William Schallert

A comprehensive story of Hollywood's horror and science fiction films of the 1950s, told by the people who made them.

From THINGS to BODY SNATCHERS to CREATURES FROM THE BLACK LAGOON, sci-fi monsters dominated 1950s horror. Take a ride to an era of drive-ins, Red Scares, low budgets and big bugs with SPACE INVADERS AND DRIVE INS.

Test pilot Hal Jordan finds himself recruited as the newest member of the intergalactic police force, The Green Lantern Corps.

In 2000, the election of the U.S. Presidential boiled down to a few precious votes in the state of Florida — and a recount that would add "hanging chad" to every American's vocabulary.

Dumped by a vindictive girlfriend (Jen Dede), broke and in need of therapy, Cooper (Wayne Reynolds) joins a support group for sex addicts. With the help of Mitch (Bryan Callen), a group member with a dark secret, and obscure celebrity Sergio (Jorge Garcia), Cooper tries to pick up the pieces. With a little luck, he may even get another chance at love. Reynolds wrote and directed this comic drama, based on his one-man play.

Documentary on the life and work of B-movie filmmaker Edgar G. Ulmer, spanning from his early life to his last film.

Original castmembers from the 60's series reunite as Patty fights to stop her longtime nemesis Sue Ellen from turning Brooklyn Heights High into a shopping mall.

When a planeload of Pakistani orphans are shipped to his state for permanent relocation, the governor of Idaho defies the president and closes the state's border. News Net Television, a cable news program that makes hay by reporting on political scandals, quickly spins the racist act into an overnight media sensation, creating a divide in national opinion over the issue.

A lawyer trying to cope with his son's accidental death takes on a case where a farmer is charged with booby trapping a watermelon patch with a shotgun which went off and injured a young boy. But in choosing to defend the farmer, he puts himself at odds with the boy's father, an old friend who is politically influential. In dealing with this case, he is forced to confront his own son's death and his wife's slippage into being a virtual recluse.

An unlikely hero, Elwood P. Dowd. This mild-mannered-but-eccentric bachelor has, for several years, happily kept company with Harvey, a six-foot-tall rabbit that only he can see. All's well until Elwood's social-climbing sister, Veta, and her teenage daughter, Myrtle Mae, come to live with him and fear his odd behavior will undermine their ambitions. When Elwood disrupts the ladies' first afternoon tea party by introducing wealthy Aunt Ethel Chauvenet to Harvey, Veta sees that something must be done right away. She takes compliant Elwood to the Chumley Rest Home, leaving him in the car while she tells a Dr. Sanderson all about Elwood and Harvey. Sanderson concludes that Veta is the psychotic one and has her carted off to be committed. Meanwhile Elwood is treated with respect and dignity in light of his sister's mental state. When Dr. Chumley, head of the rest home, returns and hears of the case, he draws the opposite conclusion-that Elwood in fact hallucinates.

American Documentary, narrated by Christopher Lee

In 1950s America, teenage rebellion comes easy when something like rock 'n' roll is viewed as sinful. Looking to have a good time while they're young, small-town teens Susan, Cookie and Tony start a nightclub where host Danny Klay introduces the newest rock 'n' roll talent, and everyone can dance the night away. Of course, not everyone in town is happy with the new establishment.

Beethoven is back -- and this time, he has a whole brood with him now that he's met his canine match, Missy, and fathered a family. The only problem is that Missy's owner, Regina, wants to sell the puppies and tear the clan apart. It's up to Beethoven and the Newton kids to save the day and keep everyone together.

Newswoman Fay Sommerfield takes a morally outraged look at excessive violence, bad language and sacrilege that pass for entertainment in the early 90s. She illustrates this with clips from (fake) current hit films and music videos.

A showman introduces a small coastal town to a unique movie experience and capitalizes on the Cuban Missile crisis hysteria with a kitschy horror extravaganza combining film effects, stage props and actors in rubber suits in this salute to the B-movie.

Kid'N'Play leave their neighborhood and enter the world of adulthood and higher education. Play attempts to get rich quick in the music business while Kid faces the challenges of college.

Longtime singles Lillian Lambert and Clifford Pepperman enjoy a romance late in their lives.

Based on the real-life experiences of Sis Levin, the wife of CNN Reporter Jerry Levin, who was taken hostage in Lebanon by Shiite Fundamentalists in 1984, and her struggle to free him.

Small town lawyer, Harmon Cobb, defends a Nazi prisoner of war against murder charges. Set during World War II, Cobb has to contend with the difficulties of defending the devil when the town's only doctor (Barnard Hughes) dies while at "Camp Bremen" in the fictitious town of Bremen, Colorado.

It's been nearly a generation since we've visited Dobie Gillis, and the middle-aged Dobie is nothing like he was as a youth, having sown all of his wild oats. He's settled into the predictable adult life, married to the reliable Zelda (who was chasing him all through high school), and assumed his father's role of running the family variety store. All of a sudden, key industries in the town shut down, putting hundreds out of work and severely threatening the local economy. Dobie, as head of the town council, is looked upon to lead the town out of this desperate crisis. When all seems lost, life-long friend Maynard G. Krebs appears, representing an old acquaintance who has a strange demand.

The Smurfs learn the true meaning of Christmas when they put their own plans to the side in order to help out a poor man with a sick wife.

Test pilot Tuck Pendleton volunteers to test a special vessel for a miniaturization experiment. Accidentally injected into a neurotic hypochondriac, Jack Putter, Tuck must convince Jack to find his ex-girlfriend, Lydia Maxwell, to help him extract Tuck and his ship and re-enlarge them before his oxygen runs out.

Sam Elliot stars as Sam Houston, the visionary who nearly single-handedly forged the state of Texas into a powerful entity in its own right. Refusing to forget the Alamo (as if anyone could), Houston led the military in Texas' rebellion against Mexico. G.D. Spradlin co-stars as President Andrew Jackson, with Michael Beck appearing as Jim Bowie, James Stephens as Stephen Austin, and Richard Yniguez as Mexican General Santa Anna. Lensed on location in the Lone Star state, this sweeping made-for-TV film originally occupied three hours' screen time on November 22, 1986. Its title at that time was Houston: The Legend of Texas. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Noah Talbot is a long-time alcoholic whose drinking begins to have a devastating effect not only on his personal life but on his family as well.

Former beach bunny/girl surfer Francine “Gidget” Lawrence is an adult and married to her long-term beau Jeff “Moondoggie” Griffin. She deals with a variety of marital spats, as well as running her own travel agency, running interferences with her teenage niece, and trying to arrange a reunion of her husband’s old surfing friends. Meanwhile, Jeff works as an architect and must fend off romantic advances from his beautiful and lascivious boss. Gidget’s niece wants to learn how to surf and gets too much when she sneaks out to see a suave, self-serving beach bum behind the back of her nerdy boyfriend.

A teacher reconnects with an old student who is now an attorney representing a family who is suing the school for graduating their son who still cannot read or write. Amid the daily chaos of teaching in an inner city school, Alex Jurel tries to decide if he will lie at his deposition to protect the school or tell the truth and risk throwing away his career.

After receiving an exotic small animal as a Christmas gift, a young man inadvertently breaks three important rules concerning his new pet, which unleashes a horde of malevolently mischievous creatures on a small town.

A cult of descendants of the Amazons plot to take control of mankind, but an inquisitive doctor might uncover their plans.

A musician living in an apartment building likes to check out the residents of the building opposite him--until he finds out one day that an attractive woman in that building is checking him out. He strikes up a relationship with her. Soon afterwards a string of serial killings occurs in the neighborhood, and suspicion begins to fall on the musician.

An anthology film presenting remakes of three episodes from the "Twilight Zone" TV series—"Kick the Can", "It's a Good Life" and "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet"—and one original story, "Time Out."

The fairy tale story of the actress who became a princess is told in this biography that traces her rise from Philadelphia socialite to Hollywood movie star.

During a Space Shuttle mission a satellite rams a unidentified flying object. The UFO afterwards performs an emergency landing in the deserts of Arizona. However the White House denies its existence because of the near presidential elections. The UFO is brought to the secret Hangar 18 and the accident is blamed on the incompetence of the astronauts Bancroff and Price. But the two fight against this and try to hunt down the UFO.

After discovering he's not really black like the rest of his family, likable dimwit Navin Johnson sets off on a hilarious misadventure that takes him from rags to riches and back again. The slaphappy jerk strikes it rich, but life in the fast lane isn't all it's cracked up to be and, in the end, all that really matters to Johnson is his true love.

Eisenhower the military man is the focus of this mini-series, his relationships with the other wartime leaders, and, very discreetly, his personal relationship with his driver, Kay Summersby.

The adventures of many of DC Comics greatest superheroes and villains. In the first episode, "The Challenge," the superheroes must race against time to stop the diabolical super-villains' plot to destroy the world. In the second episode, "The Roast," the superheroes pay tribute to Batman and Robin in the form of a roast which even the villains attend.

Plagued by wars, pollution and natural disasters, is man destined to self-destruction before the 20th century folds? Or can he escape the total annihilation the future may hold?

Ten-year old Tammy refuses to wrap a Christmas present intended for her cousin, hoping to keep the doll for herself. Later, through a dream, she travels back to Bethlehem to witness a little stableboy's act of unselfish love when he gives the Christ child his pet lamb. Tammy then realizes how sharing presents with others is a way of sharing God's love at Christmastime.

A dangerous campus radical may go free if the District Attorney's office can't locate any witnesses for the prosecution.

Senator Joseph McCarthy from Wisconsin accuses prominent people of Communist sympathies in order to give him a national power base when he later planned to run for President.

15-year-old Dawn runs away from what she feels is an intolerable home life. In the big city, she ends up turning to prostitution when she is unable to get a job due to her age. She meets Alexander, a young male hustler who takes her in, but when she starts working for a pimp, Alexander becomes a target.

A committee investigating TV's first uncensored network examines a typical day's programming, which includes shows, commercials, news programs, you name it. What they discover will surely crack you up! This outrageous and irreverent spoof of television launched the careers of some of the greatest comedians of all time.

A young bachelor using a dating service picks a woman whose information card read "Anything goes." When he takes her out and finds out that she didn't live up to her description, he sues her for breach of contract.

Medfield College science major Dexter Riley and his classmates have been working on a new vitamin compound when a lab accident creates a supercharged mix that ends up in Dexter's cereal box, giving him superhuman strength. The powerful formula comes to the attention of the college dean and two rival cereal companies, touching off a hilarious chain of events.

A juror on a murder trial begins to believe that the man charged with the crime is innocent — and that the real killer is her own husband.

An uncle's (Jack Warden) memories give strength to a New England family with four sons fighting in World War II.

Two truck drivers are hired to transport a top-secret cargo from New York to Houston. Along the way they must evade attempts by a terrorist group to hijack the material.

Charley Varrick robs a bank in a small town with his friends, but instead of obtaining a small amount of money, they discover they stole a very large amount of money belonging to the mob. Charley must now come up with a plan to not only evade the police but the mob as well.

A retired judge who opens a private detective agency and her ex-con associate try to track down $750,000 in bank robbery loot.

On May 17, 1968, at the height of the Vietnam War, nine men and women entered a Selective Service office outside Baltimore. They removed military draft records, took them outside, and set them afire with napalm.

A government agent, out to destroy a crime ring, finds himself in the middle of a mob war.

A scientist's experiment could lead to the first man-made, functioning, living organism. An elite escape artist-private investigator is working to stop him.

The U.S. has handed over control of its nuclear defense system to the Colossus supercomputer designed by scientist Dr. Charles Forbin. It soon becomes clear, that the now-sentient Colossus is far more intelligent than its creator realized—with the fate of the world hanging in the balance.

Some college students manage to persuade the town's big businessman, A. J. Arno, to donate a computer to their college. When the problem- student, Dexter Riley, tries to fix the computer, he gets an electric shock and his brain turns to a computer; now he remembers everything he reads. Unfortunately, he also remembers information which was in the computer's memory, like Arno's illegal businesses..

A widow hires an ex-gambler to retrieve gold bars from a sunken river boat in Colorado and discreetly return them to the Federal Mint, from where they had been stolen by her dead husband.

A race car driver tries to outrun the beautiful tax auditor out to settle his account.

Will Penny, an aging cowpoke, takes a job on a ranch which requires him to ride the line of the property looking for trespassers or, worse, squatters. He finds that his cabin in the high mountains has been appropriated by a woman whose guide to Oregon has deserted her and her son. Too ashamed to kick mother and child out just as the bitter winter of the mountains sets in, he agrees to share the cabin until the spring thaw. But it isn't just the snow that slowly thaws; the lonely man and woman soon forget their mutual hostility and start developing a deep love for one another.

Marshal Wyatt Earp kills a couple of men of the Clanton-gang in a fight. In revenge Clanton's thugs kill the marshal's brother. Thus, Wyatt Earp starts to chase the killers together with his friend Doc Holliday.

African-American Philadelphia police detective Virgil Tibbs is arrested on suspicion of murder by Bill Gillespie, the racist police chief of tiny Sparta, Mississippi. After Tibbs proves not only his own innocence but that of another man, he joins forces with Gillespie to track down the real killer. Their investigation takes them through every social level of the town, with Tibbs making enemies as well as unlikely friends as he hunts for the truth.

Archie is the 1964 unsold pilot based on the Archie comic book series. The whole gang is included, Archie, Betty, Veronica, Jughead, Reggie, Mr. Weatherbee, Ms. Grundy… William Schallert (most notably the dad in The Patty Duke Show) plays Archie’s dad and Jean Vander Pyl (Wilma’s voice in The Flintstones) plays the mom.

Cartoonist Griff, creator of comic character Philbert, is planning to marry his girlfriend Angela. However, Philbert himself catches wind of this, and leaps off the page as a six-inch-tall animated character to put a stop to his syndicate-signed sir's happy plans.

While Rafe Anchors longs to marry the daughter of his father's sworn enemy, his father is being pressured into marriage by a sexy, shady gold-digger closer to Rafe's age.

A fiercely independent cowboy arranges to have himself locked up in jail in order to then escape with an old friend who has been sentenced to the penitentiary.

An elderly motion picture artist drifts through a tenement block, devising a plan to change the lives of its dissatisfied residents with a dusting of Hollywood magic!

T-man Eliot Ness learns of a plan to free Al Capone from a train bound for Alcatraz.

A semi-documentary dramatization of five weeks in the life of Vice Admiral William F. "Bull" Halsey, Jr., from his assignment to command the U.S. naval operations in the South Pacific to the Allied victory at Guadalcanal.

Playboy songwriter Brad Allen's succession of romances annoys his neighbor, interior designer Jan Morrow, who shares a telephone party line with him and hears all his breezy routines. After Jan unsuccessfully lodges a complaint against him, Brad sets about to seduce her in the guise of a sincere and upstanding Texas rancher. When mutual friend Jonathan discovers that his best friend is moving in on the girl he desires, however, sparks fly.

Two naive high-school students must deal with the unexpected consequences after a night of passion.

A group of beatniks unwittingly harbor a serial rapist. A cop goes after him after his wife is attacked.

Blaise Starrett is a rancher at odds with homesteaders when outlaws hold up the small town. The outlaws are held in check only by their notorious leader, but he is diagnosed with a fatal wound and the town is a powder keg waiting to blow.

A former novelist returns to his small Midwest town after serving in the Army during WWII, to the chagrin of his social-climbing brother, and becomes close with an easy-going professional gambler and torn between two very different women.

A submarine commander is on a relentless pursuit of a Japanese aircraft carrier in the South Seas during World War II.

A mad bomber holds an innocent family hostage.

In a modern cow town, the powerful ranch owner’s henchmen kill a ranch hand, prompting the sheriff to investigate despite facing strong opposition. He finds an unlikely ally in the rancher's overprotected daughter, but their quest for justice puts them both in danger.

Rocks from a meteor which grow when in contact with water threaten a sleepy Southwestern desert community.

In the 1930s, once-great World War I pilot Roger Shumann performs as a daredevil barnstorming pilot at aerial stunt shows while his wife, LaVerne, works as a parachutist. When newspaper reporter Burke Devlin arrives to do a story on the Shumanns’ act, he quickly falls in love with the beautiful--and neglected--LaVerne.

The LA County sheriff's department is on the hunt for a man who approaches his victims as a prospective used car buyer. Directed by Don Siegel for the "Code 3" TV series.

Bitter over their divorce, a wealthy businessman prevents his ex-wife from seeing their child. She then takes him to custody court and a judge tries to determine what will be best for the child.

On her tenth wedding anniversary (which is also her daughter's birthday), a wife begins to suspect her husband of unfaithfulness.

In Moscow 1953, four terrified women prisoners are brought before Joseph Stalin, who chooses the beautiful Dasha. He punishes her by shaving off her long hair. Moments later, a plastic surgeon leads Stalin into the operating room and transforms his face so that he is unrecognizable. He vanishes, but OSS agent Steve Anderson searches for him in Europe.

After a wild night, wealthy Michael Reston's adulterous wife Charleen comes home with her dress in rags; murder results. Top New York defense lawyer J.G. Blane, whose own marriage exists in name only, arrives in Desert View, Nevada to find the townsfolk and politically powerful Sheriff Hoak distinctly hostile to the Restons. In due course, Blane discovers he's been "taken for a ride," and that quiet desert communities can be deadly.

A dangerous combination of radiation and insecticide causes the unfortunate Scott Carey to shrink, slowly but surely, until he is only a few inches tall. His home becomes a wilderness where he must survive everything from spiders living in the cellar to his beloved cat.

A fictionalized account of the infamous massacre of Cheyenne and Arapaho at Sand Creek by a militia unit led by an extremist Colonel.

The story of a family of Quakers in Indiana in 1862. Their religious sect is strongly opposed to violence and war. It's not easy for them to meet the rules of their religion in everyday life but when Southern troops pass the area they are in real trouble. Should they fight, despite their peaceful attitude?

Mitch Wayne is a geologist working for the Hadleys, an oil-rich Texas family. While the patriarch, Jasper, works hard to establish the family business, his irresponsible son, Kyle, is an alcoholic playboy, and his daughter, Marylee, is the town tramp. Mitch harbors a secret love for Kyle's unsatisfied wife, Lucy -- a fact that leaves him exposed when the jealous Marylee accuses him of murder.

Why are so many B-99 bombers from Hibiscus Air Base crashing or simply disappearing? Colonel Price comes up with a terrifying explanation, but will anyone believe him?

After her husband is gunned down, Rose Hood takes his place as sheriff of a small Western town.

A Texan arrives in Oregon and seeks justice for his innocently-hanged brother.

The territorial governor asks the Lone Ranger to investigate mysterious raids on settlers by Indians who ride with saddles. Wealthy rancher Reese Kilgore wants to mine silver on Spirit Mountain which is sacred to the Indians.

The pilot, co-pilot, and crew of a bomber try to hit a Korean bridge in bad weather.

This suspense film revolves around the crime of child abduction. The parents of the missing child undertake a feverish search for their son. The police are contacted, and a ransom letter is received.

A team of Air Force servicemen become stranded after setting up a weather station on an island of ice in Alaska.

Capt. Harper's cavalry patrol returns to the fort to find it besieged by Ute Indians. The apparent cause is the recapture of Army traitor Brett Halliday, who deserted to the Utes in a previous war; but Brett has a different story. With capture imminent, the only chance for the surviving men (and one woman) is to boat down a wild, uncharted river, where Harper and Halliday must pull together, like it or not.

Vicious gangster Vincent Canelli pulls off a daring prison escape just moments before going to the electric chair, taking with him Peter Manning – a bank robber and cop killer who was to die right after him. Taking several hostages along, they try to get their hands on the loot from Manning’s robbery to finance their escape from the country.

An FBI Agent takes on the three unrelated cases of a dead agent to track down his killer.

To avoid the life-threatening dangers of manned space exploration, Professor Nordstrom creates highly advanced form of artificial intelligence capable of piloting a starship to other worlds. In order to transmit alien data, the extraordinary robot is infused with a powerful telepathic device that enables it to instantly read and even feel emotions. Danger strikes when a sinister band of covert agents kidnaps Gadge, the professor's 10-year-old grandson. But Gadge has a powerful ally. For he has developed a psychic, emotional bond with his grandfather's robot. And now Gadge's captors must suffer the wrath of his protective friend. They must face a mechanical monstrosity bent on a killing rampage of revenge and destruction.

A crooked police detective masterminds a robbery then fights to keep the stolen money.

A group of confederate prisoners escape to Canada and plan to rob the banks and set fire to the small town of Saint Albans in Vermont. To get the lie of the land, their leader spends a few days in the town and finds he is getting drawn into its life and especially into that of an attractive widow and her son.

Dan Roman is a veteran pilot haunted by a tragic past. Now relegated to second-in-command cockpit assignments he finds himself on a routine Honolulu-to-San Francisco flight that takes a terrifying turn when disaster strikes high above the Pacific Ocean after the point of no return.

As a result of nuclear testing, gigantic, ferocious mutant ants appear in the American desert southwest, and a father-daughter team of entomologists join forces with the state police officer who first discovers their existence, an FBI agent and, eventually, the US Army to eradicate the menace, before it spreads across the continent — and the world.

A mechanical brain is programmed to sabotage the government's secret lab while working on the first space station.

When Captain Kidd is reprieved from the gallows by a greedy nobelman who wants to know the location of his buried treasure, he sets off across the seven seas with faithful slave girl Eva Gabor in tow.

A prisoner leads his counterparts in a protest for better living conditions which turns violent and ugly.

A 17th-century Caribbean port rumored to have frequented by pirates rises from the ocean floor, where it came to rest after an earthquake many years before. A scientist wants to study it, some thugs want the treasure alleged to be stored there, a bunch of mutated giant crabs living there attack them all.

An enemy of the Count of Monte Cristo frames his son for a murder in order to exact revenge and steal the family fortune.

Dangerous climate changes are ravaging Earth and the U.S. government requests an investigation by masked super-scientist Commando Cody. He discovers that the disasters are being caused by space-alien forces from unknown planetary origins.

A young Jewish man is torn between tradition and individuality when his old-fashioned family objects to his career as a jazz singer.

A rock hard commander trains Navy Carrier Pilots during the Second World War

In post-apocalyptic New York, three tribes of survivors (the Norms, the Mutates and the Upriver People) vie for the right to exist. When the treacherous Upriver People attack the Norms, kill their chief and take their people captive, two Norm refugee men must find a way to ally with the Mutates, who have previously kidnapped Norm women in an effort to reproduce healthy children, to rout the Uprivers, who also seek to kill off the Mutates.

During World War II, David Simms pilots supplies between India and China over the Himalaya Mountains.

A woman, distraught because of her recent miscarriage, accidentally injures a child in a hit-and-run accident, but she keeps the incident a secret. Overcome with guilt and remorse, she seeks out the child in the hospital and attempts to help him regain his speech, even though, if successful, it might mean he will implicate her for the crime.

It's a deadly play for power when a Mafia chieftain's top gun goes straight and threatens to testify against the big boss and his cruel, nationwide network of crime. The picture, which was shot in a semi-documentary style, was inspired by the Kefauver investigations of 1950-51.

In 1927 Hollywood, a silent film star falls for a chorus girl just as he and his paranoid screen partner struggle to make the difficult transition to talking pictures.

A white girl raised by Indians sets out to find out who murdered her adoptive parents.

A young crusading reporter in a small town tackles civic corruption.

Henry Fleming is a young Union soldier in the American Civil War. During his unit's first engagement, Henry flees the battlefield in fear. When he learns that the Union actually won the battle, shame over his cowardice leads him to lie to his friend Tom and the other soldiers, saying that he had been injured in battle. However, when he learns that his unit will be leading a charge against the enemy, Henry takes the opportunity to face his fears and redeem himself.

A defense attorney jeopardizes his career to save his client.

While watching for a planet that may collide with earth, scientists stationed in Scotland are approached by a visitor from outer space.

Two con artists join forces and pose as brother and sister. He then meets rich widows through the "personals" sections of newspapers, marries them, and both kill the widows for their money.

After discovering the dead body of her teenage daughter's lover, a housewife takes desperate measures to protect her family from scandal.

A young woman, Jill Young, grew up on her father's ranch in Africa, raising a large gorilla named Joe from an infant. Years later, she brings him to Hollywood to become a star.

Dr. Jim Gateson, a country doctor who has counselled and ministered to his community for 30 years, is being honored with a surprise testimonial dinner. The scenario then flashes back through three decades, commencing with the young GP first hanging up his shingle, serving at the front during WWI, home life being disrupted by telephone calls from those in need, and competition from a new medic in town who doesn't make country calls.