Ron Silver Movies

This futuristic parody on television is made up of various sketches, and features some early performances of later well-known comics. ~ Kristie Hassen, All Movie Guide

Dear Inspector and Dear Detective were the English-language titles of Philippe De Broca's Tendre Poulet. Annie Girardot plays the old flame of Greek professor Philippe Noiret. The prof tries to rekindle the flames of passion, but Girardot seems curiously preoccupied. It turns out that she's a detective on the trail of a murderer. The film served as the basis for the 1979 American made-for-TV movie Dear Detective, starring Brenda Vaccaro and Arlen Dean Snyder. A DeBroca-directed sequel, Jupiter's Thigh, was filmed in 1979, again with Annie Girardot and Philippe Noiret. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The second TV-movie to bear the title Betrayal stars Lesley Ann Warren and Rip Torn. Warren plays Julie Roy, a sensitive young woman seeking solace through therapy. Torn co-stars as Julie's psychiatrist Dr. Hartogs. It turns out that the far-from-ethical Hartogs has a hidden agenda: while pretending to minister to Julie's needs, he inveigles her into a sexual relationship. First telecast November 13, 1978, Betrayal was based on an actual case and adapted from a book co-written by the real-life Julie Roy. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The sheriff of a small Texas town is pitted against a genetically engineered super-villain. ~ All Movie Guide

We'd rather not speculate over how much of Best Friends is autobiographical. We'll just note that this story of a male-female screenwriting team was written by real-life married scenarists Barry Levinson and Valerie Curtin. Lovers as well as collaborators, scriveners Richard Babson (Burt Reynolds) and Paula McCullen (Goldie Hawn) decide to make their union legal. Predictably enough, they discover that their relationship goes straight downhill after they say "I do." The stars are far less interesting than the supporting cast, including Jessica Tandy and Barnard Hughes as Hawn's parents, Audra Lindley and Keenan Wynn as Reynolds' folks, Ron Silver as an avaricious producer (no names, please!), and Richard Libertini as a Mexican justice of the peace. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Based on a true story, Silkwood begins and ends with Karen Silkwood (Meryl Streep) driving along a lonely road in 1974, heading to a meeting with a New York Times reporter to deliver evidence of negligence at the Kerr-McGee Plant in Cimarron, Oklahoma. The balance of the film flashes back to Karen's ribald private life with her lover (Kurt Russell) and her loose-living friends (Cher and Diana Scarwid). This is in contrast to her humdrum job at Kerr-McGee--or it least it was humdrum until Karen and several other employees become contaminated by radiation. The higher-ups want to sweep this incident under the rug, but Karen thinks that something's fishy, and informs the union of that fact. X-rays of the faulty fuel rods and written proof of the inadequate safety measures that caused Karen's illness are tampered with, forcing Karen to conduct her own private investigation. As she gathers evidence, Karen becomes a pariah to her boyfriend because of her obsession. She finally organizes the evidence into a briefcase, and heads off to her meeting with the Times reporter. She never makes it; the "official" report on her fatal auto accident is that Ms. Silkwood had been drinking and was under the influence of tranquilizers. Kerr-McGee was eventually forced to pay the Silkwood family an enormous settlement because of her contamination, but the full facts behind her convenient accident have never been revealed (though the filmmakers clearly indictate whom they hold responsible). Director Mike Nichols and screenwriters Nora Ephron and Alice Arlen surround this true story with a lively, improvisational atmosphere that gets the best out of Streep, Russell, and Cher, while providing perhaps the fullest on-screen realization of Nichols' theater-based techniques of realistic, character-centered, dialogue-driven filmmaking, as well as one of the first movie screenplays from future director Ephron. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This bittersweet comedy is, among many other things, a tour de force for the marvelous Anne Bancroft. The star is cast as Estelle Rolfe, an unconventional divorcee who resides in New York, in close proximity to her grown son Gilbert (Ron Silver) and his wife Lisa (Carrie Fisher). Though his wife yearns to move back to her home state of California, Gilbert cannot quite cut the silver cord that binds him to his mother. Upon learning that Estelle is dying, her dutiful son offers to honor her last request to meet the reclusive actress Greta Garbo. The rest of the film plays wonderful variations on this theme, involving such peripheral characters as a gay Garbo fan (Harvey Fierstein), an elderly Shakespearean actress (Hermione Gingold), a "female Joe Papp" director (Denny Dillon), and an ageing papparazzi (Howard Da Silva). Without giving away the ending, it is worth noting that the divine Garbo shows up in the person of playwright/lyricist/ performer Betty Comden. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In the third and final film in the Oh, God! franchise, Bobby Shelton (Ted Wass) is a struggling musician who can't get a break, which bothers him all the more now that his wife, Wendy (Roxanne Hart), is about to have a baby. Desperate and depressed, Bobby announces that he'd sell his soul to get ahead. Suddenly, Harry O. Tophat (George Burns), Satan's earthly representative, appears and offers Bobby a deal -- seven years of unprecentented fame and fortune in exchange for his soul. Bobby cynically accepts and discovers that the devil is true to his word, but he finds that the trappings of fame and wealth are empty pleasures, and he loses Wendy along the way. When Bobby declares that he's made a horrible mistake, God (Burns), who has been watching over Bobby, offers to help get his soul back as the devil offers Bobby's place in eternity as the prize in a poker game. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

It is best not to suggest to the 500-pound, plaid-suited, humanoid alien Murray the Creature that he eat Italian for dinner because he is sure to take you literally as can soon be seen in this sci-fi parody. Before the film is through, Murray the meat-eater will have consumed 35 Italian residents of New York's little Italy. Investigating their bizarre disappearances is an Irish cop, who discovers their awful fate while waiting for a pizza in an Italian restaurant. Later he tries to get his superiors to believe his story, but of course they don't and the cop is left with no alternative but to try and dispatch Murray by himself. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Billionaire Boys Club is the two-part TV adaptation of a book by Sue Horton (unpublished at the time of the film's first telecast). In flashback form, the story recounts the murder of Beverly Hills con artist Ron Levin (Ron Silver). The culprit is yuppie Joe Hunt (Judd Nelson), a sharp young commodities trader who has organized an investment firm with several of his prep school buddies, known as the Billionaire Boys Club. Part one, originally telecast November 8, 1987, traces Hunt's meteoric rise to wealth and power, and the means by which Levin worms his way into Hunt's confidence. In part two, shown the next evening, Hunt has already murdered Levin and carefully disposed of the body. The next step of the scheme is take over where Levin left off by conning an Iranian millionaire out of a huge sum of money. Meanwhile, other members of the Club begin to have qualms over Hunt's finagling. Their whistle-blowing leads to Hunt's arrest and convinction for murder. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide