John Archer Filmography

Thursday's Game

Actors: Bob Newhart, Gene Wilder

Synopsis: James L. Brooks' Thursday's Game is a witty made-for-television comedy about two businessmen (Bob Newhart and Gene Wilder) who meet every Thursday night to play poker and discuss their professional and personal problems. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Movie Guide Read More

Ironside: From Hruska With Love

Synopsis: Ironside (Raymond Burr) and his team are assigned to escort Soviet spy Hruska (Diana Hyland) to Mexico to exchange for an American scientist (John Archer) held by the Russians. En route, Ironside and Hruska a kidnapped by a gang of Mexican activists. As Ed (Don Galloway) struggles to stall the Read More

How to Frame a Figg

Actors: Savannah Bentley

Synopsis: In this comedy, a bungling bookkeeper's assistant works in the Dalton city hall and finds himself framed for embezzling by his corrupt superiors. A sweet young woman helps him clear his name. He is also assisted by Leo the computer. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Ironside: A Bullet for Mark

Synopsis: When Mark (Don Mitchell) is shot by an unknown assailant, it is first assumed that the bullet was intended for Ironside (Raymond Burr). When a second shooting proves that Mark was the intended target all along, Ironside tries to figure out who could possibly hate his assistant enough to kill him. Read More

Bonanza: The Crime of Johnny Mule

Actors: Lorne Greene, Michael Landon, Dan Blocker, David Canary, Noah Beery, Jr.

Synopsis: Noah Beery Jr. guest-stars as Johnny Mule, on trial for the murder of David Lowdon. Typically, Hoss Cartwright casts the vote which deadlocks the jury, convinced that there is reasonable doubt regarding Johnny's guilt. But when Johnny breaks out of jail rather than face a retrial, Hoss must come Read More

Bonanza: A World Full of Cannibals

Actors: Lorne Greene, Michael Landon, Dan Blocker, David Canary, James Patterson

Synopsis: Grand Jury witness Charles Ball (James Patterson) is prepared to charge seven men with fraud-not out of any sense of civic duty, but because he has been paid off by Vandeman (Mark Richman a co-conspirator of the seven defendants, and the worst of the lot. With his life in jeopardy, Ball hides out Read More

Bonanza: Ballad of the Ponderosa

Actors: Lorne Greene, Michael Landon, Dan Blocker, Randy Boone, Ann Doran

Synopsis: Fifteen years after Ben Cartwright's testimony sent a man named Preston to the gallows, Preston's son Colter arrives in Virginia City. A self-styled troubador, Colter sings a bitter ballad denouncing Ben and proclaiming his own father's innocence, forcing the authorities to re-open the case. Read More

Perry Mason: The Case of the Candy Queen

Synopsis: The "Candy Queen" is Claire Armstrong (Nancy Gates), who has become quite wealthy after inheriting the famous candy-manufacturing formula that has been in her family for generations. But it is not so sweet when Claire's secretary is poisoned by a box of her boss' candy. And things really go sour Read More

I Saw What You Did

Actors: Joan Crawford, John Ireland, Leif Erickson, Sarah Lane, Andi Garrett

Synopsis: With true William Castle-style flamboyance the advertisements for I Saw What You Did intrigued non-etymologically inclined audiences by warning them that this suspenseful thriller was about uxoricide. He then had some of the theaters where the film was shown equipped with seat belts so frightened Read More

Bonanza: The Dilemma

Actors: Lorne Greene, Michael Landon, Dan Blocker, Tom Tully, Anthony Call

Synopsis: Acting magistrate Ben Cartwright is dismayed when Sundown (Tom Tully), an old reprobate whom he'd helped parole, is suspected of robbing the Virginia City bank. Magnanimously, Sundown offers to tell Ben where the stolen money is in exchange for his freedom. Ben refuses this offer, whereupon the Read More

Apache Rifles

Actors: Audie Murphy, Michael Dante, Linda Lawson, L.Q. Jones

Synopsis: This western presents a more sympathetic view of Native Americans than is usually found in the genre as it tells the tale of the army commander of an Arizona outpost who despises all Indians until he falls in love with a beautiful missionary girl. He must change his ways because one of her parents Read More

Bonanza: The Last Haircut

Actors: Lorne Greene, Pernell Roberts, Michael Landon, Dan Blocker, Perry Lopez

Synopsis: While sitting in a barber's chair, Carlos Rodriguez (Alex Montoya) is killed by impatient customer Duke Miller (Perry Lopez. The only person who could possibly identify Duke as the murderer is Joe Cartwright-who, unfortunately, was unconscious during the tragedy. Feeling responsible for Rodriguez' Read More

Bonanza: The Jackknife

Actors: Lorne Greene, Pernell Roberts, Michael Landon, Dan Blocker, Bethel Leslie

Synopsis: Hoping to catch a band of cattle rustlers, the Cartwrights lay a trap for the bandits, while Adam Cartwright scouts the area for possible thieves. Coming upon the injured Matthew Grant (John Archer), Adam assumes that Grant is one of the rustlers. Knowing that his father Ben intends to shoot first Read More

Maverick: The Devil's Necklace, Part 2

Synopsis: In the conclusion of a two-part story, Bart (Jack Kelly) and crooked peddler Cannonbaugh (John Dehner) have been captured by the same hostile tribe from whom Cannonbaugh had kidnapped the Indian girl Tawney (Sharon Hugueny). In order to secure his release, the peddler convinces the Indian chief to Read More

Maverick: The Devil's Necklace, Part 1

Synopsis: Season Four of Maverick concludes with the series' only two-part episode. In Part One, Bart (Jack Kelly) purchases a wagonload of merchandise sight unseen from silver-tongued peddler Luther Cannonbaugh (John Dehner). Bart's plan to sell the merchandise at a nearby Army post hits a snag when he Read More

The Twilight Zone: Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?

Actors: John Hoyt, Barney Phillips, Jack Elam, Morgan Jones, John Archer

Synopsis: Originally titled "Nobody Here but Us Martians," this darkly comic Twilight Zone episode was a rewrite of (and vast improvement upon) an unfilmed Rod Serling script from 1958, "The Night of the Big Rain." Having spotted what they think is a UFO, two highway patrolmen converge upon a roadside Read More

Blue Hawaii

Actors: Elvis Presley, Joan Blackman, Nancy Walters, Roland Winters, Angela Lansbury

Synopsis: One of Elvis Presley's most successful post-Army vehicles, Blue Hawaii casts Elvis as scion to a Hawaiian pineapple fortune. His snooty mother Angela Lansbury wants Presley to take over the management of the family business, but he'd rather make his own way in the world. He lands a job at a Read More

Perry Mason: The Case of the Red Riding Boots

Synopsis: As upset as she is over the impending divorce of her parents, Ann Farwell (Elen Willard) is even more upset that her rancher father Burt (John Archer) is keeping company with sexy young Rita Conover (Shirley Ballard). When Rita is murdered, Ann thinks that her mom Jill (Linda Leighton) is the Read More

Perry Mason: The Case of the Lucky Legs

Synopsis: Beauty contest winner Marjorie Cluny (Lisabeth Hush) is really steamed when she finds out that her big prize, a Hollywood movie contract, is a hoax. After angrily confronting contest sponsor Frank Patton (Douglas Evans), Marjorie abruptly disappears--not surprising, since Patton has been murdered. Read More

City of Fear

Actors: Vince Edwards, John Archer, Steven Ritch, Patricia Blair, Kelly Thordsen

Synopsis: Fairly fast-paced, with only a lull here and there, this standard thriller by director Irving Lerner was one of his most successful films. It stars (Vince Edwards) as Vince, an escaped convict who grabs a metal vial from the prison's hospital before he makes his break. He thinks it is his ticket Read More

Perry Mason: The Case of the Sardonic Sergeant

Synopsis: Although Army major Frank Lessing (John Archer) left behind a suicide note before his death, Sgt. Joseph Dexter (Paul Picerni) is charged with Lessing's murder. Exercising his legal prerogative, Dexter demands a civilan lawyer to defend him at his Court-Martial--and that's where Perry Mason Read More

Decision at Sundown

Actors: Randolph Scott, John Carroll, Karen Steele, Valerie French, Noah Beery, Jr.

Synopsis: Decision at Sundown was one of several felicitous collaborations between star Randolph Scott and director Budd Boetticher. Scott plays a flint-eyed gunman who rides into a sleepy town to drive out local tough guy John Carroll by sundown. Scott is motivated not by justice but by revenge; years Read More

She Devil

Actors: Albert Dekker, Jack Kelly, Mari Blanchard, John Archer

Synopsis: Hot on the heels of his successful sci-fier Kronos, Kurt Neumann directed the lesser genre entry She Devil. Jack Kelly stars as a doctor who invents a miracle cure for several horrible diseases. Suffering from tuberculosis, Mari Blanchard agrees to test out Kelly's wonder serum. Almost instantly Read More

Ten Thousand Bedrooms

Actors: Dean Martin, Anna Maria Alberghetti, Eva Bartok, Dewey Martin, Walter Slezak

Synopsis: Dean Martin's first solo film after his split with Jerry Lewis was very nearly his last. Dino plays Ray Hunter, a Conrad Hiltonesque playboy hotelier at large in Rome. Taking charge of his latest acquisition -- a huge hotel with the titular 10,000 bedrooms -- Hunter finds himself being pursued by Read More

Affair in Reno

Actors: John Lund, Doris Singleton, John Archer, Angela Greene, Alan Hale, Jr.

Synopsis: Affair in Reno is an uneven Republic adventure from the later phases of the studio's history. Doris Singleton, usually cast as the heroine's next door neighbor or best friend (she's Caroline Appleby in the "Harpo Marx" episode on I Love Lucy), is here seen as a smart-lipped private eye. She comes Read More

Perry Mason: The Case of the Sleepwalker's Niece

Synopsis: Among the reasons that Doris Cole (Hillary Brooke) has left her husband Peter (John McNamara) is that she once awoke to find him standing over her bed, brandishing a knife. Peter insists that he is a chronic sleepwalker and had no idea what he was doing. Even so, when Phillip Kendall (Harry Read More

Rock Around the Clock

Actors: Bill Haley & His Comets, The Platters, Tony Martinez, Freddie Bell, Alan Freed

Synopsis: Two musicians whose dance band is going nowhere happen across a roadhouse in the sticks, where a pack of fun-loving youngsters are dancing to a new and different beat -- the kids call it rock 'n' roll! The band, Bill Haley and his Comets, leaves the two musicians mighty impressed, and they agree Read More

Emergency Hospital

Actors: Margaret Lindsay, Walter Reed, Byron Palmer, Rita Johnson, John Archer

Synopsis: This 62-minute quickie takes place during a single 12-hour shift at Los Angeles' Emergency Hospital. In anticipation of such contemporary TV dramas as Chicago Hope and ER, several subplots are developed at once. Dr. Janet Carey (Margaret Lindsay) is romanced by wealthy Ben Caldwell (Byron Palmer) Read More

No Man's Woman

Synopsis: Carolyn Grant (Marie Windsor), a Monterey gallery owner, is playing the field and seems to have one too many men on her string, including her wealthy estranged husband, the local art critic, and even the fiancé of her shop assistant. So when Carolyn is murdered during an apparent break-in at her Read More

Dragon's Gold

Actors: John Archer, Hillary Brooke

Synopsis: Completed in 1953, Dragon's Gold was released by United Artists early the following year. John Archer (the father of present-day leading lady Anne Archer) stars as an insurance investigator, sent to China to locate a missing client. The official story is that the client stole $7 million from his Read More

The Stars are Singing

Actors: Rosemary Clooney, Anna Maria Alberghetti, Lauritz Melchior, Tom Morton

Synopsis: Not only are stars Anna Maria Alberghetti and Rosemary Clooney singing, but also a medium-sized roster of "special guest stars." Alberghetti plays an illegal Polish alien, while Clooney is a dewey-eyed showbiz aspirant who protects the refugee girl. The two ladies pin their hopes on a TV talent Read More

Rodeo

Actors: Jane Nigh, John Archer, Wallace Ford, Gary Gray, Frances Rafferty

Synopsis: Hard-working leading lady Jane Nigh attains top billing in 1952's Rodeo. It's all about rough-and-ready gal Nancy Cartwright (Nigh) who takes over a travelling rodeo after the manager skips town with the payroll. Under her guidance, the show becomes a money-making proposition. Unfortunately, in Read More

The Big Trees

Actors: Eve Miller, Patrice Wymore, Edgar Buchanan, John Archer

Synopsis: Ever since slipping into Public Domain, The Big Trees has become one of the most accessible and oft-televised of Kirk Douglas' pictures. Douglas plays an unscrupulous lumberjack who covets the land owned by a religious sect. All that's saving him from being the film's main villain is the fact that Read More

A Yank in Indo-China

Actors: John Archer, Douglas Dick, Jean Willes, Maura Murphy, Hayward Soo-Hoo

Synopsis: Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia were still referred to as Indo-China when this Sam Katzman-produced adventure quickie was filmed. John Archer (the father of actress Anne Archer) stars as the titular "yank," a devil-may-care pilot named Mulvaney. Together with his partner Clint Marshall (Douglas Dick) Read More

Sound Off

Actors: Mickey Rooney, Anne James, Sammy White, John Archer, Gordon Jones

Synopsis: Sound Off stars Mickey Rooney as Mike Donnelly, a brash, obnoxious nightclub entertainer who is taken down a peg or two when he's drafted into the army. When not crossing swords with tough sergeant Crockett (Gordon Jones), Mike has to contend with the poison-pen vitriol of columnist Barney Fisher (Arthur Space Read More

Sea Tiger

Actors: John Archer, Marguerite Chapman, Harry Lauter, Ralph Sanford, Marvin Press

Synopsis: Monogram's Sea Tiger stars John Archer as discredited sea captain Ben McGrun, on the outs for supposedly collaborating with the enemy during the war. Blackballed in the U.S., Ben manages to dig up a job in New Guinea as skipper of a rundown freighter owned by heroine Jenine (Marguerite Chapman). Read More

Santa Fe

Actors: Randolph Scott, Janis Carter, Jerome Courtland, Peter Thompson, John Archer

Synopsis: The creative team of producer Harry Joe Brown and star Randolph Scott turned out some of the best westerns of the 1950s, and Santa Fe is no exception. Set in the years following the Civil War, the film casts Scott as Britt Canfield, one of four ex-Confederate brothers who head West to carve out a Read More

Studio One: The Target

My Favorite Spy

Actors: Bob Hope, Hedy Lamarr, Francis L. Sullivan, Arnold Moss, John Archer

Synopsis: Bob Hope is up to his famous nose in danger in this espionage comedy. Second-rate burlesque comic Peanuts White (Hope) is approached by federal agents who think that he's international spy Eric Augustine, to whom Peanuts bears a striking resemblance. When they realize that Peanuts and Eric are two Read More

High Lonesome

Actors: John Drew Barrymore, Chill Wills, John Archer, Lois Butler, Kristine Miller

Synopsis: When there is a sudden outbreak of mysterious murders in the Texas Big Bend country, a young drifter new to the area, played by John Barrymore, is the prime suspect. Captured and held for the murders, the rancher who is holding Barrymore does not realize that he has been set up to take the fall Read More

The Great Jewel Robber

Actors: David Brian, Marjorie Reynolds, Jacqueline De Wit, Alice Talton, John Archer

Synopsis: The Great Jewel Robber is based on the true story of Gerard Dennis, who during a 12-month period managed to steal more than a million dollars' worth of gems. As played by David Brian, Dennis is an incorrigible ladies' man, who uses women to help him pull off his heists. The first of his conquests Read More

Destination Moon

Actors: Warner Anderson, John Archer, Tom Powers, Dick Wesson

Synopsis: Producer George Pal assembled an impressive roster of behind-the-camera talent -- including noted science fiction author Robert Heinlein and artist Chelsey Bonestell -- for this pioneering sci-fi adventure. Scientist Dr. Charles Cargraves (Warner Anderson), former Air Force General Thayer (Tom Powers Read More

Best of the Badmen

Actors: Robert Ryan, Claire Trevor, Jack Buetel, Robert Preston, Walter Brennan

Synopsis: Though RKO Radio Pictures was, in 1951, still faithful to the concept of "B" westerns starring Tim Holt, the studio was more than capable of turning out an "A" oater from time to time. Best of the Badmen stars Robert Ryan as a former Union officer who persuades a fictional vigilante group which Read More

White Heat

Actors: James Cagney, Virginia Mayo, Edmond O'Brien, Steve Cochran, Margaret Wycherly

Synopsis: In later years, James Cagney regarded White Heat with a combination of pride and regret; while satisfied with his own performance, he tended to dismiss the picture as a "cheap melodrama." Seen today, White Heat stands as one of the classic crime films of the 1940s, containing perhaps Cagney's best Read More

Colorado Territory

Actors: Joel McCrea, Virginia Mayo, Dorothy Malone, Henry Hull, John Archer

Synopsis: Though not acknowledged by contemporary reviewers, Colorado Territory is a westernized remake of the 1941 crime drama High Sierra. Raoul Walsh, director of the earlier film, returns to helm the remake, doing a grand job on both occasions. Joel McCrea stars in the Humphrey Bogart role, playing a Read More

The Lost Moment

Actors: Robert Cummings, Susan Hayward, Agnes Moorehead, Joan Lorring, Eduardo Ciannelli

Synopsis: It is said that Henry James' The Aspern Papers were inspired by the romance between Lord Byron and his mistress Claire Claremont, who in her dotage jealously guarded the poems written by Byron in her honor. In the film version of James' novel, The Lost Moment, the Clairemont character, renamed Read More

Guest in the House

Actors: Anne Baxter, Ralph Bellamy, Aline MacMahon, Ruth Warrick, Scott McKay

Synopsis: A Guest in the House is an involving psychological melodrama, well directed and acted, concerning a young woman's obsessive love. Evelyn (Anne Baxter), an emotionally vulnerable and unstable woman, stays at the home of her doctor Dan Proctor (Scott McKay). There she meets and falls in love with Read More

I'll Remember April

Actors: Gloria Jean, Kirby Grant, Milburn Stone, Edward S. Brophy, Samuel S. Hinds

Synopsis: In this drama, a goodie-two-shoes singer tries to save her bankrupt family by getting a radio job. She is soon entangled in a fight between rival radio commentators that culminates in a mysterious murder that she soon solves. Songs include: "Hittin' The Beach Tonite", and "I'll Remember April". Read More

The Eve of St. Mark

Actors: Anne Baxter, William Eythe, Michael O'Shea, Vincent Price, Ruth Nelson

Synopsis: Maxwell Anderson's Broadway play Eve of St. Mark is here brought to the screen by 20th Century-Fox. William Eythe and Anne Baxter are young lovers whose plans for the future are interrupted by the pre-war military draft. Eythe is shipped to the Philippines, where he is trapped on a small and Read More

Roger Touhy, Gangster!

Actors: Preston S. Foster, Victor McLaglen, Lois Andrews, Kent Taylor, Anthony Quinn

Synopsis: Melodramatic gangster action characterizes this tough and freely fictionalized biography of notorious, murderous Chicago mobster Roger Touhy. Set during Prohibition, it centers on Touhy's rise from small time thug to the city's most powerful bootlegger whose empire is rivaled only by that of Al Read More

Shantytown

Actors: Mary Lee, John Archer, Marjorie Lord, Harry Davenport, Billy Gilbert

Synopsis: Though Republic's Shantytown keeps threatening to become a musical, it's essentially a romantic drama built around the thespic talents of new discovery Mary Lee. The star plays Liz Gorey, a hoydenish lass from the wrong part of town who'd rather play sandlot baseball than anything else. In the Read More

Guadalcanal Diary

Actors: Preston S. Foster, Lloyd Nolan, William Bendix, Richard Conte, Anthony Quinn

Synopsis: 20th Century-Fox's 1943 filmization of Richard Tregaskis' best-selling book Guadalcanal Diary does full justice to the spare, lean prose of Tregaskis' eyewitness account. The incidents in the "diary" are tied together by an off-screen narrator into a cohesive storyline. The principal characters Read More

The Purple V

Actors: John Archer, Mary McLeod, Fritz Kortner, Rex Williams, Kurt Katch

Synopsis: Though technically a Republic "B", the 58-minute The Purple V has glossy production values commensurate to a top-of-the-bill A picture. German expatriate Fritz Kortner plays the largest role, as an anti-Nazi schoolmaster who helps a downed American flyer (John Archer) reached Allied lines with Read More

Crash Dive

Actors: Tyrone Power, Anne Baxter, Dana Andrews, James Gleason, Dame May Whitty

Synopsis: Tyrone Power made his last screen appearance before a three-year stretch in the Marines in this World War II drama. Lt. Ward Stewart (Tyrone Power) has served with distinction as the commander of a PT boat, so his uncle, Adm. Bob Stewart (Minor Watson), gives him a new and more challenging Read More

Sherlock Holmes in Washington

Actors: Basil Rathbone, Nigel Bruce, Marjorie Lord, Henry Daniell, George Zucco

Synopsis: One of the silliest and most unbelievable of the Universal Sherlock Holmes series, Sherlock Holmes in Washington is also undeniably one of the most enjoyable. The story gets under way when an Allied spy (an unbilled Gerald Hamer, one of this series' "regulars") smuggles a valuable piece of Read More

Hello, Frisco, Hello

Actors: Alice Faye, John Payne, Jack Oakie, Lynn Bari, Laird Cregar

Synopsis: Though a lesser 20th Century-Fox musical, Hello, Frisco, Hello was one of the studio's most successful wartime efforts. John Payne plays Johnny Cornell, a sharp wheeler-dealer operating on the Barbary Coast at the turn of the century. With the help of his songstress girlfriend Trudy Evans (Alice Read More

Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch

Actors: Fay Bainter, Carolyn Lee, Hugh Herbert, Vera Vague, John Archer

Synopsis: So far as W.C. Fields fans are concerned, Ann Hegan Rice's sentimental 1901 novel Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch was definitively filmed in 1934. After seven reels' worth of a lachrymose plot about the impoverished Mrs. Wiggs (Pauline Lord) holding her large family together while her husband was Read More

Bowery at Midnight

Actors: Bela Lugosi, John Archer, Wanda McKay, Tom Neal, Vince Barnett

Synopsis: Bowery at Midnight casts Bela Lugosi as Professor Brenner, a psychology instructor at New York University (which looks a lot like Berkeley in the exterior shots!). When not enlightening his students -- most of them buxom Monogram starlets -- Brenner is engaged in charitable work, running a mission Read More

Hi, Neighbor

Synopsis: Hi, Neighbor is a Republic "regional," spotlighting many of the 1942 stars of radio's Grand Ole Opry. Jean Parker and John Archer are among the rather mature coeds of a financially strapped college. In order to raise enough funds to remain open in the fall, the kids decide to turn the college into Read More

Police Bullets

Synopsis: In this crime drama, the police endeavor to destroy the oppressive protection racket that has been plaguing their city. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Scattergood Survives a Murder

Actors: Guy Kibbee, John Archer, Maggie Hayes, Wallace Ford, Spencer Charters

Synopsis: The title neatly gives away the ending in RKO Radio's Scattergood Survives a Murder. Guy Kibbee once again stars as storekeeper Scattergood Baines, the sage of the small town of Coldriver. The story gets under way when two reclusive spinsters die under mysterious circumstances. Inasmuch the as the Read More

King of the Zombies

Actors: Joan Woodbury, Dick Purcell, Mantan Moreland,