Choices of the Heart

Choices of the Heart

Genre	Drama
Written by	John Pielmeier
Directed by	Joseph Sargent
Starring	Melissa Gilbert Peter Horton Helen Hunt Mary McCusker Mari Gorman Pamela Bellwood Patrick Cassidy René Enríquez Mike Farrell Martin Sheen
Theme music composer	John Rubinstein
Country of origin	United States
Original language(s)	English
Production
Producer(s)	David W. Rintels Joseph Sargent
Editor(s)	George Jay Nicholson
Cinematography	Jorge Stahl Jr.
Running time	100 minutes
Production company(s)	Katz-Gallin Productions Half-Pint Productions Metromedia
Distributor	NBC
Release
Original network	NBC
Original release	December 5, 1983 (1983-12-05) (U.S.)

Choices of the Heart is an award-winning television movie based on the lives of Jean Donovan, Archbishop Oscar Romero, and three American nuns who were killed in El Salvador during its Civil War.^[1]^[2]^[3]

Plot

The movie is based on actual events. On March 24, 1980, Romero was killed, and three Roman Catholic nuns and a lay Catholic missionary were killed on December 2, 1980, by Salvadoran death squads, possibly funded by the United States.^[3] Three of the women dedicated their lives to helping refugees and sick people for years.^[4] Jean Donovan had been in El Salvador for over two years helping the children that she was so devoted to.^[4] Donovan says over and over in her letters to her family in the U.S. that God brought her to El Salvador.^[4] These women were raped, tortured, and killed by members of a Salvadoran death squad.^[3] Attempts from the Salvadoran and American governments were made to try to cover the murders up.^[3]

Production

The production was filmed mostly in Mexico. Mike Farrell plays Robert C. White, then U.S. President Jimmy Carter's Ambassador to El Salvador, who keeps running into official interference and noncooperation in his investigation concerning the murdered women.^[3] Martin Sheen appears as Matt Phelan, a Dublin priest whom Miss Donovan meets while spending her junior college year in Ireland.^[3]

Cast

Melissa Gilbert - Jean Donovan
Peter Horton - Doug (Douglas Cable)
Helen Hunt - Cathy
Mary McCusker - Sister Maura Clarke
Mari Gorman - Sister Ita Ford
Pamela Bellwood - Sister Dorothy Kazel
Patrick Cassidy - Patrick
René Enríquez - Archbishop Romero
Mike Farrell - Ambassador Robert E. White
Martin Sheen - Father Phelan
Demián Bichir - Armando
Enrique Lucero - Colonel Rojas
Delores Devine - Gwen
George Belanger - Father Rich

References

External links

Films directed by Joseph Sargent

One Spy Too Many (1966)
The Spy in the Green Hat (1967)
The Hell with Heroes (1968)
Colossus: The Forbin Project (1970)
Tribes (1970)
Maybe I'll Come Home in the Spring (1971)
The Man (1972)
White Lightning (1973)
The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974)
Friendly Persuasion (1975)
The Night That Panicked America (1975)
MacArthur (1977)
Goldengirl (1979)
Coast to Coast (1980)
Nightmares (1983)
Memorial Day (1983)
Choices of the Heart (1983)
Terrible Joe Moran (1984)
Jaws: The Revenge (1987)
The Karen Carpenter Story (1989)
Day One (1989)
The Incident (1990)
Never Forget (1991)
Miss Rose White (1992)
Somebody's Daughter (1992)
Skylark (1993)
Abraham (1993)
World War II: When Lions Roared (1994)
My Antonia (1995)
Mandela and de Klerk (1997)
Miss Evers' Boys (1997)
The Long Island Incident (1998)
Crime and Punishment (1998)
A Lesson Before Dying (1999)
For Love or Country: The Arturo Sandoval Story (2000)
Bojangles (2001)
Out of the Ashes (2003)
Something the Lord Made (2004)
Warm Springs (2005)
Sybil (2007)
Sweet Nothing in My Ear (2008)

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