Paul Wendkos

Paul Wendkos was a bit of an auteurist fetish object in the early 1960's, when his career in theatrical features reached its pinnacle. He made his mark with such genre outings as The Burglar (1957) and Face of a Fugitive (1959), as well as with the hit Gidget (1959) and his acclaimed indictment of evangelicalism Angel Baby (1961). Many of the finest critics and film writers wrote of his style admiringly, even as studio contracts regularly saddled him with empty commercial vehicles. Quentin Tarantino even credited him as the director of the faux action saga The 14 Fists of McCluskey in his Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood. What is there to Paul Wendkos when we look at him and his work today?

When Mexican revolutionary leader Quintero is left to rot in jail by the forces of President Diaz, it's up to his subordinate, Max, to bust him out. With $600 in hand, he crosses the border into America and hires Chris Adams, a mercenary of considerable skill, who uses the rest of the cash on more hired guns. After the team is rounded out by experts on close-combat fighting, explosives, and knife-throwing, they set off to free Quintero.

A psychiatrist specializing in the occult becomes involved in the case of a man who is possessed by a spirit in an antique mirror. The man's fiance discovers that the mirror is able to bring back her former boyfriend, who had been killed in a car accident, from the dead.

In 1912, during the Mexican Revolution, the border between Texas and Mexico is on flames due to savage raids by Mexican bandits who call themselves freedom fighters, so the US government entrusts to General Pershing the capture of General Héctor Córdoba, the most notorious among them.

Made-for-TV drama about one of the largest crimes in history—the 1980 robbery of the Boston Depositors Trust by a group of policemen. Capt. Gerry Clemente is the leader of a gang of rotten cops who take their piece of Boston's criminal offerings. The crimes are petty at first, but soon, Clemente sets his sights on a bank that promises a big score. Can the gang pull it off before a case is built against them?

A frustrated pianist himself, music journalist Myles Clarkson is thrilled to interview virtuoso Duncan Ely. Duncan, however, is terminally ill and not much interested in Myles until noticing that Myles' hands are ideally suited for piano. Suddenly, he can't get enough of his new friend, and Myles' wife, Paula, becomes suspicious of Duncan's intentions. Her suspicions grow when Duncan dies and Myles mysteriously becomes a virtuoso overnight.

Dramatization of the 1971 case involving a young woman who sued her psychiatrist for luring her into a sexual relationship with him under the guise of therapy.

Dack Rambo and Elyssa Davalos star as sweethearts Andy Stuart and Jessica Gordon. The course of true love is messed up when Satan claims Jessica as his own personal property. Desperately, Andy turns to a pair of priests, Fathers Kemschler and Wheatley, for spiritual guidance, not to mention a bit of brute force in purging poor Jessica of her demons.

The Delphi Bureau is a top-secret spy cadre answerable only to the U.S. president. The organization may have just one field operative, a supposed researcher named Glenn Garth Gregory. He gets his orders from an in-the-know Washington, D.C. socialite, and he relies on a resource that makes him a one-of-a-kind asset: his photographic memory. This adventure-packed, tongue-in-cheek pilot sets the pace and style for the 1972-73 series it launched. In it, Gregory sets out to find who's behind the disappearance of jets, tanks and other surplus weaponry. He'll be variously hunted by an assassin, tossed in jail for murder, half-buried inside a grain elevator and forced to cling to the undercarriage of a tractor while the driver tries to shred him under its tilling blades. One breathless escape after another invariably seems to land our hero in another jam.

A sensitive but confused teenager feels pressure from all directions and turns to drugs, which causes problems for him in school and at home.

A man who was falsly accused for murder escapes the sheriffs and starts a new life in a town at the border of the States to Mexico. But he cannot settle in peace as his chasers are trying to find him.

A war drama of motor torpedo boats which did much unsung work in WW2, but the naval battles merely provide an exciting story in which an even more special romantic drama is wrapped up.

A teenage high school drop-out Bobby McLaughlin is accused of the murder of a local drug dealer he says he didn’t commit. When he is convicted with little evidence, his father begins a fierce struggle to free his son from prison.

Due to an accident while swimming in the sea, Francis meets the surfer Moondoggie. She's fascinated with his sport and starts to hang out with his clique. Although they make fun of her at first, they teach her to surf and soon she's accepted and given the nickname "Gidget". But it's hard work to become more than a friend to Moondoggie.

Allied prisoners tunnel out of a stalag, then return to avenge fellow escapees executed by the Nazis.

Anthony Geary (General Hospital) stars as a compassionate doctor who must treat an STD outbreak at an upscale vacation resort. Judith Light (Law & Order: Special Victims Unit) co-stars as an afflicted resident whose heart is broken by this personal tragedy. A despicable real estate tycoon played by Robert Vaughn (The Man from U.N.C.L.E.) is determined to keep the scandal from the press, thus protecting his investment.

A gang of thieves plan a daring bank robbery, making their escape across the rooftops of Los Angeles. The police are quickly called in, however, and only one of the robbers, Murdock, makes a clean getaway. Unfortunately, in order to do so, he is forced to dump the stolen cash into a mailbox, which he then finds is locked until midnight, forcing him to wait until the mailman makes his late night pickup. As he waits, he discovers that his hiding place has been observed by several other people, all of whom want a share of the loot.

The story of the kidnapping of newspaper heiress Patty Hearst by members of a radical guerrilla organization, as seen by the FBI agent in charge of her case.

A woman who believes she has been chosen by God to heal people is taken in by a greedy promoter and his shrewish wife to make the rounds of the rural South.

In Denver, a fleeing bank robber kills a cop and kidnaps an old man to hold as a hostage. He is chased by the police and a news helicopter, which films the entire incident. Based on a true story.

In Denver, a fleeing bank robber kills a cop and kidnaps an old man to hold as a hostage. He is chased by the police and a news helicopter, which films the entire incident. Based on a true story.

A soldier is expected to never question the actions of his commanding officer, but when a Marine sees his CO breaking the law, he finds himself facing a difficult dilemma in this provocative war drama.

The love of King Edward VIII for American divorcée Wallis Warfield Simpson eventually leads to his abdication.

The film depicts an account of Allied Combined Operations Headquarters commandos executing a daring raid on the German-occupied French coast during the Second World War. The story is based on the commando raid on the French port of St. Nazaire.

A dying widow plays matchmaker to her 32-year-old unmarried son and sets him up with a nurse that she meets.