griggs's - Moviedrome List
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When a young girl mysteriously disappears, Police Sergeant Howie (Edward Woodward) travels to a remote island to investigate. But this pastoral community, led by the strange Lord Summerisle (Christopher Lee), is not what it seems as the devout Christian detective soon uncovers a secret society of wanton lust and pagan blasphemy. Can Howie now stop the cult's ultimate sacrifice before he himself comes face to face with the horror of 'The Wicker Man'? - Director:
- Robin Hardy
- Cast:
- Edward Woodward, Christopher Lee, Diane Cilento
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Ambitious but diminutive motorcycle cop John Wintergreen (Robert Blake) patrols the Arizona highways, yearning for promotion to the homicide division. Thanks to his revelation that a supposed suicide is actually a murder, his wish it granted. But good cop Wintergreen is about to discover that street-smarts and integrity can have lethal consequences as he finds himself sinking into a mire of workplace politics and corruption - not to mention a very tricky love-triangle. - Director:
- James William Guercio
- Cast:
- Robert Blake, Billy Green Bush, Mitchell Ryan
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A young postal messenger's secret recording of his operatic idol gets him into unimaginable depths of trouble when the bootleg is accidentally switched with a surveillance tape. As a pair of psychopathic hoods trail the messenger, he finds himself caught in a complicated plot of murder and corruption, his romantic dreams of love with the opera singer metamorphosing into a living nightmare. Set in a stunning world where the fantastic and the real clash in contemporary Paris. - Director:
- Jean-Jacques Beineix
- Cast:
- Wilhelmenia Fernandez, Frédéric Andréi, Richard Böhringer
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In the small Australian town of Gamulla: a bleak wasteland of beauty and death, Carl (Gregory Harrison) searches for his missing wife Beth (Judy Morris), an American animal rights activist. Beth had foolishly arrived unequipped for the harshness of the land and the hostility of the locals. The police presume Beth has fallen down a mine shaft, however Jake, a local veteran hunter, recognises the signs - the Razorback that took his infant grandson has returned to bring a new breed of terror. Carl continues his search but soon finds himself ensnarled in a harrowing battle for survival with man and beast. - Director:
- Russell Mulcahy
- Cast:
- Gregory Harrison, Arkie Whiteley, Bill Kerr
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No matter what rolled in on the tides of time, California surfing buddies Matt (Jan-Michael Vincent), Jack (William Katt), and Leroy (Gary Busey) knew they'd stick together. And that they'd be ready when a rare 20 foot swell hit the coast at last... 'Big Wednesday' celebrates surfing as much as the most dedicated kid who ever waxed a board. It's also a fascinating 1962-1974 chronicle of friendships and lifestyles in transition. John Millius directs and co-scripts with a passion for the ultimate ride and a truthful feel for those turbulent times. - Director:
- John Milius
- Cast:
- Jan-Michael Vincent, William Katt, Gary Busey
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With a screenplay adapted by Leonard Gardner from his own novel, John Huston's drama examines the meager hopes and resigned dreams of small-time boxers. In limbo between retirement and his youthful prime, alcoholic farm laborer Tully (Stacy Keach) shacks up with fellow outcast Oma (Susan Tyrrell) and keeps trying to make a boxing comeback, but his personal demons repeatedly overpower his ambitions. Meanwhile, fellow Stockton, CA resident and budding fighter Ernie (Jeff Bridges) takes Tully's advice to join trainer Ruben (Nicholas Colasanto)'s gym and make something of himself. Learning the tough lesson that winning is not as easy as it sounds, Ernie is still determined to get what he can out of boxing and, unlike Tully, not let disappointments get the best of him. - Director:
- John Huston
- Cast:
- Stacy Keach, Jeff Bridges, Susan Tyrrell
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Released in 1971 to critical acclaim and public controversy, Peter Bogdanovich's 'The Last Picture Show' garnered eight Academy Award nominations (including Best Picture) and was hailed by many as the most important work by a young American director since Citizen Kane. A surprisingly frank, bittersweet drama of social and sexual mores in small-town Texas, the film features a talented cast led by Jeff Bridges, Cybill Sheperd and Timothy Bottoms. - Director:
- Peter Bogdanovich
- Cast:
- Peter Bogdanovich, Timothy Bottoms, Jeff Bridges
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Barbarella is marked by the same audacity and originality, fantasy, humour, beauty and horror, cruelty and eroticism that make comic books such a favourite. The setting is the planet Lythion in the year 40,000, when Barbarella (Jane Fonda) makes a forced landing while travelling through space. She acts like a female James Bond, vanquishing evil in the forms of robots and monsters. She also rewards, in an uninhibited manner, the handsome men who assist her in the adventure. Whether she is wrestling with Black Guards, the evil Queen, or the Angel Pygar, she just can't seem to avoid losing at least part of her skin-tight space suit! - Director:
- Roger Vadim
- Cast:
- Jane Fonda, Robert Rietty, Joan Greenwood
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After the success of 'Easy Rider', its star and co-creator Peter Fonda was given the green light to shoot the movie of his choice. The result was 'The Hired Hand', an elegiac western that stands firmly as a classic of modern American cinema. Chasing their dream of a better life, Harry (Fonda) and his good friends Arch (Warren Oates) have drifted across the plains of America together. However, Harry has grown tired of his transient existence and decided to return to the wife and the child that he left years before. At first, refusing to accept him back, his wife orders him to sleep in the barn and work the farm, strictly as a hired hand. Soon their romance rekindles, and they rediscover the happiness they had lost. But as bad news of Archie reaches Harry, he is forced to make the most costly choice of his life. - Director:
- Peter Fonda
- Cast:
- Peter Fonda, Warren Oates, Verna Bloom
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Joan Crawford plays Vienna, a saloon owner with a sordid past. Persecuted by the townspeople, Vienna must protect her life and her property when a lynch mob led by her sexually repressed rival, Emma Small (Mercedes McCambridge), attempts to frame her for a string of robberies she did not commit. Enter Johnny Guitar (Sterling Hayden), a guitar-strumming ex-gunfighter who has a history with Vienna. - Director:
- Nicholas Ray
- Cast:
- Joan Crawford, Sterling Hayden, Mercedes McCambridge
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"The Parallax View", a superb drama about one man's paranoia that turns out to be total, incredible fact, ranks among the best political thrillers. Warren Beatty is a news reporter who, along with seven others, witnesses the assassination of a political candidate. When the other seven die in "accidents", the newsman begins to doubt the official position: that a lone madman was responsible for the crime. He imagines a sophisticated network of highly trained murderers. But his nightmares pale against the bizarre truth he uncovers. - Director:
- Alan J. Pakula
- Cast:
- Warren Beatty, Paula Prentiss, William Daniels
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The Long Hair of Death (1964)I lunghi capelli della morte
After the murder of her mother and sister, Elizabeth Karnstein (Halina Zalewska) is taken in by the affluent Count Humboldt and his family. She has been married to his twisted son, Kurt (George Ardisson), and as a plague sweeps their small village; one prophesised by Elizabeth's mother before her death, the spectre of Elizabeth's older sister, Helen (Barbara Steele) appears. During one fateful stormy night, anyone with the surname Humboldt starts to perish one-by-one. - Director:
- Antonio Margheriti
- Cast:
- Barbara Steele, George Ardisson, Halina Zalewska
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Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)Walter Wanger's Invasion of the Body Snatchers
When multiple residents of a small Californian town begin to suffer from identical frenzied delusions, Dr. Miles Bennell (Kevin McCarthy) suspects the community is in the grip of a new kind of epidemic. But his investigations soon reveal the terrifying truth - uncovering not a medical emergency, but a hidden extraterrestrial invasion that threatens mankind's very existence. - Director:
- Don Siegel
- Cast:
- Kevin McCarthy, Dana Wynter, Larry Gates
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When a scientist (David Al Hedison) attempts to transfer matter through space, things go horrifically wrong and two grotesque man-fly hybrids are created. Now, with the head of a fly and a wing in place of one of his arms, the scientist desperately hopes that he, his wife (Patricia Owens) and his brother (Vincent Price) can capture the other mutant and reverse the experiment. . - Director:
- Kurt Neumann
- Cast:
- David Hedison, Patricia Owens, Vincent Price
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One from the Heart (1981)One from the Heart: Reprise
Amidst the neon and glitter of Las Vegas, the tumultuous relationship of two ordinary people, Frannie (Teri Garr) and Hank (Frederic Forrest), flames out on a Fourth of July weekend. Immediately, each flies off on passionate flights of fancy: Frannie with the handsome and romantic Ray (Raul Julia) and Hank with Leila (Nastassja Kinski), a seductive European runaway. But it's not until the dawn of a new day that they will learn where their hearts will truly lead them. - Director:
- Francis Ford Coppola
- Cast:
- Frederic Forrest, Teri Garr, Raul Julia
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