Jane Adams (Linda Purl) is a former TV soap actress who has retired to be the Pasedena housewife of Dan (John Bennet Perry) who is abusive. However producer Mel Wexler (Christopher Plummer) wants her for his ensemble cast of a new TV series entitled Manhattan. Jane gets romantically involved with co-star Zack Taylor (Gary Collins), and they help each other, with Zack being blackmailed for a video of sex with a minor, and Zack coming to Jane's rescue when Dan threatens her life.
Purl wears an amusing black wig when pretending to be a child welfare officer to expose the blackmailer, but unfortunately is dressed in a series of unflattering outfits. Her partnership with Collins gives them an awkward kiss and and an unconvincing sex scene, with the problem being Collins, though Purl is good when Jane is confronted by Dan and she answers him fearfully.
The teleplay by William Bast and Paul Huson, based on the novel by Danielle Steel, presents a narrative that is as trite as the glimpses of Manhattan that we see. Although it may be true in Hollywood, ever cast member has a secret which is counter-productive to their work, and the theme is voiced in `Keeping secrets takes up a lot of energy'. The one given the most time is that of Billy Warrick (Ben Browden), cast as the ubiquitous hunk though married in real life to a drug addict, former actress Sandy Westfield (Brenda Bakke). When Sandy is killed, Billy is tried for murder, and the cast all appear at the trial as a `family'. The other main secret is that of Sabina Quarles (Stephanie Beacham) who has an illegitimate dying son she is always flying out to see, though she is also sleeping with Mel.
Whilst the dialogue is on the level of `A drug addict is nobody's wife' and a Manhattan love scene is re-enacted line for line, there is one laugh in `I'm not about to put millions of dollars behind an unknown, although it was his behind that sold all those blue jeans'.
Director Peter H Hunt provides some ineffectual montages of the production process, a laugh with `That's lunch' after a cast slap, and an interrogating policeman eating a hamburger. Plummer and Purl survive without totally embarrassing themselves, but Beacham's poor-man's Joan Collins routine with deliberate mannered delivery undermines the flood of tears when she confesses her secret.
