Helena Carroll Movies
- 1997
- Add Mother Teresa: In the Name of God's Poor to Queue Add Mother Teresa: In the Name of God's Poor to top of Queue
Internationally known actress Geraldine Chaplin offers a moving portrayal of one of the 20th century's greatest humanitarians. This made-for-television miniseries honors the life and sacrifices made by the feisty Yugoslavian nun who spent most of her life tending the poor and the sick of India. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi
- Starring:
- Geraldine Chaplin, William Katt, (more)
- 1997
In this sequel to the second-season episode "The Feather", Randy Travis and Paul Wittenberg return respectively as hard-bitten but likeable Sam and his mentally challenged younger brother Wayne. When Wayne accidentally breaks the angel for the brothers' Christmas tree, Sam generously offers to buy a new one, and heads into a blinding snowstorm. Hours pass, and Wayne becomes worried that his brother has met with an accident. He is comforted by the arrival of genuine angel Monica (Roma Downey), who mollifies his fears by recalling a similar crisis of faith that occurred to celebrated writer Mark Twain (John Cullum) in 1909. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
The 1939 Irene Dunne-Charles Boyer romance Love Affair, remade with Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr in 1957 as An Affair to Remember, became a vehicle for real-life couple Warren Beatty and Annette Bening in this 1994 rendition. The well-worn story remains the same, as a man and a woman, both engaged to other people, fall madly in love while traveling, indulge in a brief but intense affair, then agree to part and sort out their feelings. They are to meet again at the top of the Empire State Building if their feelings persist, but a series of unfortunate circumstances threatens to keep the lovers apart. Despite polished visuals and a time-tested narrative, this variation suffers in comparison to its two predecessors, not to mention the previous year's Sleepless in Seattle, which had drawn on An Affair to Remember for several of its most memorable sequences. It does features Katherine Hepburn's first film appearance in 13 years. ~ Judd Blaise, Rovi
- Starring:
- Warren Beatty, Annette Bening, (more)
- 1993
Produced for television, George Schaefer's comedy-drama casts Katharine Hepburn as Victoria Brown, a sharp-tongued spinster who discovers petty thief Moony Polaski (Ryan O'Neal) hiding out in her attic. Instead of calling the police, Victoria befriends her guest, even as the manhunt for him gathers steam. ~ Jason Ankeny, Rovi
- 1992
Lust! Greed! Passion! Shoes! In the first episode of a three-part "saga", the Bundys travel to England, having been invited to the country by the citizens of Lower Uncton. Little do they realizes that Lower Uncton has been under a curse of perpetual darkness since 1653--a curse that will be ended only when the last two surviving Bundy males are killed. Scheming historian Winston (Bill Oddie) and his henchman Igor (Steve Hartley) plan to bump off Al (Ed O'Neill) and Bud (David Faustino) the moment they set foot in Lower Uncton. . .while the populace of neighboring Upper Uncton plan to prevent this from happening so they can continue using Lower Uncton as a tourist attraction. Largely filmed on location in London, this episode features cameo appearances by series story editors Larry Jacobson and Stacie Lipp). ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
New York art dealer Arne Glimcher took his first crack at film directing with this florid, high-energy romance about two brothers who flee Cuba in the early 1950s to make it as musicians in the United States. Cynthia Cidre wrote the literate screenplay adapted from Oscar Hijuelos's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love. Cesar (Armand Assante) and Nestor Castillo (Antonio Banderas) are popular musicians on Havana's club circuit, but when they make enemies of the wrong people, they are forced to leave for New York City, the moody Nestor leaving behind his true love. In New York, the brothers work as meat-cutters during the day as Cesar tries to organize a band and make inroads into the lively New York music scene. Soon, as The Mambo Kings, they get club bookings and Cesar falls in love with a sharp-tongued cigarette girl, Lanna Lake (Cathy Moriarty), and Nestor with the beautiful Delores Fuentes (Maruschka Detmers), who wants to be a teacher. Cesar concentrates on singing and managing the band, while Nestor plays the trumpet and writes emotional songs of love. All seems to be going well until Cesar antagonizes the moneymen on the Latin nightclub circuit and they finds themselves playing bar mitzvahs. But after they're discovered by Desi Arnaz (Desi Arnaz Jr.), the group is prominently featured on I Love Lucy. Their popularity soars and they cut a successful album called "Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love." Cesar is glorying in his success, but Nestor is disappointed and longs to return to Cuba. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi
- Starring:
- Armand Assante, Antonio Banderas, (more)
- 1991
Jerry Orbach makes a return appearance as Boston private eye Harry McGraw. Deep in Kentucky Horse Country, Harry investigates the murder of horse owner Randolph Sterling (Kevin McCarthy), who had been embroiled in a feud with his neighbor Lamar Morgan (Gregory Walcott) concerning a stud fee and two unexpected foals sired by one of Sterling's thoroughbreds. Real-life attorney Melvin M. Belli is appropriately cast as a judge. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
Touted upon its release as the finale of the Rocky saga, this fifth entry in the long-running series of sports dramas reunites star Sylvester Stallone with John G. Avildsen, director of the Oscar-winning original. Stallone is Rocky Balboa, suffering from career-ending brain damage as a result of his punishing bout with Ivan Drago at the finale of the previous film. Upon their return to Philadelphia, Rocky and his wife, Adrian (Talia Shire), discover they are broke, their fortune squandered by an incompetent accountant. Forced to move back to their working-class neighborhood, Rocky finds that his only asset is the run-down gym willed to him by Mickey (Burgess Meredith, who appears in new flashback sequences). Resisting big money offered to him by Don King-like boxing promoter George Washington Duke (Richard Gant), Rocky becomes a trainer and finds a talented comer in Tommy Gunn (real-life boxer Tommy Morrison, nephew of John Wayne). Rocky's son (played by Stallone's real-life son Sage Stallone) feels neglected by his father, who lavishes attention on his protégé, but Tommy ultimately turns his back on his mentor to sign a more lucrative deal with Duke, leading to a street-fight showdown. ~ Karl Williams, Rovi
- Starring:
- Sylvester Stallone, Talia Shire, (more)
The final film of legendary director John Huston was based on the closing story of James Joyce's Dubliners. Anjelica Huston is top-billed as Gretta Conroy, the niece by marriage of turn-of-century Irish spinsters Kate Morkan (Helena Carroll) and Julia Morkan (Cathleen Delany). At the home of these two curious ladies, Gretta is prodded into remembering her long-dead lover. She tearfully reveals to her husband (Donal McCann) that the deceased boy may well have died on her behalf. Her tale of woe bespeaks the sentiment shared by James Joyce: no matter how long in their graves, the dead will always influence the living. Adding to the film's elegiac quality, it stars Huston's daughter Anjelica and was co-written with his son Tony Huston. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Anjelica Huston, Donal McCann, (more)
- 1986
These bad guys are a couple of inept cops who, when kicked off the force, decide to make their living as professional wrestlers. They become "The Boston Bad Guys" and as such, are pitted against a wrestling team managed by their manager's arch rival. To add intrigue to this wrestling fan's release (who else would watch it?) -- are appearances by several big-name professional wrestlers. ~ Rovi
- Starring:
- Adam Baldwin, Mike Jolly, (more)
This 1981 John Irvin picture constitutes an adaptation of Peter Straub's colossal, bestselling novel. The central plot -- shared by both book and film -- revolves around the four elderly members of the Chowder Society (Fred Astaire, Melvyn Douglas, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. and John Houseman), who gather in each other's drawing rooms each winter to sip cognac and spin elaborate ghost stories. The four men also share a dark secret far more unsettling than fiction -- a secret which has literally come back to haunt them, as well as their own adult offspring. Each man is visited by a hideous specter bearing the likeness of a young woman (Alice Krige) they accidentally killed 50 years ago when spurning her mischievous sexual advances. ~ Cavett Binion, Rovi
- Starring:
- Fred Astaire, Melvyn Douglas, (more)
- 1980
- PG
Susan Sarandon gives a sprightly performance in this sex farce involving couples swapping mates. Shirley MacLaine is Evelyn, a doctor, who is spending some quality time horseback riding when she is spotted by Greg (Stephen Collins), who is driving his sports car. Greg looks at her a bit too long and crashes the car, and since Evelyn is a doctor, she feels free to ride up to the prone Greg and rip off his pants. Soon the two are having an affair behind the backs of Greg's TV weather-girl lover Stephanie (Susan Sarandon) and Evelyn's workaholic husband, Walter (James Coburn). When Walter finds out about the affair from Stephanie, the two decide to reciprocate and engage in an affair of their own. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi
- Starring:
- Shirley MacLaine, James Coburn, (more)
Carl Reiner directs Steve Martin (who co-wrote the script with Carl Gottlieb) in this gag-laden comedy about an idiotic white man, raised by a poor family of black sharecroppers, who doesn't realize he's not black. Navin R. Johnson (Steve Martin) is told the horrible truth when he finds himself instinctively tapping his feet to an easy listening tune on the radio, instead of a low-down blues. His mother (Mabel King) tells him he's white and Navin takes to the road (in a World War II bomber helmet and goggles) to start a new life in St. Louis. A filling station owner, Harry Hartounian (Jackie Mason), give Navin his first break, hiring him to pump gas. One day at the station, Navin has a brainstorm, concocting an invention called "The Opti-grab," a combination handle and nose-brace for eyeglasses. But Navin runs into trouble when a crazed killer (M. Emmet Walsh) picks out his name at random from the telephone book and tries to kill him. Navin escapes to a traveling carnival, where he wrangles a job as the "guess-your-weight" man. At the carnival, he discovers his sexual nature, thanks to stunt rider and S&M enthusiast Patty Bernstein (Catlin Adams). But Navin meets the beautiful Marie (Bernadette Peters) and he quickly falls in love. In the meantime, the "Opti-grab" has taken off and soon Navin is a millionaire. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi
- Starring:
- Steve Martin, Bernadette Peters, (more)
Based on the best-selling memoirs of Lillian Rogers Parks, the NBC miniseries Backstairs at the White House traces over five decades of American political history as witnessed from the vantage point of the servants' quarters. Played by Tania Johnson as a teenager and by Leslie Uggams as an adult, Lillian Rogers Parks served for 52 years as a maidservant at the White House. Though crippled early on with polio, Lillian diligently and loyally stuck to her duties -- and her own rock-solid set of principles and ideals -- through eight highly different Presidential administrations, often (and occasionally reluctantly) acting as friend and confidante to the First Lady of the moment. The large and stellar cast included a number of top-rank film and TV actors, obviously having the time of their lives impersonating such presidents as William Howard Taft, Woodrow Wilson, Warren G. Harding, Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover, Franklin Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, and Dwight D. Eisenhower, and their respective wives. Also in the cast were several African-American veterans from the landmark TV miniseries Roots. Earning 11 Emmy Award nominations, the nine-hour Backstairs at the White House was seen in five installments from January 29 to February 19, 1979. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Leslie Uggams, Olivia Cole, (more)
- 1974
The only witness to a terrorist bombing also happens to be a police informer. In his efforts to locate the witness, Kojak (Telly Savalas) is stymied by a rival police precinct which is keeping the man under wraps. Meanwhile, the witness escapes custody--just as the terrorist group El Compadre prepares to strike against. Appearing as an antagonistic police lieutenant is future Hill Street Blues star Daniel J. Travanti. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
Based on the best-selling novel by George V. Higgins, The Friends of Eddie Coyle chronicles the last days of a weary Boston-based weapons dealer. Eddie Coyle (Robert Mitchum) doesn't want to serve a life sentence in prison, so he becomes an informant for both the police and the treasury department. Coyle is likewise unwilling to give up his lifestyle, thus he continues his illegal gun-running operation for the underworld. The mob becomes aware that Eddie is squealing to the cops, so they send his best friend, Dillon (Peter Boyle), to rub him out. Dillon compassionately takes Eddie out on the town, treating him to dinner and a hockey game...then drives to a deserted field to carry out his orders. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Robert Mitchum, Peter Boyle, (more)
- 1940
Love Thy Neighbor was produced to capitalize on the famous radio feud between comedians Jack Benny and Fred Allen. The two stars (actually friends in real life) play "themselves," constantly at each other's throats due to real and imagined slights. Benny complicates matters by falling in love with Allen's niece, played by Mary Martin. The battling comics briefly patch up their differences when Benny rescues Allen from an out of control motorboat, but the truce doesn't last long. The final scene takes place during a musical revue starring Benny, which Allen tries to break up with a slingshot. The Benny-Allen feud was already old news by the time of Love Thy Neighbor, and the film is merely an uninspired attenuation of a threadbare premise. The result is a letdown for fans of both Jack Benny and Fred Allen--though there are a handful of genuinely funny one-liners, as well as adroit supporting contributions from Mary Martin and Eddie "Rochester" Anderson. The best scene in Love Thy Neighbor is the animated opening-credits sequence, produced by Warner Bros.' "Looney Tunes" mentor Leon Schlesinger. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Jack Benny, Fred Allen, (more)
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