Tandy Cronyn Movies
The youngest of the three children of actors Hume Cronyn and Jessica Tandy, Tandy Cronyn prepared for her own theatrical career at London's Central School of Speech and Drama. Cronyn's first Broadway appearance occurred in 1969, when she joined the cast of the long-running musical Cabaret. She then chalked up some impressive stage credits in such classics as Ibsen's An Enemy of the People, Brecht's Good Woman of Setzuan, Sophocles' Antigone, as well as contemporary dramas like The Killing of Sister George. Tandy Cronyn's earliest film appearance was in the obscure agit-prop comedy Praise Marx and Pass the Ammunition (1970); she has since been seen in such productions as All Night Long (1981), Once Upon a Time in America (1984), and the made-for-TV The Story Lady (1991), in which she co-starred with her mother, Jessica Tandy. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide- 2003
A woman's body is fished out of the East River, and evidence at the crime scene points to a missing football player. Also intimately involved in the case is the athlete's brother, Sean Ridgeway (Craig Walker), and his parents Howard and Miriam (John Doman and Lizbeth Mackay). This episode is distinguished by two facts: It was broadcast on a Thursday night, rather than the usual Law & Order Wednesday slot, and it was the subject of a Newsday article, written by a journalist who'd been hired to appear as an extra. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1996
Africa is revisited by a real-life Hollywood couple in this made-for-television documentary. Hume Cronyn and wife Jessica Tandy traveled to East Africa in 1966. In 1996, Hume and the couple's daughter (Jessica passed away in 1994) traveled back to Africa to remember the previous trip and examine the current state of the environment. Famed cinematographer Simon Trevor captured the mystical terrain on film, and Jessica's recorded musings on the previous trip are featured. ~ Bernadette McCallion, All Movie Guide
- 1995
An autistic youth dies while in custody, leading Briscoe (Jerry Orbach) and Logan (Chris Noth) to investigate the clinic where the victim was being treated. The clinic's head, Dr. Alan Colter (Lawrence Pressman), has been known to use radical and possibly illegal therapies on his patients, most of these "treatments" involving electric shock. The D.A. office's efforts to tie Colter together with the victim's death are complicated by the lack of cooperation from the parents of Colter's patients. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
This taut, gritty made-for-TV drama is based on an off-Broadway play by Marsha Norman and follows the struggle of a female ex-con to reform despite the destructive influence of her terrible mother. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1991
In this made-for-TV drama, Jessica Tandy plays Grace McQueen, an elderly woman who has grown bored and restless following the death of her husband. Grace has always loved telling stories to children, and as a way of keeping herself occupied she comes up with an idea for a public access television series in which she will read great children's books aloud. The show becomes a local favorite -- enough so that a pair of advertising executives approach her with the idea of selling the show to a major network. Grace agrees, but when the marketing experts and network brass are finished with the idea, the simple format of "The Story Lady" has been transformed into a garish program called "Granny Goodheart," and Grace must decide if she should pursue the money and success that's being offered to her or stand up for her ideals. The Story Lady also features Stephanie Zimbalist, Lisa Jakub, Richard Masur, and Ed Begley, Jr.; Tandy Cronyn, Jessica Tandy's daughter, is appropriately cast as Meg, Grace's daughter. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
This offbeat police thriller with heavy doses of humor was written by John Patrick Shanley, the former playwright who wrote Cher's hit romantic comedy Moonstruck. Kevin Kline stars as Nick Starkey, a brilliant former New York City police detective who has been exiled to the fire department because of his unorthodox ways. He's called back to service by his police commissioner brother Frank (Harvey Keitel) in the hopes that he can find a bizarre serial killer who's been murdering one woman a month. Nick's condition to agreeing to help is that he gets to cook dinner for Frank and his snooty wife Christine (Susan Sarandon), a former girlfriend of his. Ultimately, Nick uses his Zen-like intuition and some high-tech computer hardware (with prominent product placement plugs) to find the killer, pausing to have an affair with the mayor's beautiful daughter Bernadette (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio. In the improbable conclusion, Nick figures out the exact day the killer will strike and the exact apartment! January Man is too tongue-in-cheek to be taken seriously as a thriller. In addition to Keitel and Sarandon the stellar supporting cast includes Rod Steiger as the mayor and Danny Aiello as a tough police captain who rails against Nick's "beatnik" ways. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Kevin Kline, Susan Sarandon, (more)
Hume Cronyn and Vincent Gardenia star as two retirement-home residents, longtime friends who possess wildly diverse temperaments. - John Cooper (Cronyn) is crotchety and physically frail, but his brain is sharp as a tack. Michael Aylott (Gardenia) is easygoing and in excellent health, but his mind is slowly deteriorating. The two men form an "us against the world" bond, which crumbles when Michael's memory further fails him and John is advised to move back in with his family. Adapted by Bob Larbey from his Broadway play A Month of Sundays, Age Old Friends was first telecast over the HBO cable service on December 16, 1989. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Hume Cronyn, Vincent Gardenia, (more)
- 1985
In this drama, an angry, bereaved husband decides to get his own kind of justice after the man who killed his wife and son is freed on a legal technicality. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1984
The Guardian is set in an upper-class New York apartment building, recently plagued by a series of break-ins and murders. The tenants eagerly enlist the services of former military officer John Mack (Louis Gossett Jr.) as the building's head of security. Slowly but surely, the tenants give up their freedom of movement to Mack, who runs the place like his own private fiefdom. Bristling over this infringement upon his rights, liberal-minded tenant Charles Hyatt (Martin Sheen) begins to suspect that the killings were orchestrated by Mack himself as a means of gaining power over his employers. Stirring up a respectable amount of suspense, the made-for-cable The Guardian debuted October 20, 1984, over the HBO service. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1981
- R
Gene Hackman plays a disgruntled suburbanite who manages the Ultra-Sav, an all-night drugstore. He hates his job, hates his debts and responsibilities, and isn't overly fond of his wife (Diane Ladd) and son (Dennis Quaid). Partly as a form of protest, Hackman enters into an affair with Barbra Streisand, one of his wife's distant relatives (don't ask how she's related - it takes Hackman about thirty seconds to explain it to another character). Streisand doesn't belong in this picture at all, but she can be forgiven her acting excesses because she wasn't the first choice for the role anyway (Lisa Eichhorn dropped out just before shooting began). The best moments in All Night Long involve the steady stream of oddballs and losers who trickle into Hackman's establishment. There is also a cute Apocalypse Now parody involving a battery-operated toy helicopter. The principal attraction of All Night Long is Gene Hackman playing an endearingly recognizable modern type. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gene Hackman, Barbra Streisand, (more)
- 1975
Tandy Cronyn, the talented daughter of Jessica Tandy and Hume Cronyn, finds herself at the mercy of escaped criminals and a faulty script in Crazy Kill. Cronyn plays the wife of doctor Denholm Elliott. Both are held hostage by two fugitive criminals, one of whom is a frothing lunatic. The cat-and-mouse is intriguing at first, but there are too many plot holes and far too many lost opportunities for the characters to display basic intelligence. Taped in England, Crazy Kill was a 1975 entry in the ABC anthology Wide World Mystery. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1975
An American reporter becomes entangled in international intrigue and murder while on assignment to interview a British art collector. ~ All Movie Guide
- 1970
Dom (John Thaw) is the 30-year-old pseudo revolutionary whose main goals are to sleep with women and spout Marxist and Leninist slogans. He is kidnapped by party members and, in a warehouse, is subjected to a trial by his peers. They believe he is only paying lip service to the movement and is not a true revolutionary. The trial is interrupted when word of an impending police raid reaches the gathering. Stock footage of the 1968 Paris riots is used judiciously to enhance the spirit of revolutionary fervor ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- John Thaw, Edina Ronay, (more)
