Gene Bell Movies
Dancer/actor Gene Bell frequently guest starred on several major television variety shows, including Ed Sullivan and The Merv Griffin Show. A hoofer since the age of ten, Bell made his debut in vaudeville. His few feature film appearances include Terrence Malick's Days of Heaven (1978). In 1977, Bell received an Emmy for his performance in the television special Minstrel Man. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide- 1985
- R
This undistinguished comedy about life in prison features caricatures of inmates and law enforcement officers, as well as prison guards, in attempts at slapstick action. After Duke Jarrett (Jeff Altman) is put into prison because he had sex with the wife of a government VIP, he discovers that life in the prison is out of control -- until a disciplinarian takes charge. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jeff Altman, Dey Young, (more)
Terrence Malick's Days of Heaven, the long-awaited follow-up to his 1973 debut Badlands, confirmed his reputation as a visual poet and narrative iconoclast with a story of love and murder told through the jaded voice of a child and expressive images of nature. In 1916, Chicago steelworker Bill (Richard Gere, stepping in for John Travolta) flees to Texas with his little sister Linda (Linda Manz) and girlfriend Abby (Brooke Adams) after fatally erupting at his boss. Along with other itinerant laborers, they work the harvest at a wealthy, ailing farmer's ranch, but the farmer (playwright Sam Shepard) falls in love with Abby, and, believing her to be Bill's sister, asks the three to stay on at his elysian spread. Seeing it as his one real chance to escape perpetual poverty, Bill urges Abby to marry the sick man. Marriage, however, has more restorative powers, and the farmer has more magnetism, than Bill had planned. "Nobody's perfect," Linda impassively observes in one of her many voiceovers, after their brief paradise is erased by plagues of locusts, fire, and lethal jealousy. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Richard Gere, Brooke Adams, (more)
- 1977
Not to be confused with a 1945 film musical of the same title, Minstrel Man is a made-for-TV chronicle of two African-American entertainers, played by Glynn E. Turman and Stanley Clay. Confined to racist show-biz tradition of the early 20th century, dancer Turman is permitted to perform only if made up in traditional blackface--white lips and all. Clay, Turman's brother, is a Scott Joplin style composer whose outspokenness brings down the wrath of white producers. But his music helps foment a revolution in black entertainment, the first step in allowing performers of his race to express themselves on their own terms, not as a reflection of Caucasian stereotypes. Enchanced throughout by genuine ragtime tunes of the era, Minstrel Man is rousing, thought-provoking entertainment. The film was originally aired as a Mobil Showcase special in March of 1977. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
