John Martin Movies

When police fail to protect her daughter from a possibly murderous stalker, a determined mother struggles to find legal means to save her. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

This drama combines equal portions of martial arts and feminist drama. Well-muscled Terry (Graciela Casillas) is relentlessly pursued by the rich, obnoxious Mike (Patrick St. Esprit), who has sex and matrimony as his objective. On one occasion, Mike nearly rapes Terry, who is saved only by the intervention of Jason (John Martin), an old friend. Meanwhile, Mike is putting pressure on his father to foreclose on a business owned by Terry's father and the situation is getting desperate. So Terry challenges Mike, who is a karate champ, to a contest. They will have a fight; if she can throw him in the river, her father gets to keep his business and Mike will leave her alone. If she loses, Mike gets a night with her. Of course, Terry only has six weeks to learn how to defend herself but as fortune would have it, a miracle-working Philippine martial arts instructor has recently arrived in town. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

After being falsely accused of cattle rustling and murder, rancher Brent Landers (played here by Giuliano Gemma) follows the trail of the man who set him up. Landers happens upon the young Lucy (Evelyn Stewart), stripped naked, tied spread eagle to the ground, and left to bake in the hot desert sun after being sexually assaulted by three men who robbed her stagecoach. Tex Slaughter, the local sheriff, is more interested in handing Brent over for the reward on his head, so Landers has his hands full protecting the recuperating Lucy and bringing the men who raped her to justice, while also trying to stay alive long enough to clear his own name. ~ Cub Koda, All Movie Guide

Mutated spiders, mad geniuses, childlike mental patients, gold-digging blondes, and vengeful little people are only part of the madness in this legendary bit of oddball science fiction. Grant (Robert Knapp) and Doreen (Mary Hill) wander into a shack in the wastelands of Mexico's Muerto Desert, where the sunburned and dehydrated pair tell their tale to a surveyor for an American petroleum firm. Grant was working as a pilot for millionaire businessman Jan Van Croft (Nico Lek), who was to marry the much younger Doreen when engine trouble stranded them in a Mexican border town. Jan and Doreen were killing time in a roadhouse when they were joined by the eccentric Dr. Leland Masterson (Harmon Stevens), who had recently escaped from a mental hospital. Before Masterson's nurse, George (George Barrows), can lure his patient back to the hospital, Masterson pulls a gun and shoots entertainer Tarantella (Tandra Quinn) while she performs a wild dance routine; Masterson then takes Jan and Doreen hostage and demands that Grant fly them away. Further engine trouble strands the traveling party on a mesa, where they discover a handful of strange, tiny men and statuesque women. In time, we discover that Masterson knows the story behind the Mesa's unusual residents -- they're the products of a series of experiments by Dr. Aranya (Jackie Coogan), whose research into the pituitary glands of spiders has produced unusual results. The only screen credit for screenwriter and co-director Herbert Tevos (who helmed the project with Southern exploitation icon Ron Ormond), Mesa of Lost Women also features a memorably irritating guitar-and-piano score and a brief appearance by Dolores Fuller, best known for her work with one-time beau Edward D. Wood Jr. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Just how accurate is the Darwin theory? Can it be that mankind truly evolved from the apes? These questions are raised in the entertaining British documentary Monkey Into Man, but the answers are somewhat vague. Utilizing miles and miles of well-photographed wildlife footage, the producers offer a number of long shots which suggest that modern-day monkeys and baboons -- and, by extension, birds and fish -- have more in common with humanity than most of us are willing to admit. Also included are close-ups of simian hands, arms and feet, with narrator John Martin pointing out some striking (if inconclusive) similarities. Monkey Into Man was made under the personal supervision of English biologist Julian Huxley. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this comedy, Los Angeles radio stations KLST and KWIN engage in a ratings war when the two owners, who happen to be brothers, discover that their dead father's will leaves his lucrative estate to whoever is able to bring in the most advertising dollars. With millions of dollars riding on their ratings, the members of the two stations resort to a variety of wild and crazy antics to stay on top. ~ Iotis Erlewine, All Movie Guide

The good people of Milo, Kansas (pop. 1,972) combine forces to battle against the evil agribusiness Farmco that conspires to drive up the price of bread to six dollars a loaf. Farmer Jeff Parker (Sonny Gibson) and the crusading journalist Charlie Stevens (Buck Henry) recruit former Farmco executive James Kirkland (Doug McClure) who resigns when his conscience bothers him too much. Reporter Roger Crandall (Paul Newson) uncovers the plot to inflate the price of grain and sends it to colleague Jessica Stanton (Reparata Mazzola) before he is killed. Jessica investigates Roger's "accidental" death and the shooting of a federal grain inspector. Jeff saves Jessica after she is kidnapped and drugged with ether. Ben Johnson plays the local sheriff in this message drama. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

Based on a true story, Silkwood begins and ends with Karen Silkwood (Meryl Streep) driving along a lonely road in 1974, heading to a meeting with a New York Times reporter to deliver evidence of negligence at the Kerr-McGee Plant in Cimarron, Oklahoma. The balance of the film flashes back to Karen's ribald private life with her lover (Kurt Russell) and her loose-living friends (Cher and Diana Scarwid). This is in contrast to her humdrum job at Kerr-McGee--or it least it was humdrum until Karen and several other employees become contaminated by radiation. The higher-ups want to sweep this incident under the rug, but Karen thinks that something's fishy, and informs the union of that fact. X-rays of the faulty fuel rods and written proof of the inadequate safety measures that caused Karen's illness are tampered with, forcing Karen to conduct her own private investigation. As she gathers evidence, Karen becomes a pariah to her boyfriend because of her obsession. She finally organizes the evidence into a briefcase, and heads off to her meeting with the Times reporter. She never makes it; the "official" report on her fatal auto accident is that Ms. Silkwood had been drinking and was under the influence of tranquilizers. Kerr-McGee was eventually forced to pay the Silkwood family an enormous settlement because of her contamination, but the full facts behind her convenient accident have never been revealed (though the filmmakers clearly indictate whom they hold responsible). Director Mike Nichols and screenwriters Nora Ephron and Alice Arlen surround this true story with a lively, improvisational atmosphere that gets the best out of Streep, Russell, and Cher, while providing perhaps the fullest on-screen realization of Nichols' theater-based techniques of realistic, character-centered, dialogue-driven filmmaking, as well as one of the first movie screenplays from future director Ephron. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This highly rated independent production was written years before Bull Durham, and though it covers much of the same territory, it is considered worth seeing in its own right. In the story, Roy Dean Bream (William Russ) is too old to be part of his minor-league baseball team's cultural mainstream. In short, he's often ignored, derided, or treated to the worst or last of everything, like any other outcast. Tyrone (Glenn Plummer) is so young that it gives the same teammates who shun Roy the willies and reminds them that they too are getting older -- so he's an outcaste, too. What could be more natural than for these two men to seek one another out. It doesn't matter that the older man is white, the younger is black. They both love the game, and Roy has been around the block a few times and has plenty to teach Tyrone. When the time comes for Roy to be sent to retirement, everyone holds their breaths to see how he will react. It's a pity they didn't get to know him better, or they would know that this kind, generous man wishes them all well. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

A nice young man leaves his conservative hometown of Houston to become one of Hollywood's biggest stars. All of Houston is proud of the youth's great success and so invite him home to crown the homecoming queen. Unfortunately, he roars into town astride an enormous motorcycle. With his grungy clothing and suspicious long-hair he becomes an embarassment to the upstanding citizens who are outraged at how he allowed the glitter of Tinseltown to corrupt him. They are so angry that they boot the obnoxious actor right out of town. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide