Paul Wendkos Trailers
A Man of Potential: Visions of Paul Wendkos, the Godard of Gidget Trailer
Paul Wendkos (September 20, 1922; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania – November 12, 2009; Malibu, California) was an American television and film director.
Following wartime service in the US Navy and attending Columbia University on the GI Bill Wendkos made his first feature, a documentary on a school for the blind called Dark Interlude in 1953.
Wendkos's first feature film was The Burglar . Wendkos's fluid camera technique caught the attention of the head of Columbia Pictures chief Harry Cohn who not only wished to distribute the film, but put Wendkos on a contract.
A variety of films followed for Columbia beginning with the hard-hitting crime drama The Case Against Brooklyn, two suspenseful war dramas Tarawa Beachhead and Battle of the Coral Sea, the youth-oriented Gidget and two sequels Gidget Goes Hawaiian, Gidget Goes to Rome as well as Because They're Young.
Wendkos also directed many episodes of Playhouse 90, Alcoa Theatre, Ben Casey, Dr. Kildare, Route 66, The Rifleman, Mr. Novak, Honey West, The Big Valley, I Spy, The Invaders and Hawaii Five-O. With I Spy, Wendkos filmed several interesting episodes but was deemed too "arty" by the producers and let go.
In 1968 Wendkos signed a five picture contract with Mirisch Productions beginning with the war films Attack on the Iron Coast and Hell Boats followed by Westerns set in Mexico but filmed in SpainGuns of the Magnificent Seven and Cannon for Cordoba. He also made the first feature film for Quinn Martin, The Mephisto Waltz.
From 1970 until his retirement in 1999, Wendkos specialized in made-for-television movies. One of these was The Taking of Flight 847: The Uli Derickson Story (1988), based on a TWA hijacking in 1985, picked up five Emmy nominations, including one for Wendkos.
Wendkos was cited by film critic Andrew Sarris in his book The American Cinema: Directors and Directions 1929-1968. He is also cited, along with many other directors, in The American Vein: Directors and Directions in Television by Christopher Wicking and Tise Vahimagi, Talisman Books (England), 1979, and E.P. Dutton (United States), 1979; Library of Congress Catalog Card No. 79-52675.
Wendkos married Ruth Bernat on March 1, 1953 and had one son, Jordan Elkan Wendkos. Ruth died in June, 1978. Wendkos married Lin Bolen, Former NBC VP & Producer in 1983 and they lived together happily in Malibu, California until his death. He is survived by his son, Jordan, granddaughter, Justine Wendkos, and his wife Lin Bolen Wendkos.
Wendkos was ill for several years following a stroke. He died on November 12, 2009 in Malibu, California.
Most Popular Paul Wendkos Trailers
Total trailers found: 77
01 March 1993
Stewart and Neil Woodman plot to have their parents murdered.
14 January 1985
The members of a San Diego Wednesday night womens' mah jongg club are five survivors of a Nazi concentration camp.
22 May 1977
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.
01 January 1999
A young woman was left mentally disabled after a car crash twenty years previously, a condition which her mother has never come to accept.
07 August 1958
A powerful story of the son of America's most famous outlaw: Jesse James. Jesse, Jr. struggles to return to the town which his father lived.
03 May 1992
Down-on-his-luck lawyer Warren Blackburn defends wealthy Texan Johnnie Faye Boudreau, who is accused of murdering her husband.
20 September 1972
A group of wealthy but secretly very troubled people travel to an island resort. After experiencing a brush with death, they find themselves wondering about their existences.
05 May 1991
When '30s film star Thelma Todd dies mysteriously, her relationship with New York mobster Lucky Luciano is investigated.
14 May 1961
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.
01 January 1988
This made-for-television film documents the takeover of the TWA airliner in flight from Athens to Rome in 1985.
16 December 1983
Based on the true-life story of teenage bride Candra Torres who was abducted in 1976 while on a honeymoon camping trip in the High Sierras.
20 March 1970
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.
24 September 1971
A detective discovers his son-in-law is cheating on his wife. He confronts the other woman and accidentally kills her, then tries to pin the crime on a local derelict.
02 November 1986
Jennifer's life changes when Warner, now Vice President of the United States, decides to see her and her son, Joshua.
03 October 1972
A football coach is hired by a small college to shape up its football team, and he finds himself in trouble with local gamblers who don't want the team to improve.
01 November 1959
A US submarine and its crew are captured by the Japanese on the eve of a major WWII battle.
09 April 1959
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.
20 September 1968
In this pilot film to the "Hawaii Five-0" television series, special law officer Steve McGarrett tracks down Red Chinese operatives and their spy ring in Honolulu.
17 January 1987
A catholic nun tries hard to protect and integrate in society a number of young women with a past in reform schools or even prisons.
18 October 1982
Adventures of the DA's new lady assistant.
18 September 1973
When their campsite is vandalized by troublemakers, a family fights fire with fire.
27 February 1983
A 47-year-old real estate salesman gets trapped in the insidious web of cocaine addiction.
25 September 1981
A venerable San Francisco publishing family becomes embroiled in a bitter power struggle between the iron-fisted, but ailing, patriarch's son and a ruthless businessman who tries for a takeover.
14 July 1969
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.
01 June 1958
A rookie cop takes on criminals who have the local government in their pocket.
06 May 1974
A private detective goes after the kidnappers of his ex-girlfriend's son and becomes involved in a series of murders.
27 April 1997
A dying widow plays matchmaker to her 32-year-old unmarried son and sets him up with a nurse that she meets.
01 March 1973
Joseph Bologna stars as Bill Bonanno in this made-for-television adaptation of the controversial bestseller from Gay Talese, chronicling the rise of New York's infamous Bonanno organized crime family.
09 April 1971
A frustrated pianist himself, music journalist Myles Clarkson is thrilled to interview virtuoso Duncan Ely.
26 November 1971
A mother travels to New York to see her daughter who is awaiting trial for murder. The mother is totally convinced of her daughter's innocence and does all she can to help her.
10 February 1975
A dramatization of the famous 1893 Massachusetts trial of the woman accused of murdering her father and stepmother with an ax.
01 May 1959
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.
20 October 1980
Divorcee Susan Blakely, with no alimony and two kids to support, begins turning to amphetamines. While at her lowest ebb, she meets an alcoholic and three-time loser in marriage -- who, incredibly, turns out to be the ideal man!
18 January 1987
A fashion designer marries a lawyer only to discover that his father is an imfamous mafia don.
03 November 1976
A young boy who had been abandoned as a child and raised by wild dogs is taken to a university where a team attempts to teach him civilized behavior.
01 December 1961
An edited version of an episode of the television series, Five Fingers released in theaters.
07 August 1963
Francis, now 17, is still in love with Moondoggy. She can persuade her parents to allow them a journey to Rome, together with two of her and two of his friends.
03 March 1969
A psychiatrist specializing in the occult becomes involved in the case of a man who is possessed by a spirit in an antique mirror.
20 May 1975
Shirley investigates the murder of a millionaire who was strangled on his tennis court.
22 April 1998
An air-traffic controller faces the challenge of her career when she is forced to guide a disabled airplane to safety, unaware that her husband is aboard.
10 February 1991
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.
15 June 1966
Teacher George Dean packs up his children to accept a job instructing Native American children on a Seminole reservation in Florida.
01 October 1970
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.
05 November 1988
Allied prisoners tunnel out of a stalag, then return to avenge fellow escapees executed by the Nazis.
06 March 1972
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.
10 November 1979
A liberal-minded, divorced newswriter is the victim of a brutal mugging. Robbed of her confidence, she finds her life cloaked in fear and paranoia, causing her to reevaluate her lifelong beliefs.
16 July 1976
A gang of thieves plan a daring bank robbery, making their escape across the rooftops of Los Angeles.
21 March 1983
Anthony Geary (General Hospital) stars as a compassionate doctor who must treat an STD outbreak at an upscale vacation resort.
14 November 1972
A building superintendent and his wife are held hostage in their apartment by a sadistic would-be bank robber and his spaced-out accomplices.
23 July 1977
A hostile youngster who will stop at nothing to break up his mother's marriage is suspected of homicide, and his stepfather fears that he may be the boy's next victim.
12 May 1981
Henry Hawksworth is a man menaced by a multiple personality. There is Dana, the conservative family man; Johnny, violent and sociopathic; Peter, creative and childish; and Phil, protective and unemotional.
04 March 1979
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.
18 May 1987
In May of 1946, Alcatraz inmate Bernie Coy initiates a carefully thought out plan to escape the island prison.
13 November 1978
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.
11 March 1971
Sand devises a scheme to murder his former business partner and maintains his innocence throughout the trial, as he is prosecuted by District Attorney Travis Logan.
09 December 1990
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.
02 June 1961
Francis is desperate: her parents want to force her to come with them on vacation to Hawaii - just during the two weeks when her beloved "Moondoggy" is home from College.
05 June 1968
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.
12 August 1987
Emily Bauer (Raquel Welch) is a successful psychologist with a happy home life who is suddenly stricken with the dreaded neurological affliction ALS (aka "Lou Gehrig's Disease").
17 October 1993
Journalism Major Paxton Andrews loses the man she loves in the Vietnam War. Always having followed the beat of a different drum, she decides to work out her grief by going to Vietnam and writing a column that will hopefully help those at home better understand the War.
