Darlene Conley Movies
- 1986
- PG
Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas team up one last time in Tough Guys. Harry Doyle (Lancaster) and Archie Lang (Douglas) are two old-time train robbers, who held up a train in 1956 and have been incarcerated for thirty years. After serving their time, they are released from jail and have to adjust to a new life of freedom, now as old men. Harry and Archie realize that they still have the pizzazz when, picking up their prison checks at a bank, they foil a robbery attempt. Archie, who spent his prison time pumping himself up, easily picks up a 20-year-old aerobics instructor named Skye (Darlanne Fluegel). Harry, on the other hand, has to waste away his days in a nursing home. They both have festering resentments --Archie for having to endure a humiliating job as a busboy; Harry for having to endure patronizing attitudes toward senior citizens. The two old pals finally go back to what they know best. After successfully robbing an armored car, they decide to rob the same train that they robbed thirty years ago. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Kirk Douglas, Burt Lancaster, (more)
- 1985
The scene is the West Barrington Institute for Women, where warden Elizabeth Gates (Vera Miles) invites Jessica (Angela Lansbury) to lecture on creative writing. Of course, wherever Jessica goes, murder follows, and this time the victim is the prison's doctor Irene Matthews (Janet McLachlan). Believing that an innocent woman has been accused of the crime, the inmates stage a riot, taking several hostages--including Jessica--in the process. In order to save Warden Gates from being killed in the mistaken belief that she is the "real" culprit, Jessica races against time to solve the murder herself. This is the only Murder She Wrote episode to boast an all-female cast. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Initially titled Fighting Chance, the made-for-TV The Fighter stars Gregory Harrison in the title role. Unable to support himself or his wife Glynnis O'Connor when he's laid off from his job, Harrison decides to give boxing a try. Glynnis is dead-set against this decision; she takes a job at a beauty salon to make ends meet, which irritates her husband to no end. Working off his hostilities in the ring, Harrison becomes fairly adept with his fists-but the movie's not quite over yet. Featured in the cast of The Fighter is Ray Notaro Jr., a real-life pugilist who served as Gregory Harrison's trainer. The film first aired on February 19, 1983. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1981
Made for television, the movie concerns a young unmarried girl who must decide whether to have an abortion. With the help of her own mother (Susan Clark), she tries to make the right decision. ~ John Bush, All Movie Guide
- 1981
A curious pure-entertainment offering from the same team responsible for the "Classics Illustrated" TV movies of the 1970s and 1980s, Nashville Grab stars Jeff Conaway as country-western singer Buddy Walker. While rehearsing for a prison concert, Buddy is kidnapped by female convicts Maxine (Betty Thomas) and Rita (Mari Gorman), who force him to accompany them on a cross-country escape in an old van. Adhering to the formula established by the theatrical feature Sugarland Express, the fugitives are hotly pursued by a variety of colorful characters, including Buddy's mercenary agent Ross (Slim Pickens) (who hopes to "merchandise" the kidnapping), the singer's ex-partners Frank (Gary Sandy) and Laurel (Cristina Raines, a goofy detective, a SWAT team, and a TV news crew. Played for laughs--and occasionally getting a few--Nashville Grab debuted October 18, 1981 on NBC. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1981
While attending a literature seminar in Arizona, Laura (Melissa Gilbert) is reunited with her sister-in-law Eliza Jane (Lucy Lee Flippin). This happy reunion is compromised when, failing to land a local tutoring job, Laura is forced to take menial work at a local restaurant. Before long, Laura and Eliza Jane find themselves in a quasi-romantic triangle involving the erudite Professor Woestehoff (Joseph Lambie). Though a married woman and certainly disinclined to stray, Laura allows the professor to flatter her in hopes that he will give a positive assessment of her writing efforts -- while the unattached Eliza Jane seethes with jealousy. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Michael Landon, Karen Grassle, (more)
- 1979
Helen Willis (Roxie Roker) is mad when she finds out that her husband, Tom (Franklin Cover), is going to attend a business convention in Mexico without her. She is madder still when she learns that Tom is going to be accompanied by a beautiful blonde (Judy Landers). What Helen doesn't know -- until it is almost too late -- is that the blonde is the mistress of Tom's boss. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Sherman Hemsley, Isabel Sanford, (more)
- 1972
Play It As It Lays offers what is probably the harshest view of Hollywood to be given a major production up to the time of its release; it depicts a world of narcissistic egotists who will do anything to inflate their own sense of importance. Based on the novel by Joan Didion, it tells of the rise and fall of one woman's acting career. Maria Wyeth (Tuesday Weld), a model, began her acting career in a Warhol-like film, and moved "up" to perform in a biker film. The director of both films, Carter Lang (Adam Roarke), discovered her, and soon afterwards, marries her. As Carter's career moves ahead, he pays less and less attention to Maria. She has a number of affairs to try to brighten her world, but nothing much works. When she gets pregnant by one of them, Lang divorces her. Then, her best friend (Anthony Perkins), who tried to bring about a reconciliation between Lang and her, commits suicide. Her world in tatters, she has a nervous breakdown. The film's story is told in flashbacks while she is in recovery. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- 1970
- R
This psychedelic anti-war film from the late 1960s features hippies, drugs, trippy light shows, sex, and rock n' roll, as it follows the exploits of a square Marine on emergency leave who learns to "turn-on" with a beautiful young flower child. Paul (Geoff Gage) is on leave from his tour of duty in Vietnam. He meets Melissa (Andrea Cagan), a young hippie girl, and the two start hanging out together. Paul is caught between his ultra-right-wing family and the hippies Melissa calls her friends, and as a result begins questioning his reasons for being in Vietnam. When the two separate after an argument, Paul tries to find Melissa at a peace rally before he has to return to the war in Vietnam. An excellent period soundtrack is provided by The Steve Miller Band, Country Joe & The Fish, Kaleidoscope, Quicksilver Messenger Service, and Eric Selten. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Geoff Gage, Andrea Cagan, (more)
Faces is right: this definitive John Cassavetes film consists almost exclusively of tight, uncomfortable close-ups. It takes place in the fourteenth year of the marriage of Richard (John Marley) and Maria (Lynn Carlin). Neither husband nor wife is content with the conditions that prevail; Maria joins her friends looking for romantic satisfaction elsewhere, while Richard secures the services of a prostitute (Gena Rowlands). Maria herself has a one-night stand with a hippie (Seymour Cassel), but this is no more satisfying than her dead-end marriage. If you think that Faces is an exhausting experience in its current 130-minute length, imagine what it looked like in Cassavetes' original six-hour cut. Alternately clumsy and profound, it is nonetheless a work of deep sincerity, as recognized by the Venice Film Festival, which bestowed no fewer than five awards on the film, and it perfectly exemplifies Cassavetes' improvisational, cinéma vérité style and searching explorations of modern relationships. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- John Marley, Gena Rowlands, (more)
