, Gene Evans, G.D. Spradlin

Synopsis: "Trouble" is the apt cognomen for one of the toughest towns in California. Through a fluke, Hoss Cartwright is named temporary sheriff of Trouble, determined to do his duty even though the citizens want nothing to do with law and order. Through methods both persuasive and pugnacious, Hoss ends up Read More

Tora! Tora! Tora!

Actors: Martin Balsam, So Yamamura, Joseph Cotten, Tatsuya Mihashi, E.G. Marshall

Synopsis: This 25-million dollar epic collaboration accurately recreates the events that led to the Japanese attack on the American naval base during World War II. With Germany's invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939, the wheels are set in motion by Japan to plan the attack. After internal differences in Read More

Zabriskie Point

Actors: Mark Frechette, Daria Halprin, Rod Taylor

Synopsis: Zabriskie Point, director Michelangelo Antonioni's only American film, is an unusual, visually stunning examination of youthful rebellion against the Establishment. The film, initially presented in quasi-documentary style, presents a group of college activists discussing key issues of their Read More

Monte Walsh

Actors: Lee Marvin, Jeanne Moreau, Jack Palance, Mitchell Ryan, Jim Davis

Synopsis: Monte Walsh (Lee Marvin ) and his pal Chet Rollins (Jack Palance) are two over the hill cowboys seeking work in the town of Harmony, Arizona in the final days of the Old West. They take a job at the ranch of Cal Brennan (Jim Davis) and meet an old friend Shorty (Mitch Ryan). Monte goes off to Read More

Hell's Angels '69

Actors: Tom Stern, Jeremy Slate, Conny van Dyke, Steve Sandor

Synopsis: Chuck (Tom Stern) and his brother Wes (Jeremy Slate) are the wealthy siblings who plan to rob Caesar's Palace more for fun than profit. They ingratiate themselves to the Hell's Angels of Oakland, lead by Sonny Barger (himself). The brothers plan to use the gang as a diversion during the staging of Read More

Dial Hot Line

Synopsis: Vincent Edwards, four years removed from Ben Casey, enters another branch of the healing profession in the made-for-TV Dial Hot Line. Edwards plays Matt Lincoln, a community psychiatrist who is patched into a "hot line" telephone for those troubled souls unable to afford therapy. This TV movie Read More

Number One

Actors: Charlton Heston, Jessica Walter, Bruce Dern, John Randolph, Diana Muldaur

Synopsis: Ron Catlin (Charleton Heston) is a pro-football player who realizes his playing skills have eroded. His actions on the field have slowed to the point where retirement looms. His wife Julie (Jessica Walter) has her own fashion-designing business and his former teammate Richie (Bruce Dern) has Read More

Bonanza: Different Pines, Same Wind

Actors: Lorne Greene, Michael Landon, Dan Blocker, David Canary, Irene Tedrow

Synopsis: Bonanza inaugurated its tenth season on September 15, 1968, with the episode titled "Same Pines, Different Winds." Irene Tedrow is cast as tenacious widow Carrie Picket, who owns a parcel of land which she calls "her piney woods." Because her late husband never filed a legal claim for the Read More

Will Penny

Actors: Charlton Heston, Joan Hackett, Donald Pleasence, Lee Majors, Bruce Dern

Synopsis: Rambling along at its own measured pace, Will Penny is a vivid western character study, completely dominated by the rapport between stars (Charlton Heston) and (Joan Hackett). Heston plays Will Penny, an aging and impoverished cowboy. With his cohorts Blue (Lee Majors) and Dutchy (Anthony Zerbe) Read More