Edward DeBlasio Movies

Scott Baio plays the son of ex-hockey star Don Murray, who has reacted to the loss of his career with a steadily increasing reliance upon liquor. Baio begins to excel athletically in school, but when the inevitable disappointments set in, he begins to imitate his father's booze intake. Lance Kerwin plays Baio's best friend, who picks up on the early warning signs and tries to keep Baio from descending into alcoholism. Made for television, Boy Who Drank Too Much was intended as a "breakthrough" role for teen idol Scott Baio, who is in fact better than usual here. Based on a novel by Shep Greene, the film was cluttered up with too many superfluous subplots, including the pregnancy of one of Baio's teachers. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Season Three of the slick and sometimes sexy cop drama Police Woman finds undercover LAPD cop Pepper Anderson (Angie Dickinson) navigating the bizarre world of high-class prostitution in order to get the goods on a blackmailing madam (Dorothy Malone). Later on, a curious case of reverse sexism raises its head when Pepper, so often victimized on the series by libidinous males, is suspended from duty when falsely accused of sexually molesting a prisoner. And in an instance of grim irony, Pepper poses as a mobster's moll to infiltrate a gangland hideaway, where she falls in love with a shady tennis pro--never suspecting that he is also an undercover detective! This season's guest-star manifest includes the talented likes of Jack Gilford, Carol Lynley, Meredith Baxter Birney, Edward James Olmos, Mariette Hartley, Judy Carne, Lisa Hartman, Cheryl Ladd, Pernell Roberts, and real-life undercover cop Dave Toma, whose career later inspired the fictional TV series Baretta. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Sexy LAPD undercover officer Sgt. Pepper Anderson (Angie Dickinson) assumes a variety of identities and dons an exhausting array of stunning outfits during Season One of the iconic 1970s cop series Police Woman. In the first episode, however, Pepper must "dress down" a bit as a dowdy bank employee so that she and her superior officer Lt. Crowley (Earl Holliman) can nab a particular vicious gang of robbers. In later episodes, Pepper is seen as a model, a stewardess, a go-go dancer, a female convict, a nurse, a "desperate" housewife, a high school teacher, a jewel fence and a roadside café waitress. Occasionally, however, Pepper is simply Pepper, as in the episode in which she is given the unenviable task of guarding an outspoken Marxist during a particularly volatile student rally. During this season, Nichole Kallis makes sporadic appearances as Cheryl Anderson, Pepper's autistic sister, who lives at the Austin School for the Handicapped. Evidently the producers felt that this touching method of "humanizing" the heroine was dispensible, so Cheryl disappears without explanation by season's end. Like most dramatic series of its era, Police Woman benefits immeasureably from the talents of its guest stars. Appearing in the Season One episodes are such favorites as Cathy Rigby, Kathleen Quinlan, Elinor Donahue William Katt, Larry Hagman, Pat Morita, Rhonda Fleming, Hal Williams, Dane Clark, Bob Crane, Della Reese, William Shatner, Rory Calhoun, Annette O'Toole, Ruby Dee, Robert Vaughn, David Selby, Patty Duke, Shelley Berman, Don Meredith and Pat Harrington Jr. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Summoning the aid of Chief Ironside (Raymond Burr) is a nervous young woman named Jane Spencer (Sian Barbara Allen), who is sure that her father's "accidental" death was actually murder. The only clue the Chief has to go on is a cryptic Japanese ideogram, which may also explain the mysterious contents of a stolen package. Meanwhile, Ironside's assistant Ed becomes attracted to the profoundly troubled Jane. This episode features a neat, menacing peformance by a pre-stardom William Devane. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

"The Silent Killer" is the deadly influenza epidemic that has swept through the territory around the Ponderosa. To combat the disease, tradition-bound Doc Martin (Harry Holcombe) and Harriet Clinton (Louise Latham) set up an emergency hospital on the Cartwright spread. Further complications ensue when Mrs. Evangeline Woodtree (Meg Foster), the wife of a progressive young physician (Ion Berger) who'd been jailed on Doc Martin's say-so, defiantly challenges Martin's old-fashioned methods. Written by John Hawkins and Edward DeBlasio, "The Silent Killer" was first telecast on February 28, 1971. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Film star Lylah Clare is dead, but her legend lives on. Movie-producer Barney Sheean (Ernest Borgnine) hires Elsa Brinkmann (Kim Novak), the living image of the late Lylah, to star in a film based on Ms. Clare's life. Barney hires director Lewis Zarkan (Peter Finch), Lylah's former husband, to transform the talentless Elsa into a facsimile of the deceased screen queen. Elsa not only learns to imitate Lylah but, at crucial junctures, becomes the dead woman. While restaging the accident that killed Lylah, the obsessed Zarkan deliberately drives Elsa to her doom -- and in so doing reveals his complicity in the death of his wife. The film ends with Lylah's onetime housekeeper (Rosella Falk), gun in hand, lying in wait for Zarkan to return home while her TV blasts forth a grotesque (and possibly symbolic) dog-food commercial. A trash masterpiece, Legend of Lylah Claire works so hard at vilifying the Old Hollywood (there's even a vicious Hedda Hopper caricature) that it's a wonder the actors could keep a straight face. The film was based on a 1962 Dupont Show of the Week TV drama co-written by Wild in the Streets creator Robert Thom. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide