The Cracker Factory is an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 television movie

Television movie

A television film is a feature film that is a television program produced for and originally distributed by a television network, in contrast to...

 directed by Burt Brinckerhoff. The teleplay

Screenplay

A screenplay or script is a written work that is made especially for a film or television program. Screenplays can be original works or adaptations from existing pieces of writing. In them, the movement, actions, expression, and dialogues of the characters are also narrated...

 by Richard Shapiro

Richard and Esther Shapiro

Richard Shapiro and Esther Shapiro are married American television screenwriters and producers best known as the creators of the long-running 1980s primetime serial Dynasty, its spin-off series The Colbys and the 1991 miniseries Dynasty: The Reunion.In 1984, Doubleday/Dolphin published the...

 is based on the best-selling 1977 novel by Joyce Rebeta-Burditt. The film was broadcast by ABC

American Broadcasting Company

The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...

 on March 16, 1979.

Synopsis

Alcoholic

Alcoholism

Alcoholism is a broad term for problems with alcohol, and is generally used to mean compulsive and uncontrolled consumption of alcoholic beverages, usually to the detriment of the drinker's health, personal relationships, and social standing...

 Cleveland housewife Cassie Barrett is institutionalized in a psychiatric ward after experiencing a nervous breakdown

Nervous breakdown

Mental breakdown is a non-medical term used to describe an acute, time-limited phase of a specific disorder that presents primarily with features of depression or anxiety.-Definition:...

 in the supermarket

Supermarket

A supermarket, a form of grocery store, is a self-service store offering a wide variety of food and household merchandise, organized into departments...

. We learn this is the latest in a series of hospitalizations from which Cassie emerges supposedly in control of her life but actually still teetering on the edge. During this latest stay, she develops a romantic crush on psychiatrist

Psychiatrist

A psychiatrist is a physician who specializes in the diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders. All psychiatrists are trained in diagnostic evaluation and in psychotherapy...

 Edwin Alexander and a close relationship with night supervisor Tinkerbell, both of whom help her take steps toward facing her inner demons and learning to live with sobriety

Sobriety

Sobriety is the condition of not having any measurable levels, or effects from, alcohol or other drugs that alter ones mood or behaviors. According to WHO "Lexicon of alcohol and drug terms..." sobriety is continued abstinence from alcohol and psychoactive drug use...

.

Principal cast

• Natalie Wood
  Natalie Wood
  Natalie Wood, born Natalia Nikolaevna Zacharenko was an American film and television actress. After first working in films as a child, Wood became a successful Hollywood star as a young adult, receiving three Academy Award nominations before she was 25 years old.Wood began acting in movies at the...
  
   ..... Cassie Barrett
• Perry King
  Perry King
  Perry Firestone King is an American television and film actor. King played the role of Cody Allen on the detective series Riptide from 1983 to 1986.-Early life:...
  
   ..... Dr. Edwin Alexander
• Juliet Mills ..... Tinkerbell
• Peter Haskell
  Peter Haskell
  Peter Abraham Haskell was an American actor who worked primarily in television.-Early years:Haskell was born in Boston, Massachusetts, the son of Rose Veronica Golden and geophysicist Norman Abraham Haskell...
  
   ..... Charlie Barrett
• Shelley Long
  Shelley Long
  Shelley Lee Long is an American actress best known for her role as Diane Chambers on the sitcom Cheers, for which she won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress and two Golden Globe Awards for Best Actress...
  
   ..... Clara
• Vivian Blaine
  Vivian Blaine
  Vivian Blaine was an American actress and singer best known for originating the role of Miss Adelaide in the musical theater production Guys and Dolls.-Life and career:...
  
   ..... Helen
• Marian Mercer
  Marian Mercer
  Marian Ethel Mercer was an American actress and singer.Born in Akron, Ohio, she graduated from the University of Michigan, then spent several seasons working in summer stock. She made her Broadway debut in the chorus of the short-lived musical, Greenwillow in 1960...
  
   ..... Eleanor

Principal production credits

• Executive Producers
  Film producer
  A film producer oversees and delivers a film project to all relevant parties while preserving the integrity, voice and vision of the film. They will also often take on some financial risk by using their own money, especially during the pre-production period, before a film is fully financed.The...
  
   ..... Roger Gimbel
  Roger Gimbel
  Roger Gimbel was an American television producer who specialized in television movies. Many of Gimbel's television films dealt with real-life events, including Chernobyl: The Final Warning, S.O.S. Titanic, The Amazing Howard Hughes and The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman...
  
  , Tony Converse
  Tony Converse
  Tony Converse is a television and film producer who began his professional career in New York in 1957 upon graduation from Yale University .-Early career:...
  
  
• Original Music
  Film score
  A film score is original music written specifically to accompany a film, forming part of the film's soundtrack, which also usually includes dialogue and sound effects...
  
   ..... Billy Goldenberg
  Billy Goldenberg
  William Leon "Billy" Goldenberg is an American composer most known for his work on television and film....
  
  
• Cinematography
  Cinematography
  Cinematography is the making of lighting and camera choices when recording photographic images for cinema. It is closely related to the art of still photography...
  
   ..... Michel Hugo
  Michel Hugo
  Michael Hugo was a French-born American cinematographer and academic. His film and television credits included Dynasty, Melrose Place and Mission: Impossible. In 2001, Hugo became a professor at the film department of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.Hugo was born in Paris on 13 Jan 1930...
  
  
• Art Direction
  Art director
  The art director is a person who supervise the creative process of a design.The term 'art director' is a blanket title for a variety of similar job functions in advertising, publishing, film and television, the Internet, and video games....
  
  ..... Alexander A. Mayer

External links

• The Cracker Factory at the Internet Movie Database