Martin Garner Movies

John Seale directed this lively, though overly familiar, adventure tale. Frank Flynn (Mark Harmon) is a jazz musician who travels to the South Seas to look for his missing brother Charlie. Once there, he takes up with an attractive hitchhiker named Anna (Deborah Unger). When he finds out that his brother has been bludgeoned to death by a group of natives, Frank decides to investigate the case on his own. Frank meets Charlie's former business associate, Robert "Viv" Vivaldi (Jeroen Krabbe) and his insouciant manner causes Frank to suspect he may have had something to do with his brother's death. Anna then reveals herself to be Viv's ex-wife and Frank's badgering of Viv causes both Frank and Anna to flee into the jungle, where they come upon some curious gold bars. Frank then recalls their father had mentioned something to Charlie about an American bomber that had crashed in the jungle, loaded with gold. Viv then catches up with the duo and, although Anna is captured, Frank befriends a group of natives who teach him the ways of the South Pacific Islanders. They also lead him to the location where the plane full of gold went down; they then help Frank lay siege to Viv's home. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

Joe Pytka's comedy stars Richard Dreyfuss as Trotter, a cab driver who gets a hot tip on a horse race and soon finds himself on the gambling hot streak of his life. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide

Dwarf actor Daniel Frishman makes his first appearance as Dan's new boss Vincent Daniels, who makes up for his lack of height with a towering knowledge of legal matters--not to mention a mile-wide mean streak. Curiously, the more Vincent threatens to make Dan's life a living hell, the more Dan (John Larroquette) likes it! Meanwhile, court matron Flo (Florence Halop) is squired by a very strange gentleman. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Janis Paige appears as Eleanor Brandon, a lonely woman who seems to know all the intimate details in the life of Judge Harry T. Stone (Harry Anderson). Is it possible that Eleanor is Harry's long-lost mother, as she claims to be? And in another case, the shifty promoter of a phony beauty contest is brought to court by a disgruntled would-be prize winner. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In the third and final film in the Oh, God! franchise, Bobby Shelton (Ted Wass) is a struggling musician who can't get a break, which bothers him all the more now that his wife, Wendy (Roxanne Hart), is about to have a baby. Desperate and depressed, Bobby announces that he'd sell his soul to get ahead. Suddenly, Harry O. Tophat (George Burns), Satan's earthly representative, appears and offers Bobby a deal -- seven years of unprecentented fame and fortune in exchange for his soul. Bobby cynically accepts and discovers that the devil is true to his word, but he finds that the trappings of fame and wealth are empty pleasures, and he loses Wendy along the way. When Bobby declares that he's made a horrible mistake, God (Burns), who has been watching over Bobby, offers to help get his soul back as the devil offers Bobby's place in eternity as the prize in a poker game. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Based on the popular television series created by Rod Serling, this film of horror and the supernatural tells four separate stories--each by a different director: John Landis, Steven Spielberg, Joe Dante and George Miller. In one, a bigot is taught a lesson when he is transported to experience the lives of three different victims of prejudice and intolerance. Another takes a trip to an old-age home where the arrival of a special man turns some of the residents into youthful people once again. In the third, a woman befriends a timid young child who turns out to be a maniacal brat with bizarre powers. The final segment shows how a man with an aversion to flying has a rough time when he panics and then sees a strange creature on the wing outside his window seat. ~ Kristie Hassen, All Movie Guide

Richard Benjamin's directorial debut is an engaging slice of nostalgia, purportedly based on an incident in life of Mel Brooks. Mark Linn-Baker stars as Benjy Stone, junior writer on the popular 1950s TV comedy/variety series The King Kaiser Show. Kaiser (Joseph Bologna)'s guest star this week is Hollywood matinee idol Alan Swann (Peter O'Toole), a swashbuckling Errol Flynn type, right down to his indiscriminate womanizing and fondness for mass quantities of booze. Stone is assigned to keep the actor out of trouble during rehearsals and deliver him sober to the performance. Becoming fast friends, Stone and Swann alternate baby-sitting responsibilities: Swann takes the young writer to the Stork Club and on an early-morning jaunt through Central Park with a "borrowed" police horse, while Stone takes Swann to his home in the Bronx, where the star is fawned over by Benji's mom (Lainie Kazan) and asked embarrassing questions about his love life by Uncle Morty (Lou Jacobi). Despite a few anxious moments, all goes well until Swann, panicking at the discovery that King Kaiser's show will be telecast live and not on film, walks out just before airtime. Shamed by Benjy into honoring his committment, Swann makes a spectacular, timber-smashing entrance, saving the show and rescuing Kaiser from being rubbed out by a gangster (Cameron Mitchell) whom the comedian has offended. Though it fluctuates between wistful realism and the manic exaggeration of a TV comedy sketch, My Favorite Year holds together quite well, delivering a plentitude of solid laughs. Jessica Harper, usually the star of bizarro films like Inserts and Suspiria, is quite appealing as Benjy Stone's girlfriend; that lady dancing with O'Toole at the Stork Club is 1930s film star Gloria Stuart, later an Oscar nominee for Titanic; the King Kaiser Show wardrobe mistress is played by Selma Diamond, a real-life comedy writer for Sid Caesar. My Favorite Year was converted into an unsuccessful Broadway musical in the early 1990s. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Robert Aldrich returns to the western-spoof genre he'd previously explored in Four for Texas with The Frisco Kid. Gene Wilder plays Polish rabbi Avram Belinsky, who intends to set up a congregation in San Francisco. Eminently unsuited for life in the Old West, poor Avram is victimized by everyone with whom he comes in contact. Salvation arrives in the unlikely form of taciturn bank robber Tommy (Harrison Ford). Incredibly, Tommy takes a liking to the feckless Avram, and together the two men embark on a series of seriocomic adventures. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Among the first releases in the new wave of independent films of the 1970s, writer/director Joan Micklin Silver's portrait of turn-of-the-century New York is also important for its unflinching portrait of women's issues. Russian Jewish immigrant Gitl (Carol Kane) joins her husband Jake (Steven Keats) in New York after he has gone ahead to establish himself. Jake has quickly assimilated many American customs, much to the dismay of Gitl, who clings to her Old World ways. Gitl's discovery of how Jake was able to finance her trip to America leads to more tension, and Gitl is soon on her own with few resources on which to draw. Although the film performed modestly at the box office, it was a sign of changing times when Kane's quietly assured performance was nominated for an Academy award, a rare recognition by Hollywood of a film made outside the studio system. ~ Tom Wiener, All Movie Guide

With Bob out of town on a lecture tour, Emily is terrified that she will succumb to the temptation of having an affair with her old flame Steve Darnell (David Hedison). To prevent this, Emily turns to Jerry and Howard for help -- and you know how much help they are. Written by Laura Levine, this was one of several sixth-season episodes in which Bob Newhart did not appear. "It Didn't Happen One Night" first aired on February 18, 1978. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide