Geraldine Page Movies

In this drama, a district attorney up for a judgeship is deemed unfit and an investigation ensues. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In this romantic comedy, a middle-aged postmistress from a small town goes to a post office convention in New York and promptly falls in love with a man who is engaged to another. His fiancee is a widow with a teenage son. The man really wants a family, but he also really wants the postmistress.Trouble ensues while he makes up his mind. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Happy As the Grass Was Green still stands as one of the few Mennonite-related films ever made. Graham Beckel plays an aimless hippie who visits his friend's Pennsylvania home town on the occasion of his friend's brother's death. The community is primarily Mennonite, whose lifestyle intrigues Beckel. Slowly undergoing a religious conversion, Beckel elects to renounce beads and bongs to join the small, devoutly religious community. While the cast includes such recognizable favorites as Pat Hingle and Geraldine Page, most of the cast of Happy As the Grass Was Green consists of genuine Pennsylvanian Mennonites. The film was based on a novel by Merle Good. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Hondo is so "perfect" a John Ford western that many people assume it was directed by John Ford--or at the very least, Andrew McLaglen. Actually the director was suspense expert John Farrow, who worked with the "Duke" only twice in his career (the second film was an oddball war drama, The Sea Chase [55]). In Hondo, John Wayne plays a hard-bitten cavalry scout who is humanized by frontierswoman Geraldine Page and her young son (Lee Aaker, star of TV's Rin Tin Tin). Try as he might, Wayne can't convince Page to move off her land in anticipation of an Apache attack. He leaves her ranch, only to be ambushed by desperado Leo Gordon--who happens to be Page's long-absent husband. Having killed Gordon, Hondo returns to the ranch to protect Page from the Indians, and to rekindle the woman's hesitant love for him. The climactic attack sequence is enhanced by Hondo's 3-D photography, one of the few truly effective utilizations of this much-maligned process. Long unavailable thanks to the labyrinthine legal tangles of the John Wayne estate, Hondo was finally released to videotape in the early 1990s. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Jill Clayburgh plays, as one character calls her, "a pill-popping dingbat" in this film adaptation of television producer Barbara Gordon's autobiographical account of her addiction to prescription drugs. Clayburgh plays Gordon in the film as a successful television documentary filmmaker whose mounting pressures force her to pop a Valium or two for nerves. She then ingests a few more pills after an argument with boyfriend Derek Bauer (Nicol Williamson). And thus begins her slow and steady compulsion to keep taking more and more Valium. Finally realizing her addiction, Gordon makes a disastrous attempt to go cold turkey but fails miserably, finally having to undergo a painful rehabilitation in an institution. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

Cliff Robertson wrote, produced, directed and acted the lead in this film about a rodeo performer. The rodeo footage in this film was shot at actual rodeo competitions. Rodeo rider J.W. Coop (Robertson) has just spent ten years in jail for passing bad checks. He comes out and discovers that everything except his crazy mother (Geraldine Page) has changed. Riders don't compete in all-around events anymore, but fly all over the country in private planes to compete in the same event in several rodeos a day. Furthermore, the sexual liberation movement has changed the way women relate to men. He is nonplused to discover a hippyish woman (Cristina Ferrare) who wants a no-strings relationship with him. The idea of health food catches him by surprise, too. Coop wants and needs to win a national rodeo championship, despite all the new challenges he faces. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

In the conclusion of a two-part story (originally telecast as a single two-hour episode), Kojak (Telly Savalas) steps up his efforts to help Karen Foster (Marybeth Hurt), whom he believes has been falsely charged with murdering her mother. At the same time, powerful politician Edna Morrison (Geraldine Page) continues pulling strings and calling in favors to prevent Kojak from uncovering the whole truth about the murder. Ultimately, Kojak is framed for another crime to shut him up. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The science of "cryogenics" forms the basis of the made-for-TV Live Again, Die Again. Donna Mills plays a young woman who dies of rheumatic fever. At her deathbed request, Mills' body is frozen, in hopes of reviving her in the future. Thirty years later, Mills awakens, returning to the not-so-open arms of her doddering husband (Walter Pidgeon), her spiteful daughter (Vera Miles) and her mixed-up son (Mike Farrell). No, this was not produced by Walt Disney Studios. Adapted by Joseph Stefano from a novel by David Sale, Live Again, Die Again first aired February 16, 1974. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This drama concerns a young teen's transformation as she works at a half-way house for troubled kids. Franny (Mary Stuart Masterson) leaves behind a pampered, rich kid's life of yachting parties and affluent pastimes to take up a summer job working under Mrs. Chopper (Anne Meara) at a temporary shelter for homeless teens. Even though the experienced Mrs. Chopper warns Franny about not getting too involved with her charges, Franny decides that if she can organize a talent show, the youngsters will see that they are really worth something. Needless to say, Mrs. Chopper was partly right, and partly wrong. Jennifer Lopez of 1997's Selena and 1998's Out of Sight makes a precocious film debut here as one of the young teens. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Previously filmed in Argentina in 1951, black author Richard Wright's powerful race-conscious novel Native Son was remade in this barely released 1986 version. The story involves Bigger Thomas (Victor Thomas), an angry Depression-era Chicago black who hopes to elevate himself through his chauffeur's job with a prosperous white Gold Coast family. The family's daughter (Elizabeth McGovern) takes advantage of Bigger's servile status by ordering him to drive her to a rendezvous with her communist-activist lover (Matt Dillon). Their "parlor liberal" attitude both pleases and confuses Bigger, as do the girl's apparent sexual advance towards him. One evening, Bigger drives the girl home after she's gotten herself drunk. She flirts harmlessly with him in her bedroom; when her blind mother (Carroll Baker) stumbles onto the scene, the terrified Bigger, certain that he'll be accused of rape, tries to muffle the girl so she can't talk. He accidentally kills her, whereupon the panicky Bigger hides the body and tries to pin the girl's "kidnapping" on her lover. Tragedy piles upon tragedy before Bigger's climactic murder trial and execution; throughout, we are given the impression that this sorry state of affairs would never have taken place without the black-white tensions and divisiveness that existed in 1930s, and which still exist to this day. During the trial scene, TV talk host Oprah Winfrey makes a heavily-made-up cameo appearance as Bigger's mother. The whole scene has the earmarks of an "Oscar clip," but Oprah's excessive histrionics pale in comparison to her brilliant, well-modulated performance in the earlier The Color Purple. The 1986 version of Native Son was co-produced by PBS' American Playhouse. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Based on Peter DeVries' novel Witch's Milk, Pete 'n' Tillie stars Walter Matthau and Carol Burnett in the title roles. Middle-aged when they first meet, eternally joking Pete and repressed "old maid" Tillie don't immediately hit it off. Gradually, their friendship deepens into love and culminates (reluctantly, on Pete's part) in marriage, eleven years of which is explored in this film. Throughout the funny and tragic moments, and despite the many breakups, their love endures. Oscar nominations went to screenwriter Julius J. Epstein and supporting actress Geraldine Page. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Based on a true story, Something for Joey is about Heisman Trophy-winner Jon Cappelletti and his close relationship with his younger brother Joey, who is suffering from leukemia. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Movie Guide