Fredric Lehne Movies
Supporting actor, onscreen from 1980. ~ All Movie Guide- 1980
The issue of forced school busing is explored with an unfortunately heavy hand in All God's Children. Richard Widmark plays a judge who is tortured with guilt after a school bus is stolen. The robbery was a prank, committed as a reaction to the judge's ruling that selected black students must be bused to white schools, and vice versa. The vehicle was appropriated by two high schoolers, one black, one white. The film's tension arises from the fact that a burned-beyond-recognition body was found in the wreckage; the families of both boys wait in anguish to discover the identity of a victim, while the rest of the community threatens to erupt into violence no matter what the outcome of the autopsy. All God's Children was first telecast April 20, 1980. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1987
Made for television, American Harvest is set in the heartland of Kansas. Two proud, stubborn families have not spoken to one another because of an incident in the distant past. Wayne Rogers, the patriarch of one of the families, is in danger of losing his wheat farm. He knows that his land will be saved if he patches things up with rival farmer Earl Holliman, but such a reconciliation is out of the question--at least, until the film's final twenty minutes. American Harvest premiered on January 16, 1987. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
The fourth in a seemingly endless parade of Amityville sequels, this passable TV knock-off features an item of possessed furniture from the notorious haunted house -- a concept inspired by a series of novels by John G. Jones and exploited in no less than three films of the series. This time it's a lava lamp from the accursed site that houses the evil, traveling cross-country from an Amityville garage sale (now there's a title for a sequel) to an oceanfront California estate, whereupon it releases the demonic forces within to exert their vile influence on a young girl by assuming the form of her late father. To this end, the demon animates various household appliances to whittle down the cast in death scenes which are neither shocking nor original -- much like the rest of this film. ~ Cavett Binion, All Movie Guide
- 1980
The sequel to the popular 1979 TV movie And Baby Makes Six, Baby Comes Home reteams Colleen Dewhurst and Warren Oates as middle-agers who find themselves the parents of a newborn child. The first film dealt with the impact of the 47-year-old mother's unexpected pregnancy on her three grown children, as well as on her own well-ordered lifestyle. The sequel concentrates on the alienating effect that Dewhurst's affection towards her baby has on the rest of her family. Both And Baby Makes Six and Baby Comes Home were intended as pilot films for a weekly series, though one wonders if the ever-busy Colleen Dewhurst would have found the time to star in such a project. The point is a moot one: The series never sold. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1995
On the verge of death, the Emperor of Centauri (Turhan Bey) hopes to negotiate honorable peace with the Narn. Instead, a power struggle blossoms into an all-out war, with Nondo in the middle. And former B5 Commander Sinclair makes unexpected contact with Garibaldi, delivering a message which could well determine the fate of everyone on the space station. First telecast on February 1, 1995, "The Coming of Shadows" was written by J. Michael Straczynski. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bruce Boxleitner, Claudia Christian, (more)
A man proves that hope can grow in the flintiest of soil in this made-for-TV drama for the family. A farming community is struggling to survive a severe drought when a mysterious stranger named Harvey Potter (Rip Torn) arrives in town. Potter rents a farm, a move which is believed to be the height of foolishness by his new neighbors, but one day a local child, Willow (Mara Wilson), passes by Potter's field to discover that it's full of colorful balloons. Willow is convinced that Potter has found a way to grow balloons, and while her mother Casey (Laurie Metcalf) knows better, she sees that Potter has brought an excitement and joy back into the lives of the town's children that had been all but snuffed out by the recent dry spell. Willow thinks that Potter knows some sort of magic, and Casey considers him to be a well-meaning eccentric, but a few of the locals are convinced that he has something dangerous up his sleeve. Disney's Balloon Farm was based on the book Harvey Potter's Balloon Farm by Jerdine Nolen; it premiered on the television anthology series The Wonderful World of Disney. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
Having lived his life as the gardener on a millionaire's estate, Chance (Peter Sellers) knows of the real world only what he has seen on TV. When his benefactor dies, Chance walks aimlessly into the streets of Washington D.C., where he is struck by a car owned by wealthy Eve Rand (Shirley MacLaine). Identifying himself, the confused man mutters "Chance...gardener," which Eve takes to be "Chauncey Gardiner." Eve takes him to her home to convalesce, and because Chance is so well-dressed and well-groomed, and because he speaks in such a cultured tone, everyone in her orbit assumes that "Chauncey Gardiner" must be a man of profound intelligence. No matter what he says, it is interpreted as a pearl of wisdom and insight. He rises to the top of Washington society, where his simplistic responses to the most difficult questions (responses usually related to his gardening experience) are highly prized by the town's movers and shakers. In fact, there is serious consideration given to running Chance as a presidential candidate. Both a modern fable and a political satire, Being There was based on the novel by Jerzy Kosinski and costars Melvyn Douglas, who won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar as Eve's aging power-broker husband. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Peter Sellers, Shirley MacLaine, (more)
Billionaire Boys Club is the two-part TV adaptation of a book by Sue Horton (unpublished at the time of the film's first telecast). In flashback form, the story recounts the murder of Beverly Hills con artist Ron Levin (Ron Silver). The culprit is yuppie Joe Hunt (Judd Nelson), a sharp young commodities trader who has organized an investment firm with several of his prep school buddies, known as the Billionaire Boys Club. Part one, originally telecast November 8, 1987, traces Hunt's meteoric rise to wealth and power, and the means by which Levin worms his way into Hunt's confidence. In part two, shown the next evening, Hunt has already murdered Levin and carefully disposed of the body. The next step of the scheme is take over where Levin left off by conning an Iranian millionaire out of a huge sum of money. Meanwhile, other members of the Club begin to have qualms over Hunt's finagling. Their whistle-blowing leads to Hunt's arrest and convinction for murder. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Judd Nelson, Ron Silver, (more)
- 2001
Having resolved the series' first-season cliffhanger with the life-saving gesture of CSI second-in-command Catherine Willows (Marg Helgenberger) (the life saved was that of Catherine's boss, Gil Grissom [William L. Peterson]), CSI: Crime Scene Investigation was able to go off on a new tangent for its second-season opener. The case at hand: the drug-related death of Las Vegas casino executive Tony Braun. Early evidence suggests that Braun OD'ed on heroin, but further investigation reveals that the victim was bound with duct tape just before his demise. Grissom's conclusion: Braun was forced to literally drug himself to death. Originally slated to air on September 20, 2001, "Burked" was moved back one week due to ongoing network coverage of the 9/11 tragedy. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1981
Made for television, the pacifist philosophy of a Georgia preacher (Kenny Rogers) and his nephew are tested when the nephew's girlfriend is raped. ~ John Bush, All Movie Guide
- 1991
Made for cable TV, the story involves a wealthy man who believes that a series of people have wronged him during his life. He invites the seven persons to his private island under the pretense of rewarding them for their good deeds, but they soon find out that his plan is much more devious. ~ John Bush, All Movie Guide
A man discovers that what he doesn't know can hurt him, especially when it comes to his wife, in this suspense drama. Ray Reardon (James Spader) is an architect who has just gone through a messy divorce; while his friends sing the praises of the single life, Ray would prefer to settle into a life of middle-class domesticity with a home, wife, and family. Ray meets a beautiful but mysterious woman named Lena (Madchen Amick) at a party, and for him it's love at first sight; while she remains elusive, Ray pursues her avidly, and before long he proposes, even though he doesn't know her especially well. A few years later, they're seemingly happily married with children. But Lena's behavior starts to become erratic and depressive, and she is no longer willing to account for where she's been or what she's been doing. Ray is convinced that Lena has been having an affair and begins doing some research into her past; he soon discovers her previous life bears little resemblance to what she told him and that she's been lying to him about nearly every part of her history and their relationship. Lena contends that she's just "a regular screwed-up person," but in time, Ray realizes that there's a purpose behind her duplicity: she's trying to convince people that he is insane. Dream Lover was the directorial debut of screenwriter Nicholas Kazan. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- James Spader, Mädchen Amick, (more)
- 1997
The death of Gant causes a major blowup between Carter (Noah Wyle) and Benton (Eriq La Salle). Ross (George Clooney) uncovers some facts about battered homeless teen Charlie (Kirsten Dunst). HIV-positive Jeanie (Gloria Reuben) dates Greg Fischer (Harry J. Lennix), a specialist in infectious disease. And woefully understaffed during the nurses' "sick-out," Carol (Julianna Marguiles) makes a fatal error in judgment. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Foxes details the exploits of four teenage San Fernando Valley girls as they drink, dope and sleep their way into oblivion. Jeanie (Jodie Foster, in a standout performance), the most grounded of the quartet, deals with her burned-out working-student-mother (Sally Kellerman, also excellent) while playing mother to her cohorts; Annie (Cherie Curie), a promiscuous drug-vacuum, attempts to dodge her psychotic police officer-father while partying round the clock; Madge (Marilyn Kagan), an overweight tag-along, who tries desperately to fit in with her wilder friends; and Deirdre (Kandice Stroh); an insecure liar and also-ran. While the performances (particularly the aforementioned) are good, and the direction is solid, the script doesn't seem to go anywhere; maybe that's the point, though, since neither do the characters in their vacuous, instant-gratification-based existences. ~ Jeremy Beday, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jodie Foster, Scott Baio, (more)
- 2004
The 48 survivors of a mid-air plane disaster dazedly gather their wits about them in the opening episode of the ABC hit series Lost. Marooned on an island somewhere in the Pacific, the survivors must now rely upon their inner strength -- and each other -- to stay alive, having been stripped of virtually all vestiges of civilization. Making matters worse is the island's harsh, almost impenetrable terrain and bizarre variety of animal life. Emerging as the most prominent of the castaways in the opener are Jack (Matthew Fox), a somber doctor who frantically helps survivors who are clinging to life, and Kate (Evangeline Lilly), a beautiful and mysterious survivor who seems to be a concerned do-gooder. The two meet when she reluctantly agrees to suture a wound on his back despite having no medical experience. On the first night after the crash, the survivors are terrified by the loud animal-like roar of something large rustling around in the jungle -- even the trees shake with its presence. The next day, along with washed-up rock star Charlie (Dominic Monaghan), Kate and Jack venture out to find the front end of the plane -- and hopefully the plane's transceiver (radio transmitter) -- in the jungle. This two-hour pilot episode was originally telecast in two separate installments. ~ All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- L. Scott Caldwell, Fredric Lehne, (more)
- 2004
In the conclusion of Lost's two-part series opener, the individual character traits of the survivors of a mid-air plane disaster come into sharper focus. While Jack (Matthew Fox), a troubled doctor, Kate (Evangeline Lilly), a mysterious, concerned survivor, and washed-up rock star Charlie (Dominic Monaghan) have gone to look for the front end of the plane in the jungle, the others get to know each other. Among the remaining survivors who are trapped on that somewhat surrealistic Pacific island are perennial jokester Hurley (Jorge Garcia), eternally bickering siblings Shannon (Maggie Grace) and Boone (Ian Somerhalder), nervous Korean couple Mr. and Mrs. Kwon (Daniel Dae Kim, Yunjin Kim), hair-trigger-tempered Sawyer (Josh Holloway), former Iraqi Republican Guard Sayid (Naveen Andrews), father and son Michael and Walt, very pregnant Aussie Claire (Emilie de Ravin)...and the secretive and possibly slightly sinister Locke (Terry O'Quinn). Still reeling from a close encounter with a terrifying (though unseen) beast in the jungle, Jack, Kate, and Charlie return to the beach with the transceiver, hoping that someone will be able to get it working. Not only are some of the surviving passengers not getting along very well, but the group later encounters an incongruous animal in the jungle and finds that there may have been a dangerous prisoner on board the plane. ~ All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Fredric Lehne
- 2004
The title of this episode translates as "Blank Slate," which is as good a way as any to describe what the 48 survivors of a mid-air plane crash truly know and understand about one another as they acclimate themselves to their new Pacific-island surroundings. Almost as mysterious as the strange topography and stranger wildlife of the island is the clouded past of Kate (Evangeline Lilly), who, it is revealed through flashback, was a recently a fugitive on the run. Only one passenger, who may be dying, knows her secret...until he passes it on to two other survivors. Meanwhile, the mysterious Locke (Terry O'Quinn) forms a bond with young Walt (Malcolm David Kelley), much to the dismay of Walt's father, Michael (Harold Perrineau). ~ All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Fredric Lehne, Nick Tate, (more)
- 1985
In its own mild, unobtrusive manner, the made-for-TV Love is Never Silent managed to knock an all-star adaptation of Alice in Wonderland out of the ratings box when it was first telecast on December 9, 1985. Based on the Joanne Greenberg novel In This Sign, the film stars Mare Winningham as a normally functioning woman with deaf parents. Using sign language, Winningham has spent most of her Depression-era childhood as her parents' only conduit to the outside world. When a close family friend (Sid Caesar in a towering non-comic performance) asks Winningham if she isn't sacrificing the opportunity for happiness on her own, she carefully considers his words. She marries Frederick Lehne, at which point her embittered parents close off their relationship with their daughter. How Ms. Winningham manages to bridge this gap is the focus of the film's final scenes. The parents are played by Ed Waterstreet and Phyllis Frelich, longtime members of the National Theatre for the Deaf. The Emmy-winning Love is Never Silent was originally presented as a Hallmark Hall of Fame special. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Mare Winningham
- 1988
Man Against the Mob is a variation on the 1981 theatrical feature True Confessions. This made-for-TV effort stars George Peppard as a tough LA cop in the late 1940s. Investigating a brutal homicide, Peppard discovers that the killing is more than the sex crime it seems to be at first glance. The trail of evidence leads Peppard to a group of visiting Chicago mobsters, and ultimately to several of Los Angeles' more "respectable" citizens. Man Against the Mob is ordinary at best, but thanks to George Peppard's performance the film scored excellent ratings when first telecast in 1988. A 1989 TV-movie followup, Man Against the Mob: The Chinatown Murders failed to match the ratings of the first effort. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
A reporter (Ally Sheedy) sneaks into a lab to investigate animal cruelty, and emerges from the ordeal with a mastiff named Max in this 1993 thriller. The dog, which has been genetically enhanced, makes her life miserable while they are being chased by the owner of the lab (Lance Henriksen). ~ John Bush, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ally Sheedy, Lance Henriksen, (more)
- 1987
In the final episode of Murder, She Wrote's third season, Jessica (Angela Lansbury) shows up at a studio to record one of her "Mystery Books for the Blind." Halfway through her recording session, the electricity fails and the studio is plunged into a blackout. When the lights come up again, it is revealed that the studio's co-owner has been murdered. Naturally, the "wrong person" is accused of the crime, obliging Jessica to set things right by exposing the real culprit--and this being a recording studio, rest assured that the most important clue will be aural rather than visual. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1996
Now that Andy Sipowicz' son Andy Jr. (Michael DeLuise) has decided to join the Hackensack police force, Andy Sr. (Dennis Franz) feels it is his bounden duty to offer professional advice. Back on the job, Sipowicz and Bobby Simone (Jimmy Smits) join forces with Detective Martina Escobar (Wanda DeJesus) -- against whom Andy has held a long-standing grudge -- to investigate a bizarre string of child murders in which the victims are thrown from high buildings. And the precinct is sharply divided along gender lines over how Martinez (Nicholas Turturro) and Diane (Kim Delaney) are handling a case of date rape. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Robert Redford's directorial debut ended up the 1980 Oscar winner for Best Picture. It is a simple but painfully emotional story of the disintegration of a "perfect" family. Teenager Conrad (Timothy Hutton) lives under a cloud of guilt after his brother drowns after their boat capsizes in Lake Michigan. Despite intensive therapy sessions with his psychiatrist (Judd Hirsch), Conrad can't shake the belief that he should have died instead of his brother; nor do his preoccupied parents (Donald Sutherland and Mary Tyler Moore) offer much in the way of solace. The boy is brought out of his doldrums through his romance with Jeannine (Elizabeth McGovern). A winner in every respect, Ordinary People (adapted from the novel by Judith Guest) scores highest in the scenes with Mary Tyler Moore, who superbly and perceptively portrays a blinkered, ever-smiling suburban wife and mother for whom outward appearance is all that matters. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Donald Sutherland, Mary Tyler Moore, (more)
- 1997
Mary Tyler Moore is reunited with her onetime sitcom costar Edward Asner in this anything-but-funny TV movie melodrama. While closing down her restaurant late one night, Kathryn Stanfill (Moore) notices a prowler hanging around outside. She quickly summons the police, only to stand by in horror as one of the cops, a loose cannon named Brian Kaleen (Frederick Lehne), brutally and without provocation beats the prowler within an inch of his life. Jack Patkanis (Asner), the police department's Internal Affairs investigator, has long suspected that there have been a few rotten apples like Kaleen on the force, and urges Kathryn to report the beating. Suspended from the force, the psychotic Kaleen methodically mounts a campaign of revenge, using his police-department and political connections to financially destroy Kathryn's husband (Dennis Arndt) and frame her son (Adam Scott) on a murder charge. Payback was first telecast by ABC on February 10, 1997. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Mary Tyler Moore, Ed Asner, (more)
- 1980
Seizure: The Story of Kathy Morris is a fact-based TV movie, inspired by a book by Charles L. Mee. Penelope Milford stars as Kathy Morris, a 22-year-old Manhattan-based songstress. Kathy undergoes brain surgery to halt her occasional seizures. Unfortunately, her brain begins swelling, resulting in severe neurological damage. In a surprisingly dispassionate fashion, the film chronicles how Ms. Morris overcomes her handicap with the help of a skilled but brusque doctor (Leonard Nimoy), whose solicitous attitude towards his patient results in a reconciliation with his estranged wife. The Felliniesque climax of Seizure: The Story of Kathy Morris finds the real Kathy Morris taking over from Penelope Milford during a singing engagement. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
