TV/FILM
Square Dance
Gemma Dillard is a God-fearing 13-year-old girl who lives with her crotchety grandfather on a chicken farm in Texas. Her life is turned upside down when her absent mother, Juanelle, returns one morning and wants to take her daughter back with her to Ft. Worth.
Island Pictures, NBC Productions, and Pacific Arts Video
Director: Daniel Petrie
Screenplay: Alan Hines, based on his novel
Leading acting talent: Winona Ryder, Rob Lowe, Jane Alexander, Jason Robards
Premiere – Sundance Film Festival 1987
Rob Lowe was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a supporting Role in a Motion Picture.
“Square Dance is a rare film ostensibly modest, but actually reaching to touch our deepest feelings.” –Hollywood Reporter
“Alan Hines’s wonderful colloquial script (the dialogue is laced with crisp and crude Southernisms) forsakes a conventional plot for precise characterization. Here the characters are the story. …This is the kind of screenplay that places the onus squarely on the performer.” –The Globe and Mail
“Square Dance is a good, classically pure and honest piece of American film making. –Michael Wilmington, LA Times
Ambulance Girl
Based on the true story of how author Jane Stern fell into clinical depression and struggled her way through her various phobias after signing on to become an EMT.
Patricia Clifford Productions, Von Zernick Sertner Films, Lifetime Television
Director: Kathy Bates
Teleplay: Alan Hines
Based on the book by Jane Stern
Lead acting talent: Kathy Bates, Robin Thomas, Gordon Pinsent
Kathy Bates was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award – Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie
In Sickness and in Health
To ease the strain on his family, a man hires a young woman to care for his wife, who has Multiple Sclerosis. He and this young woman fall in love.
Konigsberg/Sanitsky Company, Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS)
Director: Jeff Bleckner
Teleplay: Alan Hines and Joyce Eliason
Story: Alan Hines
Lead acting talent: Lesley Ann Warren, Tom Skerritt, Marg Helgenberger, Lisa Blount
The Familiar Stranger
A woman struggles to rebuild her life and raise her two sons after her husband commits suicide. Fifteen years later, she discovers that he faked his death and assumed a new identity.
Hearst Entertainment Productions, Lifetime Television
Director: Alan Metzger
Screenplay: Alan Hines
Lead acting talent: Margaret Colin, Jay O. Sanders, Aaron Ashmore, Michael Cera
“…a solid script by Alan Hines, who effectively fashions a series of small but believable scenes that dissect the family’s domestic travails.” —LA Times
Too Close to Home
A mother is so obsessed with her 29-year-old son that she may have committed murder in order to keep him by her side. When the son’s new wife is found murdered, the mother is arrested. The son, a successful lawyer, is in denial about his mother’s guilt and agrees to defend her.
Once Upon a Time Films, Columbia Broadcasting Company (CBS)
Director: Bill Corcoran
Writer: Alan Hines and Adam Greenman
Lead acting talent: Judith Light, Ricky Schroeder
“Fine, innovative use by writers Adam Greenman and Alan Hines of the possessive-mother theme…“Too Close to Home” is easily the art vidpic of the year. It’s a must.” –Variety
Breaking the Surface: The Greg Louganis Story
Based on Greg Louganis’s memoir about the challenging times he had on his way to becoming one of the world’s top Olympic divers – including dyslexia, his homosexuality, and his courage dealing with HIV.
Green/Epstein Productions, USA Network Pictures
Director: Steven Hilliard Stern
Writer: Alan Hines
Based on the book by Greg Louganis and Eric Marcus
Lead acting talent: Mario Lopez, Michael Murphy, Rosemary Dunsmore, Bruce Weitz
Crowned and Dangerous
After the murder of a beauty queen, an investigation reveals the suspects to be a former lover, a rival contestant, and a stage mother.
Columbia Tri-Star Television, American Broadcasting Company (ABC)
Director: Christopher Leitch
Writer: Alan Hines, Cary Hayes and Chad Hayes
Lead acting talent: Yasmine Bleeth, Jill Clayburgh, George Eads
“Penned by Alan Hines, Carey W. Hayes and Chad Hayes, “Crowned and Dangerous” chases shadows and humor in the world of beauty competitions; they even suggest being careful what you ask for — it could come true.” –Variety
A Dad for Christmas
a.k.a. Me and Luke
Nineteen-year-old Matt sees his newborn son for the first time and falls in love with him. When he discovers that his girlfriend has already made arrangements for their baby to be adopted, he takes Luke out of the hospital and goes to his grandmother’s house. The three of them form an off-kilter family unit.
Shaftesbury Films, Lifetime Television
Director: Eleanor Lindo
Writer: Alan Hines
Based on the novel Me and Luke by Audrey O’Hearn
Lead acting talent: Louise Fletcher, Kristopher Turner
Murder at my Door
A devoted mother struggles to come to terms with the likelihood that her 20-year-old son is not the person she thought he was and may in fact be a cold-blooded murderer.
Once Upon a Time Films, Fox Network
Director – Eric Till
Screenplay – Patti Sullivan; Christopher Cannan; Uncredited – Alan Hines
Lead acting talent: Judith Light , R.H. Thomson, Johnny Galecki, Grace Zabriskie
Dangerous Child
A single mother finds herself accused of child abuse when in fact she is the one being abused by her son.
Hearst Entertainment Productions, Lifetime Television
Ryan Merriman won the Young Artist Award – Best Performance in a TV Movie or Special- Leading Young Actor.
Marc Donato was nominated for the Young Artist Award – Best Performance in a TV Movie or Special – Supporting Young Actor.
Director: Graeme Campbell
Teleplay – Karen Stillman, Alan Hines
Lead acting talent: Delta Burke, Ryan Merriman
Willing to Kill:
The Texas Cheerleader Story
The story of a homemaker who was found guilty of conspiring to kill the mother of her daughter’s cheerleading competitor.
Papazian-Hirsch Entertainment, Stockton Briggle, American Broadcasting Company (ABC)
Director: David Greene
Writer: Alan Hines
Lead acting talent: Lesley Ann Warren, Tess Harper, Dennis Christopher, William Forsythe
“Its finely detailed script by Alan Hines convinces the non-Texan, non-sports-fans among us that this is a state that takes its football and its cheerleading deadly seriously.” –Entertainment Weekly
When Husbands Cheat
A woman becomes a detective, then uses her skills to check her policeman husband’s fidelity.
Brayton-Carlucci Productions, Hearst Entertainment Productions, Lifetime Television
Director: Richard A. Colla
Screenplay: Alan Hines
Lead acting talent: Patricia Kalember, Tom Irwin, Brenda Vaccaro, Gina Clayton
Guilt By Association
When a mother discovers that her live-in boyfriend is a drug dealer, she ends their relationship. Suddenly her house is raided, and to get a more lenient sentence, her boyfriend claims that she’s been a co-conspirator. Due to the government’s “mandatory sentencing” law, she is sentenced to 20 years in prison and has to fight a long battle to secure her freedom.
Hearst Entertainment Productions, JB Media, Court TV
Director: Graeme Campbell
Screenplay: Alan Hines
Lead acting talent: Mercedes Ruehl, Rachel McAdams, Alberta Watson
Honorable Mention winner in the television drama category of the 46th annual Gavel Awards Competition sponsored by the American Bar Association
Save Me
A young man who is addicted to sex and drugs is forced by his family into a Christian-run ministry in an attempt to cure him of his “gay affliction”. Instead, he is faced with the truth in his heart and spirit.
Mythgarden, Tetrahedron Productions, First Run Features
Premier – Sundance Film Festival (2007)
Director: Robert Cary
Writer: Robert Desiderio
Story: Craig Chester, Alan Hines
Lead acting talent: Judith Light, Chad Allen, Robert Gant
The Interrogation of Michael Crowe
When 14-year-old Michael Crowe’s younger sister is found murdered in her bed, he is accused of the crime and hauled into the local police station. After a grueling interrogation, the cops manage to coerce a confession out of the distraught boy. Michael’s parents, with the help of a sympathetic attorney, take on “the System” to fight for the boy’s fundamental legal rights.
Andrea Baynes Productions, Hearst Entertainment Productions, Court TV
Director: Don McBrearty
Screenplay: Alan Hines
Lead acting talent: Ally Sheedy, Mark Rendall, Michael Riley
American Bar Association Silver Gavel Award
Peabody Award
“Writer Alan Hines has defied Hollywood TV tradition and written a really good, really riveting script.”
— Linda Stasi, NY Post