Pat Corley Movies
Bulky, blustery American actor Pat Corley came to films in the early '70s after several years of stage character parts. He appeared conspicously (it was hard for a man his size to be inconspicuous) in such films as The Super Cops (1973), The Bad News Bears in Breaking Training (1977), Coming Home (1978), True Confessions (1982) and Against All Odds (1984), often cast as an antagonistic athlete or a law enforcement officer. He also showed up on episodic television, co-starring as shifty baseball-team owner Ray Holtz on Bay City Blues (1983) and bumbling police chief Walter Padgett on He's the Mayor (1986). Since 1989, Pat Corley has been on duty as Phil, the affable bar owner on the Candice Bergen sitcom Murphy Brown. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Adapted for the screen by novelist Joseph Wambaugh himself, The Black Marble stars Robert Foxworth as a burned-out, hard-drinking cop who is teamed with idealistic lady officer Paula Prentiss. These two polar opposites wade their way through a seamy urban world of corruption and hopelessness. The film is peppered with supporting players, of which include Harry Dean Stanton, James Woods, John Hancock and Barbara Babcock. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Robert Foxworth, Paula Prentiss, (more)
- 1979
Adapted from the novel by Pete Hamill, Flesh and Blood stars Tom Berenger as Bobby Fallon, a street punk who develops into a topnotch boxer while in prison. Upon his release, Bobby is taken under the wing of manager John Cassavetes. Outwardly tough and unmovable, Bobby is tortured with memories of his miserable childhood, which included an incestuous episode with his mother (Suzanne Pleshette). This two-part TV movie concludes with a heavyweight championship bout, bankrolled by Bobby's long-estranged father (Mitchell Ryan). Photographed with Rocky-like intensity by Vilmos Zsigismond, Flesh and Blood first aired on October 14 and 16, 1979. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1978
This TV movie dramatizes a catastrophic event of April 26, 1976. A plane carrying Lauren Elder (Blair Brown), and two other passengers, crashes into Mount Bradley in the Sierra Nevadas.12,000 miles above sea level, the survivors are tortured by their injuries and battered by the elements. Eventually, only Lauren is left alive after a valiant effort to save her comrades. With a broken arm and injured knee, she trudges across the merciless mountain terrain in the fading hope of reaching safety. The location-filmed And I Alone Survived was first telecast on November 27, 1978. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Hal Ashby's 1978 melodrama examines the impact of the Vietnam War on the "war at home" among the men who fought it and the women in their lives. Left alone in Los Angeles when her gung-ho Marine husband Bob (Bruce Dern) heads to Vietnam in 1968, proper wife Sally Hyde (Jane Fonda) decides to volunteer at the V.A. hospital where her new friend Vi (Penelope Milford) works. There she meets Luke Martin (Jon Voight), a former high-school classmate and Marine who has returned from 'Nam a bitter paraplegic. As their relationship grows, Sally sees the effect of the war on the soldiers after they come back, inspiring her to rethink her priorities; Luke's spirits begin to lift, and a hospital tragedy helps focus his anger toward meaningful protest. After a Hong Kong visit with her increasingly withdrawn husband, Sally finds a love and companionship with Luke that she had never known with her husband. Once Bob comes home with his own injury, however, the three must find a way to deal with a changing world and with a system that betrayed the men fighting for it. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jane Fonda, Jon Voight, (more)
- 1978
Paul Clemens plays the real-life Peter Reilly, who in September of 1973 was charged with the mutilation and murder of his mother. The confused 18-year-old signs a confession after being told that he's flunked a lie detector test. Later renouncing the confession, Reilly demands a reopening of his case. The citizens of Peter's home town of Canaan, CT, who'd been willing to see the boy thrown in jail for life when the case first hit the papers, now rally around the youth, insisting that his constitutional rights have been violated. New evidence uncovered by a sympathetic detective enables Peter to press his case. Stefanie Powers plays Joan Barthel, the Canaan resident and free-lance journalist who chronicled Peter's bid for freedom. The made-for-TV A Death in Canaan was first telecast March 1, 1978. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Paul Clemens, Stefanie Powers, (more)
- 1977
First telecast May 16, 1977, Alexander: The Other Side of Dawn is the gender-switch follow-up to the 1976 TV movie Dawn: Portrait of a Teenage Runaway. While Dawn concentrated on the sordid descent of a young girl into crime and prostitution, Alexander devotes its time to the exploits of a teenaged boy (Leigh J. McCloskey), whose character was introduced in the earlier film. A former Oklahoma farm boy, Alexander takes to the streets of LA, where he becomes a hustler and gigolo. After falling in love with Dawn (Eve Plumb), Alexander strives to escape his dead-end world and begin life anew. Director John Erman uses moody overtones to capture the darkness and despair of Alexander's life. Erman, an accomplished director of television movies, also directed the highly-acclaimed, touching AIDS drama, An Early Frost. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Audrey Rose is a "thinking man's" horror film, which in a way is unfortunate, since it tended to be ignored amidst the many spell-it-all-out scarefests of the late '70s. Marsha Mason and John Beck play Janice and Bill Templeton, a happily married couple, the parents of well-adjusted preteen Ivy (Susan Swift). Their family security is disrupted by the arrival of a mysterious stranger, Elliot Hoover (Anthony Hopkins). At first mistaken for a potential child molester, Hoover explains that his obsessive interest in young Ivy is actually paternal. It is Hoover's contention that their daughter is the reincarnation of his own child, who died in a horrible accident. This information is dismissed out of hand-and then strange things begin happening. Directed by Robert Wise (who had previously helmed the psychological thriller The Haunting), Audrey Rose was adapted by co-producer Frank de Felitta from his own novel. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Marsha Mason, Anthony Hopkins, (more)
- 1977
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The misfit kiddie baseball team from the first film is given the opportunity to play in a Junior League match between double-header games at the Houston Astrodome. Two obstacles stand in their way: beloved teammate Timmy Lupus (Quinn Smith) has broken his leg, and the team has no adult coach. Attempting to change their luck, star player Kelly Leak (Jackie Earle Haley) tries to talk his estranged dad (William Devane) into coaching and locates a self-proclaimed hotshot pitcher named Carmen Ronzonni (Jimmy Baio). Watch for quickie cameos by real-life Houston Astros members Robert J. Watson, Enos Cabell, Roger Metzger, James Richard, Joe Ferguson, Ken Forsch, William Virdon, and Cesar Cedeno. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- William Devane, Clifton James, (more)
- 1974
- R
"Batman and Robin" are the principal characters in the fact-based The Super Cops. Well, not the real Batman and Robin; these just happen to be the nicknames of two irrepressible New York City cops, Dave Greenberg (Ron Leibman) and Bob Hantz (David Selby). Flying in the face of departmental procedure and protocol, Greenberg and Hantz use bizarre (and often amusing) extreme methods to rid the streets of drug merchants. The two gonzo cops find an unexpected ally in the form of a prostitute named Sara (Sheila E. Frazer). Adapted by Lorenzo Semple Jr. (who coincidentally wrote the Batman TV pilot episode) from the best-selling book by L. H. Whitemore, The Super Cops features the genuine Dave Greenberg and Bob Hantz in minor roles...as cops, naturally. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ron Leibman, David Selby, (more)
- 1974
- R
Fed up with an escalating crime rate and an increasingly ineffective police force, blue-collar New Yorkers Willie and Cy (Carroll O'Connor and Ernest Borgnine) join a citizen's vigilante group. Their efforts to act as an auxiliary police force are comically inept, but director Ivan Passer lulls us into laughter only to catch us unprepared when he wants to play things in dead seriousness. After finally proving their worth as after-hours cops, Willie and Cy are euphoric; this lasts just long enough for Cy to be killed. Constantly changing its tone and point of view, Law and Disorder struck just the right nihilistic note in the 1970s. Modern viewers may not be quite as responsive, though many will cheer Willie's final act of defiance against the Big Apple. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1974
Suffering from psychotic depression, a woman named Lisa (Andrea Marcovicci) witnesses the murder of her boyfriend. Making matters worse, the killing was committed by one of Lisa's closest friends, who has always carried a torch for her. Kojak (Telly Savalas) tries to determine the name of the guilty party, only to find that Lisa has blotted out all memory of the murder--while the perpetrator weighs the option of adding Lisa to his list of victims. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
