Robert Cornthwaite Filmography

Cheers: Rebecca Gaines, Rebecca Loses, Part 1

Actors: Frances Sternhagen

Synopsis: The opening sequences of this episode lead the Cheers gang to conclude that Cliff (John Ratzenberger) has, at long last, murdered his mother (Frances Sternhagen). On a less morbid note, Rebecca (Kirstie Alley) is led to believe that Kelly's wealthy father Mr. Gaines (Richard Doyle) is romantically Read More

Cheers: Rebecca Gaines, Rebecca Loses, Part 2

Actors: Frances Sternhagen

Synopsis: The mystery of Cliff's (John Ratzenberger) missing (and possibly murdered) mother is finally solved. After making the assumption that Kelly's (Jackie Swanson) wealthy father Mr. Gaines (Richard Doyle) is enamored with her, Rebecca (Kirstie Alley) is in for a shock when she learns Gaines' true Read More

Dead Man's Revenge

Cheers: Ill-Gotten Gaines

Actors: Jackie Swanson

Synopsis: Fed up with the interference of his wealthy father-in-law Mr. Gaines (Richard Doyle), Woody (Woody Harrelson) confronts the man for a showdown. Startlingly, Mr. Gaines acquiesces to Woody's every demand; after all, the old man has been caught with a woman other than his wife, and how does he know Read More

Matinee

Actors: John Goodman, Cathy Moriarty, Simon Fenton, Omri Katz, Lisa Jakub

Synopsis: John Goodman's full-throttle performance as a William Castle-inspired schlockmeister propels Joe Dante's delightful and charming comedy Matinee. The film takes place during the fall 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, a time when America's innocence began to crumble. Goodman plays film producer Lawrence Read More

Frame Up

Synopsis: A young mens' hazing turns to murder in this crime drama set in a small town run by a powerful businessman. The victim was beaten to death with a monogrammed baseball bat, and later the head-killer tried to make it seem as if the young man was run down by the car of Frank Govers, a traveling Read More

Time Trackers

Actors: Ned Beatty, Wil Shriner, Kathleen Beller, Bridget Hoffman, Alex Hyde-White

Synopsis: In this time bending sci-fi film, three scientists living in the year 2033 must find the evil doctor who has purloined a time machine and is using it to go back in time to insure that his rivals are never born. During their travels the scientists make stops in 1990s New York and merry old medieval Read More

Who's That Girl?

Actors: Madonna, Griffin Dunne, Haviland Morris, John McMartin, Robert Swan, Bibi Besch

Synopsis: A year after appearing in the box-office sleeper Shanghai Surprise, pop superstar Madonna starred in the screwball comedy Who's That Girl? She plays Nikki Finn, who is being released from prison after serving a four-year sentence for a murder she didn't commit. Meanwhile, wealthy lawyer Loudon (Griffin Dunne Read More

Murder, She Wrote: It's a Dog's Life

Synopsis: While visiting her cousin Abby (Lynn Redgrave) at lavish Langley Manor in the deep South, Jessica is among those present when patriarch Denton Langley (Dan O'Herlihy) is accidentally killed during a fox hunt. What is puzzling about the situation is that Langley's normally docile horse was startled Read More

Doctor Detroit

Actors: Dan Aykroyd, Howard Hesseman, T.K. Carter, Donna Dixon, Lynn Whitfield

Synopsis: A college professor (Dan Aykroyd is forced to go undercover as a Chicago pimp disguised by a bushy wig -- the height of hairlarity in this anemic comedy. When Smooth Walker (Howard Hesseman) is hunted by his gangster rival, Mom (Kate Murtagh), he foists his bevy of hookers on the professor -- and Read More

Deal of the Century

Actors: Chevy Chase, Sigourney Weaver, Gregory Hines, Vince Edwards, William Marquez

Synopsis: The humor in this Chevy Chase comedy lies solely in the eyes of the beholder. The comic plays Eddie Muntz, an arms dealer looking to make a big sale of war planes to a South American dictator. In order to do so, his girlfriend (Sigourney Weaver) has to sleep with the dictator and his friend (Gregory Hines Read More

Beggarman, Thief

Actors: Jean Simmons, Glenn Ford, Lynn Redgrave, Tovah Feldshuh, Andrew Stevens

Synopsis: Beggarman, Thief is the 4-hour sequel to the ratings-busting miniseries Rich Man, Poor Man; both productions were based on the works of novelist Irwin Shaw. For the purposes of the sequel, a new member of the Jordache clan is introduced: filmmaker Gretchen Jordache Burke, played by Jean Simmons. Read More

Quincy, M.E.: Hot Ice

Synopsis: An autopsy X-ray reveals that the corpse of a murdered courier contained a sack of diamonds worth $2,000,000, hidden within a pacemaker. Under pressure from a team of U.S. Customs officials, Quincy (Jack Klugman) agrees to go undercove in hopes of flushing out a dangerous gang of international Read More

Buck Rogers in the 25th Century: Unchained Woman

Synopsis: An episode of the television series, in which Buck tries to free an unjustly jailed woman, who mistrusts him, while being pursued by an android guard. ~ All Movie Guide Read More

Laverne & Shirley: Guinea Pigs

Synopsis: In their efforts to earn 20 dollars in order to attend a cocktail party, the girls agree to be human guinea pigs for a team of behavioral science researchers. As a result, Laverne (Penny Marshall) is deprived of sleep for a lengthy period of time, while Shirley (Cindy Williams) is forced to eat Read More

Futureworld

Actors: Peter Fonda, Blythe Danner, Arthur Hill, Yul Brynner, Jim Antonio

Synopsis: This follow-up to the successful 1973 thriller Westworld stars Peter Fonda and Blythe Danner as Chuck Browning and Tracy Ballard, investigative reporters. The team has been dispatched to the expensive theme park Westworld on the remote island of Delos, to find out what caused the park's robots to Read More

The F.B.I.: Break-In

Synopsis: The multitalented Jackie Cooper is cast against type as Harlan Slade, the cold-blood patriarch of a criminal family. The action gets under way when Slade's clan breaks him out of Federal Prison. Their next step is a "break-in"--of a bank holding millions of dollars. Inspector Erskine (Efrem Read More

The Longest Night

Synopsis: The Longest Night is a harrowing made-for-TV movie based on a real-life kidnapping. Sallie Shockley is abducted from the home of her parents and held for ransom. Her captors entomb her in a box buried several feet underground, with an air hose as her only conduit to the outside world. As the Read More

The Devil's Daughter

Actors: Belinda Montgomery, Shelley Winters, Robert Foxworth, Joseph Cotten, Jonathan Frid

Synopsis: Jeannot Szwarc, the director responsible for so many episodes (both good and bad) of the Night Gallery TV series, was the helmsman of The Devil's Daughter. This small-screen Rosemary's Baby clone stars Belinda Montgomery as a young woman targeted by a group of Satanists. It seems that Belinda's Read More

Journey through Rosebud

Actors: Lynn Burnette, Pat Iyotte, Olive McCloskey, Dianne Running

Synopsis: The modern-day Native American occupation and protest at Wounded Knee is the subject of this drama from Tom Giles. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide Read More

The F.B.I.: Center of Peril

Synopsis: Once again going undercover, Inspector Erskine poses as an art expert to trap a gang of thieves headed by Porter Brent (Vic Morrow). The villains intend to sell a valuable painting back to the museum whence they stole it, and Erskine sets himself up as go-between. The problem: One of the gang Read More

The Peacekillers

Synopsis: This biker action film from a small "B" studio opened to mixed reviews. Once a woman is the "old lady" of a motorcycle gang leader, she is always his "old lady," even when she goes to live in a hippie peace commune and practices the disciplines of peace and love. That's what her old gang thinks Read More

Bonanza: What Are Pardners For?

Actors: Lorne Greene, Michael Landon, Dan Blocker, David Canary, Slim Pickens

Synopsis: Innocent Hoss Cartwright is thrown in jail, suspected of complicity in a bank robbery. The real bandits are a pair of Easterners named Luke (John Beck) and Calvin (Hamilton Camp), who'd been drawn to the west after reading an abundance of dime novels. Hoping to live up to the exploits of their Read More

Colossus: The Forbin Project

Actors: Eric Braeden, Susan Clark, Gordon Pinsent, William Schallert, Leonid Rostoff

Synopsis: The granddaddy of all "computer run amok" films, Colossus: The Forbin Project concerns a huge electronic brain designed to control the American missile defense system. Colossus' technicians do not count on the computer developing an intelligence of its own. Communicating with its Russian Read More

Ironside: Sergeant Mike

Synopsis: The title character in the episode is a well-trained but ill-tempered Alsatian, who is the only witness to the murder of a sweet old lady. It turns out that the victim was anything but a paragon of virtue--in fact, she may well have been an accomplished con artist. What Ironside (Raymond Burr) Read More

The F.B.I.: The Flaw

Synopsis: It was supposed to look like a suicide, but the death of a government contractor on a ski-lift near Denver was actually the handiwork of enemy spy Glen Parmenter (Barry Morse). In order to ensnare Parmenter, Erskine (Efrem Zimbalist Jr.) poses as drug-addicted government employee, willing to be Read More

Waterhole #3

Actors: James Coburn, Carroll O'Connor, Maggie Blye, Claude Akins, Timothy Carey

Synopsis: "A rootin', tootin', but sincere picture" was the advertising tag for the comedy western Waterhole No. 3. James Coburn plays the likeably amoral hero, who'll go to any lengths to get his mitts on a treasure map. Like his principal rival, renegade confederate cavalryman Claude Akins, Coburn knows Read More

The Ride to Hangman's Tree

Actors: Jack Lord, James Farentino, Don Galloway, Melodie Johnson, Richard Anderson

Synopsis: The movie opens as two outlaws are just being rescued from being hung as thieves by an old friend. They go their separate ways, but keep running into each other across the country on their way to California as they alternately are on the good and bad side of the law. Their rescuer becomes the Read More

Gidget: Don't Defrost the Alligator

Synopsis: In this 32nd and final episode of Gidget, the titular heroine (Sally Field) does her best to console young Davey Seldon (Frankie Kabott), whose pet alligator has died. Thanks to local government bureaucracy, there is no place to "inter" the gator's body until the funeral, so Gidget generously Read More

The F.B.I.: The Price of Death

Synopsis: Season Two of The F.B.I gets under way as Inspector Erskine (Efrem Zimbalist Jr.) receives an anonymous tip that teenager Paul Wallace (David Macklin) has been kidnapped and returned unharmed once the ransom was paid. But when Erskine interviews Wallace's father (John Larch), the man steadfastly Read More

The Ghost and Mr. Chicken

Actors: Don Knotts, Joan Staley, Liam Redmond, Dick Sargent, Skip Homeier

Synopsis: Luther Heggs (Don Knotts) is a typesetter at a newspaper who longs for a chance to be a reporter. Editor Beckett (Dick Sargent) gives Luther his big break and assigns him to spend the night in a house generally considered to be haunted. The situation allows a broad canvas for Knotts to react to Read More

The F.B.I.: The Defector, Part 1

Synopsis: In the first episode of a two-part story, Dr. Gregory Holman (George Voskovec), a cryptographer from an Iron Curtain country, has come to the US as part of a touring chess tournament. Just after the FBI receives word that Holman is planning to defect, the man is reported killed in a nightclub Read More

The Fugitive: Conspiracy of Silence

Synopsis: Working as a bellboy at a desert resort hotel, Kimble (David Janssen)--or as he is now calling himself, "Fred Tate"--cannot help but notice that the manager is cancelling reservations and asking the other employees to leave. The mystery is resolved when several military officers show up at the Read More

Combat!: The Steeple

Synopsis: In a plot reminiscent of a key scene in The Longest Day, American paratrooper Riddell (David Scheiner) finds himself trapped when his chute gets caught on a church spire. Entering the church to cut Riddell down, Saunders (Vic Morrow) and his men are themselves trapped by the sudden arrival of Read More

The Munsters: Happy 100th Anniversary

Synopsis: It's Herman and Lily's centennial wedding anniversary, and each wants to buy the other a nice gift. Lacking the necessary funds, Herman (Fred Gwynne) moonlights as a welder, little realizing that his like-minded spouse Lily (Yvonne DeCarlo) has taken the same kind of job at the same location. Read More

Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea: Turn Back the Clock

Synopsis: The Seaview rescues a survivor (Nick Adams) from an Antarctic expedition who seems to be suffering tropical exposure, and claims to have seen live dinosaurs. Nelson (Richard Basehart) and Crane (David Hedison) find a prehistoric veldt, filled with creatures presumed to have been extinct for Read More

The Alfred Hitchcock Hour: Three Wives Too Many

Actors: Teresa Wright, Dan Duryea, Jean Hale, Linda Lawson, Steve Gravers

Synopsis: Marion Brown (Teresa Wright) of Cleveland, OH, travels to Newark, NJ, there to meet and murder Bernice Brown (Jean Hale). It seems that Marion has discovered that her traveling-salesman husband (Dan Duryea) is a bigamist, and she is determined to knock off not only his "second" wife but also his Read More

Perry Mason: The Case of a Place Called Midnight

Synopsis: In a depature from the usual Perry Mason format, Perry (Raymond Burr) flies to Europe as a personal favor to his old friend Frederic Ralston II. Arriving in Switzerland, Perry is asked to check up on Greta Konig (Susanne Cramer), the German nightclub singer who wants to marry Ralston's son Freddy Read More

The Andy Griffith Show: Dogs, Dogs, Dogs

Actors: Hal Smith, Roy Barcroft

Synopsis: Andy and Barney steel themselves for the impending arrival of State Investigator Somerset (Robert Cornthwaite), a man notorious for his intolerance of any deviation from rules and regulations. It is Andy's hope that Somerset will allocate extra funds to keep the Mayberry courthouse afloat. Read More

The Twilight Zone: No Time Like the Past

Actors: Dana Andrews, Patricia Breslin, Robert Simon, James Yagi, Tudor Owen

Synopsis: Disillusioned with the present, Paul Driscoll (Dana Andrews) builds a time machine and heads to the past, hoping to correct mankind's mistakes. Failing spectacularly in this endeavor, he elects to take up permanent residence in the small town of Homeville, Indiana, circa 1881, where he hopes to Read More

What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?

Actors: Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Victor Buono, Marjorie Bennett, Anna Lee, Maide Norman

Synopsis: As a child, "Baby Jane" Hudson was the toast of vaudeville. As an adult, however, Baby Jane was overshadowed by her more talented sister, Blanche, who became a top movie star. Then, one night in the early '30s, came the accident, which crippled Blanche for life and which was blamed on a drunken Read More

Perry Mason: The Case of the Ancient Romeo

Synopsis: 'Tis murder most foul when actor Franz Lachman (Jeff Morrow), starring in a stage production of Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet", is stabbed to death during Romeo's duel with Paris. There needs no ghost come from the grave to tell you that the police charge Steve Brock (Rex Reason), the actor Read More

The Twilight Zone: Showdown with Rance McGrew

Actors: Larry Blyden, Arch Johnson, Robert Cornthwaite, Bob Kline, William McLean

Synopsis: Larry Blyden stars in this hilarious Twilight Zone entry as egocentric TV western star Rance McGrew, who, while filming a fight scene, is knocked cold by a prop bottle. Upon awakening, Rance finds himself in the real west, circa 1880 -- and at the mercy of none other than Jesse James (Arch Johnson Read More

The Untouchables: The Seventh Vote

Synopsis: Nehemiah Persoff is back as Jake "Greasy Thumb" Guzik, hated rival of Frank "The Enforcer" Nitti (Bruce Gordon). As Nitti busies himself forcing other bootleggers out of business, Guzik moves in and orders Nitti to forget about booze and start trafficking in narcotics. The argument between the two Read More

The Untouchables: Testimony of Evil

Synopsis: Elliot Ness (Robert Stack) would love to nail mobster Brian O'Malley (David Brian) on tax-evasion and interstate-smuggling charges; unfortunately, O'Malley has an irksome habit of murdering anyone who can testify against him. Worse still, O'Malley obviously has a number of corrupt officials in his Read More

Maverick: Family Pride

Synopsis: A pair of con artists named Warren (Karl Swenson) and Cruppen (Robert Cornwaithe) sells some worthless land to Beau Maverick (Roger Moore). This is particular painful for Beau inasmuch as he has lost the $4000 which had been entrusted to him by his friend Jerry O'Brien (Denver Pyle). Since the Read More

Perry Mason: The Case of the Wandering Widow

Synopsis: After unjustly serving six years for murder, Riley Morgan (Dean Harens) is released from prison when merchant seaman Burt Stokes (Casey Adams), who could have cleared Riley disappeared just before the trial, suddenly returns. But the story is far from over: Morgan's exoneration somehow leads to an Read More

Maverick: Last Wire from Stop Gap

Synopsis: After winning $6500 in a poker game, Bart (Jack Kelly) and Beau (Roger Moore) wire the money ahead to Denver via telegraph. But upon arrival in Denver, the Mavericks are told that money never arrived. It turns out that there is a renegade telegraph station hidden in a remote cave, which has been Read More

Perry Mason: The Case of Paul Drake's Dilemma

Synopsis: In a most unusual episode, Perry Mason's client is his friend and business associate, private detective Paul Drake (William Hopper). After confronting Frank Thatcher (Bruce Gordon) for concealing evidence in a hit-and-run case, Paul knocks the man down--and is promptly rendered unconscious Read More

Day of the Outlaw

Actors: Robert Ryan, Burl Ives, Tina Louise, Alan Marshal, Nehemiah Persoff

Synopsis: Set in an isolated, snow-covered town in the far West, this story has a renegade army officer named Jack Bruhn (Burl Ives) and his henchmen riding into the town threatening their worst to the men and women there. Blaise Starrett (Robert Ryan) decides to agree to Bruhn's demands for someone Read More

Ten Seconds to Hell

Actors: Jeff Chandler, Jack Palance, Martine Carol, Robert Cornthwaite, Wesley Addy, Dave Willock, Virginia Baker

Synopsis: This film is a 1959 WWII drama that focuses on members of a German bomb squad. The fatalistic soldiers pool part of their paychecks into a fund that the last surviving member of the squad will get to keep. One by one, the men meet their deaths until only two remain: Karl Wirtz (Jeff Chandler) and Read More

Disneyland: The Saga of Andy Burnett: Andy's First Chore

Synopsis: In this second episode of Walt Disney's six-part miniseries The Saga of Andy Burnett, easterner Andy (Jerome Courtland) and his trapper pal Joe Crane (Jeff York) have joined a group called the Mountain Men in their journey the west. In order to survive the rough terrain ahead, Andy trains himself Read More

The Spirit of St. Louis

Actors: James Stewart, Murray Hamilton, Patricia Smith, Bartlett Robinson, Marc Connelly

Synopsis: A misfire for all concerned, The Spirit of St. Louis can be chalked up as a courageous failure. At age 48, James Stewart was far too old to be convincing as 27-year-old "Lone Eagle" Charles Lindbergh. Director Billy Wilder, a past master of cynical pessimism, was clearly the wrong choice to helm Read More

Hell on Devil's Island

Actors: Helmut Dantine, William Talman, Donna Martell, Jean Willes, Rex Ingram

Synopsis: Journalist Helmut Dantine, having spent eight years as a convict on Devil's Island, devotes his energies to exposing the horrible conditions at the notorious penal colony. The governor of French Guinea is sympathetic but helpless, since the Devil's Island overseer (William Talman) has technically Read More

Perry Mason: The Case of the Nervous Accomplice

Synopsis: In order to get rid of her husband Bruce's mistress Roxy Howard (Greta Thyssen), Sybil Granger hires Perry (Raymond Burr) to secretly help her gain a majority financial interest in Bruce's oil company. But someone else is apparently aware of what Sybil is up to, and that someone is old George Lutz Read More

On the Threshold of Space

Actors: Guy Madison, Virginia Leith, John Hodiak, Dean Jagger, Warren Stevens

Synopsis: The men behind America's first venture into space are honored in this drama that paid special emphasis on historical accuracy and obtained much input and assistance from the US Air Force. The story centers on an Air Force doctor who performs many detailed test to discover how the human body will Read More

The Leather Saint

Actors: Paul Douglas, John Derek, Jody Lawrance, Cesar Romero, Richard Shannon

Synopsis: The Leather Saint is an uneasy blend of religious drama and prizefight picture. John Derek stars as Father Gil Allen, an Episcopalian minister who relaxes on weekends by indulging in a few rounds of boxing. Allen hopes to use the prize money to finance a medical center for young polio victims, but Read More

Stranger on Horseback

Actors: Joel McCrea, Kevin McCarthy, John McIntire, Nancy Gates

Synopsis: Adapted from a novel by Louis L'Amour, Stranger on Horseback is one of Joel McCrea's shorter western vehicles, zipping merrily along at a mere 66 minutes. McCrea plays a travelling judge who makes it his mission in life to clean up the town of Bannerman. This proves difficult, in that the town is Read More

Kiss Me Deadly

Actors: Ralph Meeker, Albert Dekker, Paul Stewart, Wesley Addy, Maxine Cooper, Cloris Leachman

Synopsis: Regarded by many critics as the ultimate film noir, and by many more as the finest movie adaptation of a book by Mickey Spillane, Kiss Me Deadly stars Ralph Meeker as Spillane's anti-social private eye Mike Hammer. While driving down a lonely road late one evening, Hammer picks up a Read More

The Purple Mask

Actors: Tony Curtis, Colleen Miller, Gene Barry, Dan O'Herlihy, Angela Lansbury

Synopsis: Tony Curtis was by 1955 an accomplished enough actor to get through the costumed derring-do of The Purple Mask minus the awkwardness he'd displayed in his earlier swashbucklers. Curtis is cast as Rene, a foppish 18th century French nobleman who doubles as the Purple Mask, a Royalist supporter who Read More

The War of the Worlds

Actors: Gene Barry, Ann Robinson, Les Tremayne, Lewis Martin, Henry Brandon, Robert Cornthwaite, Sandro Giglio

Synopsis: H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds had been on Paramount Pictures' docket since the silent era, when it was optioned as a potential Cecil B. DeMille production. When Paramount finally got around to a filming the Wells novel, the property was firmly in the hands of special-effects maestro George Pal. Read More

Something to Live For

Actors: Joan Fontaine, Ray Milland, Teresa Wright, Richard Derr, Douglas Dick

Synopsis: Something to Live For is the last of director George Stevens' "small" films, before he concentrated full-time on such blockbusters as Shane and Giant. Joan Fontaine plays a popular actress who descends into alcoholism. Ray Milland, in an unofficial extension of his Lost Weekend role, plays a Read More

Monkey Business

Actors: Cary Grant, Ginger Rogers, Charles Coburn, Marilyn Monroe, Hugh Marlowe

Synopsis: Howard Hawks hoped to capture the screwball comic fervor of his 1938 film Bringing Up Baby with his 1952 comedy Monkey Business. As in the earlier film, Cary Grant stars as an absent-minded professor involved in a research project. This time he's a chemist seeking a "fountain of youth" formula Read More

The Thing

Actors: Margaret Sheridan, Kenneth Tobey, Robert Cornthwaite, Douglas Spencer, Dewey Martin

Synopsis: The scene is a distant Arctic research station, where a UFO has crashed. The investigating scientists discover that the circular craft has melted its way into the ice, wh