Amadeus August Movies

In the Frame was first shown as a 2-hour entry in the syndicated TV anthology The Mystery Wheel of Adventure. The film was one of three mysteries based on the works of author Dick Francis. Ian McShane stars as Francis' most popular character, British Jockey Club investigator David Cleveland. Here, Cleveland comes to the aid of an old friend accused of stealing fine art and finer wine. After its syndicated run in 1989, In the Frame was broadcast over the Disney Channel pay-cable service. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

The Dutch-filmed Assault was based on a novel by Harry Mulisch. Presented in a non-linear, flashback/flashword fashion, the film tells the story of a physician whose family was killed by the Nazis during World War II. This came about after the family's neighbors dragged the body of a dead collaborator to their doorstep. The doctor spends his entire adult life trying to find out why his neighbors had betrayed his family. At various isolated moments of political upheaval in Europe, the doctor comes closer and closer to the truth. During a 1984 anti-missile rally, the mystery is solved--and the answer is more complex than anyone back in 1945 had imagined. The hero's "growth" is thus placed in the context of the international turmoil of the four decades following the war. Marc van Uchelen plays the main character as a 12-year-old, while Derek de Lint portrays the adult physician. In a nicely underplayed symbolic touch, Monique van de Ven is cast in a dual role, playing de Lint's wife in the "present" scenes, and an older woman who is murdered by the Nazis because she shelters young van Uchelen in the flashback sequences. The Assault was the "best foreign film" Academy Award winner of 1987. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Pierre Richard and Jane Birkin star in this madcap slapstick comedy. The director of the bank he works at has induced Pierre (Richard) to impersonate him for a brief time. During that time, some tough, muscular transvestites come in and steal some important papers under his care. In order to save his own (and the bank's) reputation, he must recover them before the theft is noticed. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

A young letter carrier possesses the unlimited gift of loving, much to the delight of the females on his postal route. His daily "special deliveries" are welcomed by the distaffs but severely curtails the business of a local psychiatrist. The frustrated shrink grows vampire fangs, but he tries to kill the postman with more conventional means. Guns, knives and traps fail to snare the intended victim, and the psychiatrist ends up killing himself. The local priest soon discovers the dead man is not in his grave, after a series of supernatural events point to the presence of a jealous vampire. ~ Dan Pavlides, Rovi