Stirling SilliphantFilmography

Day of Reckoning

Crew: Screenwriter

Catch the Heat

Crew: Executive Producer, Producer, Screenwriter

Actors: David Dukes, Tiana Alexandra, Rod Steiger, Brian Thompson, Jorge Martinez

Synopsis: A San Francisco narcotics officer goes undercover to South America in an attempt to bust a drug lord and his operation. Of course, the assignment involves her ability to participate in a certain breast-altering operation to smuggle the goods into the States, though her brassiere size may be too Read More

Over the Top

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Sylvester Stallone, Robert Loggia, Susan Blakely, Rick Zumwalt, David Mendenhall

Synopsis: After winning the heavyweight boxing championship and single-handedly winning the war in Vietnam for America, Sylvester Stallone moves on to a real challenge -- arm wrestling -- in this action drama with a family undercurrent. Lincoln Hawk (Stallone) is a long-haul truck driver who years ago Read More

James A. Michener's Space

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: James Garner, Harry Hamlin, Beau Bridges, David Dukes, Michael York, Bruce Dern

Synopsis: This mammoth five-part, 13-hour CBS miniseries was based on the best-selling novel by James A. Michener. Covering the U.S.-Soviet "space race" from the end of WWII to the landing on the moon, the program stars James Garner as Norman Grant, a former war hero turned senator who tirelessly promotes Read More

Mussolini: The Untold Story

Crew: Producer, Teleplay By

Actors: George C. Scott, Lee Grant, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, Virginia Madsen, Raul Julia

Synopsis: The story in this two-part TV biopic was probably "untold" mainly because it was untrue. According to the revisionist script by Stirling Silliphant, Italian dictator Benito Mussolini (overplayed by George C. Scott) may have been a fascist, a tyrant, a mass murderer and an intimate of Adolf Hitler Read More

Travis McGee

Crew: Teleplay By

Synopsis: In this detective drama, ultra-macho investigator Travis McGee, based on a character by author John D. MacDonald, looks into the case of a seemingly drowned land developer. Along the way he meets a boozy old sailor, a high-strung pianist, and the dead developer's sister. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Read More

Golden Gate

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Richard Kiley

Synopsis: Golden Gate revolves around a San Francisco-based newspaper empire run by a family named Kingsley (it could just as well have been "Kane," since the family was based on you-know-what Frisco-based publishing dynasty). Richard Kiley, the cold and commanding Kingsley patriarch, suffers a heart Read More

Fly Away Home

Crew: Composer (Music Score), Producer, Screenwriter

Synopsis: The made-for-TV Fly Away Home was intended as the pilot for a weekly series. Bruce Boxleitner stars as Carl Danton, a combat photographer assigned to Vietnam. This time around, Danton is compelled to cover the Tet Offensive--and to battle with bureaucratic red tape in order to maintain his Read More

When Time Ran Out

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Paul Newman, Jacqueline Bisset, William Holden, Edward Albert, Red Buttons

Synopsis: After producer Irwin Allen highlighted the dangers of fire in the Towering Inferno and the dangers of water in the Poseidon Adventure, he is back to fire again but this time it is within the earth, at least for awhile. This fairly routine disaster film is set on a resort island with a volcano that Read More

Salem's Lot

Crew: Executive Producer

Actors: David Soul, James Mason, Lance Kerwin, Reggie Nalder

Synopsis: Novelist David Soul returns to his hometown of Salem, finding that things have changed a bit. More than a bit, in fact: the previously warm and friendly community is downright sinister. Soul suspects that the bizarre behavior of his onetime friends and neighbors is the handiwork of oddball antique Read More

Pearl

Crew: Executive Producer, Teleplay By

Actors: Angie Dickinson, Robert Wagner, Dennis Weaver, Lesley Ann Warren, Gregg Henry

Synopsis: Adapted by Oscar-winning screenwriter Stirling Silliphant from his own novel, the three-part, six-hour miniseries Pearl inevitably invoked memories of the strikingly similar From Here to Eternity. The focus was on three military couples living in Honolulu in and around the time of Japan's attack Read More

The Swarm

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Michael Caine, Katharine Ross, Richard Widmark, Richard Chamberlain, Olivia de Havilland

Synopsis: Killer bees migrate to the United States from Africa via South America in this disaster film produced and directed by the genre's chief architect, Irwin Allen, and written by Stirling Silliphant, scribe of The Poseidon Adventure. Haughty entomologist Brad Crane (Michael Caine) shows up at a secret Read More

Circle of Iron

Crew: Screen Story, Screenwriter

Actors: David Carradine, Jeff Cooper, Roddy McDowall, Eli Wallach, Erica Creer

Synopsis: This symbol-laden drama explores the inner mythology of martial arts practice and is based on a Bruce Lee story idea. The original screenplay was written by Bruce Lee, with help from actor James Coburn and screenwriter Stirling Silliphant. Lee was to take on the four-in-one role of guide in his Read More

Telefon

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Charles Bronson, Lee Remick, Donald Pleasence, Tyne Daly, Alan Badel

Synopsis: Don Siegel took over the directing chores from Peter Hyams on this taut cold war action film, based on the novel by Walter Wager. With the cold war between the United States and the Soviet Union thawing, old KGB hard-liner Nicolai Dalchimsky (Donald Pleasence) activates a group of Americans who Read More

The Enforcer

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Clint Eastwood, Harry Guardino, Bradford Dillman, John Mitchum, DeVeren Bookwalter, Tyne Daly

Synopsis: Number three in the Dirty Harry series, The Enforcer equips macho cop Harry Callahan (Clint Eastwood) with a female assistant, Kate Moore (Tyne Daly). Their quarry is a terrorist organization which has kidnapped the mayor of San Francisco (John Crawford). Harry goes undercover, attempting to root Read More

The Killer Elite

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: James Caan, Robert Duvall, Arthur Hill, Bo Hopkins, Mako

Synopsis: This second-string Sam Peckinpah action film features James Caan as ex-CIA agent Mike Locken, who has retired due to injuries received at the hands of his ex-partner George Hansen (Robert Duvall). But Mike is lured out of retirement to protect Yuen Chung (Mako), an Asian political leader. There's Read More

The First 36 Hours of Dr. Durant

Crew: Executive Producer, Screenwriter

Synopsis: Conceived as the pilot for a TV series, The First 36 Hours of Dr. Durant stars Scott Hylands as the title character. The film follows the super-idealistic Durant as he assumes his residency in a big-city hospital. The young doctor clashes with practically everyone in authority, but by film's end Read More

Death Scream

Crew: Screenwriter

Synopsis: The 1975 TV movie Death Scream is based on the shameful Kitty Genovese affair of 1964, in which a N.Y.C. woman was stabbed to death while 38 witnesses locked their windows and doors and pretended not to hear. Raul Julia stars as the detective who investigates the murder and stirs up the guilt Read More

The Towering Inferno

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Carlena Gower, Carol McEvoy, Steve McQueen, Paul Newman, William Holden, Faye Dunaway, Fred Astaire, Richard Chamberlain

Synopsis: A skyscraper and an all-star cast go up in flames in Irwin Allen's classic disaster movie. To celebrate the construction of the Glass Tower, the world's tallest building, architect Doug Roberts (Paul Newman) and builder James Duncan (William Holden) hold a gala bash on the highest floors. Trouble Read More

Shaft in Africa

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: James E. Myers, Richard Roundtree, Frank Finlay, Vonetta McGee, Neda Arneric, Debebe Eshetu

Synopsis: In the third and last in the original Shaft (1971) series of action-packed "blaxploitation" pictures, private eye John Shaft (Richard Roundtree) travels to the "motherland," where he breaks up a modern slavery ring. Shaft is hired by a diplomat, Emir Ramila (Cy Grant), to infiltrate the criminal Read More

The Poseidon Adventure

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Gene Hackman, Ernest Borgnine, Red Buttons, Carol Lynley, Roddy McDowall

Synopsis: The Poseidon, an ocean liner larger than the Queens Elizabeth and Mary combined, is charting its course on New Year's Eve. Just after midnight, Captain Harrison (Leslie Nielsen) spots the mother of all tidal waves. It is the last thing that Harrison and practically everyone Read More

The New Centurions

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: George C. Scott, Stacy Keach, Jane Alexander, Scott Wilson, Rosalind Cash

Synopsis: Joseph Wambaugh's best-seller about patrol-car cops in urban Los Angeles is given a competent yet antiseptic treatment by director Richard Fleischer. The film has a bad-tasting us-versus-them mentality in its depiction of patrolmen-civilian interaction, and its hopeless atmosphere carries over Read More

Murphy's War

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Peter O'Toole, Sian Phillips, Philippe Noiret, Horst Janson, John Hallam

Synopsis: Peter Yates directed this quirky World War II war drama starring Peter O'Toole as Murphy, an Irishman who survives the torpedoing of a merchantman ship off the jungle coast of Venezuela by a German U-boat. Murphy is rescued by French oil engineer, Louis Brezon (Philippe Noiret), who reluctantly Read More

A Walk in the Spring Rain

Crew: Producer, Screenwriter

Actors: Anthony Quinn, Ingrid Bergman, Fritz Weaver, Katherine Crawford, Tom Fielding

Synopsis: Based on the novel by Rachel Maddux, A Walk in the Spring Rain is a romantic drama directed by Guy Green and adapted to screenplay by Sterling Siliphant. Taking a break from New York, Libby Meredith (Ingrid Bergman) moves to a small house in backwoods Tennessee with her husband, Roger (Fritz Read More

Longstreet

Crew: Executive Producer, Screenwriter

Synopsis: Longstreet was the pilot for one of the better "gimmick" detective series of the 1970s. The title role of Michael Longstreet is played by James Franciscus. Longstreet is a New Orleans insurance investigator who has been permanently blinded in a mysterious bombing which has killed his wife. As he Read More

The Liberation of L.B. Jones

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Lee J. Cobb, Anthony Zerbe, Roscoe Lee Browne, Lola Falana, Lee Majors

Synopsis: Justice runs red in the deep South in this powerful drama. Steve Mundine (Lee Majors) is a young lawyer who, shortly after marrying his sweetheart Nella (Barbara Hershey), takes a position with a law firm in a small Southern town, run by his uncle Oman Hedgepath (Lee J. Cobb). L.B. Jones (Roscoe Read More

Marlowe

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: James Garner, Gayle Hunnicutt, Carroll O'Connor, Rita Moreno, Sharon Farrell

Synopsis: James Garner is so good as Raymond Chandler's philosophical gumshoe Philip Marlowe that you forget he's totally wrong for the part. Based on Chandler's The Little Sister, Marlowe involves the detective's efforts to locate the missing brother of Orfamay Quest (Sharon Farrell). He follows the clues Read More

Charly

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Cliff Robertson, Claire Bloom, Leon Janney, Lilia Skala, Dick Van Patten

Synopsis: In 1961, Cliff Robertson starred in The Two Worlds of Charley Gordon, a TV adaptation of Daniel Keyes' story Flowers for Algernon. Determined not to lose out on the film version of this play as he'd done with Days of Wine and Roses, Robertson bought up the movie rights to Keyes' story so that he Read More

In the Heat of the Night

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Sidney Poitier, Rod Steiger, Warren Oates, Lee Grant, James Patterson, Scott Wilson

Synopsis: The winner of the 1967 Oscar for Best Picture (as well as four other Oscars), In the Heat of the Night is set in a small Mississippi town where an unusual murder has been committed. Rod Steiger plays sheriff Bill Gillespie, a good lawman despite his racial prejudices. When Virgil Tibbs (Sidney Poitier Read More

Wings of Fire

Crew: Teleplay By

Synopsis: One of the earliest made-for-TV movies in NBC's "World Premiere" manifest, Wings of Fire stars Suzanne Pleshette as fearless aviatrix Kitty Sanborn. Hoping to save her father's flagging business, Kitty enters an international air race. Back on land, she tries to cope with the fact that her former Read More

The Slender Thread

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Sidney Poitier, Anne Bancroft, Telly Savalas, Steven Hill, Ed Asner

Synopsis: Sidney Pollack marked his feature film directing debut with this taut suspense drama, based upon an actual incident reported in Time Magazine. Sidney Poitier stars as Alan Nuell, a student volunteer at a medical clinic in Seattle who answers the phone to find Inge Dyson (Anne Bancroft) on the Read More

Naked City: Prime of Life

Crew: Screenwriter

Route 66 [TV Series]

Crew: Show Creator

Village of the Damned

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: George Sanders, Barbara Shelley, Martin Stephens, Michael Gwynn, Laurence Naismith, John Phillips

Synopsis: Something is seriously amiss in the tiny British village of Midwich. At 11 a.m. one morning, every village resident suddenly falls asleep -- and then, just as suddenly, everyone wakes up, completely unaffected by the phenomenon. Well, not completely: virtually every woman of childbearing years has Read More

Naked City: A Death of Princes

Crew: Screenwriter

Alfred Hitchcock Presents: Graduating Class

Crew: Screenwriter

Synopsis: Newly hired at a private school, teacher Laura Siddons (Wendy Hiller) suspects that one of her students, a girl named Gloria (Gigi Perreau), is having a clandestine romance. Laura and her gentleman friend, Ben (Robert H. Harris), eventually catch up with Gloria and confirm their suspicions: the Read More

Alfred Hitchcock Presents: The Crystal Trench

Crew: Screenwriter

Synopsis: This poignant playlet is based on a story by A.E.W. Mason, of The Four Feathers fame. After the death of her husband in a freak mountain accident in Switzerland, Stella Ballister (Patricia Owens) solemnly vows to remain faithful to her spouse's memory. Twenty years pass, and throughout all that Read More

Alfred Hitchcock Presents: The Canary Sedan

Crew: Screenwriter

Synopsis: After several years' separation from her husband, Laura Bowley (Jessica Tandy) leaves London and heads for a reunion with Mr. Bowley (Murray Matheson) in Hong Kong. Upon her arrival, Laura is met by a chauffeur driving a black sedan. When Laura expresses a preference for a yellow sedan, she is Read More

Alfred Hitchcock Presents: Little White Frock

Crew: Screenwriter

Synopsis: An old backstage legend is the source for this, the final episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents' third season. Herbert Marshall stars as over-the-hill actor Colin Bragner, who hopes to stage a comeback in a play written by Adam Longworth (Tom Helmore). For his part, Longworth wants nothing to do Read More

Naked City [TV Series]

Crew: Show Creator

Actors: John P. McIntyre, Horace McMahon, James Franciscus, Paul Burke, Harry Bellaver

Synopsis: "There are eight million stories in The Naked City...This has been one of them." These words were intoned by producer Mark Hellinger at the conclusion of The Naked City, a 1947 detective film lensed in its entirety in New York City (quite an innovation in those Hollywood-dominated years). The same Read More

The Lineup

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Eli Wallach, Robert Keith, Warner Anderson, Richard Jaeckel, Mary Laroche

Synopsis: A steamship docks in San Francisco, and as one of the passengers, Philip Dressler (Raymond Bailey), is waiting for a cab after clearing customs, a baggage handler suddenly grabs one of his cases and throws it into a taxi, which takes off. In the ensuing getaway, a police officer is killed, but not Read More

Maracaibo

Crew: Book Author

Actors: Cornel Wilde, Jean Wallace, Abbe Lane, Francis Lederer, Michael Landon

Synopsis: Maracaibo was actor Cornel Wilde's second directorial effort. Wilde casts himself as troubleshooting oil man Vic Scott, who has arrived in Venezuela to help put out a fire at an offshore well. It's a ticklish situation: if Scott fails, not only will he die in the blaze, but all of Maracaibo will Read More

Damn Citizen

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Keith Andes, Maggie Hayes, Gene Evans, Lynn Bari, Jeffrey Stone

Synopsis: This biographical drama, chronicles the patriotic exploits of World War II hero Colonel Francis C. Grevemberg, who fought a tough battle against crime and corruption in his home state, Louisiana. He got his chance to serve the state when he was appointed the superintendent of state police by the Read More

Alfred Hitchcock Presents: The Return of the Hero

Crew: Screenwriter

Synopsis: Wounded in the French-Algerian war, Sgt. Andre Doniere (Jacques Bergerac) heads back to France in the company of his friend Marcel (Marcel Dalio), who lost a leg saving Andre's life. Although Doniere's return is eagerly awaited by his adoring fiancée, Sybil (Lilyan Chauvin), he is consumed by Read More

Alfred Hitchcock Presents: The Perfect Crime

Crew: Screenwriter

Synopsis: Directed by Alfred Hitchcock, this delightfully macabre episode stars Vincent Price as Charles Courtney, a brilliant and pompous detective who takes pride in the fact that he has never made a wrong decision in his career. Courtney has celebrated this winning streak with a well-stocked trophy room Read More

Perry Mason: The Case of the Fan Dancer's Horse

Crew: Screenwriter

Synopsis: After witnessing an automobile accident, Perry (Raymond Burr) and Della (Barbara Hale) see a young Mexican woman fleeing the scene. Perry later discovers that the girl is exotic dancer Cherie Chi-Chi (played by Judy Tyler in one of her last appearances before her death in a real-life car Read More

Perry Mason: The Case of the Nervous Accomplice

Crew: Screenwriter

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

Alfred Hitchcock Presents: Manacled

Crew: Screenwriter

Synopsis: En route to prison by train, convicted robber Steve Fontaine (William Redfield) is manacled to his captor, Sgt. Rockwell (Gary Merrill). Hoping to escape his fate, the fast-talking Fontaine attempts to bribe the stalwart Rockwell -- and when this fails, more drastic measures are required. The key Read More

Alfred Hitchcock Presents: Bottle of Wine

Crew: Screenwriter

Synopsis: Herbert Marshall, who'd previously starred in Alfred Hitchcock's theatrical features Murder and Foreign Correspondent, is here cast as Harley Condon, an esteemed judge who is saddled with a faithless wife named Gracie (Jarma Lewis). To prove to Gracie that her current lover Wallace Donaldson (Robert Horton Read More

Alfred Hitchcock Presents: The Glass Eye

Crew: Screenwriter

Synopsis: Season three of Alfred Hitchcock Presents gets under way with one of the series' best and most celebrated episodes -- and one which, surprisingly, is not directed by Alfred Hitchcock himself. As Jim Whitely (William Shatner) and his girlfriend Dorothy (Rosemary Harris) rummage through the Read More

Huk

Crew: Book Author, Screenwriter

Actors: George Montgomery, Mona Freeman, John Baer, James Bell

Synopsis: Adapted by Stirling Silliphant from his own novel, Huk was filmed on location in the Philippines. George Montgomery heads the cast as a plantation owner who struggles to fend off native insurrectionists (the "Huks" of the title). He is aided in this effort by fellow planter John Baer, whose wife Read More

Nightfall

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Aldo Ray, Brian Keith, Anne Bancroft, Jocelyn Brando, James Gregory, Frank Albertson, Rudy Bond

Synopsis: Commercial artist James Vanning (Aldo Ray) and his friend, Dr. Edward Gurston (Frank Albertson), are on a hunting and fishing trip in Wyoming when they stop to help two men whose car has crashed. The pair, John (Brian Keith) and Red (Rudy Bond), turn out to be escaped bank robbers, on the run with Read More

Alfred Hitchcock Presents: Never Again

Crew: Screenwriter

Synopsis: Awakening in a strange bed and suffering from a terrible headache -- not to mention the mysterious bruises all over her body -- alcoholic Karen Stewart (Phyllis Thaxter) tries to piece together the events leading up to her present condition. All she can recall at first is her most recent promise Read More

Alfred Hitchcock Presents: Jonathan

Crew: Screenwriter

Synopsis: Corey Allen, who'd played James Dean's ill-fated "chickie run" opponent in the 1955 feature Rebel without a Cause (and who later became a prolific TV director), is the guest star in this episode. Allen plays Gil Dalliford, who deeply resents the fact that his widowed father Jonathan (Douglas Kennedy Read More

Five Against the House

Crew: Producer, Screenwriter

Actors: Guy Madison, Kim Novak, Brian Keith, Alvy Moore, William Conrad

Synopsis: In this film noir, five college students laughingly devise a perfect plan for robbing a casino in Reno. At first they do it just to pass the time, but one of them is deeply in debt and becoming increasingly distraught about it. He successfully cajoles his peers into carrying through with their Read More

The Joe Louis Story

Crew: Producer

Actors: Coley Wallace, Paul Stewart, Hilda Simms, James Edwards, John Marley

Synopsis: Coley Wallace plays the title role in The Joe Louis Story. Told in flashback, the film recounts the pugilistic career of "the Brown Bomber" from the early 1930s to his misguided comeback attempt opposite Rocky Marciano in 1951. The film's high point is Louis' defeat of Germany's Max Schmeling; its Read More