Renée Taylor Movies

Jill Robinson's Bed-Time-Story, inspired by actual events, was the source for the made-for-TV A Cry for Love. Divorcee Susan Blakely, with no alimony and two kids to support, begins turning to amphetamines. While at her lowest ebb, she meets Powers Boothe, an alcoholic and three-time loser in marriage--who, incredibly, turns out to be the ideal man for her! Joseph Bologna and Renee Taylor were the guiding hands behind the Cry For Love teleplay. The film debuted on October 20, 1980. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Elaine May wrote and directed (credits May attempted to have removed after the studio made extensive cuts in the film) this dark and funny comedy about marriage, murder, and money. May also stars as Henrietta, a shy and clumsy wallflower, who is also heir to a large pile of money. Indigent playboy Graham (Walter Matthau), who has squandered his inherited trust fund and needs to get a new source of money, begins to ply his affections upon Henrietta. When his butler (George Rose) recommends that Graham should marry Henrietta and gain control of her funds, Graham borrows money from his miserable uncle (James Coco) and wines and dines Henrietta. Graham's dastardly plan is to marry Henrietta, take her off on a trip to the mountains, and murder her. Graham can then return from her funeral and inherit his wealth. But thrown into his path toward the perfect murder are a collection of Henrietta's loyal -- and not so loyal -- retainers and the small dim light of Graham's own conscience. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

The leading lady of the Christmas tale knows just what she wants for Christmas and she lets Macy's Santa know, too. She wants nothing more than the reuniting of her recently divorced parents. Bordering on being a Miracle on 34th Street re-make, this film follows much the same theme, but the kids here get more involved as they thwart any likelihood of romantic success between their mom and her new boyfriend and try ever-so-hard to make Mommy and Daddy love each other again. A reunion does result, but it's a lackluster one and so's this film, which was generally seen as a little too contrived and way too bland. ~ All Movie Guide

A handful of men and women "of a certain age" pick up the pieces of their lives and look for new love after the loss of their mates in this comedy drama from writer-director Susan Seidelman. Jack (Len Cariou) married his high school sweetheart when they were still in their teens, and when she dies in her early sixties, he is emotionally devastated. Jack's friends and family insist he needs to start living again, and he begins attending a support group for bereaved senior citizens. Jack strikes up a friendship with fellow widower Harry (Joseph Bologna), who offers advice on making time with the ladies, something he's developed a strong interest in since his wife's passing. At their meetings, Jack makes the acquaintance of Sandy (Sally Kellerman), an attractive and intelligent woman who - via a number of obvious sexual advances - makes no secret of her attraction to Jack, though he isn't sure he's ready for a new relationship. Jack and Harry also cross paths with Sandy's friends Marilyn (Brenda Vaccaro), who recently lost her husband to an absent-minded driver with a cellular phone, and Lois (Dyan Cannon), who still flaunts her considerable sex appeal and is dating a younger man, Donald (Michael Nouri). Also screened as The Boynton Beach Bereavement Club, The Boynton Beach Club also stars Renee Taylor, Bologna's wife and frequent acting partner. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Forever: A Ghost of a Love Story was inspired by the unsolved murder of movie director William Desmond Taylor in 1922. High-living music video director Keith Coogan moves into a crumbling Hollywood mansion. Here he is visited by a friendly and very beautiful wraith (Sean Young), who turns out to be the ghost of long-ago screen star Mary Miles Minter, the late Mr. Taylor's lover. Coogan's ectoplasmic romance is complicated by his sexually aggressive--and very much alive--female agent (Sally Kirkland). The film's in-the-know screenplay manages to conjure up the ghosts of silent movie favorites Fatty Arbuckle, Mabel Normand and Wallace Reid, all of whom, like Minter and Taylor, were destroyed under spectacularly scandalous circumstances. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Actress Theda Blau is well on the wrong side of forty, but she's gamely pretending to be thirty. Though it's hard to believe, she nonetheless manages enough of the ancient siren's song to get a middle-aged producer of TV commercials to come back to her apartment with her. She gets him to stay by "accidentally" spilling water on him - but she's not trying to get him into bed. Her game is to get him to stick around long enough to read the screenplay she's written, and maybe (just maybe) decide that he's good for more than just making commercials. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

A trio of lifelong friends returns to their hometown of Kalamazoo, MI, for their ten-year high-school reunion, only to discover that their graduation time capsule contains embarrassingly unmet goals for all of them in director David P. O'Malley's affectionate comedy. For Carol Cavanaugh (Josie Davis), Maggie Goldman (Mayim Bialik), and Joan Branson (Joanna Clare Scott), life hasn't necessarily been as fruitful and as glamorous as they may have hoped in the idealistic days of their carefree youth. Though still relatively young and hopeful about the road that lies ahead, the prospect of having all of their unfulfilled dreams trumpeted before every member of their graduating class is much too humiliating to take lying down. Now, as the three lifelong friends attempt to recover the capsule before it can be read aloud, the spirits of their deceased grandmothers appear to offer solace and consolation in an uncertain time of progress and transition. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Controversial filmmaker Todd Solondz returns with this quasi-follow up to 1998's Happiness with this Werc Werk Works production, centering on a group of intertwining love stories. ~ Jeremy Wheeler, All Movie Guide

Lovers and Other Strangers became a "sleeper" hit, based on a play by Renée Taylor and Joseph Bologna. The story is essentially a series of vignettes and anecdotes, unified by an impending marriage. Father of the bride Hal (Gig Young) has problems with his long-suffering mistress, Cathy (Anne Jackson), who spends much of the film sitting on the toilet, crying her eyes out; Wilma (Anne Meara), the bride's sex-starved sister, can't wrest her husband, Johnny (Harry Guardino), away from the TV; and Frank (Richard S. Castellano), as the groom's father, slips comfortably into Bartlett's Familiar Quotations with his oft-repeated query "So what's the story?" Twelfth-billed Diane Keaton makes her film debut as a garrulous wedding guest. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this semi-autobiographical romantic comedy starring Joseph Bologna and Renee Taylor (who also wrote the script together) two lonely hearts find each other in group therapy. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Mickey Stern (Joseph Bologna) is living in the past. When he was still in high school, Mickey (played as a young man by Joshua Fishbein) was a baseball phenom, signed by his beloved Yankees. He was on his way to Korea, proud to fight for his country. Then, visiting Fire Island with his best friend, Harry (Brett Tabisel), he met Leah (Kylie Delre), a beautiful young woman on her way to medical school. Mickey and Leah quickly hit it off, spending a romantic night together before circumstances parted them. Mickey went off to Korea, where he was wounded, which ended his dreams of baseball stardom. Leah went to medical school. It wasn't until 50 years later that she wrote to him, explaining that she'd never gotten over him. He felt the same way, so they were reunited and married. They spent one joyous year together before she passed away. Now, with Harry (Tom Bosley) still at his side, Mickey returns to Fire Island to collect Leah's old things. There, he makes a startling discovery. He sees a woman who looks exactly like Leah (Delre) and even has the same name. More shocking, he finds a young man named Michael (Fishbein) who is exactly like his 17-year-old self, right down to the smallest mannerism. Everyone thinks he's crazy, but Mickey is determined to correct the mistakes of his own past through these two young people. As he fumblingly tries to bring the two together, he makes some key discoveries about his own life. Written and directed by first-timer Michael Prywes, Returning Mickey Stern was cast, in part, through a website created by Prywes, www.castourmovie.com, where visitors got to view auditions and vote among the finalists for four key roles. ~ Josh Ralske, All Movie Guide

Frank Sinatra gives a gritty performance in the crime thriller The Detective. When Teddy Leikman, the homosexual son of a politically connected department-store magnate, is murdered, detective Joe Leland (Frank Sinatra) is sent in to investigate. Leland drags in Teddy's psychotic former roommate Felix Tesla (Tony Musante) and forces a confession out of him; for his work on the case Leland gets a promotion, which troubles him. Afterwards, Norma MacIver (Jacqueline Bisset), the widow of a well-heeled accountant, comes to see Leland. Her husband was killed after falling off the grandstand at a racetrack -- but Norma thinks he was pushed. She asks Leland to investigate her husband's death. Reopening the case, Leland discovers that the police are opposed to him scratching around any further, and after an attempt on his life, he uncovers some startling evidence that may connect the two deaths. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide