Anne Baxter

Twenty-seven years after Hound of the Baskervilles (1959), Peter Cushing makes a belated return to the role of Sherlock Holmes in the made-for-television Masks of Death. Befitting his age, Cushing plays Holmes in retirement, content to play his violin and look after his bees. He is dragged back into action by a series of baffling East End murders. Each one of the victims has been discovered with an expression of stark, raw fear frozen on his or her face. With faithful Dr. Watson (John Mills) at his right hand, Holmes puts the pieces together. Ray Milland and Anne Baxter co-star in this stylish bouquet to the Baker Street Irregulars of the world. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The 1955 film version of John Steinbeck's East of Eden will always be popular because of the presence in the cast of James Dean. Even so, the film covered only a small portion of the original novel. For those Steinbeck completists who prefer a more thorough treatment, we submit for your approval the TV miniseries adaptation of East of Eden, which first aired February 8, 9 and 11, 1981. This eight-hour dramatization begins in the years following the Civil War. Braggadocio union officer Cyrus Trask (Warren Oates) is the father of gentle, loyal Adam (Timothy Bottoms) and hellraiser Charles (Bruce Boxleitner). Enter the bewitching, mean-spirited Cathy Ames (Jane Seymour), who leads both brothers on and causes an irreparable rift between them. Eventually, Adam marries Cathy, taking her and their twin sons to a 900-acre farm in California's Salinas Valley. Cathy rebels against this cloistered existence and runs off to work in a house of ill repute. In Part Three, we finally meet the "James Dean" character: Cal Trask (played by Timothy Bottoms' son Sam), who can never hope to come up to the standards of his "good" twin brother Aron (Hart Bochner) in the eyes of his father. Cal's "bad" reputation obscures his good intentions, but by film's end he is compelled to reveal to brother Aron that their mother had not died as father Adam has claimed, but in fact has become a hard-bitten bordello "madam". Adapted for television by Richard Shapiro, East of Eden was part of ABC's informal "Novels for Television" series. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This made-for-TV biopic covers the life of teenaged tennis star Maureen Catherine Connolly (Glynnis O'Connor), better known as "Little Mo." Making a spectacular debut during the 1951 US Open, 16-year-old Maureen goes on to become the first female ever to win the Grand Slam of Tennis. But in 1953, her carrer was tragically cut short by illness, culminating in the cancer that would take her life at age 34 in 1969. To fill out the film's nearly three-hour running time, writer John McGreevey weaves in a number of non-tennis details, including her love-hate relationship with tennis instructor Eleanor Tennant (Michael Learned) and her romance with Olympic equestrian Norman Brinker (Mark Harmon). Anne Baxter is cast as "Mo"'s mother, replacing Lane Turner. Little Mo first aired September 5, 1978 on NBC. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

"An unprecedented cast brings to life the blockbuster book"--or so said the add copy for The Moneychangers, a four-part TV miniseries based on Arthur Hailey's novel, first telecast Dec 4-19, 1976. The drama's starting point is a power play between two bank officers, played by Kirk Douglas and Christopher Plummer. Social commentary is provided by an inner-city revolt against the bank's policies, while inside the bank's walls are played out brief scenarios of embezzlement, crooked deals, credit card counterfeiting and attempted murder. Ross Hunter coproduced the adaptation, imbuing each frame with the plush treatment that he'd previously lavished on his Doris Day and Rock Hudson vehicles. The Moneychangers originally ran 6 1/2 hours; it has been pared down to two-part movie length for subsequent syndicated telecasts. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A rich hypochondriac steals the world's medical knowledge stored in a powerful computer. ~ All Movie Guide

Kay Lenz essays the troubled title role in the made-for-TV Lisa, Bright and Dark. Unhappy at school and at home (her parents, Anne Baxter and John Forsythe, are the just-don't-understand type), Lisa is on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Three of her classmates (Anne Lockhart, Debralee Scott and Jamie Smith-Jackson) come to her rescue. They submit Lisa to their own interpretation of a group therapy session, learning a lot about themselves in the process. Based on a novel by John Neufield, Lisa, Bright and Dark was originally telecast November 28, 1973. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This Dick Ross melodrama stars Anne Baxter as an alcoholic socialite who beats her addiction by finding strength through religion. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide

The ABC network chose to recognize the thirtieth anniversary of Pearl Harbor with the "revisionist" TV movie If Tomorrow Comes. Patty Duke Astin is a California girl who in 1941 falls in love with Japanese-American Frank Liu. Upon the occasion of the "Day of Infamy," Liu is rounded up along with other Californians of Japanese descent and interred in a relocation camp. At this point the film becomes a mufti Romeo and Juliet, with Astin and Liu entering into a suicide pact. While the film rightly condemns the wartime imprisonment of Japanese Americans, it also misguidedly suggests that virtually all Caucasians in 1941 were pigheaded bigots with no rational reason whatsoever to mistrust the Japanese. If Tomorrow Comes was filmed on location in Pasadena. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Ritual of Evil was a sequel to the earlier TV movie Fear No Evil; both were pilots for a never-realized Universal series, Bedevilled. Louis Jourdan stars as a psychiatrist investigating the suicide of one of his patients. He stumbles onto the realization that the death was tied in with the Supernatural, and that perhaps he shouldn't probe any deeper. Were he to stop at this point, the producers would had to have filled the remaining hours' worth of film with commercials or cartoons, so Jourdan forges ahead at the risk of his own life. This concept was eventually refined into Universal's short-lived series The Sixth Sense, which utilized much of the eerie William Goldenberg background music first heard in Ritual of Evil. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Anne Baxter guest stars as Ironside's attorney friend Carolyn White, whom the authorities have tagged as the "most obvious" suspect in the murder of her cheating spouse. Convinced that Carolyn is being framed, Ironside (Raymond Burr) dedicates himself to proving his thesis, while his colleagues accuse him of allowing his heart to rule his head. Meanwhile, the search goes on for the murder victim's missing body--a search that yields startling results. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The launching pad for the long-running ABC medical series Marcus Welby, M.D. was this feature-length pilot film, first aired March 26, 1969. Robert Young of course stars as Dr. Welby, a crusty but golden-hearted general practitioner forced by a mild coronary to take on a partner. At first, Welby and his new assistant, long-haired, doggedly independent motorcycle fancier Dr. Steven Kiley (James Brolin), are about as compatible as oil and water, but the two quickly become friends and confidants during an unexpected medical crisis. Originally, Anne Baxter as Welby's erstwhile lady friend, Myra Sherwood, and Sheila Larkin as the doctor's daughter, Sandy, were supposed to have been regulars, along with Penny Santon as Welby and Kiley's no-nonsense nurse/secretary Consuelo. But by the time the project graduated to series status, only Consuelo remained, played by Elena Verdugo. In syndication, Marcus Welby, M.D. was retitled A Matter of Humanities. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A prime early example of how to make a truly worthwhile TV movie, Stranger on the Run is a tough, minimalist western in the tradition of the theatrical oaters of director Anthony Mann (one of whose favorite actors, Dan Duryea, has a supporting part in Stranger). Michael Parks is painfully convincing as a sadistic 1880s railroad detective who has a curious notion of fun and games. Upon catching drifters who hitch rides on the trains in his Southwestern jurisdiction, Parks allows the "criminals" one hour head start in the desert, with horse and supplies; then he and his deputies track the men down and kill them. Parks' latest victim is hard-bitten ex-convict Henry Fonda, who has come to town to deliver a message to his cellmate's sister. Fonda proves to be more of challenge than Parks is accustomed to, a fact that gives this brutal little tale its teeth. Anne Baxter costars in this superior TV-movie outing. Stranger on the Run's multilayered teleplay is by Reginald Rose. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide