RYAN O’NEAL: FORGOTTEN FILMS (1969-1981)

RYAN O’NEAL – Let’s face it, Errol Flynn himself probably looked down from above with envy when it came to Ryan O’Neal’s escapades with women. And it’s a cinch that Flynn would have envied O’Neal’s acting talent, which was never spectacular but was above that of many of Hollywood’s biggest names.

In addition to the love of his life Farrah Fawcett, a partial list of the beautiful ladies who had romances with Ryan includes Joan Collins, Jacqueline Bisset, Diana Ross, Ursula Andress, Anouk Aimee and Leigh Taylor-Young. His first wife Joanna Moore praised O’Neal as “an incredible lover … totally devoted to giving a woman pleasure.” 

Ryan tried his hand at boxing, then started his film career as a stuntman before gravitating to acting. At one time he was the highest-paid actor in Hollywood, but his legendary partying and volatile behavior ultimately led to him being passed over for roles that might have cemented him as an upper tier thespian in Hollywood.

In this blog post I won’t be covering Ryan O’Neal’s well-known movies like Love Story, Paper Moon, What’s Up, Doc?, Barry Lyndon, The Driver, The Main Event and others. Nor will I cover his ensemble cast flicks like A Bridge Too Far.   

GREEN ICE (1981) – Sadly, by 1981 the age of classic heist films like Rififi was long over and that may have contributed to the less than stellar box office results for this project. Ryan O’Neal starred as Joseph Wiley, a former engineer turned adventuring globe-trotter.

In Mexico, Wiley meets Anne Archer playing Lillian Holbrook, a diamond heiress running away from the life led by her stuffy family. Omar Sharif is Meno Argenti, Holbrook’s co-conspirator in a network of Colombian emerald smugglers. (Emeralds are the “green ice” of the title.)

An attempt on his life drives Wiley closer to Lillian and Argenti, but after intrigues and double-crosses involving Colombian rebels, Lillian’s missing sister and clashes with the corrupt Colombian government, Argenti emerges as the main villain.   

Meno has hoarded emeralds that were originally intended to finance the rebels and stores them in his high-tech, supposedly impregnable vault in his penthouse atop a Colombian skyscraper. Joe Wiley and Lillian Holbrook recruit Miguel (Domingo Ambriz) and Claude (THE John Larroquette) in a heist involving one-man hot-air balloons and assorted technology to steal the emeralds from Argenti’s vault.

Miguel intends to give his cut to his fellow rebels, while Joe, Lillian and Claude plan to just keep their shares from the caper. I won’t give any spoilers in case new viewers want to check out this film. Bill Wyman of the Rolling Stones did the movie’s soundtrack.   

NICKELODEON (1976) – Because I’m a silent movie geek I’m much fonder of this film than most people are. Director Peter Bogdanovich reunited with Ryan O’Neal and Burt Reynolds for this valentine to the early years of silent filmmaking, when many movies played at 5-cent “nickel” odeons. 

The fun central concept of Nickelodeon is using silent film slapstick comedy techniques to tell a mostly light-hearted story about the hardscrabble nature of pioneer movie making from 1910-1914.

O’Neal plays hustling director Leo Harrigan and Reynolds costars as his leading man – comedian turned he-man action star Buck Greenway.     

Jane Hitchcock portrayed Kathleen Cooke, the actress who marries Greenway, while Stella Stevens was Marty Reeves, an actress who has a fling with Harrigan. Ryan’s Oscar-winning daughter Tatum O’Neal and his son Griffin had supporting roles in this production. John Ritter played a cameraman.

The script incorporated various real-life experiences of many silent film directors and stars but was admittedly a bit too broad with its physical comedy. Still, it’s nice watching dramatizations of silent movie milestones like the way monopolies and organized crime drove the film industry from New Jersey to Hollywoodland in California and the nascent artform’s battle for respect.

Brian Keith played H.H. Cobb, a pastiche of silent film titans like Mack Sennett. Other members of the supporting cast were Lorenzo Music, THE Frank Marshall, James Best, Phil Bruns and M. Emmet Walsh. Bogdanovich’s Director’s Cut is in black & white and restores 5 minutes of material.

WILD ROVERS (1971) – When you think of westerns, dammit, you think of Blake Edwards! Well, actually you don’t, but Edwards wrote and directed this undeservedly overlooked example of the genre. Blake turned in a 3-hour cut of the movie, but the studio edited it down to 2 hours and 16 minutes.

The story is set in 1800s Montana during range conflicts between cattle ranchers and sheepmen. William Holden starred as ranch-hand Ross Bodine and Ryan O’Neal costarred as Ross’ protege Frank Post. The elderly Ross longs to escape the back-breaking work he has done all his life, and Frank suggests they rob a bank and flee to Mexico to live in hiding.

Amid other action, like a destructive saloon brawl, and our heroes’ boss Walter Buckman (Karl Malden) and his sheepman enemy Hansen (Sam Gillman) shooting each other to death in a gunfight, Ross and Frank plan, then carry out the bank robbery.

While headed for Mexico, the pair stop off at a tavern-bordello and Frank wins a huge poker pot, resulting in accusations of cheating and a large-scale gunfight which leaves several people dead. Frank is wounded in the leg, but he refuses to visit a doctor for fear of being caught up with by Sheriff Bill Jackson (Victor French), so he and Ross resume fleeing for Mexico.    

SPOILERS: The posse includes two of the late Walter Buckman’s sons, John (Tom Skerritt) and Paul (Joe Don Baker), who feel they will honor their dead father by killing the bank robbers. Frank dies of infection from his leg wound and when the posse catches up with Ross he is killed in the resulting shootout.

THE THIEF WHO CAME TO DINNER (1973) – This is a comedic crime film starring Ryan O’Neal as Webster McGee, computer programmer turned burglar and jewel thief. The cocky McGee leaves chess pieces and written out chess moves at the scene of each of his capers, so the media calls the unknown thief the Chess Burglar. 

High society woman Laura Keaton (Jacqueline Bisset) falls for Webster and becomes his accomplice in his continuing crimes. Insurance investigator Dave Reilly (Warren Oates) doggedly pursues the Chess Burglar and tries to figure out his true identity.

The stylish cat and mouse game between McGee and Reilly results in each man begrudgingly respecting the other’s talents and intelligence. Eventually, Dave realizes that Webster McGee is his quarry but proof remains elusive, prompting taunting exchanges between the two at high society parties as McGee selects his next targets.

The ever-strengthening bromance of thief and investigator gets to the point where Dave Reilly deduces what Webster’s “one last big score” will be but feels torn between catching McGee red-handed or cutting himself in for a piece of the action.   

This fun movie also starred Charles Cioffi, Jill Clayburgh, Ned Beatty, Gregory Sierra, John Hillerman, Michael Murphy and Alan Oppenheimer.

THE GAMES (1970) – Ryan starred as American Olympic marathon runner Scott Reynolds alongside Michael Crawford himself as Brit Harry Hayes, Charles Aznavour as Czech Pavel Vendeck and Aussie Aborigine Athol Compton as Sunny Pintubi.

Critics originally dismissed this film as a collection of sports cliches, but in the decades since then The Games has earned a lot of respect for its realistic depiction of training for and competing in the Olympics as well as its low-key examination of the political and racial jockeying that goes on.

O’Neal’s wholesome character was described by some as a bit too much like straight-arrow Dime Novel hero Frank Merriwell to be believable. That may have been true for the disillusioned world of 1970, but his performance has actually aged pretty well.

In my opinion, this quiet but respectable film has some of the qualities that were later praised in Chariots of Fire. I’d place it somewhere between the Robert Redford Olympic skiing movie Downhill Racer and Chariots on the sports movie spectrum. 

The story was based on a novel by Australian writer Hugh Atkinson, was shot in over seven countries and had a soundtrack featuring Elton John singing From Denver to L.A. Elaine Taylor, Sam Elliott and Jeremy Kemp were also in the cast. 

LOVE, HATE, LOVE (1971) – A made for tv movie that ran just 71 minutes, to fill a 90-minute time slot once commercials were added.

O’Neal starred as engineer Russ Emery, whose girlfriend Sheila Blunden (Lesley Ann Warren) starts an affair with the wealthy Leo Price (Peter Haskell) while Russ is out of town.

Money talks, and Sheila opts for financial security by dumping Russ for Leo.

When a confrontation between the two men results in Leo psychotically beating up Russ, Sheila rejects the wealthy man and goes back to Russ, and the two get married. Leo’s behavior grows even darker, and he begins stalking and tormenting the newlyweds in this thriller.

Other familiar faces in this telefilm are Henry Jones, Stanley Adams, Shannon Farnon and Jeff Donnell.

THE BIG BOUNCE (1969) – Last and certainly least is this misfire based on an Elmore Leonard novel. Ryan starred with his then-wife Leigh Taylor-Young in a crime drama that was remade in 2004 with Owen Wilson in the Ryan O’Neal role.

O’Neal, long a star on television, made his big-screen debut in The Big Bounce, making this film essential to this list despite its poor overall quality. Our man starred as Jack Ryan, a laborer on a California farm who quits after a brawl with a fellow employee. 

Sam Mirakian (Van Heflin) hires Jack as a handyman at his hotel, where the young man starts a romance with Nancy Barker (Leigh Taylor-Young), the kept woman of tycoon Ray Ritchie (James Daly). Nancy draws Jack into her kinky penchant for sex in public places, even a cemetery.

At one point, the wealthy Ritchie, who still beds down with Nancy now and then at the beach house he provides for her, orders her to sleep with a senator so Ritchie can secure a business deal. She refuses and, realizing that Ritchie will throw her out of the beach house, colludes with Jack in a plan to rob a $50,000 payroll. (Worth over $441,000 here in 2025.)   

Homicide and an attempt to off Jack follow as Nancy aims to keep all the money for herself. Jack grows to distrust the increasingly unstable woman, resulting in a final confrontation. Lee Grant, Robert Webber and Phyllis Davis also starred.