Anthony Holland Movies
Supporting actor, onscreen from the '60s; often played comedic big-city neurotics. ~ All Movie Guide
This breathlessly paced high-tech thriller stars Sean Connery as Anderson, a career criminal who's just been released from his latest prison term. Seeking a quick financial turnover, Anderson uses mob funding to finance an ambitious robbery. With a gang of expert thieves, Anderson sets about to rob every wealthy tenant of a fancy East Side apartment building. What he doesn't know is that every move he makes is being monitored and taped by several law-enforcement agencies, who hope that Anderson will lead them to the Mob kingpins. Though the film may look like a "comment" on the Watergate break-in, The Anderson Tapes actually preceded that third-rate burglary by nearly two years. The Anderson Tapes boasts an impressive supporting cast, many of whom play wildly against type, including Alan King as an aging and infirm Mafia don. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Sean Connery, Dyan Cannon, (more)
The first part of his "paranoia trilogy," Alan J. Pakula's 1971 thriller details the troubled life of a Manhattan prostitute stalked by one of her tricks. Investigating the disappearance of his friend Tom Gruneman (Robert Milli), rural Pennsylvania private eye John Klute (Donald Sutherland) follows a lead provided by Gruneman's associate Peter Cable (Charles Cioffi) to seek out a call girl who Gruneman knew in New York City. The call girl is Bree Daniels (Jane Fonda), an aspiring actress who turns tricks for the cash and to be free of emotional bondage. Klute follows Bree's every move, observing the city's decadence and her isolation, eventually contacting her about Gruneman. Bree claims not to know Gruneman, but she does reveal that she has received threats from a john. As Bree becomes involved in Klute's search and realizes that she is in danger, she reluctantly falls in love with Klute, despite her wish to remain unattached to any man. When she finally comes face to face with the killer, however, she is forced to reconsider her detached urban life. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jane Fonda, Donald Sutherland, (more)
Lovers and Other Strangers became a "sleeper" hit, based on a play by Renée Taylor and Joseph Bologna. The story is essentially a series of vignettes and anecdotes, unified by an impending marriage. Father of the bride Hal (Gig Young) has problems with his long-suffering mistress, Cathy (Anne Jackson), who spends much of the film sitting on the toilet, crying her eyes out; Wilma (Anne Meara), the bride's sex-starved sister, can't wrest her husband, Johnny (Harry Guardino), away from the TV; and Frank (Richard S. Castellano), as the groom's father, slips comfortably into Bartlett's Familiar Quotations with his oft-repeated query "So what's the story?" Twelfth-billed Diane Keaton makes her film debut as a garrulous wedding guest. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bea Arthur, Bonnie Bedelia, (more)
Striving for a better life for his two sons, a Puerto Rican immigrant named Popi (Alan Arkin) goes about his mission in a singularly eccentric fashion in this comedy from director Arthur Hiller. So intent is Harlem resident Abraham "Popi" Rodriguez (Arkin) upon providing his boys with the American dream, that he puts off marrying his beautiful girlfriend Lupe (Rita Moreno) in order to carry out the mother of all harebrained schemes. After instructing his boys how to row with lessons in Central Park, Popi takes them to Florida and sets them adrift on the ocean, knowing that two cute "refugees from Cuba" seeking asylum in the U.S. will become celebrity cases and probably be adopted by rich WASP's. Popi's plan works like a charm, with his sons even earning an audience with the president, but a visit to the hospital where they're recovering from their ordeal at sea sinks his big plans. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Alan Arkin, Rita Moreno, (more)
Ohio businessman Jack Lemmon is offered a golden job opportunity; all he has to do is relocate himself and wife Sandy Dennis to New York City. What follows has led some critics to complain that playwright Neil Simon has written a "hate letter" to Manhattan. Within a 36 hour period, the couple (a) loses their airplane luggage; (b) are forced to travel from Boston to New York in a greasy old train; ( c ) can't get any sort of service because virtually everyone in Fun City is on strike; (d) are mugged twice, once while they're asleep; (e) are reduced to sleeping on Central Park benches in their day clothes.....and so it goes, until the shabby, disheveled Lemmon tells his prospective bosses off, and he and his wife head back to Ohio---- almost. Punctuated by Sandy Dennis' plaintive "Oh, my Gawwwwd", The Out of Towners tightens the screws and ups the ante on the classic "comedy of errors" formula. Filmed on location, the picture features a who's who of character actors (Milt Kamen, Anne Meara, Phil Bruns, Dolph Sweet, Richard Libertini, Paul Dooley, Robert Walden, Ron Carey etc. etc. etc.) When first shown on network television, the film was shorn of its closing punchline because of an eccentric censorship rule. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jack Lemmon, Sandy Dennis, (more)
Based on a James Leo Herlihy novel, British director John Schlesinger's first American film dramatized the small hopes, dashed dreams, and unlikely friendship of two late '60s lost souls. Dreaming of an easy life as a fantasy cowboy stud, cheerful Texas rube Joe Buck (Jon Voight) heads to New York City to be a gigolo, but he quickly discovers that hustling isn't what he thought it would be after he winds up paying his first trick (Sylvia Miles). He gets swindled by gimpy tubercular grifter Rico "Ratso" Rizzo (Dustin Hoffman) but, when Joe falls in the direst of straits, Ratso takes Joe into his condemned apartment so that they can help each other survive. Things start to look up when Joe finally lands his first legit female customer (Brenda Vaccaro) at a Warhol-esque party; Ratso's health, however, fails. Joe turns a final trick to get the money for one selfless goal: taking Ratso out of New York to his dream life in Miami. One of the first major studio films given the newly minted X rating for its then-frank portrayal of New York decadence, Midnight Cowboy was critically praised for Schlesinger's insight into American lives, with the intercut mosaic of Joe's memories and Ratso's dreams lending their characters and actions greater psychological complexity. While they may have been drawn by the seamy content (tame by current standards), the young late '60s audience responded to Joe's and Ratso's confusion amidst turbulent times and to the connection they make with each other despite their alienation from the surrounding culture. Midnight Cowboy became one of the major financial and artistic hits of 1969, winning Oscars for Best Picture (the first for an X-rated film), Best Director, and former blacklistee Waldo Salt's screenplay. Though the one-two punch of Midnight Cowboy and The Graduate (1967) proved Hoffman's range and Voight's Joe Buck made him a star, both lost Best Actor to classical cowboy John Wayne for True Grit. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Dustin Hoffman, Jon Voight, (more)
- 1968
The inner workings of the U.S. government are spoofed by members from Chicago's Second City comedy troupe. Set in the future, the largely improvised film centers on president Fillard Millmore who finds himself a pawn in a battle between self-serving cabinet members. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1968
Bye Bye Braverman is a bittersweet adaptation of Wallace Markfield's coldly cynical novel To an Early Grave. Braverman, an idealistic minor author, dies; his four best friends, writers who in one way or another have all sold out, decide to attend his funeral. The foursome includes a disenchanted magazine writer (George Segal), a poet (Jack Warden), a book reviewer (Sorrell Booke), and an embittered bellyacher (Joseph Wiseman). Taking a picaresque journey from Greenwich Village to Brooklyn, the quartet never quite gets to the funeral, but their odyssey unearths many a self-revelation and previously unspoken truth. Like its four leading characters, Bye Bye Braverman loses its way towards the end, bringing this otherwise insightful comedy/drama to a muddied conclusion. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- George Segal, Jack Warden, (more)
- 1967
In this eccentric independent comedy filmed in Chicago, Frank (Jon Voight) is a hayseed who heads north to the big city of Chicago, only to run afoul of gangsters and wind up murdered. Frank soon finds himself resurrected as a virtuous superhero, Fearless Frank, but a mad scientist (Severn Darden) soon crafts an evil twin, False Frank, to do his sinister bidding. Monique Van Vooren plays Plethora, one of the gangster's molls, and novelist Nelson Algren appears as Needles; much of the supporting cast was drawn from the Second City comedy troupe, including David Steinberg and Ben Carruthers. Frank's Greatest Adventure was the first solo directorial credit for Philip Kaufman and the screen debut for Jon Voight, though it would not receive wide distribution until after his breakthrough role in Midnight Cowboy. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jon Voight, Monique Van Vooren, (more)
The Hebrew prophet Elijah (played by Lou Gilbert) comes from Lake Michigan--rather than Gilead of Biblical legend--into the city of Chicago in the appearance of an elderly tramp. He proceeds to wander about, coming into contact with various characters and their assorted problems. Among those who meet him are a sculptor, the sculptor's pregnant ex-girlfriend, a violinist/beggar and the like. Even the Chicago author Nelson Algren appears onscreen as himself, pondering the difficult choices an artist must face. After his many adventures throughout the city of Chicago, Elijah vanishes back into the lake. Though interpretations of this work vary, it is most likely a retelling of the Biblical story in modern times. Regardless of symbolism or metaphor, Goldstein successfully captured the attention of critics at the time of its release. This was the first film for screenwriters/directors Benjamin Manaster and Philip Kaufman. Kaufman would go on to direct and/or write such critically acclaimed features such as Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), The Right Stuff (1983) and The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1988). ~ Kristie Hassen, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Lou Gilbert, Thomas Erhart, (more)
- 1964
Cut off from the rest of King Company in enemy territory, Saunders (Vic Morrow) and Caje (Pierre Jalbert) must now laboriously make their back to their own lines. En route, the two men are joined by several awkward stragglers, among them a pair of non-coms, a brace of rookies, and an overly pugnacious sergeant (Steve Gravers). Featured in the cast is George Savalas, who under the stage name Demosthenes later played Detective Stavros on his brother Telly Savalas' TV series Kojak. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1955
King's Rhapsody was the second screen teaming of beloved British star Anna Neagle and Hollywood's "bad boy" Errol Flynn. Based on a musical play by Ivor Novello, the film casts Flynn as a European prince who falls in love with commoner Neagle. The prince pulls an "Edward VIII" and goes into exile so he may set up house with the woman he loves. When the King dies, Flynn is obliged to return to his throne and marry a hand-picked princess (Patrice Wymore, who was Mrs. Flynn at the time). Years later, the prince, finally free to marry, seeks out Neagle. She still loves him, but sends him on his way, realizing that his true place is with his people. Although Anna Neagle's husband Herbert Wilcox was producer-director of King's Rhapsody, her songs were cut from the final release print, leaving her with literally nothing to do but stand around and look radiant. Perhaps as a result, King's Rhapsody was one of the few Neagle/Wilcox failures. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Anna Neagle, Errol Flynn, (more)
