Dallas: J.R. Returns
Encyclopedia
Dallas: J.R. Returns is the first of the two Dallas
reunion movies to air after the series went off the air. It originally aired on CBS
on November 15, 1996, and recently was rerun as part of TV Land
's salute to 50 years of Warner Bros.
Television.
fired was at the mirror, not himself (although no glass was heard smashing). It is also revealed that J.R. has quit drinking, and would usually be seen sipping coffee or iced tea instead.
Several years later, J.R. is in Europe, while Bobby Ewing lives at Southfork alone with his son Christopher, happily out of the oil business, and Cliff Barnes is still the president of Ewing Oil, relishing the fact that he finally beat J.R.
However, things aren't as cheery as they may seem. Bobby, conscious of the fact that Southfork, once full of family, is now all but empty, considers selling it. Meanwhile Cliff, weary of the oil business, decides that after all the trouble he and J.R. went through during their rivalry, he wants to try to regain whatever he lost in it. Cliff comes to the conclusion that the best way to do so is to sell Ewing Oil to Weststar Oil, a giant Oil conglomerate headed by J.R.'s other nemesis, Carter McKay. McKay promises that upon completion of the deal, Weststar will completely incorporate Ewing Oil's assets into his company, and Ewing Oil will permanently cease to exist. J.R. hears this and decides that he will try to regain his position. He tries to appeal to Bobby to get back in business together and buy Ewing Oil back, but is rebuffed. J.R. arranges for Afton to be put in a sanitarium so Cliff can't find her.
After a surprise trip to Ewing Oil where he taunts a rattled Cliff with his plan, J.R. learns of a provision in Jock Ewing's will where Jock left J.R.'s son, John Ross, stock in computer company Cyberbyte, which has a total value of $200,000,000. The provision states that John Ross is only to receive this stock upon the death of his father. However, since John Ross is living with Sue Ellen (his mother) in Europe and is unaware of his inheritance from his grandfather, J.R. decides that he's going to sell some of this stock and buy up shares to take over Weststar, which is about to absorb "his" company. He sells the entire stock portfolio, which he put up as collateral for a loan in the same amount, and buys a controlling stake in Weststar Oil. To cover his tracks, J.R. rebuys the stock and reinstates the provision, saying that if anyone found out about the incident he would just claim that they were released to John Ross Ewing, Jr. (J.R.) instead of his son (full name John Ross Ewing III) in a clerical error.
To set this in motion, he fakes his own death in a car accident with help from several people, and has his attorney "accidentally" put the shares in his name instead of his son's. Thinking that J.R. really has died, Bobby holds a memorial service at Southfork, with John Ross and Sue Ellen attending and Cliff in quiet celebration, where he believes he's won the ultimate victory over J.R....until J.R. surprisingly returns to Southfork. He falsely claims to have been kidnapped and managed an escape. Sly is disgusted by all this and resigns as J.R's assistant.
In the final moments of the show, J.R. is now the majority shareholder in Weststar, and uses that clout to force McKay to back out of buying Ewing Oil. McKay says that Cliff sold Ewing oil to someone else already. After being sent a letter notifying him of his daughter's whereabouts, Cliff finally decided finding his family was more important than beating J.R., but Bobby figured out a plan so that Cliff could have both, and agreed to buy Ewing Oil. Bobby later realized that he was tricked back into the oil business by J.R. who knew getting Bobby off Southfork would force him not to sell. J.R., on a roll, maneuvered the board to remove McKay as Chairman of Weststar and for himself to take his place.
Upon revealing this Bobby is not happy so he sells half of the company to his new partner, Sue Ellen Ewing. JR appears shocked and crushed. Bobby, Sue Ellen, and Cliff, all believe they pulled one more over on old JR. A drunken and bitter Sly had tipped off Sue Ellen that J.R. faked his own death. Sue Ellen suspected this all along and was neither surprised or even that angry about it, but still felt that J.R needed to be taught a lesson. Cliff meanwhile greets Afton and Pamela outside the sanitarium after Afton was released and they leave to finally be a family.
In the last scene, John Ross asks JR why he is smiling even though he lost Ewing Oil to Bobby and Sue Ellen. So JR points a few things out. Bobby is back in the oil business and is no longer going to sell Southfork. Ewing Oil is back in Ewing hands. JR is Chairman of the Board of Weststar Oil. Sue Ellen is back at Southfork to stay, and John Ross will remain in Dallas to learn the oil business from JR. At this point, John Ross turns to JR, and realizes his father may have actually planned everything to work out this way from the start. JR's last words were (along with his trademark grin) "You see John Ross? You're learning already."
Rosalind Allen
as Julia Cunningham
Christopher Demetral
as Christopher Ewing
Patrick Duffy
as Bobby Ewing
Linda Gray
as Sue Ellen Ewing
Larry Hagman
as J.R. Ewing
Omri Katz
as John Ross Ewing III
Deborah Kellner as Pamela Rebecca Cooper
George Kennedy
as Carter McKay
Ken Kercheval
as Cliff Barnes
Audrey Landers
as Afton Cooper
Tracy Scoggins
as Anita Smithfield
as Sylvia "Sly" Lovegren
George O. Petrie
as Harv Smithfield
is releasing Dallas: J.R. Returns on DVD
April 12, 2011 on Dallas: The Movie Collection 2-disc set.
Dallas (TV series)
Dallas is an American serial drama/prime time soap opera that revolves around the Ewings, a wealthy Texas family in the oil and cattle-ranching industries. Throughout the series, Larry Hagman stars as greedy, scheming oil baron J. R. Ewing...
reunion movies to air after the series went off the air. It originally aired on CBS
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
on November 15, 1996, and recently was rerun as part of TV Land
TV Land
TV Land is an American cable television network launched on April 29, 1996. It is owned by MTV Networks, a division of Viacom, which also owns Paramount Pictures, and networks such as MTV and Nickelodeon...
's salute to 50 years of Warner Bros.
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...
Television.
Plot
The cliffhanger ending of the series finale is resolved in the opening minutes of the movie. It turns out that the gunshot J.R. EwingJ.R. Ewing
John Ross Ewing, Jr., more commonly known as J. R. Ewing, played by Larry Hagman, was a central, nefarious figure on the hit CBS television series Dallas . J. R...
fired was at the mirror, not himself (although no glass was heard smashing). It is also revealed that J.R. has quit drinking, and would usually be seen sipping coffee or iced tea instead.
Several years later, J.R. is in Europe, while Bobby Ewing lives at Southfork alone with his son Christopher, happily out of the oil business, and Cliff Barnes is still the president of Ewing Oil, relishing the fact that he finally beat J.R.
However, things aren't as cheery as they may seem. Bobby, conscious of the fact that Southfork, once full of family, is now all but empty, considers selling it. Meanwhile Cliff, weary of the oil business, decides that after all the trouble he and J.R. went through during their rivalry, he wants to try to regain whatever he lost in it. Cliff comes to the conclusion that the best way to do so is to sell Ewing Oil to Weststar Oil, a giant Oil conglomerate headed by J.R.'s other nemesis, Carter McKay. McKay promises that upon completion of the deal, Weststar will completely incorporate Ewing Oil's assets into his company, and Ewing Oil will permanently cease to exist. J.R. hears this and decides that he will try to regain his position. He tries to appeal to Bobby to get back in business together and buy Ewing Oil back, but is rebuffed. J.R. arranges for Afton to be put in a sanitarium so Cliff can't find her.
After a surprise trip to Ewing Oil where he taunts a rattled Cliff with his plan, J.R. learns of a provision in Jock Ewing's will where Jock left J.R.'s son, John Ross, stock in computer company Cyberbyte, which has a total value of $200,000,000. The provision states that John Ross is only to receive this stock upon the death of his father. However, since John Ross is living with Sue Ellen (his mother) in Europe and is unaware of his inheritance from his grandfather, J.R. decides that he's going to sell some of this stock and buy up shares to take over Weststar, which is about to absorb "his" company. He sells the entire stock portfolio, which he put up as collateral for a loan in the same amount, and buys a controlling stake in Weststar Oil. To cover his tracks, J.R. rebuys the stock and reinstates the provision, saying that if anyone found out about the incident he would just claim that they were released to John Ross Ewing, Jr. (J.R.) instead of his son (full name John Ross Ewing III) in a clerical error.
To set this in motion, he fakes his own death in a car accident with help from several people, and has his attorney "accidentally" put the shares in his name instead of his son's. Thinking that J.R. really has died, Bobby holds a memorial service at Southfork, with John Ross and Sue Ellen attending and Cliff in quiet celebration, where he believes he's won the ultimate victory over J.R....until J.R. surprisingly returns to Southfork. He falsely claims to have been kidnapped and managed an escape. Sly is disgusted by all this and resigns as J.R's assistant.
In the final moments of the show, J.R. is now the majority shareholder in Weststar, and uses that clout to force McKay to back out of buying Ewing Oil. McKay says that Cliff sold Ewing oil to someone else already. After being sent a letter notifying him of his daughter's whereabouts, Cliff finally decided finding his family was more important than beating J.R., but Bobby figured out a plan so that Cliff could have both, and agreed to buy Ewing Oil. Bobby later realized that he was tricked back into the oil business by J.R. who knew getting Bobby off Southfork would force him not to sell. J.R., on a roll, maneuvered the board to remove McKay as Chairman of Weststar and for himself to take his place.
Upon revealing this Bobby is not happy so he sells half of the company to his new partner, Sue Ellen Ewing. JR appears shocked and crushed. Bobby, Sue Ellen, and Cliff, all believe they pulled one more over on old JR. A drunken and bitter Sly had tipped off Sue Ellen that J.R. faked his own death. Sue Ellen suspected this all along and was neither surprised or even that angry about it, but still felt that J.R needed to be taught a lesson. Cliff meanwhile greets Afton and Pamela outside the sanitarium after Afton was released and they leave to finally be a family.
In the last scene, John Ross asks JR why he is smiling even though he lost Ewing Oil to Bobby and Sue Ellen. So JR points a few things out. Bobby is back in the oil business and is no longer going to sell Southfork. Ewing Oil is back in Ewing hands. JR is Chairman of the Board of Weststar Oil. Sue Ellen is back at Southfork to stay, and John Ross will remain in Dallas to learn the oil business from JR. At this point, John Ross turns to JR, and realizes his father may have actually planned everything to work out this way from the start. JR's last words were (along with his trademark grin) "You see John Ross? You're learning already."
Main cast
(in alphabetical order)Rosalind Allen
Rosalind Allen
Rosalind Allen is a New Zealand-born actress best known for her portrayal Doctor Wendy Smith on seaQuest DSV's second season.-Early life:...
as Julia Cunningham
Christopher Demetral
Chris Demetral
Christopher Peter "Chris" Demetral is a former American actor best known as Jeremy Tupper, the son of newly divorced New York book editor Martin Tupper on the HBO series Dream On...
as Christopher Ewing
Patrick Duffy
Patrick Duffy
Patrick George Duffy is an American character actor of stage and film. He is best known for his role on the CBS television drama Dallas, where he played Bobby Ewing from 1978 to 1985 and from 1986 to 1991, Duffy returns to reprise his role as Bobby in a new up-to-date Dallas currently scheduled to...
as Bobby Ewing
Linda Gray
Linda Gray
Linda Ann Gray is an American actress, best known for her role as Sue Ellen Ewing on the television prime-time soap opera Dallas.-Career:Prior to acting, Gray began working as a model in the 1960s...
as Sue Ellen Ewing
Sue Ellen Ewing
Sue Ellen Ewing is a character on the popular American television series Dallas, played by Linda Gray from 1978 to 1989. Sue Ellen was the long-suffering two-time wife of the nefarious J. R. Ewing....
Larry Hagman
Larry Hagman
Larry Martin Hagman is an American film and television actor, producer and director known for playing J.R. Ewing in the 1980s primetime television soap opera Dallas and Major Anthony "Tony" Nelson in the 1960s sitcom I Dream of Jeannie.-Early life and career:Hagman was born in Fort Worth, Texas...
as J.R. Ewing
J.R. Ewing
John Ross Ewing, Jr., more commonly known as J. R. Ewing, played by Larry Hagman, was a central, nefarious figure on the hit CBS television series Dallas . J. R...
Omri Katz
Omri Katz
Omri Haim Katz is an American actor. His TV and film credits include Eerie, Indiana; Matinee; Adventures in Dinosaur City; Hocus Pocus; and the CBS prime time soap opera Dallas, in which he played the role of John Ross Ewing III, the son of J.R...
as John Ross Ewing III
Deborah Kellner as Pamela Rebecca Cooper
George Kennedy
George Kennedy
George Harris Kennedy, Jr. is an American actor who has appeared in over 200 film and television productions. He is perhaps most familiar as the convict Dragline in Cool Hand Luke , airline troubleshooter Joe Patroni in the Airport series of disaster movies from the 1970s and...
as Carter McKay
Ken Kercheval
Ken Kercheval
Ken Kercheval is an American actor, best known for his role as Cliff Barnes on the television series Dallas....
as Cliff Barnes
Cliff Barnes
Clifford "Cliff" Barnes, played by Ken Kercheval, was a character on the popular American television series Dallas. The Barnes family were competitors and sometimes enemies of the Ewing family. Cliff was the son of Willard "Digger" Barnes and Rebecca Barnes Wentworth. J.R. Ewing was Cliff's...
Audrey Landers
Audrey Landers
Audrey Landers is a German American actress and singer, who is probably best known for her role as Afton Cooper in the television drama series Dallas and her role as Val Clarke in the film version of A Chorus Line.- Early years :...
as Afton Cooper
Tracy Scoggins
Tracy Scoggins
Tracy Dawn Scoggins is an American actress known for her roles as Cat Grant in the television series Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman and Monica Colby in the 1980s prime time soap opera Dynasty, and its spin-off series The Colbys...
as Anita Smithfield
Additional cast
Deborah RennardDeborah Rennard
Deborah Rennard is an American actress. She remains best known for her recurring role in Dallas as J.R. Ewing's secretary Sylvia "Sly" Lovegren. She appeared in the series from 1981 to 1991 and also in the film J.R. Returns...
as Sylvia "Sly" Lovegren
George O. Petrie
George O. Petrie
George O. Petrie was an American television actor.-Biography:He was born in New Haven, Connecticut. On The Honeymooners he had recurring character roles throughout the series...
as Harv Smithfield
DVD Release
Warner Home VideoWarner Home Video
Warner Home Video is the home video unit of Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., itself part of Time Warner. It was founded in 1978 as WCI Home Video . The company launched in the United States with twenty films on VHS and Betamax videocassettes in late 1979...
is releasing Dallas: J.R. Returns on DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
April 12, 2011 on Dallas: The Movie Collection 2-disc set.