James FranciscusFilmography

Secret Weapons

Synopsis: In this exploitation film, the KGB trains a sexy young spy-trainee to become an "all-American" temptress capable of seducing the secrets out of many US officials and businessmen. She will then use the resulting information to blackmail these men into serving her government. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Read More

Dario Argento's World of Horror

Actors: Dario Argento

Synopsis: This documentary showcases the career of Italian horror-film director Dario Argento. Included are clips from his films and behind-the-scenes footage from all of his films from the 1970s The Bird with the Crystal Plumage to the 1980s Creepers. Argento himself is interviewed several times during the Read More

Veliki Transport

Great White

Actors: James Franciscus, Vic Morrow, Joshua Sinclair, Gian Carlo Prete

Synopsis: A quaint little beach town is terrorized by a bloodthirsty great white shark in the infamous Italian Jaws rip-off The Last Shark. As usual, the powers that be turn a blind eye to it for tourist reasons, although eventually even they cannot escape the ocean of blood at their doorstep. Cue novelist Read More

Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy

Actors: Donald Moffat, Claudette Nevins, Jaclyn Smith, Rod Taylor, James Franciscus

Synopsis: Jaclyn Smith trades the flimsy costumes of Charlie's Angels for the pink pillbox hat and white gloves of the former First Lady of the Land in the made-for-TV Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy. The daughter of socialites "Black Jack" Bouvier (Rod Taylor) and Janet Lee (Claudette Nevins), Jackie spends her Read More

Butterfly

Actors: Stacy Keach, Pia Zadora, Orson Welles, Lois Nettleton, Edward Albert

Synopsis: Pia Zadora stars in an over-cooked melodramatic adaptation of the 1946 James M. Cain novel that is every bit as smutty and sleazy as Zadora's vampish character of Kady. The location of the novel has been switched from Appalachia to the barren lands of Arizona and Nevada in 1937. Stacy Keach plays Read More

The Hunter

Actors: Steve McQueen, Eli Wallach, Kathryn Harrold, LeVar Burton, Ben Johnson

Synopsis: Steve McQueen's last film concerns a modern day bounty hunter who searches for bail jumpers. Based on real life bounty hunter Ralph "Papa" Thorson, the film details his exciting life, traveling from one city to another, trying to track down fugitives and continually risking his life in the Read More

Nightkill

Actors: Robert Mitchum, Jaclyn Smith

Synopsis: Jaclyn Smith stars as a devious adulterer who hatches a plot to murder her millionaire husband while her lover assumes his identity. Robert Mitchum plays the investigator assigned to the case. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide Read More

When Time Ran Out

Actors: Paul Newman, Jacqueline Bisset, William Holden, Edward Albert, Red Buttons

Synopsis: After producer Irwin Allen highlighted the dangers of fire in the Towering Inferno and the dangers of water in the Poseidon Adventure, he is back to fire again but this time it is within the earth, at least for awhile. This fairly routine disaster film is set on a resort island with a volcano that Read More

Concorde Affaire '79

Synopsis: This half-baked but entertaining disaster film (not to be confused with America's The Concorde - Airport '79) deals with the attempts of an evil corporation to sabotage the Concorde before it hurts their own airline business. James Franciscus plays a reporter who teams up with Mimsy Farmer Read More

Secrets of Three Hungry Wives

Actors: John Reilly

Synopsis: No, the "three hungry wives" in this made-for-TV movie aren't in search of a square meal. It's sex they're after, though much is talked about and little is shown. The eponymous wives are played by Jessica Walter, Gretchen Corbett and Heather MacRae; their respective husbands are Richard Roat Read More

Harold Robbins' The Pirate

Actors: Anne Archer, Olivia Hussey, Franco Nero

Synopsis: This four-hour TV movie is one more of novelist Harold Robbins' "guess who everyone is supposed to really be?" wallowfests (with nary a Jolly Roger in sight). The "pirate" is Baydr (Franco Nero), an anti-Semitic Lebanese oil sheik, who, unbeknownst to himself, is actually an Israel-born Jew Read More

Puzzle

Actors: Wendy Hughes, James Franciscus

Synopsis: Made for Australian television, The Puzzle stars James Franciscus as an ex-tennis pro, turned adventurer with an archeological bent (we'd say "shades of Indiana Jones " except that this film was completed three years before Raiders of the Lost Ark). Right now, Franciscus in on the trail of an urn Read More

Good Guys Wear Black

Actors: Chuck Norris, Anne Archer, Lloyd Haynes, James Franciscus, Dana Andrews

Synopsis: Chuck Norris plays John T. Booker, a Vietnam vet who finds out that several of his army buddies lost their lives in a mission that was intended to fail. Seeking answers, Booker quits his school-teaching job and tracks down the surviving members of his unit. One by one, his old friends are being Read More

The Greek Tycoon

Actors: Anthony Quinn, Jacqueline Bisset, Raf Vallone, Edward Albert, James Franciscus

Synopsis: The producers of The Greek Tycoon insisted that their film was not based on any "actual persons, living or dead." Yeh, right. Anthony Quinn stars as Greek shipping-magnate Theo Tomassis, who becomes the second husband of socialite Liz Cassidy (Jacqueline Bisset). It seems that Liz is the widow of Read More

Killer Fish

Actors: Lee Majors, Karen Black, James Franciscus, Margaux Hemingway, Marisa Berenson

Synopsis: In this violent, low-budget adventure, a jewel thief hides his loot in the bottom of a Brazilian lake filled with hungry piranhas. Later his avaricious gang members try to retrieve the treasure but unfortunately tend to get graphically devoured each time one of them enters the water. Putting the Read More

City on Fire

Actors: Barry Newman, Susan Clark, Shelley Winters, Leslie Nielsen, James Franciscus

Synopsis: City on Fire, a disaster thriller filmed in Canada with dialogue in both French and English, tells the story of an oil-refinery explosion in a small town. Dr. Frank Whitman (Barry Newman) and his co-workers, including Nurse Harper (Shelley Winters) and Dr. Matwick (Donald Pilon), fight bravely to Read More

The Hunter

Actors: James Franciscus

The Amazing Dobermans

Actors: Fred Astaire, James Franciscus, Barbara Eden, Jack Carter, Billy Barty

Synopsis: A circus goes to the dogs (or, more accurately, the dogs come to the circus) in this light-hearted action-adventure tale. Lucky Vincent (James Franciscus) is a gambler who, after a stretch of bad luck, owes over $12,000 to mobster Solly Kramer (Jack Carter). Lucky is rescued from Solly's goons by Read More

The Man Inside

Synopsis: An undercover Canadian agent must get into a Toronto drug ring, but when he's successful, his morals are tested by the opportunity to cut out with $2 million in cash. ~ John Bush, All Movie Guide Read More

One of My Wives Is Missing

Actors: Jack Klugman, James Franciscus

Synopsis: Vacationing in a small town (actually Lake Arrowhead, California), a frantic James Franciscus shows up at the local police station, declaring that his wife has disappeared. Franciscus imperiously demands that easygoing police inspector Jack Klugman drop everything and find his missing spouse. Read More

The Trial of Chaplain Jensen

Synopsis: The Trial of Chaplain Jensen is a fact-based TV movie starring James Franciscus. As Navy chaplain Jensen, Franciscus portrays the only US navy officer ever court-martialed on the charge of adultery. Lynda Day George is the woman who points the accusing finger at Jensen, while Joanna Miles plays Read More

The Dream Makers

Actors: Mickey Jones, Kenny Rogers, James Franciscus

Synopsis: James Franciscus stars as a university professor with an eye on bigger things. Using his inherent promotional know-how, he launches a career in the record industry, eventually operating his own top-selling label. To insure that the local stations will run his artists' recordings, Franciscus Read More

Aloha Means Goodbye

Actors: Sally Struthers, James Franciscus, Henry Darrow, Frank Marth

Synopsis: Long before Sally Struthers began promoting mail-order college degrees, she starred in this made-for-TV melodrama. Struthers plays Sara Moore, a young woman suffering from a rare blood disease. There's a slim possibility of her survival, but anxious surgeon Dr. Lawrence Maddox (James Franciscus) Read More

The Red Pony

Crew: Producer

Actors: Henry Fonda, Clint Howard, Maureen O'Hara

Synopsis: The Red Pony is a 1973 TV-movie adaptation of John Steinbeck's novel, previously filmed for theatrical release in 1949. Henry Fonda and Maureen O'Hara star as a turn-of-century farming couple. Clint Howard plays their 10-year-old son, a rebellious lad constantly at odds with his taciturn father. Read More

Jonathan Livingston Seagull

Actors: Juliet Mills, James Franciscus

Synopsis: Hal Bartlett co-wrote and directed this film curiosity, based on Richard Bach's best-selling fable, featuring an overbearing music score by Neil Diamond. The story begins as a flock of seagulls are pecking at the garbage left by a boat that has dumped a bunch of fish heads in the surf. One of the Read More

The 500 Pound Jerk

Synopsis: Alex Karras stars as a naive backwoods strong-man, whose acute ability to lift weights brings him to the attention of a slick sports promoter (James Franciscus). Karras is carefully groomed to compete in the 1972 Olympics; Franciscus gives him explicit instructions to flex his muscles, tote his Read More

The Cat O' Nine Tails

Actors: Vittorio Congia, Emilio Marchesini

Synopsis: In this flawed mystery-thriller from flamboyant horror director Dario Argento, Karl Malden portrays a blind man who joins forces with a reporter (James Franciscus) to catch a killer with an extra chromosome. Much of the action occurs at a research hospital, where the killer seeks to conceal the Read More

Longstreet

Synopsis: Longstreet was the pilot for one of the better "gimmick" detective series of the 1970s. The title role of Michael Longstreet is played by James Franciscus. Longstreet is a New Orleans insurance investigator who has been permanently blinded in a mysterious bombing which has killed his wife. As he Read More

Night Slaves

Synopsis: James Franciscus and his wife Lee Grant take a vacation in a faraway, fogbound village. Before we get a chance to ask "Why not go to the beach?" Franciscus awakens suddenly in the middle of the night to see several of the villagers compliantly boarding trucks; among these glassy-eyed passengers is Read More

Beneath the Planet of the Apes

Actors: James Franciscus, Kim Hunter, Maurice Evans, Linda Harrison, Paul Richards, Charlton Heston

Synopsis: Sometime after the events of the first Planet of the Apes, the climax of which is repeated frame for frame at the beginning of this sequel, another set of astronauts arrives on the far-future Earth that is the titular planet. This time it's Brent (James Franciscus) who survives the crash landing Read More

Hell Boats

Synopsis: In this WW II actioner set in 1942, an American officer serving with the British Royal Navy attempts to blockade Malta and then destroy a German arsenal located in Sicily. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Marooned

Actors: Gregory Peck, Richard Crenna, David Janssen, James Franciscus, Gene Hackman, Lee Grant

Synopsis: In this tense and suspenseful science fiction thriller, Charles Keith (Gregory Peck) is the ground commander in Houston who monitors the space mission of three astronauts. Buzz (Gene Hackman), Jim (Richard Crenna) and Clayton (James Franciscus) have their lives put in jeopardy when the oxygen Read More

The Valley of Gwangi

Actors: James Franciscus, Gila Golan, Richard Carlson, Laurence Naismith

Synopsis: When a traveling Wild West show comes to town, the natives are frightened by a one-foot-tall horse that is believed to be a bad omen. The superstitious natives try to return the horse to The Valley of Gwangi to avert disaster. Tuck (James Franciscus) and T.J. (Gila Golan) try to help archaeologist Read More

Trial Run

Synopsis: Made for television, Trial Run is a slick, cynical tale of blind ambition. James Franciscus plays a young attorney who'll do anything to reach the top. To this end, Franciscus uses not only his employer Leslie Nielsen, but his faithful secretary Diane Baker, who has long sacrificed her own Read More

Heidi

Crew: Producer

Actors: Maximilian Schell, Jean Simmons

Synopsis: Made-for-television adaptation of Johanna Spyri's classic children's tale about an orphaned girl who goes to live with her grandfather in the Swiss Alps. ~ Nicole Gagne, All Movie Guide Read More

Shadow Over Elveron

Synopsis: Elveron is one of those corruption-ridden towns just ripe for reforming by idealists like doctor James Franciscus. He has tried to conduct business honestly, while all the powerful folks around him have pulled strings and paid off authorities to keep certain awkward business and personal deals Read More

The F.B.I.: Out of Control

Synopsis: Working undercover on an oil field in Texas, Colby (William Reynolds) is seriously injured in an assault that costs the life of another agent. Investigating, Erskine (Efrem Zimbalist Jr.) runs up against a formidable foe in the person of powerful oilman Mitchell Flynn (James Franciscus). Having Read More

Snow Treasure

Actors: James Franciscus, Ilona Rodgers, Paul Austad, Raoul Oyen, Randi Borch

Synopsis: During WW II, courageous Norwegian children defied the Nazi invaders and risked certain death to smuggle gold out of their country. This children's adventure tells their true story which centers on 12-year-old Anstad who sees his countrymen hiding gold in a cave shortly after the Nazi invasion. Read More

The F.B.I.: Force of Nature

Synopsis: Erskine (Efrem Zimbalist Jr.) and Rhodes (Stephen Brooks) head to the Florida Keys, where Gloria Burnett is hiding in an abandoned house. Gloria is the only person who can identify her husband Charles (James Franciscus) and his accomplice Allen Cole (Hunt Powers) as the masterminds behind a Read More

Combat!: Decision

Synopsis: James Franciscus guest stars as PFC Charles Harris, a demolitions expert assigned to Saunders' squad for a mission to blow up a German communications center. As the mission progresses, Saunders can't help but wonder why Harris, a former doctor, would give up the medical profession and dedicate Read More

Youngblood Hawke

Actors: James Franciscus, Suzanne Pleshette, Geneviève Page, Eva Gabor, Mary Astor, Edward Andrews, Werner Klemperer

Synopsis: Youngblood Hawke (James Franciscus) is a Kentucky truck driver who comes to New York City to make it as a writer. He meets editor Jeanne Green (Suzanne Pleshette), who sees talent in Hawke's work. Jeanne falls for the handsome Kentuckian and helps him put together a book deal. His first book is Read More

Miracle of the White Stallions

Actors: Robert Taylor, Lilli Palmer, Curd Jürgens, Eddie Albert, James Franciscus

Synopsis: In a rather confusing and slow-paced manner, this wartime drama about a real-life dilemma is meant to highlight the dedication of Colonel Alois Podhajsky (Robert Taylor), the instructor at a prestigious Vienna equestrian school. The colonel is in charge of the safety and health of the royal Read More

Alfred Hitchcock Presents: Summer Shade

Synopsis: In modern-day Salem, MA, Phyllis and Ben Kendall (Julie Adams, James Franciscus) purchase an old house from local eccentric Amelia Gastell (Charity Grace). The location of the house is perfect in every respect save one -- there are no playmates in the neighborhood for the Kendalls' 9-year-old Read More

The Outsider

Actors: Tony Curtis, James Franciscus, Bruce Bennett, Gregory Walcott, Vivian Nathan

Synopsis: This is an uneven melodrama on the tragic life of Pima Indian Ira Hayes, one of the men who raised the U.S. flag on Iwo Jima. The story picks up with Hayes (Tony Curtis) leaving his reservation in Arizona to join the Marines, enter boot camp, and start to adapt to the life of a Marine. Hayes Read More

Alfred Hitchcock Presents: Forty Detectives Later

Synopsis: It has been ten years since the wife of Munro Dean (George Mitchell) was murdered, and during this period Munro has hired 39 detectives in a futile effort to track down and destroy his wife's killer, an elusive gent named Otto (Jack Weston). The 40th detective turns out to be a young man named Read More

I Passed for White

Actors: Sonya Wilde, James Franciscus, Pat Michon, Elizabeth Council, Griffin Crafts

Synopsis: In this romantic melodrama, a light-skinned black woman abandons her family to pretend that she is white. She soon marries a white wealthy man, but does not tell him the truth. Eventually the pressures caused by her deception cause her to breakdown. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

The Twilight Zone: Judgment Night

Actors: Nehemiah Persoff, Ben Wright, Patrick Macnee, James Franciscus, Hugh Sanders

Synopsis: Nehemiah Persoff stars as Lanser, who inexplicably finds himself aboard a British ship in a fogbound sea in the year 1942. Somehow, some way, Lanser knows that the ship and its passengers are doomed to a watery grave, but no one will believe him. As it turns out, Lanser has "inside information" Read More

The Mugger

Actors: Kent Smith, Nan Martin, James Franciscus, Stefan Schnabel

Synopsis: In this crime drama, a police psychiatrist sets out to capture a whacko purse snatcher who has been scarring the faces of his female victims as he makes off with their bags. When a girl is killed, all evidence points to the mugger, but when he is captured he fervently denies it. The police then Read More

Have Gun, Will Travel: Deliver the Body

Synopsis: In Nevada, Paladin (Richard Boone) is hired to guard Tom Nelson (James Franciscus), who is accused of killing a local sheriff. Upon learning that Nelson had previously been acquitted of another murder charge, and sensing the town's hositility against the prisoner, Paladin dedicates himself to Read More

Naked City: Season 01

Actors: John P. McIntyre, Horace McMahon, James Franciscus, Harry Bellaver, Suzanne Storrs

Synopsis: The location-filmed cop drama Naked City was seen in a half-hour format during its inaugural season, which originally ran on ABC from 1958 to 1959. John McIntire stars in the earliest episodes as wizened veteran NYPD lieutenant Dan Muldoon, the role played by Barry Fitzgerald in the 1948 film Read More

Naked City [TV Series]

Actors: John P. McIntyre, Horace McMahon, James Franciscus, Paul Burke, Harry Bellaver

Synopsis: "There are eight million stories in The Naked City...This has been one of them." These words were intoned by producer Mark Hellinger at the conclusion of The Naked City, a 1947 detective film lensed in its entirety in New York City (quite an innovation in those Hollywood-dominated years). The same Read More

Four Boys and a Gun

Actors: Frank Sutton, James Franciscus, Otto Hulett

Synopsis: Long before he became entrenched in the public's consciousness as Sgt. Carter on Gomer Pyle USMC, Frank Sutton topped the cast of the minor juvenile-delinquent melodrama Four Boys and a Gun. Sutton plays Ollie Denker, a runner for a gang of bookies who gets into deep doo-doo when he rips off his Read More