Rebecca Smart Movies

Alec and his lover Pete find themselves thrust into the role of fatherhood when Alec's 15-year-old estranged daughter Violet suddenly shows up at their door. She has come to get to know Alec and to escape her shrewish mother's endless stream of deadbeat boyfriends. Pete answers the door and Violet mistakes him for Alec. For Pete, the situation is made more awkward because he didn't know about her. Still, they allow her to stay and much of this drama centers on the trio's struggle to form a family. Their endeavors become complicated when Violet develops a crush on Wayne, a friend of Pete and Alec. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Clowning Around was the blanket title for two separate British/Australian TV series, both aimed at a youthful audience. The hero, Simon Gunner (Clayton Williamson), was a stagestruck youngster who aspired to become a circus clown. With the help of veteran funster Jack Merrick (Ernie Dingo), Simon ultimately realized his goal. Produced in France and Australia by ABC/Barron Films, the 16-episode Clowning Around first aired in 1992. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Ann Turner wrote and directed this genuinely creepy amalgam of Father Knows Best and Death Wish. Celia Carmichael (Rebecca Smart) is a lonely nine-year-old girl growing up in the Melbourne suburbs in the late 1950s, who is the victim of several traumas with horrific results. She first finds her grandmother's dead body. Then she has nightmares from a book read to her at school. For a spell, her troubles are abated when a new family moves in next door with three children for Celia to play with. But her parents forbid her to play with the children because the parents are members of the Communist Party. It all comes to a head when, because of a national plague of rabbits, the Victoria State government orders a turning over of all domestic rabbits. When her uncle confiscates her beloved pet rabbit and discovers that it has died in the Melbourne Zoo, Celia explodes in violent revenge. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

The 1988 Australian miniseries Shiralee was, like the 1957 film of the same name, based on a bestselling novel by D'Arcy Niland. A shiralee is Australian slang for the bundle carried about by a swagman (a tramp or thief). In this instance, the "bundle" is the 10-year-old daughter of an Australian migrant laborer whose wife has left him. The laborer then takes his daughter on a long, "bonding" trek through the Outback. The effortless expertise of Bryan Brown as the swagman is matched by little Rebecca Smart as his daughter. For its American public TV debut in 1991, The Shiralee was shown in its two-hour version, which was released theatrically in some areas as Macauley's Daughter. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The ugly American bullying his way through a foreign country was a subject for comedy in several films of the 1980s, most notably Bill Forsyth's Local Hero and this film from exiled Yugoslavian director Dusan Makavejev. Eric Roberts plays Becker, an aggressive marketing executive for the Coca-Cola Company; he has been assigned to figure out why sales in hot and dry Australia aren't higher. Becker comes up against a low-key but formidable adversary, T. George McDowell (Bill Kerr), whose homegrown soda has cornered the market in his little corner of the country. Complicating matters is Terri, a local woman (Greta Scacchi) Becker hires as his secretary; she's McDowell's daughter and a single mom who's romantically attracted to the brash American. Becker wants to make a deal on his (and his employer's) terms, but he finds himself falling prey to the charms of life Down Under and the ministrations of Terri. ~ Tom Wiener, All Movie Guide