| Genre: | Drama |
| Director: | Burt Brinckerhoff |
| Executive Producer: | Tony Converse Roger Gimbel |
| Producer: | Richard Alan Shapiro (as Richard Shapiro) |
| Starring: | Natalie Wood |
| Music: | Billy Goldenberg |
| Cinematography: | Michel Hugo |
| Editor: | John A. Martinelli |
| Company: | EMI Films |
| Runtime: | 100 min. |
| Network: | ABC |
| Country: | United States |
| Language: | English |
The Cracker Factory is an American television film directed by Burt Brinckerhoff. The teleplay by Richard Shapiro is based on the best-selling 1977 novel by Joyce Rebeta-Burditt. The film was broadcast by ABC on March 16, 1979.
Alcoholic Cleveland housewife Cassie Barrett is institutionalized in a psychiatric ward after experiencing a nervous breakdown in the supermarket. 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 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.
Wood was signed in December 1978.[1]
In The New York Times, John J. O'Connor wrote:
The Cracker Factory, adapted by Richard Shapiro from a novel by Joyce Rebeta‐Burdit, involves a “short‐term rehabilitative psychiatric center” in Cleveland. This becomes the home away from home for Cassie Barrett, played with disarming honesty and strength by Natalie Wood...The Cracker Factory has a perhaps inevitable quota of stock characters and pat perceptions. But it also has offbeat compassion and surprising moments of humor, all held together with solid performances, with Miss Wood providing the crucial dramatic spark.[2]