Philip Astor Movies
Bette Midler stars as Stella Claire, a working-class, fun-loving barmaid in northern New York State. A brief affair with handsome Stephen Dallas (Stephen Collins) produces a daughter, Jenny (Trini Alvarado), whom Stella insists upon raising alone, despite Dallas' marriage offer. As the years pass, Stella and Jenny are a happy pair. Stella gives up bartending to sell cosmetics, supported by her friend Ed (John Goodman), a bartender developing a crush on her and a problem with alcohol. Dallas has stayed involved with his beloved daughter from afar and is now a urologist in New York City, engaged to a book editor (Marsha Mason). As Jenny reaches adulthood, Stella becomes aware that life with her father would provide her daughter with opportunities that she'd never have otherwise, so she devises a painful, self-sacrificing scheme to drive Jenny from the nest. Although functional as a tearjerker, many of the themes in Stella simply don't make as much sense in a modern age of healthy, fractured families, muting the drama of the tale's earlier versions, specifically Stella Dallas (1937). ~ Karl Williams, Rovi
- Starring:
- Bette Midler, John Goodman, (more)
- 1985
- R
The never-say-die attitude of James Flanagan (Philip Bosco) a graying New York taxi driver whose real vocation is playing Shakespeare, underscores the spirit that runs through his life and this standard drama. First infected with the Bard's magic by his father, dead these many years, Flanagan recalls his idyllic visions as a youth. Now he is "trapped" in his taxi, suffers through a broken marriage, has two teenage sons of his own, and not much luck at auditions. Things that go wrong seem to come in clusters, and it is at one such downturn that Flanagan is almost ready to give up. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi
- Starring:
- Philip Bosco, Geraldine Page, (more)
