Shock to the System is a 2006 gay-themed mystery film. It is the second film adaptation of a Richard Stevenson novel featuring fictional detective Donald Strachey. The film premiered at the 2006 Outfest film festival before going into rotation on the here! television network.
Late one night, Donald Strachey is meeting a new client in a dark alley—one Paul Hale. Hale is very nervous, and before Strachey can calm what seems like paranoia, an incoming van approaches. Hale hands the private eye a $5,000 check for a retainer just before the speeding van separates the two. The next night, however, Paul Hale turns up dead. Both the coroner and Detective Bailey rule his death a suicide due to apparent evidence of alcohol and drugs nearby his body and in his bloodstream, but neither Donald nor Paul's mother are convinced of this. Phyllis Hale believes Paul was murdered. Strachey is determined to find out the truth about Paul's death. On the way to work the next morning, Strachey accosts someone who he believes is breaking into his office, but it turns out to be Kenny Kwon, who was fired during a confrontation between Strachey and his boss Nathan Zenck during a prior case. Kenny convinces Donald to hire him as Strachey Investigations' new office manager.
Strachey's lover Timmy Callahan is able to provide the firm a lead on Paul Hale—before he died, he was the spokesman for the Phoenix Foundation, which practices ex-gay conversion therapy. Strachey goes undercover into the Foundation as "Kyle". In his undercover persona, the detective introduces himself to Dr. Trevor Cornell, the Foundation's director. "Kyle" tells Cornell a story about a former soldier who was discharged for being gay—a story Strachey draws upon from his own past in his bid to be believable as an aspiring ex-gay.
Cornell isn't the only one who believes that being gay is a choice determined only by how much willpower a person exerts to "change". Phyllis, in her quest to blame homosexuals for Paul's death, deflects responsibility towards an openly gay friend of his from college, Larry Phelps, whom she suggests might have killed him for his attempts to become straight. Donald attempts to talk to Larry, but he assumes Strachey is dangerous. The P.I. gives chase, but Phelps manages to elude him. Then called to the police station, he is given a copy of the autopsy report by Bailey. It turns out the drugs found in Paul Hale's system were phenelzine, even though the bottles of pills found around his body contained Xanax. Hale didn't have a prescription for either drug, but Bailey won't investigate where Paul got the drugs, as he refuses to believe it was anything other than suicide.
Later, "Kyle" goes to a conversion therapy group, meeting the other participants in the ex-gay program. Among them are Grey, an attractive athletic type that is in a heterosexual marriage with a child, and Katie, who says she's working on being less tomboyish and was even engaged to Paul Hale. The longer "Kyle" spends time with Trevor and the recipients of his therapy, the more details he gets about the estrangement between them and Paul that occurred shortly before his death, but the undercover assignment takes its toll on Strachey's confidence in his openly gay identity, particularly during "Kyle"'s individual sessions with Cornell. Finally, in one session Strachey explodes into a confrontational tone, blowing his cover. Before Donald cuts ties with the ex-gays for good, Grey gives him two things—a DVD that will shed light on Paul's murder and an offer of extramarital sex. Strachey accepts the former, but declines the latter with great difficulty and mixed emotions.
At the office, Donald watches the DVD, which features a recording of Paul describing in vague terms what his experiences with the Phoenix Foundation did to change him—but not in the way he expected. Strachey is able to determine that Larry Phelps was the one who recorded Paul's appearance on the DVD, and knows whatever Paul did. Strachey tracks Larry down and convinces him that he means him no harm, and is not associated with the Phoenix Foundation. Larry informs Strachey that he and Paul secretly taped many of Cornell's individual sessions with his patients, but before he is able to tell Strachey everything he knows, an unknown assailant murders Phelps.
At home, Donald's conversations with Timmy become strained. Even broken away from Cornell's harmful messages, his influences as "Kyle" still weigh heavy in his heart, making him doubtful of what kind of future and possibilities an openly gay person can have in mainstream society, even implying to Timmy that he feels "trapped" in their relationship. Finally, one evening, Donald breaks down and tells Timmy about his past in the army and how he and his fellow soldier and lover of 4 months—Kyle Griffin—were discovered during a moment of intimacy. In the course of the investigation, Strachey caved to the pressure his military superiors were putting on him and told them the truth, something that devastated Kyle and their relationship. Donald confesses that the day they were both discharged, Kyle committed suicide.
The next morning, Cornell is taken into custody and charged with Larry Phelps' murder—because of evidence so convenient for an arrest warrant and open and shut prosecution, that Tim and Don are convinced that Cornell is being framed. With Trevor's reluctant blessing, Strachey convinces his wife Lynn to let him help her clear her husband of the serious charges he's facing. Strachey discovers a hidden camera in Cornell's office that transmitted movie files to a nearby computer in another room, which they uncover and then find out the truth. Katie is not a lesbian and has been sexually involved with Cornell, especially during their individual sessions, and it was she that put a lethal mix of phenelzine in Paul Hale's bourbon the night of his death, murdering both him and Larry Phelps. Katie turns up at the Foundation, holding both Strachey and Lynn Cornell at gunpoint, but he manages to disarm her. Cornell is freed, at the expense of his relationship with not only the now clearly insane Katie, but also his wife, and his program as well. Having nothing else to lose, Cornell tells Strachey why he was hired by Paul. He was hoping that the P.I. could track down Paul's father, who like his son, was gay, having been discovered by Paul's mother with another man, and facing Phyllis' intense disapproval. Strachey makes Phyllis realize how much damage her homophobia has caused her entire family, and he can now declare this case closed.
Generations is an American soap opera that aired on NBC from March 27, 1989, to January 25, 1991. The show was groundbreaking in that it was the first soap opera to feature an African-American family from its inception.
Identity is a 2003 American mystery thriller film directed by James Mangold, written by Michael Cooney, and starring John Cusack, Ray Liotta, and Amanda Peet with Alfred Molina, Clea DuVall, and Rebecca De Mornay.
Richard Leonard Kuklinski, also known as "The Iceman", was an American criminal and convicted murderer. Kuklinski was engaged in criminal activities for most of his adult life; he ran a burglary ring and distributed pirated pornography. He committed at least five murders between 1980 and 1984. Prosecutors described him as killing for profit. Kuklinski lived with his wife and children in the New Jersey suburb of Dumont. They knew him as a loving father and husband, although one who also had a violent temper. They stated that they were unaware of his crimes. He was nicknamed Iceman by authorities after they discovered that he had frozen the body of one of his victims in an attempt to disguise the time of death. Kuklinski's modus operandi was to lure men to clandestine meetings with the promise of lucrative business deals, then kill them and steal their money. He also killed two associates to prevent them from becoming informants. Eventually, Kuklinski came to the attention of law enforcement when an investigation into his burglary gang linked him to several murders, as he was the last person to have seen five missing men alive. An eighteen-month-long undercover operation led to his arrest in December 1986. In 1988, he was convicted of four murders and sentenced to life imprisonment. In 2003, he received an additional 30-year sentence after confessing to the murder of a police officer.
Boy Meets Boy is a young adult novel by David Levithan, published in 2003. Set in a gay-friendly small town in America, it describes a few weeks in the lives of a group of high school students. The story follows the standard romantic trope usually known as "boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl" except that the main characters are both boys, the narrator Paul and newcomer Noah. The novel won a Lambda Literary Award in 2003.
Kidulthood is a 2006 British teen crime drama film directed by Menhaj Huda and written by Noel Clarke, who appeared in the film alongside Aml Ameen, Red Madrell, Adam Deacon, Jaime Winstone, Femi Oyeniran, Madeleine Fairley, Cornell John, Kate Magowan, Pierre Mascolo, Rafe Spall and Nicholas Hoult. It follows the lives of several teenagers in the West London area Ladbroke Grove.
They Won't Forget is a 1937 American drama film directed by Mervyn LeRoy and starring Claude Rains, Gloria Dickson, Edward Norris, and Lana Turner, in her feature debut. It was based on a novel by Ward Greene called Death in the Deep South, which was in turn a fictionalized account of a real-life case: the trial and subsequent lynching of Leo Frank after the murder of Mary Phagan in 1913.
Chad Allen is an American retired actor and psychologist. Beginning his career at the age of seven, Allen is a three time Young Artist Award winner and GLAAD Media Award honoree. He was a teen idol during the late 1980s as David Witherspoon on the NBC family drama Our House and as Zach Nichols on the NBC sitcom My Two Dads before transitioning to an adult career as Matthew Cooper on the CBS western drama Dr. Quinn: Medicine Woman. He announced his retirement from acting in April 2015.
Summer Newman is a fictional character from The Young and the Restless, a US soap opera on the CBS network. Created by head writers Lynn Marie Latham and Kay Alden, the role is currently portrayed by Allison Lanier. The character was introduced during the episode airing on December 19, 2006, as the daughter of Phyllis Summers and Nicholas Newman, but for one year was believed to be the daughter of Jack Abbott because of Sharon Newman, Nick's former wife, tampering with the paternity test results.
Third Man Out is a 2005 gay-themed mystery film. It is the first film adaptation of a Richard Stevenson novel featuring fictional detective Donald Strachey.
The Pettingill family is a Melbourne-based criminal family, headed by matriarch Kath Pettingill. Family members have many convictions for criminal offences including drug trafficking, arms dealing and armed robberies.
On the Other Hand, Death is a 2008 gay-themed mystery film. It is the third film adaptation of a Richard Stevenson novel featuring fictional detective Donald Strachey. The film was screened at several LGBT film festivals, including the New York Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, & Transgender Film Festival, 2008 before going into rotation on the here! television network. The film was nominated for the GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding TV Movie or Limited Series.
Underbelly: A Tale of Two Cities, the second series of the Nine Network crime drama series Underbelly, originally aired from 9 February 2009 to 4 May 2009. It is a thirteen-part series loosely based on real events that stemmed from the marijuana trade centred on the New South Wales town of Griffith. The timeline of the series is the years between 1976 and 1987. Underbelly: A Tale of Two Cities primarily depicts the Mr. Asia drug syndicate and its influence on crime in Australia. Among the characters presented are real-life criminals Robert Trimbole, Terry Clark, George Freeman, Christopher Dale Flannery, Alphonse Gangitano and the Kane Brothers. The mini-series is a prequel to the 2008 production Underbelly, which was about the Melbourne gangland killings and forms part of the Underbelly series.
The True Story of Lynn Stuart is a 1958 American biographical crime drama film starring Betsy Palmer, Jack Lord, Barry Atwater and released by Columbia Pictures.
Larry Lance is a DC Comics character, a detective associated with the various incarnations of the superheroine Black Canary. His first appearance was in Flash Comics #92, created by Carmine Infantino and Robert Kanigher. When the Black Canary was reimagined in the mid-1980s as two characters—a mother and daughter—Larry became the husband to the elder Black Canary and father to the younger superheroine.
Strange Alibi is a 1941 American crime film directed by D. Ross Lederman, written by Kenneth Gamet, Leslie T. White and Fred Niblo Jr., and starring Arthur Kennedy, Joan Perry, Jonathan Hale, John Ridgely, Florence Bates and Charles Trowbridge. It was released by Warner Bros. on April 19, 1941.
Michael Shayne, Private Detective is a 1940 American mystery film directed by Eugene Forde and starring Lloyd Nolan, Marjorie Weaver and Joan Valerie. It is based on Brett Halliday's novel The Private Practice of Michael Shayne. It was the first in a series of Michael Shayne films starring Nolan.
Fighting Youth is a 1935 American drama film directed by Hamilton MacFadden and written by Henry Johnson, Hamilton MacFadden and newspaper reporter Florabel Muir. The film stars Charles Farrell, June Martel, Andy Devine, J. Farrell MacDonald, Ann Sheridan and Edward Nugent. The film was released on November 1, 1935, by Universal Pictures.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
