Mary Ellen O'Neill Movies
- 1981
- R
Also known as Planet of Horrors, this film follows a group of astronauts as they travel into space to retrieve the survivors of a spaceship crash. When they arrive on the planet, the crew runs into some hostile aliens who attempt to gorily wipe them out. ~ Iotis Erlewine, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Edward Albert, Erin Moran, (more)
- 1981
Made for television, the movie concerns a young unmarried girl who must decide whether to have an abortion. With the help of her own mother (Susan Clark), she tries to make the right decision. ~ John Bush, All Movie Guide
Foxes details the exploits of four teenage San Fernando Valley girls as they drink, dope and sleep their way into oblivion. Jeanie (Jodie Foster, in a standout performance), the most grounded of the quartet, deals with her burned-out working-student-mother (Sally Kellerman, also excellent) while playing mother to her cohorts; Annie (Cherie Curie), a promiscuous drug-vacuum, attempts to dodge her psychotic police officer-father while partying round the clock; Madge (Marilyn Kagan), an overweight tag-along, who tries desperately to fit in with her wilder friends; and Deirdre (Kandice Stroh); an insecure liar and also-ran. While the performances (particularly the aforementioned) are good, and the direction is solid, the script doesn't seem to go anywhere; maybe that's the point, though, since neither do the characters in their vacuous, instant-gratification-based existences. ~ Jeremy Beday, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jodie Foster, Scott Baio, (more)
After the death of Bruce Lee in 1973, writer/director Robert Clouse made several attempts to reproduce the success of his Enter the Dragon, which belatedly made Lee a household name in America. Clouse felt (with good reason) that Jackie Chan could be the next big martial arts star in America, and he crafted this feature with him in mind. Jerry Kwan (Chan) is a Korean immigrant trying to make good in Chicago in the 1930s. Work isn't easy to find for an Asian immigrant. Jerry is forced by Domenici (Jose Ferrer), a well-connected mobster, to represent him in a no-holds-barred, winner-take-all battle in Texas. But can Jerry handle the pressure? The Big Brawl was Jackie Chan's first starring role in an American film, but Chan wouldn't break through in the United States until the 1996 U.S. release of Rumble in the Bronx. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jackie Chan, José Ferrer, (more)
- 1980
At first reluctant to accompany Helen (Roxie Roker) and Jenny (Berlinda Tolbert) to a male striptease club, Louise (Isabel Sanford) determines to go anyway when her husband, George (Sherman Hemsley), orders her not to go. The outraged George conspires with Helen's husband, Tom (Franklin Cover), to teach the girls a lesson. But to do this, our heroes must slip into the strip club themselves...and five points for anyone who guesses what happens next. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Sherman Hemsley, Isabel Sanford, (more)
- 1980
- R
With a cast sure to please cult and horror fans alike, this pseudo-women's-prison film from director Hikmet Avedis is a good bet for genre followers. Pretty Dianne Hull plays Kelly McIntire, a disco bartender who is poisoned as part of a botched murder scheme and sent to a mental hospital. Once there, she is raped by evil orderly Carl (Bo Hopkins), witnesses murders and suicides, and eventually escapes only to be dragged screaming back to the horrors of the fifth floor. Cathey Paine, who played Leslie Van Houten in Helter Skelter, is among the many familiar faces, which also include such horror icons as Robert Englund and Michael Berryman. But the film belongs to Bo Hopkins, who is all smiling menace and who turns in a scary performance and gives the film what force it has, as screenwriter Meyer Dolinsky puts Hull through some rather unconvincing maneuvers in the lead. Still, although there are a number of lapses in logic, they don't detract from the frightening premise that almost any statement or action could be construed as a sign of dementia in the proper circumstances. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bo Hopkins, Diane Hull, (more)
Two unwed youths head for New York tenements with their child after they are driven from their homes. ~ Kristie Hassen, All Movie Guide
Tim Conway as woeful boxer Bags and Don Knotts as his dim-witted sidekick Shake are out to save a gym and do the impossible in this predictable, cliched comedy from director Michael Preece. The setting is the 1930s and Bags is trying to make it as a boxer. Gangster Mike (Robin Clarke) decides to take advantage of the two losers, so he sets Bags up for a big championship match against a bruiser appropriately nicknamed the Butcher (Michael LaGuardia). At stake is more than the one-sided match, the dull duo's friend "Pop" Morgan (David Wayne) has bet all he has on Bags -- he needs money to save his gym from the clutches of the gangster. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Tim Conway, Don Knotts, (more)
- 1979
- R
A guy who lives for cars and girls find both on Los Angeles's main drag for cruising in this teen-oriented comedy from the '70s. Bobby (Bill Adler) is a kid from middle-of-nowhere California who is crazy for cars. Bobby's girlfriend Jo (Susanne Severeid) is more interested in settling down than racing, so when he hears about Van Nuys Boulevard in Los Angeles, the number-one place for hot rodders to cruise in California, he hops in his souped-up van and hits the highway. Arriving in L.A. Bobby hits Van Nuys and soon meets a handful of other gearheads, including Chooch (David Hayward), who has been king of the strip for years and lives with his car in his garage; Greg (Dennis Bowen), a nice guy chasing his dream girl; Zass (Dana Gladstone), a hard-nosed cop trying to shut down the hot-rodders; and Wanda (Tara Strohmeier), a beautiful carhop who serves up sex along with cheeseburgers. But things really take a turn for Bobby when he crosses paths with Moon (Cynthia Wood), a pretty girl who also digs cars and whose van is a match for his own. Cynthia Wood, who played Moon, was Playboy Magazine's Playmate of the Year in 1974, and later played a model for the magazine visiting troops in Vietnam in Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bill Adler, Cynthia Wood, (more)
