Sam Wanamaker Movies

Two of the most renowned film historian-archivists, Kevin Brownlow (Abel Gance's Napoleon) and David Gill, team up for this epic three-part documentary on the rise and fall of David Wark "D.W." Griffith, still widely regarded by many as the most brilliant and intuitive filmmaker in modern history. Brownlow and Gill draw on meticulously-chosen film clips to illustrate how Griffith virtually reinvented filmmaking from 1908-1916, during his tenure at the Biograph film studios, courtesy of revolutionary advancements in cinematographic and acting techniques that enabled him to single-handedly define film grammar. Gill and Brownlow reveal how this culminated in Griffith's technically marvelous yet morally indefensible epic The Birth of a Nation (1915), an ironic development given Hollywood's complete abandonment of Griffith with the advent of sound. Revealing interviews with heavyweights including Lillian Gish, Karl Brown, Blanche Sweet, cinematographer Stanley Cortez and others supplement the material. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide

In this drama, a wealthy American doctor learns some important lessons about life in one of the poorest cities on Earth. Max Lowe (Patrick Swayze) is a Houston surgeon who has grown weary of the bureaucracy of American medicine. When he loses a patient on the operating table, Max impulsively decides to leave America and travel to India in the hope of "finding himself." Not long after he arrives in Calcutta, Max is attacked by a group of thugs and left without money or a passport. However, a man named Hasari (Om Puri) comes to Max's rescue. Hasari had left his farming community to come to the city, only to be overwhelmed by its dirt, crime, and overcrowding. Despite their poverty, Hasari and his family take Max in and bring him to a medical clinic in the City of Joy, one of the poorest slums in the city. The clinic is run by Joan Bethel (Pauline Collins), an Irish-American nun who urges Max to use his skills to help the people of Calcutta who so desperately need it. Max signs on, and he finds that the experience changes his life. City of Joy was based on a novel by Dominique Lapierre. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

The directorial debut of producer Irwin Winkler, Guilty by Suspicion is a sobering account of one movie executive's woes in dealing with the political fallout from the McCarthy Era Hollywood blacklist. Robert De Niro stars as David Merrill, a film director in the 1950s whose obsession with his burgeoning career has estranged him from his wife Ruth (Annette Bening) and their son. When he returns from a trip to Paris, Merrill is surprised when told by his boss, Darryl F. Zanuck (Ben Piazza) that he's been summoned to appear before the House Un-American Activities Committee, which is investigating Communist ties to Hollywood. Although Merrill once attended a meeting years before, he's not a Communist, and he refuses to help the committee wreck the career of his friend Bunny Baxter (George Wendt). Merrill becomes blacklisted, unable to find work even in menial positions or under assumed names as the editor of a B-movie or the director of a low-budget Western. Reconciled with his family, Merrill caves in and agrees to testify, but as he prepares to "name names," his conscience plagues him. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide

Hoping to prevent his brother's Vietnam death and to prevent the JFK assassination, a time-travelling college professor goes back to the '60s but can't find his way out. Trapped in a time warp, he can't effect a change because he can't return to his present time. This made-for-cable movie is adapted from Stanley Shapiro's A Time to Remember. ~ All Movie Guide

Robert Foxworth is special guest murderer in the two-hour Columbo drama Grand Deceptions. Foxworth plays a retired Army colonel, currently fronting a paramilitary organization. He preaches duty, honor and country, all the while dipping into the organization's funds. When a colleague threatens to blow the whistle, Foxworth murders the man, making the killing look like an accident. Lt. Columbo (Peter Falk) suspects that the colonel is guilty, but finds it difficult penetrating his phalanx of followers. Viewers were first treated to Columbo's customary diligence in Grand Deceptions on May 1, 1989. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In 1978, an East German waiter used a toy gun to hijack a Polish airliner heading for East Berlin and forced the pilot to land at an American Air Force base in West Germany. The best-selling book about the ensuing trial of the hijacker -- written by the presiding judge, Herbert J. Stern -- is given film treatment by director Leo Penn. The back story involves a West German contractor working both sides of Germany, who has fallen in love with a woman from East Berlin. The contractor arranges for the woman, her daughter and another man (Heinz Hoenig), who has children living in West Germany, to meet him in Gdansk, Poland, where he will give them false documents allowing them to get into West Germany. When the contractor is arrested, they must make other plans. Sneaking a toy gun on an airplane bound for East Germany, the man compels the pilot to steer the plane to West Germany, where he hopes to seek asylum and see his children. But this is the first time a hijacker has sought asylum in the west and it sets off a political firestorm. The American and West Germany governments have signed an international accord to prevent skyjackings and the Soviet government is pressuring them to prosecute the hijackers to the fullest extent of the law. The United States Justice Department wants a quick trial and hires a tough judge (Martin Sheen), who, they think, will prosecute the case swiftly and be done with it. However, the judge is more than the authorities have bargained for -- he wants the defendants to be given a fair trial and all of the rights guaranteed to them under the Constitution. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

Superman (Christopher Reeve) tries to save the world from nuclear destruction at the hands of Lex Luthor (Gene Hackman) in this action film featuring the man of steel. In a speech to the United Nations, Superman declares he will rid the world of all nuclear weapons. Arch-villain Luthor emerges from prison obsessed with killing Superman and creates an adversary known as Nuclear Man (Mark Pillow). The two engage in a fight to the finish in various landmarks on Earth before taking their battle into outer space. When Lois Lane (Margot Kidder) invites both Superman and Clark Kent to a double-date dinner, Superman's powers are tested so that both men can be present. Jackie Cooper plays the gruff veteran newspaper editor Perry White, with Marc McClure as Jimmy Olsen. Sam Wanamaker plays tabloid tycoon David Warfield, the millionaire who buys the Daily Planet. Mariel Hemmingway is Warfield's daughter Lacy, Clark Kent's date at Lois' luxury apartment. This is the least interesting of the four Superman movies starring Christopher Reeve. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

Management consultant Diane Keaton has no time in her life for anything except her high-profile job. All this changes when she inherits a 14-month-old infant from a pair of recently deceased-and very distant-relatives. Intending to put the child up for adoption, she discovers that she has grown fond of the kid and has begun to thrive on the responsibilities of motherhood. All of this, of course, jeopardizes Keaton's love life and professional standing, but all turns out well when the baby inadvertently leads to a whole new moneymaking agenda for our heroine. Capraesque in concept, Baby Boom avoids phony sentiment and obvious humor, emerging as one of the singular comic delights of the late 1980s. On great bit has Keaton "celebrating" a major business coup by surreptiously performing an under-the-table jig (a bit of business that dates back to the 1924 Reginald Denny comedy Skinner's Dress Suit). Baby Boom was spun off into a TV sitcom in 1989, with Kate Jackson filling Diane Keaton's designer shoes. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Based on a novel by Ernest Gann and set in 1928, this story starts out focusing on aviation and then flies in another direction at about three feet worth of altitude. Christopher Reeves is Edgar Anscombe, a pilot of a Stearman biplane running a mail route between the states of Washington and Nevada, when he is obliged to accept Tillie Hansen (Rosanna Arquette) as a passenger one day. Introverted at best, sullen and forbidding at worst, Edgar is struggling with his own trauma after surviving a crash that left him with an ugly scar across his face. Tillie personifies all the worse traits commonly attributed to the rich and spoiled -- and the two are set to joust from the beginning. After they take off, an accident occurs and although the dueling pair survive the crash, they are hard put to survive for long in the desolate mountains. Soon Edgar's friend Jerry (Scott Wilson) is out looking for him, and Tillie's obnoxious father is there at the base airport to put pressure on everyone to find her. Needless to say, Edgar and Tillie, in the meantime, are faced with dangers that make their previous problems seem minor. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Nick Mancuso stars in the made-for-TV Embassy. Cast as an American ambassador stationed in Rome, Mancuso's life is thrown into turmoil by a crucial computer chip. When not trying to keep U.S. defense secrets from falling into the wrong hands, he must juggle the affections of his press-attache-girlfriend, (Mimi Rogers), and his girlfriend's chief rival (Blanche Baker). Embassy was intended as the 2-hour pilot for a weekly series; it didn't sell, but Nick Mancuso's next venture in the TV-pilot field, Stingray, proved successful. Embassy was initially telecast on April 21, 1985. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Ghostwriter was based on the 1979 Philip Roth novel, part of his unofficial "Zuckerman trilogy". Based loosely on an incident in Roth's own youth, the story, set in 1956, centers around 23-year-old novelist Nathan Zuckerman (Mark-Lynn Baker). Nathan's insistence upon writing about the Holocaust brings forth a warning from his father that too much dwelling on the past might rekindle anti-Semitism. In response, Judge Leopold Wapter (Joseph Wiseman) advises Nathan to see the Broadway production of Diary of Anne Frank. Nathan is so impressed with the story that he begins to fantasize that Anne Frank is still alive. Later, during a visit to the New England farm of his idol, author E. I. Lonoff (Sam Wanamaker), Nathan meets a gamin-like stranger (Paulette Smit) whom he imagines to be Anne Frank in the flesh. Philip Roth adapted his own novel (with director Tristam Rogers) for the made-for-TV Ghostwriter. Originally slated for telecast over the BBC, the film eventually became a coproduction of the BBC and America's Public Broadcasting System, and had its American debut on PBS' American Playhouse on January 17, 1984. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this human-scale drama/comedy, a pair of Beverly Hills parents, Albert (Ryan O'Neal) and Lucy (Shelley Long) first come together as a couple interested in writing (she) and teaching (he), but Albert's life takes an upscale turn when he starts both writing and then directing in Hollywood. As he becomes successful, Lucy is forced to burrow into her own writing in self-defense, and after her book is well-received, she is compensated a little for Albert's lack of attention and philandering. After Hollywood and its well-known flaws are sketched out in the increasingly strained marriage, the story reaches its primary focus: Albert and Lucy's 9-year-old daughter Casey (Drew Barrymore) talks to a lawyer because she wants to sue her parents for divorce. She gets no hugs or affection, and precious little attention, and she would prefer to go live with the maid. Given the parents' celebrity, the case receives wide press -- and the family begins to reconsider where it is going and why. Although a bit long, especially in the first half which wanders off course a little, the story is engaging enough (especially for Hollywood buffs) to balance any weaknesses. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide