Paul Willson Movies

Murder abounds at a wax museum after the owner decides to sell it, and seemingly waxen figures come alive. By the way, are wax images normally supposed to breathe when being filmed? ~ Kristie Hassen, All Movie Guide

Marsha Mason is known as "The Goodbye Girl" because of all the live-in boyfriends who have said ta-ta to her in the past few years. A former Broadway chorus dancer, the divorced Mason lives in the Manhattan apartment of her latest lost love with her daughter Quinn Cummings. Enter arrogant actor Richard Dreyfuss, who has subleased the apartment from Mason's former boyfriend and moves in bag and baggage in the middle of the night. Dreyfuss and Mason spend the next few weeks getting in each other's way and fighting like cats and dogs. The wind is taken out of Dreyfuss' sails when he opens in a production of Richard III, which has been sabotaged by the director (Paul Benjamin), who insists that Dreyfuss portrays Richard as a hip-swinging homosexual. The play closes after one performance, and the once-overconfident Dreyfuss goes on a self-pitying drunken binge. Touched by his vulnerability, Mason begins falling in love with Dreyfuss despite her lousy track record with men. Richard Dreyfuss became the youngest ever "Best Actor" Oscar winner as a result of his performance. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In addition to being the title of a classic cult film directed by David Lynch, "Eraserhead" also happens to be the nickname of the character played by Paul Willson in this episode of Laverne and Shirley. Hoping to get even with her faithless boyfriend Carmine (Eddie Mekka), Shirley (Cindy Williams) accepts a blind date with the creepy "Eraserhead"--with truly surprising results. Linda Gillen, cast in a previous episode of the mentally challenged daughter of Shirley's landlady, is here seen in a radically different role. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Jill Clayburgh plays, as one character calls her, "a pill-popping dingbat" in this film adaptation of television producer Barbara Gordon's autobiographical account of her addiction to prescription drugs. Clayburgh plays Gordon in the film as a successful television documentary filmmaker whose mounting pressures force her to pop a Valium or two for nerves. She then ingests a few more pills after an argument with boyfriend Derek Bauer (Nicol Williamson). And thus begins her slow and steady compulsion to keep taking more and more Valium. Finally realizing her addiction, Gordon makes a disastrous attempt to go cold turkey but fails miserably, finally having to undergo a painful rehabilitation in an institution. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

Although penned by the same screenwriter, David S. Ward, this sequel to The Sting (1973) is tarnished by comparisons to its predecessor. Jackie Gleason fills the shoes of Paul Newman as Harry Gondorff and Mac Davis slips into the Robert Redford role of Johnny Hooker, two con men pals whose latest "sting" involves Hooker pretending to be a down on his luck boxer. Their goal is the fixing of a prizefight, which will rook a tacky nightclub owner (Karl Malden) out of a fortune while simultaneously getting revenge on their old nemesis, Doyle Lonnegan (Oliver Reed). On their side is Veronica (Teri Garr), a seasoned scam artist, but what Gondorff and Hooker don't know is that Lonnegan is manipulating events behind the scenes. Director Jeremy Paul Kagan followed up this terribly unfunny and inferior sequel with the much better received The Journey of Natty Gann (1985), while Ward became a director of such comedies as Major League (1989) and King Ralph (1991). ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide

Glynis Johns guest stars as Helen Chambers, the mother of Diane (Shelley Long). Sweeping majestically into Cheers, Helen dolefully announces that Diane must marry within 24 hours or lose her share (and her mother's) of her late father's estate. Helpful Sam (Ted Danson) agrees to a quickie wedding ceremony, secure in the belief that he can just as quickly revert to bachelorhood -- or can he? Future semi-regular Paul Willson appears as Gregg (rather than his familiar role as the habitually "left out" Paul). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In a dual role, David L. Lander appears in his customary guise as Squiggy, and as Squiggy's exact lookalike, a famous Russian ballet dancer named Boris. When Boris attempts to defect to the West, a pair of KGB agents nab Squiggy by mistake. This episode is capped by a screaming funny "Swan Lake" pas-de-deux performed by David L. Lander and Michael McKean (Lenny). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this routine spoof of government and media foibles, Sunny (Goldie Hawn) is an ordinary cocktail waitress, someone who graduated in the top 75% of her class. When she dramatically prevents the assassination of a visiting dignitary, an Emir (Richard Romanus) from an Arab country. the event puts her dead center at a whirlwind of media attention, and she gets her a job in the protocol department of the government -- nothing that cocktail waitressing can really prepare one to do. Sunny's nemesis is the evil Mrs. St. John (Gail Strickland) who does not appreciate her inane blunders, and with a few cohorts, she schemes to ship Sunny off to join the Emir's harem, in exchange for a military base in his country. The daffy ex-cocktail waitress is not also blind and deaf, and before long, she suspects that something underhanded is in fact, underfoot. Now she has to find out what it is and how to stop it. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

A woman wearing a heavy veil shows up at the offices of the Blue Moon Detective Agency and hires David (Bruce Willis) and Maddie (Cybill Shepherd) to locate a recently paroled convict named Frank Harbert (Joel Polis). It seems that, years ago, Frank had horribly disfigured the veiled woman's face, and now she wants to find him--and marry him! Inevitably, Frank turns up dead, prompting the detectives to launch a second search for the killer. The episode climaxes with a profusion of people wearing black veils, in a chaotic mistaken-identity sequence reminiscent of The Pink Panther--or at the very least, the Marx Brothers' Duck Soup. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Inspired by the success of previous TV sitcom "reunion" films, Return to Mayberry debuted on April 13, 1986. Eleven of the original cast members of the classic Andy Griffith Show were reunited in this marvelous blast from the past. The plot finds former sheriff Andy Taylor (Griffith, of course), returning to Mayberry, North Carolina to visit his grown son Opie (Ron Howard, taking a break from his busy directorial career), who is now an expectant father. Andy's onetime deputy Barney Fife (Don Knotts) is running for the sheriff's post, so Andy decides to stick around to help out. Barney thinks he's found an excellent publicity ploy when he discovers what seems to be a bigfoot-style monster roaming around the Carolina hills. Actually, he's the victim of a cruel hoax, compelling Andy once more to come to Barn's rescue. Also in the cast is George Lindsay as Goober, Jim Nabors as Gomer, Aneta Corsaut as Helen, Betty Lynn as Thelma Lou, and Howard Morris as Ernest T. Bass. Conspicuous by her absence was Frances "Aunt Bee" Bavier, who was too ill to make a comeback. The highest-rated TV movie of 1986, Return to Mayberry might have resulted in a series, but Andy Griffith decided to switch professional gears and star as an attorney in Matlock. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This '80s teen comedy involves a youth (Robert Leonard), who is seduced by a sexy schoolgirl and then transforms into a blood-sucking vampire. Instead of fighting his affliction, he tries to cope with the change. ~ John Bush, All Movie Guide