Melville Shavelson

Shane Black ("Lethal Weapon"), John Carpenter ("Halloween"), Frank Darabont ("The Shawshank Redemption"), William Goldman ("The Princess Bride"), Paul Schrader ("Taxi Driver"), and dozens of other Hollywood screenwriters share hilarious anecdotes and penetrating insights in "Tales from the Script," the most comprehensive documentary ever made about screenwriting. By analyzing their triumphs and recalling their failures, the participants explain how successful writers develop the skills necessary for toughing out careers in one of the world's most competitive industries. They also reveal the untold stories behind some of the greatest screenplays ever written, describing their adventures with luminaries including Harrison Ford, Stanley Kubrick, Joel Silver, Martin Scorsese, and Steven Spielberg. The film was produced in tandem with the upcoming HarperCollins book of the same name.

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The documentary Bob Hope: The Road to Laughter contains numerous clips from the film and television work of the beloved entertainer. These snippets are intercut with interview footage featuring people who worked with Hope as well as film historian Leonard Maltin who provides a context for Hope's career. ~ Perry Seibert, Rovi

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A snyposis of the legendary actor's career, narrated by Liam Neeson.

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Twin sisters -- one a European jet-setter, the other an unhappy New Jersey housewife -- impulsively decide to swap lives and identities for a week, with unforseen results.

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Eisenhower the military man is the focus of this mini-series, his relationships with the other wartime leaders, and, very discreetly, his personal relationship with his driver, Kay Summersby.

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Ike, also known as Ike: The War Years, is a 1979 television miniseries about the life of Dwight D. Eisenhower. The screenplay by Melville Shavelson is based on Kay Summersby's 1948 memoir Eisenhower Was My Boss and her 1975 autobiography, Past Forgetting: My Love Affair. The series aired from May 3–6, 1979 on ABC. During World War II, General Dwight D. 'Ike' Eisenhower serves as supreme commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force in Western Europe. On a personal level, he has an extramarital affair with his driver Kay Summersby.

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A biography of the renowned escape artist Harry Houdini, examining his fascination with the occult and his promise to his wife on her deathbed that he would speak from the beyond.

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An embellished dramatization of the career and personal life of actor Rudolph Valentino, widely regarded as the screen's first male sex symbol.

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Kathy Morrison (Harris), mother of three, who helps run a "color-blind" adoption program, wants to have another biological child. Her husband, Pete (Bologna), the head coach of the Phoenix Suns, finds out he can't produce another child. Kathy thinks about adopting a boy, Frederic "Freddie" Wilcox, and Pete does not want to adopt a boy who happens to be black. When he relents, Freddie's arrival causes an upheaval in the Morrison's neighborhood, their school, and family. Kathy's answer is to adopt another child, in this case two, a war-traumatized half-Vietnamese girl, Quan Tran, and a Hopi boy, Joe. The new extended family must now learn to live together.

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A widowed judge tries to balance the trials of his occupation along with those of his family life.

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A sarcastic near-sighted cartoonist, averse to commitment, falls for a single mother of three — the only woman who can stand his strong anti-feminist opinions.

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Shirley's World is a British television sitcom initially aired on ABC during the U.S. 1971-72 television season, then by ITV in the United Kingdom. Co-produced by the British ITC Entertainment and American producer Sheldon Leonard, the short-lived series stars Shirley MacLaine as photojournalist Shirley Logan and John Gregson as her editor Dennis Croft.

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My World and Welcome to It is an American half-hour television sitcom based on the humor and cartoons of James Thurber. It starred William Windom as John Monroe, a Thurber-like writer and cartoonist who works for a magazine closely resembling The New Yorker called The Manhattanite. Wry, fanciful and curmudgeonly, Monroe observes and comments on life, to the bemusement of his rather sensible wife Ellen and intelligent, questioning daughter Lydia. Monroe's frequent daydreams and fantasies are usually based on Thurber material. My World — And Welcome To It is the name of a book of illustrated stories and essays, also by James Thurber. The series ran one season on NBC 1969-1970. It was created by Mel Shavelson, who wrote and directed the pilot episode and was one of the show's principal writers. Sheldon Leonard was executive producer. The show's producer, Danny Arnold, co-wrote or directed numerous episodes, and even appeared as Santa Claus in "Rally Round the Flag."

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When a widower with ten children marries a widow with eight, can the twenty of them ever come together as one big happy family?

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Accidental Family is an American sitcom broadcast on NBC during the first part of the 1967-68 U.S. television season.

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An American Army officer is recruited by the yet to exist Israel to help them form an army. He is disturbed by this sudden appeal to his Jewish heritage. Each of Israel's Arab neighbors has vowed to invade the poorly prepared country as soon as partition is granted. He is made commander of the Israeli forces just before the war begins.

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A down-and-out reporter and a fashion designer fall in love in Paris.

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An American Infantry officer assigned to a cloak-and-dagger role in Rome uses homing pigeons for outside contact, with humorous results.

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American GI Ernie Williams, admittedly weak-kneed, has an uncanny resemblance to British Colonel MacKenzie. Williams, also a master of imitation and disguise, is asked to impersonate the Colonel, ostensibly to allow the Colonel to make a secret trip East. What Williams is not told is that the Colonel has recently been a target of assassins. After the Colonel's plane goes down, the plan changes and Williams maintains the disguise to confuse the Nazis about D-Day.

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Mike Hamilton, a Philadelphia lawyer, comes to Naples to settle the estate of his long estranged "black sheep" brother. Once there, he discovers that the deceased has left an 8 year old boy who is being raised by Michael's sister-in-law Lucia Curcio. To complicate matters, Lucia happens to be a sexy nightclub performer.

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Dixieland cornetist Red Nichols runs into opposition to his sound, but breaks through to success. He marries a warm, patient woman and even finds time to raise a family. Then tragedy strikes when their daughter contracts polio.

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An Italian socialite on the run signs on as housekeeper for a widower with three children.

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The story of Jimmy Walker who became mayor of New York in the '20s.

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Vaudeville entertainer Eddie Foy, who has vowed to forever keep his act a solo, falls in love with and marries Italian ballerina Madeleine. While they continue to tour the circuit, they begin a family and before long have seven little Foys to clutter the wings. After tragedy threatens to stall Eddie's career, he comes to realize that his little terrors are worth their weight in gold. - Chris Stone

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Homer Flagg is a railroad worker in the small New Mexico town of Desert Hole. One day, he finds an abandoned automobile at an old atomic proving ground. His doctor and best friend, Steve Harris, diagnoses him with radiation poisoning and gives Homer three weeks to live. A big city reporter hears of Homer's plight and convinces her editor to provide an all-expenses paid trip to New York.

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Danny Thomas, an entertainer, tries to balance his home life with the needs of his career, with hilarious results.

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Struggling to retain custody of his daughter following his divorce, football coach Steve Williams finds himself embroiled in a recruiting scandal at the tiny Catholic college he is trying to bring back to football respectability.

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A series of misunderstandings leads to a chorus girl traveling to Paris to represent the American theater, where she falls in love with a befuddled bureaucrat.

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Anne and "Poppy" Rose have three quirky kids. Anne has a generous heart and the belief in the innocence of children. To the unhappy surprise of her husband she takes in the orphan Jane, a problem child who already tried to kill herself once.

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An innocent bank teller, suspected of embezzlement, is aided by an eccentric, wisecracking waiter.

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Songwriter Gus Kahn fights to make his name, then has to fight again to survive the Depression.

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The Winfield family moves into a new house in a small town in Indiana. Tomboy Marjorie Winfield begins a romance with William Sherman who lives across the street. Marjorie has to learn how to dance and act like a proper young lady. Unfortunately William Sherman has unconventional ideas for the time. His ideas include not believing in marriage or money, which causes friction with Marjorie's father, who is the local bank vice president

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An Irish horsecar driver's daughter meets New York showman Tony Pastor and goes into vaudeville.

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A self-absorbed comedian steps all over his friends and colleagues in order to achieve success.

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The French Surete and private eye Higgins are after a killer who uses innocent young Americans in a crooked gambling racket, and who sets sail on an ocean liner that also carries inept scoutmaster Freddie Hunter and his troop of boys. Freddie, who's been a "boy scout" too long, has designs on gorgeous Duchess Alexandria. The boys, far better organized than Freddie, are determined to save him from himself. But who will save Freddie from being the killer's next victim?

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A waitress at the Warner Brothers commissary is anxious to break into pictures. She thinks her big break may have arrived when actors Jack Carson and Dennis Morgan agree to help her.

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A young girl is left with the notoriously cheap Sorrowful Jones as a marker for a bet. When her father doesn't return, he learns that taking care of a child interferes with his free-wheeling lifestyle. Sorrowful must also evade crooked gangsters and indulge in a bit of horse-thieving.

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In a far off country, their king is critically wounded after an assassination attempt and the only heir is a timid New York radio personality, Michael Valentine (Bob Hope). After reluctantly traveling to his father's homeland, Michael is not happy that he's become the target of the same terrorist organization that attacked the king.

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A girl is desperate to get to Washington D.C. to be with her lonesome brother, a wounded G.I. She persuades Bing Crosby to let her join his caravan.

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