Penny SantonFilmography

Murphy Brown: A Comedy of Eros

Synopsis: Frank (Joe Regalbuto) manages to mount a stage production of his autobiographical play, but it is Murphy who is placed in charge of the show when Frank is forced to go out of town. Under normal circumstances, Murphy's autocratic nature would run roughshod over the proceedings, but she promises to Read More

There Was a Little Boy

Actors: Cybill Shepherd, John Heard, Scott Bairstow, Elaine Kagan, Terri Ivens

Synopsis: Cybill Shepherd stars in this heart-tugging drama as a mother whose baby was abducted out of his bed. Fifteen years pass and she is working as a middle-school teacher in a different town. One of her students is a defiant 15-year-old. Despite the trouble he gives, there is something about the boy Read More

One Good Cop

Actors: Michael Keaton, Rene Russo, Anthony LaPaglia, Kevin Conway, Rachel Ticotin

Synopsis: An honest man struggles to do the right thing, even if it means breaking the law, in this drama. Artie Lewis (Michael Keaton) is a scrupulously ethical cop who believes in his work, loves his wife Rita (Rene Russo), and stands by his partner Stevie Diroma (Anthony LaPaglia). Stevie is a single Read More

Murder, She Wrote: Deadpan

Synopsis: When one of her former students adapts her novel Mainly Murder as a stage play, Jessica (Angela Lansbury) is honored to attend the show's opening night. Not long afterward, the reviews come out, with one critic lavishing praise on the production, and the critic's chief rival penning a devastating Read More

Moonlighting: Cool Hand Dave, Part 2

Synopsis: In this conclusion of a two-part story, David (Bruce Willis) attempts to escape from a chain gang in order to be reunited with his pregnant sweetheart Maddie (Cybill Shepherd, who is represented only by her voice in this episode). It looks like David's only hope for freedom is to follow the Read More

Short Circuit

Actors: Ally Sheedy, Steve Guttenberg, Fisher Stevens, Austin Pendleton, G.W. Bailey, Tim Blaney

Synopsis: Struck by lightning, an endearing little robot known only as "Number 5" escapes from an experimental electronics firm. Technician Newton Crosby (Steve Guttenberg) and his indecipherable East Indian assistant, Ben Jabituya (Fisher Stevens), set out to locate Number 5 before the military can go Read More

Hunter: Scrap Metal

Synopsis: On his deathbed, a syndicate hitman confesses that it was he who killed Hunter's mobster father fifteen years earlier. No sooner has Hunter (Fred Dryer) digested this news than he learns that the man who put out the contract was his father's former partner--still very much alive. To prove the Read More

Fletch

Actors: Chevy Chase, Dana Wheeler-Nicholson, Tim Matheson, Joe Don Baker, Richard Libertini

Synopsis: Chevy Chase added a classic comic hero to the film landscape with Fletch, one of his few truly popular star vehicles in a famously misguided post-Saturday Night Live career. Chase plays Irwin M. Fletcher, known to everyone as Fletch, a Los Angeles Lakers-loving investigative reporter with a Read More

Highway to Heaven: To Touch the Moon

Synopsis: Probationary angel Jonathan Smith (Michael Landon) and his ghostly sidekick Mark Gordon (Victor French) tackle two difficult assignments in this episode. It is Jonathan's task to provide comfort and solace to Evelyn Nealy (Carrie Snodgress), a young widow whose son, Arthur (Barret Oliver), is Read More

Rhinestone

Actors: Sylvester Stallone, Dolly Parton, Richard Farnsworth, Ron Leibman, Tim Thomerson

Synopsis: After a big-time country singer (Dolly Parton) brags that she can turn anybody in to a country-singin' star, she's out to prove she can live up to her talk when she recruits a cab-driver (Sylvester Stallone) as a country singer. He's scheduled to sing at a big-time NYC country night club and Dolly Read More

When Your Lover Leaves

Synopsis: In this made-for-television comedy drama, a divorcee reels even further when her married lover dumps her too. On the rebound, she takes up with a peculiar policeman. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

... And Your Name Is Jonah

Actors: Sally Struthers, James Woods, Titos Vandis, Penny Santon

Synopsis: Jonah (Jeffrey Bravin) is a lonely deaf child who has been misdiagnosed as retarded. Jonah's mother (Sally Struthers) and father (James Woods) struggle to establish communication from their withdrawn son. As the specialists shake their heads and cluck their tongues, Jonah's parents finally manage Read More

The Rockford Files: The Man Who Saw the Alligators

Synopsis: Though apparently killed at the end of the previous episode "To Protect and Serve", mob hit man "Anthony Boy" Gagglio (George Loros) actually survived to serve a prison term. Now a free man, Anthony Boy has sworn vengenace against the person who sent him up--namely, Jim Rockford (James Garner) Read More

Laverne & Shirley: Festival, Part 1

Synopsis: Season Four of Laverne and Shirley gets under way with the first episode of a two-part story (originally telecast as a single hour-long special). Laverne (Penny Marshall) and Shirley (Cindy Williams) bid a temporary farewell to Milwaukee so they can accompany Frank (Phil Foster) and Edna (Betty Read More

Laverne & Shirley: Festival, Part 2

Synopsis: In the conclusion of Laverne and Shirley's two-part Season Four opener (originally telecast as a single hour-long special), the gang is still in New York, there to visit Frank's mother (Penny Santon) and to attend an Italian-American festival. The fun and games resume when Frank enters a Read More

The Last Angry Man

Synopsis: Previously filmed with Paul Muni in 1959, Gerald Green's novel The Last Angry Man was adapted for television by Green himself, who restored the original book's Depression-era setting in the process. Pat Hingle steps into the Muni role as crusty, temperamental Dr. Sam Abelman, who tends to the Read More

Ironside: What's New with Mark?

Synopsis: Having passed his California Bar exam, Mark Sanger (Don Mitchell) is now qualified to practice law. This means that he no longer has time to work as bodyguard for Chief Ironside (Raymond Burr), compelling police sergeant Ed Brown (Don Galloway) to move in with the chief until a replacement can be Read More

Pssst! Hammerman's After You

Actors: Christian Juttner, Jim Sage, Lance Kerwin, Jay W. MacIntosh, Penny Santon, Kevin McCarley

Synopsis: Pint-sized sixth-grader Mouse Fawley (Christian Juttner) is tired of being picked on by school bully Marv Hammerman (Jim Sage). Out of frustration, Mouse labels Hammerman as a "Neanderthal" -- and alas, word of this insult quickly reaches our hero's tormentor. Advised that Hammerman is coming Read More

Kojak: Cop in a Cage

Synopsis: Theo Kojak (Telly Savalas) is both disturbed and perplexed by the appearance of Peter Ibbotson (John R. Ryan, an ex-convict whom the lieutenant had sent to prison. Staying carefully within the limits of the law, Ibbetson begins methodically stalking Kojak and his family just before the wedding of Read More

Adam-12: Clear with a Civilian, Part 1

Synopsis: In the first episode of a two-part story, a flu epidemic has decimated the Rampart division, forcing Officers Jim Reed (Kent McCord) and Pete Malloy (Martin Milner) to take over an unusually large caseload. Admist the plethora of emergency calls, burglaries, and public disturbances, the two mobile Read More

Ironside: Downhill All the Way, Part 2

Synopsis: In the conclusion of a two-part story, Ironside (Raymond Burr) has degenerated from a respected law enforcement officer to a seedy skid-row bum, apparently because 10-year-old murder witness Jerry Abbott (Lee H. Montgomery) was killed while in the Chief's protective custody. What even Ironside's Read More

Adam-12: Van Nuys Division

Synopsis: Officer Pete Malloy (Martin Milner) is in for quite a drubbing from his partner Jim Reed (Kent McCord) and the rest of the police force when he decides to grow a mustache. But the kidding diminishes as the day wears on and the two mobile cops tackle a variety of tough cases during their brief Read More

Ironside: Downhill All the Way, Part 1

Synopsis: In the first half of a two-part story (originally telecast as a single two-hour episode), Chief Ironside is assigned to protect little Jerry Abbott, an autistic 10-year-old who has witnessed a murder. Not long afterward, the newspapers are reporting that Jerry himself has been killed--and that Read More

The Streets of San Francisco: The Year of the Locusts

Synopsis: The Fergusons are a family of nomadic con artists, led by the father-son team of Angus (George Voskovec) and Albert (Michael Ansara), who have managed to bilk an entire San Francisco neighborhood in their latest scam. The newest addition to the clan is greedy son-in-law Josh Evans (Christopher Read More

Bewitched: Bewitched, Bothered and Baldoni

Actors: Elizabeth Montgomery, Dick Sargent, Agnes Moorehead, David White, Francine York

Synopsis: In the fifth episode of a seven-part story arc, the Stephenses arrive in Rome, where Endora immediately makes her mark by bringing a statue of Venus to life. In her human state, the irresistible Venus (Francine York) causes trouble for Darrin by causing his client, Mr. Baldoni (Lou Krugman), to Read More

Kotch

Actors: Walter Matthau, Deborah Winters, Felicia Farr, Charles Aidman, Ellen Geer

Synopsis: For his only directorial effort, Jack Lemmon selected his old friend and habitual co-star Walter Matthau to play the central character. Joseph P. "Kotch" Kotcher (Walter Matthau) is an irksome 72-year-old who lives with his son (Charles Aidman) and daughter-in-law (played by Lemmon's wife Felicia Farr Read More

The Flying Nun: No Tears for Mrs. Thomas

Synopsis: Having survived seventy years and outlived four wives, old Mr. Montero is as spry and lively as ever. Thus it comes as surprise to the nuns when Montero insists that they arrange his funeral, insisting that he will be dead by the end of the week. Sr. Bertrille quickly deduces that Montero is not Read More

The Flying Nun: My Sister the Doctor

Synopsis: Elinor Donahue makes her third guest appearance as obstetrician Jennifer Ethrington (Elinor Donahue), the sister of Sr. Bertrille. Determining that Jennifer is working too hard, the nuns try to lighten her burden by hiding the fact that she's a doctor. Not surprisingly, a crisis results. Nancy Read More

Funny Girl

Actors: Barbra Streisand, Omar Sharif, Kay Medford, Anne Francis, Walter Pidgeon

Synopsis: "Hello, gorgeous!" was Barbra Streisand's first comment to the Oscar statuette which she won for her performance in this biopic of entertainer Fanny Brice. This is also her first line in the film itself, the catalyst for a movie-long flashback. Repeating her Broadway role, Streisand stars as Read More

Don't Just Stand There!

Actors: Robert Wagner, Mary Tyler Moore, Glynis Johns, Harvey Korman, Barbara Rhoades

Synopsis: This comedy finds American writer Lawrence Colby (Robert Wagner) augmenting his scribing income by smuggling Swiss watch parts into France. Martine (Mary Tyler Moore) enlists his help to find her friend Sabine (Glynis Johns), an author of erotic novels. Sabine is vacationing in Greece, but crooks Read More

Bonanza: The Sound of Drums

Actors: Lorne Greene, Michael Landon, Dan Blocker, David Canary, Jack Kruschen

Synopsis: Jack Kruschen makes his third and final Bonanza appearance as Giorgio Rossi, the bombastic patriarch of an Italian wine-growing family. Having been awarded a parcel of Ponderosa land to create a vineyard, Rossi causes consternation for Ben Cartwright when he invites a group of hungry Indians to Read More

Bonanza: The Deed and the Dilemma

Actors: Lorne Greene, Michael Landon, Dan Blocker, Jack Kruschen, Donald Woods

Synopsis: In this sequel to the previous season's "The Big Shadow of the Land", Jack Kruschen returns as Giorgio Rossi, the bombastic patriach of a family of Italian winegrowers. Hoping to improve the Rossis' financial situation, Ben Cartwright grants Giorgio eighty acres of Ponderosa property, which the Read More

My Favorite Martian: When a Martian Makes a Violin Cry

Synopsis: When Detective Brennan (Alan Hewitt) falsely accuses a gypsy named Raymond (John Considine) of stealing Mrs. Brown's purse, Raymond places a curse on the poor woman's head. Before long, Mrs. Brown (Pamela Britton) is dropping--and breaking--everything she picks up. Though Martin (Ray Walston) is Read More

The Spy in the Green Hat

Synopsis: In this episode from The Man from U.N.C.L.E. series, the two good guy spies must stop a criminal mastermind from altering the course of the Gulf Stream. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Bonanza: The Big Shadow on the Land

Actors: Lorne Greene, Michael Landon, Dan Blocker, Jack Kruschen, Penny Santon

Synopsis: Originally broadcast April 17, 1966, "The Big Shadow on the Land" was the first of three Bonanza episodes focusing on the Rossis, an immigrant Italian family. Headed by bombastic Giorgio Rossi (Jack Kruschen), the family encamps on the Ponderosa, intending to revitalize their winemaking business. Read More

The Untouchables: The Butcher's Boy

Synopsis: Having previously costarred in the third-season episode "The Contract", John Larkin, former star of the daytime drama The Edge of Night, and Frank Sutton, future "Sgt. Carter" on Gomer Pyle USMC, are reunited in this Season Four entry. Larkin is cast as "Lieutenant" Phillip Hedden, a former WW1 Read More

Combat!: Battle of the Roses

Synopsis: In a bombed-out French village, Saunders (Vic Morrow) is astonished to come across a well-tended rose garden completely unscathed by the ravages of war. The garden is watched over by a young, mentally challenged girl named Jeanine (Antoinette Bower), who having lost her entire family has retreated Read More

Love with the Proper Stranger

Actors: Natalie Wood, Steve McQueen, Edie Adams, Herschel Bernardi, Tom Bosley

Synopsis: Taken for granted by her Italian family, New Yorker Natalie Wood seeks solace in the arms of irresponsible jazz musician Steve McQueen. She becomes pregnant, but doesn't expect McQueen to marry her; all she wants is enough money to pay for an illegal abortion (this is ten years before Roe v. Read More

California

Synopsis: Allegedly based on the 1946 film starring Ray Milland but bearing no real resemblance to it, this is the story of the fight for statehood in California. The Californians want to break from Mexico, but Mexico doesn't want them to. This tale brings to the screen two brothers who are fighting on Read More

Captain Newman, M.D.

Actors: Gregory Peck, Tony Curtis, Angie Dickinson, Eddie Albert, Bobby Darin, James Gregory

Synopsis: Gregory Peck plays a benevolent God-like figure in a white smock as Captain Josiah Newman, the head of a psych-unit at a Southwestern army base during the waning days of World War II. Newman is a patriarchal protector to his patients, preferring to keep him in his ward, rather than return them to Read More

Bonanza: Look to the Stars

Actors: Lorne Greene, Pernell Roberts, Michael Landon, Dan Blocker, William Schallert

Synopsis: In 1907, the brilliant physicist Albert Abraham Michelson won the Nobel Prize for developing the optical precision instruments which made it possible for his fellow scientists to measure light waves. According to Bonanza scriptwriters Robert Fresco and Paul Rink, the German-born Michelson spent Read More

One Step Beyond: Blood Flower

Synopsis: A guest instructor at a South American university, American political-science professor Gavin Carroll (Larry Gates) takes an academic interest in a young insurgent who has been killed during an attempt to assasinate a local dictator. But after sniffing an unusual-looking flower, Carroll is Read More

West Side Story

Actors: Natalie Wood, Richard Beymer, Russ Tamblyn, Rita Moreno, George Chakiris

Synopsis: Romeo and Juliet is updated to the tenements of New York City in this Oscar-winning musical landmark. Adapted by Ernest Lehman from the Broadway production, the movie opens with an overhead shot of Manhattan, an effect that director Robert Wise would repeat over the Alps in The Sound of Music four Read More

The Untouchables: Augie

Synopsis: Having been on the side of the law as one of the original "Untouchables" in the series' two-part pilot film, Keenan Wynn returns in the despicably villainous role of Augie "The Banker" Ciamino. Terrorizing his fellow Italian immigrants into submission, Ciamino forces them to set up small stills in Read More

Bonanza: El Toro Grande

Actors: Lorne Greene, Pernell Roberts, Michael Landon, Dan Blocker, Ricardo Cortez

Synopsis: Little Joe and Hoss set out for Monterey, CA, bearing the cash with which they intend to purchase a prize bull for their father Ben. En route, they are ambushed by bandits. But this is hardly the end of their troubles, as the two brothers also contend with a youthful thief, a pack of starving Read More

The Untouchables: One-Armed Bandits

Synopsis: Newly released from prison, Frank O'Dean (Harry Guardino) would like to go straight, but is forced into working for the illicit slot-machine operation run by Augie Viale (John Beradino). It turns out that Viale has a powerful hold on O'Dean: he knows that Frank's daughter, who is convinced that Read More

The Untouchables: The Underworld Bank

Synopsis: This episode boasts the presence of two "Lieutenant Columbos": Thomas Mitchell, who created the role of disheveled detective Columbo in a 1960 theatrical production, and Peter Falk, who made the character internationally famous in a popular TV series. Mitchell is cast as Milo Sullivan, a gangland Read More

One Step Beyond: The Aerialist

Synopsis: A father-son team of circus aerialists, Gino and Mario Patruzzio (Robert Carricart, Mike Conners), quarrel bitterly over Mario's slatternly young wife Carlotta (Yvette Vickers) just before beginning their act. An accident occurs in mid-air, causing Gino to plunge helplessly to the ground. Though Read More

This Earth Is Mine

Actors: Rock Hudson, Jean Simmons, Dorothy McGuire, Claude Rains, Kent Smith

Synopsis: Based on the novel The Cup and the Sword by Alice Tisdale Hobart, this drama examines the trials and tribulations of three generations of French-American California vineyard owners. It's set during the Prohibition era, when wine makers were financially challenged and had to decide whether or not Read More

Cry Tough

Actors: John Saxon, Linda Cristal, Joseph Calleia, Arthur Batanides

Synopsis: This was the first film directed by Paul Stanley, and its theme of second-generation Puerto Ricans living in New York's Spanish Harlem would be picked up again in 1961's smash success, West Side Story. Miguel Estrada (John Saxon) was a member of a local gang before he went to prison for a year Read More

Dino

Actors: Sal Mineo, Brian Keith, Susan Kohner, Frank Faylen, Joe de Santis

Synopsis: Adapted from his own TV play by Reginald Rose, Dino stars Sal Mineo (who also appeared in the TV version) in the title role. Sent to reform school for his complicity in a gang killing, Dino is released in the custody of kindly settlement worker Sheridan (Brian Keith). Despite the efforts by Read More

Alfred Hitchcock Presents: Toby

Synopsis: The title character in this grim charade is a sickly little baby, whom middle-aged Edwina Freed (Jessica Tandy) insists is her nephew. Edwina's childhood sweetheart Albert Birch (Robert H. Harris) wants to marry Edwina, but first he must agree never to come in contact with Toby -- nor is he Read More

The Wrong Man

Actors: Henry Fonda, Vera Miles, Anthony Quayle, Harold J. Stone, Charles Cooper

Synopsis: Director Alfred Hitchcock lets us know from the outset that The Wrong Man is a painfully true story and not one of his customary fabricated suspense yarns, through the simple expedient of walking before the camera and telling us as much (this introductory appearance replaced his planned cameo role Read More

Full of Life

Actors: Judy Holliday, Richard Conte, Salvatore Baccaloni, Esther Minciotti, Joe de Santis

Synopsis: When Emily Rocco (Judy Holliday) waddles into view at the beginning of Full of Life, her appearance marked a cinematic breakthrough; seldom had so pregnant a leading lady ever appeared on an American movie screen. With her baby's birthdate only a month away, Emily and her husband Nick (Richard Read More

Interrupted Melody

Actors: Glenn Ford, Eleanor Parker, Roger Moore, Cecil Kellaway, Peter Leeds

Synopsis: Interrupted Melody is the inspirational filmed biography of world-renowned Australian soprano Marjorie Lawrence. Eleanor Parker plays Ms. Farrell, while her vocal renditions, ranging from selections from Madame Butterfly to MGM's own Over the Rainbow, were dubbed by Eileen Farrell, who would be Read More