Tony di Benedetto Movies
Set on the streets of New York's Little Italy, this dramatic series of character studies chronicles the lives and relationships between a disparate pair of Italian American cousins. Both of them want to leave the poverty of ghetto life, but each takes a dramatically different route when one of them joins the mob and the other accidentally impregnates his girlfriend. When the young gangster gets into deep trouble, the other must reevaluate his goals and his true feelings about his family. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Eric Roberts, Mickey Rourke, (more)
- 1984
- PG13
This bittersweet comedy is, among many other things, a tour de force for the marvelous Anne Bancroft. The star is cast as Estelle Rolfe, an unconventional divorcee who resides in New York, in close proximity to her grown son Gilbert (Ron Silver) and his wife Lisa (Carrie Fisher). Though his wife yearns to move back to her home state of California, Gilbert cannot quite cut the silver cord that binds him to his mother. Upon learning that Estelle is dying, her dutiful son offers to honor her last request to meet the reclusive actress Greta Garbo. The rest of the film plays wonderful variations on this theme, involving such peripheral characters as a gay Garbo fan (Harvey Fierstein), an elderly Shakespearean actress (Hermione Gingold), a "female Joe Papp" director (Denny Dillon), and an ageing papparazzi (Howard Da Silva). Without giving away the ending, it is worth noting that the divine Garbo shows up in the person of playwright/lyricist/ performer Betty Comden. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Anne Bancroft, Ron Silver, (more)
Sidney Lumet provides another of his film adaptations of Broadway successes -- in this case Ira Levin's 1978 clever Broadway murder mystery that starred John Wood in a triumphant turn as down-on-his-luck playwright Sidney Bruhl. Wood's brittle airiness is replaced in the film version by Michael Caine's smoldering bitterness. Sidney Bruhl is a successful writer of Broadway mystery plays who was at one time considered the Neil Simon of Broadway mystery writers. Unfortunately, Bruhl is now struggling to live up to his own reputation, suffering through a series of four consecutive flops. But then Bruhl comes upon the manuscript of a brilliant suspense drama written by unknown writer Clifford Anderson (Christopher Reeve). Bruhl, desperate for a hit play, invites Clifford to come to see him, telling him that he is interested in collaborating with him on the play. Actually, Bruhl plans to murder Clifford and pass off Clifford's play as his own. What Bruhl doesn't know, however, is that Clifford has some surprise plot points of his own up his sleeve. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Michael Caine, Christopher Reeve, (more)
Richard Benjamin's directorial debut is an engaging slice of nostalgia, purportedly based on an incident in life of Mel Brooks. Mark Linn-Baker stars as Benjy Stone, junior writer on the popular 1950s TV comedy/variety series The King Kaiser Show. Kaiser (Joseph Bologna)'s guest star this week is Hollywood matinee idol Alan Swann (Peter O'Toole), a swashbuckling Errol Flynn type, right down to his indiscriminate womanizing and fondness for mass quantities of booze. Stone is assigned to keep the actor out of trouble during rehearsals and deliver him sober to the performance. Becoming fast friends, Stone and Swann alternate baby-sitting responsibilities: Swann takes the young writer to the Stork Club and on an early-morning jaunt through Central Park with a "borrowed" police horse, while Stone takes Swann to his home in the Bronx, where the star is fawned over by Benji's mom (Lainie Kazan) and asked embarrassing questions about his love life by Uncle Morty (Lou Jacobi). Despite a few anxious moments, all goes well until Swann, panicking at the discovery that King Kaiser's show will be telecast live and not on film, walks out just before airtime. Shamed by Benjy into honoring his committment, Swann makes a spectacular, timber-smashing entrance, saving the show and rescuing Kaiser from being rubbed out by a gangster (Cameron Mitchell) whom the comedian has offended. Though it fluctuates between wistful realism and the manic exaggeration of a TV comedy sketch, My Favorite Year holds together quite well, delivering a plentitude of solid laughs. Jessica Harper, usually the star of bizarro films like Inserts and Suspiria, is quite appealing as Benjy Stone's girlfriend; that lady dancing with O'Toole at the Stork Club is 1930s film star Gloria Stuart, later an Oscar nominee for Titanic; the King Kaiser Show wardrobe mistress is played by Selma Diamond, a real-life comedy writer for Sid Caesar. My Favorite Year was converted into an unsuccessful Broadway musical in the early 1990s. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Peter O'Toole, Mark Linn-Baker, (more)
Inspired by a true story, Prince of the City stars Treat Williams as a Manhattan detective who agrees to help the US Department of Justice weed out corruption in the NYPD. Williams agrees on the assurance that he'll never have to turn in a close friend. Wired for sound, Williams almost immediately stumbles upon a police conspiracy to smuggle narcotics to street informants in order to insure cooperation. While this might be condonable in a stretch, the fact is that the many cops are using the drugs on their own, and are also highly susceptible to bribes. Williams gets the goods on the miscreants, but in so doing he breaks the "code" and becomes a pariah to his fellow officers. As we learn in the unsettling final scene, Williams will always be considered a "fink," even by honest cops. Prince of the City is too long for its own good, but its opening expository sequences and its final twenty minutes more than compensate for the duller stretches. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Treat Williams, Jerry Orbach, (more)
Paul Newman stars as an essentially decent cop patrolling that decimated, drug-and-gang-ridden borough known on the city maps as the Bronx, but known to its denizens as "Fort Apache". While Newman tries to hold on to his basic humanity and to treat even the sorriest of the people on his beat with dignity, he can't do much to convince his superiors that blind brutality is not the answer to social blight. When he witnesses fellow-cop Danny Aiello cold-bloodedly murdering a crime suspect, Newman is advised to sweep the whole incident under the rug. He refuses to do so, and as a result becomes "persona non grata" to his former friends on the force. Ed Asner co-stars as the beleaguered captain who has given up trying to treat his job as anything but a necessary evil, while Rachel Ticotin is Newman's love interest. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Paul Newman, Ed Asner, (more)
- 1981
- PG
The directorial debut of actor and stand-up comedian David Steinberg concerns a single man who decides that he wants to be a dad -- without the complication of a wife. Burt Reynolds stars as Buddy Evans, the manager of Madison Square Garden. A longtime lothario, Buddy has always been very content as a bachelor, but he has begun to feel lately that he'd like to experience fatherhood. His yearnings receive plenty of fuel from his best friends Larry (Norman Fell) and Kurt (Paul Dooley), and from his parental-mentor relationship with a young boy, Tad (Peter Billingsley). So Buddy decides to seek out a woman who will bear his baby for a price, with no strings attached. He finds Maggie Harden (Beverly D'Angelo), a beautiful young music student working as a waitress and yearning for the financial resources to study in Paris. She agrees to serve as Buddy's temporary companion, but as the months pass and her pregnancy progresses, Maggie begins to fall in love with Buddy, who doesn't return her affections -- at first. Steinberg would go on to have greater success as a television sitcom director, calling the shots for several episodes of hit series in the '80s amd '90s. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Burt Reynolds, Beverly D'Angelo, (more)
- 1980
- R
Slow-moving and dark, this Klute clone stars Talia Shire as Emily Hollander, a retiring, painfully introverted woman with a stutter who advertises her insecurity. She is attacked one day and her anguish recorded on tape by her assailant. It soon becomes apparent that her wacko lesbian neighbor Andrea (Elizabeth Ashley) is in love with her but too demented to express herself openly. She hired the assailant, though exactly why is not clear. Detective Bob Luffrono (Joseph Cortese) is called in to watch over Emily and perhaps corner her attacker. The relationship between Emily and the detective starts to slowly heat up, but meanwhile, there is Andrea with her telescope, spying on Emily and definitely up to no good. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Talia Shire, Joe Cortese, (more)
- 1980
- R
A Vietnam veteran declares a one-man war on crime in this vigilante revenge thriller. Michael Jefferson (Steve James) saved the life of his best friend John Eastland (Robert Ginty) while the two were serving in Vietnam, so when Jefferson is left permanently paralyzed after a vicious attack by muggers, Eastland is determined to get revenge. Declaring war not only on the thugs who injured Jefferson but the entire lawless underclass, Eastland becomes known as "The Exterminator" for his swift and deadly retaliation against muggers and other street criminals. While Eastland's actions may be making for safer streets, they're also illegal, and just as the mob have put a price on Eastland's head, Detective James Dalton (Christopher George) has set his sights on putting "The Exterminator" out of business. Jazz great Stan Getz makes a cameo appearance as himself. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Christopher George, Samantha Eggar, (more)
Joe (George Burns), Al (Art Carney), and Willie (Lee Strasberg) are three senior citizens who share a small apartment in New York City. They live off social security checks and spend their days sitting on a park bench, reading newspapers, feeding pigeons, and fending off obnoxious children. It's a dull life, and finally Joe is driven to suggest something radical to break the monotony; why not go on a stick up? None of them have a criminal history (though Joe claims he "did some stealing during the war"), but just planning the bank robbery puts a new spring in their step. Al surreptitiously borrows some pistols from the collection of his nephew, Pete (Charles Hallahan), and the trio, disguised with novelty Groucho Marx-style glasses, pulls off their heist to the tune of 35,000 dollars. Unfortunately, the excitement is too much for Willie, who suffers a fatal heart attack the same day. At his funeral, Joe and Al decide to give the bulk of the dough to Pete and his family, and attempt to blow the rest of it on a whirlwind excursion to Las Vegas. Meanwhile, the eccentric robbery has become a colorful news story for the media and the police are closing in on the amateur criminals. ~ Fred Beldin, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- George Burns, Art Carney, (more)
- 1978
- R
In this touching tale, an amiable retarded delivery boy from Brooklyn works to help support his mother. Meanwhile his older brother keeps him safe from local punks; this sometimes creates turmoil for him as he must maintain a strong exterior to mask his love. While delivering his groceries, the young man often fantasizes about being Superman and marrying the young woman who works in a neighboring bakery. When he saves a child from a burning building, his fantasy becomes reality. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- David Proval, James Andronica, (more)
- 1978
Louise Lasser, who wrote the script, stars in this made-for-TV comedy as a flaky New Yorker who finds romance with a staid computer salesman when the two are thrust together on a cross-country trip. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Louise Lasser, Charles Grodin, (more)
"Short eyes" is prison slang for a man who sodomizes little boys. Fitting this odious description is new inmate Bruce Davison, who is arrested and locked up with the scum of the earth. Despite their own depravities, Davison's fellow prisoners consider him the lowest form of human life, and proceed to treat him accordingly, in a series of appalling episodes that must have been as hard to film as they are to watch. Most of the supporting cast is comprised of real-life hoodlums, junkies and killers; small wonder that Davison retains his deer-in-the-headlights facial expression throughout the film. Short Eyes was based on a play by Miguel Pinero. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bruce Davison, Jose Perez, (more)
