Wendy Hughes Movies

A teenage girl from the coastal town of Robe in South Australia realizes that hoping for change just isn't enough as she sets out in search of the father she never knew. Seventeen year old Emily (Victoria Thane) lives with her single mother Susan (Susie Porter) in a sleepy seaside town. Emily never knew her father, a man her mother claims was just a drifting summer tourist who wandered into town one day before disappearing without a trace. Susan's devoutly religious parents were mortified when their daughter got pregnant at the age of fifteen, and ever since she had Emily she's been struggling to forget the past. Kindly local Stephen lost his wife and baby daughter in a tragic accident, and remains haunted by the incident to this very day. In Stephen Emily sees a surrogate father, and in Emily Stephen sees the daughter his baby daughter could have grown into. Though Stephen's sister Elizabeth is married to local policeman Carl, she suspects that her husband is currently engaged in a clandestine extramarital affair. Could Carl be Emily's real father? If so, what would that mean for Emily's relationship with Elizabeth and Carl's teenage son Joel? Perhaps by summoning some much needed courage, Emily can bring about the change in her life that she so desperately craves. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

This caustic Australian comedy is meant to burn those commercial interests who sponsor artists for tax breaks. It also a sexually unresponsive wife's revenge against her cheating husband. Heiress Georgina Oliphant, the daughter of pharmaceutical magnate George Oliphant is on a mission to find a sculptor suitable of her father's sponsorship. Normally, George doesn't give a hoot about art, but tax time approaches and he needs a big deduction. Since large bronze statues are 100% deductible, that's what he wants. Georgina comes through with the lesbian sculptor Lily Carmichael who suggests a detailed male nude, sans fig leaf. For her model, lily chooses unemployed hunk Karl-Heinz Applebaum who at first doesn't realize he is to model totally nude. Fortunately, coquettish Georgina is around to convince him to shed those clothes. He soon begins looking forward to the sessions much to the dismay of his frowsy, sexually frosty wife Cecilia, a devout member of the "Center for Synchronic Awareness," an esoteric religious cult which is headed by the oily, avaricious Baba Charles whose picture Cecilia has placed throughout her home (Aussie film buffs may recognize the photo as that of director Rolf de Heer, a rival of this film's director Paul Cox). Soon enough, her husband and Georgina become lovers causing Cecilia to hatch an elaborate plot for revenge, a plot in which the financially beleaguered George Oliphant unwittingly assists by having her pose with her husband for an even larger, more tax deductible sculpture. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Beginning its first (short) season just after ABC's telecast of the 1993 Super Bowl, Homicide: Life on the Street gets under way as rookie detective Tim Bayliss (Kyle Secor) joins the Baltimore, MD, police department's homicide division. Almost immediately, Bayliss is teamed with veteran cop Frank Pembleton (Andre Braugher) to investigate the murder of 11-year-old Adena Watson -- a frustrating case that will haunt Bayliss for the rest of his career. In other story arcs, the normally indolent Steve Crossetti (Jon Polito) is galvanized into action when his former partner, Officer Chris Thormann (Lee Tergesen), is blinded in a shoot-out; ambitious female detective Kay Howard (Melissa Leo) finds herself attracted to States' Attorney Danvers (Zeljko Ivanek); and resident "old timer" Det. Stanley Bolander (Ned Beatty) (aka "The Big Man") falls in love with forensics specialist Dr. Carol Blythe (Wendy Hughes). The inaugural season's nine-episode run ends as one of the detective's wives announces her pregnancy. Two Emmys were bestowed upon Homicide: Life on the Street during season one; producer/director Barry Levinson won for his helming of the opening episode, while producer/writer Tom Fontana was honored for his script work on the episode "Three Men and Adena." ~ All Movie Guide

Originally telecast in the prime time slot following the 1993 Super Bowl, episode one of Homicide: Life on the Street wastes no time getting started, introducing the viewer to a myriad of characters and no fewer than three murder cases. Newly arrived at the Baltimore PD homicide division from the mayor's office, rookie detective Tim Bayliss (Kyle Secor) is assigned by Lt. Al Giardello (Yaphet Kotto) to investigate a brutal strangulation. Bayliss is teamed with Frank Pembleton (Andre Braugher), the division's prickly lone wolf who balks at working with a partner. Other cases on the "board" involve a woman who has evidently murdered several husbands for the insurance, an assignment given to detectives Medrick Lewis (Clark Johnson) and Steve Crosetti (Jon Polito); the hit-and-run killing of Jenny Goode, a three-month-old case reopened by detectives Stan Bolander (Ned Beatty) and John Munch (Richard Belzer); and a fourth murder, one which Sgt. Kay Howard (Melissa Leo) would rather handle on her own so as not to jeopardize her winning "cases solved" streak, but one for which Howard is reluctantly teamed with Detective Beau Felton (Daniel Baldwin). Barry Levinson won an Emmy award for his direction of this episode. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Crossetti (Jon Polito) insists upon handling the case of his ex-partner Thormann (Edie Falco), who was shot in the head on assignment. Bayliss (Kyle Secor) is becoming increasingly frustrated by the dead ends in the Watson killing, the most recent being a raid on the dead girl's house. Felton (Daniel Baldwin) may have found the evidence necessary for Lewis (Clark Johnson) to tighten the noose around "black widow" Calpurnia Church (Mary Jefferson). And a dispute over a bust of Maryland's own Spiro Agnew leads to tragedy. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Worn out by the dead-end investigation of the Watson killing, Bayliss (Kyle Secor) turns on the obstreperous Capt. Barnfather (Clayton LeBouef) and calls him a "butthead." As his ex-partner Thormann (Edie Falco) recovers from her wounds, Crosetti (Jon Polito) closes in on the man whom he thinks pulled the trigger -- and who seems eager to confess whether he's guilty or not. While investigating a double murder, Munch (Richard Belzer) becomes fed up with being constantly compared to Bolander's (Ned Beatty) former partner. And Pembleton (Andre Braugher) and Felton (Daniel Baldwin) search for a car that may be crucial to the outcome of a case. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Donor is a variation on a familiar theme, played to the hilt by a topnotch cast. Doctor Melissa Gilbert-Brinkman is shocked when her close friend is strangled by an elderly patient. Before she has a chance to investigate, the killer himself dies in a mysterious accident. Probing further, Melissa deduces that the hospital administators are hiding something from her. She's right: there's a conspiracy in the making, and it's all traceable to a new organ-donor program. Pernell Roberts and Jack Scalia costar in Donor, which made its broadcast premiere December 9, 1990. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this made-for-HBO thriller, Pierce Brosnan stars as an ex-convict who seeks revenge on the racetrack partner (Tom Skerritt) who framed him. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide

As the brainchild of writer-director-producer Donald Wrye, the 14 1/2 hour ABC movie event Amerika marked one of the most expensive and controversial miniseries in the history of prime time television when it bowed over the course of seven nights in February of 1987. Regarded as something of a conservative counterpoint to Nicholas Meyer's The Day After (which screened on ABC, four years prior and allegedly demonstrated leftwing bias - prompting very outspoken criticisms from Republican pundit Ben Stein), this $40 million production imagines a dystopian future set in the late 1990s. When the drama opens in May of 1997, the Russians have effectively won the Cold War by wresting control over the United States, with the backing of a U.N. Peacekeeping Force. Although the initial takeover was not annihilative or even apparently violent, the consequences are overwhelming; a puppet leader holds court in the Oval Office, the American economy has fallen to pieces with Midwesterners lining up for vegetables, and gulag prisons are scattered across the land; meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of refugees have hit the countryside and wander aimlessly. The majority of the action unfurls in a rural Nebraska community, where onetime antiwar protester and presidential candidate Devin Milford (Kris Kristofferson) has just been released from a gulag, and now discovers his family farm being whittled away by the Russians. Meanwhile, his childhood friend Peter Bradford has somehow landed a position in the government hierarchy and finds himself being drawn in more deeply. Across the land, Russian stormtroopers engage in acts of violent intimidation, such as burning farmhouses and brainwashing abductees, while the Russian occupiers systematically maneuver on the political front to bring the once-powerful republic tumbling down. The supporting cast includes Christine Lahti, Wendy Hughes, Sam Neill, Armin Mueller-Stahl and many others; the title, of course, was intended to reflect "America" as modified to a slightly more Russian spelling. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide

With her first husband locked in a mental hospital, a woman re-marries and begins to find a normal life. Too bad for her--the nutcake husband is released and comes back for a visit. ~ All Movie Guide

Filmed in Australia, the TV miniseries Return to Eden stars Rebecca Gilling as a wealthy young woman whose husband tries to murder her. Left for dead, she survives and assumes a new identity in order to exact vengeance on her treacherous hubby. This three-part, six-hour miniseries debuted in syndication beginning on Oct 27, 1984. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Classical music DJ John Hargreaves neglects his wife Wendy Hughes, who responds by entering into an illicit romance. Upon finding out, Hargreaves leaves Hughes, but doesn't want to tell his parents; they'd never liked Hughes, and he isn't in the mood for a chorus of "I told you so"s. What is already painful for Hargreaves is amplified when his dying father, suspecting that something's wrong, lectures his son on the sanctity of marriage--even a bad one. Director Paul Cox used the Australian My First Wife as a kind of catharsis, to purge himself of ill-will concerning the bust-up of his own marriage. The film won three Australian academy awards, including one for the reluctantly revelatory Cox. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide