Hal Marshall Movies
Jonathan Demme's breakthrough movie featured the shaggy energy and affection for marginal American eccentrics that marked his earlier Citizens Band (1977) and such later films as Something Wild (1986) and Married to the Mob (1988). Melvin Dummar (Paul LeMat) is a barely-getting-by Nevada milkman. One day in the early 1970s, while driving down a lonely highway, Melvin picks up a shaggy, bearded bum (Jason Robards Jr.) and offers him a ride into town. Melvin gives the bum a quarter at the end of the ride, and that, so far as Melvin is concerned, is that. The story goes off on a new tangent, involving the on-and-off marriage between Dummar and his contest-happy wife Lynda (Mary Steenburgen). During one of the multitude of financial crises endured by the Dummars, Melvin discovers that the tramp he picked up was none other than billionaire Howard Hughes -- and when Hughes dies, Melvin inherits $150 million. The movie's wide acclaim included Oscars for Steenburgen and Goldman's script and New York Film Critics Awards in almost all major categories, including Best Picture and awards for Demme, Goldman, Steenburgen, and Robards. Demme would gain even greater attention in the 1990s as the director of The Silence of the Lambs (1991) and Philadelphia (1993). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Paul Le Mat, Jason Robards, Jr., (more)
Cloris Leachman stars as Melba, a woman with whom violence is a way of life, in Jonathan Demme's high-pitched "B"-movie Crazy Mama. The film spans three decades in the violent life of Melba, beginning in Jerusalem, Arkansas in 1932, when law enforcers kill her father (Clint Kimbrough), turning her mother Sheba (Ann Sothern) into a bitter widow. Mother and daughter take off to Long Beach, California, and the time jumps to 1958, when the two are thrown out of their beauty salon for non-payment of back rent. Melba now has an attractive (and pregnant) teenage daughter Cheryl (Linda Purl). The three generations take to the road, stealing cars and creating general mayhem across the United States, robbing a motorcycle racetrack box office and a bank. But in 1959, Melba and Cheryl are picked up again, running a Miami Beach snack bar, their lives wasted in free-living terror. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Cloris Leachman, Stuart Whitman, (more)
Considered the quintessential "girls in prison" flick of the 1970s, novice director Jonathan Demme's Caged Heat is set in a hellish American woman's penitentiary run by vicious, wheelchair-bound Barbara Steele. Statuesque convict Erica Gavin is forced to undergo horrible (but legal) tortures when she is falsely accused of trying to escape. Gavin and fellow con Juanita Brown decide to make a real break, but return to prison to rescue a friend who is about to be lobotomized by the sadistic prison doctor. Then they stage a robbery, only to find a group of male robbers at the bank ahead of them. A final shootout in the prison yards brings the film to a bloody climax. Caged Heat was also released under the title Renegade Girls. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Angels Hard as They Come is a melange of sex, violence, leather, and souped-up Harleys with a note of topicality added in by having some of the bikers dress and behave like hippies. One of the things distinguishing Angels Hard as They Come other pictures of its ilk is the fact that it was produced and written by Jonathan Demme. Also worth noting is the presence in the cast of stars-to-be Scott Glenn and Gary Busey, together with broken-nosed cult fave Charles Dierkop. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
