John Rubinstein Movies

One of two "dueling" TV biopics of 1988, Liberace stars Andrew Robinson (who'd once played the giggling killer in Dirty Harry!) as the titular flamboyant entertainer. The film recounts Liberace's rise to fame thanks to TV exposure during the 1950s, but does so with distressing disregard of the facts: at one point, Liberace manages to mispronounce the name of his Wisconsin home town! A thin veneer of authenticity is maintained by the use of Liberace's actual piano-shaped swimming pool and his real jewelry and wardrobe. The AIDS angle is barely touched upon in the final scenes, thanks to the intervention of the entertainer's family and lawyers. Of the two Liberace films, Liberace runs a distant second to Liberace: Behind the Music (telecast the following October week of 1988 by a rival network), though Robinson does rather well in the leading role. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

In this made-for-television movie, the stability of an extended family is threatened by divorce. ~ John Bush, Rovi

Still Crazy Like a Fox was a 1987 TV-movie effort to revive the lighthearted detective series originally telecast in 1984-86. Jack Warden is back as eccentric detective Harry Fox, with John Rubinstein as his conservative lawyer son Harrison. Father and son are lifted from their natural San Francisco habitat and sent on a vacation in England. While in London, Harry spots a man in the act of stealing. But the man is the above-reproach Duke of Kent (James Faulkner), and Harry's accusations are ignored. When the Duke is murdered, Harry goes to the head of the suspect list. Costarring in Still Crazy Like a Fox is British comic actor Graham (Monty Python) Chapman as Harry's dyspeptic Scotland Yard antagonist. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Released in Brazil as Alem Da Paixao, Happily Ever After is all about ostensibly happy housewife Regina Duarte. She has a dream one night in which she dances with a woman who "morphs" into a gorgeous hunk of man. While musing on this dream, Duarte hits a handsome young pedestrian with her car. Guess who that pedestrian looks like? Their affair gets off to a bad start when he robs her, but she trails him to a transvestite club. Enchanted by her dream come true, Duarte refuses to acknowledge the fact that her new bisexual lover is a male prostitute, stealing everything she owns to support his drug habit. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Jane Fonda stars in this made-for-TV movie, which uses the backdrop of World War II and urbanization to tell the story of one woman's fight to keep her family together. Gertie Nevels (Fonda), the wife of a Kentucky sharecropper, wants nothing more than to one day own her own farm. Thriftily hiding her savings from husband Clovis (Levon Helm), she prepares to make her dream come true -- until Clovis summons her to come join him in Detroit, where he's gone to work in a factory to help with the war effort. Arriving with her children in tow, Gertie finds Clovis all settled into a tenement-like block house and living the life of a union man. Soon, though, the downside of urban life -- from monstrous neighbors and repressive schools to the pitfalls of the industrial landscape itself -- threaten Gertie's family both individually and as a whole. Despite Clovis' freewheeling way with money and his propensity to blame her for the family's problems, Gertie continues to save money. A lifelong whittler, she begins selling hand-crafted wooden dolls, and when the union goes on strike, Gertie finds herself supporting the family. Adapted from Harriet Arnow's novel by Hume Cronyn and Susan Cooper, who would go on to collaborate on the similarly themed Foxfire in 1987, The Dollmaker was directed by feature and TV veteran Daniel Petrie. It debuted on ABC on May 13, 1984, and earned Fonda an Emmy for her work. ~ Brian J. Dillard, Rovi

In this drama, a mother and daughter become rivals for a single man's affections. The mother is a widowed movie star and the daughter is recently divorced. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

I Take These Men is a variation on the 1941 Ginger Rogers theatrical feature Tom, Dick, and Harry. While being feted at a surprise 15th wedding anniversary party, Carol Sherwood (Susan St. James) startles the well-wishers by asking her dull dentist husband, Stuart (James Sherwood), for a divorce. As the party nervously continues, Carol fantasizes what her life might have been like had she married one of her three guests: pompous real-estate mogul Craig Wyler (Adam West), nerdish professor David Koenig (John Rubinstein), or good-natured truck driver Phil Zakarian (Brian Dennehy) -- who happens to be the husband of her best friend, Elaine (Dee Wallace). Just in case the viewer doesn't find all this funny, the producers have helpfully added a laugh track. I Take These Men was unveiled by CBS on January 5, 1983. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Rosanna Arquette stars in this TV remake about a young deaf mute who is befriended by the town doctor. ~ Jason Ankeny, Rovi

Skokie is the true story of a critical test of Constitutional rights in Illinois. In 1977, a small band of American neo-fascists calling itself the National Socialist Party of America plans to stage a swastika-dominated demonstration and rally. Their intended site is the Chicago suburb of Skokie, a town populated predominantly by Jews--many of them survivors of the Nazi holocaust. Jewish ACLU lawyer John Rubinstein is compelled to lobby for the National Socialists' freedom to express their views, despite his own inner turmoil over defending the very people who'd destroy him. The most vocal opponent to the planned rally is Skokie senior citizen Max Liebman (Danny Kaye), who spent five years in Hitler's death camps. Ernest Kinoy's teleplay for Skokie is fair-minded to a fault, presenting all points of view with equanimity, proving that there are no simple solutions when the fundamental right of Free Speech is involved. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

The autobiography of Harold Krent, Butterflies Are Free, is the basis for this made-for-television drama about a blind collegian and his struggle to be treated like any other law student. ~ Kristie Hassen, Rovi

The phenomenal success of the 1977 ABC miniseries Roots all but demanded a sequel to writer Alex Haley's epic story of his African and African-American forebears. Debuting February 18, 1979, Roots: The Next Generations picked up where its predecessor left off, with Haley's slave ancestors winning their freedom in the aftermath of the Civil War. Even so, life for black Americans was wrought with hardship and oppression thanks to the rise of the Ku Klux Klan, the staunch refusal of the white power structure to pass anti-lynching laws, and the formation of the dreaded Jim Crow laws which legalized racial segregation in the South (and much of the North). Covering the period from 1882 to the mid-1970s, the miniseries first focuses on blacksmith Tom Harvey (Georg Stanford Brown), great-grandson of Kunta Kinte (the protagonist of the original Roots), and his family. Meanwhile, reacting to the marriage of his son to a black woman, anal-retentive Southern colonel Warner (Henry Fonda) begins setting the legal wheels in motion to deny blacks like Tom the right to vote and to hold "white" jobs. A few decades later, Tom's son-in-law encourages his fellow blacks to stand firm against the KKK's reign of terror. His labors on behalf of his race are rewarded when his daughter Bertha (Irene Cara) becomes the first descendant of Kunta Kinte to receive a college education. It is Bertha Palmer who weds the equally ambitious Simon Haley (Dorian Harewood), who goes on to serve in WWI and to organize farmers and sharecroppers during the Depression. Simon's son Alex (played at various ages by Kristoff St. John, Damon Evans, and finally James Earl Jones) is just as determined to succeed in a white man's world as his father, and to that end becomes a professional writer after his own service stint in the Coast Guard during WWII. At the height of his professional success (largely due to his having ghost-written the autobiography of Muslim activist Malcolm X), Alex Haley pays a visit to his boyhood hometown -- where, almost by accident, he receives the first clue to his heritage, a clue that will lead him on an odyssey of self-discovery, arriving full circle at Kunta Kinte's birthplace in Africa. Although the miniseries' "money scene" was Haley's nervous interview with American Nazi Party leader George Lincoln Rockwell (Marlon Brando in a superb cameo turn), the climactic episode, in which Haley tearfully embraces the living African descendants of Kunta Kinte, is one of the most unforgettable moments in the history of network television. Running 12 episodes and 14 hours, Roots: The Next Generations concluded on February 25, 1979, playing to huge ratings all along the way and ultimately garnering several Emmy nominations (and one win). ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

As a once-famous fashion designer prepares to make her big comeback, a mysterious killer begins stalking the beautiful models who gather for the gala celebration in his made-for-television thriller starring Eleanor Parker, Clive Revill, and Jessica Walter. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi