Carol Gillies Movies
- 1989
A seemingly harmless man comes to a small town with a deadly mission in mind in this British made-for-television movie. Jack Shepherd stars as Peplow, a reserved man who meets up with a disenchanted, crippled veteran (Peter Egan) on the day of their town's annual fair. Unbeknownst to the curmudgeon vet, Peplow has come to town for more than just the fair. ~ Bernadette McCallion, All Movie Guide
Peter Davison stars as bespectacled, aristocratic private detective Albert Campion in this two-part adaptation of Margery Allingham's novel Police at the Funeral. This time, Campion finds himself in Cambridge, at the ancestral home of the dissolute Faraday family. Most of the family members are hanging around, waiting anxiously for wealthy, strong-willed Caroline Faraday (Marry Morris) to shuffle off her mortal coil. It is not Caroline who dies, however, but instead two of the greedy relatives: Uncle Andrew Seely (John Franklyn-Robbins) is found floating in a nearby river, and then Aunt Julia (Gillian Martell) is poisoned. With no shortage of suspects with motive and opportunity, Campion is somewhat relieved when yet another Faraday shows up, claiming to have witnessed Uncle Andrew's demise -- but can this relative, or anyone else for that matter, be trusted? In America, "Police at the Funeral" was telecast October 26 and November 2, 1989, as part of the PBS anthology Mystery! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Peter Davison, Brian Glover, (more)
- 1988
- PG13
Shirley MacLaine is Madame Sousatzka, an aging piano instructor of Russian extraction. Entrenched in a dilapidated London rooming house, the Madame gives lessons only to the most gifted. She does not stop at mere instruction; Sousatzka insists that her pupils conduct their lives in the same genteel, cultured manner in which she was raised. Her prize student at the moment is an East Indian teenage boy (Navin Chowdhry), who forms a strong and loving bond with the old woman. Director John Schlesinger occasionally cuts away from the Madame and her pupil to allow comic space for the other tenants in Ashcroft's building, including an erstwhile songstress (Twiggy) and a gay osteopath (Geoffrey Baydlon). Navim Chowdhry's mother is played by Shabana Azmi, an important star of Indian films. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Shirley MacLaine, Navin Chowdhry, (more)
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
- Starring:
- Diane Keaton, Harold Ramis, (more)
Daryl Duke directed this epic adventure, based on James Clavell's best-selling novel, concerning the battle for control of the China trade in early 19th-century Hong Kong. The film takes place in 1842 on the China Coast, where the Chinese object to the British imperialist policy of buying opium from the Chinese and then selling it back to them at a higher price. As a result, British warships arrive to pound the recalcitrant Chinese into submission. The outcome of the assault is a treaty giving England the right to operate Hong Kong as a free-port. The problem is who will become the Tai-Pan, or British merchant ruler of Hong Kong? The battle lines for the position are drawn between two swashbucklers -- Dirk Struan (Bryan Brown), a skipping and jumping buccaneer, and Tyler Brock (John Stanton), a weaselly cheat. Brock makes the first move by forcing Straun into bankruptcy, but, thanks to the help of the local prostitute May-May (Joan Chen), who has a score to settle with Brock, Straun is able to raise the money at the last minute. This enrages Brock, who remains bitter through the years and finally confronts Straun in a climactic sword fight. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bryan Brown, Joan Chen, (more)
This two-part TV movie recounts the life of Anna Anderson, who until the day she died at age 82 insisted that she was really Anastasia Romanov, daughter of Czar Nicholas. Anna first makes her claim in 1920, when she is an inmate in a Berlin asylum. Her story of escape from the Bolsheviks who killed the rest of her family in 1918 seems so vivid that many Russian expatriates are willing to believe her. The film concludes in 1928, with Anna restating her claim before the surviving Romanovs living in New York. Amy Irving plays the leading character in a lady-or-the-tiger fashion, so that we never know if she truly swallows her own tale or if she's merely a clever charlatan. Olivia DeHavilland, Rex Harrison, Claire Bloom, Omar Sharif and Susan Lucci co-star in this opulent, location-filmed production, which originally aired on December 7 and 8, 1986. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Amy Irving
- 1986
Ostensibly about the 1984 miners' strike in England, this rambling drama veers into a story about Bill (John Hurt) a rootless man who lives in a rundown movie theater and Jess (newcomer Maureen Douglass) who is intent on sabotaging the mining company. Bill creates his own reality in the theater by projecting images he likes on the screen but this lifestyle ends when the building is slated for demolition. Just as Bill is looking for another place to set up housekeeping Jess picks him up and offers him a ride. A computer and some curious-looking plans in the back of the vehicle peak his curiosity though after some adventures on the road, Bill gets dropped off. It does not take long for him to decide to pursue Jess, and the adventure continues. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
Jaclyn Smith is a curious choice to play the title character in the made-for-TV biopic Florence Nightingale. This fact, however, never enters into the consciousness of the viewer, thanks to Smith's excellent performance. Some liberties are taken with the details of the life of "The Lady with the Lamp," notably the addition of a largely speculative romance between Florence and her young swain (Timothy Dalton). The best scenes--and the most accurate--occur during the Crimean War sequences and during Nightingale's strenuous efforts to form the Red Cross. Co-produced by Tony Richmond, Jaclyn Smith's husband, Florence Nightingale debuted April 7, 1985. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jaclyn Smith, Timothy Dalton, (more)
- 1984
- R
Secrets was produced in 1982 for the British TV anthology series First Love. Anna Campbell-Jones plays a lonely 13-year-old girl who is about to be packed off to boarding school. Just before she leaves, she stumbles upon a packet of secret documents, revealing that her late father was a member of the Freemasons. Shortly afterward, her mother (Helen Lindsay) discovers a cache of condoms in her daughter's room. Mother and daughter confront each other, demanding explanations for what both have found. A slight but enjoyable piece, Secrets was released theatrically in the US by the Samuel Goldwyn Company in 1984. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Helen Lindsay, John Horsley, (more)
- 1982
- R
A grim British reform school for girls provides the backdrop for this gritty drama that focuses on two young inmates. One is hoping to find security in the prison while the other is desperate to be reunited with her baby. While in the prison, they must cope with many different women, but in the end learn to survive and how to fight the system. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Amanda York, Chrissie Cotterill, (more)
- 1981
Premiering on American television on December 29, 1981, From a Far Country: Pope John Paul II was originally an Italian/British coproduction, made in cooperation with Film Polski. Actually, we see very little of the Pope -- in fact, John Paul II (played by Cezary Morawski) is not yet in his papal robes when we first meet him as a Polish youth of the 1930s named Karol Wojtyla. Director Krzysztof Zanussi adopts a liquid style that is part Ashes and Diamonds, part Citizen Kane. The maturation of Karol during the Nazi occupation is for the most part relayed through the reminiscences of his friends and family (played by an international cast). For its American TV showing, 40 of the film's original 140 minutes were trimmed. Through an unforeseeable coincidence, From a Far Country: Pope John Paul II was first telecast the same week in 1981 that a major political crisis broke out in Poland. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Sam Neill, Christopher Cazenove, (more)
Produced by Billy Graham's Evangelistic Association and based on an autobiographical novel by Corrie Ten Boom, The Hiding Place is an account of a Dutch family who risk their lives by offering a safe haven for Jews during World War II. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Julie Harris, Eileen Heckart, (more)
