Hope Lange Movies
The daughter of show folk, Hope Lange was 12 when she appeared in her first Broadway play, Sidney Kingsley's The Patriots. Fourteen years later, with dozens of plays and TV programs to her credit, Lange made her screen debut in Bus Stop (1956), managing to garner critical and audience attention despite her omnipresent co-star Marilyn Monroe (Lange's first husband was Bus Stop leading man Don Murray). Signed to a 20th Century Fox contract, Lange was Oscar nominated for her performance in Peyton Place (1957) and was equally impressive in such films as The Young Lions (1957) and The Best of Everything (1959).In the early 1960s, Lange was briefly linked romantically with Glenn Ford, who insisted that she co-star with him in Pocketful of Miracles, a fact that inspired a stream of published invective from the film's director, Frank Capra, who'd wanted Shirley Jones for the part. Despite Capra's reservations in regards to her acting ability, Lange continued to prosper as a film actress until turning to TV in 1968 as star of the weekly The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, a project that would earn her two Emmys. She then spent three years in a thankless "supportive housewife" part in The New Dick Van Dyke Show. In 1974, Lange received some of her best reviews in years for her work in Death Wish -- in which she spent most of her time in a coma before expiring in Reel Two! Subsequent projects in which Lange was involved included the 1977 play Same Time Next Year and the first of the Nightmare on Elm Street films. Hope Lange was first married to Don Murray, then producer/director Alan J. Pakula. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1973
Hope Lange plays Karen Chandler, a 36-year-old wife and mother. After living in quiet desperation for several years, she suddenly decides to leave her family to seek a new life in the cutthroat world of big business. Part of Karen's "liberation" involves (surprise!) a new romance. Earl Holliman plays Lange's husband, while Michael Murphy is her new heartthrob. One of the kindlier efforts in the "finding oneself" genre, the made-for-TV I Love You... Goodbye originally aired February 12, 1974. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Hope Lange, Earl Holliman, (more)
- 1972
The Emmy-winning writing team of Richard Levinson and William Link was the creative forced behind the landmark TV movie That Certain Summer. Hal Holbrook stars as a middle-aged divorced man, whose son Scott Jacoby cannot fathom the reason for his parents' split. During a summer visit, Jacoby meets his father's much-younger "best friend," Martin Sheen. Holbrook hedges, but finds he can no longer hold back the truth from his son: Sheen is Holbrook's male lover. Hope Lange costars as Holbrook's ex-wife, who struggles to come to grips with her former husband's sexual preferences, and who encourages him to reveal all to his son. Originally telecast on November 1, 1972, That Certain Summer was the first TV film to take a mature and non-remonstrative approach to the subject of homosexuality--and like many "firsts," the film seems a bit timid when seen today. Levinson and Link were compelled by the network to include short self-deprecating speeches describing the gay life as something of a sickness, one that Holbrook would in his heart of hearts prefer not to pursue. Still, it was as adult as a TV movie could get in those more restrictive times, and doesn't date as badly as it might. In fact, the only truly dated element of That Certain Summer is the self-consciously arty direction of Lamont Johnson. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1972
Alex Karras stars as a naive backwoods strong-man, whose acute ability to lift weights brings him to the attention of a slick sports promoter (James Franciscus). Karras is carefully groomed to compete in the 1972 Olympics; Franciscus gives him explicit instructions to flex his muscles, tote his weights, and to steer clear of trouble. But the bucolic muscle-man upsets the apple-cart by falling in love with a beautiful Russian gymnast (Claudia Butenuth). Karras innocently enmeshes the American team in a hot-potato International incident. Telecast some three months after the actual Olympics (allowing for plenty of stock footage of the real games), 500 Pound Jerk has become a perennial local-station entry, suitable for weekend showings whenever a sports event is suddenly cancelled. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1970
Crowhaven Farm is a contrived creepy-crawly originally telecast on The ABC Movie of the Week. Hope Lange is probably the last person you'd expect to see in the middle of a witchcraft/reincarnation plot, but there she is, in the company of Paul Burke, Lloyd Bochner and (who else?) John Carradine. Lange and Bochner have the largest roles, playing a bickering couple who inherit a farm and adopt a child (Cindy Eilbacher). Maybe they should have checked the adoption papers a little more carefully; the thing of it is, their new kid seems to be possessed with the soul of a centuries-old witch. Some effective scary setpieces in John McGreevrey's script occasionally lift Crowhaven Farm out of the ordinary. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Those who worried that the Disney studio would collapse without the presence of the late Uncle Walt were put at ease when the profits starting rolling in for The Love Bug. The "star" is Herbie, a lovable little Volkswagen with a personality all its own. Abused by a bad guy race-car driver (David Tomlinson), Herbie is rescued by a good guy racer (Dean Jones). Out of gratitude, Herbie enables the luckless good guy to win one race after another. The real fun begins when the ruthless hot-rodder connives to get Herbie back through fair means or foul. Based on a story by Gordon Buford, The Love Bug inspired two equally lucrative sequels, Herbie Rides Again and Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Dean Jones, Michele Lee, (more)
- 1968
In this thriller, Jonathan Fields (Bradford Dillman) awakens in a strange apartment and finds a dead woman floating in the bathtub after he suffered an LSD-flashback the night before. Finding blood upon his hand, he can only wonder how he is involved in the woman's death. He hires private detective Arthur Belding (Harry Guardino) who has him take another dose of LSD in order to see if he can remember what had happened. They learn that Fields' co-worker Lew Haley (Pat Hingle) had slipped acid into his coffee as part of a blackmail conspiracy. Haley was after his girlfriend and after his job in a government think tank. They also learn that his supervisor Dr. Arkroyd (Victor Jory) had been in a relationship with the deceased woman. She too was being blackmailed by Haley, who killed her when she threatened to call the cops. Dr. Arkroyd knew about it all and did nothing. Eventually Fields and Haley fight it out. The blackmailer ends up crashing through a high-rise window and falling to the unforgiving pavement below. Hope Lang, Susan Saint James, James Doohan and Michael J. Pollard also star in this psychedelic murder mystery. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Harry Guardino, Bradford Dillman, (more)
- 1966
The fourth season of The Fugitive begins with the series' first color episode, as Dr. Richard Kimble (David Janssen), wrongfully accused of murder, continues his search for the One-Armed Man who killed his wife--even as the relentless Lt. Gerard (Barry Morse) steps up his efforts to recapture Kimble. On this occasion, Kimble is using the alias "David Morrow" as he arrives in Arizona, where Sheriff Prycer (Arch Johnson) is waiting to arrest him. Though Kimble eludes the trap, Prycer's deputy Steel (Mark Richman) is certain that he has wounded the fugitive and disobeys the Sheriff's orders to give up the chase. Meanwhile, Kimble has taken refuge in an Indian school, where he finds a kindred spirit in lonely teacher Annie Johnson (Hope Lange). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1963
In this light romantic comedy Charles Boyer plays the enigmatic Mr. Pimm, a man with a Cupid complex who grooms men to be paired with the ideal wealthy heiress, and once heavenly matrimony is attained, Mr. Pimm gets his cut. He has his eyes set on Millie (Hope Lange) for the handsome but somewhat inept Gaspard (Ricardo Montalban) and knowing that love might need a nudge or two, he places Davis (Glenn Ford) in Millie's home as a chauffeur who will help Gaspard whenever he can. Millie has her own ideas about the most irresistible man around -- and he is not Gaspard. Meanwhile, Gaspard agrees with Millie because there is someone else on his horizon as well. Telly Savalas shines in an early role as Millie's gourmet uncle. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Glenn Ford, Hope Lange, (more)
Rock 'n roll king Elvis Presley stars as Glenn Talbot, a country boy with a problem temper and a yen for literary greatness in this typical Presley vehicle directed by Philip Dunne. After Glenn is sent packing by his father for mixing it up one too many times with his brother, the court makes him a ward of his uncle. His inner turmoil leads him into therapy with the older and very attractive Irene (Hope Lange), a patient-doctor relationship that is misconstrued by their small town. The two spend a platonic night in the same room in a motel, but no one is believing it was innocent. Glenn's romantic interests include Noreen (Tuesday Weld), with whom he shares a drink or two or more, and a song, and Betty Lee (Millie Perkins). Between the singing and carousing and fist fights, it still looks like a happy resolution looms large on the horizon. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Elvis Presley, Hope Lange, (more)
Director Frank Capra's last feature film, Pocketful of Miracles is a Technicolor remake of his 1933 film Lady for a Day. A barely recognizable Bette Davis plays Apple Annie, the besotted, unkempt, rag-clad street vendor who controls the activities of all the beggars on Broadway. Apple Annie is the pet of Dave the Dude (Glenn Ford), a tough but basically kind-hearted gangster who believes that Annie's apples bring him luck. One morning, Annie fails to show up at her usual corner. That's because she is sitting disconsolate in her squalid shack, contemplating suicide. The reason: Annie has received a letter from her daughter Louise (Ann-Margret, in her screen debut). Annie has been supporting Louise's high-priced European education, leading the girl to believe that she, Annie, is a high-society dowager. Now Louise is returning home with her wealthy fiance Carlos Romero (Peter Mann) in tow, and it looks as though Annie's cover will be blown to bits. Partly out of sympathy, but mostly because of his superstitious belief in the power of Annie's apples, Dave the Dude arranges with his Broadway cohorts to "doll up" Annie so that she can pass as a woman of means, then stage-manages a huge, expensive reception for Louise and her beau. The complications that ensued in the original 1933 version of Lady for a Day exercise their prerogative once more, with a few added plot twists to pad out Glenn Ford's screen time. Cutting through the sentimental goo like a machete is Peter Falk, who is hilarious as Dave the Dude's sarcastic bodyguard. Evidently, Falk was one of the few actors on the set of Pocketful of Miracles with which Capra remained sympatico throughout shooting. In his autobiography (a not altogether reliable tome), Capra insisted that Pocketful of Miracles was ruined by Glenn Ford's autocratic and self-serving on-set behavior, and by Ford's demand that his current lady friend Hope Lange be (mis)cast as brash nightclub chirp Queenie Martin. As usual, Capra was not telling the whole story: at 63, he was beginning to lose his grip on his movie-making skills, allowing every scene to run well past its value and concentrating on cute isolated "bits" rather than the story at hand. Way too long at 136 minutes (Lady for a Day ran but 90), Pocketful of Miracles still has a lot going for it, especially the glowing performance of Bette Davis and the basic, foolproof Damon Runyon story on which it is based. While it disappointed at the box office, Miracles has since its release become a Christmastime TV perennial, seldom failing to draw big ratings numbers. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Glenn Ford, Bette Davis, (more)
A star-studded cast enlivens this glossy '50s soap opera, based on a novel by Rona Jaffe. The action unfolds at the Gotham-based Fabian Publishing, where numerous women work as typists under the aegis of power-wielding, shark-like editor Amanda Farrow (Joan Crawford). Farrow has achieved wealth and success, but is far from idolized by her underlings, who understand clearly that their boss has chalked up all of her accomplishments at the expense of a satisfying personal life. Caroline Bender (Hope Lange) is a recent graduate of a prestigious women's college whose sole desire in life is to marry her college sweetheart Eddie (Brett Halsey; she admits openly that she cares little for power, ambition or career advancement. She gets a job in the secretarial pool of Fabian Publishing and soon takes an apartment with some female co-workers. Caroline quickly realizes that she has a catbird seat to witness the romantic entanglements and office politics of Fabian's many female employees. Farrow is having an affair with a mysterious married man, and Caroline's roommates have tales of their own to tell: April (Diane Baker) has become pregnant by the unscrupulous Dexter (Robert Evans), who suggests she have an abortion; and Gregg (Suzy Parker) has become involved with smooth-talking Broadway director David Wilder Savage (Louis Jourdan), not the most faithful man in the world. Robert Evans's career as an actor came to an end after this film, and he later enjoyed success as a studio head at Paramount Pictures in the 1970s, supervising The Godfather, and serving as producer of such films as Chinatown and Marathon Man. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Hope Lange, Stephen Boyd, (more)
- 1958
Based on the Anton Myrer novel The Big War, In Love and War is an entertaining showcase for several of 20th Century-Fox's younger contract players. Robert Wagner, Jeffrey Hunter and Bradford Dillman plays three young San Francisco residents who sign up for the Marines at the outbreak of WW2. The film traces the progress of all three in the Pacific "theater of operations", emphasizing the characters' individual strengths and shortcomings. One of the men is a gung-ho patriot, the second is a perennial goof-off, and the third hopes to prove his worth to his wealthy father. The women in the three protagonists' lives are played by Sheree North, Hope Lange, France Nuyen, and Dana Wynter, the latter delivering a powerhouse performance in an extremely difficult role. Providing comic counterpart to the more serious goings-on is nightclub comedian Mort Sahl, making his screen debut in a tailor-made role as an eternal griper. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Robert Wagner, Dana Wynter, (more)
Though several concessions to the censors and the box-office were made in adapting Irwin Shaw's bestseller The Young Lions to the screen, the end result is generally effective and satisfying. Set during World War 2, the film concentrates on three individuals, one German, two American. Marlon Brando plays an idealistic German whose early fascination with Nazism leads to doubt and disillusionment. American entertainer Dean Martin, on the verge of the Big Time, does his best to dodge the draft but ends up in uniform all the same. And American Jew Montgomery Clift, so sensitive that he's practically breakable, must come to grips with anti-Semitism, not only from the Germans but also from his fellow soldiers. Romance enters the picture in the form of Hope Lange as Clift's gentile girlfrind, Barbara Rush as the socialite who shames Martin into joining up, and May Britt as Brando's vis-a-vis. Screenwriter Edward Anhalt was obliged to shoehorn in a boot-camp sequence indicating that the Brass disapproved of the bigoted behavior of Clift's topkick Lee van Cleef (as if racism was a mere aberration during the 1940s), and to "slightly" alter the ending of the book, in which the embittered but still patriotic Brando character, shouting "Welcome to Germany!," machine-guns the Martin and Clift characters (in the film, it is Brando who bites the dust, symbolically dying for Hitler's sins). Maximillian Schell offers a starmaking turn as Brando's cynical comrade, while an uncredited John Banner, "Sergeant Schultz" on Hogan's Heroes, shows up as a pompous burgomeister who feigns ignorance of the hellish concentration camp in his community. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Marlon Brando, Montgomery Clift, (more)
Actually, this retelling of the life of outlaw Jesse James is only as true as its predecessor, the highly fanciful 1939 Tyrone Power-Henry Fonda starrer Jesse James. Generous chunks of stock footage from the earlier film are reused here, albeit reframed to accommodate the CinemaScope process. Robert Wagner makes an interesting James, though he is upstaged throughout by Jeffrey Hunter as his brother Frank. Adhering to the Canon, the film insists that the James boys were forced into a life of crime by greedy railroad men -- hence, their ongoing vendetta against trains. Director Nicholas Ray adds a few psychological nuances not found in the more prosaic 1939 film. John Carradine, who played "dirty little coward" Bob Ford in the original Jesse James, appears in the remake as Rev. Jethro Bailey. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Robert Wagner, Jeffrey Hunter, (more)
Grace Metalious' once-notorious bestseller Peyton Place is given a lavish -- and necessarily toned-down -- film treatment in this deluxe 20th Century-Fox production. Set during WWII, the film concentrates on several denizens of the outwardly respectable New England community of Peyton Place. Top-billed Lana Turner plays shopkeeper Constance McKenzie, who tries to make up for a past indiscretion -- which resulted in her illegitimate daughter Allison (Diane Varsi) -- by adopting a chaste, prudish attitude towards all things sexual. In spite of herself, Constance can't help but be attracted to handsome new teacher Michael Rossi (Lee Philips). Meanwhile, the restless Allison, who'd like to be as footloose and fancy-free as the town's "fast girl" Betty Anderson (Terry Moore), falls sincerely in love with mixed-up mama's boy Norman Page (Russ Tamblyn). And while all this is going on, "white trash" Selena Cross (Hope Lange) is raped by her stepfather, drunken school caretaker Lucas Cross (Arthur Kennedy). Other characters essential to the action are wealthy Rodney Harrington (Barry Coe), who must pay the price for his dalliance with Betty Anderson; Nellie Cross (Betty Field), Selena's long-suffering mother; and the town's Voice of Reason, Dr. Swain (Lloyd Nolan). This 166-minute soap opera (whittled down to 157 minutes before release) culminates in a spectacular murder trial which lays bare the deep, dark secrets of Peyton Place. Filmed on location in Camden, Maine, Peyton Place was a huge moneymaker (even those who felt that the film was but a heavily laundered shadow of the Metalious original were pleased with the professionalism of it all); it not only spawned a 1961 theatrical sequel, but also a long-running prime time TV serial. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Lana Turner, Hope Lange, (more)
In this cinemadaptation of William Inge's Broadway comedy Bus Stop, Marilyn Monroe is cast as Cherie, a fifth-rate nightclub chanteuse who captures the heart of Montana rodeo champ Bo (Don Murray). He, in turn, kidnaps Cherie and bundles her off to the roadside bus stop of the title. Gradually, the headstrong Bo learns that you can't rope a gal the same way you lasso a steer, but before this happens his face is rearranged by gallant bus driver Carl (Robert Bray). By this time, however, Cherie has fallen in love with her impulsive but basically good-hearted abductor. Others in the cast include Arthur O'Connell as Bo's level-headed travelling companion and "protector" Virgil, Betty Field as down-to-earth bus stop proprietress Grace, and Eileen Heckart as Cherie's confidante Vera. The film later inspired a 1961 TV series. A few TV prints of Bus Stop still exist bearing the alternate title Wrong Kind of Girl. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Marilyn Monroe, Don Murray, (more)
