Showing posts with label cloris leachman. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cloris leachman. Show all posts

January 6, 2014

It Happened One Christmas (1977)

It Happened One Christmas, the rarely-aired 1977 gender-reversed remake of It's A Wonderful Life was the first Frank Capra movie I saw; in other words, the television movie is pretty much a shot-by-shot copy of the classic original - with the same artificial snow and some small script modifications. Fortunately, the story is so strong that this version stands on it's own as a pleasant tale. Producer Marlo Thomas (who as lead actor channels her future television daughter, Jennifer Aniston) also made the right decisions in hiring Orson Welles (as Mr. Potter) for gravitas, Cloris Leachman (as angel Clara Oddbody) for humor and Wayne Rogers (as Mary Bailey's other half) for banality.


December 1, 2013

Haunts of the Very Rich (1972)

Haunts of the Very Rich is one of the myriad Aaron Spelling productions aired as an ABC Movie Of The Week during the 1970s. This story of disparate people that find themselves questioning their lives and choices in a garden of Eden (actually Vizcaya in Miami, Florida) is interesting both for its uniformly good cast (Lloyd Bridges, Cloris Leachman, Edward Asner, Anne Francis, Tony Bill, Donna Mills, Moses Gunn, Robert Reed) and its denouement which may or may not be what it may or may not purport to tell. I've watched it a few times (on YouTube) and still can't figure out what's going on so that must count for something.


March 16, 2013

The Women (2008)

Jungle Red, the fashion show and an all female cast are still part of The Women, a remake of the 1939 film version of the Clare Booth Luce play; unfortunately, humor, catty remarks and the original cast are missing. The movie is not unwatchable - it's just dull watching stock characters play out a one note script. Writer/director Diane English's fifteen year journey to remake the classic should've ended before it began.


January 3, 2009

...Mrs. Harris (2006)

Mrs. Harris is an absorbing dramatization of the events that lead up to the murder of Herman Tarnower, the Scarsdale Diet doctor, by his paramour Harris - as memorably portrayed by Ben Kingsley and Annette Benning. The events are filmed honestly with excellent realizations of Harris's mindset the night of, and Tarnower's behavior the 14 years prior to, the murder. The luminescent Mary McDonnell, the dependable Frances Fisher, the inimitable Cloris Leachman and Mrs. Harris from the network television movie made way back when, Ellen Burstyn, all show up in great cameos.