Joan Shawlee Movies

Ned Beatty plays a dual role in this episode as insensitive banker and mayoral candidate J. Melvin Rich and happy-go-lucky hobo Willy the Waver. Hoping to cure Mr. Rich of his hostile attitude towards the homeless (he wants to transform a city park, the local hoboes' haven, into a car park), angel Jonathan Smith (Michael Landon) magically transfers Rich's brain into Willy's body, and vice versa. The fun really begins when the "bum" tries to apply his street smarts to the banking business, not to mention the uppermost reaches of high society. (Incidentally, film buffs should take note of the name of the character played by Martin Rudy!) ~ All Movie Guide

As if in some way Billy Wilder sensed that Buddy Buddy would ultimately turn out to be his final feature film, Wilder lets loose scatter-shot stingers at a wide range of pop-culture targets -- from sex clinics, to 60 Minutes, to movie references, to disco, to Betamax video recorders. Based on Francis Veber and Edouard Molinaro's L'emmerdeur (known in the United States as A Pain in the A. . .), Buddy Buddy concerns the unlikely pairing of a gruff hitman and a suicidal klutz. Walter Matthau plays a professional killer going by the name of Trabucco, who is on his way to rub out gangster Rudy "Disco" Gambola (Fil Formicola), set to testify against the mob. As Trabucco heads off to a hotel across the street from the courthouse where he plans to set his hit, he runs into the depressed Victor Clooney (Jack Lemmon), who laments the fact that his wife has left him for the head of a weird Californian sex clinic. Trabucco keeps walking and sets up his rifle in a hotel room. He is disturbed by Victor trying to hang himself in the adjoining hotel room and tries to prevent him from killing himself by restraining him, but Victor breaks loose and climbs onto the ledge of the hotel window. To get Victor to come back in, he agrees to drive him to the clinic to see his wife. The two go to the clinic where Victor's wife Celia (Paula Prentiss) informs Victor that she is in love in the head of the clinic, quack Dr. Zuckerbrot (Klaus Kinski). When Victor finds out that Celia is filing for divorce, he heads back to the hotel to kill himself, with Celia and Dr. Zuckerbrot in pursuit. Arriving at the hotel, they plan to inject Victor with a sedative but stick Trabucco with the needle instead. Trabucco reveals to Victor his assignment to kill Rudy, and Victor tries to help him with the killing. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

While renovating her new apartment in an old Victorian mansion, Quincy's girlfriend Jenny Drake (Marj Dusay) unearths the mummified remains of two women. Later on, two other female corpses are found within the same walls. After a thorough examination, Quincy (Jack Klugman) concludes that three of the women died of natural causes--but that the fourth was murdered. Our hero's subseqent fact-finding misison brings him in close contact with the truly bizarre residents of the crumbling old mansion (and any resemblance to Hitchcock's Psycho is undoubtedly purely intentional). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Injured in a hit-and-run accident, John (Randolph Mantooth) ends up in a Rampart hospital bed, where he proceeds to drive the staff crazy. Meanwhile, Roy is saddled with John's replacement Craig Bice (John R. Richardson in his first series appearance), an unsufferable perfectionist whose strict adherence to rules and regulations does more harm than good. This week's case load includes a possible heart attack victim and a raging fire. Series costar Randolph Mantooth pulled double duty as actor and director in this final episode of Emergency's fifth season. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A duo of daring lawbreakers, who call themselves Flash (Roger Davis) and Firecat (Tricia Sembera), speed, steal, and evade the grasp of the local law enforcement officers as they high-tail it around California in their dune buggy. ~ Iotis Erlewine, All Movie Guide

In this western, a train robber is framed by a fellow gang member and sent to prison. The gang member betrayed him so that he could marry the robber's love. To get his revenge, the robber helps out a gang of Chinese whose father, the other guy kidnapped. A showdown between the two leads ensues. Naturally the hero wins it all. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

This film is based on the novel Ratman's Notebooks, by Stephen Gilbert. Bruce Davison is Willard Stiles, a 27-year-old mama's boy whose repressions are bottled up inside and come to the fore in his nervous nail-biting. As one character describes Willard, "Willard is basically an extrovert, but it's all inside." Willard and his possessive invalid mother, Henrietta (Elsa Lanchester), live in thrall to Al Martin (Ernest Borgnine), the man who took over a foundry business after the death of Willard's father. Willard inwardly seethes but mostly stays in his run-down mansion with his mother, making friends with the rats that infest the place -- he even names them, Ben and Socrates. However, when Henrietta dies, things change. Al, in a rage, kills one of Willard's pet rats. Not only that, but Al also fires Willard from his job at the foundry. Losing his patience, Willard meets with his rat friends to exact his revenge for a lifetime of humiliation and neurosis. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

On today's docket for officers Jim Reed (Kent McCord) and Pete Malloy (Martin Milner) is a tense kidnapping situation, as a deranged young man (played by future soft-core filmmaker Zalman King) holds a baby at gunpoint while the child's terrified mother (Barbara Baldavin) looks on helplessly. And elsewhere, the two cops come to the aid of a homeowner who is being harrassed by a nasty neighbor. Incidentally, this is the episode in which we learn Jim and Pete's badge numbers. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Roy Fleming (Don Knotts) is signed on to the space program at NASA by his father Buck (Arthur O'Connell), a gung-ho former World War I vet who is trying to make something out of his son. Roy becomes a janitor who is afraid of heights and mistaken for an astronaut through a series of comedic mishaps. (Jesse White) plays Roy's boss Donelli, with (Leslie Nielsen) as space hero Major Gifford. Knotts uses his patented brand of nervousness to perfection in this lighthearted situation comedy. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

This biker gang exploitation picture from director Roger Corman and co-writer and editor Peter Bogdanovich earned critical respect in Europe for its gritty documentary style. Peter Fonda stars as Heavenly Blues, the leader of a wild, roving band of leather-clad bikers. When his best friend Loser (Bruce Dern) is injured in the midst of an attempt to steal a police motorcycle, the boys kidnap their debilitated buddy from the hospital, raping a black nurse and trashing the place in the process. Blues and his friends believe they've set Loser free, but he dies not long after the escape. Staging a funeral and drunken orgy in a small town church, the gang flees is set upon by the enraged locals, leaving Blues alone to face the law. Nancy Sinatra and a then-pregnant Diane Ladd co-star; a number of real-life Hell's Angels were hired to appear in scenes, adding authenticity to the picture. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide

This romantic comedy opens with a resounding warning: its chief concerns are passion, bloodshed, desire, and death. "Everything," exclaims the narrator, "that makes life worth living." Irma La Douce (Shirley MacClaine) is Paris' most prosperous prostitute. Wise, endearing, and compulsively clad in green, Irma rules the rue Casanova. She triumphantly works the most coveted corner on a street where the cops gladly look the other way and the naughty johns leave tips. Her street is a content community of live and let live and good-natured desire, an Augean stable of human understanding. However, to upright Nester Patou (Jack Lemmon), the area's new policeman, genial wrongdoing is still wrongdoing. Freshly promoted from day patrol at a children's playground, the scrupulous Nestor arrests Irma and her colleagues in a bumbling, unauthorized raid. He takes pity on Irma, but harasses the guilty johns -- including the police captain. Promptly unemployed, Nester returns to the scene of his crime, the rue, and to Irma. After physically besting her pimp, Nester unwittingly takes his position. The two fall madly in love, but Nestor quickly grows jealous of Irma's patrons. Thus, he masquerades as a wealthy English aristocrat and becomes Irma's sole customer -- only to eventually grow violently jealous of himself. Soon enough, this formally righteous cop is comically jailed for his own brutal murder! As the film's prologue promises, Irma La Douce is a celebration of life from beginning to end -- unabashedly adoring lust, emotion, fervor and, above all, foolish love. ~ Aubry Anne D'Arminio, All Movie Guide

Rob (Dick Van Dyke), Laura (Mary Tyler Moore), Buddy (Morey Amsterdam), Pickles (Joan Shawlee), Sally (Rose Marie), and Mel (Richard Deacon) are invited to spend a weekend at the tourist lodge owned by Rob's old army buddy Sam Pomerantz (Henry Calvin). It so happens that the lodge has a floor show, and the star attraction is comic impressionist Danny Brewster (Lennie Weinrib). Alas, Rob accidentally incapacitates Danny while playing tennis with him. What to do? Why, it's simple: Rob and the gang will stage a lavish "song, dance, and snappy patter" show themselves! This is the episode that features the unforgettable Laurel and Hardy routine, with Dick Van Dyke as Stan and Henry Calvin as Ollie. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Ira Levin wrote the stage comedy Critic's Choice as a good-natured retort to a comment made by critic Walter Kerr. In his essay How Not to Write a Play, Kerr noted that the worst possible scenario would involve a drama critic forced to review a play written by his wife (we should mention that Kerr's own wife was noted playwright Jean Kerr). Levin utilized this very scenario, and the result was a Broadway hit. Less successful artistically was the 1962 film version, though with Bob Hope and Lucille Ball as stars, the film couldn't help but clean up at the box office. Hope portrays theatrical critic Parker Ballantine, while Lucille Ball plays his wife Angela. Feeling "useless," Angela writes a play as a lark, then is amazed when it is optioned by a major producer. Parker does his best to get out of the responsibility of reviewing the play (which very well may be as bad as he thinks it is), but cannot escape the responsibility. Much of the verbal wit of the Levin original is sacrificed in favor of one-line quips; there is also an overabundance of gratuitous slapstick during a little-league game and the climactic "opening night" sequence. Still, Hope and Ball work together well as always. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide