Movies by Gilbert Cates

My First Love
Widow Jean Miller thinks she's ready for a new romance with her high school sweetheart, Sam Morrissey, a physician of considerable means. The only thing standing in the way of rekindling this first love is the presence of his very attractive, very together 39-year-old girlfriend, Claire.

Backfire
Mara McAndrew's marriage is falling apart. Her husband, Donnie, a Vietnam veteran, suffers troubling flashbacks about the war, leaving him unresponsive to her needs. Mara wants out, but she also wants Donnie's money. When Mara meets a mysterious stranger, Reed, at a local bar, she believes she has found the right person to help her out of her predicament. But Mara worries that Donnie's sister, Jill, is on to her.

Goldilocks and the Three Bears
A spirited young girl disobeys her parents and runs off to the wood for the afternoon where she rudely invades the home of a family of bears, taking advantage of all its comforts and thoughtlessly wrecking things. When caught, she learns important lessons about truthfulness and respecting others' rights to privacy.

Do You Know the Muffin Man?
Roger Dollison, a police officer, and his wife, Kendra, are living the American dream. They have two children, Teddy and Sandy, a lovely home, and a dog named Rex. What they know and how they live as a family is irreparably changed one day when it is discovered that a classmate of Teddy's is the apparent victim of sexual abuse and molestation at the respected neighborhood daycare center. Like all other parents, the Dollisons are tormented — "we should have known, we should have seen" — but their devastation is complete when Teddy tells his o...

After the Fall
Adaptation of Arthur Miller's semi-autobiographical play about Quentin, a Jewish intellectual from New York who must reexamine his life and his troubled relationship with Holga.

Consenting Adult
Young and shy Jeff discovers his attraction to men. After struggling with himself he comes out to his parents. Mum eventually listens to his son and tries to understand his feelings, but his Dad would rather die — which, in the end, he really does, leaving behind a mother, her son and his friend to work those things out Jeff and his Dad had never the courage to talk about.

The Affair
A crippled lady songwriter meets an older lawyer who becomes her first love.

Rings Around the World
While writing a book on the circus, author John Shawcross reflects upon the great acts he has seen over the years and the mystique of circus people. He recalls the solo trapeze act of La Mara; Tarzan, Sahib, and their elephant; Marco's sword-balancing act; an archery act in which Grey Arrow shoots an apple off the head of Zuni, his wife; the Mascott Sisters' head-to-head balancing act on a high ladder; the juggling of Rudy Cardenas; high bar specialists, the Tongas; Gunther Gebel Williams with his tiger; the flying bar act of the Laribles; C...

Country Gold
An aging country singer becomes irritated with the success of a popular young country singer. However, she is not yet ready to become yesterday's news.

Absolute Strangers
A husband tries to keep his comatose wife alive by allowing doctors to terminate her pregnancy. Hearing about this, anti-abortion protesters start a legal campaign to gain legal custody of the fetus.

Rapunzel
A sinister witch steals the baby of a simple candlemaker and his wife and names her Rapunzel. Determined to keep Rapunzel for herself, the witch locks her up in a tall tower all alone, with no way in or out except by climbing her long, braided hair. Wonders and dangers occur when the girl meets a handsome prince.
Fatal Judgement
A Massachusetts nurse (Patty Duke) is accused of exercising Fatal Judgment in this made-for-TV movie. While tending a seriously ill cancer patient, the nurse administered a generous dose of morphine. The patient died, which is why the woman is now on trial for murder.

Confessions: Two Faces of Evil
Two men being questioned in a police station on Christmas Eve both confess to the murder of a cop. With both stories seeming plausible, an investigator is called in to determine which suspect is telling the truth - and why the other one is lying. Crime drama, starring James Earl Jones and Jason Bateman.