Bill Marcus Movies

Heavily disguised for a new assignment, Hannibal (George Peppard) is mistaken for a skid-row wino named Jim Beam (Elisha Cook Jr.)--and vice versa. It soon becomes obvious that someone is trying to murder Beam. . .but why? To solve this mystery, and to rescue Hannibal in the process, the A-Team sets up a skid-row mission called the Road to Hope, with Murdock (Dwight Schultz) tearing a passion to tatters as street preacher Harry Dean Hanover (when he isn't trying to pass himself off as the Invisible Man, that is!). Look for future X-Files regular Mitch Pileggi in a small role. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The spotlight in this episode is not on detectives David (Bruce Willis) and Maddie (Cybill Shepherd),but instead on their mousy, poetry-spouting secretary Agnes Dipesto (Allyce Beasley). Yearning for some excitement in her life, Ms. Dipesto gets more than she bargained for when a mysterious man slips her a piece of paper, then dashes off for parts unknown. The delighted Agnes thinks that the paper contains the man's phone number--but it doesn't, not by a long shot. Before the story plays itself out, Agnes has been injected with truth serum and sent on a wild cab ride, and a man is murdered (or appears to be murdered) in a bowling alley. As indicated by its title, this episode owes more than a little to the cinematic oeuvre of Alfred Hitchcock. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Married. . .With Children launches its second season with the series' first two-part episode (originally networkcast in a single hour-long timeslot). "Borrowing" their neighbors' car, the Bundy family embarks upon a vacation, ending up in a sleazy hotel in Dumpwater, Florida. The town happens to be famous for two things: It's the home of "the man who shook the hand of Andy Griffith", and also the home of a brutal axe murderer who strikes every five years--and specializes in hacking up tourists. As the locals place bets as to who will be the killer's next victims, guess which family strolls into the scene? (Aw, you guessed.) ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Two women with serious differences are forced to look out for each other in this anarchic comedy. Sandy (Bette Midler) and Lauren (Shelley Long) are a pair of struggling actresses who don't get along especially well -- and are even less fond of each other when they discover that they're both dating the same man, Michael (Peter Coyote). However, when Michael suddenly goes missing, they discover that he's actually an espionage agent working with a foreign government, and as they set out to find him, they learn that he has implicated them in his schemes. Now Sandy and Lauren are stuck with each other as they look for Michael while trying to outrun the law. Outrageous Fortune also stars George Carlin as Frank, a burned-out '60s holdover who the women meet along the way. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

A darkly comic and surreal contemporization of Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol, this effects-heavy Bill Murray holiday vehicle from 1988 sees the former SNL funnyman assuming the role of television executive Frank Cross, the meanest and most depraved man on earth. Cross will stoop to unheard of levels to increase his network's ratings -- even if it means mounting outrageous programs to retain an audience, such as "Robert Goulet's Cajun Christmas" and Lee Majors in "The Night the Reindeer Died," with an AK-47-toting Santa. Cross plots his foulest move, however, for the Christmas holiday, when he will force his office staff to mount a live production of A Christmas Carol on national television -- and thus work through Christmas Eve. Cross's life is turned upside down with visits from three ghosts: a craggy-faced cabbie known as The Ghost of Christmas Past (David Johansen); the sugar-plum fairy Ghost of Christmas Present (Carol Kane) (who gets her jollies by bonking Frank across the face with a toaster oven); and, eventually, the caped, headless Ghost of Christmas Future, who will send Frank sliding into a crematory oven -- just before he gives the sleazoid one last chance to redeem himself. Along the way, the spirits carry Frank to scenes from his past, present, and future (per Scrooge) and impart a glimpse of how he became so thoroughly rotten. The radiant Karen Allen co-stars as Frank's girlfriend, Claire Phillips, and the film packs in cameos from countless celebrities -- among them, Mary Lou Retton, John Houseman, Jamie Farr, and, in a truly grisly and tasteless bit, John Forsythe. Richard Donner directs, from a script credited to the late Michael O'Donoghue and Mitch Glazer. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide

Nicollette Sheridan plays a stripper in the made-for-TV Somebody's Daughter. Together with her bodyguard/lover Nick Mancusco, Sheridan becomes involved in a murder. The subsequent official cover-up and the attendant police corruption places Nicollette's future seriously in doubt. In fact, she escapes death so often before the climax that we feel as though we've stumbled into a full-color, streetwise remake of a Pearl White serial. Somebody's Daughter was first telecast September 20, 1992. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Detective Logan (Chris Noth) is forced to reveal some painful, and long-suppressed, childhood memories when a longtime friend of his commits suicide. It is possible that the victim took his own life as the result of a chance meeting with former priest Father Joe Krolinsky (Bill Raymond). As the investigation proceeds, the ugly spectre of pedophilia looms large over the proceedings -- and over Logan's own childhood experiences. This episode was directed by Dann Florek, who also briefly reprises his old Law & Order role as police captain Don Cragen. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Several weeks after being assaulted and beaten, Greene (Anthony Edwards) returns to work, but it is obvious that he is the worse for his horrendous experience. When Carla (Lisa Nicole Carson) goes into premature labor, Benton (Eriq La Salle) can only stand by helplessly and wait. Carter (Noah Wyle) considers giving up his dreams of being a surgeon so that he can continue with ER work. And Ross (George Clooney) isn't about to let Carol (Julianna Margulies) have a quiet birthday. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A couple with a broken relationship learns some valuable lessons about love, life, and sacrifice in this romantic drama based on a novel by W. Somerset Maugham. It's 1925, and Dr. Walter Fane (Edward Norton) is a physician and bacteriologist who has become smitten with Kitty (Naomi Watts), the beautiful daughter of a wealthy and socially prominent family. Walter proposes marriage to Kitty and she accepts; however, while he clearly loves her, Kitty is more interested in her reputation than Walter's feelings, as she's recently turned 25, an age by which most of her peers have already wed. Kitty and Walter move to Shanghai, where he sets up a practice and she takes a lover, the British Vice Consul Charles Townsend (Liev Schreiber). When Walter learns of his wife's infidelity, he becomes furious, and impulsively volunteers to travel to China to work in a village stricken with a major cholera epidemic. While Walter's actions are meant to punish Kitty rather than reflect his own benevolence, the daily trials of living in a community in crisis have a striking impact on the couple, giving them a new and deeper perspective on their relationship. The Painted Veil is the third screen adaptation of Maugham's best-selling novel of the same name; a 1934 version starred Greta Garbo and Herbert Marshall, while Eleanor Parker and Bill Travers played the leads in a 1957 remake titled The Seventh Sin. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide