Martha Smith Movies

In any other circumstances, the biggest news occurring in the fourth and final season of Scarecrow and Mrs. King would be the promotion from recurring to regular player of Raleigh Bond in the role of T.P. Aquinas, the chief source of top-secret information for peripatetic espionage agent Lee "Scarecrow" Stetson (Bruce Boxleitner). Instead, this tidbit is eclipsed by several far more significant developments, beginning with the two-part season opener, in which Lee tells his fellow spy Amanda King (Kate Jackson) something the audience has known for years--that he is in love with her. Typically, this admission is made at a time when both Lee and Amanda are up to their necks in danger, and the situation hasn't improved much in the subsequent episode "Night Crawler", in which , while trapped by Arab kidnappers, Lee asks Amanda to become his wife. The couple is finally married in the appropriately titled "Do You Take This Spy?", but for reasons of security they have to keep their wedding a secret--even from Amanda's children and her inquisitive mom Dotty (Beverly Garland). Sadly, the marriage of "Scarecrow" and Mrs. King marks the beginning of the end of the series, and not simply because that the air of sexual tension and anticipation has been dissipated. In the middle of the shooting schedule, Kate Jackson had to undergo cancer surgery, and thereafter a slow and tortuous recovery. As a result, Amanda King is virtually written out of the series that bears her name in the title. The scripters contrive to have Amanda shot and wounded while on her honeymoon, obliging Lee to carry out his next few missions in the company of his former partner, Francine Desmond (Martha Smith). Although viewers understood the circumstance that required Kate Jackson to be absent from most of the final episodes, they dolefully concluded that "Scarecrow" without Mrs. King was H2 without the O, and the series was quietly cancelled. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Season Two of Scarecrow and Mrs. King finds professional spy Lee "Scarecrow" Stetson (Bruce Boxleitner) and his talented-amateur partner Amanda King (Kate Jackson) travelling all over the world on dangerous espionage missions at the behest of "The Agency", with several episodes filmed on location in London and Munich. This season's episodes are executive-produced by Juanita Bartlett of Rockford Files fame, who may or may not have made the decision to depict Amanda as being more scatterbrained than usual. Despite her eccentric behavior, however, Amanda performs admirably when she enters the Agency's training program in hopes of becoming a full-fledged spy. Notably second-season episodes include "The Legend of Das Geisterschloss" which introduces Jean Stapleton in the recurring role of Mrs. Marple-like British secret agent Lady Emily Farnsworth; "Charity Begins at Home" wherein the expensive Porsche upon which "Scarecrow" has lavished so much love and attention in previous episodes is irreparably destroyed; and "Murder Between Friends", featuring Kate Jackson's former costar on The Rookies, Sam Melville, as the villainous Glen Tucker. The following season, Melville would return in the recurring role of Amanda's ex-husband Joe King. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Craig has a psychic link to Keith, and travels from his home in the United States to Hamburg, Germany, after telepathically sensing details of his brother's gruesome crimes. After bludgeoning an aging boxer (Cameron Mitchell) to death, Keith -- who can also sense his brother -- traps Craig by telling the dead fighter's daughter, Christine (Sarah Langenfeld), where he is. Naturally, Craig and Christine begin an affair, only to have Keith drug Craig and murder Christine after his impotence prevents him from raping her. Craig ends up in jail for the murder and Keith continues his bloody killing spree until Craig's girlfriend (Penelope Milford) shows up from America. And that's when the film starts getting extremely nasty. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide

A gang of jewel thieves make their getaway in the "General Lee", convincing Boss Hogg (Sorrell Booke) that Bo (John Schneider) and Luke (Tom Wopat) are members of the gang. Later on, the stolen jewels are found in the car belonging to Sheriff Roscoe (James Best), who is promptly fired--and making matters worse, it was Roscoe's own dog Flash who "ratted" on him. Thus it is that a reluctant Roscoe must align himself with the Dukes to find the real culprits. This is the only episode in which Daisy Duke does not appear (Catherine Bach was busy taping a TV special). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Director John Landis put himself on the map with this low-budget, fabulously successful comedy, which made a then-astounding 62 million dollars and started a slew of careers for its cast in the process. National Lampoon's Animal House is set in 1962 on the campus of Faber College in Faber, PA. The first glimpse we get of the campus is the statue of its founder Emil Faber, on the base of which is inscribed the motto, "Knowledge Is Good." Incoming freshmen Larry "Pinto" Kroger (Tom Hulce) and Kent "Flounder" Dorfman (Stephen Furst) find themselves rejected by the pretentious Omega fraternity, and instead pledge to Delta House. The Deltas are a motley fraternity of rejects and maladjusted undergraduates (some approaching their late twenties) whose main goal -- seemingly accomplished in part by their mere presence on campus -- is disrupting the staid, peaceful, rigidly orthodox, and totally hypocritical social order of the school, as represented by the Omegas and the college's dean, Vernon Wormer (John Vernon). Dean Wormer decides that this is the year he's going to get the Deltas expelled and their chapter decertified; he places the fraternity on "double secret probation" and, with help from Omega president Greg Marmalard (James Daughton) and hard-nosed member Doug Neidermeyer (Mark Metcalf), starts looking for any pretext on which to bring the members of the Delta fraternity up on charges.

The Deltas, oblivious to the danger they're in, are having a great time, steeped in irreverence, mild debauchery, and occasional drunkenness, led by seniors Otter (Tim Matheson), Hoover (James Widdoes), D-Day (Bruce McGill), Boon (Peter Riegert), and pledge master John "Bluto" Blutarsky (John Belushi). They're given enough rope to hang themselves, but even then manage to get into comical misadventures on a road trip (where they arrange an assignation with a group of young ladies from Emily Dickinson University). Finally, they are thrown out of school, and, as a result, stripped of their student deferments (and, thus, eligible for the draft). They decide to commit one last, utterly senseless (and screamingly funny) slapstick act of rebellion, making a shambles of the university's annual homecoming parade, and, in the process, getting revenge on the dean, the Omegas, and everyone else who has ever gone against them. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

Someone has been killing the centerfold models of Feline magazine, the girlie publication run by Hefner-like Tony Mann (Hugh O'Brian). In order to flush out the killer, who is apparently determined to sabotage the magazine's operation, the Angels go undercover -- with Jill (Farrah Fawcett-Majors), naturally, posing as this month's centerfold. The identity of the mystery villain really throws the girls for a loop in this episode. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide