The Akron Beacon Journal from Akron, Ohio • Page 18

B6 The Beacon Journal Saturday. Dect-nnvr 22 NBC movie is about belief in unseen By Patricia Brennan Washtngfon Post the network. It doesn't fall into a category that they understand, so I fought hard for this. Part of it was that my parents are in their 80s, and I've always wanted to do something about the elderly. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross said, 'In the elderly and in children, the soul is bigger than the body.

It's only the rest of us who let our bodies outgrow our I love that." She also loves her hometown of Corapeake, N.C., a hamlet of about 200 souls whose name she borrowed for Zimmerman's home planet. Poison returns, she said, "about eight times a year" and calls ahead to find out whether the farmer across the road planted corn or peanuts that season. It's peaceful, she said, sitting on her parents' front porch swing looking out at the fields. NBC considered calling the show George Walters Is Away for the Holidays, said Poison, and settled on Guess Who's Coming for Christmas? each other what they need. And when that happens, people come together." Walters and his 7-year-old grandson Sam (Michael Patrick Carter) are the only two believers.

Barbara Barrie, perfect in the role of George's supportive wife, Delores, believes in her husband. Paul Dooley and James McEachin play two of Walters' frienas who chip in their savings to help him buy ground for the landing strip. But when pressed, they aren't certain they relieve in Zimmerman. Some of the townspeople are downright mean about it. Executive producer Beth Pol-son, whose idea it was, said flatly, "I adored this show.

It's fantasy, sort of Frank Capra-esque. It's so hard to do, this kind of film, that when you finally get it done, it does become a passion of sort. "But it was not an easy sell to i George Walters Is a kind but slightly eccentric retiree, living in Grovers Mill, a small town that's dying. The new interstate highway has bypassed it, and a shopping mall has siphoned off the town's business. One Thanksgiving day George meets Arnold Zimmerman (Beau Bridges), a stressed-out fellow in a pin-striped suit who claims he's from another planet.

Zabar, he calls it, although he commutes from his home on Corapeake. Seems possible. After all, he has a spaceship, although he's walked in to Grovers Mill to get a part for it from George Walters' son's hardware store. Walters, a salt-of-the-earth sort, invites the briefcase-carrying alien home for dinner and a high school basketball game. And except for the fact that he hasn't a clue about basketball, Zimmerman looks and acts exactly like any other American.

So much so that some folks think he's an impostor, and others believe that George, who dresses up like a Pilgrim for Thanksgiving, has finally gone loony. But George Walters likes Arnold Zimmerman and offers to build a landing strip for his spaceship so he'll return to visit. Friend helping friend, nothing more. He doesn't foresee the townsfolks' embarrassment over the national attention that comes their way. NBC calls the tale Guess Who's Coming for Christmas? The title is flat-out wrong: The holiday has almost nothing to do with it.

But the TV movie which will air Sunday at 9 p.m. on WKYC (Channel 3), WFMJ (Channel 21) and Steubenville's WTOV (Channel 9) is charming. "It's actually a very strong human story about family and friends and small towns and being a grandfather and a husband," said Richard Mulligan, who plays George Walters. "It has its downside to it as well, which is: The world of my character is falling apart. The town is crumbling and dying.

The people are becoming dried up and mean-tempered. "Bridges' character is forced down, and I help him. He's overwhelmed. He has all the qualities of an Earthling, and he witnesses me being a friend to people. "For me, anyway, and I think I'm quite right on this, the essence of the story is what happens when two people trust each other, believe each other and give 2 ::1 41; Beau Bridges (left) and Richard Mulligan star in Guess Who's Coming for Christmas? Sunday on NBC.

ATTENTION CATHOLICS Attend The Mass Of All Times Traditional Latin Mass IMMACULATE HEART OF MARY Roman Catholic Chapel 2935 Chenoweth Akron (1-77 Exit 120 at Arlington Rd. between Gastown K-Mart) Phone 644-3526 CHRISTMAS MASSES High Mass 12 midnight and 9 a.m. Christmas carols by choir starting at 1 1 :30 p.m. Mass every Sunday 9 a.m. followed by Benediction Prayers for Our Holy Father, Pope John Paul II at every Mass New building planned for WKSU "Problems with recurring litigation concerning that facility, coupled with an assessment of the repair and renovation costs relative to the costs of new construction, led the university to take a new direction." Construction is scheduled to begin in July, with completion by July 1992.

mm, tj iTMHiiif iHiMMaiaiilBMH ees. For the last several years, the studios have been in the university's Music and Speech building, while the offices have been on East Main. In 1987, with great fanfare, WKSU announced renovation and consolidation plans for the leased building, a former Brown Derby restaurant. Said a WKSU spokesman: ii ia I ViHagq I $2.00 816 2100 Kent State University's public radio station has abandoned its longtime plan to purchase the building it leases on East Main Street in Kent and to consolidate operations there. WKSU (89.7-FM) now is planning a new $1.6 million facility to be built with private money at an undetermined location on university property.

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