Alec B. Francis

Life of the Party: The Story of Beatrice is a fact-based TV movie starring Carol Burnett and Lloyd Bridges. Burnett plays Beatrice (emphasis on the second syllable: "Be-AT-trice") who compensates for her shyness and lack of self-respect by drinking heavily. Bridges plays Beatrice's husband, who tolerates his wife alcoholic intake until he can stand no more. She begins attending Alcoholics Anonymous and cleans up her act. But that's not the end of the story: Beatrice then sets out to establish a halfway house for other female alcoholics. The domestic scenes between Burnett and Bridges are far more compelling than Burnett's climactic tiltings with bureaucracy during her efforts to realize her dream. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this action film, firefighters fight a series of arson fires and try to figure out who set them and why. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Donald A. Stanwood's original novel The Memory of Eva Ryker used the Titanic tragedy as its launching pad. This made-for-TV adaptation of Stanwood's book moved the action up some 27 years, motivating its plotline with the torpedoing of an Athenia-type luxury liner in 1939. The film flashes forward to 1961: millionaire Ralph Bellamy, who lost his wife when the ship went down, hires writer Robert Foxworth (a discredited ex-cop) to investigate the sinking. Bellamy's grown daughter Natalie Wood, who'd survived the ordeal, seems to hold the secret, but she's been in a near-lunatic state for over twenty years. When several other survivors of the sinking are murdered, it becomes all the more crucial to unlock Wood's pent-up memories. In the tradition of Brian De Palma's Obsession (75), Natalie Wood not only plays the title role of Eva Ryker, but also Eva's ill-fated mother. The Memory of Eva Ryker was produced by "master of disaster" Irwin Allen. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this made-for-TV adventure, six men end up marooned on a remote South Sea island and find themselves having to deal with a tribe of murderously man-hating bikini-clad babes. The film is also titled Island-Sister Theresa. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In this action film, a former pro skier who has become a sheriff attempts to talk daring, but unprepared teens from climbing a treacherous mountain. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Deadly Triangle was intended as the pilot of a TV action series, to be called Steadman. Accordingly, the leading character is one Bill Steadman, played by Dale Robinette. A former Olympic ski champ, Steadman is now employed as a Sun Valley sheriff. The case at hand in this outing is the murder of a ski-team trainee. After attempting a second Steadman pilot, the producers gave up the ghost. Scripted by Carl (Jaws) Gottleib, Deadly Triangle was first broadcast May 19, 1977. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

George Peppard and Elizabeth Ashley were still husband and wife when they costarred in the made-for-TV thriller The Heist. Forced to participate in a robbery, armored-car guard Joe Craddock (Peppard) is left holding the bag when the crooks vanish. Fingered by the police as the gang's "inside man" (after all, it was his own company that was robbed), Joe spends the rest of the film trying to clear his name and round up the real bad guys. Ashley is logically cast as Joe's anguished wife Diane. The Heist originally aired as an ABC "Movie of the Week" on November 29, 1972, easily trouncing its NBC competition -- a lukewarm restaging of The Man Who Came to Dinner, starring Orson Welles -- in the ratings books. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Harold Lloyd plays Ezekial Cobb, a missionary's son who has spent his entire life in China. Cobb is sent to his father's home church in California, where it is hoped he will find a wife. A true babe in the woods, Cobb is befriended by politician Jake Mayo (George Barbier). Mayo is a cog in a crooked political machine whose bosses plan to set up a "reform" candidate for mayor, so that they can continue their underhanded activities unmolested. The candidate drops dead, so Mayo sets up the innocent Cobb as the mayor-to-be--a "cat's paw" to deflect attention from the system's corruption. But once elected, Cobb takes his duties quite seriously and begins to clean up the town. The machine frames Cobb with planted evidence of wrongdoing, destroying the lad's political career. Undaunted, Cobb remembers the story of an ancient Chinese leader, who, similarly disgraced, took the law in his own hands and executed all known criminals in his last days of power. Cobb orders that every crook in town be rounded up and brought to a dark cellar. He insists that they confess their crimes or face instant death--and backs up his words by "beheading" two of the crooks on the spot! Actually, these executions are cleverly designed magical illusions, and no one is really killed; but the terrified criminals are so hoodwinked by Cobb's apparent cold-bloodedness that they literally climb over one another to confess. Cobb is exonerated, and honesty is restored to his administration. While not Harold Lloyd's best feature film, The Cat's Paw is definitely his most unorthodox. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

MGM was seldom content to just film a mystery; the story had to be dressed up in some elaborate, unorthodox fashion. Mystery of Mr. X is given an additional visual boost by setting the story in 19th century London, allowing for a full array of the costumes and plush backgrounds of the era and locale. Robert Montgomery is an elegant jewel thief who happens to be working the same territory where a mysterious murderer has struck. Montgomery deduces that the killer, whose victims are all constables, is operating in a pattern resembling the letter "X". To avoid being mistakenly arrested as the murderer, Montgomery endeavors to second-guess where the killer will strike next--and then lies in wait to trap Mister X himself. Adapted from a novel by Philip MacDonald, Mystery of Mr. X was remade in 1952 as The Hour of Thirteen. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A shopkeeper suffers after he is laid off during the Depression in this drama adapted from the English play Service. He had worked at that shop for over 40 years. It was a family tradition to work at that shop. But now, his boss is selling the shop to a lower-priced rival, and the poor man and his family are left to cope with the devastating loss. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

This star-laden version of Lewis Carroll's novel combines elements of both the title novel and Carroll's sequel, Through the Looking Glass. In England of the 19th century, young Alice finds that the mirror over the library fireplace opens into a strange world. She has odd adventures and changes size several times both before and after she follows a time-obsessed White Rabbit (Skeets Gallagher). Soaked after nearly drowning in a pool of tears, Alice is helped to dry off by a Dodo (Polly Moran), and encounters a caterpillar (Ned Sparks), whose mushroom also changes Alice's size. In a noisy home where the Cook (Lillian Harmer) and the Duchess (Alison Skipworth) are always fighting, Alice takes care of the Duchess' baby, but it turns into a pig and runs away. Asking directions of the Cheshire Cat (Richard Arlen) is no help, and a tea party with the Mad Hatter (Edward Everett Horton), the March Hare (Charlie Ruggles) and the Dormouse (Jackie Searl) is confusing and annoying.

Alice meets the Queen of Hearts (May Robson), and encounters the Duchess again; while strolling with her, Alice meets the Gryphon (William Austin) and the Mock Turtle (Cary Grant). The twins Tweedledum (Jack Oakie) and Tweedledee (Roscoe Karns) recite a poem about a Walrus and a Carpenter (seen as an animated cartoon), but when they decide to go to battle, they're chased off by a crow. Humpty Dumpty (W.C. Fields) relates the poem "Jabberwocky" to Alice, then falls off a wall and breaks. The mournful White Knight (Gary Cooper), unable to put Humpty Dumpty together again, escorts Alice for a while, but she tumbles down a hill and finds she's become a queen. At a party in Alice's honor, the Red Queen (Edna Mae Oliver) becomes furious at Alice, who then wakes up to find herself in the library, with her kitten Dinah in her lap. ~ Bill Warren, All Movie Guide

Alexander Carr, a Jewish-dialect comedian usually confined to small roles, is practically the whole show in the sentimental drama No Greater Love. Carr is cast as delicatessen owner Sidney Cohen, who unofficially adopts Irish-Catholic orphan girl Mildred (Betty Jane Graham). Hoping to finance an operation that will enable the crippled Mildred to walk, Cohen hocks all his possessions and sells his store. The insensitive adoption authorities intervene, snatching Mildred from Cohen's arms, but the girl eventually walks all the same, inspired by the love of her foster father. No Greater Love was partially remade in 1938 as City Streets, with the protagonist changed to an Italian (played by Leo Carrillo). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The Last Mile is the film version of the 1930 John Wexley play which previously brought stage fame to both Spencer Tracy and Clark Gable. Wrongly accused of murder, young businessman Richard Walters (Howard Phillips, repeating his stage role) is sentenced to Death Row. Here he gets swept up in a jail break engineered by the desperate Killer Mears (Preston S. Foster), who grabs the keys of a guard and takes control of the cell block, holding the guards as hostages and freeing the other condemned prisoners. Refusing to accede to Mears' demands for a fast car and head start, the warden precipitates a bloodbath, with Walters caught in the middle of the fray. Ultimately, however, Mears sacrifices his own life in hopes of sparing Walters. In the original play, the Richard Walters character was guilty and went to the electric chair halfway through the first act; in the film, Walters's pathetic farewell speech and "long walk" were inherited by secondary character Berg (George E. Stone). Fairly strong stuff for its time, The Last Mile is actually superior to its more explicit 1959 remake, which starred Mickey Rooney as Killer Mears. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide