James Ray Movies

An aspiring writer faces up to the responsibilities of marriage and family in this romantic comedy from writer, director, and producer John Hughes. Despite the misgivings he pours out to best friend Davis McDonald (Alec Baldwin), Jake Briggs (Kevin Bacon) marries high-school sweetheart Kristy (Elizabeth McGovern). After an abortive attempt at graduate school in New Mexico, the couple settle in suburban Chicago. Jake fakes his way into a job as an advertising copywriter, while Kristy settles into her own corporate job. The couple face the typical ups and downs of any new marriage, especially after Davis visits with a bimbo on his arm, regaling his pal Jake with tales of the good life. A few years later, Kristy decides to stop taking her birth-control pills -- and tells Jake about it three months later. Plagued by doubts, unfulfilled ambitions, and images of a fantasy girl (Isabel Lorca) he once spotted in a club, Jake resists the idea of fatherhood. Then he finds out he has low sperm count and, his manhood thus challenged, lines up for fertility clinic-assisted stud duty. The birth doesn't go as smoothly as Jake expected, however, setting the stage for climactic realizations. Edie McClurg, who played the nosy school secretary in Hughes' Ferris Bueller's Day Off, makes a cameo appearance as an officious neighbor. In addition, a who's who of other Hughes alums and Hollywood stars lend their faces and voices to a series of closing-credits shots in which each suggests a name for the titular baby. ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide

In this marital drama, a divorcee moves in with a younger man and finds herself embroiled in a custody battle with her jealous ex-husband. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Peter Ustinov plays the talented detective in San Francisco who attempts, with help/hindrance from his clumsy grandson (Richard Hatch), to solve a murder case in this mystery/comedy. ~ Kristie Hassen, All Movie Guide

Crisis in Mid-Air is essentially a "problem drama" concentrating on a single individual. George Peppard plays a veteran air traffic controller who holds himself responsible for a mid-air collision. With an FAA investigator breathing down his neck, Peppard gets a chance to prove his value when another flight, with 235 passengers on board, puts in a "Mayday" call. The TV Guide ads for this television movie were a little misleading, suggesting that Peppard was in the cockpit rather than the control tower. Crisis in Mid-Air debuted February 13, 1979. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Another of the many Arthur Hailey literary properties which were transformed into TV miniseries in the 1970s, the five-part, ten-hour Wheels took place in Detroit sometime in the late 1960s. Rock Hudson starred as Adam Trenton, executive in charge of project development at the fictional auto-manufacturing firm of National Motors. Ambitious and ruthless, Adam let nothing stand in the way of his development and production of a new, youth-marketed car known as the Hawk. Meanwhile, Adam's bored and neglected wife Erica (Lee Remick, who earned an Emmy nomination for her performance) drifted into an extramarital affair and a brief "career" as a shoplifter. Eventually, Adam himself acquired a mistress, who in turn fell in love with Adam's son Kirk (James Carrol Jordan). As if things couldn't get any seamier, Kirk's brother Greg (Howard McGillin) was plagued by a blackmailer, while crooked car dealer Smokey Stevenson (played by miniseries stalwart Anthony Franciosa) cooked up a sinister deal that threatened to destroy National Motors. Originally telecast from May 7 to 15, 1978 on NBC, Arthur Hailey's Wheels posted such disappointing ratings that, when it was later rebroadcast, the property was whittled down from ten hours to four -- with episodes three and four summarily dropped from the proceedings. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide