Orson Bean Movies

A frustrated seminary student weighs the prospect of life as a family man against a future in the clergy after meeting a beautiful volunteer while conducting missionary work on the Gulf Coast of Louisiana. Peter (Jacob Pitts) is just two years into his seminary studies when he begins to suspect that a life in the priesthood is not for him. Convinced by Father Tew (Frank Langella) to weight his options while accompanying devout classmate Gilbert (Matthew Carey) on a mission to the Gulf Coast of Louisiana, Peter discovers that his decision isn't going to be easy after at his destination and meeting impassioned volunteer Jill (Amy Acker). Jill is precisely the kind of girl Peter has always dreamt of, attractive and idealistic, while no-nonsense social justice advocate Father Behnke (Alan Arkin) encapsulates everything that the disillusioned seminary student wanted to be when he first began training to become a man of the cloth. Later, as the eccentric Father McIlhenny (Orson Bean) returns from performing missionary work overseas, Peter finds that the more he acts like a priest the more he entices the lovely Jill. As each character comes to a crucial crossroads in life, the decisions they make will set the course that ultimately guides them to true fulfillment. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Nanci Rossov directs this cross-cultural drama about captured Native Americans enrolled in a turn of the century "Negro" college. The film opens with Richard (Chuma Hunter-Gault) and Cleola (Tembi Locke) announcing their engagement. Though the college prides itself on its integrationist philosophy, the sharp-witted Cleola soon chafes under Richard's and the school's patronizing attitudes toward women. Meanwhile, three Lakota braves are accepted into the school at the behest of a U.S. Army officer who wants to prove that Indians can function in mainstream culture. The trio's reluctance to participate is more and more pronounced as their upwardly mobile Black classmates antagonize them with racial asides. Unbowed won Best Feature at the 1999 American Indian Film Festival. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide

The sixth and final season of Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman ushers in two new regulars: Alex Menesas, replacing Michelle Bonilla in the role of Colorado Springs' schoolteacher Theresa Morales; and John Schneider, briefly introduced the previous season as wealthy ex-prospector Daniel Simon, a friend of Dr. Michaela "Mike" Quinn's (Jane Seymour) husband, Sully (Joe Lando) -- who has become a fugitive after helping Cheyenne shaman Cloud Dancing (Larry Sellers) escape his reservation. With Dr. Mike's foster son Matthew (Chad Allen) studying law, Daniel takes over as the town's sheriff, joining Mike in her search for the missing Sully and hoping to catch up with the fugitive before he can be killed by vengeful Cavalry sergeant McKay (David Beecroft), who holds Sully responsible for the massacre that followed Cloud Dancing's escape. This tense situation is resolved peacefully, with both Sully and Cloud Dancing returning to Colorado Springs, and the latter falling in love with newspaper editor Dorothy Jennings (Barbara Babcock). Meanwhile, Dr. Mike's foster daughter Colleen (Jessica Bowman) finishes college and enters the same medical school where Mike received her diploma. Though a run on the Colorado Springs bank causes a mini-depression in the community, the town's spirits are lifted at season's end, as Colleen prepares to marry Dr. Mike's young assistant, Dr. Andrew Cook (Brandon Douglas). ~ All Movie Guide

Season four of Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman welcomes three new cast members to the fold. Jessica Bowman takes over from Erika Flores in the role of Colleen Cooper, foster daughter of Colorado Springs' lady doctor Michaela "Mike" Quinn (Jane Seymour); Jason Leland Adams (who had portrayed General Custer in the previous season) appears as Bostonian Preston A. Lodge III, who establishes the town's first bank and has plans to erect a casino; and Brandon Douglas shows up as Dr. Andrew Cook, who briefly takes over Dr. Mike's practice while she gives birth to her first child, Katie (Mike, of course, had married longtime beau Bryan Sully [Joe Lando] at the end of season three). A whole new set of crises and challenges befall the regulars as well during the fourth season. After his fiancée, Ingrid (Ashley Jones), is bitten by a rabid dog and dies, Dr. Mike's grieving foster son Matthew (Chad Allen) briefly finds comfort in the arms of kindhearted bordello worker Emma (Charlotte Chatton); Matthew is also elected sheriff of Colorado Springs. Fugitive Cheyenne medicine man Cloud Dancing (Larry Sellers) is captured and forcibly confined to a government reservation; and local newspaper editor Dorothy Jennings (Barbara Babcock) sets the town on its ear when she writes a lurid bestseller. Having been blessed with motherhood, Dr. Mike is twice blessed in the course of this season when she becomes the first woman doctor ever to be accepted into the American Medical Association. ~ All Movie Guide

Enjoying astonishing (and well-deserved) popularity at a time in TV history when dramatic programs trafficking in "family values" were few and far between, Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman was also one of the last of that hardy breed known as the "TV Western." Set in Colorado Springs, CO, in the years just following the Civil War, the weekly, 60-minute series starred Jane Seymour as Michaela "Mike" Quinn, one of a handful of women doctors west of the Mississippi (or anywhere else!) during the second half of the 19th century. After the death of her father and medical partner, Dr. Mike left her hometown of Boston to set up practice in the hardscrabble village of Colorado Springs. Not surprisingly, she encountered much hostility and mistrust from the townsfolk, but gradually won them over not only because of her medical brilliance, but because she was almost unerringly "in the right" at all times. When one of her first patients, Charlotte Cooper (Diane Ladd), died of a snakebite, Dr. Mike inherited the woman's three children, who at the outset of the series ranged in age from 10 to 17. Oldest son Matthew Cooper (Chad Allen) grew up to become the town's sheriff, and later went off to study law; daughter Colleen (played by Erika Flores from 1993 to 1995, thereafter by Jessica Bowman) eventually followed Dr. Mike's footsteps by pursuing a medical career, and ultimately married her foster mother's young assistant, Dr. Andrew Cook (Brandon Douglas); and youngest Chandler boy, Brian (Shawn Toovey), got into many a scrape -- some of them near-fatal -- in the course of the series.

Also in the cast was Joe Lando as taciturn mountain man Byron Sully, who spent most of his time communing with nature (including his pet wolf) and commiserating with the local Cheyenne Indian tribe. In the early episodes, Sully was merely the man who owned the house rented by Dr. Mike and her "instant" family; later on, he and Mike fell in love, got married, and had a daughter named Katie. The huge, rotating cast of recurring characters included curmudgeonly (and, initially, downright nasty) storekeeper Loren Bray (Guy Boyd in the pilot episode, Orson Bean thereafter); Bray's sister-in-law, Dorothy Jennings (Barbara Babcock), editor of the town newspaper; Grace (Jonelle Allen), a black woman who owned the town diner; telegraph operator Horace Bing (Frank Collison) and his bride, Myra (Helene Udy), a former saloon girl; Myra's ex-boss Hank (William Shockley), owner of the local "sporting house"; Rev. Timothy Johnson (Geoffrey Lower), who functioned as the town schoolteacher until Teresa Morales (played first by Michelle Bonilla, then by Alex Meneses) took over; Loren Bray's conniving buddy, barber Jake Slicker (Jim Knobeloch); Sully's old pal, wealthy ex-prospector Daniel Simon (John Schneider); and the much-maligned Cheyenne medicine man Cloud Dancing (Larry Sellers), whose persecution at the hands of the U.S. military aroused the fire-breathing activism of pioneering feminist and humanitarian Dr. Mike.

Our heroine also fought tirelessly for the rights of blacks, Hispanics, battered wives and practically everyone else who suffered under the weight of bigotry and misunderstanding in the Old West. Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman was far and away CBS' most successful and beloved Saturday-night series throughout its five seasons on the air, and has remained an audience favorite on cable and in syndication. ~ All Movie Guide

Season two of Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman introduces a new arrival in the town of Colorado Springs: Dorothy Jennings (Barbara Babcock), sister-in-law of crotchety storekeeper Loren Bray (Orson Bean). Given shelter by Dr. Michaela "Mike" Quinn (Jane Seymour) while escaping the wrath of her abusive husband, Dorothy must subsequently stand trial for her spouse's murder. In other dramatic developments, the growing affection between Dr. Mike and mystical mountain man Sully (Joe Lando) is threatened by, of all things, the ghost of Sully's late wife; Loren Bray's duplicitous buddy, town barber Jake Slicker (Jim Knobeloch), nearly incites a bloody war when he accidentally kills one of the local Cheyenne Indians; a typhus epidemic reveals a hitherto hidden government plan to commit full-scale genocide; the townsfolk react prejudicially to the arrival of a troop of black "Buffalo Soldiers"; a bitter strike at the local mine pits friend against friend; the Ku Klux Klan tries to persuade Dr. Mike's foster son Matthew (Chad Allen) to join their ranks; and Dorothy's disturbed war-veteran son puts the town on edge. On a happier note, in the two-part episode "Where the Heart Is," Dr. Mike returns to her native Boston to be with her ailing mother, a brief sojourn that culminates in a declaration of love -- and a marriage proposal -- from the heartsick Sully. This season concludes with another two-parter, wherein Dr. Mike is forced to choose between Sully and her former fiancé, David Lewis (Maxwell Caulfield) -- whom she assumed had been killed in the Civil War. ~ All Movie Guide

Kevin Rogers guest stars as David Watkins, a famed Civil War photographer. As the townsfok argue over who will be include and who will be left out of Watkins' proposed panoramic portrait of Colorado Springs, Dr. Mike (Jane Seymour) comes to realize that the photographer is suffering from diabetes -- and refuses to have it treated, even though he is rapidly losing his eyesight. Meanwhile, the dying Mrs. Bing (Rosemary Murphy) staunchly opposes the marriage between her son Horace (Frank Collinson) and Myra (Helene Udy). This was the final episode of Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman's first season. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Her "romantic" experience gleaned from pulp magazines, Colleen (Erika Flores) develops a crush on Sully (Joe Lando) after he saves her life. Colleen then deliberately gets lost in the woods, hoping to be rescued again -- and nearly dies of frostbite. Meanwhile, Hank (William Shockley) foments racial animosity in town when he comes down with food poisoning and holds restaurant owner Grace (Jonelle Allen) responsible. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Barber Jake Slicker (Jim Knobeloch) goes off on a drunken binge after accidentally causing a customer to die of blood poisoning through the use of a dirty razor. Since Dr. Mike (Jane Seymour) is the one who leveled the accusation at Jake, it is up to her to get him to pull himself back together. Meanwhile, Dr. Mike's adopted children cook up a scheme to make her 35th birthday party one she will never forget. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Sully (Joe Lando) is beaten up by a band of scurrilous buffalo hunters, hired to clear the land on behalf of the incoming railroad. Though paralyzed, Sully vows to wreak vengeance against his attackers and to stem their slaughter of the local bison herds. Meanwhile, a slick con artist, posing as a railroad advance man, is busily swindling the citizens of Colorado Springs out of their hard-earned property. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Dissolute Civil War surgeon Doc Eli (Robert Culp) is now barnstorming with his own "Kickapoo Indian Miracle Elixir" medicine show. At first regarding Eli as a charlatan, Dr. Mike (Jane Seymour) is forced to rely on his long-dormant surgical skills when Myra (Helene Udy) falls victim to an ovarian cyst. Similarly, Sully (Joe Lando) tries to "redeem" a disillusioned Cheyenne named Franklin (Pato Hoffman). As a bonus, two of the series' prominent supporting characters get engaged in this episode. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide