Donna Anderson Movies
- 1972
One of Terrence Malick's early screenwriting efforts, this loosely-structured road movie finds a questionably sane long-distance trucker named Cooper (Alan Arkin) winding his way through the heart of America. An employee of a questionable hauling outfit who has been assigned to drive a newly hijacked rig to an as-of-yet undisclosed-location, Cooper quickly ditches his partner and points his eighteen-wheeler westward. Picking-up a hitchhiker (Paul Benedict) for some company in the cab, the unstable trucker's journey westward grows increasingly surreal as he runs into numerous eccentric characters, portrayed in cameo roles by such noted names as Ida Lupino, George Raft, Charles Durning, Loretta Swit, Richard Kiel and future director John Milius. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Alan Arkin, Paul Benedict, (more)
This biker-horror oddity was directed by former editor Michel Levesque (Sweet Sugar). The plot concerns a motorcycle gang, The Devil's Advocates, led by Adam (Stephen Oliver). The bikers are turned on to Satanism by a creepy monk (Severn Darden), leading to lengthy scenes depicting various occult rituals, drug trips, and female nudity. The cycle-riding werewolf only appears in the last few minutes of the film, but cult devotees will be happy in the interim watching such minor celebrities as Billy Gray, the child star of Father Knows Best, who was fresh off a marijuana arrest, and Barry McGuire, singer of the seminal '60s protest song "Eve of Destruction." Stunt coordinator Chuck Bail went on to direct The Gumball Rally (1976) and several blaxploitation films. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide
- 1965
Anne (Betty Conner) and John (Peter Deuel), the sister and brother and law of "Gidget" Lawrence (Sally Field), have decided that the time has come for the 15 1/2-year-old surfin' girl to start preparing for proper womanhood. With this in mind, the couple draws up plans to send Gidget to an exclusive finishing school in Paris. Featured in the cast as is Kevin O'Neal, brother of film star Ryan O'Neal, and future Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In "Sock-It-To-Me" gal Judy Carne. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1964
Instead of losing her slipper, Sinderella (Suzanne Sybele) loses her bra in this updated fantasy. Prince David (Bill Gaskin) travels throughout his kingdom to find the woman who will fit the golden brassiere. The stepmother (Patricia Mayfield) naturally hopes her own daughters Flossy (June Faith) and Fanny (Joan Lemo) can fill the frill, while the drunken fairy godfather (Sidney Lassick, from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest) sings, dances and appears dressed as a woman. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bill Gaskin
The Evolution vs. Creationism argument is at the center of the Jerome Lawrence-Robert E. Lee Broadway play Inherit the Wind. Lawrence and Lee's inspiration was the 1925 "Monkey Trial," in which Tennessee schoolteacher John Scopes was arrested for teaching Darwin's theory of evolution in violation of state law. Scopes deliberately courted arrest to challenge what he and his supporters saw as an unjust law, and the trial became a national cause when The Baltimore Sun, represented by the famed (and atheistic) journalist H. L. Mencken, hired attorney Clarence Darrow to defend Scopes. The prosecuting attorney was crusading politician William Jennings Bryan, once a serious contender for the Presidency, now a relic of a past era. While Bryan won the case as expected, he and his fundamentalist backers were held up to public ridicule by the cagey Darrow. In both the play and film versions of Inherit the Wind, the names and places are changed, but the basic chronology was retained, along with most of the original court transcripts. John Scopes becomes Bertram Cates (Dick York); Clarence Darrow is Henry Drummond (Spencer Tracy); William Jennings Bryan is Matthew Harrison Brady (Fredric March); and H. L. Mencken is E. K. Hornbeck (Gene Kelly). Dayton, Tennessee is transformed into Hillsboro -- or, as the relentlessly cynical Hornbeck characterizes it, "Heavenly Hillsboro." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Spencer Tracy, Fredric March, (more)
Although there'd been "doomsday dramas" before it, Stanley Kramer's On the Beach was considered the first "important" entry in this genre when originally released in 1959. Based on the novel by Nevil Shute, the film is set in the future (1964) when virtually all life on earth has been exterminated by the radioactive residue of a nuclear holocaust. Only Australia has been spared, but it's only a matter of time before everyone Down Under also succumbs to radiation poisoning. With only a short time left on earth, the Australian population reacts in different ways: some go on a nonstop binge of revelry, while others eagerly consume the suicide pills being issued by the government. When the possibility arises that rains have washed the atmosphere clean in the Northern hemisphere, a submarine commander (Gregory Peck) and his men head to San Diego, where faint radio signals have been emanating. The movie's all-star cast includes: Peck as the stalwart sub captain, Ava Gardner as his emotionally disturbed lover, Fred Astaire as a guilt-wracked nuclear scientist, and Anthony Perkins and Donna Anderson as the "just starting out in life" married couple. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gregory Peck, Ava Gardner, (more)
