Lenore Zann Movies

Toronto TV scripter and stage director Jack Blum made his feature directorial debut with this Canadian family psychological drama. Blond 13-year-old Lisa (Elisabeth Rosen), who flirts with the school busdriver, lives with the sister of her mother Margaret (Lenore Zann), a boozing, man-chasing laundromat worker. Margaret begins an affair with quiet Jim (James Gallanders) about the time Lisa moves back into the house. After Jim makes out with Lisa, he tries but fails to dump Margaret, and the triangle soon turns explosive. Shown in the Directors Fortnight section at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide

As indicated by the title, this made-for-TV movie charts the rise and fall of Olympic figure skater Tai Babilonia. Partnered since childhood with Randy Gardner, Tai skated her way to the 1979 World Championship. Her hopes for Olympics success in 1980 are scuttled when her partner Gardner suffers a groin injury and is unable to compete. Tai responds to this disappointment by descending into drug abuse, culminating in an attempted suicide. The plucky skater recovers from all this, and the film ends on a hopeful note. On This Ice: The Tai Babilonia Story stars Rachel Crawford as Tai and Charlie Stratton as Randy, but that's the real Babilonia and Gardner recreating their classic routines in the long shots. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

While Love and Hate: A Marriage Made in Hell had its American network debut in July of 1990, it was not precisely a world premiere. The film had already been shown in 1989 on Canadian TV, where it was the highest-rated TV movie of that year. Small wonder: It was based on a true story that had dominated Canadian headlines since 1980. Kenneth Welsh stars as Colin Thatcher, a wealthy Saskatchewan rancher/ politician. Kate Nelligan plays his wife, who withstands years of physical abuse before filing for divorce. Using his political and financial clout, Thatcher carries on a brutal courtroom battle to gain custody of his children. His wife wins but the victory is brief, however; Mrs. Thatcher ends up murdered. Thatcher is almost immediately pounced upon as the prime suspect, and the film concludes with his trial--which develops into a real nail-biter. Based on a true story that had hogged Canadian headlines for nearly a decade, Love and Hate: A Marriage Made in Hell was the highest-rated TV movie to be shown on Canadian TV in 1989. Its below-the-border debut occurred on July 15 and 16, 1990; in syndication, the two-part film was trimmed to 153 minutes. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The Girl is 14-year-old Swedish schoolgirl Pat Carlsson (Clare Powney). Though very young, she is also very wise in the ways of the world, thus she has no qualms about offering her sexual services, for a price, to middle-aged attorney John Berg (Franco Nero). Like Humbert Humbert, Berg cannot prevent himself from succumbing to Pat's charms. What starts as an illicit affair, ends in a tangled web of tragedy and duplicity involving blackmail, kidnapping and murder. The Girl switches moods so often that it seems like three different films cobbled together. Though hardly a model of restraint, the film is surprisingly prudish when it comes to nudity: still, this is not a film for the easily offended. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this part ghost story, part thriller, Diana Stoving (Karlene Crockett) has a strong feeling that her mother has kept a secret from her about their past in Massachusetts, and she sets out to discover what that might be. Diana accidentally runs into a woman who works with age regression under hypnosis and who by coincidence is investigating the possession of a young man. It turns out that this possession is by Diana's grandfather, who has been trying to contact someone all this time -- it seems his death was anything but natural. The theme veers from possession to suspense thriller, slowing up in the process, as Diana looks further into the past. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

This sex comedy centers on a group of college coeds who've hatched a scheme to seduce their favorite hockey team (yes, the whole team). One of the women gets the use of an aunt's house for the team's annual fun and games party, normally thrown by a local gangster. Since the coeds do not number enough to cover the whole team, they recruit a few prostitutes to help out; they also give helpful advice on planning the evening's entertainment. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

A crazed, women-hating killer (Michael Ironside) rapes and brutalizes journalist Deborah Ballin (Lee Grant). When he discovers that his attack didn't kill Deborah, he comes to the hospital to finish what he started. ~ Iotis Erlewine, All Movie Guide

Certainly the low point in Glenn Ford's acting career, this Canadian production is, nevertheless, one of the slickest-looking slasher films from that subgenre's early-'80s heyday. The plot (what one can make of it) involves an unseen killer stalking a group of college students at the prestigious Crawford Academy. The well-staged murders are mysteriously linked to the slightly off-kilter Virginia (Melissa Sue Anderson, formerly of Little House on the Prairie), whose disturbing past holds the key to the killer's identity. Though this film brought nothing new to the psycho-horror field, it did feature one of the more interesting ad campaigns of the period. One-sheets loudly boasted, "Six of the most bizarre murders you've ever seen!" and barred all late-arriving patrons from entering the theater during the final ten minutes (a promotional stunt stolen from Psycho). This hype proved less than apropos since the murders in question are not particularly bizarre or original (aside from the shish-kabob impalement depicted in the ads), and the film's climax is so painfully contrived that latecomers may be more able to comprehend it than those bemused viewers who watched the film from the beginning. ~ Cavett Binion, All Movie Guide

More the story of the man who established it than the College of Notre Dame in Saskatchewan, this is the depiction of Father Athol Murray, a hard-drinking, chain-smoking man who believed that education and athletics were the way to success for young men in college. He was opinionated, but he managed to take a dump and make it into a well-respected college. Uninspiring rendition of a tale told better in other movies. ~ Tana Hobart, All Movie Guide