Jim Helms Movies
- 1994
- PG13
Like the feature film Network (1976), this made-for-television drama scathingly satirizes an amoral, avaricious media. The story is set in 1999, a time the pay-per-view television industry is in a tailspin. It seems with over 500 available channels, audiences have become jaded with movies and sports. Enter up-and-coming executive Jessica Traynor (Sean Young) a member of the Tycom network team. It is her brilliant idea that her company can attract new customers by offering them a chance to witness a real execution on live television. Once her company approves and she untangles all the government red-tape, Jessica is left with the task of choosing an appropriately photogenic and charismatic death-row inmate. Trouble brews when Jessica begins suspecting that the man she selected may be innocent. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Sean Young, Tim Daly, (more)
In this jungle thriller, a vicious big-game-hunting adventure writer finds his inflated sense of machismo threatened by his fear of the man-eating black leopard who attacked him on his Southeast-Asian island paradise. He decides that the only way to end his fear is meet it head on and so goes in search of the deadly big cat. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Donald Pleasence, Nancy Kwan, (more)
- 1975
Canadian actress Kate Reid plays a lady p.i. in Death Among Friends. Kate is hired to solve the murder of a multimillionaire financier. As tipped off by the title, she need look no farther than the dead man's circle of friends. Refreshingly, both the heroine and her police contact, John Anderson, are well into middle age, rather than being depicted as mindless hunks of cheese- and beefcake. Intended as the pilot for a weekly series, Death Among Friends was first telecast May 20, 1975. The film was later syndicated as Mrs. R-Death Among Friends. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1972
David Carradine first stepped into the sandals of taciturn martial-arts expert Caine in the made-for-TV pilot film Kung Fu. A Chinese/American priest, Caine must flee to the United States after he is forced to kill a royal nephew. He wanders the American West of the 1860s, keeping his cool until it is necessary to display his kung-fu skills full force. Most often, he must meditate and conjure up a flashback dominated by Master Po (Keye Luke) before he is galvanized into action. In the pilot, Caine comes to the rescue of a group of Chinese coolies who are working on the railroad. First telecast February 22, 1972, Kung Fu spawned a long-running series of the 1970s--not to mentioned the "updated" syndicated weekly of the 1990s, which also starred the inscrutable Mr. Carradine. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- David Carradine, Barry Sullivan, (more)
- 1970
Kenneth (Lawrence Montaigne) is a psychiatrist who is married to the harridan Valerie (Jo Anne Meredith). When he hooks up with Stacy (Elizabeth Plumb), he decides to end his marriage by murdering his wife. He recruits Marco, (Frank Cuva), one of his patients, to do the job. Marco puts aside his necrophilia hobby long enough to electrocute himself and Stacy, instead of his intended victim. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Lawrence Montaigne, Jo Anne Meredith, (more)
- 1970
- PG
In this syrupy comedy, a father attempts to reconnect with his troubled, estranged son, a philosophy professor. The chance at reconciliation comes when the son learns that his father, whom he hasn't seen in years is fighting a strange nameless movie disease in a French hospital. The young man's wife is not pleased. While aboard the jet, the son reflects upon his upbringing and the fights that would erupt between his mother, a fundamentalist Christian, and his father, an atheist. He remembers how his father turned to a free-spirited artist for comfort. Just before she left him, the artist gave the father a lovely poem. Later after his son became a teacher, the father decides to enter to piece in a poetry contest and wins $10,0000, which he plans to donate to his son's department. Unfortunately someone discovers that the artist's "original" poem is anything but and the father is publicly humiliated while his son is passed for promotion. Seeing how unhappy his son has become, the father decides to go to a church and pray for his son to get promoted. It works, but unfortunately a man had to die for the son to get it leaving the father to be wracked with guilt. Fortunately with the son's arrival comes the father's salvation. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jackie Gleason, Maureen O'Hara, (more)
- 1970
- R
This exploitation film is set during the riotous New Orleans Mardi Gras, a suburban housewife throws aside her conservative values to become a hussy sleeping with every man who catches her fancy. Even her daughter's handsome boy friend is fair game to the sexually insatiable woman. It is all great fun until a motel parking lot attendant and his spooky sidekick begin trying to pursue and blackmail her. The title terror ensues. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
