Candy Clark Movies

It's the last night of summer 1962, and the teenagers of Modesto, California, want to have some fun before adult responsibilities close in. Among them are Steve (Ron Howard) and Curt (Richard Dreyfuss), college-bound with mixed feelings about leaving home; nerdy Terry "The Toad" (Charles Martin Smith), who scores a dream date with blonde Debbie (Candy Clark); and John (Paul Le Mat ), a 22-year-old drag racer who wonders how much longer he can stay champion and how he got stuck with 13-year-old Carol (Mackenzie Phillips) in his deuce coupe. As D. J. Wolfman Jack spins 41 vintage tunes on the radio throughout the night, Steve ponders a future with girlfriend Laurie (Cindy Williams), Curt chases a mystery blonde, Terry tries to act cool, and Paul prepares for a race against Bob Falfa (Harrison Ford), but nothing can stop the next day from coming, and with it the vastly different future ushered in by the 1960s. Fresh off The Godfather (1972), producer Francis Ford Coppola had the clout to get his friend George Lucas's project made, but only for $750,000 on a 28-day shooting schedule. Despite technical obstacles, and having to shoot at night, cinematographer Haskell Wexler gave the film the neon-lit aura that Lucas wanted, evoking the authentic look of a suburban strip to go with the authentic sound of rock-n-roll. Universal, which wanted to call the film Another Slow Night in Modesto, thought it was unreleasable. But Lucas' period detail, co-writers Willard Huyck's and Gloria Katz's realistic dialogue, and the film's nostalgia for the pre-Vietnam years apparently appealed to a 1973 audience embroiled in cultural chaos: American Graffiti became the third most popular movie of 1973 (after The Exorcist and The Sting), establishing the reputations of Lucas (whose next film would be Star Wars) and his young cast, and furthering the onset of soundtrack-driven, youth-oriented movies. Although the film helped spark 1970s nostalgia for the 1950s, nothing else would capture the flavor of the era with the same humorous candor and latent sense of foreboding. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide

Based on a novel by Walter Tevis, The Man Who Fell to Earth achieved cult film status for David Bowie's performance as Thomas Jerome Newton, aka "Mr. Sussex," and the imagery of director Nicholas Roeg, a former cinematographer. In this deeply allegorical science-fiction drama, Newton is an alien from a planet that is dying for lack of water, and he has been sent to earth to find a way to ship some of the earth's plentiful supply to his home planet. He arrives with a human-looking disguise, his knowledge of unusual technologies, his despair, and little else. Using his knowledge, he takes out patents on "his" inventions, aided by patent lawyer Oliver Farnsworth (Buck Henry). He skillfully parlays the money from these inventions and becomes a financial/industrial tycoon. These inventions, and others like them, along with his political and financial power, should make possible the transfer of water to his planet. But instead of pressing forward with plans to save his home planet, he becomes enamored of Earth's low-down ways and of his strange, passive relationship with his elevator-operator girlfriend, Mary Lou (Candy Clark). Meanwhile, his phenomenal rise from anonymity to power, and his eccentric behavior, spark the government's interest. Chemistry professor Nathan Bryce (Rip Torn) also comes calling, fascinated by the alien's history. As gin and despair slowly cripple him, he becomes consumed by memories of life on his doomed planet. The longer (140 minutes) and sexier British version of this film was toned down for its American release. Roeg, whose work has received polarized responses, also directed such distinctively stylized movies as Walkabout (1971) and Don't Look Now (1973). ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

CB radios provide a human connection between the lives of a collection of varied characters in Jonathan Demme's energizing film that exploits the CB radio craze of the mid-'70s. Chrome Angel (Charles Napier) is a truck driver who has an accident and is laid up recuperating at the home of Hot Coffee (Alix Elias). A road-roaring philanderer, Chrome Angel is a bigamist with a wife, Dallas (Ann Wedgeworth), in Dallas and another wife, Portland (Marcia Rodd), in Portland. The two women converge in a small town where Spider (Paul Le Mat) and his embittered brother Blood (Bruce McGill) are both trying to date Electra (Candy Clark). The characters' CB monikers weave the characters into the same CB waveband, exemplifying the interconnectedness of an American subculture. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

Returning from the original American Graffiti are Debbie Dunham, Steve Bolander, John Milner, Carol/Rainbow, Terry the Toad and Laurie Bolander (Candy Clark, Ron Howard, Paul LeMat, Mackenzie Phillips, Charles Martin Smith and Cindy Williams), but Richard Dreyfuss is missing and Harrison Ford shows up in a gag cameo. The sequel brings its principles into the more radical end of the 1960s, with Steve and Laurie, now married, on the fringes of the protest movement. Debbie and Carol have been lured into the flower-power milieu by rocker Newt (Scott Glenn). And John has parlayed his love of hot rods into a drag-racing career. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

When You Comin' Back, Red Ryder? has been presented often as a stage play by amateur theatrical groups. Evangelist-turned-actor Marjoe Gortner plays Teddy, a cracked Vietnam vet who holds the denizens of a Texas roadside diner hostage at gunpoint. Candy Clark plays Cheryl, his zoned-out hippie girlfriend. After nearly two hours of tension, Gortner is overpowered and things return to normal. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Where the Ladies Go is a TV movie set in a white-bread Oklahoma town, where most of the housewives suffer from terminal boredom. Good ol' boy Earl Holliman comes to the rescue by establishing the El Fidel, a bar which is open from 9 AM to 3 PM, or "ladies' hours." Karen Black, Candy Clark and Lisa Hartman are among the ladies who frequent the El Fidel, which, considering what goes on during business hours, could well have been renamed the "El Infidel." While the Southern accents come and go depending upon the skills of the individual actresses, the film maintains a fairly even entertainment keel. Where the Ladies Go was written by Carol Sobieski, who scripted many a "female bonding" TV flick of the 1980s. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Originally divided into four segments and now cut to three, National Lampoon Goes to the Movies is a story about a man who is determined to get in touch with himself and sends his wife away so she can do the same thing. The next tale features a female business magnate who wreaks appropriate revenge on her arrogant male colleagues, and the last vignette has a virtuously pure policeman (Robby Benson) becoming as cynical as his partner (Richard Widmark). Each skit makes internal references to other movies, movie directors, or classic movie characters, which may enhance the viewing for movie buffs but does not change the generally dull and unfunny material. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Genre pioneer Larry Cohen, who broke new horror ground with the killer-baby hit It's Alive!, takes a stab at the giant-monster scenario with this enjoyable low-budget exercise. The title refers to the winged Aztec god Quetzalcoatl, represented here as a dragon-like flying lizard (thanks to some quaint but amusing stop-motion animation from David Allen), who decides to take up residence in the art-deco spire of the Chrysler Building, taking frequent jaunts in the midday sun to nip the heads off various hapless New Yorkers. The resulting bloody mess confounds detectives Shepard (David Carradine) and Powell (Richard Roundtree), who are already scratching their heads over a series of bizarre ritual murders linked to a secret Aztec cult. Into the picture comes the film's protagonist -- neurotic, sweaty, paranoid crook Jimmy Quinn (Michael Moriarty, in a tour-de-force performance), a two-bit wheel-man with aspirations of becoming a jazz pianist. After a botched diamond heist leads Quinn to Q's lair, his attempts to go straight take a side-turn as he decides to extort from the city an enormous sum in exchange for directions to the monster's nest. A few sneaky deals later, the location falls into Shepard's hands, and he leads a paramilitary assault on the Chrysler Building, where the creature's humongous egg is about to hatch. Rude, edgy, fast-paced, and peppered with witty dialogue (most of which can't be repeated here), Cohen's script retains the spirit of classic monster movies like The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, injecting it with tough, gangster-movie moxie. Moriarty's unbelievable performance -- one of three collaborations with Cohen -- finds him chewing acres of scenery as a contemptible, loud-mouthed goon who's too funny to hate; Moriarty also composed and performed two schizophrenic piano numbers for the film. ~ Cavett Binion, All Movie Guide

Cocaine and Blue Eyes was the pilot film for a TV detective series starring former footballer O.J. Simpson (who also produced the film). Playing a private eye in San Francisco, Simpson is hired by a man who ends up seriously dead. The deceased client had wanted Simpson to locate a former girl friend, and in carrying out his assignment Simpson unearths a deadly (and very well connected) cartel of drug dealers. Cocaine and Blue Eyes gathered dust until O.J. Simpson's murder trial in 1994. After that, this tiresome old TV movie became a staple of "Late Late Shows" everywhere. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The third installment in the haunted-house saga discards any pretense of being based on actual events in order to provide the requisite cheap thrills sought by audiences during the short-lived 3-D revival of the early '80s. When a skeptical reporter (Tony Roberts) with a penchant for debunking phony psychic hoaxes moves into the Long Island house to disprove its nightmarish legend, he and his family are set upon by all manner of supernatural beasties. Many such manifestations leap wildly out at the screen to fully exploit the 3-D effect, making the cheap gags all too obvious in the "flattened" video and cable prints (often released under the title Amityville 3: The Demon). Remarkably violent for a PG-rated film (those with an intense fear of fire might want to fast-forward through Candy Clark's death scene), Amityville 3-D has a certain cheesy appeal for anyone who likes touring Halloween spook-houses. Look closely to spot a young Meg Ryan in a small doomed-teen role. This 3-D version was followed by even more sequels, including Amityville: The Evil Escapes, Amityville 1992: It's About Time, The Amityville Curse, and Amityville: A New Generation. ~ Cavett Binion, All Movie Guide

Anxious to become an "official" detective rather than a mere private eye, Magnum hires on as security chief at the ritzy Hawaiian Gardens Hotel. His first assignment--which may also turn out to be his last--is to prevent a notorious cat burglar from plying his trade at an international convention of jewelry designers. Magnum finds his efforts complicated by a pair of very sexy call girls who are marching to the tune of their own drummers. Candy Clark and Phyllis Davis make their first series appearances as flashy good-time girls Leslie and Cleo. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Partially filmed in New York City, the made-for-TV Popeye Doyle is based on the character introduced in the 1971 Oscar-winner The French Connection--who, in turn, was based on real-life Manhattan police detective Eddie Egan. Ed O'Neill takes over from French Connection star Gene Hackman as Popeye Doyle, playing the part along more humorous and less brutal lines than his theatrical-film predecessor. Doyle tackles the cast of a murdered model, which leads to a gang of terrorists. This lead sends Doyle on the trail of yet another cartel of international drug smugglers. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide