Ed Bernard Movies
- 1999
As Sipowicz (Dennis Franz) prepares for his courtroom confrontation with Sinclair (Daniel Benzali) during the Cullinen trial, John Irvin (Bill Brochtrup) tries again to mollify the father (Bob Glaudini) of Cullinen's possible victim Dolores Mayo. Back at the 15th, Danny (Rick Schroder) tries to get an obviously abused 13-year-old boy to open up -- leading to a horrifying revelation. The conclusion of this 90-minute episode is a burst of gunfire, and the sudden, startling demise of yet another familiar NYPD Blue character. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1993
- G
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Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey, Disney's 1993 remake of the 1963 hit The Incredible Journey, follows three household pets as they travel across mountains and plains on their way to find their owners. A misunderstanding leads the animals to mistakenly believe that they have been abandoned by their loved ones, when in reality they have been left in the care of a friend while the family has moved from the country to the city for the father to take a temporary assignment . All three pets--a golden retriever (Don Ameche), a cat (Sally Field), and a bulldog puppy (Michael J. Fox)--can talk, and they bicker and crack jokes as they set off on a truly incredible journey chock full of misadventures as they wend their way back to their owners. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Robert Hays, Kim Greist, (more)
- 1987
- R
In this actioner, a young soldier, an expert in survival and combat, must work with his original trainer after his lover and her father are abducted. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Mike Norris, Deborah Goodrich, (more)
Ex-Vietnam chopper pilot Roy Scheider is now in charge of Blue Thunder, a high-tech copter designed to quell possible terrorism during the 1984 LA Olympics. His onetime comrade-in-arms Malcolm McDowell, now his bitter enemy, will stop at nothing to neutralize Blue Thunder and expedite an armed takeover of the United States. Well, there's the plot: now sit back and enjoy those eye-popping aerial scenes. Blue Thunder was later adapted into a weekly TV series. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Roy Scheider, Malcolm McDowell, (more)
All of the regular cast members seen during Season One of The White Shadow are on deck for Season Two, with a pair of new additions. Joining the Carver High School basketball team under aegis of coach Ken Reeves (Ken Howard) (nicknamed "The White Shadow" by the largely black student body) are player Nick Vittaglia (John Mengatti) and team manager Phil Jefferson (Russell Phillip Robinson). No sooner has the season begun when one of Reeves' best players, Curtis Jackson (Milton Reese), unwittingly falls in with a gang of bookies who want him to shave a few points. Later, an embittered transfer student tries to turn the team against Reeves for making a joke that the student has misinterpreted as a racial slur; Reeves is racked with guilt when a rookie player dies of a hitherto undetected heart condition during practice; it's an inner-city "Odd Couple" when the temporarily homeless Warren Coolidge (Byron Stewart) is forced to share living quarters with the hapless coach; Coolidge and Morris Thorpe (Kevin Hooks) both get a sexually transmitted disease from the same girl; "Salami" Pettrino (Timothy Van Patten) runs afoul of the authorities when he innocently shares his prescription painkillers with his teammates, and later has a brief affair with an attractive young teacher; Reeves suspects that Ricky Gomez (Ira Angustain) is the victim of domestic violence; and the team challenges a group of volunteer workers to a pickup game, little imagining that their opponents are none other than the Harlem Globetrotters! The season ends on a truly shattering note: After helping his team win the LA City Basketball Championship, and on the brink of his graduation, Curtis Jackson is shot down and killed while witnessing a liquor store holdup. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ken Howard
- 1979
Elizabeth Montgomery stars in this made-for-television movie about a liberal reporter whose views are challenged after she becomes the victim of random crime. Montgomery stars as Katherine McSweeney, a divorced, single-mother news reporter assigned to cover crime in her lower-middle-class neighborhood. After being mugged in her hallway, Katherine finds little sympathy from her colleagues or the police who feel her left-wing tendencies left her wide open for crime. The film shows how she transforms from a tolerant woman into a frightened and judgmental citizen, who is angry at her loss of innocence, but determined not to give in to her fear. ~ Bernadette McCallion, All Movie Guide
In the Emmy-winning debut episode of The White Shadow, Chicago Bulls forward Ken Reeves (Ken Howard), forced to retire after a series of injuries, bypasses the offers of several more prestigious jobs, accepting instead an invitation from college buddy Jim Willis (played by Jason Bernard in the opener, Ed Bernard thereafter) to coach the mediocre basketball team at Carver High, the inner-city-LA high school where Willis is principal. Reeves is hardly welcomed with open arms by taciturn vice principal Sybil Buchanan (Joan Pringle), nor does he immediately win over the largely black student body. He does, however, have better luck bonding with his team members, beginning with James Hayward (Thomas Carter), whom Ken talks out of quitting school. As the team begins to win games under Reeves' tough-but-fair tutelage, the kids come to both respect and revere "The White Shadow." All the while, however, Ken's sister Katie (Robin Rose) and brother-in-law Bill (Jerry Fogel) nag him to stop trying to save the world and take a safer, more secure, and better-paying job at one of the suburbans schools. A subsequent episode finds Reeves having a showdown with player Curtis Jackson (Eric Kilpatrick) when he finds a liquor bottle in Curtis' locker. Another player, Milton Reese (Nathan Cook) may have to give up both the team and a scholarship when his girlfriend turns up pregnant. Briefly dropped from the team, Ricky "Go Go" Gomez (Ira Angustain) rejoins his old street gang. Player Abner Goldstein (Ken Michelman) undergoes a crisis of faith when his teammates seem indifferent to his grandmother's illness. And in a basically serious episode with comic undertones, the team decides to form a singing group--excluding the sensitive Morris Thorpe (Kevin Hooks), whose ear-piercing rendition of "My Girl" must be heard to be disbelieved. The problems tackled in the first season of The White Shadow go beyond the regular characters: A talented transfer student faces persecution because he is rumored to be homosexual; a hot college prospect turns out to be illiterate, a product of the "slide 'em through and no one will notice" school of athletic promotion; and while subbing for another teacher, Reeves finally comes to grips with the fact that not every troubled student is capable of being "saved"--especially after one such student tries to rape Ms. Buchanan. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ken Howard
- 1977
Gorgeous LAPD undercover cop Pepper Anderson (Angie Dickinson) continues to put her life on the line while wearing some of the sexiest outfits of the 1970s in the fourth and final season of Police Woman. In the opener, Pepper foregoes assuming a false identity as she and her superior officer Lt. Crowley (Earl Holliman) go to the aid of a battered wife. Later on, of course, it's disguise time again, with Pepper variously posing as a congressional witness, a schoolteacher, a drug pusher, and a nun. Making guest appearances this year is a fascinating blend of familiar faces and talented newcomers, including Nipsey Russell, Keenan Wynn, Fernando Lamas, Lloyd Nolan, Nehemiah Persoff, Louis Nye, Paul Williams, Tab Hunter, Sandra Dee, Eartha Kitt, Catherine Bach, Debra Winger and Mare Winningham. The most offbeat bit of cast is comic impressionist Rich Little's chilling portrayal of a serial rapist. The funniest of the guest stars is Adam West, playing a cloddish thug who moves his lips while reading a "Batman" comic book! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Angie Dickinson, Earl Holliman, (more)
- 1976
Season Three of the slick and sometimes sexy cop drama Police Woman finds undercover LAPD cop Pepper Anderson (Angie Dickinson) navigating the bizarre world of high-class prostitution in order to get the goods on a blackmailing madam (Dorothy Malone). Later on, a curious case of reverse sexism raises its head when Pepper, so often victimized on the series by libidinous males, is suspended from duty when falsely accused of sexually molesting a prisoner. And in an instance of grim irony, Pepper poses as a mobster's moll to infiltrate a gangland hideaway, where she falls in love with a shady tennis pro--never suspecting that he is also an undercover detective! This season's guest-star manifest includes the talented likes of Jack Gilford, Carol Lynley, Meredith Baxter Birney, Edward James Olmos, Mariette Hartley, Judy Carne, Lisa Hartman, Cheryl Ladd, Pernell Roberts, and real-life undercover cop Dave Toma, whose career later inspired the fictional TV series Baretta. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Angie Dickinson, Earl Holliman, (more)
- 1975
Season Two of Police Woman finds sexy undercover cop Pepper Anderson (Angie Dickinson) adopting a whole new slew of false identities and gorgeous costumes in the line of duty. In the course of the season, Pepper assumes such guises as a fashion consultant, a drug addict, a traffic cop, a Vegas showgirl, and even a little old lady. As "herself" in one poignant two-part episode, Pepper strikes a blow for woman's equality by training for the LAPD's motorcycle task force--and tragically losing her new boyfriend to a serial cop killer in the process. Among the guest stars appearing in the second season are Roddy McDowell, Bruce Boxleitner, Ida Lupino, Loni Anderson, Frank Gorshin, Henry Gibson, Amy Irving, Robert Loggia, Barry Williams, Donna Mills, James Darren and even psychologist Dr. Joyce Brothers. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Angie Dickinson, Earl Holliman, (more)
- 1974
As a favor to pretty young sociologist Lindsay Walker (Sian Barbara Allen), Kojak (Telly Savalas) embarks on a search for her boyfriend, paroled convict Lou Giordino (played by a pre-Starsky and Hutch Paul Michael Glaser). But Lou has no intention of being located by Kojak or any other law-enforcement official. He has jumped parole in order to locate his ex-wife--and also settle accounts with his former cohorts, who had let him take the fall for a crime while they escaped scot-free. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1974
- PG
The Together Brothers is a Galveston, Texas, teenaged gang, populated by blacks and Chicanos. A popular police officer is murdered, and the Brothers' leader (Ahmad Nurradin) wants to track down those responsible. The leader's 5-year-old brother (Anthony Wilson) is the only witness to the crime, thus the boys must keep the kid from becoming dead meat at the hands of the killers. Through methods ranging from cerebral to violent, the Together Brothers piece together the clues and expose the murderers. Filmed on location with a largely nonprofessional cast, Together Brothers makes up in energy and conviction what it lacks in slickness. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1974
Reflections of Murder is an admitted remake of the 1955 French spinetingler Diabolique (we say "admitted" because most Diabolique rip-offs fail to credit the source). Joan Hackett is unhappily married to Sam Waterston. Tuesday Weld is Waterston's equally disenchanted mistress. Hackett and Weld conspire to murder the hateful Waterston, but he proves hard to kill. Even after he's breathed his last, Waterston steadfastly refuses to stay dead-and thus the stage is set for the twist- countertwist climax. Filmed at Puget Sound, Reflections of Murder was one of the last made-for-TV projects of director John Badham; it was first aired November 24, 1974. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Sexy LAPD undercover officer Sgt. Pepper Anderson (Angie Dickinson) assumes a variety of identities and dons an exhausting array of stunning outfits during Season One of the iconic 1970s cop series Police Woman. In the first episode, however, Pepper must "dress down" a bit as a dowdy bank employee so that she and her superior officer Lt. Crowley (Earl Holliman) can nab a particular vicious gang of robbers. In later episodes, Pepper is seen as a model, a stewardess, a go-go dancer, a female convict, a nurse, a "desperate" housewife, a high school teacher, a jewel fence and a roadside café waitress. Occasionally, however, Pepper is simply Pepper, as in the episode in which she is given the unenviable task of guarding an outspoken Marxist during a particularly volatile student rally. During this season, Nichole Kallis makes sporadic appearances as Cheryl Anderson, Pepper's autistic sister, who lives at the Austin School for the Handicapped. Evidently the producers felt that this touching method of "humanizing" the heroine was dispensible, so Cheryl disappears without explanation by season's end. Like most dramatic series of its era, Police Woman benefits immeasureably from the talents of its guest stars. Appearing in the Season One episodes are such favorites as Cathy Rigby, Kathleen Quinlan, Elinor Donahue William Katt, Larry Hagman, Pat Morita, Rhonda Fleming, Hal Williams, Dane Clark, Bob Crane, Della Reese, William Shatner, Rory Calhoun, Annette O'Toole, Ruby Dee, Robert Vaughn, David Selby, Patty Duke, Shelley Berman, Don Meredith and Pat Harrington Jr. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Angie Dickinson, Earl Holliman, (more)
- 1973
- PG
This film is based on the 1931 film, Trader Horn. In the earlier picture, explorers (including Trader Horn) who stumbled on a hostile tribe of Africans have their lives saved by a white girl whom the tribe members regard as a goddess. They discover that she is the daughter of some missing missionaries and take her back to Europe with them. In this film, Trader Horn (Rod Taylor) works to thwart the efforts of Germans to use slave laborers in Africa to mine platinum for the war effort (WWI). ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
Across 110th Street is a violent urban thriller about a corrupt, older white cop (Anthony Quinn) and an honest, young African-American cop (Yaphet Kotto) chasing three robbers-cum-murderers who ran away with $300,000 that belonged to the Italian mob. The police must find them before the sadistic Mafia henchman Nick D'Salvio (Anthony Franciosa) reaches them first. The film has reached a cult status; the title song, performed by Bobby Womack, was later used in Jackie Brown, Quentin Tarantino's extended homage to the crime flicks of the 1970s. ~ Yuri German, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Anthony Quinn, Yaphet Kotto, (more)
Peter Yates directs the early '70s comedy caper The Hot Rock, based on the Donald Westlake novel and adapted for the screen by William Goldman. Robert Redford stars as John Archibald Dortmunder, a former jewel thief just released from prison. His brother-in-law, Andrew Kelp (George Segal), recruits him to steal a diamond from a museum. They are hired by Dr. Amusa (Moses Gunn), an ambassador from Central Fatawi, whose people consider the stone to be sacred. John and Andrew assemble a team with Alan Greenberg (Paul Sand) and Stan Murch (Ron Leibman). They successfully pull off the job until the guards arrest them and Alan swallows the diamond. Alan's father (Zero Mostel) helps him break out of jail, which leads to a series of other heist attempts. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Robert Redford, George Segal, (more)
Richard Roundtree cuts a startlingly new and powerful heroic figure as John Shaft, "the cat who won't cop out, when there's danger all about" in Gordon Parks' seminal action film, Shaft. John Shaft is a black private eye with a small office near Times Square. On his way there one day, he gets pumped for information by Lt. Victor Androzzi (Charles Cioffi), a friend of his on the police force, about something big going down in Harlem involving black crime kingpin Bumpy Jonas (Moses Gunn). Shaft can't help him and leaves, only to just miss being waylaid by two of Bumpy's strong-arm men at his office, one of whom ends up dead on the pavement eight floors or so below. Squeezed by the cops, who are holding a potential manslaughter arrest over his head, Shaft contacts Bumpy, who reveals that his teenage daughter, whom he's always kept away from his business, has been kidnapped. There's been no ransom demand and no clue as to who did it, and he wants Shaft to find the culprits, insisting that he start with a group of Harlem-based black militants led by Shaft's onetime friend Ben Buford (Christopher St. John). No sooner does he find Buford, holed up in a decaying part of Harlem, however, than his friend's comrades are mowed down by submachine gun fire, and Shaft and Buford barely escape. With Shaft angry and out for blood, everyone is forced to come clean -- Bumpy knows that it's the Mafia that kidnapped his daughter, as they want in on the Harlem drug trade that he controls; they're holding her somewhere else outside of Harlem, where his men are no good to him, which is why he wanted Shaft to hook up with Buford. Androzzi tells Shaft that a dozen Mob trigger men from out of town have been spotted in Greenwich Village. He doesn't know why they're there, but he does know that if fighting breaks out between Bumpy's men and the Mafia, it's going to look like a race war, and the whole city could erupt. Shaft doesn't like the way he's been manipulated, but he sees Androzzi's point -- he links the trigger men to the kidnapping and finds the girl, but loses her again, getting shot in the process. Even though he's wounded, Shaft heads for a final confrontation with the kidnappers, supported by Ben's friends in an armed assault on the building where they're holed up. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Richard Roundtree, Moses Gunn, (more)
