Selma Diamond Movies

Susan St. James stars as Timothea Lamb, an American language student in Rome who hires on as a tour guide. For some reason, Timothea cannot help but get involved in the problems of her customers, notably a handsome "stowaway" who turns out to be a fugitive from the law. Filmed on location and first broadcast by ABC on November 6, 1972, Magic Carpet was intended as the pilot film for a weekly TV series (either a half-hour sitcom or hour-long "dramedy"), with Susan St. James and costars Jim Backus and Nanette Fabray (the wife of producer-writer Ranald MacDougall) as regulars. Instead, the project failed to post a sale, and St. James went on to costar in McMillan and Wife. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

In Richard Benjamin's directorial debut, 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, 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. The film co-stars Jessica Harper, Gloria Stuart and 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, Rovi

Directed by seasoned comedy man Melville Shavelson, The Other Woman is a "menage a trois" TV movie with a twist. The stars are middle-aged Anne Meara and Hal Linden, and youngish Madolyn Smith. The twist? Linden, a book publisher, is married to half-his-age Smith, a fashion designer. It is Anne Meara, a fiftyish divorcee and aspiring romance novelist, who turns out to be the "other woman!" Ms. Meara cowrote the teleplay for this engaging contrivance, in which everyone is so essentially likeable that we genuinely care how things turn out. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Introduced to NBC's Wednesday-night schedule as a mid-season replacement on January 4, 1984, the weekly 30-minute sitcom Night Court quickly built a large and appreciative audience, enabling the series to remain on the network for nine seasons. Harry Anderson, a comedian who had established his reputation as a smooth-talking, nimble-fingered street magician and self-styled con artist, was perfectly cast as affable, irreverent Manhattan night-court judge Harry T. Stone. Although he came across as an iconoclastic jokester who held standard legal procedure in contempt (in one episode, his verdict was based on the flip of a coin), Harry was a highly successful jurist with a well-honed sense of fair play, whose handling of the oddballs that paraded in and out of his court resulted in a gratifyingly low "return" rate and quite a few reformations. Even those who'd never stood before Judge Stone in court were familiar with his lovable eccentricities, including his fondness for faded blue jeans and his adoration of singer Mel Tormé. The supporting cast included John Larroquette as Assistant DA Dan Fielding, who spent as much time trying to score with the ladies in night court as he did trying to secure convictions, and Richard Moll as bald-headed bailiff "Bull" Shannon (Richard Moll), whose bark was worse than his bite, but not by much.

During the series' first season, Paula Kelly was seen as legal-aid defense lawyer Liz Williams, who was alternately appalled and fascinated by Harry's unorthodox tactics; Karen Austin also appeared as court clerk Lana Wagner, who harbored a not-so-secret crush on Harry. In subsequent seasons, Liz was replaced by Billie Young (Ellen Foley), who in turn was replaced by Christine Sullivan (Markie Post); as for Lana, her replacement was Mac Robinson (Charles Robinson). Both Christine and Mac remained for the rest of the series; not so with Selma Diamond as abrasive jail matron Selma Hacker, a character who lasted only until Diamond's death. The actress' replacement, Florence Halop as Florence Kleiner, likewise passed away after only a short time on the series; she in turn was replaced by Marsha Warfield as Roz Russell, a character who stayed in place until the series' own demise. The on-again, off-again romance between Harry Stone and Christine Sullivan was definitely "off" during seasons seven and eight, when Christine was wed to undercover cop Tony Guillano (Ray Abruzzo), a union which produced a baby. After Christine divorced Tony, her relationship with Harry heated up considerably, but before long the ardor had cooled. Eventually, Christine was elected to congress, whereupon she was pursued not by Harry but by the ever-libidinous Dan Fielding. The final episode of Night Court, which set something of a record for the number of bizarre, surrealistic incidents occurring within a single half-hour, was broadcast on July 1, 1992. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

On her deathbed, mean-spirited millionairess Lily Tomlin has her will amended so that her soul will pass into the body of young, healthy Victoria Tennant. Thanks to a mix-up in transmutation, Tomlin winds up instead trapped in the body of upright (and uptight) attorney Steve Martin. The plot involves the fragility of male-female relationships, the importance of making commitments, and the antics of goofy guru Richard Libertini. As ridiculous as it sounds, All of Me is completely credible, thanks to Steve Martin's remarkable "body language" when conveying the notion that he's two different people with two different sets of emotions and gestures. Though the circumstances of the plot won't allow Martin to connect with the lovely Tennant, in real life things were different: the two costars were married shortly after filming wrapped. Phil Alden Robinson and Henry Olek adapted the script from Ed Davis' novel Me Too. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Cheeky, insouciant Judge Harry T. Stone (Harry Anderson) is back behind the bench as Night Court begins its second season. Also still on hand from season one are taciturn bailiff Bull (Richard Moll), acerbic court matron Selma (Selma Diamond), and libidinous Assistant DA Dan Fielding (John Larroquette). Missing from the scene is Harry's friendly adversary, legal-aid attorney Liz Williams (Paula Kelly), who has been replaced by Billie Young (Ellen Foley). Interestingly enough, the character who would in season three replace Billie, novice public defender Christine Sullivan (Markie Post), also makes her initial appearance during this season. Also, court clerk Lana Wagner (Karen Austin), who spent the first several episodes nursing a crush on Judge Stone, has been succeeded by a new clerk, Mac Robinson (Charles Robinson), who (need it be said?) does not feel toward Stone the same way that Lana did. Proof that Mac prefers to play it "straight" occurs in the episode "Take My Wife, Please," in which he weds Quon Lee (Denice Kumagai), a woman he'd met while serving in Vietnam. The final episode of season two, "Walk, Don't Wheel," also marks the farewell appearance of Night Court regular Selma Diamond, who died during the series' summer hiatus. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi