Helen Burns Movies
- 1983
In this weakly limned comedy, romance, and social drama, Bob Hunt (Robert Hays) is a dedicated social worker out to save an elderly woman from having her heat shut off in the dead of winter. But his noble intentions are thwarted by Marion Edwards (Brooke Adams) a plainclothes policewoman, a barrage of municipal red tape, and an unscrupulous tycoon in the electrical power industry who will stop at nothing to make a tidy profit. When the elderly woman loses her bid for heat on a technicality and dies as a result, Bob starts a computer vendetta against the utility companies that sparks a counterattack by the industrial magnate out to enhance his own power. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi
- Starring:
- Robert Hays, Brooke Adams, (more)
- 1982
- PG
Marc Singer stars in this biography of Tom Sullivan, a blind singer, songwriter and actor. ~ Jason Ankeny, Rovi
- Starring:
- Marc Singer, R.H. Thomson, (more)
In this spoof, Don Diego Vega (George Hamilton) follows in his father's footsteps as he dons the identity of Zorro in an attempt to defend the weak and innocent from the ravages of the evil. However, when Vega falls victim to a debilitating injury, it is up to his gay twin brother, Bunny Wigglesworth (George Hamilton), to take up the mask and sword. ~ Iotis Erlewine, Rovi
- Starring:
- George Hamilton, Lauren Hutton, (more)
Peter Medak's The Changeling is among a handful of films, including The Haunting (1963), Ghost Story (1981), and Lady in White (1988), that have successfully recreated the intimate, drawing-room atmosphere of supernatural horror fiction. After his wife and daughter are killed in a snowbound car accident, classical composer John Russell (George C. Scott) relocates from New York to Seattle to teach at his alma mater. Looking for a quiet place to rest and continue writing music, he is referred Claire Norman (Trish Van Devere) at the Seattle Historical Preservation Society. Claire shows John a large, sparsely furnished estate in the outlying countryside. He takes the house, appreciating its remoteness and the solitude it might afford, and diverts himself by renovating and settling in. He even starts to compose, putting aside his older work in favor of a new, sentimental piece for the piano. It is not long, however, before he begins having nightmares about the accident that killed his wife and daughter. Possibly because of this trauma, he is open to communications from the house's ghostly occupants. Pursuing a loud, repetitive pounding noise in an upper room, he stumbles on the apparition of a young boy drowning in a tub. Working together with Claire, John discovers frightening parallels between this vision and buried events from the house's past. Horror writer M.R. James once said that his goal as a writer was to make the reader feel "pleasantly uncomfortable." Those looking for a similar experience in movies will appreciate The Changeling as a gem in the horror genre. ~ Anthony Reed, Rovi
- Starring:
- George C. Scott, Trish VanDevere, (more)
- 1980
This three-part Canadian miniseries was based on the writing of Morley Torgov, who specialized in stories about Jewish children who grew up in the Sault Ste. Marie region in the 1930s and 1940s. The first 90-minute episode, "Today I Am a Fountain Pen," was an amusing reminiscence of a family's efforts to maintain a kosher home in a Canadian neighborhood in the year 1939. Episode Two, "A Rose By Any Other Name," was set during WWII, and focused on a Jewish tailor who contemplated changing his last name to avoid anti-Semitism. The final episode, "The Chopin Playoffs," took place during a 1948 competition for a musical scholarship, and brought together characters who'd been introduced in the two earlier programs. A Good Place to Come From was originally broadcast from March 12 to 16, 1980. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Helen Burns, Harvey Atkin, (more)
