Ken James Movies

Di Drew directed the family-friendly film Hildegarde. Life has been difficult for Kim Powell (Tara Morice) and her three children ever since the family patriarch passed away. After a pair of local bird smugglers "ducknap" their pet Hildegarde, Kim's children -- Chris (Sam Geer), Jeremy (Dayne Hudson), and Isabel (Gezelle Byrnes) -- team up to stop the illegal poachers and save all their feathered friends. Hildegarde was screened at the Brisbane Film Festival. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide

Ken Russell's Dogboys is set at a southern prison. The title of the film comes from the prisoners who are used to train the attack dogs employed to stop escapes. DA Jennifer Dern (Tia Carrere) is investigating the prison's warden (Bryan Brown). She puts one of her men inside the prison, but he ends up dead from one of the dogs. Inmate Julian Taylor (Dean Cain) finds a partial picture of a man in with the blood from the mole's death. While keeping himself free of attack and harm in the prison, Taylor and Dern team up to reveal the truth about the warden, and stop his sadistic practices. Dogboys was made-for-television. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide

A young man with ESP is alarmed to discover that his girlfriend is slated to become a serial killer's next victim. When no one believes him, he attempts to stop the killer himself and made-for-cable terror ensues. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Based on the factual book by Ann Rule, Small Sacrifices was original telecast in two parts. Farrah Fawcett continues to successfully obliterate the Charlie's Angels onus in the role of real-life US postal worker Diane Downs. Part One of the film was set in Willamete Valley, Oregon, in 1983. Mrs. Downs drives her three children to the local hospital's emergency entrance: one child is already dead, and the other two have been seriously wounded. Diane claims that the killer was a man who'd tried to steal her car. But in Part Two, prosecutor John Shea rips apart Diane's story in court. What comes to surface is a tawdry tale of a neurotic, narcissistic woman who is pushed over the edge when spurned by her lover (played by Ms. Fawcett's offscreen companion Ryan O'Neal). As difficult as Small Sacrifices was to watch during its initial telecast in November 1989, it has since been rendered doubly disturbing by the more recent tragic events surrounding South Carolina housewife Susan Smith. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Self-made man Corletto wants his son to be properly educated. The kid sees no value in this, reasoning that if his dad made it without a diploma, he can too. The younger Corletto soon discovers that the School of Hard Knocks just isn't enough to cut it in today's world. Designed for teen and preteen audiences,the 27-minute Corletto and Son avoids making speeches, illustrating its thesis in an entertaining and palatable fashion. The film was put together by Modern Curriculum Productions. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This provocative Canadian drama observes the aftermath of a passionate incestuous affair between a brother and sister. Afterwards the two are appalled and split up. The brother heads for the city where he gets involved with another woman. Soon after moving in with her, he discovers that his sister is also in the city and that she has become a prostitute. He begins searching for her in the worst areas of town. During his journey he meets a variety of sleazeballs and scumbags until at last the siblings are reunited and able to make peace with each other. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Mixing a tongue-in-cheek approach with thriller action, this routine caper story features Christopher Plummer as James Hatcher -- a businessman who has just double-crossed both the CIA and the Mafia and has to hide out -- and Richard Harris as Louis Kinney, an unemployed accountant who takes on the job of bodyguard to Hatcher's sister and mother. Eventually, both the CIA and the Mafia catch on to the fact that they have been mutually bilked out of $10 million by Hatcher, but they are further befuddled when Hatcher manages to portray Kinney as a murderer. This, of course, sets Kinney off on a manhunt for Hatcher, who is now most-wanted by just about everybody. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

This is the story of a group of aging wrestlers nickel-and-diming it on the Canadian circuit. William Smith, a well known second-string actor, plays a former wrestling headliner, now down on his luck. The plot is motivated by a romantic triangle involving Smith, up-and-coming grappler Brian Patrick Clark, and well-endowed leading lady Micheline Lanctot. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The scene is Canada in the 1940s. Fledgling reporter Harry Barnes (Stuart Gillard) finds his dreams of journalistic fame dampened by the disillusioned older journalists surrounding him. Harry never does get that "big scoop," but he does excel in the romance department. After a brief assignation with the publisher's wife (Patricia Gage) he thrills coworker Julia Martin (Tiiu Leek) by becoming a firebrand leader of the newspaper union movement (never mind that he's drunk at the time). Why Rock the Boat? is a 1974 release of the National Film Board of Canada. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The fact that The Last Gunfighter is a Canadian western is an oddity in itself. Gilding the lily is the fact that it's really an anti-western, exploding a lot of the mythology that sagebrush fans hold dear. Gunman Don Borisenko is hired by the townsfolk to mete out justice to a cruel land baron. Instead, Borisenko gets romantically involved with Tass Tory, the wife of a local farmer. When the smoke clears, the gunman has killed the rancher, and the farmer has killed the gunman. This bleak endeavor has also been released as Hired Gun and The Devil's Spawn. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide