Robert L. Freedman Movies

Produced for the Lifetime channel, the made-for-cable Murder in the Hamptons uses the titular 2001 murder, that of multimillionaire investment banker Ted Ammon (David Sutcliffe), as the starting point for a lengthy flashback beginning in 1995. It was during that year that Ammon met and married Generosa Rand (Poppy Montgomery), a talented and temperamental artist. As Ammon's fortune grew, so did the couple's conspicuous consumption, as manifested in a huge, castle-like estate in Long Island; the family itself also expanded, with Ted and Generosa adopting two children. Unfortunately, with each passing year, this "ideal" marriage became less so, with Generosa exhibiting some mighty peculiar behavior, her neuroses and insecurities causing her to fly off the handle at the least provocation. During the inevitable divorce proceedings, Generosa demands that Ted relinquish both the mansion and their children -- and she also launches into an affair with electrician Danny Pelosi (Shawn Christian), who has a criminal record. When Ted is found murdered, suspicion immediately falls upon Danny, though no tangible evidence is available. Ultimately, Generosa marries Danny -- only to leave him as well when she is diagnosed with terminal cancer. Evidently undergoing numerous epiphanies in her final months, Generosa begins to let go of the many things she held dear during and after her marriage -- but if she knows anything about Ted's death, it is a secret she will carry to the grave. How justice is ultimately served figures into the climax of Murder in the Hamptons, which first aired on July 11, 2005. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

From her gradual ascent to stardom in the 1930s to her death from a drug overdose at age 47 in 1969, former vaudeville baby Frances Ethel Gumm, aka Judy Garland, endured a string of personal and career ups and downs that continues to color her reputation as an icon whose tragedies outweighed her triumphs. This TV biopic, based on the first half of daughter Lorna Luft's book Me and My Shadows: A Family Memoir, attempts to humanize Garland's legend by presenting the singer/actress' story from an insider's point of view. Tammy Blanchard plays the young Garland, an MGM contract player with an overbearing mom (played by Marsha Mason) who helped push her daughter to stardom -- and, along with studio boss Louis B. Mayer (Al Waxman), into a lifelong addiction to booze and barbiturates. From her early performances alongside Mickey Rooney to her breakthrough role in The Wizard of Oz, Life With Judy Garland paints the performer as a sweet kid who just wanted to please her mother, especially after the death of her gentle, beloved father (Aidan Devine). Australian actress Judy Davis takes over as the grown-up Garland as the film traces her five marriages, exile from MGM, countless film and stage comebacks, and crippling addictions. The film's final section concentrates on the home life of Luft, her brother Joey, and their half sister Liza Minnelli, as the kids and their broke mom moved from one hotel to another and Luft nursed Garland through depressions and binges. Life With Judy Garland premiered in February of 2001 on ABC, earning Emmy awards for both Davis and Blanchard. ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide

Seen on ABC's Wonderful World of Disney, this $12-million production is the only musical Rodgers and Hammerstein wrote for television. The CBS-TV original, with 21-year-old Julie Andrews in the title role and Edie Adams as the Fairy Godmother, played on live television March 31, 1957 to TV's largest audience ever to that date (107-million viewers). That historic production, captured on kinescope, can still be seen today on library monitors at the Museum of Television & Radio in New York and Los Angeles. Hammerstein died in 1960 and did not get to see 18-year-old Lesley Ann Warren as Cinderella in the February 22, 1965 restaged production, repeated annually on CBS until 1977 and later made available on videotape from CBS/Fox Video and Facets Multimedia. Added to the 1965 show was "Loneliness of Evening", a song actually written for South Pacific but cut before the Broadway opening.

Running a half-hour longer, this third interpretation premiered November 2, 1997. Filmed over a 28-day period, it stars Brandy Norwood as Cinderella and Whitney Houston as the Fairy Godmother, with Bernadette Peters as the Stepmother, Whoopi Goldberg as the Queen (wearing $60 million worth of borrowed Harry Winston jewelry), Paolo Montalban as the Prince, and Jason Alexander as the Prince's steward, Lionel. Scripter Robert L. Freedman provided a rewrite of the original Oscar Hammerstein book, and three other Richard Rodgers songs were added to the existing score: "There's Music in You" (from the 1953 movie musical Main Street to Broadway), "The Sweetest Sounds" (a Brandy/Montalban duet), and "Falling in Love with Love". Originally set in motion as a follow-up to the highly successful TV Gypsy (1993) with Bette Midler, this 1997 multicultural version (sometimes referred to as the "rainbow Cinderella") was years in the making, since it was initiated in 1994 when Houston joined executive producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron (the team responsible for the TV Gypsy). ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide

Dolly Parton stars in this light-hearted story as Ruby Diamond, a singer who unexpectedly dies in an auto wreck and finds herself meeting the man at the pearly gates. Ruby discovers she did not rack up enough good deed points to enter the kingdom of Heaven, but she's given a second chance to come back to Earth and help others in hopes of proving she deserves angel status after all. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

When a woman is falsely convicted for selling drugs, she asks her sister to raise her young children in this true story. ~ All Movie Guide