Danny Goldman Movies

In this detective yarn, an amiable investigator finds himself entangled with mobsters after he tries to help a woman who is apparently having a run of bad luck. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In the 200th episode of Alice, trophy-winning amateur athlete Jolene Hunnicutt (Celia Weston) hopes to try out for a pro basketball team. Appointing himself Jolene's trainer is her current boss Mel (Vic Tayback), who is notorious for showing no mercy toward his trainees. The question: Will Jolene be able to survive the "Ordeal-by-Mel"? ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The 1982 film version of the John Irving novel The World According to Garp attempts to captures the quirky spirit while condensing the Irving original. Robin Williams plays the title character, the son of unmarried, unorthodox feminist Jenny Fields (Glenn Close, in her film debut). Every effort made by Jenny to broaden Garp's outlook on life -- she even arranges for him to spend the night with a hooker (Swoosie Kurtz) -- crams more fears and phobias into his psyche. Aspiring to become a novelist, Garp succeeds in this goal at the same time that his mother publishes her first feminist manifesto. Though successful and happily married to college sweetheart Helen Holm (Mary Beth Hurt), Garp remains envious of his fearless mother, who has taken in the radical "Ellen Jamesians," a group named after a young woman who had her tongue cut out by a rapist. Mutilation, in fact, becomes something of a leitmotif in Garp's life, climaxing (in every sense of the word) in an auto accident brought about by Helen's tryst with Michael Milton (Mark Soper). There is, of course, much more to the story than this: standing out amongst the dozens of offbeat supporting characters is John Lithgow as Roberta Muldoon, a transexual ex-football jock. John Irving appears as a referee during a college wrestling match, while director George Roy Hill plays the pilot whose low-flying plane crashes into Garp's new home. The World According to Garp didn't attract as large an audience as other, more conventional Robin Williams vehicles, though Close and Lithgow would both be nominated for Best Supporting Actor statues. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This low-brow, low-budget comedy walks a thin line between parody and earnestness which emphasizes its effective tweaking of the teen side of the fence. Up for target practice are punks, sexual adventures, flashy women, and the teen infatuation with cars: car racing, car maintenance, car ownership, whatever. None of the antics are exactly believable but the cast of young actors has enough enthusiasm and the script enough self-parody to carry most undemanding audiences through to the very end. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Alice (Linda Lavin) and Vera (Beth Howland) both try out for the role of Cinderella in a local children's theater production. Appropriately enough, the production's handsome director Sean (Fred McCarren) is, at age 25, a virtual youngster himself. Despite the fact that both ladies have several years on Sean, Alice and Vera knock each other over vying for his affections. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A rancher, a rustler, and a regulator face off in Arthur Penn's eccentric western. As a cover for their horse thievery, a gang of Montana rustlers, led by the laid-back Tom Logan (Jack Nicholson), buys a small farm adjacent to the ranch of their latest target/nemesis, Braxton (John McLiam). When the gang leaves Tom on the farm and heads to Canada for another score, Tom takes a shine both to farming and Braxton's rebellious, strong-willed daughter, Jane (Kathleen Lloyd). The slightly loco Braxton, however, hires the psychopathic regulator Lee Clayton (Marlon Brando) to root out the rustlers. With a series of unorthodox methods (and costumes), Clayton hunts down Logan and his gang one by one, even after Braxton fires him, but Logan isn't about to let Clayton (or Braxton) make him obsolete. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide

Tony Baretta (Robert Blake) maintains a 24-hour surveillance on drug kingpin Durone (John Marley), who is expecting a multi-million-dollar shipment. Durone knows that he's being watched, and Baretta knows that he knows. The relentless undercover cop is also fully aware that Durone is in mourning for his recently deceased wife -- a fact that Baretta hopes will break the aging drug lord's spirit. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Peter Hyams made his feature-film directing debut with this clumsily paced crime film concerning two Los Angeles vice-squad detectives. Michael Keneely (Eliott Gould) is the swaggering non-conformist and Patrick Farrel (Robert Blake) is the cocky follower. The two cops live for their work and spend most of their time busting call girls, massage parlor employees, and homosexuals. Keneely and Farrel eventually come to the conclusion that every criminal act in Los Angeles is due to the efforts of crime lord Carl Rizzo (Allen Garfield). The boys begin to harass Rizzo to the point of distraction, but their singular attempts to arrest Rizzo cause them to become the targets of, not only the criminal population, but the police force as well. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

William Windom does his best "Colonel Sanders" imitation as Uncle Erwin Tully, the flamboyant owner of a chain of chicken restaurants. Hiring the Partridges to appear in one of his TV commercials, Uncle Erwin insists that the family dress up in chicken costumes--much to the dismay of both the family and Tully's business advisers, who can't bring themselves to tell him that his new ad campaign has all the earmarks of a disaster. Yes, folks, it's Shirley Partridge (Shirley Jones) to the rescue again! Song: "A Friend and a Lover". ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Although he was not the first choice to direct it, the hit black comedy MASH established Robert Altman as one of the leading figures of Hollywood's 1970s generation of innovative and irreverent young filmmakers. Scripted by Hollywood veteran Ring Lardner, Jr., this war comedy details the exploits of military doctors and nurses at a Mobile Army Surgical Hospital in the Korean War. Between exceptionally gory hospital shifts and countless rounds of martinis, wisecracking surgeons Hawkeye Pierce (Donald Sutherland) and Trapper John McIntyre (Elliott Gould) make it their business to undercut the smug, moralistic pretensions of Bible-thumper Maj. Frank Burns (Robert Duvall) and Army true-believer Maj. "Hot Lips" Houlihan (Sally Kellerman). Abetted by such other hedonists as Duke Forrest (Tom Skerritt) and Painless Pole (John Schuck), as well as such (relative) innocents as Radar O'Reilly (Gary Burghoff), Hawkeye and Trapper John drive Burns and Houlihan crazy while engaging in such additional blasphemies as taking a medical trip to Japan to play golf, staging a mock Last Supper to cure Painless's momentary erectile dysfunction, and using any means necessary to win an inter-MASH football game. MASH creates a casual, chaotic atmosphere emphasizing the constant noise and activity of a surgical unit near battle lines; it marked the beginning of Altman's sustained formal experiments with widescreen photography, zoom lenses, and overlapping sound and dialogue, further enhancing the atmosphere with the improvisational ensemble acting for which Altman's films quickly became known. Although the on-screen war was not Vietnam, MASH's satiric target was obvious in 1970, and Vietnam War-weary and counter-culturally hip audiences responded to Altman's nose-thumbing attitude towards all kinds of authority and embraced the film's frankly tasteless yet evocative humor and its anti-war, anti-Establishment, anti-religion stance. MASH became the third most popular film of 1970 after Love Story and Airport, and it was nominated for five Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director. As further evidence of the changes in Hollywood's politics, blacklist survivor Lardner won the Oscar for his screenplay. MASH began Altman's systematic 1970s effort to revise classic Hollywood genres in light of contemporary American values, and it gave him the financial clout to make even more experimental and critical films like McCabe and Mrs. Miller (1971), California Split (1974), and Nashville (1975). It also inspired the long-running TV series starring Alan Alda as Hawkeye and Burghoff as Radar. With its formal and attitudinal impudence, and its great popularity, MASH was one more confirmation in 1970 that a Hollywood "New Wave" had arrived. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide

This film is based on the James Simon Kunen book about student unrest on the Columbia University campus. Simon (Bruce Davison) joins the campus protest movement to socialize with the various hippie girls. When a violent police assault breaks up the protest, Simon's thoughts quickly turn from female infatuation to more important social causes. He becomes active in protests against the Vietnam War, police brutality, student's rights and the draft. He is branded a Communist and becomes part of the great worldwide social revolution of his times. Music from Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Thunderclap Newman, Richard Strauss and John Lennon accurately reflect the turbulent times in which the film was released. Bud Cort, James Coco, and Kim Darby star in this uneven political drama. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide