Denise Nicholas Movies

The inspirational tale of the USS Mason comes to the screen in a dramatic account of the perils faced by the all-African-American-crewed World War II sea vessel, and the brave souls who cheated death to overcome the cancerous racism eroding the very shores they fought for. From the very onset of their mission, the men aboard the USS Mason knew they had little chance of returning from their mission alive. Return they did, though, and after a harrowing journey through some of the most treacherous international waters of the war years, the remarkable crew of the USS Mason proved without question that they could stand tall and fight fiercely alongside soldiers of all races and backgrounds. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

Dwayne (Kadeem Hardison) is visited by his highly opinionated friend Milt (Wren T. Brown), who immediately launches into a devastating criticism of Dwayne's college and his choice of friends--especially Ron (Darryl M. Bell). Elsewhere, Col. Taylor attends a serviceman's reunion, hoping to be reunited with former girlfriend Carol Garrison (Denise Nicholas), with whom he served in Vietnam. But alas, there are some things best left to memory. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

As indicated by the title, this made-for-TV movie charts the rise and fall of Olympic figure skater Tai Babilonia. Partnered since childhood with Randy Gardner, Tai skated her way to the 1979 World Championship. Her hopes for Olympics success in 1980 are scuttled when her partner Gardner suffers a groin injury and is unable to compete. Tai responds to this disappointment by descending into drug abuse, culminating in an attempted suicide. The plucky skater recovers from all this, and the film ends on a hopeful note. On This Ice: The Tai Babilonia Story stars Rachel Crawford as Tai and Charlie Stratton as Randy, but that's the real Babilonia and Gardner recreating their classic routines in the long shots. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Mother's Day was the first made-for-TV movie produced for the CBN Cable Service (now known as the Family Channel). Given CBN's religious track record and the film's innocuous title, it comes as a mild shock that Mother's Day concerns itself with drug dealers, murder charges and "women in jeopardy." Malcolm Jamal-Warner stars as an urban African-American teen convicted for a drug-related murder. He didn't do it, or so he says. The police don't seem to be concerned over this potential miscarriage of justice, so Malcolm's mother, played by Denise Nicholas, investigates the murder herself--putting her own life on the line in the process. The script's plot hinges on the fact that the teenager and the killer bear a striking resemblance to one another--a fact underlined in broad, blunt strokes by having Malcolm Jamal-Warner play both roles. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

In this weakly limned melodrama, Marvin (John Cassavetes) is a homeless man who stops the 11-year-old Tige (Gibran Brown) from killing himself one night, and after a bumpy start, the two become as close as a father and son. Tige's real father left him long ago, his mother has just died, and Tige is seriously ill himself. Marvin takes this in and then hunts down Tige's father (Billy Dee Williams), who is married and the father of three other children. After some initial reluctance, the father finally accepts Tige into his household, but the boy's life does not necessarily get any better from there. With a plot that is transparently melodramatic and characters barely etched on the surface, the intention to manipulate viewers with "tragic" scenes is uncomfortably apparent. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

The three-part TV miniseries The Sophisticated Gents covers 25 years in the lives of a group of close friends. Nine African-American members of a sports club gather for a quarter-century reunion. As they reminisce over the high and low points of their lives, some of the members await the arrival of the group's troublemaker with less than enthusiasm. The story comes to an out-of-left-field conclusion involving an escaped killer (Melvin van Peebles) and a pursuing cop. The nine "gents" of the title are played by Ron O'Neal, Thalmus Rasulala, Bernie Casey, Dick Anthony Williams, Raymond St. Jacques, Robert Hooks, Rosey Grier, Paul Winfield...and the aforementioned Melvin van Peebles. Based on John A. Williams' novel The Junior Bachelor Society, the 4-hour The Sophisticated Gents was originally telecast September 29, October 1 and October 2, 1981; for reasons unknown, its debut had been postponed for nearly two years. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Ring of Passion is a self-described "docudrama" of the professional rivalry between African-American boxing great Joe Louis and German fistic champ Max Schmeling. On June 19, 1936, Schmeling (Stephen Macht) beats Louis (Bernie Casey) for the European championship. Germany's Nazi government uses this bout to trumpet the superiority of the Aryans over the "inferior" races. But in the return match of 1938, described by such sports scriveners as Damon Runyon (Allen Garfield) and Paul Gallico (Joe Campanella) as the "Fight of the Century," Joe Louis defeats Max Schmeling in one round. This TV movie takes great pains to convince us that, while Schmeling was in effect fighting for political reasons, he himself was not a Nazi (we are told that the public slurs against Louis attributed to Schmeling are the handiwork of Joseph Goebbels' propaganda machine). Given the subject matter at hand, Ring of Passion is surprisingly stingy in its boxing sequences. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

A pair of blue-collar buddies use hypnosis to turn a wimpy boxer into a champ in this crime comedy, which reunites actor/director Sidney Poitier and comedian Bill Cosby, stars of the similarly themed Uptown Saturday Night. Clyde Williams (Poitier) and Billy Foster (Cosby) want to help raise funds to sustain the Sons and Daughters of Shaka Lodge, their local community group. Given that Clyde was trained as a hypnotist while in the military, the pair decide to con mobster Biggie Smalls (Calvin Lockhart) by placing a high-stakes bet on a boxing match and then using hocus-pocus to transform skinny underdog Bootney Farnsworth (Jimmie Walker) into a bruiser. When Biggie finds out about their ruse, he and his thugs move in to reclaim their money, setting the stage for further laughs and sleight-of-hand. With a supporting cast that includes Denise Nicholas and Lee Chamberlin as the protagonists' wives and Ossie Davis as an elder at their lodge, Let's Do It Again also reunited Good Times stars Walker and John Amos to the silver screen. Cosby and Poitier would return two years later with A Piece of the Action, though Lockhart, another veteran of Uptown Saturday Night, would sit out the final team-up. Hip-hop fans will note that Lockhart's character provided one of the aliases for slain '90s rap star Christopher Wallace, also known as the Notorious B.I.G. The soundtrack for Let's Do It Again featured Curtis Mayfield songs performed by the the Staple Singers. ~ Brian J. Dillard, Rovi

This movie, a sequel to The Legend of Nigger Charlie, tells the story of a Southern colonel in the Civil War who has raided locations in the North in order to capture renegade slaves for a colony of Southern aristocrats living in Mexico. Escaped slave Charley (Fred Williamson) and his friend and fellow escapee Toby (D'Urville Martin) bend all their energies to freeing the 71 blacks captured by the colonel. In the violence that follows, the Southern cause suffers. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

Five Desperate Women debuted as an ABC Movie of the Week on September 28, 1971. Anjanette Comer, Joan Hackett, Denise Nicholas and Stefanie Powers are four of five graduates of an exclusive girl's college, meeting together for a reunion on a remote island. The fifth girl (whose name we'll withhold for suspense purposes) is the one that's murdered first. It appears that an unknown assailant plans to pick off the girls one by one. The survivors must figure out who's doing them in and why before fade-out time. Aaron Spelling was the producer of this middling clichefest. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi