Keir Dullea Movies
Cleveland-born Keir Dullea found himself in the thick of Manhattan's intellectual scene when his parents took over the management of a Greenwich Village bookstore. Dullea attended Rutgers and San Francisco State, then launched his acting career in regional theater. He made a spectacular film debut in The Hoodlum Priest (1961), playing a born-to-hang juvenile delinquent. He was more sympathetic but no less emotionally disturbed in 1962's David and Lisa; as late as 1965, he was still playing mentally unstable youths in films like Bunny Lake is Missing. The biggest film hit with which Dullea was associated was 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) in which he played the time-and-space-travelling astronaut Bowman. He repeated this characterization (and answered several of the questions posed by 2001) in the 1984 sequel 2010. Though he'd been active on the New York stage in the 1950s, Keir Dullea did not appear on Broadway until 1970, when the 34-year-old actor portrayed a twentysomething blind man in Butterflies are Free. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
A radio talk-show host who specializes in repairing damaged relationships finds her life suddenly turned upside down when a listener who took her advice and later regretted doing so resolves to take revenge on the misguided love doctor. Uma Thurman, Colin Firth, Sam Shepard, and Isabella Rossellini star in a romantic comedy directed by Griffin Dunne. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Uma Thurman, Colin Firth, (more)
One man bears witness to the secret history of America during the Cold War in this drama directed by celebrated actor Robert De Niro. In 1939, Edward Wilson (Matt Damon) is a young man with a bright future ahead of him -- he's a top student at Yale and the protégé of one of the school's leading English professors, Dr. Fredericks (Michael Gambon). But Wilson's life changes dramatically when he's invited to join Yale's powerful secret society, Skull and Bones. Through his Skull and Bones connections, Wilson meets Sam Murach (Alec Baldwin), an mysterious FBI agent who asks Wilson to investigate charges that Fredericks is a Nazi sympathizer working with the German government. Later, at a Skull and Bones party, Wilson is introduced to Clover Russell (Angelina Jolie), the sister of one of his classmates and the daughter of a powerful politician; their one-night stand leaves Clover pregnant, and Wilson must leave the woman he loves, Laura (Tammy Blanchard), to wed Clover and give their child a name. Shortly after their wedding, thanks to his work with Murach, Wilson is invited to join the Office of Strategic Services, a military intelligence organization organized by Bill Sullivan (Robert De Niro), and Wilson accepts. Through World War II, Wilson serves with the OSS, and learns he can trust no one in the game of international espionage, which helps make him little more than a stranger to his wife, his son, and his few friends. As the OSS evolves into the Central Intelligence Agency after the war, Wilson becomes party to America's darkest and most dangerous secrets, and in the wake of the futile Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961, Wilson is forced to make a terrible choice between the security of his nation and the safety of his family. Inspired by the true-life story of CIA founder James J. Angleton, The Good Shepherd boasts an impressive supporting cast, including William Hurt, John Turturro, Billy Crudup, Joe Pesci, and Timothy Hutton.
~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Matt Damon, Angelina Jolie, (more)
James Spader stars in the made-for-TV movie Alien Hunter. Berkley professor Dr. Julian Rome (Spader) is a former code-reader for the government project known as Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. His skills are needed to assist Dr. Alexi Gierach (Nikolai Binev) in the Antarctic, where strange radio signals are detected. As Julian tries to understand the hidden messages in the signals, he comes into conflict with his fellow scientists Dr. Michael Straub (John Lynch) and Dr. Kate Brecher (Janine Eser). Alien Hunter originally aired in the U.S. on the Sci Fi Channel. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- James Spader, Janine Eser, (more)
- 2001
Four people are cold-bloodedly killed in a jewelry store. The suspect, a most charming and persuasive young man, insists upon representing himself in course. Thanks to his emotional display of regret and contrition, the accused murderer may well be able to sway the jury -- or at least one of the jurors, a woman who cannot take her eyes off the man. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 2001
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Stanley Kubrick was one of the most acclaimed and controversial filmmakers of his generation, but he was also an intensely private man who rarely gave interviews and produced most of his films under a shroud of secrecy, which tended to foster a great deal of rumor and speculation about his working methods. Jan Harlan, who worked as Kubrick's assistant and executive producer on several projects (and was also his brother-in-law), directed this documentary, which offers a rare in-depth look into Kubrick's career as a filmmaker, structured around interviews with a number of actors, writers, technicians, composers, friends, and family who speak on the record about his relentless perfectionism, his creative vision, his life both on and off the set, his relationships with actors, his unrealized projects, and his importance and influence as an artist. Among those who share their thoughts in Stanley Kubrick -- A Life In Pictures are actors Jack Nicholson, Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman, Malcolm McDowell, Peter Ustinov, and Keir Dullea; writers Arthur C. Clarke and Michael Herr; special effects artist Douglas Trumbull; composers Wendy Carlos and Gyorgy Ligeti; filmmakers Woody Allen, Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, Paul Mazursky, and Sydney Pollack; and Kubrick's spouse Christiane Kubrick. Stanley Kubrick -- A Life In Pictures was originally produced as a television project, to be aired in three parts, though the project was shown in its entirety at the 2001 Berlin Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Woody Allen, Martin Scorsese, (more)
Jennifer Love Hewitt stars in this made-for-TV biography of screen legend Audrey Hepburn, following her from her troubled youth as she grows up in Europe during WWII to her success as one of Hollywood's most sophisticated leading ladies. The Audrey Hepburn Story also features re-creations of several of Hepburn's most memorable moments onscreen, including the production of Breakfast at Tiffany's. The supporting cast includes Keir Dullea and Frances Fisher as her parents, Gabriel Macht as William Holden, Eric McCormack as Mel Ferrer, and Michael J. Burg as Truman Capote. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jennifer Love Hewitt, Frances Fisher, (more)
- 1992
- PG
A young man who fantasizes about an older woman discovers his daydreams may be turning into realities in this coming-of-age comedy-drama. Eric (Corey Haim) and Donald (Andrew Miller) are two teenage boys growing up in a small farming community in Canada in the mid-1950's. Eric and Donald are at the uncomfortable age where their interest in women far outstrips their knowledge of how to get women interested in them. Eric is also still recovering from the death of his mother, while he struggles to come to terms with the remarriage of his father, Thorvald (Kier Dullea), to Eva (Genevieve Bujold). As local gas jockey Mr. Todd (Robbie Coltrane) offers Eric and Donald advice on courting the fairer sex, Eric discovers Vera (Barbara Williams), the attractive wife of the farmer living next door, enjoys skinny-dipping with her daughters, and Eric digs a makeshift "hideout" where he can watch her undetected. Eric begins to strike up a friendship with Vera, while unknown to him, Vera becomes increasingly unhappy in her marriage. One day, Vera catches Eric as he watches her swimming, but rather than reacting with anger, she reaches out to the inexperienced youth. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Corey Haim, Barbara Williams, (more)
- 1989
Jessica (Angela Lansbury) is summoned to the island retreat of her friend Henry Reynard (Gene Barry), a millionaire lumberman. Someone has threatened Henry's life, and he is convinced that the "someone" is a relative anxious to get his or her hands on the old man's millions. Upon her arrival, Jessica is told that Henry has already been killed--but as she soon finds out, appearances (and first impressions) can be very deceiving! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
This belated sequel to Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) is directed by Peter Hyams. Roy Scheider plays the astronaut/skipper of a U.S.-Soviet space mission, sent to find out what happened to the missing Discovery flight that carried Keir Dullea into the beyond in the original 2001. Scheider's polyglot crew includes Americans John Lithgow and Bob Balaban (the latter a computer whiz, responsible for the notorious HAL 9000) and Russians Helen Mirren, Elya Baskin and Natasha Schneider. The reason for this international mixture is that the world is on the brink of nuclear war, and it is hoped that the space mission will assure east-west solidarity (in this respect, 2010 dates far more than 2001, given the collapse of the Iron Curtain). When the astronauts catch up with Dullea, still in orbit around Jupiter, producer/director/writer Hyams attempts to demystify the enigmatic climax of 2001. Arthur C. Clarke, author of the story upon which 2001 was based, appears in 2010 as a man on a park bench. Incidentally, the voice-over credited to Olga Mallsnerd is actually Candice Bergen. (The name Mallsnerd is a play on the name of one of the characters created by her ventriloquist father Edgar.) ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Roy Scheider, John Lithgow, (more)
- 1984
Co-writer and director Nico Mastorakis filmed this unusual low-budget thriller in his native Athens, Greece. Timothy Bottoms stars as Jonathan Ratcliff, an American advertising executive who has lost his sight, although the specialist he consults, Dr. Steiger (Keir Dullea), feels that the cause is psychosomatic. Fitted with a camera-like sonar device that allows him to "see," even if in a non-traditional and rather limited way, Ratcliff takes a vacation in Greece. When he witnesses the murder of a woman with his seeing-eye electronic device, he becomes obsessed with tracking down the killer. Ratcliff's quarry turns out to be a taxi driver armed with a scalpel -- and good eyesight. Blind Date (1984) (alternately titled Deadly Seduction) is notable for early appearances by a trio of actresses who would go on to do bigger and better things: Kirstie Alley, Valeria Golino, and Marina Sirtis. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Joseph Bottoms, Kirstie Alley, (more)
- 1982
In this standard sci-fi romance, the widow Andrea (Adrienne Barbeau) lives on a Greek island with her son Timmy (Jeremy Licht) and, like the other islanders, is amazed when a stranger Keir Dullea washes up on shore during a magnetic storm. She brings the apparently injured man home to help him recuperate his health, and a relationship develops between the two of them. At first seeming to suffer from amnesia, the stranger has a mysterious quality that comes more into focus when he performs certain miracles. As he demonstrates his powers, it is slowly revealed that he is a time-traveler, and his brother, in fact, once traveled back 2,000 years further in time. That makes the stranger the "Next One" on this time journey -- appearing as a second Christ to the population, at least for awhile. With limited special effects and a chaste romantic scenario, this film debuted as a pay-for-view TV feature and was not released theatrically. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Keir Dullea, Adrienne Barbeau, (more)
- 1982
- R
When his wife Suzanna Love is seriously injured in a car accident, Keir Dullea agrees to a radical and revolutionary surgical procedure to save the life of the comatose woman. Love undergoes a brain transplant-and, miracle of miracles, survives. Unfortunately, the brain donor was a murdered woman, and now Love is besieged by horrific memories of the killing. The unknown murderer finds out about this, thrusting Love's life into jeopardy for a second time. Actress Suzanna Love was the wife of Brainwaves director Ulli Lommel. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Keir Dullea, Suzanna Love, (more)
- 1981
In this taut made-for-television psychological thriller, a young woman has never been able to overcome the guilt she feels about her father's accidental death. She nearly goes insane when a stalker begins watching her every move and she becomes convinced that it is the ghost of her late dad. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1980
Suspense novelist Alistair MacLean wrote Hostage Tower directly for television. A master criminal takes over the Eiffel Tower, holding the mother of the President of the United States hostage. The criminal demands a $30 million ransom or the tower will be blasted into oblivion. The cast is quite stellar for a TV-movie, including Peter Fonda, Douglas Fairbanks Jr. (then in virtual retirement), Celia Johnson and Maude Adams (as one of the villains). Curiously, the director of Hostage Tower is sitcom veteran Claudio Guzman, best known for his long association with I Dream of Jeannie! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1980
This 3-hour TV adaptation of the 1932 Aldous Huxley novel is set 600 years in the future. In this "well- ordered" society, the citizens are required to take mind-controlling drugs, sex without love is compulsory, and test-tube babies are commonplace because of a ban on pregnancy. Keir Dullea heads the cast as Thomas Grahmbell, "director of hatcheries". Not everybody is satisfied with society's lack of humanity and feeling; the loudest dissidents are free-thinking poet Heimholtz Watson (Dick Anthony Williams) and brilliant oddball Bernard Marx (Bud Cort). An injection of new "old" ideas are brought in by "primitive" John Savage (Kristoffer Tabori), who lives on an Indian reservation which still honors 20th century values. Meanwhile, Linda Lysenko (Julie Cobb) becomes a natural mother--and in so doing becomes a criminal. In keeping with the style of the original book, the script's newly-minted characters are given names of pop-culture icons (Disney, Maoina, Stalina, and so on). Brave New World was first telecast March 7, 1980. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1979
Westerns may have been dead at the box-office in the late 1970s, but the TV-movie market still kept grinding them out. Legend of the Golden Gun includes elements of fantasy in its formula tale of a young man (Jeffrey Osterhage) who becomes the protege of an aging gunman (Hal Holbrook) The plotline contrives to include cameo appearances by guerilla leader William Quantrill (who kills the hero's parents) and General Custer (portrayed a la Douglas MacArthur, corncob pipe and all, by Keir Dullea). That this film is meant to be tongue-in-cheek is indicated by a scene in a frontier saloon, which in the manner of Sardi's restaurant is decorated with the caricatures of famous outlaws and lawmen! TV-movie expert Lee Goldberg has further noted that Legend of the Golden Gun is constructed along the lines of Stars Wars--an appropriate decision, since Star Wars was partially inspired by the western classic The Searchers. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jeff Osterhage, Hal Holbrook, (more)
The Harlequin Romance Publishing company produced this weeper about an English lass (Susan Penhaligon) who falls for a reclusive former race car driver (Keir Dullea). ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide
- 1978
Because He's My Friend was directed for Australian television by American TV veteran Ralph Nelson. Karen Black and Keir Dullea play the parents of a mentally retarded teenager (superbly played by Warwick Poulson). The boy's condition effects the marriage both adversely and positively. The film takes on a happier aura when a normal teenager becomes the handicapped boy's close friend. Because He's My Friend is an effective companion piece to the like-vintage Australian TV movie Tim, as well as the 1977 ABC Afterschool Special presentation Hewitt's Just Different. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1977
Did some clumsy oaf in the film lab misspell the title Mannikin? No, the misspelling was a deliberate device of author Robert (Psycho) Bloch, calculated to unsettle the audience from the start. Ronee Blakely of Nashville fame and Keir Dullea star in this terrifying mood piece. She's a singer, he's a mysterious stranger; her dreams of success on her own terms are corrupted when she's possessed by a demonic spirit. Mannikin runs a scant 28 minutes, making full and frightening use of every one of those minutes ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1977
In this film, an unusual western town sports a population that awards status based on the number of people one can kill. When Lewis (Keir Dullea) is mysteriously transported there, he must struggle to stay alive and out of the way of Sheriff Frendlander (Jack Palance), the local hero who has killed more people than any other resident. ~ Iotis Erlewine, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jack Palance, Keir Dullea, (more)
- 1977
The British/Canadian Full Circle is better known by its American title, The Haunting of Julia. The eponymous Julia, played by Mia Farrow, is driven to near-madness by the death of her daughter. Things don't get much better when Julia and her husband move into a forbidding old mansion. The events leading up to her daughter's horrible death threaten to repeat themselves, thereby explaining the film's original title. Based on a Peter Straub story, Full Circle covers familiar ground, but fans of Gothic horror will be generously served. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Mia Farrow, Keir Dullea, (more)
- 1976
Former policewoman Dorothy Uhnak wrote the book upon which this 150-minute TV movie was based. The central characters of Law and Order are the male members of an Irish-American family--three generations of police officers. The bulk of the drama concerns the conflicts between Deputy Chief of Public Affairs Brian O'Malley (Darren McGavin) and his Vietnam-vet son (Art Hindle), who has become a beat cop. In addition to his problems at home, Chief O'Malley must contend with rumors of departmental corruption. Law and Order was designed as the pilot film for a Police Story-style series with a family slant. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1974
- R
English Paul and French Michelle come together again in this sequel to the 1971 film Friends. Several years have passed since they had their adolescent adventure in baby-making. Paul has just finished his fancy British school while Michelle, her baby and an American live together in France. Paul returns to France to find Michelle and take up where they left off. Unfortunately, things don't go exactly as planned. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
Although this Canadian production saw its widest U.S. cable TV distribution in the early '80s (primarily under the title Stranger in the House) to capitalize on the phenomenal success of Halloween and its offspring, this effective suspense-thriller actually predates John Carpenter's film by four years. The story involves a dangerous psychopath hiding out in the attic of a sorority house who torments a small group of pretty young sisters (including Olivia Hussey and Margot Kidder) who are staying behind over Christmas break. His tactics range from making obscene phone calls from their house-mother's phone, to stalking the terrified boarders with sharp objects and murderous intent. Director Bob Clark, who mistook dreariness for tension in his previous horror effort Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things! (1972), here demonstrates a tight, aggressive style that generates some very original shocks -- particularly the surprise ending -- which clearly influenced dozens of similarly-themed slasher films to follow. ~ Cavett Binion, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Olivia Hussey, Keir Dullea, (more)
- 1973
The Beginning consists of two hour-long episodes from the weekly TV series Starlost. Created by Harlan Ellison (who later disowned the project), this science fiction effort is set in the 28th century. Keir Dullea stars as a postapocalyptic youth who has been sentenced to prison for speaking his mind. Dullea escapes by stealing a huge space vehicle, Earth Ship Ark, in the company of the girl he loves (Gay Rowan) and his rival for her affections (Robin Ward).This "feature film" is comprised of the following episodes: "Voyage of Discovery", the series' pilot film; and "The Goddess Calabra", written by Ursula K. LeGuin, in which heroine Rachel (Gay Rowan) finds that she is the exact double of an extraterrestrial goddess. Though The Beginning ends on an upbeat note, its impact was dulled by the aimless, directionless series that followed. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
