Joella Deffenbaugh Movies
- 1982
After several deaths have occurred during routine surgical procedures, Quincy (Jack Klugman) begins an investigation of eminent surgeon Dr. Stanley Royce (Jose Ferrer), who had allegedly performed the fatal operations. It isn't that Royce has lost his touch--it's simply that he is signing off on surgeries in which he had no part. Confirming that Royce has been using less qualified resident surgeons as "ghosts" for operations which he was scheduled to perform himself, Quincy mounts a campaign to charge Royce with medical manslaughter. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1979
Fast Friends is a lumpy satire set "backstage" at a talk show (imagine what the film would have been like had it been made in 1989 rather than '79). Most of the action centers around egotistical, near-lunatic talk host Dick Shawn. His frantic antics are counterpointed with the story of career woman Susan Heldfond, a divorcee who re-enters the workplace for the sake of her child. This made-for-TV film costars former critic's darling Carrie Snodgress and then-hot actress MacKenzie Phillips. But the real attraction in Fast Friends is the prescient appearance of tenth-billed David Letterman as "Matt Morgan", a brash comedian who has the temerity to upstage the preening Dick Shawn. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
The longest (26-1/2 hours), most expensive ($25 million) and most complicated (four directors, five producers, five cinematographers, almost 100 speaking parts, several hundred extras) project made for television up to that time, Centennial was shown in two- and three-hour installments over a period of four months. An adaptation of James Michener's best-selling novel, it told the story of the settling of the American West by looking at the founding of the fictional town of Centennial, Colorado, from the settling of the area in the late 18th century to the present. Emmy-nominated for film editing and art direction, it boasts of sterling performances from Richard Chamberlain as frontiersman Alexander McKeag, Robert Conrad as the French-Canadian trapper Pasquinel, and a surprisingly powerful performance from former football star Alex Karras as compassionate but iron-willed immigrant farmer Hans Brumbaugh. ~ Brian Gusse, All Movie Guide
- 1975
Susan Dey inaugurated her long and successful campaign to shuck her Partridge Family image in the made-for-TV Cage Without a Key. Dey plays a teenager mistakenly convicted for murder (some mistake!) She is sentenced to a grim woman's penal institution straight out of a Linda Blair movie. As she struggles against the iniquities of prison life, her friends and relatives on the outside fight for justice. A shockingly substandard effort from accomplished TV director Buzz Kulik, Cage Without a Key is credible only in its exterior scenes, filmed at Las Palmas School for Girls in City of Commerce, California. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1974
- R
In this police melodrama, a maverick cop catches and kills a petty thief during a purse snatching and casually saunters on. The thief's widow sues the cop for a million bucks, but the cop isn't worried; after all there were no witnesses and no proof. Unfortunately for him, someone saw and filmed the cold-blooded killing. To make it worse, the young filmmaker continues to follow him to make a damning documentary of the renegade's misdeeds. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1973
The Waltons attend the annual County Fair, where each family member hopes to win a prize. At the same time, Olivia's former beau Oscar Cockrell (Peter Donat) shows up at the fair in hopes of advancing his political career. Comparing Oscar's affluence with his own family's lack of same, John-Boy (Richard Thomas) asks himself how different his life would have been if Olivia (Michael Learned) had accepted Oscar's proposal. Meanwhile, a "special ingredient" in Olivia's cake has a curious effect on the contest judges! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
