Patricia Pearcy Movies
It's Reversal of Fortune meets Jerry Springer in this made-for-TV miniseries, which concerns the true-life tale of a Texas oil magnate on trial for conspiring to murder his brassy ex-wife -- and for very successfully doing away with her lover and daughter. Texas Justice stars Peter Strauss as Cullen Davis, a millionaire businessman who falls in love with the tempestuous, lower-class Priscilla (Heather Locklear), a young woman with a checkered past and a temper to match. When their relationship goes sour, Cullen's jealousy flares up and he does the unthinkable -- but in the courtroom, he attempts to clear his name with the help of the grandstanding, high-powered attorney Richard Haynes (Dennis Farina). ~ Michael Hastings, All Movie Guide
Slow-moving and low-key, this psychological thriller about killings in a large, dark mansion has a classic setting and characters: Meredith Stone (Patricia Pearcy) is the nurse who comes to care for the invalid Ivar Langrock (Joseph Cotten), and Gabriel (John Dukakis) is his grandson who comes to visit after spending some time in a commune. A face looking out of the window of a locked room provides a clue that there might be some additional characters involved in this drama. One by one, people at the house are clubbed to death -- and the mystery continues until the story behind that face is made known. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Patricia Pearcy, David Hayward, (more)
Charleston is a brazen rip-off of Gone with the Wind which premiered over NBC on January 15, 1979--one month before CBS' planned telecast of Wind. Delta Burke, who was an unknown in 1979, very nearly remained that way in the role of post-Civil War Southern belle Stella. As Stella fiddle-dee-dees around in an effort to raise the tax money to maintain her mansion, her faithful ex-slave Minerva (Lynne Moody) runs the household with an iron hand (that must hurt). Also lurking about is Stella's cousin Valerie (Patricia Pearcy), who squanders her own savings in an effort to find her missing husband. This is the sort of film in which the aggressively urbanized actor Mandy Pantinkin plays a corn-fed character named Beaudine Croft. Martha Scott, the only "name" actor in Charleston, is wasted in a peripheral role as Stella's mom. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Jim (James Garner) quickly has good reason to wish that he'd never met overaged hippie Sky Aquarian (Valerie Curtin), who gets him into plenty of trouble by using his telephone for certain questionable transactions. Before long, Jim is being strongarmed by hoodlums demanding that he fork over the $30,000 being held by Sky on behalf of her ex-boss Alan Bayliss (Kenneth Gilman). Perhaps inevitably, Bayliss turns up murdered and both Jim and Sky are placed under suspicion. This episode is distinguished by the presence in the cast of two actors who later went on to greater success as screenwriters: Valerie Curtin and Quinn Redecker. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Marsha Mason is known as "The Goodbye Girl" because of all the live-in boyfriends who have said ta-ta to her in the past few years. A former Broadway chorus dancer, the divorced Mason lives in the Manhattan apartment of her latest lost love with her daughter Quinn Cummings. Enter arrogant actor Richard Dreyfuss, who has subleased the apartment from Mason's former boyfriend and moves in bag and baggage in the middle of the night. Dreyfuss and Mason spend the next few weeks getting in each other's way and fighting like cats and dogs. The wind is taken out of Dreyfuss' sails when he opens in a production of Richard III, which has been sabotaged by the director (Paul Benjamin), who insists that Dreyfuss portrays Richard as a hip-swinging homosexual. The play closes after one performance, and the once-overconfident Dreyfuss goes on a self-pitying drunken binge. Touched by his vulnerability, Mason begins falling in love with Dreyfuss despite her lousy track record with men. Richard Dreyfuss became the youngest ever "Best Actor" Oscar winner as a result of his performance. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Richard Dreyfuss, Marsha Mason, (more)
The success of Willard, in which a young man trained his pet rats to kill at his command, inspired a rash of horror films featuring animals run amok, including snakes (Stanley), frogs (Frogs) and even rabbits (Night Of The Lepus). Squirm was one of the more interesting films spun off this subgenre, in which a town is terrorized by bloodthirsty worms who've been angered by a downed power line during a rainstorm. Better than it sounds, and packs a few good scares (especially if worms make you squeamish). ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Don Scardino, Patricia Pearcy, (more)
Frank Mansfield (Warren Oates) is a game cock trainer who has taken a vow of silence; he once bragged too loudly about his cockfighting prowess and ended up losing his best fowl in a drunken, late-night match before an important tournament. To regain his pride after such hubris, Frank refuses to utter a word until he wins the coveted "Cockfighter of the Year" medal. Cockfighter follows his ups and downs as he attempts to succeed in the shadowy, barely legal sport. Frank loses his truck, trailer, and a girlfriend after trying to rig a match with fellow cocksman Jack Burke (Harry Dean Stanton), and has to sell his house to raise funds for stock. Later, Frank wins ten roosters in a private backwoods match and trains them heavily with his partner, Omar Baradinsky (Richard B. Shull), working his way back to the top of his chosen craft. He also attempts to reestablish his relationship with an old girlfriend (Patricia Pearcy) who doesn't know much about cockfighting and is repulsed when she actually witnesses one in the flesh. There is plenty of brutal footage included in Cockfighter that will dismay many animal lovers, so those with qualms about the sport should steer clear. ~ Fred Beldin, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Warren Oates, Richard B. Shull, (more)
















