Deborah Raffin Movies

Gregory Peck produced this coming-of-age adventure, richly photographed by Sven Nykvist. Based on a true story, the film documents the five-year journey of Robin Lee Graham (Joseph Bottoms), a 16-year-old boy who sets out in a 23-foot sloop, determined to be the youngest person to sail around the world. As he travels around the globe, he undergoes a string of new experiences while growing from a child to an adult. Along the way, he falls in love with an inspiring woman, Patti Ratteree (Deborah Raffin), who follows him throughout his journeys, meeting him at ports of call in Fiji, Australia, South Africa, Panama, and the Galapagos Islands. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi

Originally made for television, this delightfully sordid women's prison film has a pair of co-eds (Deborah Raffin and Lynne Moody) traveling through a small town, where they are arrested by a sleazy sheriff (Chuck Connors) and sent to a work-farm. The usual sadistic goings-on result, including rape, murder, and white slavery, but this is a bit more interesting than most similar offerings just for the oddball cast. Ralph Bellamy appears as a judge, Brady Bunch dad Robert Reed is the warden, and Gilligan's Island star Tina Louise is a prison guard. A highpoint of a year in which television seemed almost like a Southern drive-in, Nightmare in Badham County is a must for fans of smarmy small-screen exploitation. ~ Robert Firsching, Rovi

Released theatrically as God Told Me To, this inventive film from "B"-movie auteur Larry Cohen was later re-named Demon after television distributors refused to air it under the original title. The convoluted, tabloid-flavored storyline (predating the kind of stories frequently featured on The X-Files) involves a series of motiveless murders committed by various New York residents: a sniper picks off targets from a water tower; a mild-mannered father murders his entire family; and a cop (Andy Kaufman, of all people) opens fire during a St. Patrick's Day parade. The only consistent pattern to the crimes involves the perpetrators' calm admissions of guilt, explaining, "God told me to." While investigating the murders, devoutly-Catholic police detective Peter Nicholas (Tony Lo Bianco) is increasingly troubled by evidence of a Christ-like figure named Bernard Phillips (Richard Lynch) who appeared to each of the killers and can't seem to shake the feeling that his own fate is inexplicably linked to this mysterious being. As he comes closer to the truth, his worst fears are confirmed -- particularly after a telling conversation with Bernard's tormented mother (Sylvia Sidney), who reveals the horrifying secret of her son's unnatural birth. Cohen has often used the "B"-movie format to address rather lofty concepts, and this is certainly no exception -- tackling no less than the existence of God and the nature of human beliefs -- but clumsy editing and an outrageous FX-heavy finale tend to obscure this film's unique vision. ~ Cavett Binion, Rovi

Though Desi Arnaz Jr. gets star billing in How to Pick Up Girls, the film's true leading man is third-billed Fred McCrarren. He plays a clueless Nebraska boy whose efforts to score with chicks in the Big City come to naught. Finally he stumbles upon the "secret" to successful dating with the help of his superstud roommate (Desi Arnaz Jr.) McCrarren is transformed into a makeout king--much to consternation of the nice girl (Bess Armstrong) who likes him for himself. Based on the book by Eric Weber (which one supposes was supposed to have been taken seriously), How to Pick up Girls is a made-for-TV smarmfest. At that, it is a few notches above the standard "horny teenager" flick which glutted the market in the early 1980s. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

The most surprising aspect of the made-for-TV Ski Lift to Death is that it wasn't produced by Irwin Allen. Two ski-lift gondolas derail, hanging perilously close to destruction. Among the passengers are a former gangster and the hit man assigned to kill him. Also on board are a pair of champion skiiers who've been linked in a publicity-generated romance. Real-life ski champ Suzy Chaffee plays Maureen; the rest of the cast includes such TV stalwarts as Deborah Raffin, Howard Duff, Don Galloway, Don Johnson, Veronica Hamel and Clu Gulager. Ski Lift to Death was originally telecast March 3, 1978. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

This bush-league Eyes of Laura Mars stars Deborah Raffin as a model with a "sixth sense." First she senses that an airline is to be bombed--a premonition which comes true. Then she senses that the bomber knows who she is and plans to kill her. Unfortunately, Raffin has the usual TV-movie precognitive skills which allow her to see what's going to happen, but which prevent her from determining who's going to do it. Mind over Murder was directed by Ivan Nagy, better known for his highly publicized involvement in the Heidi Fleiss scandal. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Touched by Love was not only filmed in Canada, but had a leading character named Canada (it had to; the film is based on the reminisces of a real-life person). Deborah Raffin portrays Lena Canada, a therapist in charge of handicapped Diane Lane. A wheelchair-bound cerebral palsy victim, Lane also shows signs of autism. Determined to bring Lane back into the world, Ms. Canada suggests that the girl start a pen-pal relationship with her favorite celebrity--Elvis Presley. Based on the real Lena Canada's book "To Elvis With Love," the low-key but emotionally supercharged Touched By Love costars Michael Learned as Lena's superior, Dr. Bell; also in the cast are sixteen genuine "special" children from a school in Calgary, Alberta. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

In this made-for-television thriller, a pair of couples, a U.S. senator among them, are stalked by backwoods snipers while on a white-water rafting trip. ~ Jason Ankeny, Rovi

Scriptwriters Robert Malcolm Young, Sue Grafton and Stephen Humphrey transposed the Agatha Christie story Sparkling Cyanide from its veddy British locale to the plush environs of Pasadena for this 1983 TV-movie adaptation. Leading character Anthony Andrews is still a Briton, mingling with the rich and famous. Seeking glamour, Andrews finds only depravity and death as several of the glitterati drop dead due to poisoned champagne. The motives are the oldest and most reliable: avarice and jealousy. Sparkling Cyanide was filmed at the same time as Caribbean Mystery, another Christie adaptation utilizing the same producer, director and scenarists. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

This low-budget jungle adventure tale stars Deborah Raffin as a dedicated anthropologist who hires boozy, woman-hating helicopter pilot Peter Fonda to fly her into the dark inner depths of the Philippine jungle in search of one of her colleagues, who disappeared while searching for the legendary lost tribe of winged dwarf creatures. Re-titled Jungle Heat for video release and packaged like an Indiana Jones-style adventure, this plays like a low-rent, horror-tinged update of The African Queen, focusing more on the constant verbal sparring between the cultured Raffin and the coarse, hard-drinking Fonda than on the weird, gargoyle-like pygmies. The script -- based on the novel by Geoffrey Household -- sacrifices too many potential thrills for plodding exposition and half-baked humor. ~ Cavett Binion, Rovi

In this drama, a man from the Midwest moves to the Big Apple after he separates from his wife. While in the big city an old college buddy gets him involved in a complicated love triangle. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

Michael Winner ups the ante once again in Death Wish 3. Any pretense of Paul Kersey (Charles Bronson) having a career in architecture is completely gone. Kersey's new career appears to be as a professional vigilante, blowing away muggers, rapists and thieves off the mean streets -- or as he terms it "thinning the herd." Back in New York City, Kersey, with his usual luck, arrives just in time to find an old friend dying after a vicious beating by a multi-cultural gang of thugs. The cops arrest Kersey, but it just so happens that police chief Richard S. Shriker (Ed Lauter) is like Kersey with a badge: "I'm the law, and that means I get to violate your civil rights." He makes a deal with Kersey: he can go free as long as he keeps the cops informed of his death counts. Kersey grunts in agreement and proceeds to move into a decaying tenement building in the middle of a bombed out gang war zone. The building is populated by a group of elderly tenants who are terrified by the neighborhood gang warfare. Kersey declares his own personal war on the neighborhood gang, led by a frenzied leader named Fraker (Gavan O'Herilhy), who wears a reverse Mohawk hair-style. As Kersey devises booby traps and trip-wire bombs to confound the gang, the senior citizens gleefully take pot shots at the wounded gang members from their windows. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi