Don Stark Movies

Tracey Thurman was a real-life Connecticut housewife who, throughout her marriage, suffered horrendous abuse at the hands of her husband. The beatings culminate in a single bloody night when Buck Thurman stabs his estranged wife 13 times. She survives--barely--and Buck is arrested. Having failed to get proper protection from the local police force, Tracey successfully sued the officers in 1989. The long-range result was the Thurman Law, which called for mandatory arrests in wife-beating cases in Connecticut and several other states. Nancy McKeon, who plays Tracey Thurman in A Cry for Help, starred in the film in the hope that it would prevent Buck Thurman's early release from prison. A Cry For Help: The Tracy Thurman Story first aired on October 2, 1989; Thurman was scheduled for release in 1991. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Michael Ritchie's The Couch Trip follows a long line of Hollywood films (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, The Disorderly Orderly) in which the psychos are seen as saner than the psychiatrists. Charles Grodin plays Dr. George Maitlin, a pompous radio self-help guru, who is having his own personal mental breakdown. Maitlin's lawyer puts in a call to a Cicero, IL, mental facility and the telephone is answered by schizophrenic mental patient John Burns (Dan Aykroyd). Thinking Burns is a crony of Maitlin, Burns is offered the job of replacing Maitlin during his recovery. Of course, Burns accepts the job. Immediately jetted to Los Angeles, Burns meets panhandler Donald Becker (Walter Matthau) at the airport. While wearing the garb of a priest, Becker sounds off against the madness of societal conventions; Burns takes to him immediately and they become fast friends. When Burns assumes command of the airwaves in Maitlin's place, his words of wisdom are so obvious and commonsensical that he is an overnight sensation. Meanwhile, in London, where Maitlin is convalescing, he gets wind of Burns' success. With renewed vigor and outrage, Maitlin leaves his recovery room and hops on a plane back to Los Angeles in an effort to recover his radio show. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

In this sequel to the 1981 hit comedy Arthur, the story picks up where it left off with the bibulous millionaire hero (Dudley Moore) marrying poverty-stricken Linda Marolla (Liza Minnelli) instead of going through with a prearranged wealthy marriage. The vengeful father (Stephen Elliott) of the justifiably jilted bride begins pulling a few crooked strings, and before long, Arthur is broke. Worse still, Linda is pregnant. Will Arthur crawl back into a bottle, or will he save the day? John Gielgud makes a cameo appearance as the ghost of the family-retainer character he played in the first Arthur, while Dudley Moore's real-life wife Brogan Lane shows up in a minor role. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

During her 25th high school class reunion, middle-aged Peggy Sue (Kathleen Turner) tries to forget her marital problems with husband Charlie (Nicolas Cage) by renewing old friendships. Wondering if she made the right decisions in her life, Peggy Sue gets a chance to try again when, zapped into a time warp, she finds herself a teenager back in 1960. Armed with foreknowledge (the scene in which she tells off her algebra teacher is a particular treat), Peggy Sue gets to retrace the steps leading up to her unhappy marriage to high-school sweetheart Charlie. Will nerdish Richard Norvik (Barry Miller), who always carried a torch for Peggy Sue and whom she knows will become a millionaire computer mogul by 1985, win out over the unreliable Charlie this time? A "small" film from the otherwise profligate Francis Ford Coppola, Peggy Sue Got Married possesses an irresistible charm that makes up for its glaring plot deficiencies. The youthful cast is matched in its appeal by such veterans as Leon Ames, Maureen O'Sullivan and John Carradine. And yes, that is Jim Carrey as Walter Getz. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Director Silvio Narizzano totes out a Sunday morning public affairs programming style in this it-could-happen-to-you drama about a popular high-school student who finds that he has what some consider a disability. Paul Carafotes plays a high-school student who loves to play football and music. But when the school doctor determines that he is partially deaf, he is barred from the football team. In order to hide his disappointment, the high schooler changes his outlook to one of disinterest, and he rapidly falls in with a tough gang that is making trouble around the high school. Demi Moore appears in a small supporting role in this film -- her first film role. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

After getting caught cheating his bookmaking boss over a high-stakes pinball wager, Neil Gallagher (Ken Marshall) leaves his Corpus Christi home for Los Angeles, hoping to make it big as a folk rock balladeer. With best friend Henry (Harvey Lewis) in tow as his manager, Neil finds only failure, but when they come across a streetsmart 14-year-old pinball whiz named Tilt (Brooke Shields), he envisions a plan to get rich quick and save face in his hometown. Impressed by Neil's music, Tilt agrees to hitchhike with him to Texas, thinking she's helping to raise money for a demo tape. They stop by roadside arcades along the way to hustle petty gamblers into betting against the unassuming teen's pinball prowess. When the duo hit home with cash in their pockets, Neil brazenly challenges his former employer, an obese pinball champion known as "the Whale" (Charles Durning), to a 400-dollar game against the unbeatable Tilt. What Neil doesn't realize is that Tilt has caught on to his manipulation and lies, and all his big plans are going to blow up in his face when Tilt and the Whale secretly hold their own late-night pinball tourney. ~ Fred Beldin, All Movie Guide

Exploitation auteur Jack Hill wrote and directed this wild, often satiric girl-gang movie, whose story is loosely (make that very, very loosely) based on Othello. The Silver Daggers are a gang of young hoods who control an inner-city high school, where they sell drugs and sex to the student body and fight anyone who gets in their way. The Daggers have a ladies' auxiliary, The Dagger Debs, who rumble just as hard as the men, but one day chief Dagger Deb Lace (Robbie Lee) meets her match in Maggie (Joanne Nail), a new kid who won't back down. When a scuffle lands Maggie and the Debs in jail for the night, Maggie comes to Lace's rescue, and Maggie becomes Lace's new right-hand woman. However, fellow Deb Patch (Monica Gayle) is jealous of Maggie's friendship with Lace, and begins spinning a web of deceit to destroy Lace's trust in the new deb. In the midst of the infighting, the Silver Daggers find their turf challenged by a rival gang who pose as a community action team, and the Debs join forces with a revolutionary political group. Kitty Bruce, Lenny Bruce's daughter, plays Doughnut, one of the Debs, and Marlene Clark plays a Mao-spouting revolutionary leader. This exploitation cult item gained a new life in 1996, when Quentin Tarantino, a big fan of director Hill, sponsored a theatrical re-release through his company Rolling Thunder Pictures. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide