Barbara Barrie Movies
Born Barbara Berman, Barrie was a supporting actress onscreen from 1956, when she appeared in the James Dean vehicle Giant. She won Cannes Film Fetival Best Actress Award for her star role in One Potato, Two Potato. Barrie was nominated for Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her work in Breaking Away. ~ All Movie Guide
Actor/director Carl T. Evans pulls double duty on both sides of the camera to weave this paranoid tale of a New Jersey police detective who stumbles into a far-reaching government conspiracy. Evans teams with screenwriter/producer Charles Kipps to pen an original screenplay, and Chris Noth co-stars as a college professor who remains skeptical of the detective's outrageous claims. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Carl T. Evans, Chris Noth, (more)
Writer Eric Weber (author of the infamous paperback How to Pick Up Girls) directs his screenplay Second Best. Set in New Jersey, the story concerns a group of fiftysomething men dealing with their feelings of inadequacy. Struggling writer Elliot (Joe Pantoliano) is the most desperate of the bunch, having failed in the publishing business and trying to finish writing a screenplay. The group prepares for a visit from their old childhood friend who is now a big-time Hollywood producer. Elliot hopes this visit will lead to bigger things in his own life. Also starring Boyd Gaines, Jennifer Tilly, and Bronson Pinchot, Second Best was shown at the Sundance Film Festival in 2004 as part of the American Spectrum competition. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Boyd Gaines, Jennifer Tilly, (more)
Twenty-something L.A. hipsters make some earnest and not-so-earnest attempts at growing up in this ensemble comedy-drama from writer/director Gil Cates Jr., which premiered at the 2000 South-by-Southwest Film Festival in Austin, TX. The film's central dysfunctional relationship concerns Max (Jason London), a writer who agrees to give up his gambling habit for his significant other Brigette (Charlie Spradling) -- but only if she promises to give up her drinking habit. Meanwhile, Max's buddy Doug attempts to hound none other than Jack Nicholson (who does not appear in the film) in hopes that the perma-smirk star will produce his script. To this end, he employs the comely Brigette to woo the superstar at a Lakers game. On the home front, Max's roomie Grant (James Parks) is struggling with the issue of his closeted sexuality -- and more specifically, with the massive crush he harbors for his strapping rent-sharer. Spent is the first feature from Cates, whose father is veteran TV producer/director Gilbert Cates; his cousin is actress Phoebe Cates. ~ Michael Hastings, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jason London, Charlie Spradling, (more)
- 1999
Writer-director Aaron Harnick debuts with this quirky romantic comedy set in New York. Jordan (Ben Shenkman) works in his father's upscale liquor shop. Over the years, he has honed both his wine-tasting skills and a deep fear of commitment. One day, he goes on a blind date with Sarah (Arija Bareikis), a television casting director. Before he knows it, he is engaged to her, and she is introducing him to her parents. Meanwhile, Jordan's childhood buddies are themselves starting to settle down, especially Brad (Thomas McCarthy), who is marrying Sarah's friend Lauren (Catherine Kellner). As the wedding plans plod along, Jordan's panic mounts. This film was screened at the 1999 Toronto Film Festival. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ben Shenkman, Arija Bareikis, (more)
Judy Berlin allows the audience to take a glimpse of a day at once strange and ordinary with the residents of Babylon, Long Island. Judy (Edie Falco) is an aspiring actress who is quitting her job as a "pilgrim" in a local historical museum's display to take her chances in Los Angeles. Her mother is a gifted but bitter schoolteacher (Barbara Barrie) who has long loved principal Arthur Gold (Bob Dishy) from afar. However, Arthur has a wife, Alice (Madeline Kahn), who's more than a bit eccentric and has driven him to distraction. Arthur and Alice have a son, David (Aaron Harnick), who like Judy has showbiz aspirations (he wants to be a filmmaker), though unlike Judy he has no idea of what to do about it; when Judy and David meet, could romance be lurking around the corner? First-time director Eric Mendelsohn has equipped this offbeat comic drama an outstanding cast, which also includes Julie Kavner, Anne Meara, and Novella Nelson. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Barbara Barrie, Bob Dishy, (more)
It is hardly an unusual occurrence when the Minneapolis airport is snowed in...even on Christmas eve, stranding thousands of disgruntled tourists. What makes this particular snowbound evening a bit different from others is the identity of two would-be flyers who must wait out the blizzard before they can take off to their respective destinations. Maddie Parker (JoBeth Williams), on the verge of divorcing her briefly unfaithful husband, has arrived at the terminal with sister and daughters, en route to her mother (Dina Merrill)'s house in Chicago. At the same time, Maddie's sportswriter husband, Matt (Michael Ontkean), who plans to visit his dad in Miami, is likewise cooling his heels in the selfsame terminal. Thus thrust together, Maddie and Matt are given ample time to decide if they ought to give their relationship a second chance. Meanwhile, long-married older couple Earl and Ruth Pulmer (Charles Durning and Barbara Barrie), battle-scarred veterans of many a domestic skirmish, benignly stand on the sidelines and kibitz. Although the conclusion of the film is foregone, getting there is half the fun. A Chance of Snow made its cable TV debut via the Lifetime network on December 7, 1998. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- JoBeth Williams, Michael Ontkean, (more)
- 1994
This much-ballyhooed TV miniseries sequel to Gone with the Wind finds former Agent 007 Timothy Dalton reprising the tough-to-fill shoes of Clark Gable's Rhett Butler, and former Val Kilmer spouse Joanne Whalley-Kilmer beating out thousands of hopefuls to play what was once Vivien Leigh's Scarlett O'Hara role. Loosely based on Alexandra Ripley's sequel novel, the film finds our heroine traversing the country to win back Rhett but inadvertently becoming pregnant with Rhett's baby and absconding to Ireland to raise the tyke. There, she becomes indoctrinated into a royal clan. ~ Michael Hastings, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Joanne Whalley, Timothy Dalton, (more)
Based on the story of real breast-cancer survivor Joyce Wadler, this drama follows the noted journalist on her quest to stay alive and rebuild her life after she receives news of her potentially fatal condition. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Meredith Baxter, Jamey Sheridan, (more)
- 1992
The discovery of a nude woman's body in a Manhattan elevator, six months after a similar discovery in another state, indicates that a serial killer is at large. The police manage to collar the killer, whereupon assistant D.A. Stone (Michael Moriarty) endeavors to have the accused stand trial in New York. But his efforts may be thwarted by the parents of the killer's previous victim, who intend to have the man tried in their own state -- where the death penalty is all but mandatory in such cases. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1990
Flowers for Matty was one of a smattering of 2-hour Kojak TV dramas presented on the 1989-90 series The ABC Saturday Mystery Movie. Theo Kojak, now a police inspector, takes on the case of a murdered author. The dead man was just about to publish an inflammatory book about mob activities. There's an overabundance of suspects, chief among them guest star Angie Dickinson. Dickinson plays a TV talk show hostess and the wife of the murdered man. She also happens to be the former love of Theo Kojak. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Telly Savalas
- 1990
At last count, there were approximately eight million made-for-TV Christmas movies. Well, maybe not, but they sure are hard to tell apart. Guess Who's Coming for Christmas adds a soupcon of ET to the plum pudding by having Beau Bridges wander into a small, impoverished town and claim that he's an extraterrestrial. Bridges befriends town "character" Richard Mulligan, who enjoys his company even if he doesn't completely believe that Man From Mars talk. This being a whimsical concoction, there's all sorts of evidence that Bridges is telling the truth--which of course renews the Christmas spirit in everyone concerned. Incidentally, Beau Bridges is a mall operator on his home planet; hope he's brought along lots of gift coupons. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Richard Mulligan, Beau Bridges, (more)
- 1989
When she becomes pregnant, Annie May Bonner (Alexandra Paul) is kicked out of the house by her wealthy, intolerant father Matthew (Ned Beatty) in this Depression-era melodrama. Annie May marries Jesse (Dee Law), the father of her baby and the son of Matthew's lumber foreman Byron Monroe (Brian Keith), but Annie May's father considers Jesse an undesirable. Even when Matthew's wife Rachel (Barbara Barrie) dies of heartbreak, the stubborn father refuses to allow Annie May and Jesse into the family. The happy couple soon produce four children who may never know their grandfather. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Alexandra Paul, Ned Beatty, (more)
An ageing widow's relationship with an ex-flame is re-ignited when she runs into her former boyfriend at a class reunion in this warmhearted tale of middle-aged romance starring Bea Arthur, Richard Kiley, and Joan Van Ark. Despite their rekindled feelings, the pair soon finds their powerful connection threatened when the woman discovers that her new beau is involved in a May-December romance with a much younger woman. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- 1988
Made for television, Winnie is adapted from the fact-based book Winnie: My Life in the Institution by Jamie Paster Bolnick. Meredith Baxter-Birney plays Winnie Sprockett, who at age 6 is adjudged moderately retarded and confined to an Iowa mental institution. After being locked away for 30 years, Winnie campaigns for her release, attempting to write a book of her experiences. At one point she escapes with a fellow patient (David Morse). Through the intervention of a compassionate administrator (Barbara Barrie), Winnie is at last allowed to re-enter the outside world. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1986
Vital Signs stars Ed Asner and Gary Cole as father and son, both prominent surgeons. Asner's skills have diminished as his alcoholism increases. Cole returns to his home town to straighten his dad out. What no one knows is that Cole himself is a substance abuser, addicted to morphine. After several near-disasters and squabbling denials, father and son make a mutual pact to wean themselves away from their addictions--with tragic results. Vital Signs is a better than average "affliction of the week" TV movie. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1985
Five Holocaust survivors conspire to have revenge upon the Nazi doctor who tormented them in this taut made-for-TV drama. All five are women living in Los Angeles and all have vividly painful memories of the atrocities he performed upon them. The memories come flooding back when they find him innocently running a local restaurant. Realizing that no one else will help them, the ladies conspire to kill him. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1982
In this romantic comedy, an attorney finds himself frustrated when his lovely fiance, a marine biologist insists on remaining celibate until her wedding night. The film is also known as Perfect Affair. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1982
Though Two of a Kind was hardly George Burns' television debut, it was his first dramatic TV appearance. Burns is cast as Ross "Boppy" Minor, who is shunted away to a nursing home by his unfeeling son-in-law Cliff Robertson. Robby Benson co-stars as Nolie Minor, Boppy's mentally retarded grandson. Both outcasts from "normal" society, Nolie and Boppy form a strong bond in this touching domestic drama. An Emmy Award went to songwriters James Di Pasquale and Dory Previn for their theme song "We'll Win the World." Two of a Kind first aired October 9, 1982. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- George Burns, Robby Benson, (more)
- 1981
Frederic Lehne stars as the real-life Tom Butterfield, a college student distressed by the plight of homeless children. He'd like to adopt a few of these kids, but Missouri law prohibits such a circumstance for an unmarried man. At great personal cost to himself both financially and emotionally, the 21-year-old Butterfield becomes the youngest single adult ever to be granted a foster-parent license, using this privilege to set up a Boy's Town-like home for unwanted youngsters. Lehne's costar is Michelle Pfeiffer, on the threshold of bigger things. Tom Butterfield, the subject of The Children Nobody Wanted, died less than a year after this TV movie's debut. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Fredric Lehne
- 1981
This tribute to the late Lorraine Hansberry is featured in this video. Learn of her experiences as a black artist in America, from her visit to the South and on to Harlem. ~ All Movie Guide
- 1980
The autobiography of Harold Krent, Butterflies Are Free, is the basis for this made-for-television drama about a blind collegian and his struggle to be treated like any other law student. ~ Kristie Hassen, All Movie Guide
The phenomenal success of the 1977 ABC miniseries Roots all but demanded a sequel to writer Alex Haley's epic story of his African and African-American forebears. Debuting February 18, 1979, Roots: The Next Generations picked up where its predecessor left off, with Haley's slave ancestors winning their freedom in the aftermath of the Civil War. Even so, life for black Americans was wrought with hardship and oppression thanks to the rise of the Ku Klux Klan, the staunch refusal of the white power structure to pass anti-lynching laws, and the formation of the dreaded Jim Crow laws which legalized racial segregation in the South (and much of the North). Covering the period from 1882 to the mid-1970s, the miniseries first focuses on blacksmith Tom Harvey (Georg Stanford Brown), great-grandson of Kunta Kinte (the protagonist of the original Roots), and his family. Meanwhile, reacting to the marriage of his son to a black woman, anal-retentive Southern colonel Warner (Henry Fonda) begins setting the legal wheels in motion to deny blacks like Tom the right to vote and to hold "white" jobs. A few decades later, Tom's son-in-law encourages his fellow blacks to stand firm against the KKK's reign of terror. His labors on behalf of his race are rewarded when his daughter Bertha (Irene Cara) becomes the first descendant of Kunta Kinte to receive a college education. It is Bertha Palmer who weds the equally ambitious Simon Haley (Dorian Harewood), who goes on to serve in WWI and to organize farmers and sharecroppers during the Depression. Simon's son Alex (played at various ages by Kristoff St. John, Damon Evans, and finally James Earl Jones) is just as determined to succeed in a white man's world as his father, and to that end becomes a professional writer after his own service stint in the Coast Guard during WWII. At the height of his professional success (largely due to his having ghost-written the autobiography of Muslim activist Malcolm X), Alex Haley pays a visit to his boyhood hometown -- where, almost by accident, he receives the first clue to his heritage, a clue that will lead him on an odyssey of self-discovery, arriving full circle at Kunta Kinte's birthplace in Africa. Although the miniseries' "money scene" was Haley's nervous interview with American Nazi Party leader George Lincoln Rockwell (Marlon Brando in a superb cameo turn), the climactic episode, in which Haley tearfully embraces the living African descendants of Kunta Kinte, is one of the most unforgettable moments in the history of network television. Running 12 episodes and 14 hours, Roots: The Next Generations concluded on February 25, 1979, playing to huge ratings all along the way and ultimately garnering several Emmy nominations (and one win). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Georg Stanford Brown, Olivia de Havilland, (more)
Based on the best-selling memoirs of Lillian Rogers Parks, the NBC miniseries Backstairs at the White House traces over five decades of American political history as witnessed from the vantage point of the servants' quarters. Played by Tania Johnson as a teenager and by Leslie Uggams as an adult, Lillian Rogers Parks served for 52 years as a maidservant at the White House. Though crippled early on with polio, Lillian diligently and loyally stuck to her duties -- and her own rock-solid set of principles and ideals -- through eight highly different Presidential administrations, often (and occasionally reluctantly) acting as friend and confidante to the First Lady of the moment. The large and stellar cast included a number of top-rank film and TV actors, obviously having the time of their lives impersonating such presidents as William Howard Taft, Woodrow Wilson, Warren G. Harding, Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover, Franklin Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, and Dwight D. Eisenhower, and their respective wives. Also in the cast were several African-American veterans from the landmark TV miniseries Roots. Earning 11 Emmy Award nominations, the nine-hour Backstairs at the White House was seen in five installments from January 29 to February 19, 1979. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Leslie Uggams, Olivia Cole, (more)
- 1978
Despite its far-fetched plotline, the made-for-TV Summer of My German Soldier was popular with audiences and critics alike. The film is set in Georgia during World War II. Bruce Davison plays Anton Reiker, a German POW assigned to work at a local farm. Reiker escapes, taking refuge in a barn owned by the Bergens, a Jewish family. At first terrified by her "guest," teen-aged Patty Bergen (Kristy McNichol) falls in love with Anton, zealously hiding him from the rest of her family and the authorities. First telecast October 30, 1978 The Summer of My German Soldier was based on a novel by Bette Grene. Esther Rolle, playing the Bergen's maid, won an Emmy for her performance; an additional nomination went to the script by Jane-Howard Hammerstein. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1978
Based upon a novel by Richard Peck, Child of Glass was updated to the present when it was created for Disney's TV series in 1978. Alexander Armsworth and his family move into a spooky old Dixie mansion that was once the home of a notorious river pirate. Before long, Alexander catches sight of a mysterious little girl and her dog, both of whom turn out to be ghosts. The little girl ghost tells Alexander that her name is Inez, and appeals to him for help in finding a child of glass. With the aid of his new friend, Blossom, Alexander finds out that Inez was a victim of the river pirate whose house his family now inhabits. The pirate killed the young girl when she refused to divulge the location of the treasure he sought; for good measure, he placed a curse upon her that has caused her to roam the plantation after death. With only a few days left before the curse becomes permanent, Alexander and Blossom rush to find the child of glass and free Inez's spirit. ~ Craig Butler, All Movie Guide
