Jack Davidson Movies

The McCarthy-era "witch hunts" in the entertainment industry set the stage for this comedy drama set in the 1950s. Howard Prince (Woody Allen) is a cashier at a corner bar who works as a small-time bookie on the side, with little success. One day, Howard's old friend Alfred Miller (Michael Murphy), a successful television writer, makes a business proposal to him; Alfred's leftist political views have resulted in him being blacklisted from the major television networks, and he can no longer get work. Alfred asks Howard to act as a "front" -- Howard puts his name on Alfred's scripts, sells them, and takes a cut of the payment for his trouble. Howard's new career as a "writer" is an instant success, and soon Howard is fronting for a handful of blacklisted scribes while earning a healthy income and becoming the toast of the television industry; another fringe benefit is a romance with beautiful network employee Florence Barrett (Andrea Marcovicci). However, comic Hecky Brown (Zero Mostel), who had a brief fling with socialism years before, now finds his past catching up with him, and he's told in order to save his job as host of a weekly television show, he has to get the goods on some suspicious figures, among them Howard Prince, whose background looks a little too clean for comfort. The Front was written by Walter Bernstein, who was himself blacklisted during the 1950s, as were co-stars Zero Mostel, Herschel Bernardi, and Lloyd Gough. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

This horror film concerns a shipwrecked yachting party. Rose (Brooke Adams) and her fellow yacht-mates, including the captain (John Carradine) run aground on an island when they hit an odd-looking freighter. Once beached, they meet up with an aging SS Commander (Peter Cushing) who had been in charge of a crew of zombies. This is not meant as a comment on the quality of the men under him, they were "real" zombies. Since the zombies were taken from the ranks of murderers and other miscreants, they were not activated and the SS Commander sunk them with his submarine. Now they are rising up from the depths to create mayhem among the stranded members of the yachting party. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Larry Cohen wrote the screenplay to this updating of Mickey Spillane's notorious 1947 novel. Cohen was originally engaged to direct the film as well but was pulled from the director's chair after a week's worth of shooting because he had already run up the budget by $100,000; he was replaced by television director Richard T. Heffron. In this 1982 I, the Jury, Mike Hammer (Armand Assante) is a Vietnam veteran who wears hip duds and drives around in a bronze Trans Am in much the same way as Robert Mitchum's Philip Marlowe was refurbished for Michael Winner's re-make of The Big Sleep. After a cheesy rip-off of a James Bond-style credit sequence, the story kicks in. One-armed detective Jack Williams (Frederick Downs) is murdered. Jack was Hammer's best friend, and Hammer decides that he will become a one-man vigilante squad and seek vengeance on the person responsible for his death. He enlists the aid of his vivacious secretary Velda (Laurene Landon) and is also helped and hindered by police-chief Pat Chambers (Paul Sorvino). Hammer latches on to the killer's trail, then the film veers in a radically different direction from the book, introducing government conspiracies and mind-control techniques by the CIA and the Mafia. Also introduced is Hammer's love interest Charlotte Bennett (Barbara Carrera), an administrator of a kinky sex clinic (depicted as a psychiatrist in the original novel). ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

Tom Conti stars as a drunken Scottish poet who preys upon the lasses of a New England college town by swooning over them with poetry and bedding them with a passion. He'd probably have continued in such fashion for who knows how long, were in not for his encounter with a lovely homespun gal (Kelly McGillis), who sets his head spinning in a lovesick swirl and forces him to get his life on track. ~ All Movie Guide

Released at the height of his popularity on Family Ties and in the wake of Back to the Future and Teen Wolf, Michael J. Fox stars in this "country boy in the big city" comedy, directed by Herbert Ross. After making the move from Kansas to New York City, Brantley Foster (Fox) secures a job in the mailroom at his uncle's large corporation. Doffing any plans of working his way up the corporate ladder the old fashioned way, Brantley begins impersonating an executive to impress a high-ranking female co-worker, played by Helen Slater. Once his oversexed aunt enters the mix, Brantley finds himself juggling two identities, two jobs, and two women. ~ Matthew Tobey, All Movie Guide

It is no coincidence when a woman disappears shortly before the slaying of two ad-agency employees: All three had been witnesses to a mob execution. Assistant D.A. Stone (Michael Moriarty) attempts to prove that the kidnapping and murders had been ordered from within prison walls. But to do this, Stone will have to tilt with his longtime adversary, brilliant defense attorney Arthur Gold (George Grizzard). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Several people are senselessly murdered at a clothing store. Investigating detectives Briscoe (Jerry Orbach) and Curtis (Benjamin Bratt) end up arresting James Smith (Denis O'Hare), a schizophrenic who hasn't been taking his medication. Unfortunately for the D.A.'s office, Smith turns out to be a lawyer -- and an unusually clever one, as he proves when he defends himself in court. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Steven Maler's first feature film made it's premiere at the 1999 Sundance Film Festival. Autumn Heart is a heavy melodrama set in 1970 about three daughters who go looking for their long lost brother. What they find is an opened Pandora's box about themselves. Sixteen years have passed since Ann (Tyne Daly) gave up her son and her husband. In that time, she raised only her three older daughters. Now Ann has had a heart attack and asked these three hard-living women (played by Ally Sheedy, Marceline Hugot and Marla Sucharetza) to find their long-lost brother somewhere in Boston. What they discover is a brother studying at Harvard and their estranged, upper class father. Now these hard-talking women must wrestle with their emotions about their own feelings of abandonment, as part of coming to terms with the realities of their lives. Can they also convince their brother to come back and visit? Can they forgive their mother for the secrets she withheld? Can a family heal the wounds of time? ~ Chris Gore, All Movie Guide

Three friends wrestle with issues of love and trust in director Joshua Cary's bittersweet look at the mysterious mating habits of the modern day male. Jeff and his girlfriend Abby may be involved in an open relationship, but these days it seems as if Abby is the only one taking advantage of that curious relationship clause. Fed up with his girlfriend's constant infidelity and shocked to discover that his mother has been cheating on his father, Jeff finds his day going from bad to worse when his good friend Flint - who just dumped his girlfriend due to her newfound penchant for granny panties - shows up looking for a place to stay. Later, after vowing to avoid the dating scene, Flint falls for the beautiful Sophie. Trouble arises, however, when Jeff learns a secret about Sophie's past that could prevent her and Flint's relationship from going to the next level. Meanwhile, wannabe psychic Gray becomes threatened by his girlfriend Reed's recent success in the art community. Of course each of these three friends have a wealth of valuable advice to dole out when pondering the lives of others, but what happens when the lonely urban soul is finally forced to make their own choices in love? ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide