Stanley Brock Movies

Director Robert Aldrich's last film, All the Marbles stars Peter Falk as a "win-at-all-costs" type manager of a ladies tag-team wrestling combo. These girls are good and Falk wants them great. And he doesn't really care what they've got to do to get there. (This film's "R" rating is not for Raunchy, but it could be for "Revealing.") Following sort of a Rocky theme, this film finds our ladies tag team climbing its way to the top of the women's wrestling world where they face off against the world's best. ~ All Movie Guide

This fact-based made-for-television drama tells the story of nurse Joy Ufemal and her invaluable work with those dying of incurable diseases. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Audrey Rose is a "thinking man's" horror film, which in a way is unfortunate, since it tended to be ignored amidst the many spell-it-all-out scarefests of the late '70s. Marsha Mason and John Beck play Janice and Bill Templeton, a happily married couple, the parents of well-adjusted preteen Ivy (Susan Swift). Their family security is disrupted by the arrival of a mysterious stranger, Elliot Hoover (Anthony Hopkins). At first mistaken for a potential child molester, Hoover explains that his obsessive interest in young Ivy is actually paternal. It is Hoover's contention that their daughter is the reincarnation of his own child, who died in a horrible accident. This information is dismissed out of hand-and then strange things begin happening. Directed by Robert Wise (who had previously helmed the psychological thriller The Haunting), Audrey Rose was adapted by co-producer Frank de Felitta from his own novel. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Filmed on location, Escape from Angola stars Stan Brock as a courageous game farmer. Armed with little more than good intentions, Brock endeavors to rescue African wildlife from predatory humans. He also has his hands full rescuing himself from political terrorists. Anne Cowlings costars, while veteran movie producer Ivan Tors makes his acting debut as "Lars" (in fact, the whole Tors family shows up on screen!) Escape from Angola was also released as Return to Africa. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

While the PLO holds his daughter, the president of an oil company attempts to locate someone to rescue her. ~ All Movie Guide

It's love at first spark plug for Herbie, the spunky Disney Volkswagen, in Herbie Goes To Monte Carlo. Herbie reunites with Jim Douglas (Dean Jones), his driver from the original The Love Bug, as they participate in the annual Monte Carlo road rally. Herbie holds his own in the qualifying races, but he blows a gasket over a lovely powder-blue Lancia named Giselle. Jim also catches the eye of the attractive driver of Giselle, the fresh-faced Diane Darcy (Julie Sommars). With the love bug biting again, the romantic infatuations of man and metal end up interfering with the auto race. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

If a comedy is to be made from the plight of the homeless, who have to scrape through their days returning deposit bottles and cleaning car windshields to get their daily bread as the rich get richer and more heartless, it may as well be Mel Brooks' Life Stinks. The trademark Brooks humor dominates this fable about a ruthless billionaire, Goddard Bolt (Mel Brooks), who wants to obliterate a poor section of Los Angeles and build a high-tech commercial center in its place. His only problem is that he owns only half the land needed for the construction, the other half belonging to equally ruthless billionaire Vance Craswell (Jeffrey Tambor), who has his own ideas for the land. The two try to buy each other out until, finally, a deal is struck: Craswell bets that Bolt cannot survive a month on the streets as a homeless man. If Bolt makes it, he gets the property. If he doesn't, Craswell gets it. Bolt agrees and, as a poor man, he begins to feel the pain of being uprooted and alone, even meeting a friendly homeless woman, Molly (Lesley Ann Warren) with whom he forms an attachment. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

The 1981 TV version of Madame X was the seventh filmization of the old war-horse play by Alexandre Bisson. This time around, Tuesday Weld (replacing Susan Blakely) plays the poor woman (an airline stewardess in this version) who marries "outside her class" (hubby is a Presidential candidate). She is disgraced, gives up her baby to her wealthy in-laws, and sinks into a life of degradation. 25 years later the woman is accused of murder, and is defended in court by her own grown-up offspring. Adaptor Edward Anhalt makes a few feeble stabs at updating the story, adding drug abuse to the woman's descent into prostitution. Also, her child is now a girl instead of a boy, rabbeting a tentative feminist angle in the proceedings. Other than that, the 1981 Madame X has even less to offer than the lavish but empty 1966 Lana Turner version--except for an offbeat appearance by comedian Jerry Stiller as a slimy blackmailer. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The two-hour debut episode of Murder, She Wrote finds former substitute teacher Jessica Fletcher (Angela Lansbury) reluctantly thrust into the limelight when her first mystery novel, "The Corpse Danced at Midnight," becomes a best-seller. Invited to a costume ball held by her publisher, Jessica comes face to face with a genuine murder when guest Dexter Baxendale (Dennis Patrick), wearing a Sherlock Holmes costume, turns up dead. Suspicion immediately falls upon Jessica's nephew Grady (Michael Horton), forcing our heroine to turn sleuth herself. Throughout the story, the widowed Jessica must also wrestle with her growing attraction to handsome Preston Giles (Arthur Hill). Watch for future Murder, She Wrote semi-regular Herb Edelman in a role other than Lt. Artie Gelber, and also for a young Andy Garcia in a bit part as a tough guy. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Richard Benjamin's directorial debut is an engaging slice of nostalgia, purportedly based on an incident in life of Mel Brooks. Mark Linn-Baker stars as Benjy Stone, junior writer on the popular 1950s TV comedy/variety series The King Kaiser Show. Kaiser (Joseph Bologna)'s guest star this week is Hollywood matinee idol Alan Swann (Peter O'Toole), a swashbuckling Errol Flynn type, right down to his indiscriminate womanizing and fondness for mass quantities of booze. Stone is assigned to keep the actor out of trouble during rehearsals and deliver him sober to the performance. Becoming fast friends, Stone and Swann alternate baby-sitting responsibilities: Swann takes the young writer to the Stork Club and on an early-morning jaunt through Central Park with a "borrowed" police horse, while Stone takes Swann to his home in the Bronx, where the star is fawned over by Benji's mom (Lainie Kazan) and asked embarrassing questions about his love life by Uncle Morty (Lou Jacobi). Despite a few anxious moments, all goes well until Swann, panicking at the discovery that King Kaiser's show will be telecast live and not on film, walks out just before airtime. Shamed by Benjy into honoring his committment, Swann makes a spectacular, timber-smashing entrance, saving the show and rescuing Kaiser from being rubbed out by a gangster (Cameron Mitchell) whom the comedian has offended. Though it fluctuates between wistful realism and the manic exaggeration of a TV comedy sketch, My Favorite Year holds together quite well, delivering a plentitude of solid laughs. Jessica Harper, usually the star of bizarro films like Inserts and Suspiria, is quite appealing as Benjy Stone's girlfriend; that lady dancing with O'Toole at the Stork Club is 1930s film star Gloria Stuart, later an Oscar nominee for Titanic; the King Kaiser Show wardrobe mistress is played by Selma Diamond, a real-life comedy writer for Sid Caesar. My Favorite Year was converted into an unsuccessful Broadway musical in the early 1990s. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In the first episode of a two-part story (originally telecast as a single hour-long "special"), the Night Court staff is quarantined in the courtroom building when a toxic experimental virus is accidentally spilled. Forced to share close quarters, the staffers begin to recall the separate turning points in their lives. Flashbacks reveal Judge Harry T. Stone (Harry Anderson) pursuing an abortive career as a stage magician, acerbic court matron Roz (Marsha Warfield) working as a stewardess, public defender Christine (Markie Post) competing for the "Miss Buffalo" crown, and libidinous prosecutor Dan (John Larroquette) as a 25-year-old virgin! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Everyone jumps to the obvious conclusion when inveterate lothario and infamous opportunist Dan (John Larroquette) begins dating Patty Douglas (Mimi Kennedy), an unattractive woman who is primed to inherit a fortune. But Dan indignantly insists that he's genuinely in love--and that he'd be genuinely in love even if Patty weren't worth forty million bucks! This episode marks the first appearance of William Utay in the role of philosophical derelict Phil Sanders. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This evening's cases involve a porno filmmaker and a blind shoplifter. But most of the attention is focused on court bailiff Bull (Richard Bull), who is depressed because a charitable organization has refused to let him do volunteer work. It seems that Bull's fearsome appearance might scare off potential contributors! The rest of the gang do what they can to lift Bull's spirits, but it's a real uphill climb. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide