Hal Smith Movies

Beauty and the Beast is widely considered the best animated Disney feature of the studio's 1980s/1990s renewal of the form. Based on the classic French fairy tale, it tells the story of Belle (voiced by Paige O'Hara), an intelligent young woman scorned by her townspeople for being a bookworm, weary of fighting off the advances of the arrogant Gaston (Richard White), and dreaming of escape. When her father gets lost in the woods and captured by the forbidding Beast (Robby Benson), a once-handsome prince turned into a monster by a witch, Belle goes off to rescue him. Taken with her, the Beast agrees to release Belle's father if she agrees to stay with him forever. Initially repulsed, Belle soon finds much to appreciate in the Beast's hidden, tender nature. The Beast's servants -- a clock (David Ogden Stiers), a teapot (Angela Lansbury), and a candlestick (Jerry Orbach) -- see Belle as their salvation: if the Beast and a woman fall in love before his 21st birthday, he will be free from the curse. The songs are first-class, the tale is told with sincerity but not sentimentality, and the characters of Belle and the Beast, complex individuals who defy stereotyping and change over the course of the story, are more three-dimensional than in most live-action movies. The eye-popping animation is beautifully rendered, and Beauty and the Beast certainly deserves its place amongst Disney's animated classics. In 2002, a special 89-minute edition of the film was released in IMAX theaters with the addition of a newly animated song, ""Human Again."" ~ Don Kaye, All Movie Guide

The two-part, four-hour TV movie Switched at Birth is based on an actual event which began unfolding in Wauchula, Florida in 1978. Brian Kerwin and Judith Hoag play the new parents of a baby girl; a few days later, another couple, played by John M. Jackson and Bonnie Bedelia, have a baby at the same hospital. Kerwin and Hoag's baby is healthy; Jackson and Bedelia's baby has a heart defect. Switched at Birth traces the lives of the two girls over a period of eight years--up to the point of a tragedy which opens the possibility that the girls may not have been given over to the correct parents at the hospital. The four parents involved find themselves in court, battling over custody of the surviving child. This intensely personal problem is bloated into a cause celebre by the press and by parents' rights pressure groups. Edward Asner and Caroline McWilliams appear as the opposing attorneys. Those who'd been following the two-part Switched at Birth during its first telecast in April of 1991 may have found themselves in family conflicts of their own, inasmuch as Part Two was shown opposite the network TV premiere of Die Hard. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In an entertaining animated children's film for the youngest moppets only (no adult double takes here) a red, white, and blue rabbit miraculously appears to save the day like "Superhare." When not zooming about on roller skates, his special powers lie hidden in a mild-mannered alter ego named Rob Rabbit (voice of Barry Gordon). Rob is a normal bunny until one day some friends are threatened by a crashing boulder at a picnic. At that moment he is transformed into the "American Rabbit" and saves them. Then a crickety old rabbit overflowing with wisdom comes to tell him that his destiny is to go forth and conquer evil. So Rob heads out to conquer, first getting a job playing at the Panda-Monium piano bar in the city in order to support himself. There he tackles a nasty gang of jackal bikers that appear again and again in different contexts. They finally burn the bar to the ground, and so the die is cast and the gauntlet thrown down to the floppy eared super-rabbit. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

To fatten his bank account, Dan (John Larroquette) moonlights as a professional escort for wealthy women. One of his clients (Barbara Cason) is so enraptured by Dan that she insists he accompany her home--and thence to her bedroom! Meanwhile, Harry (Harry Anderson) tries to help out when the newly-arrived wife of Russian émigré Yakov (Yakov Smirnoff) is arrested. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this animated film, the Littles--a family of half-man, half-mouse creatures living in the walls of human houses--aid a young boy whose parents have vanished. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide

The latest graft-ridden scheme hatched by Boss Hogg (Sorrell Booke) involves plowing up a veteran's cemetery in order to build a new highway. Unfortunately, this would reveal that the grave supposedly occupied by the late con artist Henry Flatt is empty--mainly because Flatt (played by Hal Smith, formerly town drunk Otis Campbell on The Andy Griffith Show) had faked his death a year before! Worried that his loved ones would suffer if he was proven to be alive, Flatt turns to the Dukes for help. This episode was directed by series regular Denver Pyle (Jesse Duke). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A French/Czech co-production, the dream-like La Planete Sauvage concerns the degradation of the Oms, human-like creatures on the futuristic planet Yagam. The Oms are kept as pets and beasts of burden by the Draggs, 39-foot beings who comprise Yagam's ruling class. The status quo is upset when Terr, one of the Oms, accidentally receives an education, whereupon he organizes the other Oms to demand equality with the Draggs. Based on Stefen Wul's novel Ems En Serie, Fantastic Planet was the winner of a 1973 Cannes Film Festival grand prize. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Taciturn Faye Dunaway insists upon drilling for oil in her small, unpromising patch of Oklahoma land. Drifter George C. Scott signs on to work the derrick, but only after Dunaway, who for unspecified reasons hates all men, warns him to stay at arm's length. Jack Palance, the strong-arm representative for a huge oil firm, dearly covets Dunaway's land, and when she refuses to sell he sends his hooligans to beat both her and Scott to bloody pulps. Driven from her land, Dunaway can't expect help from the "bought" courtrooms, so she fights fire with fire: together with Scott and her ne'er do well father John Mills, she takes back the land by force of arms. As they sit guarding the derrick, Dunaway and Scott draw closer, and when Mills is killed by a fall, Dunaway turns to Scott as her one last pillar of strength. Just as Palance and his goons are about to rush the land, the long-awaited gusher comes in. The oil surge lasts just long enough for every oil company within two hundred miles to bid for pumping rights. Once the well runs dry, however, Dunaway and Scott are left standing alone in their grimy field. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

While staying with Oliver and Lisa Douglas (Eddie Albert, Eva Gabor), Arnold the pig witnesses a bank robbery. Normally, he'd be able to "squeal" to the cops concerning the crooks' identity -- but alas, Arnold is suffering from laryngitis. Meanwhile, holdup men Danny (Milton Selzer) and Charlie (Al Lewis) decide to kidnap Arnold -- but end up with handyman Eb (Tom Lester) instead. (Gee, anyone could have made that mistake!) ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This animated color feature finds a mother and her two young cubs eagerly waiting for Santa Claus to visit them in Yellowstone National Park. A kindly forest ranger who first told them about the jolly old elf is persuaded to impersonate Santa, and the young bears help him save the holiday. The film is aimed at a target audience of wide-eyed pre-schoolers. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

This episode begins at the headquarters of the Internal Revenue Service, where the agents take time from bleeding taxpayers dry to recall the case of the "Hooterville Refund Fraud." The whole mess was inadvertently caused by Oliver Douglas (Eddie Albert), who had encouraged his fellow farmers to contact the IRS with refund requests. Though Oliver's intentions were honest, most of the requests were not -- and as a result, the citizens of Hooterville became the delighted (and undeserving) recipients of a 500,000 dollar tax refund! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide