Michael Lerner Movies

Psychologist Don Murray investigates the claim of Nobel prize winning scientist Ray Milland, who insists he has spoken to his young daughter. The thing of it is, the daughter has been dead for several weeks. At first dismissing the claims as the delusions of a grief-stricken man, Murray decides to stick with the case when he notices that the Government is acutely interested in Milland's ethereal "conversations". As the story unfolds, we learn that the apparitions are tied in with a complicated espionage plot. Daughter of the Mind was one of the first high-quality offerings of ABC's Movie of the Week series. The film also represented the TV-movie debut of Gene Tierney, as the other woman in the scientist's life. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Made on the heels of Paul Mazursky's Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, this cinematic experiment is one of the director's more personal films. With a big tip-'o-the-hat to Fellini's 8 1/2 (to make sure no one misses the references to the film, Federico Fellini appears in a cameo), Alex in Wonderland centers on a young director (Donald Sutherland) who feels compelled to follow his recent box-office hit with another blockbuster. While mulling over this dilemma, the director's mind wanders to his past, his present, and probable future. One of the film's memorable sequences involves a restaging of the Vietnam War in downtown Hollywood. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Somewhere in San Francisco there lurks a phony cab driver who is setting his male customers to be drugged, mugged and robbed. The faux cabbie is a member of a clever gang of credit-card thieves, and Ironside (Raymond Burr) is determined to stop him--especially after one of the victims turns up dead. Following the suspect, Ironside and his assistants are able to locate the gang, only to find that the crooks are a lot more dangerous--and a lot more resourceful--than first suspected. James Drury, formerly the upright leading man of the TV western The Virginian, delivers a startling performance in this episode. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

In this comedy drama, an ingenious young woman from the Bronx impersonates a socialite so she can con a confused old man out of his money. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

Sally Field and Robert Pratt star as newlyweds Jane and L.T. in this feature-length pilot for an unsold weekly series. Born into wealth, Jane is quite unprepared for her life with farm-bred medical student L.T., especially when the couple move into what may be the tiniest apartment in the least attractive neighborhood of Chicago. Still, Love Finds a Way, even on L.T.'s penurious salary. Had this project gone to series, it would have either been a half-hour sitcom or an hour-long dramedy. This point proved moot when the first NBC telecast of Marriage: Year One on October 15, 1971, also turned out to be the last. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

The title characters in this episode are two pretty but avaricious young ladies, a flight attendant and a nurse, who specialize in using their sexual wiles to entrap unwary males and "take" them for all they've got. Evidently the girls have gone one step too far with one of their victims, who has broken into their apartment and murdered them both. Stone (Karl Malden and Keller (Michael Douglas) follow the trail of clues to the home of an outwardly respectable married couple, jewelry salesman Arthur Lavery (Harold Gould) and his wife Edna (Barbara Baxley). ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

"What do we do now?" Director Michael Ritchie and executive producer/star Robert Redford satirically explore the machinations and manipulations of media-age political campaigns in this cynical political drama. Rumpled left-wing California lawyer Bill McKay (Redford), the son of a former governor (Melvyn Douglas), is enlisted by campaign maestro Marvin Lucas (Peter Boyle) to challenge Republican incumbent Crocker Jarmon (Don Porter) for his Senate seat. McKay agrees, but only if he can say exactly what he thinks. That approach is all well and good when McKay does not seem to have a chance, but things change when his honesty unexpectedly captivates the electorate. As McKay inches up in the polls, Lucas and company start to do what it takes to win, leaving McKay to ponder the consequences of his political seduction. Working without studio interference from a script by Jeremy Larner, a speechwriter for 1968 Presidential candidate Eugene McCarthy, Ritchie enhanced the behind-the-scenes realism of Larner's insights with a realistic, cinéma vérité approach. He orchestrated a campaign parade for "candidate" Redford that drew such a considerable unstaged audience that local politicians wanted to draft Redford for a real election. Redford's resemblance to the telegenic Kennedys, and his character's resonance with the future career of California governor Jerry Brown, only emphasized how close to the bone The Candidate was (and is). Released the fateful year of Richard Nixon's reelection, the film garnered accolades, if not substantial box office; Larner won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay and thanked the "politicians of our time" for inspiration. Creating a documentary fiction about the semi-truths manufactured to market a candidate, The Candidate shrewdly exposed the effects of the media on the increasingly cynical political process, posing unanswerable questions that have become all the more pressing with every soundbite-ruled election. ~ Lucia Bozzola, Rovi

Neither his parents nor the emergency staff of Rampart Hospital can figure out why a young boy is apparently choking to death. In other cases, a youngster dives off a roof, and a blind grandfather is trapped in a house fire with his infant grandson. And in the episode's obligatory humorous subplot, John (Randolph Mantooth) vows to be 100 percent honest for the rest of his life after a slight prevarication results in a brush with death (so to speak). ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Reflections of Murder is an admitted remake of the 1955 French spinetingler Diabolique (we say "admitted" because most Diabolique rip-offs fail to credit the source). Joan Hackett is unhappily married to Sam Waterston. Tuesday Weld is Waterston's equally disenchanted mistress. Hackett and Weld conspire to murder the hateful Waterston, but he proves hard to kill. Even after he's breathed his last, Waterston steadfastly refuses to stay dead-and thus the stage is set for the twist- countertwist climax. Filmed at Puget Sound, Reflections of Murder was one of the last made-for-TV projects of director John Badham; it was first aired November 24, 1974. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Set amidst the tumult and grit of the inner city, this blaxploitation outing centers on the devious exploits of drug-dealing gangsters. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

In the first episode of a two-part story, Alec Morris (John Carter), a terrified computer programmer for Fiscal Dynamics Incorporated, comes to Jim Rockford (James Garner) for help, only to be promptly kindapped. Following up this puzzling incident on behalf of Morris' wife Helen (Priscilla Pointer), Jim finds out that there's a major coverup in the works--and that he is up against some very powerful people who will stop at nothing to prevent him from learning the whole truth. Al Stevenson makes his first series appearance in the recurring role of L.J., an old pal of Jim's dad Rocky (Noah Beery Jr.). ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

A Cry for Help (working title: End of the Line) stars Robert Culp as an acerbic, Don Imus-like radio talk show host. When one of his callers, an anxious young woman, threatens to kill herself, Culp laughs it off. Later, however, he realizes that the girl wasn't kidding, and mounts a frantic effort-with the help of his loyal audience-to locate the would-be suicide. Richard Levinson and William Link's script stretches the tension level to the snapping point, and you'll love every minute of it. Made for television, A Cry for Help originally aired February 12, 1975. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi