David Dukes Movies

Horror specialist Stephen King claimed that his TV miniseries Rose Red was inspired by a number of sources, ranging from Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House (twice filmed as The Haunting) to Ripley's Believe It or Not to Moby Dick. Residents of San Jose, CA, however, quickly realized that King's story owed a great deal to their own city's legendary "haunted" mansion, Winchester House. Rose Red was set in motion when psych professor Joyce Reardon (Nancy Travis), defying her tongue-clucking boss Professor Miller (David Dukes, who died during production), set about to investigate reports of paranormal phenomena in Rose Red, a crumbling and foreboding Seattle mansion. According to legend -- and a great deal of physical evidence -- Rose Red was a "living" entity in its own right, adding extras wings to its structure and rearranging its furniture whenever it felt like it. There has also been a number of mysterious deaths at the mansion, which Joyce believed were the handiwork of a ghost: Ellen Rimbauer, the insane wife of Rose Red's architect. Inviting a quintet of psychics (social misfits all, of course) to spend a weekend at the mansion, Joyce was determined to solve the mystery of Rose Red -- and, she hoped, to conjure up Ellen's hostile spirit. Thereafter, the miniseries adhered to the proven formula, with characters foolishly wandering off alone to meet their individual demises, and with such time-tested lines as "Superstitious nonsense!," "Honey -- are you in there?" and "Oh, no! AIYEEEE!" wafting through the mansion's drafty corridor. The outcome of the story -- and the fate of the survivors -- seemed to rest in the hands of Annie Wheaton (Kimberly J. Brown), an autistic teenager with astonishing telepathic skills. Premiering January 27, 2002, the three-part Rose Red posted ABC's best ratings in months, despite an almost universal drubbing by the critics. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The real-life legal case that inspired the 1990 film Guilty by Suspicion would seem to be the source material for this episode. The detectives investigate the reasons behind a wealthy woman's comatose condition. Key players in this sordid drama include the woman's husband David Moore (David Dukes), her daughter Debbie (Marin Hinkle), and an "unrelated" third party. "Stiff" originally aired in tandem with another episode, "Vaya Con Dios," on May 24, 2000, bringing the tenth season of Law & Order to a close. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Though their latest slide has thrust Quinn (Jerry O'Connell) and Maggie (Kari Wuhrer) headlong into a raging battle, Rembrandt (Cleavant Derricks) and Colin (Charlie O'Connell) apparently emerge from the experience with no difficulty whatsoever. Once the four travelers are reunited, Quinn and Maggie suddenly begin to grow older and sicker, ending up on the verge of death. While the two afflicted Sliders are quarantined in the Chandler Hotel, Remmy and Colin are confronted on the street by a spectral figure (David Dukes) who claims to be Thomas Mallory, Quinn and Maggie's son from a parallel universe. These curious events lead to an extremely grim prognosis for all four of the principal characters. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This film is based on the extraordinary and at times outrageous life of Pamela Digby Churchill Hayward Harriman (aptly played by Ann-Margret), who arrived in America from her native England. During her 40 years in the U.S. she managed to marry powerful and wealthy men and work her way into the highest echelons of New York and Washington's society. Part of her success was due to her ability to periodically reinvent herself to meet the changing face of society and the men she needed to feed her considerable ambitions. It was not until much later in her life that she discovered that she could find success on her own, without a man. The highlight of her new life was when President Bill Clinton appointed her the ambassador to France. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Gods and Monsters was promoted from the outset as an artistic drama, but the publicity tended to play coyly on the possibility of a homosexual romance between the retired film director James Whale, played by Ian McKellen and his hunky gardener Clayton Boone (Brendan Fraser). While the film does involve romance, the central relationship between the director and his gardener is about the development of a genuine friendship between two outwardly dissimilar but inwardly kindred spirits. In the story, Whale has been living for many years in peaceful, if not entirely contented retirement, under the loving and watchful eye of his contentious and argumentative Hungarian housekeeper (Lynn Redgrave). His earlier celebrity as the director of the original Frankenstein movie and its sequel, The Bride of Frankenstein, results in his being visited occasionally by disagreeable young men who have come to bask in the reminiscences of this creator of two "camp" classics. His reputation as a fairly outrageous homosexual comes into play here, when one particularly unpleasant and effeminate young man comes by seeking cinematic tidbits: the director challenges the boy to a game of stripping off one article of clothing for every revelation he shares about his moviemaking past. He had gotten the boy down to his briefs when he is stricken with one of his ever-recurring bouts of epilepsy, the result of a series of strokes. By way of contrast, while he is clearly interested in his gardener as a sex-object, gradually luring him into ever closer association, the openness and vulnerability of this awkwardly aggressive heterosexual boy inspires him to reveal the history of his heart. It turns out that, like the young man who is modeling for his supposed artworks, he came from a poor and difficult background. By the time naïve gardener learns of the director's homosexuality from the housekeeper, he has been drawn too deeply under the man's spell to stay away from their meetings for long. While the tension between the men never departs, a genuine relationship of caring develops between them. Meanwhile, Whale has been clearly observing the progressive deterioration of his mental faculties, and is increasingly being overwhelmed by vivid memories and visions. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

Though serving a prison sentence for using his computer to embezzle from an international corporation, Dodge (Stephen Baldwin) still thinks of himself as an ordinary criminal. His fellow convict, Piper (Lawrence Fishburne), whose basic decency leads him to protect Dodge from an assault by another prisoner, thinks the same. Neither Piper nor Dodge particularly like each other; matters are not improved when they are chained together. When a prison riot transforms into a break-out opportunity, they get to know one another better on the run, and neither is any too thrilled about it. The action soon grows fast and furious when they realize that they are not only on the run from the usual police authorities, but from several different kinds of police and a gang of mobsters, whom Dodge has unknowingly endangered. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

The late journalist Randy Shilts' best-selling book on the burgeoning AIDS crisis was adapted for cable TV by Arnold Schulman. In 1981, researchers begin discerning a mysterious new disease that apparently affects only homosexual males (or so they thought at that time). Working independently, and with marked hostility toward one another, an American and a French research team manage to identify and name the dreaded HIV virus. The long-range effects of AIDS is experienced through the first- and secondhand experiences of several unfortunates, including a choreographer (Richard Gere) whose character is said to be based on Michael Bennett. The all-star cast (most of whom eschewed their usual high salaries) includes Lily Tomlin as San Francisco health official Selma Dritz, Matthew Modine as Centers for Disease Control researcher Don Francis, Alan Alda as NIH official Robert Gallo (who emerges as the villain of the piece), Ian McKellan as gay activist Bill Kraus, and Glenne Headley, Steve Martin and Anjelica Huston in cameo roles. And the Band Played On debuted September 11, 1993, on HBO. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Surprisingly good soap opera in which the suspense and thrills are genuinely good revolves around a wealthy woman who awakens from a fourteen-month coma after an attempt is made on her life and now must remember who tried to kill her in order to prevent it from happening again. ~ Tana Hobart, All Movie Guide

The first "trial" season for Sisters runs seven episodes, beginning with the awkward reunion of the Reed sisters in their hometown of Winnetka, IL, not long after the death of their father. Though Mr. Reed has only been in his grave a short time, his widow, Beatrice (Elizabeth Hoffman), has already begun hitting the bottle more than usual, and is in danger of losing the family home. Beatrice's oldest daughter, Alex (Swoosie Kurtz), has gotten the early warning signs that her 15-year marriage to plastic surgeon Dr. Wade Halsey (David Dukes) is in trouble, and she hires a detective to find out if Wade is fooling around with another woman. Alas, it's worse than she could imagine: Wade is not only a philanderer, but a cross-dresser. All of this bad news has the expected negative effect on Alex's overachieving daughter, Reed, played this season (and this season only) by Kathy Wagner. As for Alex's sister, Georgie (Patricia Kalember), her marital woes are manifested in an unemployed husband named John Whitsig (Garrett M. Brown), who refuses to look for a "real" job while he prepares to make his debut as a lounge singer (and never mind that he hasn't gotten any bookings). Before long, Georgie's recently divorced sister, Teddy (Sela Ward), has moved in with her, bringing along her troubled 15-year-old daughter, Cat (Heather McAdam), who is not exactly a favorite with Georgie's own sons, Trevor (Ryan Francis) and Evan (Dustin Berkovitz). Meanwhile, Teddy has vowed to reclaim the love of her ex-husband, Mitch (Ed Marinaro) -- who in turn is currently the boyfriend of Teddy's other sister, Frankie (Julianne Phillips). Among the season's major crises is the revelation during the one-year observance of death of the sister's father that dear old dad had been carrying on an affair with his nurse -- for 30 years. Later, Frankie marches down the aisle with Mitch, just as Teddy invades the wedding with a shotgun (she thinks it isn't loaded -- but she's wrong). So traumatic is this experience that Frankie and Mitch decide to postpone becoming man and wife for the near future. As the season ends, Georgie's son Evan is diagnosed with leukemia -- and he's the only member of the family who takes the news calmly. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Brian Gibson's made-for-cable biography of the famed singer Josephine Baker stars Lynn Whitfield as the black American who found stardom and scandal as the toast of the Paris night-life during the 1920s and '30s. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide

Previously filmed (and truncated) in 1932, Eugene O'Neill's marathon 1928 Pulitzer-winning stage drama Strange Interlude was adapted for television in 1988. Broadcast in three 90-minute installments, the nine-act play covers some 25 years in the life of New England woman Nina Leeds (Glenda Jackson). When her fiance is killed in World War I, Nina becomes a nurse in a veterans hospital, where she makes the acquaintance of Dr. Ned Darrell (David Dukes) and farmer's son Sam Evans (Ken Howard). She chooses to marry the steadfast but dull Evans, then is advised by his mother (Rosemary Harris) that there is a streak of insanity in the family. Desperate for an heir, Nina sleeps with Dr. Darrell...and so it goes for the next quarter century, with Nina's secret admirer Charlie Marsden (Edward Petheridge) anguishing on the sidelines. The reason Strange Interlude takes 4 1/2 hours is because of O'Neill's "interior monologues," wherein the characters pause every so often to speak out their thoughts for the benefit of the audience (but not for each other). Strange Interlude was first telecast in the US on three consecutive segments of PBS' American Playhouse in January and February of 1988. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This lively made-for-cable adventure chronicles the ordeal endured by five urban executives who head to the wilderness to relax and end up fighting for their lives after they stumble across a cocaine-smuggling operation. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

This telefilm remake of the 1947 suspense fantasy Repeat Performance stars Connie Sellecca as a fading TV star who commits a murder on New Year's Eve before being given a chance to relive the last year and prevent the murder from occurring. The script is tarted up with a high-gloss veneer and some added sexual indiscretions, as Sellecca's husband (David Dukes) has an affair with an Eve Harrington-like scriptwriter (Wendy Kilbourne), and her best friend (Jere Burns) sleeps with a wealthy harridan (Dina Merrill). Only a cameo by Joan Leslie, star of the original film, can cut through its air of a glitzy soap opera disguised as a thriller. Director Larry Elikann specialized in this sort of nonsense, being responsible for the overwrought Out of Darkness, the stultifying A Letter to Three Wives, and -- inevitably -- Peyton Place: The Next Generation. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide