Post by topbilled on Jan 30, 2023 4:47:13 GMT
This was a landmark telefilm. I remember when I was in high school in the late 1980s. In Colorado, where my family lived at the time, all high school students were required to take a semester of health education during their sophomore year.
Our health teacher, whom I am actually friends with on Facebook all these years later (she's a lovely lady, now retired), decided to do a lesson to raise awareness about AIDS. This almost cost Mrs. Thorsby her job, since an influential conservative board member voted to have her contract not renewed at the end of the year. Fortunately, his action was not successful.
During the lesson to promote education on AIDS, she showed us a copy of this TV movie, the one and only time I've seen it. It was already two or three years old by that point, having been originally broadcast in 1985 when AIDS was not yet fully understood. It was groundbreaking, of course.
I remember how thought-provoking certain scenes in the movie were. They've remained etched in my memory all these years later. I know that a major Hollywood studio would make PHILADELPHIA a few years later in 1993...but I think AN EARLY FROST was better, since it focused on the victim's whole family...and wasn't as preachy or concerned with the legal aspects as PHILADELPHIA was.
I remember Aidan Quinn as the main character. Also Gena Rowlands and Ben Gazzara as the parents. But I had forgotten the grandmother was played by Sylvia Sidney.
The film is on the Russian site. I am going to try and find time to look at it this week. I bet it will seem dated, right?...but I think it will be a good time capsule about what was going on in America during the Reagan years.
ok.ru/video/1953677445702
