Dorothy Konrad Movies

In the first episode of a two-part story, Louise (Isabel Sanford) books George (Sherman Hemsley), Florence (Marla Gibbs), and herself on a murder-mystery cruise ship. To get a discount, George pretends to be a mystery novelist, just like the rest of the passengers. This pose may well prove to be his undoing when a genuine murder apparently occurs. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Two sisters (Jane Johnstone, Kathy McHaley) seek vengeance when they are evicted from their farmhouse and a gunslinging sheriff shoots down their moonshining father. ~ John Bush, Rovi

While visiting a local laundromat, off-duty police officer Pete Malloy (Martin Milner) cannot help but notice that a shaggy-haired young man seems to be monopolizing all of the washing machines. It turns out that this busy customer is using those machines to dry his stash of marijuana. In case there was every any doubt that Adam-12 was a Jack Webb production, this episode should dispell it. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

On this occasion, Officers Jim Reed (Kent McCord) and Pete Malloy (Martin Milner) race against time to stop a rampaging arsonist. The two mobile officers also try to neutralize a domestic squabble between an elderly couple (Dorothy Konrad, Charles Wagenheim). And in a particularly suspenseful moment, Jim and Pete attempt to talk sense to an escaped mental patient (Richard Van Vleet) who is holding his own wife (Betty Ann Rees) hostage with a knife. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

When the popular rock group The Dingbats is booked to perform near Malibu, Gidget (Sally Field) and her friends are determined to find out where the singers are staying. They do, of course--whereupon Gidget vows to help lead the Dingbats' lead singer escape the group's hordes of fans long enough to get married. Appearing as Shen is future Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman costar Greg Mullavey, here billed as Gregory Mullavy. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

When Viv (Vivian Vance) casts aspersions on Lucy's cooking, Lucy (Lucille Ball) defiantly enters a big baking contest. Things get out of hand early on, with Lucy and Viv each inadvertently passing off the other's cooking as her own. The situation rapidly degenerates into--what else?--a huge pie fight! This final episode of The Lucy Show's second season was also the last written by Lucille Ball's longtime collaborators Bob Carroll Jr. and Madelyn Martin. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

The all-female Danville Volunteer Fire Department needs new uniforms, but there's no money in the treasury. Hoping to raise the necessary funds--and to save her job as fire chief--Lucy (Lucille Ball) organizes a paper drive. Assuming that this undertaking will merely entail collecting old newspapers and depositing them in a truck for shipment out of town, Lucy and Viv (Vivian Vance) never imagined that they would be obliged to drive the truck themselves! Richard Reeves, a busy utility actor who popped in dozens of I Love Lucy episodes, is here cast as a cop. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Paul Newman recreates his Broadway role in the 1962 film version of Tennessee Williams' Sweet Bird of Youth. Newman plays handsome hustler Chance Wayne, who romances fading film star Alexandra Del Lago (Geraldine Page) in hopes of winning a movie contract for himself. The mercenary Wayne and the self-destructive Alexandra find themselves in Chance's home town, where corrupt politician Boss Finley (Oscar-winner Ed Begley) rules the roost. Finley's daughter Heavenly (Shirley Knight), impregnated by Chance during his last visit, dreams of a reunion with her old beau, but Finley and his brutish son Tom Jr. (Rip Torn) make certain that no such reunion occurs. Even the well-intentioned interventions of Heavenly's Aunt Nonny (Mildred Dunnock) fail to move the stubborn Finley. Warned to leave town or risk a broken skull, Chance is dumped by Alexandra, whose recent "comeback" film has proven a success and who thus no longer needs a gigolo to feed her ego. From this point on, Richard Brooks' screenplay departs so radically from the Tennessee Williams original that to elucidate the differences would require a book in itself. Suffice to say that the play's Chance Wayne is rendered "less than a man" by the vengeful Finley, whereas the film's Wayne emerges with all his working parts intact. A second version Sweet Bird of Youth (1989), purportedly based on Williams' own rewrite of his earlier material, was filmed for television in 1989, with Elizabeth Taylor and Mark Harmon in the leads, and with Rip Torn, Tom Finley Jr. in the original, stepping into the role of Boss Finley. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi