A work in constant progress (and occasional regress).
Birthplace:
Chicago, Illinois, USA
Born:
December 20, 1922
Died:
January 3, 1977
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Thomas S. "Tom" Gries (20 December 1922; Chicago, Illinois – 3 January 1977; Pacific Palisades, California) was an American TV and film director, writer and producer. Educated at the Loyola Academy and Georgetown University, Gries began working in TV in the 1950s as a writer and director, on such programmes as Bronco,"Rat Patrol", Wanted: Dead or Alive, The Westerner, The Rifleman, East Side/West Side, Mission: Impossible, Route 66, Batman and I Spy. He won Emmy Awards for his direction on East Side/West Side in 1964 and The Glass House in 1972. In the cinema, Gries directed some low-budget movies in the 1950s before concentrating his efforts more on TV. In the late 1960s, he wrote and directed what is generally acknowledged to be his greatest work in either medium, the western Will Penny, which starred Charlton Heston and was released in 1968. It was based on an episode of the TV series The Westerner that Gries wrote and directed in 1960, entitled "Line Camp". Gries subsequently made two other films with Heston, the much less successful Number One, and The Hawaiians, and directed several other films with other high profile actors such as Burt Reynolds and Charles Bronson into the 1970s, though they failed to reach the critical approval that Will Penny received. The most successful of his later works was Helter Skelter, made in 1976, which was a TV film based on the notorious Charles Manson Family. During post-production on his final film, The Greatest (1977), a biography on boxer Muhammed Ali (in which Ali also played himself), Tom Gries collapsed and died of a heart attack while playing tennis. He was 54 years old. He is the father of actor/director Jon Gries (who appeared under the name Jon Francis in Will Penny as a child actor). Description above from the Wikipedia article Tom Gries, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Associate Producer:
1952 The Lusty Men
Director:
1952 The Lusty Men
1954 Serpent Island
1955 Hell's Horizon
1958 Girl in the Woods
1967 Will Penny
1969 100 Rifles
1969 Number One
1970 Fools
1970 The Hawaiians
1971 Earth II
1972 Journey Through Rosebud
1972 The Glass House
1973 Call to Danger
1973 Lady Ice
1973 The Connection
1974 The Healers
1974 The Migrants
1975 Breakheart Pass
1975 Breakout
1976 Helter Skelter
1977 The Greatest
Producer:
1952 The Lusty Men
1953 Donovan's Brain
1954 Serpent Island
1955 Hell's Horizon
1958 Girl in the Woods
1967 Will Penny
1969 100 Rifles
1969 Number One
1970 Fools
1970 The Hawaiians
1971 Earth II
1972 Journey Through Rosebud
1972 Michael O'Hara the Fourth
1972 The Glass House
1973 Call to Danger
1973 Lady Ice
1973 The Connection
1974 The Healers
1974 The Migrants
1975 Breakheart Pass
1975 Breakout
1976 Helter Skelter
1977 The Greatest
Screenplay:
1951 The Bushwhackers
1952 The Lusty Men
1953 Donovan's Brain
1954 Serpent Island
1955 Hell's Horizon
1955 King Dinosaur
1958 Girl in the Woods
1959 Mustang!
1967 Will Penny
1969 100 Rifles
1969 Number One
1970 Fools
1970 The Hawaiians
1971 Earth II
1972 Journey Through Rosebud
1972 Michael O'Hara the Fourth
1972 The Glass House
1973 Call to Danger
1973 Lady Ice
1973 The Connection
1974 The Healers
1974 The Migrants
1975 Breakheart Pass
1975 Breakout
1976 Helter Skelter
1977 The Greatest
Writer:
1951 The Bushwhackers
1952 The Lusty Men
1953 Donovan's Brain
1954 Serpent Island
1955 Hell's Horizon
1955 King Dinosaur
1958 Girl in the Woods
1959 Mustang!
1967 Will Penny
1969 100 Rifles
1969 Number One
1970 Fools
1970 The Hawaiians
1971 Earth II
1972 Journey Through Rosebud
1972 Michael O'Hara the Fourth
1972 The Glass House
1973 Call to Danger
1973 Lady Ice
1973 The Connection
1974 The Healers
1974 The Migrants
1975 Breakheart Pass
1975 Breakout
1976 Helter Skelter
1977 The Greatest
Creator:
1966 The Rat Patrol
Director:
1955 Science Fiction Theatre
1955 TV Reader's Digest
1956 Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theatre
1956 State Trooper
1957 Alcoa Theatre
1957 Richard Diamond, Private Detective
1957 The Court of Last Resort
1957 Tombstone Territory
1959 Adventures in Paradise
1959 Johnny Ringo
1959 The Detectives
1959 The Man and the Challenge
1960 Checkmate
1960 Route 66
1960 The Westerner
1961 Cain's Hundred
1961 The Defenders
1962 Combat!
1962 Stoney Burke
1963 Bob Hope Presents the Chrysler Theatre
1963 East Side/West Side
1963 Kraft Suspense Theatre
1964 Reporter
1964 The Man from U.N.C.L.E.
1964 Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea
1965 For the People
1965 Honey West
1965 I Spy
1966 Batman
1966 Felony Squad
1966 Mission: Impossible
1966 The Monroes
1966 The Rat Patrol
1966 The Rounders
1974 QB VII
1976 Helter Skelter
Story:
1955 Science Fiction Theatre
1955 TV Reader's Digest
1956 Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theatre
1956 State Trooper
1957 Alcoa Theatre
1957 Richard Diamond, Private Detective
1957 The Court of Last Resort
1957 Tombstone Territory
1959 Adventures in Paradise
1959 Johnny Ringo
1959 The Detectives
1959 The Man and the Challenge
1960 Checkmate
1960 Route 66
1960 The Barbara Stanwyck Show
1960 The Westerner
1961 Cain's Hundred
1961 The Defenders
1962 Combat!
1962 Stoney Burke
1963 Bob Hope Presents the Chrysler Theatre
1963 East Side/West Side
1963 Kraft Suspense Theatre
1964 Reporter
1964 The Man from U.N.C.L.E.
1964 Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea
1965 For the People
1965 Honey West
1965 I Spy
1966 Batman
1966 Felony Squad
1966 Mission: Impossible
1966 The Monroes
1966 The Rat Patrol
1966 The Rounders
1974 QB VII
1976 Helter Skelter
Writer:
1952 The Unexpected
1955 Science Fiction Theatre
1955 TV Reader's Digest
1956 Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theatre
1956 State Trooper
1957 Alcoa Theatre
1957 Richard Diamond, Private Detective
1957 The Court of Last Resort
1957 Tombstone Territory
1958 Bronco
1958 The Rifleman
1958 Wanted: Dead or Alive
1959 Adventures in Paradise
1959 Johnny Ringo
1959 Lock-Up
1959 The Detectives
1959 The Man and the Challenge
1960 Assignment: Underwater
1960 Checkmate
1960 Route 66
1960 The Barbara Stanwyck Show
1960 The Westerner
1961 Cain's Hundred
1961 The Defenders
1962 Combat!
1962 Stoney Burke
1963 Bob Hope Presents the Chrysler Theatre
1963 East Side/West Side
1963 Kraft Suspense Theatre
1964 Reporter
1964 The Man from U.N.C.L.E.
1964 Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea
1965 For the People
1965 Honey West
1965 I Spy
1966 Batman
1966 Felony Squad
1966 Mission: Impossible
1966 The Monroes
1966 The Rat Patrol
1966 The Rounders
1974 QB VII
1976 Helter Skelter
Most data and links to images for the Movies section come from TheMovieDB (TMDB).
Additional data for Film Titles come from The Open Movie Database (OMDb).
At least one plug-in comes from IMDb.
Data are -- hey, it's a plural -- subject to the limitations of their sources. (For example, TMDB search results currently max out at 20.) I am limiting myself to free data sources for now. (No, a "free trial" is not free.)
While much of the above data are retrieved directly from outside APIs and other such sources, data from American Film Institute (AFI) and British Film Institute (BFI) were manually entered the old fashioned way into a MySQL database. Re BFI I took the following liberties:
Regarding profile removals and data corrections:
Filtering is applied here to film projects flagged as "adult" by TheMovieDB. Pending "popular demand" I am contemplating a login and profile system with preferences (such as whether to allow adult images to appear) and permissions (such as data entry).
Whereas the overall purpose of this website is to serve as a personal demo/portfolio/workshop of web and data skills, this Movies section is not meant to compete with or substitute for far more definitive movie websites.
Whether or not he still clings to an award which he won in 1986 as a film critic for his college's newspaper, Jeffrey Hartmann is not responsible for the texts of overviews and biographies supplied by external data sources.