Ric O'Feldman Movies
- 1976
- PG
Vietnam vet Richard Jaeckel sets out to aid his shark friends when he discovers they're being exploited by aquarium owners in this film, also known as Mako: The Jaws of Death. ~ Jason Ankeny, Rovi
- Starring:
- Richard Jaeckel, Jennifer Bishop, (more)
- 1975
In this made-for-television drama, a retired businessman's obsession with the mysteries of the Bermuda Triangle increase when his lover and her friends become its next victims. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi
Adapted by Julian Barry from his own Broadway play, Lenny manages to be both brutally frank and highly romanticized in detailing the short life and career of influential, controversial stand-up comedian Lenny Bruce. The chronology hops, skips and jumps between Lenny (Dustin Hoffman) in his prime and the burned-out, strung-out performer who, in the twilight of his life, used his nightclub act to pour out his personal frustrations at great, boring length. We watch as up-and-coming comic Bruce courts his "Shiksa goddess," a stripper named Honey (Valerie Perrine). With family responsibilities, Lenny is encouraged to do a "safe," conformist act, but he can't do it. Constantly in trouble for flouting obscenity laws, Lenny develops a near-messianic complex, which fuels both his comedy genius and his talent for self-destruction. Worn out by a lifetime of tilting at Establishment windmills, Lenny Bruce died of a drug overdose in 1966. Director Bob Fosse chose to film Lenny in black-and-white, giving the film the texture of a documentary. Though a film as verbally graphic as Lenny could not have been made when the real Lenny Bruce was alive, audiences in 1974 responded, to the tune of an $11 million gross. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Dustin Hoffman, Valerie Perrine, (more)
- 1970
Upon completing Tell Me That You Love Me, Junie Moon, a tearful Liza Minnelli declared publicly that she would never, ever work with tyrannical director Otto Preminger again. Worse luck for her: Junie Moon contains what may well be Minnelli's best non-musical performance. Based on the novel by Marjorie Kellogg, the film surprisingly manages to evoke humor and pathos from some of the least promising material in movie history. Minnelli plays an emotionally imbalanced young girl whose face is horribly disfigured by her psycho boy friend Ben Piazza. Ken Howard is cast as an epileptic who has wrongly been diagnosed as mentally retarded. And Robert Moore (future director of such films as The Cheap Detective and Murder by Death) portrays a homosexual, confined to a wheelchair after a hunting accident. After meeting one another in a hospital, these three social outcasts decide to move in together, forming a united front against a cold, judgmental world. The devastating events that follow might have lapsed into the grotesque and exploitational, but director Preminger is extremely careful to depict his protagonists as three-dimensional human beings rather than "freaks." Unfortunately, some filmgoers, assuming that any film with a title like Tell Me That You Love Me, Junie Moon just had to be a campy laff riot, were turned off by the repellant aspects of the early scenes and refused to give the rest of this fascinating film a chance. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Liza Minnelli, Ken Howard, (more)
- 1967
The title character is a benign 7-foot-tall grizzly bear (perhaps all grizzlies are benign, but we're not about to get close enough to find out). Little Clint Howard befriends the bear, naming the beast Ben. Clint's wildlife-officer dad Dennis Weaver and mom Vera Miles have some trouble adjusting to the boy's new pet, but all ends happily after a lengthy sojourn in the Everglades. The best scenes involve ex-Bowery-Boy Huntz Hall, here playing a grizzled old swamp tramp. The upshot of Gentle Giant's success was the TV series Gentle Ben, which also starred Howard and Weaver and which ran from 1967 through 1969. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Dennis Weaver, Vera Miles, (more)
This 1964 sequel to the 1963 box-office hit Flipper is unnecessarily melodramatic at times, but at least it isn't a cookie-cutter imitation of the original. Suzy the Dolphin returns to the "male" role of the superintelligent Flipper, while Luke Halpin reprises the role of Sandy Ricks. This time, Flipper rescues a British family in the Bahamas, who are being held for ransom. Brian Kelly takes over from the first film's Chuck Connors as Ranger Porter Ricks, a role he'd continue to play in the long-running (1964-67) Flipper TV series. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Luke Halpin, Pamela Franklin, (more)
