Fielder Cook

Directing

Fielder Cook

Born — Died

1923-03-09 — 2003-06-20

Place of birth

Atlanta, Georgia, USA

Known for

Directing

Credits

40 titles

Fielder Cook (March 9, 1923 – June 20, 2003) was an American television and film director, producer, and writer whose 1971 television film The Homecoming: A Christmas Story spawned the series The Waltons. Born in Atlanta, Georgia, Cook graduated with honor with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Literature from Washington and Lee University, then studied Elizabethan Drama at the University of Birmingham in England. He returned to the United States and began his career in the early days of television, directing many episodes of such anthology series as Lux Video Theater, The Kaiser Aluminum Hour, Playhouse 90, Omnibus, and Kraft Television Theatre. In later years, he directed the television movies…

Known for

A Big Hand for the Little Lady poster
7.1

A naive traveler in Laredo gets involved in a poker game between the richest men in the area, jeopardizing all the money he has saved for the purpose of settling with his wife and child in San Antonio.

A Big Hand for the Little Lady

1966

The Homecoming: A Christmas Story poster
7.3

It's Christmas Eve, early 1930s on Walton's Mountain. As the family prepares for the holiday, they anxiously await Pa's return home from his job in the city some 50 miles away. He is late, and Ma and the grandparents hear on the radio a report of a bus accident that worries them. Oldest son John-Boy must step up to help grandfather cut down a Christmas tree, and upon learning the concern about Daddy sets out to find him.

The Homecoming: A Christmas Story

1971

Valley Forge poster
7.0

George Washington struggles to hold his army together at a critical point during the Revolutionary War.

Valley Forge

1975

A Love Affair: The Eleanor and Lou Gehrig Story poster
9.5

One of the most moving stories in the annals of sports is presented in this true drama documenting the love affair of baseball immortal Lou Gehrig and his wife Eleanor. Their romance spans the time period from his days of glory with Babe Ruth and the New York Yankees to his unsuccessful battle with an incurable disease. As the story begins, the talented but shy Gehrig is already a popular Yankee slugger when he meets the outgoing Eleanor. Their romance begins hesitantly, but blossoms as they exchange letters while Gehrig is on the road with the team. However, Gehrig's possessive mother becomes a formidable obstacle, first to their marriage and later to their happiness. But their love for one another proves triumphant. In the midst of their happiness, when Gehrig is at the peak of his career, he learns that he is suffering from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. The courage and dignity exhibited by the Gehrigs during this crisis make this a powerful, memorable film.

A Love Affair: The Eleanor and Lou Gehrig Story

1978

Will There Really Be a Morning? poster
7.0

This is the story of actress Frances Farmer, her struggles with mental illness and involuntary confinement in an insane asylum.

Will There Really Be a Morning?

1983

Miracle on 34th Street poster
7.0

A department store Santa tries to convince a little girl who doesn't believe in Santa Claus that he is Santa Claus, and winds up going on trial to prove who he is.

Miracle on 34th Street

1973

Behind the camera

A Big Hand for the Little Lady poster
7.1

A naive traveler in Laredo gets involved in a poker game between the richest men in the area, jeopardizing all the money he has saved for the purpose of settling with his wife and child in San Antonio.

A Big Hand for the Little Lady

1966

A Big Hand for the Little Lady poster
7.1

A naive traveler in Laredo gets involved in a poker game between the richest men in the area, jeopardizing all the money he has saved for the purpose of settling with his wife and child in San Antonio.

A Big Hand for the Little Lady

1966

The Homecoming: A Christmas Story poster
7.3

It's Christmas Eve, early 1930s on Walton's Mountain. As the family prepares for the holiday, they anxiously await Pa's return home from his job in the city some 50 miles away. He is late, and Ma and the grandparents hear on the radio a report of a bus accident that worries them. Oldest son John-Boy must step up to help grandfather cut down a Christmas tree, and upon learning the concern about Daddy sets out to find him.

The Homecoming: A Christmas Story

1971

Valley Forge poster
7.0

George Washington struggles to hold his army together at a critical point during the Revolutionary War.

Valley Forge

1975

A Love Affair: The Eleanor and Lou Gehrig Story poster
9.5

One of the most moving stories in the annals of sports is presented in this true drama documenting the love affair of baseball immortal Lou Gehrig and his wife Eleanor. Their romance spans the time period from his days of glory with Babe Ruth and the New York Yankees to his unsuccessful battle with an incurable disease. As the story begins, the talented but shy Gehrig is already a popular Yankee slugger when he meets the outgoing Eleanor. Their romance begins hesitantly, but blossoms as they exchange letters while Gehrig is on the road with the team. However, Gehrig's possessive mother becomes a formidable obstacle, first to their marriage and later to their happiness. But their love for one another proves triumphant. In the midst of their happiness, when Gehrig is at the peak of his career, he learns that he is suffering from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. The courage and dignity exhibited by the Gehrigs during this crisis make this a powerful, memorable film.

A Love Affair: The Eleanor and Lou Gehrig Story

1978

Will There Really Be a Morning? poster
7.0

This is the story of actress Frances Farmer, her struggles with mental illness and involuntary confinement in an insane asylum.

Will There Really Be a Morning?

1983

Miracle on 34th Street poster
7.0

A department store Santa tries to convince a little girl who doesn't believe in Santa Claus that he is Santa Claus, and winds up going on trial to prove who he is.

Miracle on 34th Street

1973

Patterns poster
7.2

To eliminate internal opposition, a cruel CEO sabotages and humiliates a good-natured executive in an effort to force his resignation — and make the reticent new hire his new yes man.

Patterns

1956

This Is the West That Was poster
9.0

A lighthearted look at the saga of Wild Bill Hickok and his relationship with Calamity Jane as he is targeted for revenge by some tough gunfighters.

This Is the West That Was

1974

Patterns poster
7.0

"Patterns" was an American television play broadcast live on January 12, 1955, remade as a film the next year with some of the same cast. Fred Staples is the newest executive in a large firm. He strikes up a friendship with Andy Sloane, the Vice President to whom he nominally reports. Staples is good at his job and the company's hard-nosed president, Walter Ramsey, is pleased with his choice. Staples has a crisis of conscience when Ramsey tells him that he's been recruited to replace Sloane, someone who has devoted his entire life to the company at the expense of his family. Sloane knows what Ramsey is up to but digs in his heels and refuses to quit. Tragedy ensues forcing Staples to make a choice.

Patterns

1955

Harvey poster
6.6

Elwood P. Dowd's constant companion is Harvey, a six-foot tall invisible rabbit. To his sister, his obsession with Harvey has been a thorn in her plans to marry off her daughter. However, when she decides to put Elwood in a mental institution, a mix-up occurs, and she finds herself committed instead. It's now up to Elwood and "Harvey" to straighten out the mess.

Harvey

1972

How to Save a Marriage and Ruin Your Life poster
5.7

Wealthy playboy David Sloane wrongly believes good girl Carol Corman is his best friend's mistress.

How to Save a Marriage and Ruin Your Life

1968

Prudence and the Pill poster
5.7

Prudence Hardcastle is on the pill. So is her sister-in-law, but someone has been swapping aspirin for their pills. Is it the teenage niece, the maid, the chauffeur, a lover, Prudence's husband Gerald, or all of the above?

Prudence and the Pill

1968

From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler poster
6.7

A precocious young girl and her younger brother run away from home and hide in the Metropolitan Museum in New York.

From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler

1973

Too Far to Go poster
3.5

Love and passion, anger and heartbreak, laughter and happiness, all complex textures woven into the fabric so many have come to know as marriage. For behind the seemingly comfortable well-trimmed hedges of suburban Americana, live and often love, Richard and Joan Maple. Adapted from a series of stories appearing in the New Yorker Magazine over a period of twenty three years by Pulitzer Prize winning author John Updike ("The Witches of Eastwick", "Rabbit Run"), "Too Far To Go" garnered overwhelming critical praise in its theatrical debut. With its exceptional cast, this film envelops us in a poignant, sometimes funny, sometimes exasperating journey through this most important relationship.

Too Far to Go

1979

A String of Beads poster
8.0

An ordinary girl's life is radically changed by the mistaken receipt of a $60,000 strand of pearls.

A String of Beads

1961

Who Killed the Mysterious Mr. Foster? poster
9.0

An alcoholic drifter decides to run for sheriff in a small town. However, in order to get elected, he must find out who killed a visiting preacher.

Who Killed the Mysterious Mr. Foster?

1971

The Rivalry poster
9.0

A television adaptation of the famous 1858 Lincoln-Douglas debates, in which Abraham Lincoln did verbal battle with Stephen Douglas, his opponent for a U.S. Senate seat, over the issue of slavery.

The Rivalry

1975

Gauguin the Savage poster
NR

Based on the turbulent life of the temperamental French painter, Paul Gauguin, and his compulsive search for creative freedom which caused him to abandon his wife and five children in Paris for a life of contentment in Tahiti.

Gauguin the Savage

1980

Why Me? poster
5.6

An Air Force nurse about to leave the service is badly disfigured about her face in a car accident in which she also loses her baby.

Why Me?

1984

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings poster
4.3

Based on writer Maya Angelou's eloquent reminiscences of her days as a gifted youngster growing up in the South during the Depression years where she and her older brother were raised by their grandmother after the divorce of their parents.

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

1979

Seize the Day poster
5.0

Tommy Wilhelm is a salesman. An honest, hard-working guy who has lost his job, his girlfriend, and left part of his sanity behind as he heads to New York to pick up the pieces of his life. He's always been able to sell, but caught in a downward spiral, he must, in addition, face the father who never really understood him, while trying to balance his newly precarious existence.

Seize the Day

1986

In the Presence of Mine Enemies poster
NR

Rod Serling's teleplay depicting the struggles of Jews living in the Warsaw Ghetto in the months before the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.

In the Presence of Mine Enemies

1960

Family Reunion poster
8.0

Elizabeth Winfield is a retired teacher, who desperately tries to keep her family together. While she's traveling through the country and meeting her relatives, back in her hometown, a group of shopping mall developers are planning to take over her family land in order to begin their ambitious project. Now she needs to find ways to stop this construction in time before the town's annual festivities.

Family Reunion

1981

Goodbye, Raggedy Ann poster
NR

A compassionate Hollywood screenwriter attempts to talk a troubled actress out of taking her own life.

Goodbye, Raggedy Ann

1971

Miles To Go Before I Sleep poster
7.3

A lonely old man (Martin Balsam) finds his life beginning to have some meaning when he helps a teenager living in a rehab center.

Miles To Go Before I Sleep

1975

The Hands of Cormac Joyce poster
5.0

A savage storm wreaks havoc on a small Irish fishing village.

The Hands of Cormac Joyce

1972

Beauty and the Beast poster
6.0

A beautiful girl agrees to marry a hideous, deformed beast and live in his castle in order to save her father's life.

Beauty and the Beast

1976

Judge Horton and the Scottsboro Boys poster
7.0

In 1930s Alabama, nine young black men are accused of raping two white women. The judge in the case, unlike the rest of the town, comes to believe that the boys are innocent and, against all advice from his friends and family, sets them free, which turns the entire community against him.

Judge Horton and the Scottsboro Boys

1976

Teacher, Teacher poster
10.0

Hamilton Cade is an alcoholic teacher striving to put his life back together. He accepts a job tutoring an "exceptional child" only to find that young Freddie is mentally retarded. A black man who works for Freddie's father also becomes interested in teaching the child and becomes a second role model for him.

Teacher, Teacher

1969

No artwork available
10.0

Young Swedish-American Katrin "Katie" Holstrom leaves her family farm in Minnesota, headed for nursing school. After her tuition money runs out, she is forced to take a job as a maid in the home of Congressman Glenn Morley. Holstrom endears herself to the genteel Morley, and begins to show a surprising aptitude for politics herself. She launches a campaign for Congress, and, as right-wing reactionaries plot against her, a romance develops.

The Farmer's Daughter

1962

No artwork available
6.0

In the last days leading up to her older brother's marriage, a young girl is forced to face realities and grow up quickly. A tender adaptation of Carson McCullers' classic novel, which has seen previous adaptations for both stage and screen.

The Member of the Wedding

1997

Brigadoon poster
7.0

Americans Jeff and Tommy, hunting in Scotland, stumble upon a village - Brigadoon. They soon learn that the town appears once every 100 years in order to preserve its peace and special beauty. The citizens go to bed at night and when they wake up, it's 100 years later. Tommy falls in love with a beautiful young woman, Fiona, and is torn between staying or going back to his hectic life in New York.

Brigadoon

1966

Brigadoon poster
7.0

Americans Jeff and Tommy, hunting in Scotland, stumble upon a village - Brigadoon. They soon learn that the town appears once every 100 years in order to preserve its peace and special beauty. The citizens go to bed at night and when they wake up, it's 100 years later. Tommy falls in love with a beautiful young woman, Fiona, and is torn between staying or going back to his hectic life in New York.

Brigadoon

1966

Eagle in a Cage poster
6.0

1815. A soldier becomes the governor of St. Helena and jailer of Napoleon

Eagle in a Cage

1972

A Special Friendship poster
9.0

During the American Civil War, two women, a wealthy white woman and a freed black slave, join forces to fight for freedom and the abolition of slavery.

A Special Friendship

1987

No artwork available
NR

A timid man with money problems gets into a big card game with some high-rollers.

Big Deal in Laredo

1962

The Price poster
NR

After the Great Depression, Victor Franz gave up going to college to support his father. After 30 years, Victor returns to sell his parents’ estate. His wife, Esther, his brother, Walter, and a canny furniture dealer have their own agendas. Victor must finally deal with his sacrifice.

The Price

1971

Mirror, Mirror Off the Wall poster
9.0

A down-on-his-luck writer publishes a best-selling, but lurid novel under a pseudonym and discovers that his fictional personae has suddenly appeared and taken on a life of his own.

Mirror, Mirror Off the Wall

1969

Home Is the Hero poster
8.0

This well-acted drama about an Irishman just released from jail is filled with rich characterization. The story is adapted from a stage play by Walter Macken who also plays the role of the ex-convict Paddo in this screen version. Direction is by J. Fielder Cook. Once Paddo returns home after being sentenced to five years for killing a man, his old friends try to put him back in their niche of local hero but Paddo will have none of it. He is disillusioned and changed. His son Willie (Arthur Kennedy) walks with a limp that keeps him too self-conscious to assert himself as he would like with the young woman of his dreams. While other people come in and out of Paddo's life, from his taciturn friend the trapper to the local tinker, it is Paddo's son Willie suffering from his own disability who makes the difference in his father's life.

Home Is the Hero

1959