Robert Enders Movies

Previously filmed (and truncated) in 1932, Eugene O'Neill's marathon 1928 Pulitzer-winning stage drama Strange Interlude was adapted for television in 1988. Broadcast in three 90-minute installments, the nine-act play covers some 25 years in the life of New England woman Nina Leeds (Glenda Jackson). When her fiance is killed in World War I, Nina becomes a nurse in a veterans hospital, where she makes the acquaintance of Dr. Ned Darrell (David Dukes) and farmer's son Sam Evans (Ken Howard). She chooses to marry the steadfast but dull Evans, then is advised by his mother (Rosemary Harris) that there is a streak of insanity in the family. Desperate for an heir, Nina sleeps with Dr. Darrell...and so it goes for the next quarter century, with Nina's secret admirer Charlie Marsden (Edward Petheridge) anguishing on the sidelines. The reason Strange Interlude takes 4 1/2 hours is because of O'Neill's "interior monologues," wherein the characters pause every so often to speak out their thoughts for the benefit of the audience (but not for each other). Strange Interlude was first telecast in the US on three consecutive segments of PBS' American Playhouse in January and February of 1988. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

An all-star female cast (Glenda Jackson, Melina Mecouri, Geraldine Page, Sandy Dennis, Anne Jackson, Anne Meara, and Dame Edith Evans) enliven this satirical treatment of the Nixon Watergate scandal, Nasty Habits -- based on Muriel Sparks's novella The Abbess of Crewe. When a dying abbess (Dame Edith Evans) of a Pennsylvania convent is ready to name Sister Alexandra (Glenda Jackson) as her successor, Sister Alexandra and her two flunkies (Sandy Dennis and Anne Jackson) try to get the abbess to sign a document of intent. But their plans are dashed when liberal Sister Felicity (Susan Penhaligon) arrives and wants to change the institution. Her arrival delays the signing of the document of intent, and before the abbess can sign the paper she dies.Now the job of running the convent is up for grabs, with Sister Alexandra employing Nixon-like techniques of surveillance and dirty tricks to get the goods on Sister Felicity. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

In this tense story of an unusual romantic triangle, middle-aged Ann (Vanessa Redgrave) and her teenage daughter Joanna (Susan George) manage a failing hotel on an island off the British coast. One day, the hotel receives an unexpected guest, a man named Joe (Cliff Robertson). Joe and Ann had an affair years ago, and it's suggested (though never stated) that Joanna could be their child. Joe and Ann soon renew their relationship, but Ann discovers that she has a rival for Joe's affections when Joanna makes her interest in the handsome older man clear. Also shown under the title Winter Rates (the title of the stage drama upon which it was based), Out of Season was at one time to have been directed by the noted playwright Harold Pinter, but he was eventually replaced by stage and screen veteran Alan Bridges. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Directed by Christopher Miles, The Maids is a 1974 film version of the play by French absurdist writer Jean Genet. Solange (Glenda Jackson) and Claire (Susannah York) are two sisters who work as servants for a strict Madame (Vivian Merchant). When Madame and Monsieur (Mark Burns) leave the house, the two women enact dramatic role playing games. To get out their sexual frustrations against their boss and each other, they alternate the parts of master and servant. They both love and hate the Madame passionately enough to plot her murder. During a particularly intense game of play, Claire accidentally drinks the poison that was meant for the Madame. The Maids is part of producer Ely Landau's American Film Theatre Series, which ran in select theaters from 1973-1975. In 2003, all 14 films in the series were given a wide release on home video from Kino International. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide

In this syrupy comedy, a father attempts to reconnect with his troubled, estranged son, a philosophy professor. The chance at reconciliation comes when the son learns that his father, whom he hasn't seen in years is fighting a strange nameless movie disease in a French hospital. The young man's wife is not pleased. While aboard the jet, the son reflects upon his upbringing and the fights that would erupt between his mother, a fundamentalist Christian, and his father, an atheist. He remembers how his father turned to a free-spirited artist for comfort. Just before she left him, the artist gave the father a lovely poem. Later after his son became a teacher, the father decides to enter to piece in a poetry contest and wins $10,0000, which he plans to donate to his son's department. Unfortunately someone discovers that the artist's "original" poem is anything but and the father is publicly humiliated while his son is passed for promotion. Seeing how unhappy his son has become, the father decides to go to a church and pray for his son to get promoted. It works, but unfortunately a man had to die for the son to get it leaving the father to be wracked with guilt. Fortunately with the son's arrival comes the father's salvation. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Cashing in on the popularity of their comedy series Laugh-In, comedians Dan Rowan and Dick Martin team up ala Abbott and Costello in this spoof of old horror movies and mysteries. Rowan plays a pornographic film producer and Martin plays his star, who is having trouble sleeping at night and seriously suspects that he has become a werewolf. To verify this, the two travel to a "haunted" Gothic Long Island mansion and end up embroiled with Julie Newmar while searching, amidst a series of murders, for a missing diamond. Rowan and Martin's television show was hip and funny. Alas, this film is neither and bombed at the box-office. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide