Robert W. Christiansen

Dissatisfied with the way her life has turned out, Beth Sager (Molly Ringwald) would give anything for the proverbial Second Chance. Upon breaking a wishbone during Thanksgiving dinner, Beth finds her dreams coming true; she is whisked to a parallel world where the people are familiar but the circumstances aren't. Among other things, Beth's dull boyfriend Joe (George Newbern) is now in love with her office rival Alannah (Melora Walters), leaving our heroine free to renew her relationship with her former beau, a handsome international celebrity. Need it be added that Beth begins having second thoughts about her sudden rush of Good Fortune--and that maybe, just maybe, things weren't all that bad in her "real" world? Produced for the Lifetime cable network, Twice Upon a Time first aired on November 9, 1998. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Previously the inspiration for Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now (1979), the dark novella Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, a parable about greed-inspired colonialism, was adapted into this television movie by offbeat filmmaker Nicolas Roeg. Ambitious sailor Marlow (Tim Roth) is employed by a British trading company. His mission is a journey to a remote colony in the Belgian Congo, the source of the consortium's profitable supply of ivory, where he's to retrieve some stranded cargo. As he travels upriver visiting the trading stations which acquire the precious commodity through exploitative barter with natives, Marlow hears wild tales of Kurtz (John Malkovich), a hugely-successful company manager whose post is deep in the jungle. It seems that Kurtz is revered as a god by the locals, both worshipped and greatly feared. Reaching Kurtz's compound, however, Marlow finds that the man has become a fiend, committing blasphemous atrocities and driven mad by power and disease. Malkovich was nominated for a Screen Actors Guild Award and a Golden Globe for his performance as Kurtz. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide

Kids Don't Tell stars Michael Ontkean as a free-lance documentary filmmaker. Concerned over the increasing sexual abuse of children, Ontkean hopes to make a film on the subject, with the cooperation of the local police and social services. For reasons unknown, Ontkean's wife JoBeth Williams becomes surly and distant as he continues work on his film. It turns out that JoBeth is far more intimately familiar with the subject of sexual abuse than she's ever let on (hence the film's title). Made for television, Kids Don't Tell handles its subject matter with an admirable absence of sensationalism, thanks to the low-key script by Peter Silverman and Maurice Hurley. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Paul Clemens plays the real-life Peter Reilly, who in September of 1973 was charged with the mutilation and murder of his mother. The confused 18-year-old signs a confession after being told that he's flunked a lie detector test. Later renouncing the confession, Reilly demands a reopening of his case. The citizens of Peter's home town of Canaan, CT, who'd been willing to see the boy thrown in jail for life when the case first hit the papers, now rally around the youth, insisting that his constitutional rights have been violated. New evidence uncovered by a sympathetic detective enables Peter to press his case. Stefanie Powers plays Joan Barthel, the Canaan resident and free-lance journalist who chronicled Peter's bid for freedom. The made-for-TV A Death in Canaan was first telecast March 1, 1978. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Cicely Tyson ages from 19 to 110 in the role of Jane Pittman, a fictional African-American woman whose life began in slavery and ended at the inception of the Civil Rights Movement. Northern journalist Quentin Lerner (Michael Murphy) travels to the racially polarized south of 1962 to interview Ms. Pittman for a potential book. Her life unfolds in flashbacks, many painful and unpleasant, but just as many are uplifting and hopeful. Based on the novel by Ernest J. Gaines and filmed on location in Baton Rouge, The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman won nine Emmy Awards, including Best Actress (Tyson), Director (John Korty), and Screenplay (Tracy Keenan Wynn). The film premiered January 31, 1974, on CBS. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Cloris Leachman and Martin Balsam star in this TV movie as an over-forty married couple, both of whom maintain busy outside careers. Content with their peaceful, childless existence, the couple is thrown for a loop when, after 18 years of marriage, Leachman becomes pregnant. Beyond the understandable concerns over the health of her baby, she is not keen on the prospect of giving up her job--nor is she particularly responsive to the misguided advice of her friends and family. A Brand New Life premiered on February 20, 1973. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A group of new prisoners, including a political science professor, Jonathan Paige (Alan Alda), and a student, Allan Campbell (Kristoffer Tabori), arrive at a state prison, along with a new guard, Brian Courtland (Clu Gulager). Paige is a serving a year for manslaughter -- he accidentally killed a driver who had run down and injured his wife -- but his education doesn't prepare him for what he finds in prison. Nor does Courtland understand everything he sees in his new job, where he hopes to do some good. The warden (Dean Jagger) is spoken of as being on "short time," as though he were serving a sentence; the guard captain, Pagonis (G. Wood), is totally cynical about his work and his job; and one veteran guard, Brown (Roy Jenson), seems to be serving some of the prisoners -- and that small group of inmates have more to do with the running of the prison than does the administration. First among them is Hugo Slocum (Vic Morrow), a lifer who controls the flow of drugs and other contraband to the cons, wielding money and power without challenge until Paige gets assigned by the warden to the prison pharmacy, and -- thanks to his own sense of righteousness -- blocks Slocum's pipeline, a move that could get the professor killed. Meanwhile, Paige is trying to understand Lennox (Billy Dee Williams), the lifer he works with in the pharmacy, and discovers in him a true political visionary and leader, who lives the stuff that Paige has only ever lectured about. Lennox is black and proud, and a killer, and also (incidentally) smarter than Paige; he is also respected as a leader by the other blacks in the prison and feared just enough by the whites, including Slocum, to stay alive. Paige should only learn from him, but the professor is too set in his ways and too arrogant in his assumptions to do that. Complicating things further, Slocum has taken a decidedly physical liking to Paige's cellmate, Allan, a college student who is in on a marijuana charge and too naive to recognize why the tough con is being so good to him until he rejects Slocum's advances. In retaliation, Allan is gang-raped on Slocum's orders, and later kills himself. Nor has Slocum forgotten about Paige or the pharmacy -- when Paige tries to reach out to another inmate, Sinclair (Edward Bell), who shows promise as a writer, Slocum destroys Sinclair's work and targets him, as well. Before he's killed, however, Sinclair reveals to Paige that, as Slocum's sometime bagman and former bookkeeper, he's recorded every transaction for the past eight years -- including every hit ordered by Slocum and how it was paid off, including the bribes to guards to look the other way -- and he passes the book with that record to the professor. It comes down to a do or die situation for Paige and Slocum, as each now has the power and the need to destroy the other to stay alive; the only question is whether Paige will figure out in time that he may have to back up his good intentions with lethal force. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide