Tom Ligon Movies

Stephanie Harker (Bellamy Young), stepmother of one of the victims of a double murder, is a key "player" in the subsequent prosecution. This time, the D.A.'s office faces opposition not merely from a single defense attorney but from an entire country. Crucial evidence is filed away in Canada, but the American lawyers are denied access because of Canadian opposition to the death penalty. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This reject from slasher-movie remedial school -- featuring copious amounts of teen sex and the usual unimaginative gore murders -- involves the return of a problem teen (Donovan Leitch) to high school after his release from an institution. After essentially pinning the "Red Herring" sign on the main character, the filmmakers then pander what passes for suspense as Leitch's classmates head for that big D-hall in the sky. Not even a supporting performance by then-unknown Brad Pitt managed to rescue this lackluster thriller, which arrived far too late in the game to appeal to the teen-horror crowd -- an audience which by then had already migrated from Halloween clones and Friday the 13th sequels to Freddy Krueger territory after Wes Craven's crafty A Nightmare on Elm Street. ~ Cavett Binion, All Movie Guide

Hoping to break out of the boring lives they knew in L.A., a group of young people make the journey to Alaska to work on the oil pipeline that is being built. However, they soon start getting into trouble. Life on the oil pipelines is difficult, violent, and expensive, and soon these city kids turn to robbery to make ends meet and to keep the thrills coming. The movie is most notable in that it stars a large number of famous actors' children: Desi Arnaz, Jr. (son of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz), Robert Carradine (one of John Carradine's many actor sons), Melanie Griffith (daughter of Tippi Hedren) and others. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

This TV movie delves into the unhappy later years of novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald (here played by Jason Miller). Broke and virtually written-out by the late 1930s, Fitzgerald is compelled to accept screenwriting work in Tinseltown where he is frustrated that his work is extensively rewritten and revised -- if not rejected altogether. On a personal level, Fitzgerald must deal with his wife Zelda (Tuesday Weld), now sequestered in a North Carolina mental institution. Seeking some reason for living, Fitzgerald inaugurates an affair with Hollywood columnist Sheila Graham (Julia Foster). Not all that incisive, and saddled with an unsympathetic drunkard as a central character, F. Scott Fitzgerald is still superior to Hollywood's previous version of the Fitzgerald/Graham romance, Beloved Infidel. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Lamont Johnson's subtle direction graces this true-life success story about racecar driver Junior Jackson (Jeff Bridges), based on stock-car champion Junior Johnson. As a child in North Carolina, Jackson stays one step ahead of reform school until his father (Art Lund) is thrown in prison for moonshining. Seeing the error of his ways, Jackson begins to concentrate his driving skills, hoping to become a professional stock car racer to raise money to get his father released from jail. Jackson rises from the ranks into the highest rung of professional stock car racing, but Jackson finds his independent nature is compromised by the corporate realities of the professional sports world. The real Junior Johnson served as technical advisor on the film. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

Chester Jump (Tom Ligon) grew up hard, in a family as grim as the rural Southern countryside they lived in. His passion for automobiles transformed into a passion to run them, drive them, and race them. He took advantage of any chance to enter a drag race, or a demolition derby. This fierce ambition has not gone unnoticed by race promoter Babe Duggers (Logan Ramsey), who sees to it that Chester gets a few chances. However, when Chester begins to get really successful, there are plenty of people (including Duggers) who are willing to bring him down a notch or two. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

A landmark independent film, Nothing but a Man is the first dramatic story featuring a largely black cast created for an integrated audience (the work of black filmmakers such as Oscar Micheaux was intended for audiences who patronized black-only theaters). White filmmakers Michael Roemer and Robert M. Young traveled through the South in 1962 in search of ideas for a fiction feature set during the growing turbulence of the civil rights era. Their story, based in Alabama but shot in southern New Jersey, is only tangentially related to the movement toward equality. Duff, an itinerant black railroad laborer (Ivan Dixon), romances and marries Josie, a small-town preacher's daughter (Abbey Lincoln). Duff insists on being treated with respect, but his stance is personal rather than political. After he settles down in the town with Josie, he comes up against white bosses who want to make sure he knows his place and black men such as Josie's father who don't want to rock the boat for fear of losing what little advantage they have. Duff's relationship with his own father (Julius Harris), a broken-down drunk living in Birmingham, teaches him valuable lessons about dignity and self-worth. The film was lauded at both the New York and Venice festivals but received limited release in theaters specializing in foreign and independent film. However, word of mouth in the black community (where Nothing but a Man was for years a staple on the 16 mm rental market, in the days before VCRs) and continued attention by film historians have ensured the status of Nothing but a Man as a pioneering and enduring work. ~ Tom Wiener, All Movie Guide