Marlene Warfield Movies

After seven weeks of reruns and pre-emptions, ER resumed its third season on April 10, 1997, with a steady string of new episodes. In this one, Greene (Anthony Edwards) is accused of favoring a white patient over a black one when both teenagers arrive at the same time in the ER with gunshot wounds. Elsewhere, Jeanie (Gloria Reuben) discovers by accident that Carla (Lisa Nicole Carson) is pregnant with Benson's (Eriq La Salle) baby; Carol (Julianna Margulies) suspects that an 18-year-old patient was drugged and date-raped; and Carter (Noah Wyle) devotes his entire shift to a case that has already been written off as hopeless. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This teen comedy from Savage Steve Holland stars Corey Parker as an underachieving high schooler who hatches a crazy plot with valedictorian Lara Flynn Boyle to gain acceptance into a prestigious university. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide

Popular African-American comedian Jo Jo Dancer is severely burned while free-basing cocaine. Producer/director/writer Richard Pryor insists that the movie is not autobiographical. While hovering between life and death, Dancer flashes back to his childhood, when he grew up in a brothel. Producer/director/writer Richard Pryor insists that the movie is not autobiographical. Dancer decides to become a comic, but has a great many difficulties rising to stardom until he begins making scatological comments about race relations. Producer/director/writer Richard Pryor insists that the movie is not autobiographical. As he rises to fame, Jo Jo has problems controlling his drug addiction and womanizing. Producer/director/writer Richard Pryor insists.....Well, you've caught on by now. If one were able to excise the excruciatingly boring "introspection" scene, Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life is Calling would stand as an excellent testimonial to Richard Pryor's cutting-edge comic brilliance. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The normally open-minded Doc Baker (Kevin Hagen) is a bit put off when his new assistant, Dr. Caleb Ledoux (Don Marshall), arrives in town -- not because Ledoux is unqualified (certainly not the case), but because he is black. Reluctant to entrust his patients to a man of color, Baker assigns Ledoux to only the most minor of cases. But when a major crisis develops, Ledoux proves not only equal to the challenge, but even more so than Baker. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A trenchant satire of "trash TV," Network seems to grow only more relevant with each passing year. Howard Beale (Peter Finch), the dean of newscasters at the United Broadcasting System, is put out to pasture because he "skews old." Network executive Max Schumacher (William Holden), Howard's best friend, is forced to deliver the bad news. Beale can't stomach the idea of losing his 25-year post as anchorman simply because of age, so in his next broadcast he announces to the viewers that he's going to commit suicide on his final program. Network head Frank Hackett (Robert Duvall) is all for kicking Beale out then and there, but when it looks as though the UBS is going to have its greatest ratings ever on the night of Beale's self-destruction, ambitious programming exec Diana Christensen (Faye Dunaway) talks Hackett into treating that fateful final telecast as a special event. Naturally, Beale doesn't go through with it -- but he does begin rambling about the horrible state of the world in general and television in particular. He concludes his tirade by admonishing his viewers to "Go to the window and shout as loud as you can: 'I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore!'" With that, Howard Beale becomes the hottest TV personality in America, and Diana becomes the network's fair-haired girl. She draws up plans to treat the nightly news broadcast as garish entertainment (complete with a psychic), all built around the rants of Beale, billed as "The Mad Prophet of the Airwaves." Network won Oscars for Paddy Chayefsky's screenplay as well as for three of four acting categories -- Dunaway for Best Actress, Peter Finch for Best Actor (in the only posthumous Oscar yet awarded), and Beatrice Straight for Best Supporting Actress, in one of the shortest-screen-time performances ever to win an Oscar. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

NBC was seeking a little ethnic diversity (a la Shaft) in its Mystery Movie lineup when the network commissioned Cutter. Peter DeAnda plays Frank Cutter, an African-American private eye headquartered in Chicago. Cutter's current assignment is to locate a missing pro quarterback. Stepin Fetchit, an echo from an earlier, demeaning era in black entertainment, shows up in the brief role of "Shineman". Cutter received a single 90-minute showing on January 26, 1972; it failed to make the NBC Mystery Movie cut as a regular entry. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Although the characters' names were changed, The Great White Hope was a thinly veiled account of the trials and tribulations of boxer Jack Johnson, based on the play by Howard Sackler and directed by Martin Ritt. James Earl Jones stars as boxing great Jack Jefferson, who defeats Frank Bardy Larry Pennell in a Reno, Nevada bout to become the world's first black heavyweight champion. After crossing a state line with his white girlfriend Eleanor (Jane Alexander in her feature debut), however, Jack is arrested and tried under the miscegenation-barring Mann Act. Found guilty and sentenced to three years in prison, Jack escapes and leaves the U.S., but he's dogged by his now bad reputation and can't get honest work as a fighter. Offered his freedom from criminal charges if he'll agree to a fixed fight in Cuba that will restore the title to a white contender, Jack refuses and Eleanor commits suicide, their life on the run overwhelming her. Jack finally accepts the bout in Havana, but he fights his opponent with everything he's got. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide