Valerie Perrine Movies
The daughter of a military officer, Valerie Perrine spent her childhood hopscotching from one country to another. Her early plans to become a psychologist were abandoned when she parlayed her svelte figure and sparkling personality into a brief career as a Las Vegas showgirl. Perrine then settled into a lucrative, active career upon being cast as habitually naked movie queen Montana Wildhack in Slaughterhouse Five (1971). While her talk show persona was that of a typically airheaded starlet, Perrine was in fact a serious, dedicated actress; she won an Oscar nomination for her performance as Honey Bruce in 1974's Lenny, and was no less impressive as Carlotta Monti in 1976's W.C. Fields and Me. Despite her acting accomplishments, Perrine was most often cast on the basis of her top-heavy physical attributes; it is said that she was cast as the leading lady in Can't Stop the Music (1980) in order to attract those "straight" filmgoers that might have otherwise avoided a film starring the Village People. More recently, Valerie Perrine has excelled in eccentric character roles on such TV series as Northern Exposure and ER. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
A battle between real estate moguls and environmental activists takes an unexpected turn into affairs of the heart in this satiric update of Henry James' The Bostonians. Gavin Ransom (Noah Wyle) is a successful real estate developer who has made a tidy fortune putting up gated communities filled with expensive suburban homes all over California. Ransom intends to put up another such development in the as-yet-untouched hillsides of Northern California's Marin County, and, just as he's expected, a number of folks living nearby are objecting to the project, including his sister Olive (Illeana Douglas), an environmental activist who has sided with longtime resident Eileen Boatwright (Cloris Leachman) and progressive lawyer Sybil (Jane Lynch) against the development. Olive and her compatriots get some unexpected support when Zoe Tripp (Kate Mara), a modern folk singer and the daughter of old-school Marin County hippies (Keith Carradine and Valerie Perrine), takes an interest in their protests and begins singing out against Gavin's proposal with guitar in hand. Gavin unexpectedly finds himself growing powerfully infatuated with Zoe, and Olive, a long-closeted lesbian, is equally taken with her; consequently, as the siblings battle against building several dozen cookie-cutter mansions, they also wage a private war for the affections of the young songstress. The Californians was directed by Jonathan Parker, who when not busy with film projects is himself a California real estate developer. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- 1995
Unable to cope with the pressures of surrogate motherhood, Lewis (Sherry Stringfield) considers giving up her sister Chloe's baby, Suzy, for adoption. Back at the ER, Ross (George Clooney) and Greene (Anthony Edwards) quarrel over subjecting four-year-old AIDS victim Chia-Chia (Joshua Hoon Cho) to a very painful medical procedure. And Benton (Eriq La Salle) takes a personal interest in his patient Vicky Mazovick (Jennifer Tighe), a victim of abuse at the hands of her police-officer husband (Thom Mathews). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1995
Oscar-winning filmmaker Quentin Tarantino directed this episode, which contains all manner of characteristic black comedy touches, not to mention Tarantino's trademarked use of a popular 1960s songs to comment upon the action. The story occurs on Mother's Day, when the long-suffering Lewis (Sherry Stringfield), who is having enough trouble coping with sister Chloe's (Kathleen Wilhoite) pregnancy, is visited by her zany, irresponsible mother, Cookie (Valerie Perrine). Elsewhere, Benton (Eriq La Salle) is told that his mother is dead; Diane (Lisa Zane) is surprised by Ross' (George Clooney) reaction when she asks him to move in with her; and Carter (Noah Wyle) makes a life-altering professional decision. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1995
Investigating the highly suspicious death of the person suspected of ambushing three of his fellow homicide detectives, Bayliss (Kyle Secor) runs up against a wall of departmental silence. Meanwhile, wounded detective Felton (Daniel Baldwin) returns to work, though he hasn't recovered emotionally from his ordeal -- nor is he prepared for the hostility attending his return. Pembleton (Andre Braugher) and Lewis (Clark Johnson) have a falling out during the seemingly random killing of a white woman in a black neighborhood. And Munch (Richard Belzer) discovers that he has been used as the "model" for a painting hanging in an art gallery exhibit. Chris Noth makes a cameo appearance in his Law & Order role as Detective Mike Logan. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Daniel Baldwin, Ned Beatty, (more)
A rich New England family succumbs to a twisted web of jealousy and greed when the family patriarch, (Brian Keith) catches everyone by surprise and leaves his business to Suzy (Liz Vassey), his daughter whom he hasn't seen in ages. Now every covetous member of the brood is swarming on the household like vipers, including Suzy's long estranged mother, who hasn't returned to the family she abandoned in years. They all want a piece of the pie-or better yet, the whole thing. ~ Cammila Albertson, All Movie Guide
- 1991
Valeria (Francoise Fabian) is a doctor, but she's also an alcoholic. Unable to do her regular work effectively, she gives that (and her family) up, so as to better devote herself to drink. However, she has an errant benevolent impulse and invites Chim (Anna Kanakis), a sluttish drug addict, to share her quarters. Thereupon she proceeds to dry the woman out, curing her of her addition almost solely through the force of her will. That done, her victim/patient decides that it's time to return the favor, and after a lot of hootin' and hollerin', demon rum is no longer part of her life. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Françoise Fabian, Anna Kanakis, (more)
Previously filmed in 1962 with Geraldine Page and Paul Newman in the leads, Tennessee Williams' Sweet Bird of Youth was restaged for television in 1989 by Nicolas Roeg. Elizabeth Taylor stars as Alexandre Del Lago, a fading, alcoholic, drug-dependent movie star. Mark Harmon co-stars as Chance Wayne, a shiftless would-be actor who romances Alexandre in hopes of getting a few producer's doors opened for him in Hollywood. Assuming that it'll be a simple task to unload Alexandre when he's through with her, Chance has not reckoned with the star's smothering ego. Chance must also contend with Tom Finley (Rip Torn), the fire-breathing political boss who is the father of Chance's hometown sweetheart (Cheryl Paris). The TV remake of Sweet Bird of Youth was first broadcast October 1, 1989. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Elizabeth Taylor, Mark Harmon, (more)
- 1986
Yeung Fan writes and directs this melodrama about Rose (Maggie Cheung Man-yuk), a beautiful orphaned teenager who has boys pursuing her by the boatload. When she decides to study in France, her overly protective brother Charles (Chow Yun-fat) begs her to return to Hong Kong. Instead, she marries one of her fellow students and eventually has a daughter. Later, Charles dies of a long painful illness. Grief-stricken, Rose gets a divorce and returns to her family home. One day, she meets Ga-ming, who is the spitting image of Charles (and who is also played by Chow). A passionate, if creepy, relationship ensues only to be complicated by the return of an old flame from her school days. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Chow Yun-Fat, Maggie Cheung, (more)
- 1984
The Faerie Tale Theatre production of the famous fairy tale Three Little Pigs stars Billy Crystal as a hard-working little pig who stops building his house in order to chase away the big, bad wolf (Jeff Goldblum). ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Movie Guide
- 1983
Malibu is a two-part, four-hour adaptation of William Murray's best-selling novel. William Atherton and Susan Dey play a green-as-grass married couple from Milwaukee who take a vacation in Malibu. Amidst the elite and their million-dollar beach houses, Atherton starts up an affair with divorcee Valerie Perrine, while Dey fends off the attentions of TV star Steve Forrest before succumbing to the charms of tennis pro Chad Everett. Other Southern California satyrs and nymphs wandering in and out of Malibu include James Coburn, Eva Marie Saint, Ann Jillian, Kim Novak, Richard Mulligan, and (who else?) George Hamilton. The multiple story lines all come to a head during a climactic tennis match. Malibu is trash, true, but it's trash cultivated from the highest-quality refuse heaps. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1983
In this made-for-television comedy drama, a divorcee reels even further when her married lover dumps her too. On the rebound, she takes up with a peculiar policeman. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1981
By the admission of its own producers, the made-for-TV Marian Rose White was "extremely loosely based" on a true story. The real Marian Rose White was a 1930s teenager who suffered from a congenital visual defect. This led to her being misdiagnosed as "feebleminded," and locked away in a Sonoma, California institution. Despite the entreaties of sympathetic staffers, Marian was forced to undergo a legally mandated sterilization--which her widowed, impoverished mother readily agreed to. Thirty years passed before this terrible wrong was addressed and Marian was allowed to re-enter society. For the purposes of this film, those three decades were telescoped into four years. The result is a sincere (if somewhat rushed) "injustice of the week" TV effort. Katherine Ross is top-billed as a compassionate nurse, while Valerie Perrine is cast as Marian's unfeeling mother. Marian Rose White is brilliantly essayed by Nancy Cartwright, who is best known today as the voice of cartoon character Bart Simpson. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Agency tackles the question of the efficiency of media manipulation. An unscrupulous advertising agency, in league with equally untrustworthy political campaign manager Robert Mitchum, plants subliminal messages in its TV commercials. Just as Vance Packard warned in the 1950s expose The Hidden Persuaders, these hidden messages persuade the viewers to vote for Mitchum's candidate. Given the potency of the the film's premise, it's disappointing to watch director George Gaczender handle the material (based on a novel by Paul Gottleib) is so cut-and-dried a fashion. But Mitchum is good, as are his costars Valerie Perrine, Lee Majors, Saul Rubinek and Alexandra Stewart. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Robert Mitchum, Lee Majors, (more)
- 1978
When it was first made available to television in 1978, the three-hour Ziegfeld: The Man and His Women was previewed to only a few carefully selected TV critics. Barred from the preview were those older columnists who would have most likely harbored pleasant memories of the Oscar-winning 1936 theatrical feature The Great Ziegfeld, which is approximately ten times the better film. The TV movie version stars Paul Shenar as Broadway showman Flo Ziegfeld, looking for all the world like a spoiled prep-schooler dressed up in his daddy's tuxedo. While the film admirably attempts to encompass every aspect of Ziegfeld's public and private life, the sense of beauty and grandeur, so vital to the success of the 21 "Follies" stage shows mounted between 1908 and 1931, is totally missing. The film's structure is curiously aloof: The four most important women in Ziegfeld's life dispassionately narrate the story, a couple of them "from beyond the grave." Valerine Perrine comes off best as actress Lillian Lorraine; Barbara Parkins struggles with a wavering foreign accent as Ziegfeld's first wife Anna Held (she even gets a "telephone scene" ripped off from The Great Ziegfeld's Luise Rainer); Pamela Peardon is shrill and unlikeable as dancer Marilyn Miller; and Samantha Eggar is saintly to the point of tedium as Billie Burke, the second Mrs. Ziegfeld. Those expecting to see an unending stream of Ziegfeld headliners will have to settle for fleeting cameos by "celebrity look-alike" actors playing Fanny Brice, Will Rogers and W. C. Fields. This is the sort of clichefest in which Ziegfeld announces that his greatest days are yet to come--just before we cut to a title reading "1929." Ziegfeld: The Man and His Women serves only one positive purpose--to whet the viewer's appetite for a cable-TV revival of The Great Ziegfeld. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Paul Shenar
Bruce Jay Friedman's acclaimed off-Broadway play, which offers a decidedly unusual perspective on the afterlife, is brought to the screen in this production originally created for public television. Tandy (Bill Bixby) is a New York Police Department employee who suddenly and unexpectedly finds himself enjoying a steam at a public bathhouse overseen by an elderly Hispanic gentleman, Morty (Jose Perez). As the evening wears on, Tandy and Morty are joined by several other guests -- a stock trader (Kenneth Mars), a cabbie (Stephen Elliott), an attractive woman (Valerie Perrine), and a schlubby nebbish (Herb Edelman) -- and it begins to dawn on Tandy and his companions that they've all recently died, and that the steam bath is actually the waiting room to the next life, where Morty is judging their fates. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bill Bixby, Jose Perez, (more)
- 1972
Contrary to popular belief, "B" pictures didn't die in the 1970s; they just changed their classification to "ABC Movies of the Week". First telecast December 5, 1972, The Couple Takes a Wife is a by-the-numbers screwball comedy with a spirited all-TV cast. Career-minded couple Bill Bixby and Paula Prentiss just don't have time to watch the kids or attend to the housekeeping. So they advertise for a "wife", to assume wifely duties around the house. Enter Valerie Perrine, who takes her job very seriously-much to the dismay of real wife Prentiss. Myrna Loy, a seasoned veteran of this sort of frothy fare, appears as Prentiss' mother, while other key roles are filled by Nanette Fabray and Robert Goulet. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
A man down on his luck hatches a different kind of get-rich-quick scheme in this independent comedy. Andy Sargentee (Jeff Bridges) is a middle-aged divorcé who is down in the dumps after the departure of his wife, Thelma (Jeanne Tripplehorn), and son, Billy (Alex D. Linz). The fact that Thelma's new hubby is quite wealthy only makes things more troubling for Andy, and he keeps thinking that if he had more money he could be back in her good graces. One night, while knocking back drinks with his friends, Andy has a brainstorm -- pornography is big business these days, so why not round up the local talent and make an adult movie? Andy persuades his friend Barney (Tim Blake Nelson) to sign on as co-producer, and they start putting together a crew, including Emmett (Patrick Fugit), a kid with a video camera who becomes director of photography, Otis (William Fichtner), who volunteers to be the gofer who doesn't really do anything, and as director a guy known only by his nickname, Some Idiot (Joe Pantoliano). Casting proves to be a bit more problematic, especially after they discover that Moose (Ted Danson), who has been cast in the male lead, may be gay when he repeatedly fails to rise to the occasion. The Amateurs also stars Lauren Graham, Valerie Perrine, and Glenne Headly as some of the local women drafted into appearing in the movie; the picture was released in the United Kingdom under the title The Moguls. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jeff Bridges, Ted Danson, (more)
- 1998
- R
Brion James and Valerie Perrine star in this drama about a young woman who runs away from home after her father tries to force her into a loveless marriage. After she arrives in New Orleans, she discovers a strange woman is following her every move -- and stealing her lovers away from her. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Audie England, Brion James, (more)
Based on a novel by acclaimed crime writer James Ellroy, this film stars Michael Rooker as Fritz Brown, a former L.A.P.D. detective who was kicked off the force due to his drinking. Now struggling to remain sober, Brown works as a private eye when he can, but he makes most of his money repossessing cars. One day, Brown is offered some detective work by Freddie "Fat Dog" Baker (William Sasso), a golf caddy who has some severe reservations about his younger sister, Jane (Selma Blair) and her relationship with Solly (Harold Gould), a wealthy businessman with mob connections who is old enough to be Jane's grandfather. Brown isn't interested at first, but when "Fat Dog" starts flashing an impressive bankroll, he decides to take the case. Brown's investigation of Solly causes him to cross paths with Cathcart (Brion James), the head of L.A.P.D. internal affairs who was responsible for Brown losing his job. Soon Brown runs afoul of a group of hired thugs and several key figures wind up dead as Brown tries to find out the truth about Solly and Jane. Ellroy wrote Brown's Requiem, his first novel, while he was still supporting himself as a golf caddy and breaking himself of a decade-long addiction to drugs and alcohol. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Michael Rooker, Tobin Bell, (more)
- 1997
- R
The experiment of a doctoral student that utilizes a video camera causes a release of sexual inhibitions in herself and her study subjects. ~ All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Costas Mandylor, Heidi Schanz, (more)
- 1994
- R
Erika Eleniak and William McNamara star as a couple of young lovers on the run in this breezy road movie, based on James M. Cain's novella The Enchanted Isle. Mandy Baker (Erika Eleniak) is a bored 17-year-old looking for adventure outside of her small hometown of Paint Rock, Texas. She finds it at a bus station, as she is set to head out for Corpus Cristi. There she meets Rick Davis (William McNamara), a handsome and narcissistic dude in a cowboy outfit, whom Mandy lends $17 for a one-way ticket to the lay-over stop of Utopia. The two get familiar on the bus and, upon arriving in Utopia, she tags along with Rick as he meets his Uncle Pal (Michael Lerner), a two-bit crook, and his weird cohort Bud (Bud Cort). The three hatch a plan for a $5,000 bank robbery, and Mandy is talked into going along with them. The robbery itself is a failure, but Rick and Mandy manage to take off with the money, with Pal and Bud chasing after them. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Erika Eleniak, William McNamara, (more)
The boiling point is mighty low in this tepid action programmer. Wesley Snipes plays Jimmy Mercer, a Treasury agent whose sting operation goes bad. Engineered by Ronnie (Viggo Mortensen), a dull-witted but sadistic ex-con, the operation not only fails, but one of Jimmy's colleagues is killed by Ronnie in the process. As punishment, Jimmy is exiled to Newark, where he is given seven days to find the man responsible for the death of the officer. Meanwhile, slimy con-man Red (Dennis Hopper) has Ronnie deceived into thinking that Mercer is a big-time crook with influential connections. Red does this to enlist Ronnie's aid to participate in a third-rate crime spree. When Ronnie and Red begin their two-man crime wave, Jimmy is in relentless pursuit behind them. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Wesley Snipes, Dennis Hopper, (more)
- 1991
- R
This contemporary western stars Dermot Mulroney as a Montana teenager whose sanity is being eroded by his parent's domestic squabbles. Linking up with Lili Taylor, a Wyoming-bound transient with a checkered history, Mulroney embarks upon an odyssey of self-discovery. Unfortunately, he persists in crossing the paths of people even more emotionally disturbed than his mother and father. Adapted by Richard Ford from two of his short stories, Bright Angel is a film of short, pithy vignettes, handled with subtlety and sensitivity-at least until the unexpectedly brutal finale. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Dermot Mulroney, Lili Taylor, (more)
