Joanna Cassidy Movies
American actress Joanna Cassidy may not be a household name, but she is well-respected in Hollywood and has appeared in numerous feature films and on television. Before becoming a thespian, Cassidy had spent a year in college as an art major, been married and divorced, and modeled in San Francisco. She first entered films as a bit player in Bullitt (1968) and Fools (1970) then continued modeling while also working in television commercials. Cassidy had her first real part in the police drama The Laughing Policeman (1974). Though it wasn't a large, role, it did lead to her being cast in two more films that year: The Outfit and Bank Shot, in which she received prominent billing. Other notable roles from the '70s include The Stepford Wives (1975) and Stay Hungry (1976). Between 1977 and 1978, Cassidy was part of the short-lived ensemble of the sketch comedy/variety series Shields and Yarnell.Her film career continued too, but it was not until she played Zhora, the stripper/snakecharmer in Ridley Scott's Blade Runner (1982) that she made her biggest impression. She next appeared in Roger Spottiswoode's Under Fire (1983). Despite the early promise of her career, Cassidy, who specializes in playing strong-willed, independent and highly intelligent women, has never found a solid niche in Hollywood's galaxy of major movie stars. Through the '80s, Cassidy appeared most frequently on television in series such as Buffalo Bill (1983) -- where she played Dabney Coleman's girlfriend -- and in guest-starring roles and in various telemovies and miniseries, though she also continued getting supporting roles in various features, notably as Bob Hoskins' long-suffering barmaid girlfriend in Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988). Her film career picked up again in the '90s, but she still primarily appears on television. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
Comedian Eddie Murphy tried something different with this 1995 film that he produced and co-wrote, enlisting veteran horror director Wes Craven to give the story some chills. The uneven comedy-horror tale features Murphy as a vampire named Maximillian who arrives in Brooklyn on a ship full of people who have been brutally murdered. One of the corpses on board closely resembles that of Rita (Angela Bassett), one of the detectives assigned to the case. Maximillian targets Rita, hoping to get a dance with her that will bring her under his control. He enlists the help of a worker named Julius (Kadeem Hardison), biting his neck and turning him into a slowly decaying ghoul. Also seeking to romance Rita, though in a less sinister way, is her longtime detective partner Justice (Allen Payne). Maximillian uses his supernatural powers to interfere with the budding romance. Murphy also plays a preacher and an Italian gangster in this bizarre film. ~ Michael Betzold, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Eddie Murphy, Angela Bassett, (more)
- 1995
In this thriller, a soon-to-be-married woman is distraught when someone kidnaps her baby. Things get even worse when the police accuse her of orchestrating the abduction. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Tracey Gold, Kyle Chandler, (more)
- 1994
In Texas, a member of a truck-hijacking ring turns up murdered. The evidence points to Rob Platt (Patrick Cassidy), the son of Wayne Platt (Earl Holliman), owner of a small trucking firm that was being victimized by the crooks. Inasmuch as Wayne is an old friend of Jessica Fletcher (Angela Lansbury), one can safely assume that the truth will soon be revealed and the actual murderer put in irons. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
This TV movie recounts the true-life story of a corporate takeover in the greed-driven 1980s. James Garner is F. Ross Johnson, CEO of RJR-Nabisco. Having just been burned by an expensive failure of a smokeless cigarette product, Johnson doesn't wish to incur the wrath of the stockholders. He begins drawing up plans to buy RJR-Nabisco outright so he'll have no one to answer to but himself. Unfortunately for Johnson, his company is also being coveted by sharkish "buyout king" Henry Kravis (Jonathan Pryce), who turns out to have $25 billion at his beck and call. Barbarians at the Gate was adapted by Larry Gelbart from the book by Bryan Burrough and John Helyar. Advertised as a "docucomedy", the film premiered March 20, 1993, over the HBO cable service. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- James Garner, Jonathan Pryce, (more)
Adapted for TV, this is a Stephen King story in which an aspiring writer and an alcoholic poet (with a metal plate in his head, no less) literally stumble over a long-buried spaceship while walking in the woods. It starts glowing green when uncovered and soon everyone in town has green eyes, their teeth fall out and they act out all of their fantasies (violent or otherwise). Guess who's immune to the power of this alien spaceship? You got it--our good old metal-headed poet can save the day if he can get it together enough to do so. Really more of a B movie than most King horrorfests. ~ Tana Hobart, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jimmy Smits, Marg Helgenberger, (more)
- 1992
On the eve of his televised execution, a serial killer (Bruce Davison) takes a TV newswoman (Joanna Cassidy) hostage. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bruce Davison, Joanna Cassidy, (more)
- 1992
In this made-for-cable television thriller, a widow hires a brother and sister to act as nanny and handy man to help care for her two kids and her home. The new employees seem to be perfect in every way, but for the fact that one of the siblings hides a dark and deadly secret. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1992
A made for TV, two-part series, this is the story of a Southern attorney who suddenly finds himself embroiled in politics, a particularly controversial murder trial and a public battle with a vindictive journalist -- all at the same time. ~ Tana Hobart, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Corbin Bernsen, Mel Harris, (more)
- 1992
This movie is based on the true story of Nancy Ziegenmeyer, a rape victim who announced to the world that rape is not the fault of the victim, thereby taking back her right to a normal life and inspiring other victims to stand up to what was being done to them ~ Tana Hobart, All Movie Guide
- 1991
Lonely Hearts is a modern film noir in which a lonely woman meets and falls for a man whom she refuses to let go. Alma (Beverly D'Angelo) is a wallflower who lives with her mother and works at a Social Security office. In her desperation to make some sort of social life for herself, she answers a personal ad and meets Frank (Eric Roberts) with whom she falls in love. Frank turns out to be a con man and a swindler, but Alma is obsessed with him. She begins to help him by posing as his sister while he cons other women, until she and Frank are forced to flee when one of the victims hires a private detective. Beverly D'Angelo plays Alma with the perfect mixture of both predator and victim and director Andrew Lane understands and directs his actors well, making Lonely Hearts a very well-thought-out and executed thriller despite a somewhat languid pacing. ~ Linda Rasmussen, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Beverly D'Angelo, Eric Roberts, (more)
- 1991
Since graduating from Happy Days, Anson "Potsie" Williams has carved himself a comfortable Hollywood niche as a prolific director of straight-to-video movies. In Williams' All-American Murder, Charlie Schlatter stars as a James Dean-ish young troublemaker. When a beautiful college coed is murdered, Schlatter tops the suspect list. Cop Christopher Walken doubts Schlatter's guilt; he gives the suspect 24 hours to prove his innocence. But when more murders occur, we are forced to ask ourselves: Just what is Schlatter's agenda? It may seem like an exercise in the Obvious, but All-American Murder keeps you guessing right up to the end. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Christopher Walken, Charlie Schlatter, (more)
- 1991
- PG13
- Add Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead to QueueAdd Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead to top of Queue
Christina Applegate stars in this convoluted comedy that comes across as a teen fantasy combination of Home Alone and Working Girl. The premise is all in the title -- when the mother (Concetta Tomei) of a sniveling group of surly kids goes on a much-deserved summer vacation, she leaves her kids under the charge of an elderly distaff granny (Eda Reiss Merin). When granny ups and dies, the kids load her dead body in a trunk and deposit the package on the steps of the local funeral home. The kids are ecstatic thinking that with the big wad of cash Mom has left, they can have a summer of consumer madness. But when they find out that the money has been buried with the baby-sitter, the kids have to fend for themselves to make ends meet. Dream teen Sue Ellen (Christina Applegate) tries working at a fast food restaurant but she can't stand the grease. So, she puts together a false resume and, posing as a twenty-eight-year old, she applies for a job as a receptionist at a garment manufacturing company. The company vice president, Rose (Joanna Cassidy), is so impressed by her resume that she hires her on the spot as her executive assistant. Her deception looks to be working out great -- Sue Ellen manages to hold off the office lady killer Gus (John Getz), avoids exposure by the embittered receptionist, borrows money from the company's petty cash box for household incidentals, and continues her relationship with restaurant employee Bryan (Josh Charles). But suddenly, the clothing firm is set to go under, and Sue Ellen must use her teen fashion sense to save the company and her job . . . and she has to get the rest of the brood involved. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Christina Applegate, Joanna Cassidy, (more)
- 1990
A demonic black sedan terrorizes a single mother driving a school bus in her small Arizona town in this action thriller. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1990
The small town of Copper Valley is invaded by a mysterious stranger in an ominous-looking black car. School bus driver Joanna Cassidy looks on in horror as the stranger kidnaps her little daughter right before her eyes. With a mixture of trepidation and determination, Joanna goes off on her own to rescue her daughter and the other little girls who've been spirited off by the stranger. Terror in Copper Valley was first telecast July 11, 1990, over the USA network. At that time, it was travelling under the title Wheels of Terror. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
In this comedy from writer-director John Boorman, wealthy real estate mogul Stewart McBain (Dabney Coleman) owns a demolition firm which specializes in blowing up old buildings to make way for upscale new ones. When neighbors protest his plans to raze a dilapidated old building to make way for a new Brooklyn subdivision, television crews film the confrontation, and McBain comes off like a fool. His three spoiled children ridicule him. Tired of their carping, McBain gives them each $750 and drops them off at the old building, known as the Dutch House. Daphne (Uma Thurman), Chloe (Suzy Amis) and Jimmy (David Hewlett) are at first completely lost, because they have no idea how to live in the real world. As McBain and his wife Jean (Joanna Cassidy) monitor their children's progress, the three youngsters learn to get along with the neighborhood people and eventually set up a commune of sorts, into which they invite their friends and various homeless people. ~ Michael Betzold, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Dabney Coleman, Uma Thurman, (more)
Adapted from Gene Stratton-Porter's novel, the story of an Indiana farmgirl growing up with her widowed mother. ~ All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Joanna Cassidy, Heather Fairfield, (more)
In this made-for-TV thriller, a quartet of female friends hire a boozy wilderness guide and head into the mountains for a little backpacking fun that is spoiled when they become the target of a militant survivalist group's war games. The film is also known as Bitter Creek. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
Ernest Thompson, the playwright responsible for the Pulitzer Prize winning On Golden Pond, makes his directorial debut with 1969. Kiefer Sutherland plays a draft-age youth who undergoes an epiphany when one of his friends is killed in Vietnam. Sutherland's subsequent antiwar stance causes a great deal of tension within his own family, though his mother, Mariette Hartley, tries her best to understand. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Robert Downey, Jr., Kiefer Sutherland, (more)
The Package, a thriller involving political assassination and intrigue, is an excellent action feature using a familiar theme and providing good performances by the cast. Boyette (Tommy Lee Jones) is a prisoner entrusted to Gallagher (Gene Hackman) for transportation back to the United States. Boyette escapes and Gallagher must find him. In doing so, Gallagher finds himself getting into far more than he had bargained for as he becomes involved in a political assignation plot that he must stop. Both Hackman and Jones are excellent in reprising familiar roles. Hackman is never better than when portraying the decent man in a precarious position, and Jones plays Boyette with the same cunning and intelligence that he brought to The Executioner's Song. ~ Linda Rasmussen, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gene Hackman, Joanna Cassidy, (more)
- 1988
Made for television, A Father's Revenge stars Brian Dennehy as a high school basketball coach. When terrorists pull off a political kidnapping in West Germany, Dennehy's stewardess wife Joanna Cassidy is among the hostages. Fed up with the apparent foot-dragging of the authorities, Dennehy takes personal action in effecting Joanna's rescue. He hires Ron Silver's band of mercenaries, then heads to Germany to bring back his wife himself. Credibility is stretched to the limit at times, but the three stars are at their peak. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1988
- PG
In Robert Zemeckis's trailblazing combination of animation and live-action, Hollywood's 1940s cartoon stars are a subjugated minority, living in the ghettolike "Toontown" where their movements are sharply monitored by the human power establishment. The Toons are permitted to perform in a Cotton Club-style nightspot but are forbidden to patronize the joint. One of Toontown's leading citizens, whacked-out Roger Rabbit, is framed for the murder of human nightclub owner Marvin Acme (Stubby Kaye). Private detective Eddie Valiant (Bob Hoskins), whose prejudice against Toons stems from the time that his brother was killed by a falling cartoon piano, reluctantly agrees to clear Roger of the accusation. Most of the sociopolitical undertones of the original novel were weeded out out of the 1988 film version, with emphasis shifted to its basic "evil land developer" plotline --and, more enjoyably, to a stream of eye-popping special effects. With the combined facilities of animator Richard Williams, Disney, Warner Bros., Steven Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment, and George Lucas's Industrial Light and Magic, the film allows us to believe (at least for 90 minutes) that "toons" exist, and that they are capable of interacting with 3-dimensional human beings. Virtually every major cartoon character of the late 1940s shows up, with the exceptions of Felix the Cat and Popeye the Sailor, whose licensees couldn't come to terms with the producers. Of the film's newly minted Toons, the most memorable is Roger Rabbit's curvaceous bride Jessica (voiced, uncredited, by Kathleen Turner). The human element is well-represented by Hoskins, Christopher Lloyd, and Joanna Cassidy; also watch for action-film producer Joel Silver as Roger Rabbit's Tex Avery-style director. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bob Hoskins, Christopher Lloyd, (more)
- 1987
- R
Scripted by Frederick Forsyth from his own novel, The Fourth Protocol is a fact-based spy thriller. The titular protocol is a secret agreement between America, Britain and Russia to cease smuggling nuclear weapons into their respective countries. This figures into the schemes of several rogue spies, who hope to destroy NATO by embarking on just such a smuggling endeavor. Russian agent Valeri Petrofsky (Pierce Brosnan) is ordered to stage a nuclear accident in England, then arrange the evidence to point to the Americans. British intelligence agent John Preston (Michael Caine) begins wondering why such nuclear-weapon components like lithium are showing up in the unlikeliest places. Ignored by his superiors, who figure that Preston is merely an old-line anti-Commie paranoic, Preston gathers the clues that will enable him to find out who's behind the potential breaking of The Fourth Protocol. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Michael Caine, Pierce Brosnan, (more)
