Maurice Hughes Movies
- 1990
- R
Starring Carl Weathers as the title character, Hurricane Smith is an action film about a Texan who travels to Australia's Gold Coast intent on finding his missing sister. Once he arrives down under, he discovers that his sister has been killed by a drug kingpin (Jurgen Prochnow), and Hurricane becomes involved with the underworld so he can avenge his sister's death. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Carl Weathers, Jürgen Prochnow, (more)
- 1989
The time is the mid-1950s; the place is a small, conservative town in Australia. Brownie (Charlie Schlatter) and Lola (Kylie Minoque), both well under the age of consent, fall in love. Their parents are dead set against this relationship, and do everything in their power to break it up. Because no one will leave them alone, Brownie and Lola rebel against their elders and embark upon a life of petty crime. Delinquents is based on a novel by Criena Rohan. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Kylie Minogue, Charlie Schlatter, (more)
- 1988
Set in Australia (where the new version of Mission:Impossible was filmed), "The Cattle King" guest-stars David Bradshaw as ruthless arms dealer Douglas Matthews. To prevent Matthews from selling missiles to a terrorist organization, the IMF agents join forces with Mulwara (Warren Owens), an Aborigine medicine man. This episode affords several tantalizing glimpses not only of the Australian outback, but also the African gold coast. Written by Ted Roberts, "The Cattle King" first aired on December 18, 1988. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Peter Graves, Thaao Penghlis, (more)
Set in contemporary Australia, this hallucinatory drama is predicated on time displacement. University student Jackie Grenville (Tracey Tainsh), motoring through the rural region, suddenly finds herself in 1944. She witnesses a horrible murder, then is zapped back to the present. Retracing her steps, Jackie and her boyfriend Barry Norden (David Reyne) try to solve the mystery. They unearth an unexpected fortune--and a highly expected (to the audience, at any rate) crazed killer. Adding to the film's catalog of horror cliches is the local constabulary, who refuse to believe Jackie's story. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Tracey Tanish, David Reyne, (more)
- 1986
- R
Originally titled The Umbrella Woman, The Good Wife is set in an Australian lumber town in 1939. Marge Hills (Rachel Ward), the bored wife of kindly-but-dull Sonny Hills (Bryan Brown) begins dreaming of outside romances. She unexpectedly gets her wish in the form of Sonny's much-younger brother Sugar (Steven Vidler), whom Sonny cheerfully offers to his wife as a surrogate bedmate. Given this curious arrangement, one wonders why Marge is so upset when she is propositioned by handsome stranger Neville Gifford (Sam Neill). Eventually, Gifford sleeps with every other woman in town but Marge. Fed up with the unimaginative lovers in her own house, Marge finally gives in to Gifford, arousing the jealousy not of the cloddish Sonny, but of the immature Sugar. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Rachel Ward, Bryan Brown, (more)
- 1983
- G
An entertaining and exciting adventure story for any age, Bush Christmas, set in the Australian outback, has three tense situations developing along parallel lines: Ben (Peter Sumner) and Kate Thompson (Vineta O'Malley) have to pay off the mortgage on their homestead by January 1st or they lose everything; manager Bill (John Ewart) and lead singer Sly (John Howard) of a struggling outback band find themselves desperately broke and decide to "borrow" the Thompson's prize racehorse to run a few races and recoup their loses; and finally, the two Thompson children, Helen (Nicole Kidman at 15) and John (Mark Spain) along with a British cousin (James Wingrove) and a ranch hand Manalpuy (Manalpuy) decide to chase after the horse rustlers and retrieve the family's beloved stallion. Most of the film shows the two inept horse thieves trying to make their comic way across an inhospitable terrain, and the children braving unexpected dangers, as when they fall into an abandoned mine shaft that starts to fill up with water. When these various adventures are resolved, the Thompson family is faced with a final, fateful chance to pay off their mortgage by entering their recaptured racehorse in a New Year's Day cross-country race. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- John Ewart, John Howard, (more)
- 1982
- R
Mike (Terry Serio) is an attractive, sexually appealing factory worker and Fox (Richard Moir) is his racing nemesis. Both are after the same woman, Julie (Debbie Conway), dueling it out on the road and in personal encounters. Julie and Mike (whom she favors) go to an odd blind man named Rebel to get some help in winning the races -- blind or not, he still seems to know the most about cars -- and maybe he will make the difference in the competition with Fox. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Terry Serio, Deborah Conway, (more)
- 1977
This growing-up story, set in Australia during the '20s, features a young man (Christopher Pate) who gains from his wise grandmother's experience (Geraldine Fitzgerald). The 1977 film was produced and written by Michael Pate, who cast his son as the lead. ~ John Bush, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Geraldine Fitzgerald, Robert Helpmann, (more)
