Greg Gault Movies

This TV-dramatization tells the story of marital abuse, but with a slight twist in the formula: the abuser and abused are young, upper-middle-class newlyweds. Kellie Martin is fresh-faced wife and young-mother Katie, who goes against her parents' better judgment and marries the good-looking but shady Jim (Ivan Sergei). Soon after their marriage, Katie realizes her husband has explosive and violent anger, but repeatedly accepts his apologies. After doing everything in her power to hide the truth from her police-officer father (Kevin Dobson), she finally comes clean to her family and tries to leave, facing the ultimate confrontation with Jim. Somewhat typical in its characterizations, the movie is notable for Martin's believable performance as the resigned victim. ~ Bernadette McCallion, Rovi

A Colombian soldier (Chick Vennera) working to save U.S. prisoners of war is killed during a bloody coup, so his sister (Maria Conchita Alonso) asks one of the rescuers (Christopher Walken) to avenge his death. The man assembles a team of soldiers to invade Central America and get rid of the evil dictator. ~ John Bush, Rovi

Remember all those 1940s collegiate musicals, where the finale came down to "Swing vs. the Classics"? Replace "Swing" with "Modern Jazz and Rock", and you've got Body Beat. A tradition-bound ballet academy is invaded by a bunch of free-form dancers. Rather than form a united front against these interlopers, the teachers begin taking sides! Outside of this little twist, nothing much new here. Originally titled Dance Academy, this Italian/American film features Julie Newmar in an extended cameo appearance. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

A John Carpenter story served as the launching pad for Black Moon Rising. Veteran thief Quint (Tommy Lee Jones) is hired by the FBI to steal some politically volatile computer tapes. The owners of the tapes are displeased, and begin chasing Quint all over the countryside. Just when he's about to surrender his booty, Quint's car -- wherein the tapes are stored -- is stolen by Nina (Linda Hamilton). She delivers the car to her corporate-villain boyfriend Ryland (Robert Vaughn), who runs a hot auto ring. Nina then has second thoughts and decides to throw in with Quint...and round and round we go. The "Black Moon" of the title is the name Quint's high-tech, low-slung vehicle. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Pia Zadora stars in an over-cooked melodramatic adaptation of the 1946 James M. Cain novel that is every bit as smutty and sleazy as Zadora's vampish character of Kady. The location of the novel has been switched from Appalachia to the barren lands of Arizona and Nevada in 1937. Stacy Keach plays Jess Tyler, a desert hermit who has spent years guarding an abandoned silver mine. Suddenly, Jesse is confronted by his very grown-up and sexy daughter, who, when she was a baby, had been taken away from him by his wife, Belle (Lois Nettleton). Kady, it so happens, hasn't come home for a family reunion -- she has just been dumped by a rich young man who is the father of her illegitimate child and whose family owns the very silver mine that Jess is guarding. Kady hopes to use her feminine wiles to seduce Jess and reopen the mine and extract the money from the earth that she feels is due her from the family. As if his seductive daughter walking around bare-breasted in front of him isn't enough, Jess must also deal with the sudden return of his older daughter, Janey (Ann Dane), who appears with Kady's son; Belle, who comes back to Jess dying of tuberculosis; and Moke Blue (James Franciscus), the man who stole Belle away from Jess years ago. Also squeezing his way into Jess's shack is Wash Gillespie (Edward Albert), the father of Kady's child, who now wants to marry her. Butterfly also features Orson Welles as Judge Rauch. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi