Lee McCain

In 1991, Oakland, California was ravaged by brush fires. This made-for-television feature tells some of the harrowing and heroic stories of those that fought and survived the blaze. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Tim Matheson stars in this made-for-TV movie based on a true story. Roger Paulson (Matheson) is a divorcee who wants to start dating again. Roger thinks he's found the perfect woman, but he learns she's been keeping a few secrets from him -- some of which have deadly consequences. Dying to Love You also stars Tracy Pollan and Christine Ebersole.
~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

A young woman learns that she has a lethal, rare kind of cancer. This fact-based, heart-wrenching made-for-TV drama chronicles her struggle to cope with her own personal feelings and those of her family. She then begins looking for alternative ways to treat her disease while her husband deals with his denial. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Much of the original cast from the popular television series Police Story reunited for this edgy drama, in which the detectives search for a killer loose on the roads. This entry was one of several TV-movies in the late 1980s to feature the familiar cast in the Police Story format. ~ Bernadette McCallion, All Movie Guide

Agatha Christie's Murder in Three Acts represents Peter Ustinov's fifth appearance as Dame Agatha's brilliant, insufferable Belgian detective Hercule Poirot. The scene is Acapulco, where retired actor Tony Curtis hosts two separate parties--both of them were blighted by the fatal poisoning of a guest. The police think the butler did it (honest!), but Poirot activates his "little grey cells" to pinpoint the killer amongst a group of wealthy and eccentric suspects. Filmed in Mexico, Murder in Three Acts was the latest (and to some reviewers the least) in a long line of Agatha Christie TV-movie specials produced by Stan Marguiles. Ustinov was Poirot in three of these, having first essayed the role in the theatrical feature Death on the Nile (78). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

First Steps was inspired by a widely-seen, enthusiastically received 1982 piece on 60 Minutes. Amy Steel plays Nan Davis, a young woman totally paralyzed in an auto accident. Judd Hirsch costars as Dr. Jerold Petrovsky, a bioengineer who attaches computerized electrodes to Nan to enable her to reclaim her muscle power. After many torturous months, this state-of-art physical therapy works magnificently, and Nan is able to take ten steps on her own at her college graduation. While the technique was still rather controversial at the time First Steps was telecast, there was no denying that it had worked in the case of Nan Davis, who eventually became the subject of two 60 Minutes follow-ups and reams of upbeat magazine articles. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Contemporary high schooler Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) doesn't have the most pleasant of lives. Browbeaten by his principal at school, Marty must also endure the acrimonious relationship between his nerdy father (Crispin Glover) and his lovely mother (Lea Thompson), who in turn suffer the bullying of middle-aged jerk Biff (Thomas F. Wilson), Marty's dad's supervisor. The one balm in Marty's life is his friendship with eccentric scientist Doc (Christopher Lloyd), who at present is working on a time machine. Accidentally zapped back into the 1950s, Marty inadvertently interferes with the budding romance of his now-teenaged parents. Our hero must now reunite his parents-to-be, lest he cease to exist in the 1980s. It won't be easy, especially with the loutish Biff, now also a teenager, complicating matters. Beyond its dazzling special effects, the best element of Back to the Future is the performance of Michael J. Fox, who finds himself in the quagmire of surviving the white-bread 1950s with a hip 1980s mindset. Back to the Future cemented the box-office bankability of both Fox and the film's director, Robert Zemeckis, who went on to helm two equally exhilarating sequels. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this lively adolescent-oriented musical, a city kid attempts to adapt to life in an ultra-conservative backwater Midwestern town. Once there he ends up leading the repressed teenagers into a rebellion against the town fathers who have outlawed rock & roll and dancing. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Though Two of a Kind was hardly George Burns' television debut, it was his first dramatic TV appearance. Burns is cast as Ross "Boppy" Minor, who is shunted away to a nursing home by his unfeeling son-in-law Cliff Robertson. Robby Benson co-stars as Nolie Minor, Boppy's mentally retarded grandson. Both outcasts from "normal" society, Nolie and Boppy form a strong bond in this touching domestic drama. An Emmy Award went to songwriters James Di Pasquale and Dory Previn for their theme song "We'll Win the World." Two of a Kind first aired October 9, 1982. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Portrait of a Rebel: The Remarkable Mrs. Sanger was written by Blanche Hanalis, a specialist in turning out quality teleplays with a feminist slant. Bonnie Franklin stars as pioneering birth-control advocate Margaret Sanger, who in the early part of the 20th century conducted a 25-year battle to have her views legitimized by the puritanical, male-dominated medical establishment. The film covers the years 1912 through 1917, starting with Sanger's work as a New York City public health nurse. Appalled by the deaths brought about by self-induced abortions, Sanger campaigns to enlighten uneducated "lower-class" women in the proper methods of birth control, eventually opening her own clinic. Her efforts are rewarded with public scorn, attacks from various censorship advocates (her informational pamphlets are deemed "pornographic") and frequent jail terms. In order to spice up an already fascinating story, the film places undue emphasis on the brief romance between Ms. Sanger and British sexual-liberation guru Havelock Ellis (Richard Johnson). Portrait of A Rebel might make a piquant double feature with the 1995 cable-TV Margaret Sanger biopic, which starred Dana Delany. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In a spin off from the actual event of U.S. President Kennedy's assassination, this drama examines what the trial of Lee Harvey Oswald may have been like had he not been shot by Jack Ruby. This made-for-television movie was aired in two parts. ~ Kristie Hassen, All Movie Guide