Passions (1984)

A prominent businessman (Richard Crenna) leads a double life. He has a wife (Joanne Woodward) and 20 year old daughter (Heather Langenkamp) in Beverly Hills and a mistress (Lindsay Wagner) and six year old son (R.J. Williams) in a Malibu beach home. But when he has a stroke, the two worlds meet. Directed by Sandor Stern, this trashy soap opera is a ripoff of BACK STREET (made three times) and offers no surprises or insight and it's too deadly serious to rival the kitschy glam of the 1961 film version of BACK STREET. At first, the movie seems like an exercise to excuse adultery but by the mawkish ending, it seems to acknowledge that both women were victims of a man who wanted his cake and eat it too. The only remotely believable character in the whole thing is Joanne Woodward's enraged wife, furious at the man who betrayed her and put her in this position and that's in her performance, not the writing. With Viveca Lindfors and Mason Adams.