Josef Sommer Movies

This fact-based drama centers on a sextet of WW II soldiers who are hailed as heroes upon their return to their hometown in Texas. Trouble follows when the vets unite to overthrow the town's corrupt politicians. They make a plan, but it is nearly derailed by the group leader's social-climbing wife and her father. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

The weekly, 60-minute TV adventure series Under Cover starred Anthony John Denison and Linda Purl as husband-and-wife secret agents Dylan and Kate Del'Amico. Employed by the National Intelligence Agency (read: CIA), Dylan and Kate were sent out on their various missions by head man Stuart Merriman (Josef Sommer). In this two-hour pilot episode, first telecast January 7, 1991, Dylan is tipped off to an assassination scheme in the former USSR. This means that, once more, the Del'Amicos must leave behind their "cover" as normal suburbanites to make the world safe for...whatever. Under Cover ran until February 16, 1991. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this comedy drama, three women meet each other in a divorce attorney's waiting room and soon become fast friends as they try to help each other through the pain of their crumbling marriages. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

This made-for-TV film represented the first speaking role for hearing-impaired actress Marlee Matlin. A happy wife and mother, Matlin is grief-stricken when her husband is killed in a car accident. Still not fully recovered after several weeks, Matlin must rely on her mother Lee Remick to care for her young daughter. Matlin puts her life back together by joining a theatre troupe comprised of deaf actors, one of whose members is played by Phyllis Frelich, who originated the role in the Broadway version of Children of a Lesser God that Marlee Matlin played in the film version (and won an Academy Award in the process). The film's climax is dictated by Lee Remick's efforts to gain full legal custody of Matlin's daughter. Bridge to Silence was first telecast April 9, 1989. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

As a reporter investigates the disappearance of an anchorwoman, his important characters are being killed by an "avenging angel." ~ All Movie Guide

Produced for theatrical released by PBS' American Playhouse, Bloodhounds of Broadway is not exactly a remake of the 1952 film of the same name, though both pictures use the same Damon Runyon stories as inspiration. The scene is Broadway: the time is New Year's Eve, 1928. Madonna plays small town girl-turned-hoofer Hortense Hathaway, who loves gambler Feet Samuels (Randy Quaid) more than somewhat. Since it is known far and wide that Feet has not a penny to his name, he must find some way to pay off his debts in a hurry. So he offers to sell his huge feet to a demented-an operation which will, alas, cost Feet the use of his life. Upon waking up to the fact that Hortense loves him, Feet decides that he prefers breathing to pushing up daisies. Meanwhile, a society doll named Harriet MacKyle (Julie Hagerty) turns on the spigots when her pet parrot is laid low by a clumsy gunman. And while all this is transpiring, high-roller Regret (Matt Dillon) has to beat a murder rap. Even while Regret is sweating it out, "The Brain" (Rutger Hauer), who is bleeding profusely after confronting the business end of a shiv, searches high and low for someone willing to donate blood to save his life. If you can, keep an eye out for author William Burroughs as a butler. Bloodhounds of Broadway was the first non-documentary effort of filmmaker Howard Brookner-and the last, since he died before the film was released. To gloss over the film's plot holes, the distributors added a Winchell-like narrator to the proceedings, courtesy of actor Joseph Sommer. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this Civil War drama, a plantation owner and her ex-slave begin working as Union spies. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

A Detroit priest (Donald Sutherland) is trying to help solve a crime spree that has resulted in a horrible series of slayings of area priests and nuns. When he hears the murderer's admission of guilt (while giving confession) he is torn between honoring the vows of privacy and secrecy afforded repentants and revealing the murderer's identity. ~ All Movie Guide

In Peter Weir's thriller Witness, Samuel (Lukas Haas), a young Amish boy, witnesses a murder in the restroom of a Philadelphia bus station. Harrison Ford stars as John Book, the police detective investigating the murder. When Book discovers that the crime was part of a conspiracy involving several officials in his department, he flees Philadelphia to the Amish community where Samuel lives with his widowed mother, Rachel (Kelly McGillis). Slowly assimilating himself into the Amish community, Book eventually finds himself falling in love with Rachel in the midst of his investigation. Eventually, the corrupt police track Book down, and he is forced to confront them, while also trying to protect Rachel and Samuel. ~ Matthew Tobey, All Movie Guide

Arthur Penn takes a crack at subverting the espionage film genre in Target. Walter Lloyd (Gene Hackman) is a quiet and unassuming lumberyard owner in Dallas, Texas. Chris (Matt Dillon) has dropped out of college to pursue a career as a race car driver. But all mundane tasks come to an end when Walter's wife Donna (Gayle Hunnicutt) is kidnapped while on a European trip. Walter flies to Paris with Chris to see what can be done. Once in Europe, Chris is shocked to discover that his dad was once a top CIA agent. Together, the two visit all of Walter's old CIA contacts in an effort to locate Donna. Finally, Walter discovers that Donna has been kidnapped by a rogue spy seeking revenge for an incident that happened eighteen years earlier. Now Walter must apply his old and vicious CIA tricks to save his wife from an old and vicious CIA operative. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

Barret Oliver stars as robot boy Daryl (Data Analyzing Robot Youth Lifeform). The film begins with an intense chase through hairpin mountain roads as a helicopter chases after a racing automobile and the driver of the car shoves a young boy out of the door. The child is rescued and is adopted by Joyce (Mary Beth Hurt) and Andy (Michael McKean) Richardson, a well-meaning, childless couple. It is only after the Richardsons have adopted Daryl and find that the child can't stop hitting home runs that they realize their adopted son is, in fact, a robot. The Richardsons decide to take Daryl back home -- home being a top security research facility where scientists Dr. Jeffrey Stewart (Josef Sommer) and Ellen Lamb (Kathryn Walker) have "given birth" to the boy robot. Once at the research facility, the Richardsons realize that government forces are determined to destroy Daryl and anyone who knows about him. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

We first see Asian cave dweller John Lone as he wanders around what seems to be his natural habitat of some 10,000 years ago. Soon we learn that Lone is in a controlled environment in a scientific lab--and that his frozen body was recently discovered during an expedition to the North Pole (hence the nickname "Iceman"). Scientists Lindsay Crouse and Timothy Hutton hope to learn to communicate with Lone, and in so doing discover life was truly like for our neanderthal ancestors. The other, less altruistic scientists want to dissect Lone and analyze his innards. With Hutton's help, Lone escapes, but soon both men realize that there's really no place for "the Iceman" in modern society. Though the settings are convincingly arctic, Iceman was filmed in Manitoba. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide