I saw this 1979 TV movie on HBO oddly enough one morning. I started watching it and I was hooked! Donna has to be in here 50's and she doesn't look a day over 35! Her acting is wonderful, I thought it was so cute her having a fling with an older man, her kids being wild, complete opposite from her television show which I adore. I just got done reading the Jay Fultz biography on Donna called "In Search Of Donna Reed" in the book he talks about Donna's feelings about this TV movie, the whole process of making it. You get to see her in a new light, its just great! I recommend any Donna fans like myself to watch it, even if you aren't I am sure you will enjoy it, its sooooo worth the time!A+++++++
2 Reviews
The Middle-Age Spread, courtesy Ross Hunter
moonspinner5514 March 2015
Wooden soap opera from producer Ross Hunter, originally shown in two parts, starring Donna Reed as a Los Angeles housewife who decides to get on with her life after "that tomcatting husband of hers" has died of a heart attack (while picking up his dry cleaning!). The opening 45 minutes of this adaptation of Helen Van Slyke's book clumsily sets the stage for the requisite melodrama and knuckle-biting to follow. Hunter and co-producer Jacques Mapes have boxed themselves into a corner: in trying to be tasteful and 'classy', they have arrived at a glossy scenario passed its prime, one scrubbed clean of all reality (poor Donna can't even date an eligible doctor without announcing to her needling mother that she hasn't been to confession yet--but plans to go very soon!). Although ridiculous from start to finish, the picture does give Donna Reed a third-act opportunity in her career to laugh and cry and be romanced; however, the younger players (including Stefanie Zimbalist and Timothy Hutton as two of Reed's children) are left looking like amateurs due to the hokey dialogue (which extends to everybody in the cast). As Donna's man-chasing gal-pal, Betty White cannot read a line straight; she has been so groomed by television that every inflection of hers is punched up for a laugh. As for Reed's paramours, Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. And John Phillip Law take turns being patient with Donna and her troubled brood (they would have to be saints to want to get in good with this family). Hunter has graciously given work here to many old friends (and their offspring), so one is initially inclined to give "The Best Place to Be" a break. Alas, it's but another weepy nosegay designed for blue-hairs and easy-criers.
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