Loring Mandel Movies

Based on John Le Carré's novel by the same name, this story about Charlie (Diane Keaton) a female double agent working between the Palestinians and Israelis, loses some of the excitement and in-depth characterization engendered by the long novel -- mainly because the novel is hard to capture in a two-hour filmed format. But the action itself carries viewers along as Charlie ends up leaving England and her job as an actress in a Brit repertory company to meet Kurtz (Klaus Kinski) in Greece who recruits her as a spy. Charlie later has to handle her own emotions when she gets romantically involved with her Israeli contact (Yorgo Voyagis), though events move her quickly along to a Palestinian military camp near Beirut. Once she has passed herself off as a reliable Palestinian agent and completed her military training at the camp, she goes to Germany to hunt down a Palestinian terrorist (Sami Frey). Filled with a multitude of characters and locations, not to mention camera shots, the intensity of this story is dissipated somewhat by literally and figuratively covering a lot of territory, though the thread of the story itself is never lost. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Attica is a probing, no-nonsense TV-movie re-creation of the tragic events which followed the Attica (New York) Correctional Facility rebellion of September 9, 1971. Inmates demanding better food and living conditions used jerry-built weapons to take 38 guards as hostage. Negotiations begin immediately, only to continually break down thanks to uncompromising stubbornness on both sides. Four days into the crisis, the rebellion ends in a bloodbath, with state troopers firing on the prisoners-- killing several of the guards in the process. Based on the eyewitness reporting of the New York Times' Tom Wicker (here played by George Grizzard), who was one of the civilian negotiators during the stalemate, Attica was first telecast on March 3, 1980. (Perhaps significantly, Governor Nelson Rockefeller, whom many hold responsible for the climactic carnage at the prison, is never seen in either factual or fictional form during the film). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Written by Loring Mandel, Breaking Up stars Gena Rowlands as a middle-aged housewife who, after 16 years of marriage, is asked for a divorce by husband Granville van Dusen. Once overcoming the shock and the bitterness, Rowlands must determine the future course for herself and her two children. Her efforts to set up her own fashion design business and to enter the dating pool are almost as traumatic as the initial separation. Adding to the dilemma is an increasingly large rift between Rowlands and her teen-age daughter, who holds her mom responsible for the marital discord. Breaking Up was telecast January 2, 1978 as an ABC Theatre presentation. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Improvisational director Robert Altman hadn't yet found his cinematic "voice" when he helmed the conformist, stick-to-the-script Countdown. James Caan is top-billed as a scientist who is chosen over astronaut Robert Duvall for the upcoming NASA moon shot. In their haste to beat the Russians to the moon, the NASA folks have tried to sidestep several safety measures, but doctor Charles Aidman sees to it that every possible precaution is taken. When Caan makes it to the lunar surface, he stumbles upon gruesome evidence that the Russians had sent up a secret expedition themselves--and had fatally ignored all those extra security precautions which he's been subject to. Ted Knight, who received some of his best pre-Mary Tyler Moore roles in Altman's TV work, co-stars in Countdown. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide