Desperate Lives

Director: Robert Lewis Robert Lewis

Overview

In this made-for-TV film, a high-school counselor (Joyce Brothers) faces ineffectual help from administration in combating drugs, so she recruits several students to help in the battle.

Product Details

Release Date:	01/12/2010
UPC:	0883316227374
Original Release:	1982
Rating:	NR
Source:	Warner Archives
Presentation:	[Wide Screen]
Sound:	[Dolby Digital Mono]
Language:	English
Time:	1:36:00
Sales rank:	46,410

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Diana Scarwid	Eileen Phillips
Doug McKeon	Scott Cameron
Diane Ladd	Carol Cameron
Sam Bottoms	Ken Baynes,Ken Baynes
Helen Hunt	Sandy Cameron
Norman Alden	Coach
Tom Atkins	John Cameron
Art Hindle	Stan
William Windom	Dr. Jarvis
Joyce Brothers	Mrs. Watson
Grant Cramer	Steve
Katherine Lang	Mary
Mykelti Williamson	Jack
Tricia Cast	Susan Garber
Michele Greene	Julie Jordan
Terry Alexander	Robert Walsh
Aggie Terry	Cindy
Jane Milmore	Jane
Susan McClung	Sarah
Ralph Meyering Jr.	Frank Cramer
Gail Oda	Kathy
Jennifer Parsons	Olivia
Michael Lang	Frank
Michelle Laurita	Diana
Michael Cummings	Brad Davis
Clayton Rohner	Monte
Glenn-Michael Jones	Al
Joey Green	Howard
Curt Ayers	Jesse
Matt Burke	Paramedic
Claudio Martinez	Jerry
Tina Menard	Maid
Viola Stimpson	Grandmother
Jim Eldert	Cheerleader
Noel P. Scott	Frisbee Thrower
Reynaldo Duran	Manuel
William Vincent Kulak	2nd Paramedic
Bruce Broughton	Composer
Rick Springfield	Composer

Technical Credits

Lew Hunter

Robert Lewis	Director
Lew Hunter	Producer,Screenwriter
Arthur Fellows	Executive Producer
Terry Keegan	Executive Producer

Editorial Reviews

This well-meaning but hopelessly out of touch film represents the made-for-television message drama at its most absurd. Desperate Lives is built on a script that pursues its agenda with sledgehammer subtlety, lacing its narrative with overblown shouting matches (the "hip" dialogue of the kids has aged badly) and drug freakouts that conjure up memories of Reefer Madness. The performances are suitably over-the-top: Diana Scarwid fumes and lectures endlessly as the well-meaning counselor heroine while Doug McKeon alternately rants and whines as the film's archetypal "troubled kid" and Sam Bottoms sleazes it up as the town's drug dealer (he also happens to own the local arcade!). A young Helen Hunt delivers one of the film's better performances as McKeon's older sister but her characterization is marred by an unintentionally hilarious PCP freakout scene that has become the stuff of bad-flick legend. Robert Michael Lewis's direction is bland but that actually makes the story's outrageous elements look all the more wild. In short, Desperate Lives is a disaster as an anti-drug film but it's also the kind of camp classic that bad-film devotees dream about. Anyone who is amused by misguided message melodramas should check it out.

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