John Bleifer Filmography

Highway to Heaven: Hello and Farewell

Synopsis: The 2-hour pilot for Michael Landon's celestial TV weekly Highway to Heaven was first shown on September 19, 1984. Landon stars as Jonathan Smith, a novice Guardian Angel sent to earth to do good deeds. Jonathan is far from perfect, as he proves on his first assignment, wherein he tries to save a Read More

Highway to Heaven: Highway to Heaven, Part 1

Synopsis: Having gone to his Heavenly reward in 1948, lawyer Arthur Morton is "reborn" in 1987 as Jonathan Smith (Michael Landon), a probationary angel who in order to earn his wings must return to Earth and offer help and support to unfortunate mortals. In this debut episode of Highway to Heaven, Jonathan Read More

Highway to Heaven: Highway to Heaven, Part 2

Synopsis: Originally broadcast as a two-hour TV movie, this opening episode of Highway to Heaven has since been divided into two one-hour installments for syndication. In part two, probationary angel Jonathan Smith (Michael Landon), adopting the guise of an earthly handyman, continues in his efforts to Read More

Eleanor: First Lady of the World

Synopsis: Jean Stapleton stars as Eleanor Roosevelt in this made-for-TV biography, first telecast May 12, 1982. The film recounts Mrs. Roosevelt's life after the 1945 death of her husband, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. At the request of new president Truman, Eleanor serves as a United Nations Read More

Little House on the Prairie: The Craftsman

Actors: Matthew Laborteaux

Synopsis: Hoping to contribute to the Ingalls' family coffers, young Albert (Matthew Laborteaux) becomes an apprentice to old Isaac Singerman (John Bleifer), Walnut Grove's coffin maker. Before long, Albert is subjected to the taunts of his classmates, who maliciously label him a "Jew lover." As it turns Read More

The Frisco Kid

Actors: Gene Wilder, Harrison Ford, Ramon Bieri, Val Bisoglio, William Smith, George DiCenzo

Synopsis: Robert Aldrich returns to the western-spoof genre he'd previously explored in Four for Texas with The Frisco Kid. Gene Wilder plays Polish rabbi Avram Belinsky, who intends to set up a congregation in San Francisco. Eminently unsuited for life in the Old West, poor Avram is victimized by everyone Read More

Heavy Traffic

Synopsis: Heavy Traffic represents a follow-up to animator Ralph Bakshi's first feature film, Fritz the Cat (1972). The central character is Michael, the ingenuous son of an Italian father and Jewish mother. An aspiring cartoonist, Michael leaves home in a huff and outrages his family by conducting an Read More

Adam-12: Extortion

Synopsis: Moving to a new Wednesday-night slot for its fourth season, Adam-12 wastes no time getting down to business. This time, Officers Jim Reed (Kent McCord) and Pete Malloy (Martin Milner) are working the waterfront beat, where a nasty gang of extortionists specializes in targeting elderly Jewish Read More

The Loved One

Actors: Robert Morse, Anjanette Comer, Jonathan Winters, Rod Steiger, James Coburn, Dana Andrews

Synopsis: The satire in Evelyn Waugh's darkly comic novel The Loved One was originally double-edged. The book was not only an attack on the Southern California funeral industry but also a lampoon of Hollywood's "British colony," those clannish, cricket-playing English actors of years gone by who bemoaned Read More

If a Man Answers

Actors: Sandra Dee, Bobby Darin, Micheline Presle, John Lund, Cesar Romero

Synopsis: This lightweight, nearly zero-gravity comedy by director Henry Levin relies on a novel by a male writer and a script by another man to come up with a nearly offensive story (in these more enlightened times) about how a woman can lie, manipulate, and generally deceive her husband, all in the "art" Read More

The Hook

Actors: Kirk Douglas, Nick Adams, Enrique Magalona, Nehemiah Persoff

Synopsis: Only slightly murky around the edges of character delineation, this wartime drama by George Seaton focuses on three American soldiers on board a neutral Finnish vessel during the Korean War. Seasoned veteran Sgt. P.J. Briscoe (Kirk Douglas) has had no more than the normal difficulties when being Read More

The George Raft Story

Actors: Ray Danton, Jayne Mansfield, Julie London, Barrie Chase, Neville Brand, Barbara Nichols

Synopsis: This is an interesting biography of the actor known for his gangster roles in films, and though Ray Danton plays the part of George Raft without looking like him in the least, he is still convincing in his mannerisms. Without getting into any in-depth plumbing of the actor's life, the story begins Read More

Ice Palace

Actors: Richard Burton, Robert Ryan, Carolyn Jones, Martha Hyer, Jim Backus

Synopsis: Based on the Edna Ferber novel, this engrossing period piece covers the triumphs, tragedies, loves, and sorrows of a few generations of Alaskan settlers between the first World War and the granting of statehood in 1959. Zeb (Richard Burton) is a local despot whose tough personality dominates the Read More

The Gene Krupa Story

Actors: Gene Krupa, Sal Mineo, Susan Kohner, James Darren, Susan Oliver, Yvonne Craig, Shelly Manne, Buddy Lester

Synopsis: Sal Mineo, who'd previously registered well as the lead in the TV drama Drummer Man, essays a strikingly similar role in The Gene Krupa Story. The film details Krupa's troubled home life: (he wanted to be a musician; his father wanted him to become a priest), his rise to fame as drummer for the Benny Goodman Read More

Perry Mason: The Case of the Lucky Loser

Synopsis: Although the trial of young Theodore Balfour (Tyler MacDuff), who was accused of killing his father Lawrence (Bruce Bennett), had ended in a hung jury, Theodore's lawyer had advised him to plead to the lesser charge of involuntary manslaughter. Outraged that Theodore seems to have been railroaded Read More

Chain of Evidence

Actors: Don Haggerty, Claudia Barrett, Tina Carver

Synopsis: Former "Henry Aldrich" James Lydon is cast against type as a mean-spirited reform school alumnus in Chain of Evidence. Despite the boy's volatile temper, police lieutenant Bill Elliot is convinced that Lydon is a good kid underneath. Elliot's faith in his fellow man is sorely tested when Lydon is Read More

The 27th Day

Actors: Gene Barry, Valerie French, George Voskovec, Arnold Moss, Stefan Schnabel

Synopsis: A locked-in-the-fifties science fiction film, The 27th Day begins with five different people from five different countries suddenly disappearing from view. They have been gently abducted by the agent (Arnold Moss) of a faraway dying planet, who gives each of the five earthlings a "killing capsule" Read More

Crashing Las Vegas

Synopsis: In this entry in the Bowery Boys series, one of the members suddenly finds that he can predict winning numbers after he suffers an electrical shock. He and the boys take this special talent and use it on a TV game show. They win a trip to Las Vegas. Unfortunately, his winning streak attracts the Read More

Spy Chasers

Actors: Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall, Bernard Gorcey, Leon Askin, Sig Rumann, Veola Vonn, Lisa Davis

Synopsis: The Bowery Boys find themselves up to their unwashed necks in international intrigue when they agree to help the exiled king (Sig Ruman) and the lovely princess (Lisa Davis) of the mythical country of Truania. It seems that sweet shop owner Louie (Bernard Gorcey) was born in Truania and is still Read More

Fighting Trouble

Synopsis: In this entry in the long running Bowery Boys series, the boys begin working as free-lance photographers. Trouble ensues when they take a picture of a crime lord. They are in such a rush to get the picture back to the paper they work for that they accidently destroy the negative. To get another Read More

I Love Lucy: Lucy Gets a Paris Gown

Actors: John Bleifer

Synopsis: When Ricky (Desi Arnaz) refuses to buy Lucy (Lucille Ball) an original French designer gown, she goes on a hunger strike. Terrified that his spouse will starve to death, Ricky finally relents -- only to discover that, throughout Lucy's "strike," Ethel (Vivian Vance) has been smuggling food to her. Read More

White Lightning

Actors: Stanley Clements, Steve Brodie, Gloria Blondell, Barbara Bestar, Lyle Talbot

Synopsis: No relation to the 1973 Burt Reynolds vehicle of the same name, White Lightning is a passable programmer about a champion ice hockey team. Stanley Clements plays Mike, an arrogant young hockey player who immediately alienates his new teammates. Team manager Jack (Steve Brodie) tries to convince Read More

The Juggler

Actors: Kirk Douglas, Milly Vitale, Paul Stewart, Alf Kjellin

Synopsis: A man finds himself running from both the police and his own troubling memories in this drama. Hans Muller (Kirk Douglas), a German Jew, was once a well-known juggler before he was committed to a concentration camp; Muller survived, but his wife and children did not. After the war, Muller and many Read More

Red Snow

Actors: Guy Madison, Ray Mala, Carole Mathews, Gloria Saunders, Robert Peyton

Synopsis: Red Snow utilizes several reels of documentary footage around which to construct a fictional Cold War plotline. Guy Madison stars as a US pilot, sent to the Bering Straits to investigate suspicious activities. Madison teams with Eskimo soldier Ray Mala to discover that the rascally Russians--only Read More

Bowery Battalion

Actors: Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall, Donald MacBride, Virginia Hewitt, Russell Hicks

Synopsis: Mistakenly believing that America has gone to war, the Bowery Boys (Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall, Billy Benedict, et al.) join the army. Our heroes get off to a bad start when they crash a party at the Officer's Club, a breach of protocol that earns them the undying enmity of Sergeant Frisbie (the Read More

State Penitentiary

Actors: Warner Baxter, Onslow Stevens, Karin [Katharine] Booth, Robert Shayne, Richard Benedict

Synopsis: Warner Baxter made his final screen appearance in Columbia's State Penitentiary. Baxter plays airplane engineer Roger Manners, falsely accused of embezzling nearly half a million dollars from his company. Sent to prison, Manners escapes, hoping to track down the real culprit, his ex-partner Read More

The Jackpot

Actors: James Stewart, Barbara Hale, Natalie Wood, James Gleason, Fred Clark, Patricia Medina, Alan Mowbray

Synopsis: The Jackpot is a generally pleasing satire of quiz programs. James Stewart stars as Bill Lawrence, an average Joe who picks up the phone one day, answers a simple question, and suddenly finds himself the recipient of a radio quiz-show jackpot. Tons of prizes are shipped to Lawrence's house, to the Read More

Bride of Vengeance

Actors: Paulette Goddard, John Lund, MacDonald Carey, Albert Dekker, Raymond Burr, John Sutton

Synopsis: After Ray Milland turned down the leading role in Bride of Vengeance, Paramount contractee John Lund stepped into the role of Alfonso D'Este, second husband of the notorious Lucrezia Borgia. The ruthlessly ambitious Lucrezia is played by Paulette Goddard, who seems ill at ease in the role. MacDonald Carey Read More

The Enchanted Valley

Actors: Alan Curtis, Anne Gwynne, Donn Gift, Joseph Crehan

Synopsis: The peaceful, solitary existence of a crippled lad and his grandfather living in a remote wooded valley is disturbed when two armed robbers accompanied by moll visit. On the lam from the law, the crooks are desperate and dangerous. But as time passes and they get to know the strange and gentle Read More

French Leave

Actors: Jackie Cooper, Jackie Coogan, Ralph Sanford, Curt Bois, Renee Godfrey

Synopsis: Monogram's French Leave received an inordinate amount of press coverage because of its teaming of two former child stars. Jackie Cooper and Jackie Coogan play a couple of amorous merchant seamen on the loose in a small French village. Hoping to score with the local mademoiselles, the two Jackies Read More

16 Fathoms Deep

Actors: Lon Chaney, Jr., Arthur Lake, Lloyd Bridges, Eric Feldary

Synopsis: 16 Fathoms Deep was a curious choice as the first effort from Arthur Lake Productions. Heretofore known best as Dagwood Bumstead in Columbia's Blondie series, Arthur Lake not only elected to produce this remake of the 1934 melodrama of the same name but also to play the film's comedy-relief Read More

Smugglers' Cove

Actors: Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall, Gabriel Dell, Billy Benedict, David Gorcey

Synopsis: Smugglers' Cover was Number Eleven in Monogram's moneymaking "Bowery Boys" series. Terence Aloysius "Slip" Mahoney (Leo Gorcey) receives notice that he's inherited a mansion. Actually, the real owner is another Terence Aloysius Mahoney (Paul Harvey), who is less than delighted when Slip, Sach (Huntz Hall Read More

Call Northside 777

Actors: James Stewart, Richard Conte, Lee J. Cobb, Helen Walker, Betty Garde, E.G. Marshall

Synopsis: In this documentary-inspired thriller, P.J. McNeal (James Stewart) is a reporter who is asked by his editor to look into a potential story: their newspaper has been carrying an ad offering a substantial reward for information regarding the murder of a policeman that occurred eleven years ago. It Read More

High Conquest

Actors: John Bleifer, Beulah Bondi, Maurice Cass, Warren Douglas

Synopsis: High Conquest was a good example of the sort of "prestige" fare that lowly Monogram Pictures hoped to turn out on a regular basis in the postwar years. Adapted from a novel by James Ramsey Ullman, the story centers on Hugo Lannier (Warren Douglas), an American youth who makes it his mission in Read More

Northwest Outpost

Actors: Nelson Eddy, Ilona Massey, Joseph Schildkraut, Elsa Lanchester

Synopsis: Backed by the "American GI Chorus", Nelson Eddy made his final screen appearance in the unusually elaborate Republic musical Northwest Outpost. The story is set in the 1830s, when a good portion of California was owned by Russia. US cavalry officer James Laurence (Nelson Eddy) arrives at one of Read More

Fall Guy

Synopsis: Nice guys don't always finish last as can be seen in this crime drama. The story begins as a perfectly nice fellow finds himself arrested for murder. The trouble is, the man cannot remember a thing about the night of the murder. Though he insists he is innocent, all the evidence tells a different Read More

The Wife of Monte Cristo

Actors: Lenore Aubert, Colin Campbell, Eduardo Ciannelli, Clancy Cooper, Charles Dingle

Synopsis: Alexandre Dumas' famous fictional count gets revenge in this lively sequel to the original story. The Monte Cristo count begins by returning to Paris under an assumed name. There he helps the beleaguered poor who most suffered from the early 19th-century revolution. The cloaked count soon finds Read More

Without Reservations

Actors: Claudette Colbert, John Wayne, Don DeFore, Dona Drake, Anne Triola, Phil Brown, Louella Parsons

Synopsis: Without Reservations has to be the least typical John Wayne picture of the postwar era. Top billing is bestowed upon Claudette Colbert as Kit, a best-selling novelist heading westward to oversee the film version of her latest novel. Taking it upon herself to select the man who should portray the Read More

Rendezvous 24

Actors: William Gargan, Pat O'Moore, David Leonard, Maria Palmer, John Bleifer

Synopsis: Two secret agents must somehow prevent a group of post WW II Nazis hiding in the Hartz mountains from successfully making an atomic bomb as they plan to use the weapon on large Allied cities to help the Germans again rise to power. The two good agents find themselves entangled with beautiful Read More

Tonight and Every Night

Actors: Rita Hayworth, Lee Bowman, Janet Blair, Marc Platt, Florence Bates, Leslie Brooks

Synopsis: Based on a play by Leslie Storm, Tonight and Every Night is a musical wartime morale booster in which star Rita Hayworth is but one of a lively ensemble. Set in battle-scarred Britain, the action takes place in a seedy old music hall, which never misses a performance even at the height of the Read More

The Mask of Dimitrios

Actors: Sydney Greenstreet, Zachary Scott, Faye Emerson, Peter Lorre, Victor Francen

Synopsis: Zachary Scott made his screen debut in this clever bit of film noir that has gained a cult reputation in recent years. Dutch mystery novelist Cornelius Leyden (Peter Lorre) is travelling through Istanbul when he meets Col. Haki (Kurt Katch), head of the secret police and a big fan of Read More

In Our Time

Actors: Ida Lupino, Paul Henreid, Nancy Coleman, Mary Boland, Victor Francen

Synopsis: More a romantic melodrama than the uplifting propaganda piece the producers perhaps envisioned, In Our Time stars Ida Lupino as Jennifer Whittredge, a young antique buyer marrying a Polish count, Stephan Orvid (Paul Henried), after a whirlwind romance in a Warsaw at the brink of World War II. The Read More

Waterfront

Actors: John Carradine, J. Carrol Naish, Maris Wrixon, Edwin Maxwell, Terry Frost

Synopsis: With such charismatic villains as John Carradine and J. Carroll Naish on hand in PRC's Waterfront, who cares about nominal leading man Terry Frost. The story is set in the docks of San Francisco, where Nazi spy Carl Decker (Naish) poses as a harmless optometrist. Decker is aided and abetted by Read More

For Whom the Bell Tolls

Actors: Gary Cooper, Ingrid Bergman, Akim Tamiroff, Katina Paxinou, Arturo de Cordova, Vladimir Sokoloff

Synopsis: Based on the novel by Ernest Hemingway, For Whom the Bell Tolls is a romantic drama set against the turbulent tapestry of the Spanish Civil War. Gary Cooper plays Robert Jordan, an idealistic American fighting with a Spanish guerilla band. He is assigned to blow up a crucial bridge in order to Read More

Mr. Lucky

Actors: Cary Grant, Laraine Day, Charles Bickford, Gladys Cooper, Alan Carney

Synopsis: One of Cary Grant's most financially successful 1940s vehicles, Mr. Lucky finds Grant atypically cast as a shifty, out-for-number-one gambler. Having dodged the draft by adopting the identity of a dead man, Grant sets his sights on purchasing a fancy gambling ship. To raise the necessary funds, he Read More

Junior G-Men of the Air [Serial]

Actors: Billy Halop, Gene Reynolds, Lionel Atwill, Frank Albertson, Kathryn Adams

Synopsis: The Dead End Kids take on a sinister gang of Japanese terrorists in this 12-chapter followup to the 1940 Universal serial Junior G-Men. When Eddie Holden (Gene Reynolds), the inventor brother of street-gang leader Billy Holden (Billy Halop), is kidnapped by minions of the Black Dragon society Read More

Lure of the Islands

Synopsis: Billed as "The Girl who Stopped a Thousand Shows" and "The Poor Man's Garbo," burlesque dancer Margie Hart made her feature film debut in this ultra low-budget World War II romance. In an attempt to determine whether fifth columnists are persuading the natives to work for the Japanese, American Read More

Paris Calling

Actors: Elisabeth Bergner, Randolph Scott, Basil Rathbone, Gale Sondergaard, Lee J. Cobb

Synopsis: Made just before America's entry into World War II, Paris Calling is one of the earliest French Underground adventures. When the German march into Paris, a polyglot of French patriots organize to undermine the Nazi occupation troops (represented by Lee J. Cobb, who plays his character with a Read More

The Monster and the Girl

Actors: Ellen Drew, Robert Paige, Paul Lukas, Joseph Calleia, Onslow Stevens

Synopsis: One of the most schizophrenic films ever to come out of the Paramount "B" mill, The Monster and the Girl starts out as a white-slavery melodrama and ends up as a horror picture! Emerging from the fog, heroine Susan Webster (Ellen Drew) tells her woeful tale to the audience. A young innocent from Read More

Girl from God's Country

Actors: Chester Morris, Jane Wyatt, Charles Bickford, Kate Lawson

Synopsis: In this drama, a devoted, caring physician leaves his home and moves to Alaska to escape arrest after he performs euthanasia upon his terminally ill father. In the ever-snowy reaches of northernmost Alaska, the doctor begins administering to the poverty-stricken Inuit. While he has willingly Read More

The Mark of Zorro

Actors: Tyrone Power, Linda Darnell, Basil Rathbone, Gale Sondergaard, Eugene Pallette

Synopsis: This is perhaps the best of the many Zorro films as Tyrone Power gives an outstanding performance as the alternately swishing and swashbuckling son of a 19th century California aristocrat. As a champion of the oppressed, Zorro must face a wicked governor portrayed by J. Edward Bromberg, who, of Read More

Everything Happens at Night

Actors: Sonja Henie, Ray Milland, Robert Cummings, Maurice Moscovich, Leonid Kinskey

Synopsis: 20th Century Fox's Christmas gift to moviegoers in 1939, this fanciful comedy-drama features the studio's darling of the ice, Sonja Henie. She plays the daughter of a Nobel Peace Prize-winner feared murdered by the German Gestapo. A couple of rival American newspaper reporters, Ray Milland and Robert Cummings Read More

Full Confession

Actors: Victor McLaglen, Sally Eilers, Joseph Calleia, Barry Fitzgerald, Elizabeth Risdon

Synopsis: In this thriller, a man is brutally murdered and an innocent man takes the rap. The real murderer later confesses his crime to his priest. The priest strongly urges the killer to tell the police, but he steadfastly refuses. At the end, the killer attacks and mortally wounds the priest. The Read More

Frontier Marshal

Actors: Randolph Scott, Nancy Kelly, Cesar Romero, Binnie Barnes, John Carradine

Synopsis: The second of three films based on the Wyatt Earp biography by Stuart N. Lake, Frontier Marshal stars Randolph Scott as Marshal Earp of Tombstone. Earp and his brothers enforce the law as much by reputation as by gunplay. Occasionally the marshal's efforts are complicated by his "friendly enemy" Read More

Pacific Liner

Actors: Victor McLaglen, Chester Morris, Wendy Barrie, Alan Hale, Barry Fitzgerald

Synopsis: An outbreak of cholera threatens a luxury liner in this surprisingly low-budget melodrama from RKO. En route from Shanghai to San Francisco, chief engineer Crusher McKay (Victor McLaglen) and shipboard doctor Tony Craig (Chester Morris) become rivals for the attention of nurse Ann Grayson (Wendy Read More

Mr. Moto Takes a Vacation

Actors: Peter Lorre, Joseph Schildkraut, Lionel Atwill, Virginia Field, John King

Synopsis: This eighth (and final) entry in 20th Century-Fox's "Mr. Moto" series once again stars Peter Lorre as J. P. Marquand's resourceful and unfailingly polite Japanese detective. When American archeologist Howard Stevens (John King) recovers the ancient crown of the Queen of Sheba, the priceless Read More

Ride a Crooked Mile

Actors: Akim Tamiroff, Frances Farmer, Lynne Overman, John Miljan

Synopsis: A macho Cossack immigrant to the U.S. goes West and joins a ring of rustlers. Later his son follows him to states and he too begins stealing cows. Not knowing his father very well, the youth is anxious to prove himself a manly man and a friendly rivalry develops until the father is captured and Read More

Thank You, Mr. Moto

Actors: Peter Lorre, Thomas Beck, Pauline Frederick, Jayne Regan, Sidney Blackmer

Synopsis: The second of eight 1930s films based on J. P. Marquand's Japanese detective, Thank You, Mr. Moto finds Moto (Peter Lorre) coming to the aid of Chinese royalty. The last remaining members of an ancient Chinese clan (Pauline Frederick and Philip Ahn) have in their possession six of seven scrolls Read More

Headin' for God's Country

Actors: William Lundigan, Virginia Dale, Harry Davenport, Harry Shannon, Addison Richards

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