Edward Binns Movies

"Hip" Catholic priest Sam Bottoms is asked by his monsignor to defend their faith on The Dick Cavett Show. While preparing for his appearance, however, Bottoms begins having doubts about his religious committment. Especially troublesome is his relationship with Renee Coleman, a brilliant student who doesn't believe in God. The Bottoms--Coleman story is paralleled with a series of flashbacks to the Stone Age (!), as caveman leader James Farkas tries to make sense of a mystical tree trunk. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Originally intended as the pilot for a never-sold cop series titled Battles, this made-for-TV meller stars William Conrad as William Battles, a retired Los Angeles police detective spending his golden years in Hawaii. Somewhat bored by inactivity, Battles takes a job at a local college as assistant football coach and security chief. Not unexpectedly, our corpulent hero is soon up to his neck in a murder investigation, this time with a recent homicide bearing a remarkable resemblance to a similar killing in the 1940s (as described in a mock newsreel narrated by no less than Lowell Thomas). Assisting Battles in bringing the culprit to heel are his niece Shelby (Robin Mattson), collegiate football star Deacon Joe Jackson (Lane Caudell) and his own boss, Dean Mary Phillips (Marj Dusay). The Murder That Wouldn't Die debuted March 9, 1980, on NBC. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Jason Robards stars as the ailing, 62-year-old President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in F.D.R.: The Last Year. Though visibly frail and weary, Roosevelt runs for a precedent-setting fourth term. He also oversees plans for the D-Day Invasion and engages in tempestuous summit meetings with his wartime allies Stalin (Nehemiah Persoff) and Churchill (Wensley Pithey). Eileen Heckart co-stars as Eleanor Roosevelt, while Kim Hunter plays his "great and good friend," artist Lucy Rutherfurd, who is at his side when he suffers his fatal cerebral hemorrhage in April of 1945. The 3-hour, made-for-TV F.D.R.: The Last Year was first telecast May 15, 1980. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The Man You Loved to Hate is a perfunctory but interesting documentary of the life and work of Erich von Stroheim. Through filmclips, still pictures, newsreel vignettes and interviews with friends and intimates, the film traces the spectacular rise and precipitous fall of von Stroheim's directorial career. Enjoying unexpected success with his inaugural directorial effort Blind Husbands (1919), Von Stroheim rapidly becomes the most self-destructive, profligate filmmaker in Hollywood. Greed (1923), now considered the director's masterpiece, proves the beginning of the end for von Stroheim when the 40-reel film is taken out of his hands and radically reshaped by MGM. He enjoys a healthy comeback with the financial success of The Merry Widow, but before long his career is in the dumpster thanks to such expensive flops as The Wedding March and the never-completed Queen Kelly. Von Stroheim spends the rest of his years as a character actor in other men's films, often as not cast as a cold-hearted villain. Treated as a relic in Hollywood, Von Stroheim continues to be lauded as a genius in Europe until his death in 1957. Though assembled with only a modicum of imagination, The Man You Loved to Hate is a valuable record of one of cinema's most gifted mavericks. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

General Korshack (Ed Binns demands that Hawkeye (Alan Alda) become his personal physician. While the rest of the camp mulls over Hawkeye's imminent departure, Radar (Gary Burghoff) becomes surrogate daddy for the baby of an American GI's Korean girl friend (Suesie Elene). Both situations are resolved before the final fade-out, but the results are neither entirely happy nor entirely sad. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The made for TV 20 Shades of Pink stars real-life husband and wife Eli Wallach and Anne Jackson as a happily married blue collar couple. Wallach is perfectly content to work as a house painter, but Jackson, hoping to fatten the family bank account, talks her husband into opening his own business. The pressure of being one's own boss, coupled with Wallach's middle-age angst, gives Jackson good cause to regret her ambitions. The advertising copy for 20 Shades of Pink asks "How can you get mad about a dream?" We're sure that the stars will find some way. Keenan Wynn, Edward Binns, and sportscaster Jack Whitaker costar in this GE Theatre presentation, which was first telecast March 12, 1976. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this made-for-TV pilot, a government agent must stop a rogue operative from releasing a lethal virus. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide

After accidentally knocking her down with the van, a guilt-ridden Mark (Don Mitchell) befriends an elderly woman named Melissa Babcock (Juanita Moore). It is just possible, however, that the accident was no accident: Ms. Babcock has a reputation for staging phony injuries in order to collect huge insurance settlements. But is the old lady the real villain of the piece? Former Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In regular Chelsea Brown appears as Melissa's daughter Andrea. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The made-for-TV The Sheriff borrows a bit from the premise of the theatrical feature film Tick Tick Tick (71). Ossie Davis plays an African-American county sheriff, stationed in a small California mountain village; his wife is played by Davis' real-life spouse Ruby Dee. Kaz Garas portrays the sheriff's white deputy, and Lynda Day appears as Garas' wife. Davis' case at hand is the rape of a black coed by a white insurance salesman, which sparks racial polarization in the previously peaceful community. The Sheriff was the pilot for a TV series which was left at the gate by disinterested sponsors. A few months later, another failed pilot on similar lines was developed: Crosscurrent, starring Robert Hooks. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Chubasco (Christopher Jones) is a wayward youth who is given a choice by the presiding judge. His choices are go to jail or take an honest job on a fishing boat. He chooses to set sail, leaving behind his girl Bunny (Susan Strasberg) and her father Sebastian (Richard Egan), who obviously has it out for the wayward teen. He works on a tuna boat, learning to break free of a life of crime. He also meets a bordello madame named Angela (Ann Sothern) who may or may not be his mother. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

The Plainsman was a Technicolor remake of the 1936 Cecil B. DeMille film, all about the fictional romantic triangle of Wild Bill Hickok, Calamity Jane and Buffalo Bill. DeMille had the advantage of a topnotch cast: Gary Cooper as Hickok, Jean Arthur as Calamity (complete with a Wally Westmore cosmetic job!) and James Ellison as Buffalo Bill. David Lowell Rich, director of the 1966 The Plainsman, had to make do with Universal contractees Don Murray, Abby Dalton and Guy Stockwell. Denied DeMille's budget, Rich turned out a cut-rate western, wherein the "big" Indian attacks look more like Disneyland exhibits. The usually reliable Abby Dalton further weakens the film with a Southern accent that wouldn't convince a prairie dog. Originally made for television, The Plainsman was instead released theatrically--then went promptly to the small screen. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Just before embarking upon a 40-year space journey, Cmdr. Douglas Stansfield (Robert Lansing) falls in love with the beautiful Sandra Horn (Mariette Hartley). Blasting into space, Stansfield in placed in a state of suspended animation, which will enable him to retain his youth and vitality during the long journey. Thus does he spend most of the flight in despair, knowing that when he returns, Sandra will have aged four decades. . .or will she? Also appearing in this low-key Twilight Zone installment are veteran movie heavy George Macready and TV-series perennial Edward Binns. Written by Rod Serling, "The Long Morrow" was originally telecast January 10, 1964. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

While the police search for a robbery suspect, Kimble (David Janssen) takes refuge in an orphanage. Here he is "adopted" as an uncle by Sean (Donald Losby), a lonely, troubled child who faces institutionalization in a mental hospital. Knowing that Kimble is a fugitive and assuming that he's the holdup man, Sean blackmails Kimble into helping him escape from the orphanage--and taking three other "problem" kids along. One of the youngsters is played by eleven-year-old Ronny Howard, who at the time was still going strong as Opie Taylor on The Andy Griffith Show; also, the actress playing orphanage official Miss Edmonds is Brett Somers, onetime wife of Jack Klugman and later an inescapable presence on the TV gameshow circuit. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide