Thomas Carter Movies

An inner-city Chicago community comes together to save their neighborhood from destruction in this '70s era blaxploitation-comedy. The construction of a proposed expressway would tear up their urban home, so a massive block party is planned to protest the action. Meanwhile, fast-talking scam artist Daddy Foxx (Yaphet Kotto) has taken a group of unemployed young men under his wing and is teaching them the tricks of his trade. Foxx's best pupil is 14-year-old Baby D (Kirk Calloway), much to the chagrin of his older brother, Win (Randy Brooks), a drummer who can't land a decent gig. After Win's drum kit and apartment get trashed, he finds no recourse but to join up with Foxx himself, so the gang proceeds to pull various cons on other local crooks. This annoys fellow street hustler Goldie (Rudy Ray Moore), but ultimately everyone has to put their differences aside and cooperate to make sure that their neighborhood isn't demolished by the city's bulldozers. It takes a lot of funky music, cream pies in the face, and petty theft, but together they stand their ground. ~ Fred Beldin, All Movie Guide

Feeling that the recently widowed Florida (Esther Rolle) is spending too much time home alone, the Evans kids cancel their own plans to spend the evening with their mom. Much to their surprise, however, Florida has already accepted the invitation of her friend Willona (Ja'net DuBois) for a night on the town. Upon arriving at a singles bar, Florida catches the eye of a handsome widower named Ben (Julius Harris). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In the Emmy-winning debut episode of The White Shadow, Chicago Bulls forward Ken Reeves (Ken Howard), forced to retire after a series of injuries, bypasses the offers of several more prestigious jobs, accepting instead an invitation from college buddy Jim Willis (played by Jason Bernard in the opener, Ed Bernard thereafter) to coach the mediocre basketball team at Carver High, the inner-city-LA high school where Willis is principal. Reeves is hardly welcomed with open arms by taciturn vice principal Sybil Buchanan (Joan Pringle), nor does he immediately win over the largely black student body. He does, however, have better luck bonding with his team members, beginning with James Hayward (Thomas Carter), whom Ken talks out of quitting school. As the team begins to win games under Reeves' tough-but-fair tutelage, the kids come to both respect and revere "The White Shadow." All the while, however, Ken's sister Katie (Robin Rose) and brother-in-law Bill (Jerry Fogel) nag him to stop trying to save the world and take a safer, more secure, and better-paying job at one of the suburbans schools. A subsequent episode finds Reeves having a showdown with player Curtis Jackson (Eric Kilpatrick) when he finds a liquor bottle in Curtis' locker. Another player, Milton Reese (Nathan Cook) may have to give up both the team and a scholarship when his girlfriend turns up pregnant. Briefly dropped from the team, Ricky "Go Go" Gomez (Ira Angustain) rejoins his old street gang. Player Abner Goldstein (Ken Michelman) undergoes a crisis of faith when his teammates seem indifferent to his grandmother's illness. And in a basically serious episode with comic undertones, the team decides to form a singing group--excluding the sensitive Morris Thorpe (Kevin Hooks), whose ear-piercing rendition of "My Girl" must be heard to be disbelieved. The problems tackled in the first season of The White Shadow go beyond the regular characters: A talented transfer student faces persecution because he is rumored to be homosexual; a hot college prospect turns out to be illiterate, a product of the "slide 'em through and no one will notice" school of athletic promotion; and while subbing for another teacher, Reeves finally comes to grips with the fact that not every troubled student is capable of being "saved"--especially after one such student tries to rape Ms. Buchanan. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

All of the regular cast members seen during Season One of The White Shadow are on deck for Season Two, with a pair of new additions. Joining the Carver High School basketball team under aegis of coach Ken Reeves (Ken Howard) (nicknamed "The White Shadow" by the largely black student body) are player Nick Vittaglia (John Mengatti) and team manager Phil Jefferson (Russell Phillip Robinson). No sooner has the season begun when one of Reeves' best players, Curtis Jackson (Milton Reese), unwittingly falls in with a gang of bookies who want him to shave a few points. Later, an embittered transfer student tries to turn the team against Reeves for making a joke that the student has misinterpreted as a racial slur; Reeves is racked with guilt when a rookie player dies of a hitherto undetected heart condition during practice; it's an inner-city "Odd Couple" when the temporarily homeless Warren Coolidge (Byron Stewart) is forced to share living quarters with the hapless coach; Coolidge and Morris Thorpe (Kevin Hooks) both get a sexually transmitted disease from the same girl; "Salami" Pettrino (Timothy Van Patten) runs afoul of the authorities when he innocently shares his prescription painkillers with his teammates, and later has a brief affair with an attractive young teacher; Reeves suspects that Ricky Gomez (Ira Angustain) is the victim of domestic violence; and the team challenges a group of volunteer workers to a pickup game, little imagining that their opponents are none other than the Harlem Globetrotters! The season ends on a truly shattering note: After helping his team win the LA City Basketball Championship, and on the brink of his graduation, Curtis Jackson is shot down and killed while witnessing a liquor store holdup. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Stepping into the role made famous on Broadway by Tom Conti, Richard Dreyfuss stars as a profoundly handicapped sculptor in Whose Life is it Anyway? Left a quadraplegic after an auto accident, the embittered Dreyfuss feels utterly useless, as both an artist and a human being. He doesn't want his family's love, or his doctor's care, or his nurse's ministrations. Dreyfuss simply wants to die-but this is impossible, given the legal state of things in the 1970s. Whose Life is It Anyway? may be the only film in which a person's right to self-destruction is regarded as a happy ending. Not as depressing as it sounds, Whose Life Is It Anyway is perversely hilarious at times, with Dreyfuss at his acerbic best. The film was scripted by Reginald Rose and Brian Clark from Clark's stage play. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Call to Glory was intended as an ABC miniseries, depicting the turbulent 1960s as seen through the eyes of an Air Force family. A pre-Coach Craig T. Nelson stars as Colonel Raynor Sarnac, with Cindy Pickett as his wife Vanessa and Elizabeth Shue and Gabriel Damon as the Sarnac children. The 2-hour pilot concentrates on the 13 fateful days of the Cuban Missile Crisis in the Fall of 1962. This pilot, and the miniseries itself, was originally slated for telecast in May of 1984, but ABC smelled potential in the project and ordered that it be expanded to a 13-week series. The premiere was moved up to August 13, 1984, with the pilot film unveiled right after ABC's Olympics coverage. Call to Glory was a huge ratings hit at the outset; alas, ABC's decision to move away from the historical aspects of the program to concentrate on the soapish goings-on within the Sarnac family prompted a severe drop-off in viewer interest. The program was finally axed in February of 1985. Later that year, scenes from the untelecast Call to Glory episodes were stitched together into another 2-hour TV "movie", Call to Glory: JFK. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Under the Influence is a TV movie about an alcoholic, scripted by recovered alcoholic Joyce Rebeta-Burdett. Andy Griffith plays the head of an outwardly respectable New England family. Griffith drinks heavily, but the rest of the family sweeps his addiction under the rug. When Griffith lands in the hospital, he must come to grips with his illness--and the rest of the family must stop lying to each other and to themselves. Under the Influence is remarkable not only for the intelligent, unsensational handling of its subject, must also for Andy Griffith's convincing portrayal of a New Englander. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Khalil Kain, Fatima Lowe and Lisa Carson star in this musical drama about a female singing group as they enjoy victories and suffer disappointments on the long road to success in the music business -- and in their personal lives as well. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

This biographical drama about boxing impresario Don King (Ving Rhames) pulls no punches as it uses flashback sequences to trace King's rise from 1954 Cleveland to the present day. Adapted from Jack Newfield's book on King, this film first aired November 15, 1997 on HBO. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide

Shown on the Fox network, this made-for-TV biopic stars David Ramsey as legendary boxer Muhammad Ali, whose story is told largely in flashbacks. Beginning with Ali's childhood, when he was known as Cassius Clay, Ali: An American Hero traces the boxer's career, love life, and eventual devotion to Islam. Joe Morton appears as Malcolm X, and the cast also features the talents of Vondie Curtis Hall and Clarence Williams III, the latter as Ali's father Marcellus Clay. ~ Rebecca Flint Marx, All Movie Guide

In this romantic drama, two teenagers in love struggle to look past their differences. After the unexpected death of her mother, Sarah Johnson (Julia Stiles) moves to Chicago to live with her father. Knowing no one at her new school and not at home in a gritty, inner-city high school, Sarah has trouble adjusting, but she soon becomes friends with Derek (Sean Patrick Thomas), who has talent and street smarts but a checkered past. Sarah was an avid student of ballet before her mother's death sidelined her studies, while Derek has some serious hip-hop moves, and their mutual love of dance leads their friendship into something deeper. However, since Sarah is white and Derek is black, they have more to contend with than the average high school couple; Sarah gets static from Nikki (Bianca Lawson), Derek's former girlfriend, while Derek has to deal with his friend Malakai (Fredro Starr), who is still deep in the thug life Derek is trying to avoid. Save the Last Dance was directed by Thomas Carter, who previously examined the sociopolitical side of dancing in Swing Kids. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

The true-life story of a coach who tries to teach his players that there's more to life than basketball is brought to the screen in this sports drama. Ken Carter (Samuel L. Jackson) was once a star player on the Richmond High School basketball team in Richmond, CA, and years later, after establishing himself in publishing and marketing, he returns to the school and to the team as the new basketball coach. Carter quickly sees that his work is cut out for him -- the team is having an awful season, and their fights off the court are more decisive than their play on the court. While Carter wants to make the Richmond cagers into a winning team, he also wants a lot more -- to teach the boys to respect themselves and one another, and that they must excel in the classroom as well as in the gymnasium. Under Carter's guidance, the team turns their losing season around, with the state title a genuine possibility. However, when Carter learns that a number of his players have let their grade point averages slip below 2.3, as mandated in a contract he entered into with the students, he decides to lock the team out of the gym and send them into study hall until their marks improve. Carter's plan quickly becomes a subject of controversy among parents and team boosters, and their objections are soon picked up by the local news media, many of whom are not sympathetic to Carter's belief that his players must have goals beyond college ball or the NBA. Coach Carter also features Rob Brown and Rick Gonzalez as members of the team, and R&B diva Ashanti in her film debut as the girlfriend of one of Carter's players. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide