Carol Wayne Movies

Los Angeles is the playing field for producer/ writer/ director Bobby Roth's Heartbreakers. Peter Coyote and Nick Mancusco play a couple of thirty-something holdovers from the 1960s. Coyote is an artist specializing in S&M poses, while Mancusco is heir apparent to a large garment-manufacturing firm. Curiously, it is the hedonistic Coyote who desires a lasting relationship with a woman, while the "conservative" Mancusco is dedicated to the proposition of one-night stands. Carol Laure and Carol Wayne are the ladies who strain Coyote and Mancuso's friendship--and in so doing, force both arrested adolescents to do some growing up. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Savannah Smiles is a sweet little film that proved a surprising hit on the Saturday matinee circuit. Mark Miller and Donovan Scott play a pair of good-natured escaped convicts who cross the path of precocious runaway Bridgette Andersen. When Andersen explains that she's hit the road because her wealthy parents neglect her, Miller and Scott decide to hold the kid for a huge ransom. You and I both know that the crooks will turn soft before the end, and return Andersen to her folks without a dollar changing hands, but even predicting the film's outcome cannot diminish its charm. Star Mark Miller, who also scripted Savannah Smiles, is the father of actress Penelope Ann Miller. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Actor/producer Robert Blake tried and failed three times to launch a TV detective weekly titled Joe Dancer. The first such attempt was the feature-length pilot The Big Black Pill. As Joe Dancer, Blake struts and frets his way around Beverly Hills in search of a killer. Blake's then-wife Sondra co-stars as Joe Dancer's physically challenged assistant. The Big Black Pill went down in one gulp on January 29, 1981. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In the opening episode of Emergency!'s fourth season, comedian Shelley Berman guest stars as obnoxious screenwriter Art Frommich, who insists upon seeking "inspiration" by accompanying paramedics Roy (Kevin Tighe) and John (Randolph Mantooth) on their daily rounds. The emergency load this week includes a fire at a toy factory, a motorcycle crash, and an emergency birth. NFL Hall of Famer (Larry Csonka) appears as a factory worker who goes violently berserk after being exposed to toxic chemicals. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Peter Sellers plays a bumbling foreigner once again (but this time he's not from France) in this cult-favorite comedy. Hrundi V. Bakshi (Peter Sellers) is an accident-prone actor from India who has come to California, hoping to make a name for himself in Hollywood movies. However, Bakshi quickly makes the wrong impression on producer C.S. Divot (Gavin MacLeod) and studio chief Fred Clutterbuck (J. Edward McKinley) when he accidentally blows up the set for his first film. Clutterbuck jots down Bakshi's name to remind himself to have the actor blacklisted, but he doesn't realize that he's put the name on the guest list for an upcoming party at his home. Bakshi sees the social event as an opportunity to get back in Clutterbuck's good graces, but from the moment he arrives, one thing after another goes wrong, with increasing effect; it doesn't help that he finds himself infatuated with Michele Monet (Claudine Longet), Divot's latest starlet discovery. Director Blake Edwards shot The Party with a minimal script to allow Peter Sellers and the other comic actors greater room for slapstick improvisation, which helps explain why many of the film's most memorable scenes feature little or no dialogue. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Blake Edwards directed this big-screen adaptation of the once-popular TV detective series Peter Gunn, which Edwards helped create. Peter Gunn (Craig Stevens) is a tough but polished private eye who fights crime with the help of friendly advice from an inside source at the police department, Lt. Jacoby (Edward Asner), no-nonsense nightclub owner Mother (Helen Traubel), and Gunn's best girl, Edie (Laura Devon). When a top crime boss is assassinated, Gunn is called in to investigate. Fusco (Albert Paulson) is a mobster poised to take over the city's criminal empire, and Daisy Jane (Marion Marshall) is a madame who thinks that Fusco pulled the trigger to further his own career. Jane wants Gunn to dig up the truth about Fusco, though Daisy Jane turns out to be the one with the biggest secret of all. Gunn retains Henry Mancini's memorable theme music from the original show, and brought back Craig Stevens, who played Peter Gunn on the original TV series, though Herschel Bernardi and Lola Albright were replaced as (respectively) Jacoby and Edie. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide