Charles Napier Movies
Towering blonde American character actor Charles Napier has the distinction of being one of the few actors to transcend a career start in "nudies" and sustain a successful mainstream career. Napier, clothed and otherwise, was first seen in such Russ Meyer gropey-feeley epics as Cherry, Harry and Raquel (1969) and Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970). Graduating from this exuberant tawdriness, Napier became a dependable film and TV villain. Even when he wasn't totally nasty, he was at least dishonest, as witness his comically bigamous truck driver in Handle With Care (1977) Not only were Napier's characters mean, they were often foolhardy; look what happeded to him when he double-crossed Sylvester Stallone in Rambo (1984). Some of Napier's more recent credits include The Blues Brothers (1980), Married to the Mob (1990), Ernest Goes to Jail (1991) and the-Oscar winning Silence of the Lambs (1991) (as Lt. Boyle). TV also served Napier well, allowing him recurring roles on such series as "The Oregon Trail" and "Outlaws," and at least one bonafide heroic title role in the TV movie Big Bob Johnson's Fantastic Speed Circus (1978), in which he played a barnstorming aerialist. He was also a most imposing Adam in the 1969 "Star Trek" episode "The Way to Eden." In 1994, a most atypical Charles Napier could be seen as the incorruptible judge in "Philadelphia," compassionately trying a homosexual-discrimination case with nary a sneer or scowl on his weatherbeaten countenance. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1991
Lonely Hearts is a modern film noir in which a lonely woman meets and falls for a man whom she refuses to let go. Alma (Beverly D'Angelo) is a wallflower who lives with her mother and works at a Social Security office. In her desperation to make some sort of social life for herself, she answers a personal ad and meets Frank (Eric Roberts) with whom she falls in love. Frank turns out to be a con man and a swindler, but Alma is obsessed with him. She begins to help him by posing as his sister while he cons other women, until she and Frank are forced to flee when one of the victims hires a private detective. Beverly D'Angelo plays Alma with the perfect mixture of both predator and victim and director Andrew Lane understands and directs his actors well, making Lonely Hearts a very well-thought-out and executed thriller despite a somewhat languid pacing. ~ Linda Rasmussen, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Beverly D'Angelo, Eric Roberts, (more)
In this multiple Oscar-winning thriller, Jodie Foster stars as Clarice Starling, a top student at the FBI's training academy whose shrewd analyses of serial killers lands her a special assignment: the FBI is investigating a vicious murderer nicknamed Buffalo Bill, who kills young women and then removes the skin from their bodies. Jack Crawford (Scott Glenn) wants Clarice to interview Dr. Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins), a brilliant psychiatrist who is also a violent psychopath, serving life behind bars for various acts of murder and cannibalism. Crawford believes that Lecter may have insight into this case and that Starling, as an attractive young woman, may be just the bait to draw him out. Lecter does indeed know something of Buffalo Bill, but his information comes with a price: in exchange for telling what he knows, he wants to be housed in a more comfortable facility. More important, he wants to speak with Clarice about her past. He skillfully digs into her psyche, forcing her to reveal her innermost traumas and putting her in a position of vulnerability when she can least afford to be weak. The film mingles the horrors of criminal acts with the psychological horrors of Lecter's slow-motion interrogation of Clarice and of her memories that emerge from it. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jodie Foster, Anthony Hopkins, (more)
Based on the late Charles Willeford's series of hard-boiled crime novels featuring Miami cop Hoke Moseley, the Jonathan Demme-produced Miami Blues opens with the prison release of Frederick Frenger Jr. (Alec Baldwin), a deranged killer who has barely de-boarded his plane before he's killed a Hare Krishna in the airport. Checking into his hotel, Frenger meets up with Susie Waggoner (Jennifer Jason Leigh), a young prostitute with dreams of domestic life, and the two quickly become romantically involved. Meanwhile, the Hare Krishna murder case is given to Moseley (Fred Ward), a grizzled vet who vows to hunt down Frenger, but may be getting too long in the tooth for the demands of his job. ~ Matthew Tobey, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Alec Baldwin, Fred Ward, (more)
When a police officer's life is threatened by some murderous thugs, his son must travel back in time to attempt to alter the past and save his father's life. ~ Iotis Erlewine, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- David Carradine, Ted Prior, (more)
In Ernest Goes to Jail, Jim Varney returns as leering idiot savant Ernest P. Worrall, star of scores of TV commercials and feature films. Varney also takes on a second role in the film: an unrepentant, cold-blooded murderer named Felix Nash. When Ernest serves on the jury for Nash's murder trial, Nash arranges for look-alike Ernest to go to jail, while he stays on the outside to plan a major bank heist. Fortuitously for the criminal, it's the same bank where Ernest works as a security guard. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jim Varney, Gailard Sartain, (more)
Director Stephen Frears' tense adaptation of Jim Thompson's novel The Grifters was one of a number of revival film noirs in the first half of the '90s. Updating the setting to contemporary Los Angeles, the film follows a trio of con artists who are intent on out-foxing each other. Roy Dillon (John Cusack) is a simple, two-bit con, whose life is thrown into turmoil when his estranged mother Lilly (Anjelica Huston) returns home in an attempt to evade the law. Lilly doesn't warm to Roy's girlfriend Myra Langtry (Annette Bening), who is too similar to herself. Soon, the two women are competing for Roy in a battle that is more of a power struggle than a pursuit of affection, and the battle quickly turns dangerous. Huston was nominated for an Academy Award for her work. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- John Cusack, Anjelica Huston, (more)
- 1990
- R
"You have the right to remain silent . . . Forever!" This sequel to Maniac Cop pits Matt Cordell (Robert Z'dar), the crazed, murderous "Maniac Cop" of the first film (now horribly disfigured after a particularly brutal stay in prison), and Turkel (Leo Rossi), a serial killer who likes to murder strippers, against a frenzied NYPD detective, Sean McKinney (Robert Davi), who is just one step ahead of a nervous breakdown. His nerves don't get much relief when officers Jack Forrest (Bruce Campbell) and Teresa Mallory (Laurene Landon) insist that Cordell is still alive -- not only alive, but unkillable. Then Jack is murdered and the silent Maniac Cop breaks Turkel out of jail. With a group of rancid prisoners, they take police department psychologist Susan Riley (Claudia Christian) hostage. When the prisoners attempt a massive prison break, McKinney musters his forces to hunt down Cordell and Turkel and save Susan. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Robert Davi, Claudia Christian, (more)
In this futuristic film, law and order are things of the past as cops are driven off of the crime-infested streets. It is up to a group of vigilantes to set things straight. ~ Iotis Erlewine, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- David Carradine, Robert Tessier, (more)
- 1989
- R
In this actioner, an L.A. cop speeds off to get revenge upon the dirty drug-dealing dogs who killed his partner. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- John Matuszak, Ronny Cox, (more)
- 1988
Bill Bixby stars as physicist Dr. David Banner, the mild-mannered alter ego of the raging green mutant The Hulk (Lou Ferrigno), in this made-for-TV film based on the 1978 series (which was inspired by the Marvel Comics characters). In this outing, Dr. Banner teams with Thor, the Norse god of thunder. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bill Bixby, Lou Ferrigno, (more)
- 1988
- R
Lance Henriksen stars as hit man Chris Caleek, hired by the mob to off the prosecution's key witness. However, Caleek is given the wrong address, and instead kidnaps the child of innocent Jack Collins (Jan-Michael Vincent). ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jan-Michael Vincent, Leo Rossi, (more)
Michelle Pfeiffer is Married to the Mob in this comedy. The wife of Mafia hitman Alec Baldwin, Pfeiffer regularly chastizes her husband for his underhanded line of work. Baldwin refuses to entertain any thoughts of quitting the mob-and besides, he's got a good thing going with Nancy Travis, the promiscuous girl friend of gang boss Dean Stockwell. When Stockwell catches on to Travis' peccadilloes, he murders both his mistress and the unlucky Baldwin. At Baldwin's funeral, Stockwell is overwhelmed by Pfeiffer's beauty, and immediately begins plying her with expensive gifts. But Pfeiffer is through with this sort of thing, and with her young son in tow, she leaves town, hoping to start life anew. Upon making the acquaintance of bumbling, seemingly sincere Matthew Modine, Pfeiffer is convinced that Modine is just another mob flunkey. But it's even worse: Modine is an FBI agent, ordered to get to Stockwell by using Pfeiffer as bait. Reluctantly (he's grown quite fond of her himself), Modine blackmails Pfeiffer into setting up a rendezvous with Stockwell. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Michelle Pfeiffer, Matthew Modine, (more)
- 1987
- R
Sergeant J.J. Striker (Charles Napier) is a hard-drinking cop who tracks down a serial killer that can seemingly repel bullets in this routine crime drama made in 1985. Sommers (Robert Zdar) kills prostitutes and paints Chinese symbols on his victims. Rene (Michelle Reese) is the hooker who teems up with Striker in an attempt to nab the killer. Gary Crosby plays an unpopular cop caught with a transvestite prostitute, with a bevy of beauties led by Tally Chanel and Ola Ray who play the ill-fated victims. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Charles Napier, Michelle Reese, (more)
- 1987
- R
A syndicate of Los Angeles gangsters is kidnapping beautiful young women, drugging them, and forcing them to participate in the filming of pornographic movies. A young woman teams up with a vice cop to try to find her sister, whom she suspects of falling victim to this gang. ~ Brian Gusse, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- David Naughton, Barbara Crampton, (more)
- 1987
- R
A surprisingly slick flick from Emperor of Exploitation Fred Olen Ray, the story (which Ray co-wrote with T.L. Lankford, borrowing heavily from the director's earlier Biohazard) begins when a satellite carrying top-secret bio-engineered mutants plummets to Earth and disgorges its slavering contents in a scrap-yard outside Los Angeles. Hot on the beast's slimy trail are a pair of L.A. cops (Russ Meyer-veteran Charles Napier and the miscast Ann Turkel), who butt heads with their chief (Bo Svenson), the military, and the scientists who bred the monster -- until the inevitable confrontation, which features a no-holds-barred grudge match between the toothy slime-demon and a chainsaw-wielding Napier. Campy, fun performances by the talented leads (especially Julie Newmar as a psychic who assists the investigation) elevate this material far beyond the limitations of its hoary premise and Alien-esque monster. ~ Cavett Binion, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Charles Napier, Ann Turkel, (more)
- 1986
Season Three of Murder She Wrote begins with the first episode of a two-part story, in which mystery writer Jessica Fletcher (Angela Lansbury) pays a visit to the Carmody Circus, an extremely small-time operation. It seems that Jessica has evidence that one of the circus' employees, a roustabout-clown who calls himself Carl, is actually her brother-in-law Neil (Jackie Cooper), who has long been presumed dead. No sooner does Jessica link up with Neil than the man is accused of murdering the circus' hateful manager Hank Sutter (Charles Napier). A young Courtney Cox appears as Neil's granddaughter, Carol Bannister. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1986
In the second half of Murder She Wrote's two-part Season Three opener, Jessica's long-missing brother in law Neil Fletcher (Jackie Cooper), who has been working under an alias with the Carmody Circus, has confessed to the murder of circus manager Hank Sutter. Jessica (Angela Lansbury) is convinced that Neil is innocent, and that he is covering up for somebody else--and this proves to be a reasonable conclusion when a second murder occurs, in which the victim is rival circus owner Harry Kingman (Joe Dorsey). Seriously hampering Jessica's investigation is the stone wall of resistance built up by the highly clannish circus folk--and by the curiously hostile local authorities. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1986
- R
Scott Youngblood (Michael Pare) is a vengeful marine who goes after the slimy crooks who murdered his sister Kim (Lynda Bridges) in this uneven action drama. Driven to a life of drugs and prostitution, Kim dies at the hands of the druglord's evil enforcer Silke (Eddie Avoth). With the help of his military-issue Colt 45 and the kind-hearted prostitute Virginia (Tawny Kitaen), Scott resigns his commission and plans his revenge on the gang. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Michael Paré, Tawny Kitaen, (more)
A wildly inventive and entertaining comic nightmare from former Roger Corman prodigy Jonathan Demme (The Silence of the Lambs), this screwball odyssey is a ride to remember. Jeff Daniels plays clean-cut New York bond trader Charlie Driggs, who accepts a ride home from a strange but attractive lower-class woman named Lulu (Melanie Griffith). The sexy Louise Brooks lookalike doesn't take him home, but shanghais him for a bizarre roadtrip to Virginia that includes kinky bondage sex, destruction of property, and robbery. Things get stranger when Lulu tells Charlie that her real name is Audrey and takes him home to meet her mother, asking him to pose as her husband. The charade continues until her high-school reunion, where the roadtrip (and the entire film) takes a sharp U-turn into psycho-thriller territory. Audrey's dangerously psychotic ex-con husband, Ray Sinclair (Ray Liotta), shows up. What had been a liberating fling for Charlie turns into a bloody and vicious battle for survival. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jeff Daniels, Melanie Griffith, (more)
- 1986
Italian director Ruggero Deodato is best known for his notorious Cannibal Holocaust and the brutal action film Inferno in Diretta. In this derivative slasher entry, Deodato shows very little of the vicious realism which distinguished those films. A group of average teenagers vacation at a campground run by the vituperative David Hess (Last House on the Left) and his wife (Mimsy Farmer). The teens are murdered one by one by an unseen killer, and the massacre turns out to be the result of Farmer's adulterous affair with local policeman Charles Napier years before, which caused her son to go insane. The main attraction of this film is its cast, which also includes horror veterans John Steiner and Ivan Rassimov, because although Deodato generates a fair amount of suspense in the murder scenes, the effect is weakened by the overly familiar structure. Hess and Farmer are typically strong leads and Napier is at his two-faced best, but Camping del Terrore remains one of Deodato's least interesting films. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide
The dark-horse box-office hit First Blood spawned this even more successful sequel in which Sylvester Stallone, reprising his role as ex-Green Beret loner John Rambo, is extricated from prison by his former superior Colonel Trautman (Richard Crenna) for a top-secret operation to bring back POWs still held in Vietnam. Teamed up with a female Vietnamese freedom fighter (Julia Nickson), Rambo embarks on a "reconnaissance" mission. A love interest develops in the beautiful young guide -- she dies by enemy fire; he seeks revenge. Of course, there are also corrupt American officials behind the mission, and Rambo saves them for last. Over the course of the film, Rambo kills enough communist bad guys to fill the Rose Bowl, using everything from fishing line to exploding arrowheads to rocket launchers. Stallone mumbles, grunts, and groans his way through this laughable and often insulting film intended to exploit anti-communist fervor at the height of the Reagan years. ~ Jeremy Beday, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Sylvester Stallone, Richard Crenna, (more)
- 1984
It's up to Harry (Harry Anderson) to sort out a truly messy situation when a woman (Marcia Rodd) who has recently married for a second time is confronted with Husband Number One, who'd been erroneously reported killed in Vietnam. D.D. Howard makes her second and final appearance as Charly Tracy, temporary replacement for departed court clerk Lana Wagner (Karen Austin). This is the last episode of Night Court's first season, and the last to feature Paula Kelly as public defender Liz Williams. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Three children, who fear being put into a foster home after the death of their parents, take flight into the wilderness with their uncle. ~ All Movie Guide
