James Brown Movies

At the tail end of Dallas' ninth season, Pamela Ewing (Victoria Principal) was awakened from her troubled slumbers by the sound of a familiar voice in her bathroom. Investigating, she peeked past the shower curtains -- and was astonished to find her ex-husband, Bobby Ewing (Patrick Duffy), who had presumably been killed at the end of the series' eighth season, alive and well! How could this be? Well, the opening scene of season ten explains all. Bobby was never killed -- and the entire ninth season was all a nightmare, dreamed up by poor Pamela! Thus, the writers have blithely negated everything that has happened during the previous season, and from this point forward, not even the most loyal of the series' fans will ever be able to take Dallas entirely seriously again. Be that as it may, season ten does offer a few interesting plot developments, as well as a handful of new characters. Having been humiliated time and again by her ruthless oil-tycoon husband, J.R. Ewing (Larry Hagman), Sue Ellen (Linda Gray) gets even by setting up her own lingerie business, using J.R.'s erstwhile mistress Mandy Winger (Deborah Shelton) as his star model.

Meanwhile, Southfork is invaded by April Stevens (Sheree J. Wilson), former wife of J.R.'s cousin Jack Ewing, who like everyone else in the family is determined to carve out her own piece of the Ewing millions, by hook or by crook. (April will eventually marry J.R.'s brother Bobby, though he is blissfully unaware of this now.) Also making his first appearance is Ben Stivers (aka Wes Parmalee, played by Steve Forrest), who throws a monkey wrench into the connubial bliss of Miss Ellie Ewing (Barbara Bel Geddes) and her second husband, Clayton Barlow (Howard Keel), by posing as Miss Ellie's presumed-dead first husband, Jock. And in another development, the marriage between J.R.'s half-brother, Ray Krebbs (Steve Kanaly), and his ambitious wife, Donna (Susan Howard), totally collapses when Donna attaches herself to the influential Senator Dowling (Jim McMullan). Getting back to Pamela and Bobby, the couple decides to celebrate his "return from the grave" by getting married all over again. Alas, a happy ending is not in the cards: at the end of season ten, Pamela is seriously injured in an auto accident. Since Victoria Principal had announced her intention to leave the series, viewers braced themselves for the likelihood that Pamela has been killed -- and at the same time, they cynically awaited another likelihood, that the whole thing was yet another "Bobby in the shower" hoax! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this drama, the life of a TV reporter is jeopardized during her investigation of a series of murdered nurses. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In this made-for-TV "roman a clef", Joe Don Baker stars as Tommy Vanda, a Hoffa-esque labor leader. Told in flashback, the film recounts Vanda's humble beginnings on the Chicago docks, where he gains fame and notoreity amongst his coworkers and his bosses by spearheading a wildcat strike. Rising to top dog of the Cartage Union, Tommy doesn't care whon he has to crush on the way up the ladder. Inevitably, Tommy's peccadilloes catch up with him, resulting in federal charges, an arrest, and (remember who he's supposed to be) a mysterious disappearance in the night. Written by Ernest Tidyman of The French Connection fame, Power was telecast in two two-hour installments by NBC on January 14 and 15, 1980. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Joe Don Baker stars as chief of detectives, Eischeid, in the 4-hour, 2-part TV film To Kill A Cop. Eischeid must contend with a series of seemingly unrelated bank robberies and the vicious murders of two police officers. Eischeid deduces that the culprits are members of a violent African-American revolutionary movement, but he is blocked in his investigation by the politically ambitious chief of police. As time runs out, Eischeid must prevent the planned wholesale slaughter of civilians at the hands of the revolutionaries. Scripted by Ernest Tidyman (The French Connection), To Kill a Cop served as the pilot for the TV series Eischeid, which ran from September 1979 to January 1980. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The Longest Drive is the syndication title for the network TV movie The Quest, which first aired May 13, 1976. Evidently inspired by John Ford's The Searchers, this western concerns the search by two brothers, Quentin and Morgan Baudine (Tim Matheson, Kurt Russell), for their sister, who as an infant was kidnaped by Indians. Morgan himself had spent time as an "adopted" Cheyenne tribesman; his Indian name was, appropriately enough, Two Persons. Breaking up the main storyline is a subplot involving desert rat Brian Keith and a race between a horse and a camel! Written by Tracy Keenan Wynn (Tribes), The Longest Drive served as the pilot for the subsequent Quest weekly series, which ran from September 22 to December 29, 1976. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This TV movie was originally aired as John O'Hara's Gibbsville. Based on O'Hara's semi-autobiographical story anthology The Doctor's Son, the film tells the story of Jim Malloy (John Savage) and his youth in his Pennsylvania home town. Aspiring to become a reporter, Malloy goes to work for alcoholic editor Ray Whitehead. Biff McGuire plays Jim's doctor father; other cast members include Kathleen Quinlan, Peggy McCay and Janis Paige. Written and directed by playwright Frank D. Gilroy, Gibbsville: The Turning Point of Jim Malloy was first telecast April 12, 1975; it was the pilot for the Gibbsville TV series, also starring John Savage and Gig Young, which (after several delays) ran briefly in the fall of 1976. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The Magic Garden is the US title for the South African film Pennywhistle Blues. An all-black, nonprofessional cast appears in this compact little drama, set in the town of Alexandria. The garden of the title is the hiding place chosen by a thief who has stolen a large sum of money from the local church. The owner of the garden is a poverty-stricken widow--exactly the sort of person for whom the money had been donated. The widow finds the money and uses it to pay off a grocery debt. The thief steals the money again, whereupon it passes into the hands of a young man who pays off his sweetheart's father's debts. The money ends up back in the church, but the thief plans to steal it once more...and we are encouraged to assume that the ill-gotten gains will once more do the good for which it was intended. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide