David Hasselhoff Movies
Actor David Hasselhoff first built up a fan following on the daytime TV soaper The Young and the Restless, where from 1975 through 1982 he played Bill "Snapper" Foster. He graduated to Prime Time as crimefighter Michael Knight on the fantasy actioner Knight Rider; this one lasted from 1982 to 1986. With his American career in temporary doldrums after Knight Rider's cancellation, Hasselhoff took advantage of his fluency in the German language to establish a phenomenal successful singing career in Europe. It is likely that nothing has brought him as much professional satisfaction as his Berlin Wall concert, an event that drew 500,000 spectators. In 1989, Hasselhoff signed on for another TV series, the initially unremarkable adventure weekly Baywatch. Few people need to be reminded of David Hasselhoff's success in this last endeavor: as of this writing, Baywatch is the single most popular television series in the world, beaming out to an estimated audience of one billion viewers. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Opening with a two-hour "TV movie" pilot (which has since been edited into two separate hour-long episodes), season one of Knight Rider affords viewers their first glimpses of former cop-turned-independent crime fighter Michael Knight (David Hasselhoff), his ill-tempered boss, Devon Miles (Edward Mulhare), and Knight's remarkable custom-made vehicle, "K.I.T.T." (Knight Industries Two Thousand), a black Trans Am armed with a near-indestructible chassis, state-of-the-art weaponry and surveillance equipment, the ability to fly through the air, and a somewhat haughty computerized "artificial intelligence," complete with a personality and the ability to speak (in the voice of actor William Daniels). Owing his life to the inventor of K.I.T.T., Michael has dedicated that life to protecting the innocent and tracking down evildoers whenever and wherever he can. During the series' first season, Knight and K.I.T.T. are occasionally aided and abetted by attractive auto mechanic Bonnie Barstow (Patricia McPherson). The opening episode explains how undercover cop Michael Long, shot in the face and left for dead, is saved and "recreated" by Wilton Knight (Richard Basehart), billionaire inventor of K.I.T.T.'s technology. Once Long has re-emerged as Michael Knight, our hero agrees to take orders from Devon Miles (Edward Mulhare), successor to the late Wilton Knight as head of Knight Industries Foundation for Law and Order. Subsequent episodes find Michael and his faithful vehicle foiling a gang of motorcycle punks, exposing a murderous saboteur at an auto daredevil show, protecting a political candidate from assassins, helping an amnesiac girl recall the identity of a hired killer, rescuing a nosy female reporter from crooked race-car promoters, solving a series of murders in a MENSA-type club for geniuses, and matching wits with a private eye who prefers the "old reliable" methods to Michael's computer-dominated procedures. ~ All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- David Hasselhoff, Edward Mulhare, (more)
- 1979
Pleasure Cove taps the Grand Hotel format already being worked to death in 1979 by Love Boat and Fantasy Island. Top-billed Tom Jones plays a crook in disguise who becomes involved in love and larceny at the hideaway resort of Pleasure Cove. There's an all-TV star cast, but the largest roles go to James Murtaugh and Constance Forslund as the resort managers, and Ernest Harada as the funny "gopher" desk clerk. This trio would have been the continuing characters has this TV pilot film been picked up as a weekly series. But Pleasure Cove received precisely two network showings in 1979 before going to busted-pilot purgatory. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1978
- PG
Italian schlock-master Luigi Cozzi (billed as Lewis Coates here) directed this low-budget Star Wars rip-off in 1978, right when the sci-fi craze was hitting audiences on a world-wide scale. The story begins familiarly enough, with a huge spaceship tracking through an extremely colorful space scene while under attack by some kind of unknown and deadly force resembling a lava lamp. Being no match for the '60s acid-flashback rays, they manage to jettison a few escape pods just before being blown to kingdom come. Fast forward now to the other end of the galaxy, where we find the best smugglers in town -- gorgeous Stella Star (Caroline Munro) and space-pimp Akton (Marjoe Gortner) -- outrunning a band of cops on their tail. Eventually, they're caught, taken into custody, and sentenced to intense Labor Camps, where Stella is forced to wear a skimpy Barbarella-like outfit by the extreme, merciless guards. A break-out ensues, and in the intense laser shoot-out, Stella manages to escape, only to be captured again by the semi-green-skinned Thor (Robert Tessier) and his annoying southern-drawled robot, Elle (voiced by genre veteran Hamilton Camp). Brought in front of the Emperor of the Galaxy (Christopher Plummer) and reunited with Akton, the sexy duo find themselves suddenly in charge of finding Prince Simon (David Hasselhoff). Thus begins the heroes' amazing adventure through space and time as they search for Hasselhoff and end up fighting Amazons, Cavemen, and the Evil Count Zarth Arn (Joe Spinell) along the way. ~ Jeremy Wheeler, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Marjoe Gortner, Caroline Munro, (more)
- 1976
- R
The cheerleading team at Aloha High are popular with their fellow students (except for a couple of stuck-up rich girls), but they're a major cause of the school's lecherous reputation for underage sex and drug abuse. The fun-loving gals spike the lunchroom spaghetti sauce with a concoction of pot, pills, and powders, hold wild orgies in the boys' locker room, and never bother to attend their classes. The school board considers a merger with Aloha's biggest rivals, the vocational school Lincoln High, but the cheerleaders refuse to mix with the low-class juvenile delinquents that go there. A new principal, ex-Marine Hall Walker (Norman Thomas Marshall), might whip the school into shape, but it'll mean forcing the cheerleaders out of the squad and back into the classroom. Though the girls prove their importance to Aloha spirit at the crucial moment of a big basketball game, it turns out that more sinister forces are at work when the school is blown up and the principal is kidnapped. It's up to the cheerleaders to save the day and unravel a conspiracy to steal Aloha High's land for a shopping mall. Carl Ballantine, David Hasselhoff, and genre vet Rainbeaux Smith appear in this energetic sex comedy. ~ Fred Beldin, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jeril Woods, Cheryl Smith, (more)
