Linda Gillin Movies

The directorial debut of actor and stand-up comedian David Steinberg concerns a single man who decides that he wants to be a dad -- without the complication of a wife. Burt Reynolds stars as Buddy Evans, the manager of Madison Square Garden. A longtime lothario, Buddy has always been very content as a bachelor, but he has begun to feel lately that he'd like to experience fatherhood. His yearnings receive plenty of fuel from his best friends Larry (Norman Fell) and Kurt (Paul Dooley), and from his parental-mentor relationship with a young boy, Tad (Peter Billingsley). So Buddy decides to seek out a woman who will bear his baby for a price, with no strings attached. He finds Maggie Harden (Beverly D'Angelo), a beautiful young music student working as a waitress and yearning for the financial resources to study in Paris. She agrees to serve as Buddy's temporary companion, but as the months pass and her pregnancy progresses, Maggie begins to fall in love with Buddy, who doesn't return her affections -- at first. Steinberg would go on to have greater success as a television sitcom director, calling the shots for several episodes of hit series in the '80s amd '90s. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide

This made-for-TV ancestor to When Harry Met Sally stars the then-married Rob Reiner and Penny Marshall in what was essentially a replay of their own courtship. Covering a timespan from 1958 to 1971, the teleplay (written by Reiner and his frequent collaborator Phil Mishkin) asks the musical question "Should would-be novelist Alan Corkus (Reiner) and aspiring actress Maddy Pearlman (Marshall) become lovers, or merely remain good friends?" The whimsical nature of the plotline was carried over into the ABC network's ad campaign for the film, which was touted as "A Like Story." More Than Friends first aired on October 20, 1978. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Sam Elliot stars as Rick Carlson, a thirty year old lifeguard who thinks life is passing him by. Rick loves the beach life and his job, but after attending his fifteen-year high school reunion and receiving advice from his family and friends that he's wasting his life, Rick begins to question his livelihood and wonders whether he should quit and find a more normal line of work -- such as selling cars for the local Porsche dealership. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

This episode would seem to have been inspired by director Michael Powell's classic psychological thriller Peeping Tom. Someone has been shooting 8-millimeter films featuring pretty young women, then mailing those films to Chief Ironside (Raymond Burr) shortly after each woman is found murdered. Assisting the Chief in his investigation of this disturbing sequence of events is policewoman Fran Belding (Elizabeth Baur), who in turn has enlisted the aid of her current boyfriend, aspiring filmmaker Eric Blair (Joe Don Baker). The case takes a frightening turn when Ironside receives yet another reel of film--focusing on Fran herself! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide