David Berlatsky Movies

In this Disney adventure, the third in a series, Chip, the android boy, must save his father from the cruel business magnate who has abducted him. To do so, he reconfigures his father's robotic look-a-like and then prepares to face the spooky Spartacus, his robotic nemesis. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

A TV pilot film, Doctor's Story explores the rights--or rather, the lack of them--of geriatric patients. Howard E. Rollins Jr. plays a young doctor who resents the throwaway attitude conveyed towards the elderly. Among Rollins' patients are a near-senile old man (Art Carney), a woman (Vivece Lindfors) with a mysterious abdominal ailment, and a suicidal widow (Uta Hagen). Stymied by hospital bureaucracy and indifference, Rollins fights to give his older charges the same care and attention afforded younger patients--and in so doing, his own marriage on the critical list. Whether or not this premise could have sustained a weekly series is problematic (the pilot didn't sell), but as a self-contained drama, Doctor's Story was certainly worth two hours of anyone's attention, young or old. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The "broken promise" was made to eleven-year-old Melissa Michaelsen, whose parents have deserted her and her siblings. Taken in by the County, Michaelsen has had to watch helplessly as her brothers and sisters are split up and farmed out to different families. One of the kids is even institutionalized. Juvenile court officer Chris Sarandon joins Michaelsen in her struggle to reunite her family under one roof. Broken Promise was originally offered as a "General Foods Golden Showcase" presentation. It was first telecast May 5, 1981. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

David Dukes stars as a marriage-bound young man who is rendered a paraplegic by a surfing accident. Dukes fears that his paralysis has resulted in impotence. His future wife Andrea Marcovicci is similarly fearful. Without the help of counselors or physical therapists, the unmarried couple manages to overcome the young man's sexual dilemma. Are you still sure you want to see this TV movie? Some Kind of Miracle was based on some kind of an autobiography by Mary and Jack Willis. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this actioner, a WW II vet attempts to run his own farm and finds himself in dire straits when he cannot pay his mortgage. In desperation, he hits up a gangster for financial aide. Unfortunately, in exchange for money, the gangster wants the vet to kill a few people. The would-be farmer does just that and each killing is quite graphically presented. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Originally released as The Wild McCulloughs, this AIP melodrama stars Forrest Tucker as J.J. McCulloch, a domineering patriarch. In their race to escape their father's overbearing influence, J.J.'s grown sons come to grief; one son dies in Korea, while another is arrested for murder. Only Gary (Chip Hand), the youngest son, manages to survive the situation. J.J. also has a daughter, played by Janice Heiden, whose romantic misadventures add more fuel to the dysfunctional flames. Costarring in The McCulloughs is Julie Adams as Tucker's long suffering wife, and former "Beverly Hillbilly" Max Baer (who also produced, directed and wrote the film) as one of Heiden's beaus. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A former friend betrays a legendary outlaw in Sam Peckinpah's final Western. Holed up in Fort Sumner with his gang between cattle rustlings, Billy the Kid (Kris Kristofferson) ignores the advice of comrade-turned-lawman Pat Garrett (James Coburn) to escape to Mexico, and he winds up in jail in Lincoln, New Mexico. After Billy theatrically escapes, inspiring enigmatic Lincoln resident Alias (Bob Dylan) to join him, the governor (Jason Robards Jr.) and cattle baron Chisum (Barry Sullivan) requisition Garrett to form a posse and hunt him down. Rather than flee to Mexico when he can, Billy heads back to Fort Sumner, meeting his final destiny at the hands of his friend Pat, who, two decades later, is forced to face the consequences of his own Faustian pact with progress. With a script by Rudolph Wurlitzer, Peckinpah uses the historical basis of Billy's death to eulogize the West dreamily yet violently as it is desecrated by corrupt capitalists. Both Pat and Billy know that their time is passing, as surely as Garrett's posse knows that they are participating in a legend. Using familiar Western players like Slim Pickens and Katy Jurado, Peckinpah underscores the West's existence as a media myth, and he even appears himself as a coffin maker. Just as the bloodletting of Peckinpah's earlier The Wild Bunch (1969) invoked the Vietnam War, the casting of Kristofferson and Dylan alluded to the chaotic late '60s/early '70s present; the counterculture has little place in a corporate future. Also like The Wild Bunch, Pat Garrett was truncated by its studio; the cuts did nothing to help its box office. Key scenes, particularly the framing story of Garrett's fate, have since been restored to the home-video version. In this director's cut, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid stands as one of Peckinpah's most beautiful and complex films, killing the Western myth even as he salutes it. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide

While Raquel Welch was a household name and an international sex symbol through much of the 1960s'and 1970s, Hollywood didn't seem sure about what to do with her; this was one of her more unusual vehicles from this period, in which Welch plays K.C. Carr, a divorcee with two children who becomes romantically involved with Burt Henry (Kevin McCarthy). Burt is the owner of a roller derby team, the Kansas City Bombers, and convinces K.C. that a career on the rink might be just the thing for her. K.C. soon discovers that the sport is rougher than she imagined, and her teammate Jackie (Helena Kallianiotes) is convinced that K.C. is out to replace her as the Bombers' star attraction. But another member of the team, Horrible Hank Hopkins (Norman Alden), shows K.C. the ropes and stands up for her. When Hank gets traded to another team, K.C. has to learn to fend for herself against Jackie as well as Burt. Raquel Welch did all her own skating for this film; an accident while filming one of the derby sequences left her with a broken wrist that shut down production for six weeks. Legendary singer and songwriter Phil Ochs was tapped by the producers of Kansas City Bomber to write a theme song for the film; it wasn't used, though it was released as a single and appeared on the compilation CD The War is Over: The Best of Phil Ochs. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Pursued by police and rival gangs, a motorcycle gang, headed by Waco (Robert Porter) takes refuge in a convent located in a remote region of the Arizona desert. They smuggle heroin in their motorcycles. They capture one policeman (Billy "Green" Bush) who was following them, taunt him and let him go. This treatment inspires a brutal relentlessness on the cop's part, which serves them poorly. When they are forced to leave the convent, they take a novice nun (Elizbeth "Tippy" Walker) with them as a hostage. By the end of the film, she has fallen in love with Waco, and chooses secular life over monastic life. This film features numerous picturesque sequences of desert motorcycle riding. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

This comedy was banned in Mexico and plagued by vandalism and threats of violence during film production in San Antonio, Texas. General De Santos (Peter Ustinov) organizes a ragtag group of Mexican nationals for the purpose of retaking the Alamo. Using the Washington's Birthday Parade in Laredo as a guise to enter the United States, the group continues towards San Antonio ignored and unchallenged. With the help of Sergeant Valdez (John Astin), the unlikely invaders manage to raise the Mexican flag over the old mission for 24 hours. General Billy Joe Hallson (Jonathan Winters) is a colorful redneck called on to lead the National Guard to the site of the occupied landmark. Keenan Wynn, Alice Ghostley, Pamela Tiffin and Harry Morgan also star in this film farce. During filming, one irate Texan was arrested after waving a rifle in protest over the raising of the Mexican flag over the Alamo, long a symbol of Texas' pride and history. Electric cables were cut during the filming of this production, as some Texans could not even tolerate the fictional premise of the plot. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide