Chris Allen Movies
- 2001
While all but forgotten today, between 1926 and 1935, William Haines was one of the biggest stars in Hollywood, an affable leading man with cocky charm and a self-depreciating comic touch. Haines enjoyed his first major hit with the collegiate football comedy Brown of Harvard, and several years later he was one of the few silent stars who effectively made the transition to talking pictures. But a series of ill-advised pictures sent Haines' career into a tailspin, and he might have enjoyed a comeback if it weren't for one thing -- Haines was gay, and while in 1935 he could hardly openly declare his sexual orientation, he stubbornly refused to deny it either, and sometimes alluded to his lifestyle in fan-magazine interviews. Hollywood legend has it when executives at MGM told Haines he had the option of either agreeing to an arranged marriage with an actress or never working for the studio again, Haines chose the latter; the result was he never appeared in another film. Instead, Haines turned his hobby of interior decorating into a lucrative career, and he maintained a sometimes stormy but ultimately loyal relationship with his lover, Jimmy Shields, which lasted from 1926 up until Haines' death in 1973. Joan Crawford is quoted as saying they had "the happiest marriage in Hollywood." Out of the Closet, Off the Screen: The William Haines Story is a documentary produced for the cable film channel American Movie Classics that examines Haines' life, both onscreen and offscreen, featuring interviews with people who knew him as well as reenacted sequences, with Christopher Lawford and Chris Allen portraying (respectively) Haines and Shields. Stockard Channing narrates. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Christopher Lawford, Chris Allen, (more)
This highly rated independent production was written years before Bull Durham, and though it covers much of the same territory, it is considered worth seeing in its own right. In the story, Roy Dean Bream (William Russ) is too old to be part of his minor-league baseball team's cultural mainstream. In short, he's often ignored, derided, or treated to the worst or last of everything, like any other outcast. Tyrone (Glenn Plummer) is so young that it gives the same teammates who shun Roy the willies and reminds them that they too are getting older -- so he's an outcaste, too. What could be more natural than for these two men to seek one another out. It doesn't matter that the older man is white, the younger is black. They both love the game, and Roy has been around the block a few times and has plenty to teach Tyrone. When the time comes for Roy to be sent to retirement, everyone holds their breaths to see how he will react. It's a pity they didn't get to know him better, or they would know that this kind, generous man wishes them all well. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- William Russ, Glenn Plummer, (more)
- 1973
- R
After female prisoners arrive at an island prison full of male convicts, they are brutalized and fight back in an attempt to set up a more democratic system. This exploitative drama includes performances of Tom Selleck and Roger E. Mosley of television's Magnum P.I. ~ Kristie Hassen, All Movie Guide
When a prominent plastic surgeon loses his lovely wife in a particularly grisly manner, his grief is such that he soon undergoes a series of insane experiments designed to repair and reassemble her on the operating table and make her live again -- provided he can procure an assortment of substitute parts from unwilling female donors. With the aid of his slavering hunchbacked assistant, the deranged doc hypnotizes young women and lures them back to his lab, where they soon go under the knife. A cheap and lurid gorefest in the mode of Herschel Gordon Lewis (who actually appears in a guest wraparound on the long-defunct United Video release), the premise is played for sick laughs, which only seem to accentuate the film's overall sleaziness. ~ Cavett Binion, All Movie Guide
