Paul Birch

Acting

Paul Birch

Born 1912-01-13 · Atmore, Alabama, USA

Paul Birch (born January 13, 1912, Atmore, Alabama – died May 24, 1969, St. George's, Grenada) was an American actor of stage and film. Birch was born Paul Smith in Atmore, Alabama. He was a veteran of 39 movies, 50 stage dramas and a number of television shows including the Hallmark Hall of Fame (1951). In the late 1950s he starred, along with William Campbell, in the syndicated Canadian series Cannonball (1958), a half-hour drama/adventure show about truckers. He was the original "Marlboro Man" in TV commercials and played both Union General Ulysses S. Grant and Confederate General Robert E. Lee in several historical plays. He started out as the first of the original members of the Pasadena Playhouse and his stage work included The Caine Mutiny. He also had a recurring role as Captain Carpenter, the boss of Lt. Phillip Gerard in The Fugitive starring David Janssen. He starred in some low-budget science-fiction films in the 1950s, including The Beast with a Million Eyes (1955), Day the World Ended (1955), Not of This Earth (1957) and the cult classic Queen of Outer Space (1958). Birch also had small roles in It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963), and Dead Heat on a Merry-Go-Round (1967). Description above from the Wikipedia article Paul Birch, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Acting credits

The War of the Worlds poster
6.8

The residents of a small town are excited when a flaming meteor lands in the hills, until they discover it is the first of many transport devices from Mars bringing an army of invaders invincible to any man-made weapon, even the atomic bomb.

The War of the Worlds

1953

Rebel Without a Cause poster
7.5

After moving to a new town, troublemaking teen Jim Stark is supposed to have a clean slate, although being the new kid in town brings its own problems. While searching for some stability, Stark forms a bond with a disturbed classmate, Plato, and falls for local girl Judy. However, Judy is the girlfriend of neighborhood tough, Buzz. When Buzz violently confronts Jim and challenges him to a drag race, the new kid's real troubles begin.

Rebel Without a Cause

1955

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance poster
7.8

Questions arise when Senator Stoddard attends the funeral of a local man named Tom Doniphon in a small Western town. Flashing back, we learn Doniphon saved Stoddard, then a lawyer, when he was roughed up by a crew of outlaws terrorizing the town, led by Liberty Valance. As the territory's safety hung in the balance, Doniphon and Stoddard, two of the only people standing up to him, proved to be very important, but different, foes to Valance.

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance

1962

Cattle Queen of Montana poster
5.7

Sierra Nevada Jones must fight a villainous rancher to regain the land that is rightfully hers.

Cattle Queen of Montana

1954

Two Rode Together poster
6.4

Two tough westerners bring home a group of settlers who have spent years as Comanche hostages.

Two Rode Together

1961

Counterpoint poster
6.2

In December of 1944, Lionel Evans, an internationally renowned American conductor, is on a USO tour with his 70-piece symphony orchestra in newly-liberated Belgium. While fleeing from a German counterattack, Evans and his orchestra members are captured by a Panzer division and taken to an old chateau in Luxembourg. Despite orders to execute every prisoner, General Schiller, an avid music lover, commands Evans to give a private concert for him.

Counterpoint

1967

The Fastest Gun Alive poster
6.9

Whenever it becomes known how good he is with guns, ex-gunman George and his wife Dora have to flee the town, in fear of all the gunmen who might want to challenge him. Unfortunately he again spills his secret when he's drunk. All citizens swear to keep his secret and support him to give up his guns forever -- but a boy tells the story to a gang of wanted criminals. Their leader threatens to burn down the whole town, if he doesn't duel him.

The Fastest Gun Alive

1956

The Spirit of St. Louis poster
6.7

In 1927, Charles Lindbergh struggles to finance and design an airplane that will make his New York to Paris flight the first solo transatlantic crossing.

The Spirit of St. Louis

1957

The Glory Guys poster
6.5

Though a fictionalized Western based on George Armstrong Custer's 7th Cavalry Regiment at the Battle of the Little Big Horn, the film is almost a generic war story covering the enlistment, training, and operational deployment of a group of recruits that could take place in any time period.

The Glory Guys

1965

Gunman's Walk poster
6.7

A powerful rancher always protects his wild adult son by paying for damages and bribing witnesses, until his crimes become too serious to rectify.

Gunman's Walk

1958

A Covenant with Death poster
4.8

An innocent man is found guilty of murder and sentenced to death, but as he's about to be hanged he accidentally kills his executioner. He now faces a new trial, presided over by a young and inexperienced judge.

A Covenant with Death

1967

The Gun Runners poster
6.1

Remake of "To Have and Have Not" based on Hemingway short story. Plot reset to early days of Cuban revolution. A charter boat skipper gets entangled in gunrunning scheme to get money to pay off debts. Sort of a sea-going film noir with bad girl, smarmy villain, and the "innocent" drawn into wrong side of law by circumstances.

The Gun Runners

1958

Welcome to Hard Times poster
5.3

A sociopathic stranger all but destroys a small hardscrabble town but the 'mayor' convinces its survivors to stay and rebuild.

Welcome to Hard Times

1967

Portrait in Black poster
5.7

A pair of lovers plot to kill the woman's rich husband.

Portrait in Black

1960

Man Without a Star poster
6.4

A wandering cowboy gets caught up in a range war.

Man Without a Star

1955

Dead Heat on a Merry-Go-Round poster
5.6

A sophisticated con man mounts an intricate plan to rob an airport bank while the Soviet premier is due to arrive.

Dead Heat on a Merry-Go-Round

1966

Queen of Outer Space poster
4.9

An aborted mission strands a crew on Venus where they find the planet inhabited only by women led by their evil Queen Yllana. Yllana had all the men of Venus killed, now that's she met Earth men, she wants them dead, too.

Queen of Outer Space

1958

Gun for a Coward poster
6.0

A young cowboy, whose dedication to the principles of peace and reason has earned him a reputation for cowardice, overcomes his psychological aversion to violence after his elder brother unjustly censures him for not joining in a foolhardy gunfight in which their youngest brother is killed.

Gun for a Coward

1956

Strange Lady in Town poster
4.9

Julia Garth, a female doctor, plans to introduce modern techniques of medicine to old Santa Fe in 1880, but is opposed by an established doctor, Rourke O'Brien.

Strange Lady in Town

1955

Five Guns West poster
4.5

During the Civil War, five condemned Southern prisoners are plucked off Death Row and promised pardons on the condition that they undertake a mission to head west and bring back a double-crossing Confederate spy who has a stagecoach full of Confederate gold.

Five Guns West

1955

The 27th Day poster
6.2

Five individuals from five nations, including the USA, USSR, and China, suddenly find themselves on an alien saucer, where an alien gives each a container holding three capsules. The alien explains that no power on earth can open a given container except a mental command from the person to whom it is given, then anyone may take a capsule and, by speaking a latitude and longitude at it, cause instant death to all within a given radius: thus each of the five has been provided with the power of life and death. Then, they are given 27 days to decide whether to use the capsules, and returned to the places from which each one came...

The 27th Day

1957

Adventure poster
6.4

A rough and tumble man of the sea falls for a meek librarian.

Adventure

1945

Joe Dakota poster
6.7

A stranger rides into town and says he is looking for a local Indian. Told he left town, the truth everyone has been hiding comes out including the stranger's true identity.

Joe Dakota

1957

The Beast with a Million Eyes poster
3.8

At a decrepit farm outside a remote American desert community, something takes over the minds of some of the local humans and animals and is able to see through their eyes and control their actions.

The Beast with a Million Eyes

1955