Elizabeth MacRae Movies

New Zealand poet Janet Frame is the subject of Jane Campion's biographical drama, which presents a poetically evocative look at the authoress' turbulent life. The film begins with a look at Frame's childhood, showing her as a bright but odd-looking, emotionally fragile young girl with a knack for writing. Frame faces great difficulty in adapting to the conventional rural life around her, and her social awkwardness only worsens as she grows older. After she fails in her attempt to become a schoolteacher due to an intense panic attack, she is subject to a psychiatric evaluation and shamefully misdiagnosed as a schizophrenic. Frame is subsequently committed to a mental institution, where she suffers years of unnecessary shock treatments and other horrors. Her salvation comes through her writings, however, which attract the attention of a renowned author who arranges her release. While the nightmare of Frame's institutionalization is presented with great sensitivity and power, Campion and screenwriter Laura Jones, to their credit, refuse to simplify her story to this one pivotal event. Instead, they pay equal attention to Frame's subsequent life, as she slowly adjusts life in the outside world, experiencing literary success and her first romance. Expressive visuals add immeasurably to the total effect, while Kerry Fox's superb performance creates a truly affecting portrait of Frame. Impressively, the film was originally made as a mini-series for New Zealand television, and slightly reedited for a later theatrical release. ~ Judd Blaise, All Movie Guide

In this tale of sleazy romance that turns deadly, novice Kiwi director Denis Lewiston has created an unevenly paced story with several gripping (and groping) scenes. Christine (Simone Griffeth) is an American married to a rich but crass businessman, and unknown to them both, Greg Sandford (Steve Marchuk) is planning to break into their opulent digs and rob them blind. Right in the middle of carrying out his preparations, he arranges for an "accidental" meeting between himself and Christine -- and the sparks of sexual attraction ignite a blaze that not only lands them in bed, but burns up whatever morals Christine may have left. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Kojak (Telly Savalas) investigates when a Greek sailor is murdered just as he disembarks from a freighter. The solution to the crime would seem to be a tiny bit of contraband, smuggled into the country in the dead sailor's best. But what exactly is the smuggled item, and where is it now? Better still, what's the real story on the only eyewitness to the killing? This week's guest cast includes future St. Elsewhere costar Norman Lloyd. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Made between The Godfather (1972) and The Godfather Part II (1974), and in part an homage to Michelangelo Antonioni's art-movie classic Blow-Up (1966), The Conversation was a return to small-scale art films for Francis Ford Coppola. Sound surveillance expert Harry Caul (Gene Hackman) is hired to track a young couple (Cindy Williams and Frederic Forrest), taping their conversation as they walk through San Francisco's crowded Union Square. Knowing full well how technology can invade privacy, Harry obsessively keeps to himself, separating business from his personal life, even refusing to discuss what he does or where he lives with his girlfriend, Amy (Teri Garr). Harry's work starts to trouble him, however, as he comes to believe that the conversation he pieced together reveals a plot by the mysterious corporate "Director" who hired him to murder the couple. After he allows himself to be seduced by a call girl, who then steals the tapes, Harry is all the more convinced that a killing will occur, and he can no longer separate his job from his conscience. Coppola, cinematographer Bill Butler, and Oscar-nominated sound editor Walter Murch convey the narrative through Harry's aural and visual experience, beginning with the slow opening zoom of Union Square accompanied by the alternately muddled and clear sound of the couple's conversation caught by Harry's microphones. The Godfather Part II and The Conversation earned Coppola a rare pair of Oscar nominations for Best Picture, as well as two nominations for Best Screenplay (The Godfather Part II won both). Praised by critics, The Conversation was not a popular hit, but it has since come to be seen as one of the artistic high points of the decade, as well as of Coppola's career. Its atmosphere of paranoia and suspicion, combined with its obsessive loner antihero, made it prototypical of the darker "American art movies" of the early '70s, as its audiotape storyline also made it seem eerily appropriate for the era of the Watergate scandal. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide

Howard Sprague becomes a Big Brother for problem teen Tommy Parker (Scott Lane). Balking at Howard's insistence that he concentrate on his schoolwork, the crafty Tommy arranges a few dates between Howard and his big sister Betty Parker (Elizabeth MacRae). Succumbing to Betty's charms, Howard is on Cloud Nine until the awful truth brings him crashing back to earth. First shown on March 27, 1967, "Big Brother" was written by Fred S. Fox. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this amusing fantasy, a combination of live-action and animated effects, Don Knotts plays scrawny bookkeeper Henry Limpet, who longs to help the U.S. after the outbreak of World War II. He becomes depressed after being turned down by the Navy, particularly after his pal George (Jack Weston) is accepted. When Henry takes a walk on the Coney Island pier with his wife Bessie (Carole Cook), he falls into the water and is transformed into a fish, complete with his reading spectacles. Henry finally gets to help the war effort by helping to track down Nazi U boats for the Navy. Andrew Duggan and Larry Keating play the admirals who spearhead the secret mission involving the transformed Henry. Longtime Disney production associate John Rose was the producer of this film, and the influence of the animation is evident. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

In this romantic comedy, Deke Gentry (Kirk Douglas) is a lawyer who gets an unusual assignment from Chloe Brasher (Thelma Ritter), a wealthy widow, owner of a successful hotel chain, and one of his most prominent clients. Chloe has three daughters, sensible Kate (Mitzi Gaynor), bohemian Jan (Leslie Parrish), and heath food fanatic Bonnie (Julie Newmar), and she wants Deke to find them husbands. Though Deke protests that matchmaking is outside his traditional area of expertise, Chloe is insistent, and he ends up taking the job. To be sure that he's going through with it, Chloe assigns her security chief Joe (William Bendix) to keep his eye on Deke. Eventually, Deke fixes up Bonnie with Harvey Wofford (Richard Sargent), a meek IRS agent, and pairs Jan with artist Sam Travis (William Windom), but Kate turns out to be the hardest Brasher sister to marry off, until he throws his own hat into the ring. Richard Sargent would later shorten his first name to Dick and find success on the popular television comedy Bewitched. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Frank Gorshin is at his "Richard Widmark" best as Herbie Ketcher--a busboy by trade, a pool hustler and stool pigeon by inclination. Working at a nightclub owned by mobster Max Zenno (Albert Paulsen), Herbie supplements his income by shaking Zenno and his fellow hoodlum Martin Rawlings (Gilbert Green) for big bucks. The two thugs can do nothing to stop Herbie, who claims to have in his possession a "little book" chock full of incriminating evidence agains the Syndicate. Elliot Ness (Robert Stack) would love to get his hands on that book so he can put Zenno and his cronies away for good; the trick is to keep Herbie from getting bumped off first. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This fantasy-comedy is directed by Don Taylor whose specialty is horror and action flics, and clearly not talking ducks and children's tales. Beetle McKay (Mickey Rooney) and Admiral John Paul Jones (Buddy Hackett) are two wacky sailors who make friends with a talking duck, a verbose avian that possesses a secret formula. It seems the formula is needed by the Navy satellite program and so the talky mallard is worth quite a bit. But in the meantime, the duck is hooked on booze and is a failure at taking to the water or even sounding like a normal duck. So the sailors have their work cut out for them as the deadline for launching the satellite approaches. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Brent Maverick (Robert Colbert) in his last series appearance) witnesses a robbery in a post office--then looks on as Sheriff Joe Holly (George Wallace) shoots and kills both thieves. If that were all Brent had seen, the story would be over: unfortunately, our hero has also spotted the sheriff helping himself to the stolen loot. When Holly is subesquently killed as well, Brent is accused of being both a robber and a murderer--and the source of all his problems turns out to be a pair of deceptively sweet sisters (Elizabeth MacRae, Randy Stuart). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide