Robert M. Young Filmography

Human Error

Crew: Director

Actors: Xander Berkeley, Tom Bower, Robert Knott

Synopsis: Featuring a mixture of live-action and animation, this quirky comedy comes from director Robert M. Young (Caught). Robert Knott and Xander Berkeley star as Dobbitt and Hanrahan, two working stiffs who have left their families and homes behind for jobs in a strange factory that produces ambiguous Read More

China: The Panda Adventure

Crew: Director

Actors: Maria Bello, Xander Berkeley, Yu Xia, Paul Pape, Bill Hayes

Synopsis: In this visually striking tale of adventure, Ruth (Maria Bello) is an American widow who during the 1930s travels to China in hopes of making her late husband's dream a reality by bringing Chinese pandas to the United States. Ruth is awed by the striking beauty of China and discovers several of Read More

Caught

Crew: Director

Actors: Edward James Olmos, Maria Conchita Alonso, Arie Verveen, Bitty Schram, Steven Schub

Synopsis: Love, lust, loyalty, and betrayal are the themes of this tense adult drama. Joe (Edward James Olmos) and Betty (Maria Conchita Alonso) are a married couple living in Jersey City; Joe runs a fish market, and Betty wishes that Joe showed as much interest in her as he does in his business, since she Read More

Solomon & Sheba

Crew: Director

Actors: Halle Berry

Slave of Dreams

Crew: Director

Actors: Edward James Olmos, Sherilyn Fenn, Adrian Pasdar

Roosters

Crew: Director

Actors: Edward James Olmos, Sonia Braga, Maria Conchita Alonso, Danny Nucci, Sarah Lassez

Synopsis: Milcha Sanchez-Scott adapted her own play for this moving and poetic tale of family obsessions directed by Robert M. Young. Edward James Olmos stars as Gallo, the macho head of the Morales family. He has been in prison for the last seven years for murdering a man over a cockfight, but now he is Read More

American Me

Crew: Producer

Actors: Edward James Olmos, William Forsythe, Pepe Serna, Danny De La Paz, Evelina Fernandez

Synopsis: Edward J. Olmos made his directorial bow with the powerhouse crime saga American Me. Olmos stars as street-gang leader Santana, who during his 18 years in Folsom Prison rules over all the drug-and-murder activities behind bars. Upon his release, Santana goes back to his old neighborhood, intending Read More

Children of Fate: Life and Death in a Sicilian Family

Crew: Executive Producer

Synopsis: This film documents the 30-year struggle of a Sicilian woman named Angela as she struggles to raise her children amongst violence and poverty. This film is the continuation of an earlier project featuring the same woman. It picks up where the former left off, showing the consequences of poverty Read More

Talent for the Game

Crew: Director

Actors: Edward James Olmos, Lorraine Bracco, Jamey Sheridan, Terry Kinney, Jeff Corbett

Synopsis: Sammy Bodean is the newest, most promising recruit according to the advertisement of the California Angels--and has to prove it come game time. Following the team's sale to young business whiz Gil Lawrence (Terry Kinney), ex-player Virgil Sweet (Edward James Olmos) has to prove himself as the Read More

Alive and Kicking

Crew: Director

Actors: Robbie Coltrane, Lenny Henry, Jane Horrocks

Synopsis: Made for British television, Alive and Kicking is the bleak but compelling story of two druggies. Smudgen (Lenny Henry) is not only a user but a dealer; his wife Marie (Annabelle Apsion) is in what seems to be a perpetually strung-out state. When Marie has a baby, the authorities take the child Read More

The Plot Against Harry

Crew: Cinematographer, Producer

Actors: Martin Priest, Ben Lang, Henry Nemo

Synopsis: Filmed independently by Michael Roemer in 1969, The Plot Against Harry didn't earn a mainstream release until 1989. What was contemporary in 1969 became a period piece by the time it saw the light of day, but this anachronistic quality lent a great deal of charm to the proceedings. Harry Plotnick (Martin Priest Read More

Triumph of the Spirit

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Willem Dafoe, Edward James Olmos, Robert Loggia, Wendy Gazelle, Kelly Wolf

Synopsis: Triumph of the Spirit is the true story of Salamo Arouch, a Greek-Jewish boxer imprisoned in Auschwitz during World War II. Arrested while attempting to help his family and friends escape the Nazi juggernaut, Arouch (Dafoe) is slated for extermination. He manages to survive--and to serve as an Read More

One Way Out

Crew: Director

Dominick and Eugene

Crew: Director

Actors: Tom Hulce, Ray Liotta, Jamie Lee Curtis, Todd Graff, Mimi Cecchini

Synopsis: Dominick Luciano (Thomas Hulce) is the moderately retarded twin brother of highly intelligent young intern Eugene (Ray Liotta). Anxious to become a successful doctor, Eugene finds he must devote most of his time to caring for Dominick. For his part, Dominick has been contributing to the family Read More

We Are the Children

Crew: Director

Synopsis: The made-for-TV We are the Children stars Ally Sheedy as an idealistic doctor, working in Ethiopia. When famine hits the land, Sheedy struggles valiantly to protect the hundreds of men, women and children in the village where she works. While so doing, she falls in love with adventurous Read More

Extremities

Crew: Director

Actors: Farrah Fawcett, James Russo, Diana Scarwid, Alfre Woodard, Sandy Martin

Synopsis: Attacked by a masked assailant, Marjorie (Farrah Fawcett) lives in mortal fear that the unidentified man will strike again -- especially since he knows her address. Sure enough, Joe the attacker (James Russo) breaks into Marjorie's home and subjects her to a night of terror and sexual humiliation. Read More

Saving Grace

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Tom Conti, Fernando Rey, Erland Josephson, Giancarlo Giannini, Donald Hewlett

Synopsis: This is an Italian comedy about a runaway, incognito Pope who makes his way to a village for a temporary stay and tries to bring a few good works to fruition while there. After Pope Leo XIV gets locked out of the Vatican garden one day, he opts for taking off on a small escape from official and Read More

The Worst Witch

Crew: Director

Actors: Fairuza Balk, Charlotte Rae, Diana Rigg

Synopsis: Jill Murphy's children's story The Worst Witch is given satisfactory treatment in this amiable film fantasy. The scene is a school for witches, where the head sorceresses offer a liberal black-arts curriculum. Problems occur when one of the students turns out to be too good for her own good. And Read More

Harry's Kingdom

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Harry's Kingdom and Harry's Machine are alternate titles for the 1985 low-budgeter Hollywood Harry. Actor Robert Forster made his directorial debut in this languid private eye flick, reserving the "hard boiled dick" lead for himself. Forster is hired to find a missing girl; his only lead is the Read More

The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez

Crew: Cinematographer, Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Edward James Olmos, Tom Bower, James Gammon, Brion James, Bruce McGill

Synopsis: There was a genuine ballad behind The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez, based on a real-life character. Cortez, a San Antonio cowpoke, was arrested in 1901 because he resembled the actual criminal. Unable to speak English, Cortez fights off the authorities, inadvertently killing a sheriff in the process. Read More

The Mad Death

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Adapted from a novel by Nigel Slater, the British miniseries The Mad Death managed to induce quite a few nightmares when it originally aired in 1983. The story was set in motion when a rabid cat was smuggled into England, sparking an appalling epidemic which spread to animals and humans alike. The Read More

Starflight One

Crew: Screenwriter

Synopsis: In this taut, futuristic drama, the maiden voyage of a hypersonic passenger jet becomes a disaster when something goes terribly wrong and it gets stuck in orbit. The film is also known as Starflight: The Plane That Couldn't Land. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Charlie Boy

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Another episode of the short-lived but wonderfully creepy "Hammer House of Horror" TV series, this supernatural thriller is spiced with some darkly comic touches. The title refers to a nickname given to a weird-looking little African fetish doll, from which emanates a curse that claims the lives Read More

The World Is Full of Married Men

Crew: Director

Actors: Anthony Franciosa, Carroll Baker, Sherrie Cronn, Paul Nicholas, Gareth Hunt

Synopsis: This 1980 British production is based on the trashy romantic novel of the same name by Jackie Collins. Fabulously-successful advertising executive David Cooper (Anthony Franciosa) is a jet-setting philanderer who has a woman in seemingly every port of call. His long-suffering wife Linda (Carroll Baker Read More

One Trick Pony

Crew: Director

Actors: Paul Simon, Blair Brown, Rip Torn, Joan Hackett

Synopsis: The struggle of a has-been singer to work his way back up the charts is the focus of this drama by Robert M. Young with screenplay and music by Paul Simon. Simon plays Jonah, a once-popular singer who now opens for punk rock bands. In the ten years since he had a hit song, Jonah's wife has Read More

Diary of a Teenage Hitchhiker

Crew: Screenwriter

Synopsis: The first "new" ABC network TV movie of the 1979-80 season, this one was advertised under the slightly more lurid title Diary of a Teenage Hitchhiker. Filmed in quasidocumentary fashion, the story chronicles the melancholy tale of rebellious, 17-year-old Trish Thurston (Katy Kurtzman), who, in Read More

Rich Kids

Crew: Director

Actors: Trini Alvarado, Jeremy Levy, Kathryn Walker, John Lithgow, Terry Kiser

Synopsis: The rich kids of the title are 12-year-old Trini Alvarado and her intellectual pal Jeremy Levy. Alvarado is down in the dumps because her parents are going through a divorce. She finds a kindred spirit in Levy, whose folks split up long ago. He points out the advantages and privileges of being a Read More

The Ghost of Flight 401

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Ernest Borgnine

Synopsis: Based on a book by John C. Fuller, the made-for-TV Ghost of Flight 401 is predicated on the "actual events" surrounding a real-life plane crash. In December of 1972, Flight 401 nose-dived into the Florida Everglades, killing its flight officer (played herein by Ernest Borgnine). Though damaged Read More

Deal

Crew: Cinematographer

Synopsis: This feature-length documentary goes into the making of the U.S. television game show Let's Make A Deal. Business meetings with advertisers, network executives, and production people clarify the "intent" of the show and the ways in which the staging of the show is influenced by that intent. The Read More

Alambrista!

Crew: Cinematographer, Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Domingo Ambriz, Trinidad Silva, Linda Gillin, Ned Beatty

Synopsis: Robert M. Young, who has made a cottage industry of "small" atmospheric films, made his directorial debut in 1977's Alambrista!. Domingo Ambriz plays a young Mexican man who crosses illegally into the U.S. The birth of an additional child convinces him that they need more than he can earn on his Read More

Short Eyes

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: Bruce Davison, Jose Perez, Nathan George, Don Blakely, Shawn Elliott

Synopsis: "Short eyes" is prison slang for a man who sodomizes little boys. Fitting this odious description is new inmate Bruce Davison, who is arrested and locked up with the scum of the earth. Despite their own depravities, Davison's fellow prisoners consider him the lowest form of human life, and proceed Read More

The Streets of San Francisco: The Canine Collar

Crew: Screenwriter

Synopsis: A ship pulls into San Francisco with a most unsual cargo: a dog collar containing a fortune in diamond. Smuggler Paul Weber (George Dzundza) is determined to get his hands on those diamonds, even if it means committing murder at a high-profile dog show held at San Francisco's Cow Palace. This was Read More

Kojak: A Shield for Murder, Part 2

Crew: Director

Synopsis: In the conclusion of a two-part story (originally telecast as a single two-hour episode), Kojak (Telly Savalas) steps up his efforts to help Karen Foster (Marybeth Hurt), whom he believes has been falsely charged with murdering her mother. At the same time, powerful politician Edna Morrison Read More

Kojak: A Shield for Murder, Part 1

Crew: Director

Synopsis: In the first episode of a two-part story (originally telecast as a single two-hour "special"), Lt. Kojak (Telly Savalas) tackles a case of matricide that has remained unsolved from two years. Unfortunately, he meets stiff opposition in the form of Edna Morrison (Geraldine Page), a powerful Read More

Keep It Up Downstairs

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Looming bankruptcy makes an English family stop their excessive spending in this comedy. ~ All Movie Guide Read More

The Streets of San Francisco: No Place to Hide

Crew: Screenwriter

Synopsis: The convicts in a maximum-security prison have developed a diabolically clever method to smuggle drugs in and out of the institution, using as their "mules" the prisoners' wives who show up on visiting day. When one of the convicts resists getting involved in the drug traffic, his wife on the Read More

The Streets of San Francisco: River of Fear

Crew: Screenwriter

Synopsis: The plot of this episode is feuled by a deadly battle of wits between a 12-year-old girl named Julie Todd (Kim Richards) and phony doctor William F. Dunson (Peter Haskell). Julie knows that Dunson, whose real name is James Cooper, has murdered her mother in order to gain access to a fortune hidden Read More

Escape to Witch Mountain

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Eddie Albert, Ray Milland, Donald Pleasence, Kim Richards, Ike Eisenmann

Synopsis: This fast-paced Disney endeavor stars Kim Richards and Ike Eisenmann as two adolescents with acute psychic powers. The kids are actually space aliens, but suffer from amnesia and are unaware of their origins. Pursued by greedy business-mogul Ray Milland, who wants to harness their special powers Read More

The Streets of San Francisco: Mask of Death

Crew: Screenwriter

Synopsis: In an acting tour de force that earned him critical acclaim back in 1974, John Davidson guest stars as professional female impersonator Ken Scott. The highlight of Scott's nightclub act is his dead-on imitation of legendary 1930s movie star Carol Marlowe. Unfortunately, the entertainer's Read More

Locusts

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Ron Howard

Synopsis: This TV-movie spin on "Lenningen vs. the Ants" not only features predatory locusts, but grasshoppers as well. The insect invasion threatens the harvest of a small rural community. Ben Johnson plays the father of one of the imperiled farm families. Ron Howard plays Johnson's son, who is considered Read More

Kojak: Deliver Us Some Evil

Crew: Screenwriter

Synopsis: Light-years removed from his comic escapades on Three's Company, John Ritter delivers a topnotch dramatic performance as Kenny Soames, a delivery boy who moonlights as a burglar. Accidentally killing one of his victims, Kenny plots a big-time heist in order to earn enough money to finance his Read More

The F.B.I.: The Loper Gambit

Crew: Screenwriter

Synopsis: Ronald Loper (Robert F. Lyons) heads a gang of kidnappers who are secure in the belief that they've pulled off the perfect crime by snatching the ne'er-do-well son (Tom Lowell) of a prominent contractor (Larry Gates). Inspector Erskine (Efrem Zimbalist Jr.) hopes to catch the crooks without Read More

The Streets of San Francisco: The Runaways

Crew: Screenwriter

Synopsis: With the child-welfare authorities breathing down his neck, orphaned teenager George Morgan (played by future ChiPs costar Larry Wilcox) desperately tries to hold his family together. Going on the run with his younger siblings, George is forced to steal medicine for his ailing sister--and as a Read More

Kojak: Dark Sunday

Crew: Screenwriter

Synopsis: After a routine heist, two-bit car thief Artie Fowler (Mark Alaimo) is killed in cold blood. Kojak suspects that there's something bigger than a standard robbery going on--especially after Artie's girlfriend Maria (Lara Parker) lets slip that an upcoming "caper" will make fools of the authorities. Read More

The F.B.I.: The Big Job

Crew: Screenwriter

Synopsis: The F.B.I. inagurates its ninth season (originally telecast in a 7:30PM Sunday timeslot, one half-hour earlier than its traditional 8 PM berth) with an all-points-bulletin manhunt for three clever ex-cons. The crooks have pulled off a $4,000,000 heist at an armored car firm, leaving Inspector Read More

The Streets of San Francisco: The Twenty-Four Karat Plague

Crew: Screenwriter

Synopsis: Vic Morrow heads the guest cast as Vic Tolliman, leader of a gang of thieves. Hijacking a gold shipment, Tollman and his henchmen are unaware that the gold has been mixed with deadly uranium. Per the episode's title, Stone (Karl Malden) and Keller (Michael Douglas) have only twenty-four hours to Read More

The Streets of San Francisco: A Trout in the Milk

Crew: Screenwriter

Synopsis: Stone (Karl Malden) and Keller (Michael Douglas) make a memorable foray into the San Francisco artists' colony after a painter falls from his studio window to his death. Determining that the victim was murdered, the detectives zero in on the most likely suspect: urban poet and notorious jailbird Read More

The Streets of San Francisco: Act of Duty

Crew: Screenwriter

Synopsis: This 1973 episode features Brenda Vaccaro, the then girlfriend of series costar Michael Douglas (Steve Keller), as rookie SFPD officer Sherry Tate. When her roommate, likewise a cop, is murdered while tracking down an elusive rapist, Sherry volunteers to act as bait for the killer. Even after Read More

The Waltons: The Theft

Crew: Screenwriter

Synopsis: John Walton (Ralph Waite) is accused of stealing some valuable silver goblets from wealthy neighbor Mrs. Claybourne (Diana Webster). Her evidence? Well, for starters, John is the only visitor that Mrs. Claybourne has had in weeks--and even more damning, he has suddenly and inexplicably come into a Read More

The Streets of San Francisco: Beyond Vengeance

Crew: Screenwriter

Synopsis: Prolific character actor Joe Don Baker is evil incarnate in the role of Leonard Collier Cord, a convicted rapist, torturer and murderer. Paroled after twelve years, the unrepentant Cord vows to get even with Mike Stone (Karl Malden), the detective who sent up. With fiendish calculation, Cord Read More

The F.B.I.: Center of Peril

Crew: Screenwriter

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 F.B.I.: The Game of Terror

Crew: Screenwriter

Synopsis: A pair of youthful criminal wannabes, Chill and Bryan, concoct a "game" whereby they will kidnap a young boy and hold him for ransom. But the game turns deadly when the victim is hidden in a cave that is threatening to collapse upon him at any minute! In the original TV Guide synopsis, much was Read More

Vampire Circus

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Though not as widely known as Hammer's popular Dracula and Frankenstein series, this is one of the studio's more stylish and intelligent projects. The tale is set in 17th century Serbia in the tiny burg of Stettel, whose residents live in fear of an encroaching plague. The frightened villagers Read More

The F.B.I.: The Savage Wilderness

Crew: Screenwriter

Synopsis: Inspector Erskine (Efrem Zimbalist Jr.) spearheads a search for mentally disturbed Walker Oborn (Don Stroud), who has already committed one murder while eluding the Feds. Now Oborn has kidnapped Emily Willis (Darlene Carr), the 18-year-girl he has long worshiped from afar, and has headed into the Read More

The F.B.I.: Time Bomb

Crew: Screenwriter

Synopsis: Determined to "change the world" in a hurry, home-grown terrorist Eric Stone (Geoffrey Deuel) has no qualms about resorting to violence. Together with fellow conspirators Gilbert Manning (Tom Falk), Karen Wandemere (Diane Ewing), and Knox and Allen Hiller (Wayne Maunder, Mark Jenkins), Stone has Read More

Mission: Impossible: The Amnesiac

Crew: Screen Story

Actors: Peter Graves, Leonard Nimoy, Greg Morris, Peter Lupus, Anthony Zerbe

Synopsis: A rare radioactive isotope known as Trivanium is the prize in this tense Mission:Impossible episode. With only 48 hours at their disposal, the IMF must recover the isotope before it can be applied to the manufacture of nuclear weaponry. Paris poses as Stefan, the amnesiac former partner of Johan Read More

Nothing But a Man

Crew: Cinematographer, Producer, Screenwriter

Actors: Ivan Dixon, Abbey Lincoln, Gloria Foster, Martin Priest

Synopsis: A landmark independent film, Nothing but a Man is the first dramatic story featuring a largely black cast created for an integrated audience (the work of black filmmakers such as Oscar Micheaux was intended for audiences who patronized black-only theaters). White filmmakers Michael Roemer and Read More

The Crawling Hand

Crew: Screen Story

Actors: Peter Breck, Kent Taylor, Rod Lauren, Sirry Steffen, Arline Judge

Synopsis: The hand of an exploded astronaut takes on a life of its own in this unintentionally funny horror film that begins when the hand is discovered near the crash site by a naive young med student who takes it home as a grisly souvenir. He has no idea that the hand has been possessed by a strange Read More

The Inferno

Crew: Cinematographer, Director, Editor, Screenwriter

Synopsis: Although the Inferno was made in 1962 for NBC television's prestigious "White Paper" series, the network refused to run the documentary because it was considered too controversial. Director Robert M. Young rescued the film from the discard pile, and after some editing, it was publicly shown for Read More

Trauma

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: John Conte, Lynn Bari, David Garner, Warren Kemmerling, Lorrie Richards

Synopsis: This psychological thriller concerns a woman who is witness to a murder and is traumatized by the event. Her horror over the event causes her to suppress the memory, losing all recollection of the death of the young female victim. The incident is purged from her mind for nearly six years as her Read More

The Miracle of the Reef

Crew: Dialogue Writer, Director, Editor

Synopsis: This 72-minute documentary explores the fascinating and sometimes frightening world beneath the sea. The more frightening aspects are given special emphasis by the three-man directorial staff. In one harrowing scene, a group of moray eels fight an uneven battle with a hostile octopus. Less Read More