Lillian Randolph Movies

Anthony Hopkins is a ventriloquist psychologically tormented by his dummy in the Richard Attenborough thriller Magic (a film with a story that may seem familiar to those who have seen the Michael Redgrave segment of Dead of Night, or the Cliff Robertson episode "The Dummy" from The Twilight Zone television series). William Goldman based his screenplay on his best-selling novel. Hopkins plays Corky, a seedy magician who is hooted off the stage in the low-rent clubs that will stoop to hire him. But when he comes across a dummy named Fats, his career is energized. Corky sees in Fats everything he lacks himself -- confidence, creativity, and verbal agility. With the help of his agent Ben Greene (Burgess Meredith), Corky rises to the top of the nightclub circuit. But with Corky's success comes an increased paranoia, and he turns down a TV contract, believing that it would mean taking a medical examination and that rumors of his mental instability might leak out. Corky takes off to a Catskills resort, run by Peggy Ann Snow (Ann-Margret), an old girlfriend now unhappily married to a volatile hick (Ed Lauter). While a frustrated Ben high tails it to the Catskills to find Corky, Corky discovers that he still has feelings for Peggy, but lands in the middle of a love triangle between the woman and her husband, where his schizophrenic personality manifests itself and additional murders occur. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi

George and Louise Jefferson (Sherman Hemsley, Isabel Sanford) have completely forgotten the upcoming 70th birthday of George's mother (Zara Cully). Scrambling around to find an appropriate present at the last minute, George and Louise hit upon what they think is a brilliant idea: They will reunite Mother Jefferson with her sister Emma (Lillian Randolph), whom she hasn't seen in 25 years. Alas, it turns out that there's a strong and compelling reason why the elderly siblings have kept their distance for a quarter of a century. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

In this high-suds potboiler based on the best-selling novel by Jacqueline Susann, Mike Wayne (Kirk Douglas) is a past-his-prime movie producer who lives to make his college-age daughter January (Deborah Raffin) happy. January is also very fond of her father, perhaps more so than would seem healthy to the casual observer. Desperate to keep financing the good life for his daughter, Mike weds Deidre Granger (Alexis Smith), a wealthy bisexual who isn't about to give up her long-term relationship with Karla (Melina Mercouri). January finds herself pursued by suave playboy David Milford (George Hamilton), but she's more strongly attracted to Tom Colt (David Janssen), a middle-aged alcoholic novelist who reminds January of her father. Brenda Vaccaro won a Golden Globe award (and received an Oscar nomination) for her supporting performance as the man-crazy editor of a fashion magazine. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Originally released as The Wild McCulloughs, this AIP melodrama stars Forrest Tucker as J.J. McCulloch, a domineering patriarch. In their race to escape their father's overbearing influence, J.J.'s grown sons come to grief; one son dies in Korea, while another is arrested for murder. Only Gary (Chip Hand), the youngest son, manages to survive the situation. J.J. also has a daughter, played by Janice Heiden, whose romantic misadventures add more fuel to the dysfunctional flames. Costarring in The McCulloughs is Julie Adams as Tucker's long suffering wife, and former "Beverly Hillbilly" Max Baer (who also produced, directed and wrote the film) as one of Heiden's beaus. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

An unusually long pre-credits sequence establishes the roots of faded Southern belle Charlotte's (Bette Davis) insanity; she'd been witness to the dismemberment murder of her fiance (Bruce Dern) and the suicide of the murderer, her own father (Victor Buono). Years later, Charlotte remains a recluse in her decaying southern mansion, zealously guarding the secret of her father's guilt; she is cared for by her slatternly housekeeper (Agnes Moorehead). When her house is targeted for demolition, Charlotte fears that this will uncover her lover's body parts and thus confirm that her father was a murderer. She desperately summons her seemingly sweet-tempered cousin Miriam (Olivia De Havilland) to help her fight off the house's destruction. Miriam brings along the family doctor (Joseph Cotten) to calm Charlotte's frayed nerves. When Charlotte begins to be plagued by horrific visions of the homicide/suicide of so long ago, it appears that she has gone completely insane. But soon we learn who is behind these delusions...and why. Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte was intended by director Robert Aldrich as a follow-up to the successful Joan Crawford/Bette Davis horror piece Whatever Happened to Baby Jane (1962). Ms. Crawford was originally slated to play Miriam, but became seriously ill shortly before filming started. Davis, who disliked Crawford intensely, suggested that the role of Miriam be filled by her best friend, De Havilland. On the first day of shooting, Davis and DeHavilland pulled a "Ding Dong the Witch is Dead" routine by toasting one another with Coca-Cola--a catty observation of the fact that Joan Crawford's husband was an executive with the Pepsi Cola company! ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis' second starring vehicle was the odd mixture of slapstick and sentiment known as That's My Boy. Lewis is cast as Junior Jackson, the milquetoast son of former college football All-American "Jarrin' Jack" Jackson (Eddie Mayehoff). Regarding Junior as a disgrace, Jarrin' Jack hires amiable jock Bill Baker (Dean) to make a man out of his son. The film's climax is the inevitable Big Game, in which Junior fumbles and stumbles about before finally proving his mettle. Ruth Hussey plays Junior's understanding mother, while Marion Marshall and Polly Bergen portray Martin and Lewis' respective girlfriends. By 1990s standards, That's My Boy is more melancholy than funny, with Jarrin' Jack coming across as a neurotic blowhard who takes out his frustrations on his clumsy but likeable offspring. Audiences in 1951 were convulsed, however, and the film was a huge success. A TV-sitcom version of That's My Boy, starring Eddie Mayehoff, Rochelle Hudson, and Gil Stratton Jr., appeared in 1955. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

After the film-noir melodramatics of Lady in the Lake and Ride the Pink Horse, actor/director Robert Montgomery turned to comedy in Once More, My Darling. Montgomery plays a former movie idol hired by the government to woo a young heiress (Ann Blyth). Someone had previously given the girl some jewelry stolen by the Nazis during the war, and the government wants to find out who that someone was. In the grand tradition, Montgomery pursues Blyth until she finally catches him. Produced by longtime Alfred Hitchcock associate Joan Harrison, Once More, My Darling is more conservatively directed than Montgomery's earlier works, though the director earns at least one laugh by playing a clever editing joke. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

This noir mystery thriller was produced by Mary Pickford and her husband Buddy Rogers, and directed by Douglas Sirk. Claudette Colbert stars as Alison Courtland, a wealthy New York socialite who awakens on a Boston-bound train with no memory of how she got there. A kindly older woman, Mrs. Tomlinson (Queenie Smith) helps Alison call her husband Richard (Don Ameche), who informs her that she disappeared after threatening his life. While traveling back to New York, Alison meets Bruce Elcott (Robert Cummings), who is immediately smitten with her. Upon her return, Richard urges Alison to consult a psychiatrist, Charles Vernay (George Coulouris), but the man's bizarre, abusive manner nearly drives Alison mad. Alison's condition, Vernay, and even the helpful Mrs. Tomlinson are all part of an elaborate scheme on the part of Richard and his mistress, Daphne (Hazel Brooks) to get drive Alison to suicide and collect her fortune. A concerned Bruce visits Vernay, who is really a photographer, and begins piecing the scheme together. ~ Karl Williams, Rovi

This is director Frank Capra's classic bittersweet comedy/drama about George Bailey (James Stewart), the eternally-in-debt guiding force of a bank in the typical American small town of Bedford Falls. As the film opens, it's Christmas Eve, 1946, and George, who has long considered himself a failure, faces financial ruin and arrest and is seriously contemplating suicide. High above Bedford Falls, two celestial voices discuss Bailey's dilemma and decide to send down eternally bumbling angel Clarence Oddbody (Henry Travers), who after 200 years has yet to earn his wings, to help George out. But first, Clarence is given a crash course on George's life, and the multitude of selfless acts he has performed: rescuing his younger brother from drowning, losing the hearing in his left ear in the process; enduring a beating rather than allow a grieving druggist (H.B. Warner) to deliver poison by mistake to an ailing child; foregoing college and a long-planned trip to Europe to keep the Bailey Building and Loan from letting its Depression-era customers down; and, most important, preventing town despot Potter (Lionel Barrymore) from taking over Bedford Mills and reducing its inhabitants to penury. Along the way, George has married his childhood sweetheart Mary (Donna Reed), who has stuck by him through thick and thin. But even the love of Mary and his children are insufficient when George, faced with an $8000 shortage in his books, becomes a likely candidate for prison thanks to the vengeful Potter. Bitterly, George declares that he wishes that he had never been born, and Clarence, hoping to teach George a lesson, shows him how different life would have been had he in fact never been born. After a nightmarish odyssey through a George Bailey-less Bedford Falls (now a glorified slum called Potterville), wherein none of his friends or family recognize him, George is made to realize how many lives he has touched, and helped, through his existence; and, just as Clarence had planned, George awakens to the fact that, despite all its deprivations, he has truly had a wonderful life. Capra's first production through his newly-formed Liberty Films, It's a Wonderful Life lost money in its original run, when it was percieved as a fairly downbeat view of small-town life. Only after it lapsed into the public domain in 1973 and became a Christmastime TV perennial did it don the mantle of a holiday classic. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

In this musical, two writers endeavor to write an innovative operetta in order to establish themselves. They end up writing a libretto about a mid-19th-century fellow with a secret past. He was a real person, and the authors begin looking to discover the nature of his secret. Later, the man's last living relative shows up and tries to stop them from producing the show. Fortunately, she eventually gives in and even lets them stage the first production in her palatial plantation manor. In the end, the show ends up a hit on Broadway. Songs include: "It All Could Have Happened Before," "What I Like About You," "The Country Ain't the Country Anymore" and "I Love to Remember" (Marla Shelton, Louis Herscher). Also included is "Bayou Calls." ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

The last and least of RKO Radio's B-series based on radio's "Great Gildersleeve", Gildersleeve's Ghost is a standard "scare" comedy redeemed by some enthusiastic performances. The barely relevant title comes from the fact that the film opens in a graveyard, where two spectral ancestors of Springfield water commissioner Throckmorton P. Gildersleeve (Harold Peary) discuss his chances in the upcoming mayoral election. The rest of the film takes place in a spooky old mansion, where mad scientists Wells (Frank Reicher) and Lennox (Joseph Vitale) are experimenting with an invisibility formula. Their unwilling subject is vivacious blonde Terry Vance (Marion Martin), whose ability to appear and disappear at will causes a lot of embarrassment for poor old Gildersleeve. The film doesn't miss a trick: there's even an extended bit involving a gorilla. Very basic stuff, Gildersleeve's Ghost admittedly delivers plenty of laughs. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Gildersleeve on Broadway was the third in a series of RKO B-pictures inspired by the radio sitcom The Great Gildersleeve. Harold Peary once more stars as Throckmorton P. Gildersleeve, water commissioner and resident blowhard of the town of Springfield. In this one, Gildy accompanies his pharamacist friend Peavey (Richard LeGrand) at a druggist's convention in New York. Here he becomes romantically involved with wealthy widow Mrs. Chandler (Billie Burke) and brassy gold-digger Francine Gray (Claire Carleton). He also spends his time dodging the arrows of a nut named Homer (Hobart Cavanaugh), who thinks he's cupid. Things get sillier and sillier before the film's slapstick setpiece, which finds Gildy teetering on the edge of a skyscraper. Midget actor Walter Tetley, who played Gildersleeve's nephew Leroy on radio, shows up in a bit role as a bellboy in Gildersleeve on Broadway. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi