Robert Moore Movies
American actor/director Robert Moore gained fame in 1968 for his direction of the pioneering gay-life Broadway hit The Boys in the Band (1968). A five-time Tony Award nominee, Moore also worked steadily in TV, where he was best known for his sitcom work on both sides of the camera (he was a regular on the 1973 Diana Rigg comedy Diana); he came to movies in the flashy role of a disabled homosexual in Tell Me that You Love Me Junie Moon (1970). Moore wouldn't direct his first film until he was past 50, when he made the plunge at the request of playwright Neil Simon, who'd liked Moore's staging of such Simon plays as The Gingerbread Lady. Luck of luck, Moore turned out to be the best thing that had happened cinematically to Neil Simon since the advent of director Herbert Ross. Moore guided Simon's detective spoof Murder by Death (1979) through a series of hilarious paces, deftly juggling a cast of sensitive superstars like David Niven, Maggie Smith, Peter Sellers and James Coco, and never losing sight what makes a parody work: playing the action with dead-serious honesty rather than self-conscious camp. Moore pulled off the same trick twice in a row with The Cheap Detective (1979), a marvelous lampoon of Bogart films starring Peter Falk, Madeline Kahn, Dom DeLuise, Ricardo Montalban and a host of similar high-profile talent. Neil Simon was so pleased with the results that he entrusted Moore with a less spoofy, more personal project, Chapter Two (1979), a fictionalized account of Simon's period of adjustment following the death of his wife. Sadly, Chapter Two proved to be the final Simon-Moore collaboration; Robert Moore died in 1984 at the age of 56. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- 2007
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Actor/director Jean Claude LeMarre takes a tongue in cheek look at the perils of dating as an African American woman in a comedic look at the relationships that those in search of a mate should avoid at all costs. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
- 1981
- R
Based on a novel by Scott Spencer, Endless Love details the doomed romance between 17-year-old David (Martin Hewitt) and 15-year-old Jade (Brooke Shields). Banished from Jade's home by her daddy Hugh (Don Murray), David obsessively cooks up a scheme to get back into the family's good graces. Since this plan involves setting Jade's house on fire, one can easily predict that the puppy-love romance is in for a bumpy ride. Jailed for arson, David heads directly to Jade the moment that he's released, with tragic results. Posting respectable earnings thanks to the popularity of Brooke Shields, Endless Love was also the film debut of Tom Cruise, billed 18th in the cast list. A young James Spader lends a supporting role. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Brooke Shields, Martin Hewitt, (more)
- 1979
- PG
Neil Simon's bright, autobiographical romantic comedy, a big Broadway success, has been adapted to the screen in a screenplay by Simon, directed by Robert Moore, that subtly shifts the emphasis from the play. In the stage version, recently widowed writer George Schneider (James Caan) and his efforts to form a new relationship after years of marriage, was the crux of the story. The film, however, reduces George's role and, instead, emphasizes the character of Jennie MacLaine (Marsha Mason), the actress being wooed by George. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi
- Starring:
- James Caan, Marsha Mason, (more)
Spoofing the entire 1940s detective genre, and his own performances as a bumbling private detective, Peter Falk plays Lou Pekinpaugh, a San Francisco private detective accused of murdering his partner at the instigation of his mistress, the partner's wife, Georgia Merkle (Marsha Mason). Police Lieutenant DiMaggio (Vic Tayback) has his eye on Lou and blunders around in a way which complicates Lou's efforts to clear his name. Lou gets a new client when Mrs. Montenegro (Madeline Kahn) and her cronies (John Housman, Paul Williams and Dom DeLuise) hire him to search out a dozen diamond eggs. Marlene DuChard (Louise Fletcher) also comes to him for help of a complicated nature. In this madcap comedy written by Neil Simon, obstacles and complications appear every few minutes, and a great many famous actors show up in hilarious cameos. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi
- Starring:
- Peter Falk, Ann-Margret, (more)
As penned by Neil Simon, this satire of movie mysteries is set in motion when several prominent detectives are invited to the mansion of the reclusive Lionel Twain (Truman Capote). In Ten Little Indians fashion, the gathered sleuths are locked into the forbidding mansion, and subject to various death-dealing devices. While struggling for their lives, the vainglorious gumshoes continue to try to one-up one another. Each character is broadly based on a famous literary detective: Sidney Wang (Peter Sellers) is an aphorism-spouting Charlie Chan clone: Dick and Dora Charleston (David Niven and Maggie Smith) are patterned on the protagonists of the Thin Man flicks; Milo Perrier (James Coco), a Hercule Poirot takeoff, stalks through the proceedings declaring "I'm a Belgie, not a Frenchie!"; Sam Diamond (Peter Falk) is Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe and Dashiell Hammett's Sam Spade rolled in one; and Jessica Marbles (Elsa Lanchester) is a dottier variation of Agatha Christie's Miss Marple. Best bit: a "conversation" between blind butler Jamessir Bensonmum (Alec Guinness) and deaf-mute maid Yetta (Nancy Walker). The fade-out gag of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson showing up late for Lionel Twain's party was edited from the theatrical version of Murder by Death, but was restored for TV. The film marked the big-screen directorial debut of Robert Moore, who'd previously directed several of Neil Simon's Broadway productions. Moore went on to direct another Simon spoof, The Cheap Detective (1978), before his untimely death. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Eileen Brennan, Truman Capote, (more)
- 1976
This TV adaptation of Tennessee Williams' prize-winning play stars Robert Wagner as Brick, a college sports champion who hasn't made it in the real world, and Natalie Wood as Brick's wife Maggie, the sexually frustrated "cat" of the title. Brick and Maggie are staying at the home of Brick's wealthy parents, Big Daddy and Big Mama, as are Brick's successful brother Gooper and Gooper's eternally pregnant wife Mae. Big Daddy (Laurence Olivier) has been seriously ill, thus his offspring are concerned over the size of their inheritance. It has been hinted that Big Daddy will leave his fortune to Brick provided Maggie produces a child, but the marriage has been plagued by Brick's refusal to sleep with his wife, and by a dark secret in Brick's past life that has brought about impotence and alcoholism. The reason for Brick's insecurity is his past friendship with school buddy Skipper, a homosexual who'd committed suicide. Brick believes that Big Daddy is convinced that Brick and Skipper "had sodomy together", and Gooper delights in taunting Brick over this. Big Mama learns that Big Daddy has inoperable cancer, and determines to keep the truth from her husband. She also knows that Brick is Big Daddy's favorite son, thus rejects Gooper's cold-blooded attempts to set up a trusteeship for Big Daddy's estate. In the final scene, Maggie lies to Big Daddy that she is pregnant, and Big Daddy (unaware of his imminent doom) chooses to believe her. Brick will get the estate, and Maggie will hopefully convince her husband to makes theirs a "real" marriage. A made-for-TV production, the 1976 Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is more sexually explicit than the censor-ridden 1958 Hollywood version, but isn't quite as strong dramatically despite its powerhouse cast. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Natalie Wood, Robert Wagner, (more)
- 1974
Filmed as the second episode of The Bob Newhart Show's third season, "Big Brother Is Watching" was telecast as the season opener on September 14, 1974. Bob has done his best to resign himself to the romance between his sister, Ellen, and his next-door neighbor, Howard Borden. But even Bob's calm, equitable demeanor is shattered when Ellen decides to move in with Howard sans benefit of clergy. "Big Brother Is Watching" was written by Charlotte Brown. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Bob Newhart, Suzanne Pleshette, (more)
- 1974
James L. Brooks' Thursday's Game is a witty made-for-television comedy about two businessmen (Bob Newhart and Gene Wilder) who meet every Thursday night to play poker and discuss their professional and personal problems. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, Rovi
- 1971
Gene Wilder and Bob Newhart star as husbands who have some explaining to do in this made-for-television comedy. Wilder stars as Harry Evers and Newhart as Marvin Ellison, two friends who decide to keep up their Thursday night escapades after their weekly poker game breaks up. When their wives find out though (Ellen Burstyn and Cloris Leachman, respectively) they want to know just what their husbands have been doing. ~ Bernadette McCallion, Rovi
- 1970
Upon completing Tell Me That You Love Me, Junie Moon, a tearful Liza Minnelli declared publicly that she would never, ever work with tyrannical director Otto Preminger again. Worse luck for her: Junie Moon contains what may well be Minnelli's best non-musical performance. Based on the novel by Marjorie Kellogg, the film surprisingly manages to evoke humor and pathos from some of the least promising material in movie history. Minnelli plays an emotionally imbalanced young girl whose face is horribly disfigured by her psycho boy friend Ben Piazza. Ken Howard is cast as an epileptic who has wrongly been diagnosed as mentally retarded. And Robert Moore (future director of such films as The Cheap Detective and Murder by Death) portrays a homosexual, confined to a wheelchair after a hunting accident. After meeting one another in a hospital, these three social outcasts decide to move in together, forming a united front against a cold, judgmental world. The devastating events that follow might have lapsed into the grotesque and exploitational, but director Preminger is extremely careful to depict his protagonists as three-dimensional human beings rather than "freaks." Unfortunately, some filmgoers, assuming that any film with a title like Tell Me That You Love Me, Junie Moon just had to be a campy laff riot, were turned off by the repellant aspects of the early scenes and refused to give the rest of this fascinating film a chance. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Liza Minnelli, Ken Howard, (more)
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