Rick Hurst Movies

If it worked for Speed, it'll work for Runaway Car--or at least, that seems to have been the philosophy behind the making of this highly derivative made-for-TV actioner. Having suffered through an unusually rotten day on the job, timid nurse Jenny Todd (Nina Siesmaszko) heads to the garage where her 1978 Rambler Hornet is being repaired. Here she meets neurotic computer programmer Ed Lautner (Judge Reinhold), who asks her to give him a ride home. En route, Jenny picks up her baby nephew, as well as an unexpected hitchhiker: wiseguy skateboarder Dex Strang (Brian Hooks), whom Jenny may or may not have caused to suffer a nasty fall. Once the "dramatis personae" is established, the situation goes from bad to horrendous: The brakes jam, the door latches lock, the accelerator sticks at 100mph, and our wide-eyed heroine finds herself at the wheel of an out-of-control death machine, dangerously zooming through the busy city streets, barely avoiding crashes and collisions at every corner. The film's abundance of thrills, spills and impossible coincidences come to a climax of sorts when a police helicopter attempts to rescue Jenny's screaming nephew. Based (believe it or don't) on a true story, Runaway Car rolled off the Fox network TV-movie assembly line on January 21, 1997. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

John G. Avildsen rehashes his shopworn formula for another go-round in The Karate Kid Part III. Going against the wishes of his mentor, Mr. Miyagi (Noriyuki "Pat" Morita), Daniel (Ralph Macchio) will defend his karate title in an All-Valley Championship match arranged by his nemesis Kreese (Martin Kove), whose karate studio folded after his star student lost the championship to Daniel. Kreese's friend, Vietnam veteran and toxic waste dumper Terry (Thomas Ian Griffith), agrees to help his old pal regain the championship trophy. Daniel's rival Mike Barnes (Sean Kanan) is known as "the bad boy of karate," and Daniel feels he requires more training to vanquish him. But Mr. Miyagi refuses to help Daniel train for the tournament: "Karate to defend life and honor means something. To defend a plastic trophy means nothing." As a result, Daniel naïvely falls into the clutches of Terry, who takes him on as a karate student. But after Daniel finds himself trapped at the bottom of a cliff and Daniel's girlfriend, Jessica (Robyn Lively), has her life threatened, Mr. Miyagi realizes the bad guys have gone too far and agrees to coach Daniel for the tournament. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi

Evil land developers, those most ubiquitous of 1980s movie villains, are the chief antagonists in the made-for-TV Mothers, Daughters and Lovers. Helen Shaver plays a truckstop/motel owner in the rural Northwest. She manages her business with the help of her two budding teenaged daughters--one studious (Perrey Reeves), one a rebel (Marcianne Warman). All three ladies ward off unwanted lotharios, entreat the attentions of those whom they care about, and band together to stop a new real estate development from eliminating their place of business. Mothers, Daughters and Lovers was written by Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz, the team responsible for American Graffiti (73). ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Jessica's nephew Grady Fletcher (Michael Horton) and his fiancée Donna Mayberry (Debbie Zipp) have decided to get married in the home of Donna's parents (Eugene Roche, Gale Storm). With Jessica (Angela Lansbury) on the guest list, can murder be far behind? Not likely: This time the victim is Mr. and Mrs. Mayberry's fanatically fastidious housekeeper, who is "done in" with her own meat thermometer! ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

When prodigal son Billy Turner (Judd Nelson) returns to his Florida home town, he's caught in a brawl and thrown in jail. He tells the guards to call his father, the mayor, who will have him released; however, he soon discovers his father has been killed. After Turner finally gets out of jail, he starts to hunt down his father's murderer, with the eventual help of Annie Rayford (Ally Sheedy) and her brother Joey (David Caruso). Their nemesis is the nasty crime boss Perry Kerch (Scott Wilson) and his henchmen, though the slow-witted police chief (Paul Winfield) is not much help, either. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

There are many Dukes of Hazzard fans who would just as soon pretend that the series' fifth season never existed. Although perennial co-stars Catherine Bach, Denver Pyle, Sorrell Booke, and James Best are back, and Sonny Shroyer has returned in his familiar role as Deputy Enos Strate (after a brief sabbatical on his own TV series), conspicuous by their absences are leading men Tom Wopat and John Schneider) as hot-rodding cousins Luke and Bo Duke. The two actors had walked off the series over a monetary dispute, obliging the producers to replace them with two more branches from the Duke family tree: cousins Coy Duke (Byron Cherry) and Vance Duke (Christopher Mayer), who according to the scriptwriters had come back to Hazzard country after a six-year absence to help Uncle Jesse (Denver Pyle run his farm while Luke and Bo were tooling around the NASCAR circuit. To put it as nicely as possible, diehard Dukes fans did not warm up to Coy and Vance. Fortunately, Tom Wopat and John Schneider patched up their difference with the producers and returned to the series in the middle of season five. The "other" two Dukes hung on until season's end, then disappeared so totally that they might as well have never been born. ~ Rovi

The Dukes of Hazzard spends most of its fourth season entertainingly covering ground already traveled during the series' previous three seasons. Cousins Luke and Bo Duke (Tom Wopat, John Schneider) continue burning up the byways of Hazzard County in "The General Lee," their souped-up Dodge Charger; Luke and Bo's attractive cousin Daisy (Catherine Bach) continues to provide eye candy in her form-fitting short shorts--and to pursue her own car-racing career; their Uncle Jesse (Denver Pyle) persists in returning to the moonshining game, just to keep his hand in; and crooked country commissioner Boss Hogg (Sorrell Booke) never tires of cooking up new get-rich-quick schemes or devising ways to toss the Dukes into the pokey with the aid of non-villainous lawmen Roscoe Coltrane (James Best) and Deputy Cletus (Rick Hurst). Carryovers from season three include a brace of new semi-regulars, postmistress Miz Emma Tisdale (Nedra Voltz) and Chickasaw County Sheriff Little (Don Pedro Colley). Added to the cast lineup during season four are Lila Kent as Laverne and Charlie Dell as Emery Potter. Of the many guest stars appearing in the the 27 Dukes of Hazzard fourth-season episodes, special mention should be made of country & western impresario Mickey Gilley, adroitly cast as "himself" in the episode "The Sound of Music - Hazzard Style." ~ Rovi

Season three of Dukes of Hazzard is substantially the same as season two, with cousins Luke and Bo Duke (Tom Wopat, John Schneider) manning their hopped up hot rod "The General Lee" in order to confound and confuse crooked county commissioner Boss Hogg (Sorrell Booke) and dumb-bumb sheriff Roscoe P. Coltrane (James Best), and the boys' sexy cousin Daisy Duke (Catherine Bach) and moonshiner Uncle Jesse (Denver Pyle) occasionally going along for the ride. The most significant third-season change was the promotion from recurring to regular character of Rick Hurst as Deputy Sheriff Cletus, all the better to fill the gap left when Sonny Shroyer, aka Deputy Enos Strate, left Dukes to star in his own TV series Enos -- the pilot of which found Daisy Duke in the clutches of kidnappers. This season opened with the two-part episode, "Carnival of Thrills," in which the machinations of carnival-owner Diane Benson (Robin Mattson) threatens to drive a wedge between Duke and Bo (the two parts were originally shown as a single "special," but have since been re-divided for syndication purposes). In the course of the next 20 installments, Dukes of Hazzard fans made the acquaintance of two new semi-regular characters: motorcycle-riding postmistress Miz Emma Tizdale (Nedra Voltz), and Chickasaw County Sheriff Edward Thomas "Big Ed" Little (Don Pedro Colley). ~ Rovi

Boss Hogg (Sorrell Booke) picks up a fast $10,000 by renting the Hazzard County Jail to mob kingpin Big Jack Bender (Paul Lambert), who intends to use the facilities for a secret Appalachin-style gangster conference. Noticing the amount of "artillery" in the cars parked around the jailhouse, Bo (John Schneider) and Luke (Tom Wopat) figure they'd better alert the authorities--providing they live long enough to do so. With this episode, Hogg's dimwitted nephew Cletus (Rick Hurst) is promoted to deputy in the absence of Enos Strate (series regular Sonny Shroyer had to bow out temporarily due to illness). ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

So popular were the first 13 episodes of The Dukes of Hazzard that CBS ordered a full complement of 24 hour-long installments for the series' second season. Thematically, little changed from season one to season two: Hot-rodding cousins Luke and Bo Duke (Tom Wopat, John Schneider) continue manning the controls of their souped up Dodge Charger, "The General Lee," the better to foil the various crooked schemes of country commissioner Boss Hogg (Sorrell Booke) and to keep one step ahead of Hogg's dopey henchmen, Sheriff Roscoe Coltrane (James Best) and Deputy Enos Strate (Sonny Shroyer) -- and on occasion, Coltrane's reserve deputy, Cletus (Rick Hurst). Meanwhile, the Dukes' sexy cousin Daisy (Catherine Bach) and moonshiner Uncle Jesse (Denver Pyle) continue cheering the boys' exploits from the sidelines, occasionally getting into the thick of things themselves. With so much fast action and rowdy slapstick going on, who needs plotlines? Well, actually, quite a lot happens during Dukes of Hazzard's second year on the air. Highlights include a grudge race between longtime rivals (and former partners-in-crime) Boss Hogg and Uncle Jesse, a con game involving three million dollars in phony gold bars, a misdelivered consignment of stolen TV sets, an encounter with elderly counterfeiter Granny Annie (played by veteran radio actress Lurene Tuttle), a visit from the Dukes' "veddy" British cousin Gaylord (Simon MacCorkindale), a Smokey and the Bandit-like entanglement with a runaway heiress (Suzy Holmes), and a brief and embarrassing period in which Daisy Duke "jumps the fence" and becomes a deputy sheriff. Probably the most famous second- season episode is "Find Loretta Lynn," in which the eponymous country & western singer is kidnapped by a trio of stupid outlaws demanding a ransom of 1136.15 dollars! ~ Rovi

Zunar J5/90 Doric 4-7, also known as Jake, is an alien cat who crash-lands on earth. He heads off to the nearest scientist to find gold ($120,000 worth!) in order to repair his spaceship. Jake reveals that he can predict the winners in sporting events and soon the military is trying to track him down. The plot becomes more complicated when a wacky veterinarian inadvertently puts Jake into a deep sleep; now he must hide the alien cat from government authorities. The Cat from Outer Space was written by cartoonist Ted Key, who also wrote other Disney family fare, including Gus and The $1,000,000 Duck. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi

M*A*S*H inaugurates its sixth season minus the irascible Maj. Frank Burns, who, it is explained, is taking R&R in Seoul to get over the marriage between his longtime sweetie Margaret Houlihan (Loretta Swit). Although Frank is never seen in this episode (actor Larry Linville had left the series for good), the 4077th continually receives reports of his erratic behavior, culminating in a desertion and arrest. Meanwhile, Hawkeye (Alan Alda) and B.J. (Mike Farrell) are having their own troubles adjusting to Frank's temporary replacement: Maj. Charles Emerson Winchester II (David Ogden Stiers), a brilliant and erudite surgeon--and an insufferable Back Bay Bostonian snob. Originally telecast as a 60-minute "special," "Fade Out, Fade In has since been reedited as two half-hour episodes for syndication. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi