Conrad Bain Movies
Wryly humorous Canadian character actor Conrad Bain was all wrapped up in such athletic pursuits as hockey and speed skating when, in his junior year of high school, he suddenly became fascinated with acting. He studied at Alberta's Banff School of Fine Arts, served in the Canadian army during World War II, then resumed his training at New York's American Academy of Dramatic Arts. He worked at the Stratford (Ontario) Shakespeare Festival and in live television before scoring his first real success in the 1956 Broadway revival of Eugene O'Neill's The Iceman Cometh. In the early 1970s, Bain began popping up in such New York-based films as Lovers and Other Strangers (1970) and Woody Allen's Bananas (1973). He gained national fame in the TV role of stuffy next-door neighbor Dr. Arthur Harmon on the Norman Lear sitcom Maude (1974-78). Bain was later awarded top billing as wealthy Phillip Drummond, foster father to Gary Coleman and Todd Bridges, on Diff'rent Strokes. His most recent regular-series assignment was as presidential aide Charley Ross on the George C. Scott TV vehicle Mr. President (1987). Though not a professional actor, Conrad Bain's identical twin brother Bonar Bain has occasionally guested on Conrad's various TV series. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide- 1996
The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air brings its six-year run to a close with this first episode in a two-part story (originally telecast back-to-back with the concluding episode). With virtually everyone in the Banks household about to go in separate directions to pursue their dreams, Philip (James Avery) puts the Bel-Air mansion up for sale. But while Carlton (Alfonso Ribeiro) is bound for Princeton, Hilary (Karyn Parsons and Ashley (Tatyana M. Ali) are headed for New York, Geoffrey (Joseph Marcell) intends to return to London, and Philip and Viv (Daphne Maxwell Reid) will soon relocate to the East, Will (Will Smith) is determined to stay put in Bel-Air--even if he hasn't got a roof over his head. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Originally made for television and based on a true story from the '50s, this film concerns a rural Arizona town that deals in polygamy. Specifically, a boy is shocked that his father (Christopher Atkins), a veteran of the Korean War, wishes to take a 15-year-old girl for another wife. ~ John Bush, All Movie Guide
- 1972
Football is the focus of this drama, adapted from Frederick Exley's famous novel. It tells the tale of an aspiring writer obsessed with football. His father was a football star, and the writer, wanting to follow in his dad's illustrious footsteps, constantly berates himself for not having any talent for the sport at all. The young man becomes so distraught, that he winds up in a mental hospital. In time, he comes to accept the fact that he is destined to be only a fan of the game. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1968
Not realizing that Nicholas (Humbert Allen Astredo) plans to use her as the life force in his experiment to revive Eve, Maggie (Kathryn Leigh Scott) agrees to marry him. Chris Jennings (Donald Briscoe), the twin brother of the vampiric Tom Jennings, has a number of strange and frightening experiences after visiting his kid sister, Amy (Denise Nickerson), a resident of Windcliff Sanitarium. This episode initially aired on November 26, 1968. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Touted by 20th Century-Fox as a follow-up to their enormously successful The Sound of Music, Star! reteams that earlier film's leading lady Julie Andrews and director Robert Wise. Andrews plays legendary musical comedy star Gertrude Lawrence, while Daniel Massey appears as Lawrence's friend, co-worker and severest critic Noel Coward (Massey's real-life godfather). The film jumps back and forth in continuity at times, its transitions bridged by fabricated newsreel footage; essentially, however, William Fairchild's script traces Lawrence's progress from ambitious bit actress to the toast of London and Broadway. Her success is offset by a stormy private life, which is given some ballast when she falls in love with an American financier (Richard Crenna). The film is way too long for its own good, though the musical set pieces -- especially the Andrews-Massey duets -- are superb. Julie Andrews welcomed the chance of playing a character as far removed from her goody-two-shoes heroine in Sound of Music as possible; Gertrude Lawrence was temperamental, sarcastic, profane and at times self-destructive, and Andrews makes a meal of the role. Unfortunately, Andrews' fans, conditioned by the Fox publicity machine to expect a continuation of Sound of Music, rejected her outright in this "new" characterization. Star! was a huge box-office bomb, so much so that Fox desperately attempted a shortened re-release under a misleading new title, Those Were The Happy Times. They weren't: it remained a financial disaster, though it has developed a loyal cult following in recent years. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Julie Andrews, Richard Crenna, (more)
It's a seemingly peaceful spring morning in New York City -- graduation day at the Police Academy -- and Police Commissioner Anthony X. Russell (Henry Fonda) is looking forward to giving a speech to the new officers. But all isn't well: Russell's been given apparently incontrovertible evidence that his oldest friend, Chief Inspector Charles Kane (James Whitmore), is shaking down a bar owner, and a black minister (Raymond St. Jacques) is claiming that his son was brutalized when he was picked up for questioning in a rape/assault case. Then Russell gets a call informing him that two first-grade detectives, Daniel Madigan (Richard Widmark) and Rocco Bonaro (Harry Guardino), allowed small-time hood Barney Benesch (Steve Ihnat) to get the drop on them, steal their guns, and escape while they were trying to pick him up for questioning at the request of Brooklyn detectives -- and Benesch is now a suspect in that earlier murder in Brooklyn. Madigan has other problems, including the fact that the commissioner -- his ex-captain -- doesn't trust him, always believing him to be a loose cannon who has taken advantage of the badge in accepting favors and cutting corners where peoples' rights were concerned. Madigan also has a beautiful, upwardly mobile wife (Inger Stevens) who loves him but can't abide all the time his job takes him away from her or crimps her socializing; and he has never fully gotten over Jonesy (Sheree North), a saloon singer he knew before he was married. Madigan and Bonaro are given 72 hours to bring in Benesch and begin beating the bushes for leads. They get help from "Midget" Castiglione (Michael Dunn), a bookmaker and an old enemy of Benesch's, and a nervous, long-haired punk named Hughie (Don Stroud). While the clock ticks away on Madigan's and Bonaro's careers, the commissioner must decide how to deal with Kane, whose father -- also a police officer -- was like his own, and he must also fathom how a four-star chief could be involved with anything as tawdry as pressuring a tavern owner. Russell genuinely believes that there must be "one standard, one rule" for any member of the department, but in the course of this one weekend, he finds this notion shattered by what he discovers about Madigan, King, and himself. Meanwhile, Benesch is still on the loose, acting like a complete psycho and a threat to anyone who crosses his path. Russell's and Madigan's paths finally cross personally, as the detective proves -- and the commissioner discovers -- just how good a cop he is. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Richard Widmark, Henry Fonda, (more)
Clint Eastwood stars as Walt Coogan, an Arizona deputy sheriff who has been sent to New York City to extradite escaped killer James Ringerman (Don Stroud). On arrival, he's forced to wait by NYPD detective Lieutenant McElroy (Lee J. Cobb), who informs him that Ringerman is recovering from a bad acid trip at Bellevue Hospital. After briefly flirting with attractive probation officer Julie Roth (Susan Clark), Coogan heads for Bellevue, where he's able to con the hospital's staff into releasing the criminal. The cop and the fugitive are on the way to catch a flight back to Arizona, when Ringerman's hippie girlfriend Linny (Tisha Sterling) and a large accomplice spirit the killer away, leaving Coogan unconscious. Luckily, Julie is the girl's probation officer, and Coogan manages to get her address from the woman's files while getting to know her better. He tracks the girl to a popular psychedelic club, whereupon, deciding she likes the deputy, she takes him back to her apartment for further interrogation. The first in a series of films on which Eastwood would collaborate with director Don Siegel, it features a memorable scene in which a battle fought with billiard balls and cue sticks suggests the birth of a new martial art. Although its seemingly innocuous scenes of sex and violence drew criticism at the time, it served as the source for television's considerably more benign McCloud, starring Dennis Weaver as the laconic fish out of water. ~ Michael Costello, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Clint Eastwood, Lee J. Cobb, (more)
- 1968
Schuyler (Kirk Douglas) is a hard-boiled detective who turns in his badge when he believes the criminals are being handled with kid gloves and too much respect. He is hired by prominent attorney Fredericks (Eli Wallach) as a bodyguard for his client Rena (Sylva Koscina), who is accused of murdering her husband. Her playboy boyfriend Fleming (Kenneth Haigh) is also under suspicion. Schuylur keeps one eye on his beautiful suspect while trying to uncover more information about the murder. Fredericks displays a disarming, folksy nature which belies his shrewdness. The detective soon comes to believe that Rena is being framed for the murder. Singer Jackie Wilson delivers the song "A Lovely Way To Die" during the opening credits of this murder mystery. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Kirk Douglas, Sylva Koscina, (more)
- 1966
Escorting Carolyn back to Collinwood, Burke confronts Carolyn's mother, Elizabeth, with an ultimatum. If his demands are not meant, Burke threatens to reveal a secret that will destroy everyone in the Collins family. This episode first aired on July 11, 1966. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1966
Victoria (Alexandra Moltke) tells Burke (Mitchell Ryan) that Roger and Malloy quarrelled on the night of Malloy's death. Burke offers his version of the auto accident which sent him to prison ten years earlier. Sam (David Ford) tries to retrieve a letter which he'd written to his daughter, Maggie (Kathryn Leigh Scott). This episode originally aired on September 19, 1966. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1966
Victoria Winters, a young woman in search of her past, arrives in the New England town of Collinsport. She has received an offer to be governess to David Collins, son of Roger Collins, mysterious master of Collinwood, who doesn't welcome the girl's arrival. En route, Victoria makes the acquaintance of the sinister-looking Burke Devlin and nervous young waitress Maggie Evans. This first episode of the "gothic" daytime drama Dark Shadows originally aired on June 27, 1966. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1944
Marjorie Main's first solo starring vehicle for MGM finds the formidable character actress cast as a tough-but-tender female outlaw. Living on her tumbledown ranch in Oklahoma territory, Annie Goss (Main) shelters her desperado sons (Henry Morgan, Paul Langton) from the authorities. While planning to pull up stakes and return to Missouri, the Goss family befriends marshal Lloyd Richland (James Craig), who suspects that Annie's offspring are responsible for a recent train robbery, but is hesitant to arrest them because he believes that their motivations were noble. Likewise befriended by Gentle Annie and her brood is a stranded waitress named Mary Lingen (Donna Reed), with whom Richland falls in love. If the film can be said to have a villain, it is surly Sheriff Tatum (Barton MacLane), who unlike the soft-hearted Richland is determined to uphold the letter of the law. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- James Craig, Donna Reed, (more)
Mike Nichols lends some comic structure to Carrie Fisher's best-selling confessional novel concerning a woman's struggles with drug addiction and mother-daughter rivalry (subjects Fisher admits to understanding all too well). Meryl Streep, in her most full-blown comic performance up to that point, plays Suzanne Vale, a popular movie actress well on her way to a Hollywood crack-up. Suzanne suffers from blackouts and memory lapses, and awakens in the beds of men she doesn't remember; she is a barely-functioning wreck on the set of her latest movie. When a coke dealer who delivers stops by her dressing room between takes, she swiftly finds herself being rushed to the hospital, suffering the effects of a narcotics bender. While in detox, Suzanne attempts to piece her life and career back together, but her confidence is shattered when her mother arrives at the rehab clinic -- Doris Mann, a famed film icon from the 1950s and 1960s (Shirley MacLaine). Doris is soon soaking up the adulation and applause of Suzanne's fellow recovering drug addicts. Upon Suzanne's release, she must compete with her mother for attention and fame as she tries to walk a thin line as a recovering drug abuser. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Meryl Streep, Shirley MacLaine, (more)
- 1979
- R
In this comedy, three middle-aged men renew their boyhood friendship at a stag party and hatch a crazy scheme that involves making money off of a luscious prostitute. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
Up The Sandbox is a complex and difficult film, and it is ambiguous on many points, particularly on whether the protagonist Margaret Reynolds (Barbara Streisand) is a women's liberationist, a closet lesbian, or a masochist. Based on the novel by Anne Richardson Rolphe, it follows Margaret's attempts to tell her husband that she is pregnant with yet another child. The everyday events of her life are punctuated by numerous and complex fantasy sequences which reveal her fears and her desires. It is clear that she is afraid that she and her husband Paul (David Selby) are growing apart -- and that he may be having an affair. Despite the increasingly elaborate and frantic nature of her fantasies, her disclosure, when she finally makes it, has happy results. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Barbra Streisand, David Selby, (more)
- 1969
- R
Last Summer is a frank coming-of-age tale that refuses to prettify its young characters or their activities. A group of aimless teens get together for sex, drugs and rock-and-roll on Fire Island. Timid, overweight Rhonda (Catherine Burns) is goaded into aberrant behavior by her peers, especially the promiscuous Sandy (Barbara Hershey). Enjoying Rhonda's discomfiture, Sandy encourages the boys in the group to gang-rape the poor girl. It was this scene, the first of its kind in a general-release American picture, that earned Last Summer its initial X rating. The film was later judiciously trimmed to qualify for an R rating without blunting its dramatic impact. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Barbara Hershey, Richard Thomas, (more)
One of Woody Allen's earlier, more slapstick-oriented efforts, Bananas tells the story of Fielding Mellish (Allen), a neurotic New Yorker who follows the object of his affections, Nancy (Louise Lasser), to the fictional Central American country of San Marcos, where she is involved in a revolution. Nancy wants nothing to do with Fielding, but he soon becomes a guest of the country's dictator (Carlos Montalban), before accidentally becoming the leader of San Marcos himself. Fielding is eventually shipped back to the US and tried as a subversive, but being that this is a comedy, and an especially light one at that, everything works out in the end. A far cry from Allen's later, more somber films, Bananas still works as an often hilarious amalgam of sight gags, one-liners, and bizarre asides. ~ Don Kaye, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Woody Allen, Louise Lasser, (more)
