Martine Beswicke Movies

Director John Duigan brings Jean Rhys' difficult 1966 best-selling novel to the screen. It's a story meant to be a prequel to Charlotte Bronte's novel Jane Eyre, surmising what drove the first Mrs. Rochester mad in that novel. In Jamaica in the 1840s, slavery has been recently outlawed. Plantation owner Annette Cosway (Rachel Ward) has become so poor that she marries a rich, boorish Englishman whom she does not love. Her husband, Paul Mason (Michael York), is a sexist, racist tyrant who mistreats his servants and his wife. Paul flees to England after the servants and their countrymen revolt and burn down the mansion, killing Annette's young son. Annette goes insane and is consigned to the care of a servant. Her daughter Antoinette (Karina Lombard) is placed in a convent until she is old enough to inherit the property, but the inheritance depends on her marrying a proper husband. By previous arrangement, she marries Edward Rochester (Nathaniel Parker). At first they are lustily in love, but Rochester proves to be as elitist who is as disrespectful as Mason. Rochester has title to all of Antoinette's property, but he despises Jamaica and wants to return to England. He also fears the black magic of Christophene (Claudia Robinson), who mixes up a voodoo potion which ends up driving the couple farther apart. ~ Michael Betzold, Rovi

Sent directly to video, the fourth installment in the Critters series picks up the action with Charlie (Don Keith Opper) about to destroy the last of the critter eggs. A holographic apparition warns him, however, that every species must be preserved by galactic law; the eggs are transported into deep space, and Charlie is accidentally carted along, beginning yet another freaky adventure. ~ John Bush, Rovi

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, Rovi

In this fast-paced actioner, a brave young woman must deliver a specially designed, top-secret super-destructo armored motorcycle that runs on oxygen to the US military after the man assigned to deliver it, her lover, is murdered by enemy agents. Soon after finding his body, the woman finds a video he made that tells her how to work the machine and where she must take it. Unfortunately for her, the enemy is out there waiting and determined to steal the bike for themselves. Part of the fun in this film is looking for popular B movie stars from years' past. Such stars include Huntz Hall, Troy Donahue, and Michael Reagan. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

This is a soap opera about a rich, suave, but self-aggrandizing villain and the women who either love or hate him. The melodrama sudses up with Ernie Stoddard's (Tony Curtis) determination to bring legal gambling to an island off the California coast and a local councilman's equally strong determination to stop him. The catch is Stoddard's ex-wife Erin (Carol Lynley) is now married to the councilman, but her heart still skips a beat when Stoddard walks into the room. The councilman is her third husband; her first, Stoddard's partner, was apparently killed by parties unknown. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

The notorious madam Xaviera Hollander travels to Tinseltown to film her illustrious autobiography in this comedy. The trouble begins when she encounters a few crooked producers looking to exploit her. Look for a variety of second-string and cult stars including Martine Beswick, Dick Miller, and Adam West. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

Robert Altman protégé Joan Tewkesbury called the directorial shots on the made-for-TV The Tenth Month. After a whirlwind affair with famed concert pianist Keith Michell, middle-aged, unmarried Carol Burnett becomes pregnant. Rather than seek out the father, she decides to raise the baby by herself. Though she'd previously played comparatively "straight" roles in such films as The Front Page (1974), The Tenth Month represented Carol Burnett's TV dramatic debut, as well as her first post-Carol Burnett Show project (the producer was her husband Joe Hamilton). Adapted by Ms. Tewkesbury from a novel by Laura Z. Hobson, The Tenth Month premiered on September 16, 1979. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Though not actually a film addressing the evil lure of cream-filled chocolate cakes, this amusingly cheesy made-for-TV opus from director Curtis Harrington pits a relatively normal suburban family against a slavering, demonically-possessed German shepherd whose hunger for human souls far exceeds that of the normal household pet. Although not above resorting to the usual throat-maulings, the satanic psycho-pup's preferred method of attack is to supernaturally cause the deaths of various friends and neighbors, in a style reminiscent of The Omen. Though the gory potential of this scenario is obviously dulled by the TV-movie format, there are enough implied shocks and chills to keep up the pace -- particularly a grueling scene in which Dad finds himself unable to resist the urge to plunge his hand into a spinning lawnmower blade, while the possessed pooch looks on with tongue-wagging glee. ~ Cavett Binion, Rovi

Originally made to be a television pilot, this sci-fi thriller is set in the future and chronicles the exploits of a trio of space travellers who thaw out after having spent nearly two centuries in suspended animation, return to earth and find it inhabited by clones. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

In this thriller a paranoid woman, locked inside a deserted TV studio, begins to go mad with the fear that a killer is stalking her. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

Franco Franchi, best known as half of the comedy duo Franco and Ciccio, stars with cult favorite Martine Beswicke in this crude parody of Bernardo Bertolucci's Ultimo Tango a Parigi. In contrast to the original's brutish Brando, Franchi's character is constantly dominated by the aggressive Beswicke and every other woman in his life, including his cruel wife (Gina Rovere) and a mentally unbalanced filmmaker (Franca Valeri) obviously modeled on Lina Wertmuller. Beswicke steals the show in a predatory variant on Maria Schneider's role, and brings a touch of class to a generally lowbrow production. The humor is primarily of the cheap bathroom variety, as subtlety has never been director Nando Cicero's strong point, but there are some genuine laughs for the tolerant. The English title of the film is Last Tango in Zagarol. ~ Robert Firsching, Rovi

Hollywood Blue is a compilation of scenes taken from cinematic pornography over the years. Mickey Rooney and June Wilkerson are interviewed and give their thoughts about the late Jane Mansfield. Supposedly, Marilyn Monroe is the subject of one film where the female writhes on the floor in her underpants. Another film is a homosexual meeting in a park between a sailor and a marine. One of the performers went on to a successful career as a rugged western film hero. ~ Dan Pavlides, Rovi