Martine Beswicke Movies
One of Great Britain's foremost pin-up girls, the delightful Martine Beswicke has managed the neat trick of being kinky and classy all in one. Billed as "Martin Beswick," Beswicke made her first film appearance as one of the fighting gypsy girls in the 1963 James Bond flick From Russia With Love; she returned to Bondland with a more substantial role in Thunderball (1965). After drawing attention away from a near-naked Raquel Welch in One Million Years B.C. (1966), Beswicke was awarded with the leading role in the similar Prehistoric Women (1967). She attracted the notice of the intelligentsia with her performance as a leather-clad lesbian in 1967's Penthouse, then went on to play half the title role in Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde (1971). By contrast, her portrayal of Xaviera Hollander in The Happy Hooker Goes to Hollywood was a model of restraint. American TV viewers were given ample opportunity to drink in the charms of Martine Beswicke in the 1979 miniseries The Innocent and the Damned -- not to mention her brief but impressive (and fully clothed) appearance in a well-circulated beer commercial of the early '80s. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
From Russia With Love, the second in the series of James Bond films, is the film that solidifies all the Bond film elements into a formula -- the action sequences are intensified and lend greater tension to the proceedings; John Barry's inimitable score makes its first appearance; Q is seen for the first time; and Sean Connery as Bond has nailed down his role as 007 -- accentuating Bond's stylishness and sophistication, while toning down his cold-bloodedness. In From Russia With Love, the bad guys don't want to take over the world. They want something more mundane -- a Russian decoding device. Assigned to the mission of stealing the decoding device are No. 3, former KGB agent Rosa Klebb (Lotte Lenya), and No. 5, Kronsteen (Vladek Sheybal), an expert chess player who has plotted every move of the mission. Kronsteen's plan requires using Bond's weakness for women as an element in acquiring the decoding device. Once Bond obtains the decoding device from Russian cipher clerk Tatiana Romanova (Daniela Bianchi), SPECTRE muscleman Red Grant (Robert Shaw) is to forcibly take it from Bond and kill him. But Bond suspects a trap. Being Bond, however, he can't resist the lure of a beautiful woman. So, flaunting danger, Bond travels to Istanbul to meet Tatiana. The centerpiece of this 007 feature is the thrilling fight to the death between Bond and enemy agent Red Grant aboard the Orient Express. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Sean Connery, Daniela Bianchi, (more)
- 1964
This British comedy details what happens to five sailors and a passenger as they spend fifteen hours on shore leave in London while waiting for their cargo ship to unload. The passenger, a lonely widowed business man named George (Bernard Lee), finds his way to a West End bar, where he meets Wanda (Erika Remberg), a seductive blackmailer, working in cahoots with photographer Paul (Derek Bond). Meanwhile, Lee (John Bonney), an Australian sailor, meets and falls in love with wacky beatnik Penny (Heather Sears). Arthur (David Lodge) tells the sailors that he is going to visit his mother when, in reality, he is heading off to seek a prostitute. Rough-and-tumble Harry (Inigo Jackson) finds himself robbed and left penniless after visiting a Soho saloon. Shy and naive Jamie (Colin Campbell) falls in love with the homeless Jean (Francesca Annis). As the hours go by, Jamie has to decide whether to leave Jean or to jump ship and marry her. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Heather Sears, Bernard Lee, (more)
Thunderball finds James Bond matching wits with the sinister espionage organization S.P.E.C.T.R.E, (which stands for Special Executive for Counterintelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion). This time, S.P.E.C.T.R.E. hijacks a NATO nuclear bomber, hiding the bombs under the ocean depths and threatening to detonate the weapons unless a ransom of 100,000,000 pounds is paid. The mastermind behind this scheme is international business executive Emilio Largo (Adolfo Celi), who maintains a pool full of sharks for the purpose of eliminating enemies and those henchmen who fail to come up to standard. Dispatched to the Bahamas, lucky Mr. Bond enjoys the attentions of three nubile ladies: Largo's mistress Domino Derval (Claudine Auger), British spy Paula Caplan (Martine Beswick, previously seen as a gypsy girl in the 1962 Bond epic From Russia With Love) and enemy agent Fiona Volpe (Luciana Paluzzi). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Sean Connery, Claudine Auger, (more)
This film was advertised with the slogan "See Raquel Welch In Mankind's First Bikini!" While archeologists tell us humans did not live at the same time as dinosaurs, and our prehistoric ancestors probably didn't look much like Ms. Welch and her co-stars, One Million Years B.C. is a good bit more fun than more scientifically accurate portrait of the era might have been. Tumak (John Richardson) of the Rock People is exiled from his tribe after a fight with his father, and after days of endless wandering is in sad shape before he's taken in by the more peaceable Shell People. He attracts the attention of well-proportioned cave woman Loana (Raquel Welch), but once again finds himself a man without a country after his violent nature alienates the Shell People. Along with Raquel (whose character is remarkably well-groomed given the time period), this movie's greatest selling point are the special effects; legendary stop-motion animator Ray Harryhausen created a dazzling collection of prehistoric creatures for this film that still look impressive, even in the more sophisticated era of computer generated imaging technology. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Raquel Welch, John Richardson, (more)
- 1967
A man and woman with a shameful secret are confronted by a pair of sadistic thugs in this unsettling drama. Bruce Victor (Terence Morgan) is a not-so-happily married real estate agent having an affair with Barbara Willason (Suzy Kendall), an overly credulous young woman who believes that Bruce will leave his wife for her, though he has no real intentions of doing so. Through his company, Bruce has access to a furnished flat which he and Barbara use for their liaisons. One morning, while they're at the penthouse, Tom (Tony Beckley) and Dick (Norman Rodway) appear at the door, claiming to be meter readers. Barbara lets them in; they soon tie Bruce to a chair, and after dulling Barbara's senses with alcohol and drugs, they repeatedly violate her. When Tom and Dick finally leave, a seriously distraught Bruce and Barbara wonder if there's any way that they can tell their story to the police without revealing their adultery when Harry (Martine Beswicke) appears at the door, announcing that she is Tom and Dick's parole officer. Writer and director Peter Collinson adapted The Penthouse from the play The Meter Man by Scott Forbes. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Suzy Kendall, Terence Morgan, (more)
It is early in the 20th century, and an American traveler has come to Mexico at just the wrong time to continue living a peaceful life, for the Revolution has begun and he quickly finds himself in the thick of it. At first, he is right in the middle between government troops and the revolutionaries and bandidos as they attack a train. Later, he finds himself among the decidedly scruffy-looking revolutionaries and even finds some romantic interest in a hot-tempered girl who is among them. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gian Maria Volontè, Lou Castel, (more)
Filmed on the sets of One Million Years B.C., this adventure fantasy centers on a hunter who accidentally ends up lost and stranded in a mysterious world ruled by statuesque, raw-meat eating, big-haired and scantily-clad brunettes who enslave their blonde sisters and worship the horns of rhinoceroses. The brunettes capture the hunter place him in a cage with other males who must suffer the terrifying fate of making love to the sexually insatiable Amazon queen (played by Martine Beswick). Over the years, the film has developed a cult following. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Martine Beswicke, Michael Latimer, (more)
- 1970
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, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Mickey Rooney, June Wilkerson, (more)
- 1970
Longstreet was the pilot for one of the better "gimmick" detective series of the 1970s. The title role of Michael Longstreet is played by James Franciscus. Longstreet is a New Orleans insurance investigator who has been permanently blinded in a mysterious bombing which has killed his wife. As he recuperates and trains himself to function in a sighted world, Longstreet determines to avenge his wife's death by continuing his detective work and tracking down his assailant. Longstreet's closest companions are his female braille instructor (Martine Beswick in the pilot, Marliyn Mason in the series) and Pax, his seeing-eye dog. Longstreet was created and produced by Stirling Silliphant of In the Heat of the Night and Naked City fame. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1971
In a clever, gender-bending twist on the classic Robert Louis Stevenson tale, the research done by Dr. Henry Jekyll (Ralph Bates) in the field of artificially-induced human longevity involves experimentation with female hormones. When he partakes of his own formula and the inevitable Jekyll-into-Hyde transformation takes place, he changes into a ravishing female version of himself (famed "B"-movie siren Martine Beswick). Claiming to be Jekyll's sister, Ms. Hyde is lovely but lethal: she uses her alluring charms to seduce men then kills them and absconds with their bodies for use in further experiments. A much more interesting twist comes when Jekyll finds himself falling in love with the girl next door (Susan Brodrick), while simultaneously lusting after the girl's brother (Lewis Fiander) as Hyde. Although Brian Clemens' script manages to exploit this unique premise for shock value, the story fumbles where it counts, failing to fully explore the implicit questions of sexual identity which haunt Jekyll's psyche and burst to the surface when Hyde is on the prowl. ~ Cavett Binion, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ralph Bates, Martine Beswicke, (more)
- 1973
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, All Movie Guide
- 1975
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, All Movie Guide
- 1975
The second and last TV pilot film to bear the Crime Club title, the 1975 Crime Club once again involves a state-of-the-art crime solving organization whose members are professional investigators from various public and private sectors. The principal characters are a detective (Scott Thomas), a reporter (Eugene Roche) and a criminal lawyer (Robert Lansing). The crime in question in this pilot concerned a social outcast who seeks public notoriety by confessing to a series of grisly ice pick murders. The three protagonists combine their brain power to solve the case, but their efforts failed to convince any network to pick up the project. Crime Club joined its 1973 predecessor in Universal's syndicated package of made-for-TV movies. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Scott Thomas, Eugene Roche, (more)
- 1975
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, All Movie Guide
- 1977
Ostensibly a six-hour miniseries adaptation of Bert Hirschfield's novel Aspen, the program actually used only the title of the Hirschfield work; the plot proper was lifted from another novel by a different author, Bart Spicer's The Adversary. Set in the titular Colorado ski resort in the 1960s, the story line incorporated equal amounts of sex, greed, ambition, and murder, with the trial of accused rapist-killer Lee Bishop (Perry King) at the center of the storm, and the efforts by a gangster to grab up the local land, coupled with the amorous misadventures of a jet-setting glamour girl, taking up the slack whenever the plot threatened to lag. Despite a huge and varied cast, Sam Elliott emerged as the star of the proceedings in the role of straight-arrow attorney Tom Keating. Originally shown by the NBC network from November 5 to 7, 1977, Aspen was rebroadcast under the more lurid title The Innocent and the Damned. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Sam Elliott, Perry King, (more)
- 1978
As is customary, Sally Struthers cries buckets in My Husband is Missing (one gets the feeling that she cries buckets at card tricks). Struthers plays the wife of an MIA who is permitted to visit North Vietnam in search of her husband. She meets Canadian journalist Tony Musante, who's anxious to get her story. Struthers and Musante team up to thrash through the jungle wilds of California--er, Southeast Asia--eventually falling in love. Purportedly a "relevant" TV movie, My Husband is Missing shamelessly exploits Vietnam as a mere melodramatic backdrop. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
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, All Movie Guide
- 1979
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, All Movie Guide
- 1980
- R
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, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Martine Beswicke, Adam West, (more)
Jonathan Demme's breakthrough movie featured the shaggy energy and affection for marginal American eccentrics that marked his earlier Citizens Band (1977) and such later films as Something Wild (1986) and Married to the Mob (1988). Melvin Dummar (Paul LeMat) is a barely-getting-by Nevada milkman. One day in the early 1970s, while driving down a lonely highway, Melvin picks up a shaggy, bearded bum (Jason Robards Jr.) and offers him a ride into town. Melvin gives the bum a quarter at the end of the ride, and that, so far as Melvin is concerned, is that. The story goes off on a new tangent, involving the on-and-off marriage between Dummar and his contest-happy wife Lynda (Mary Steenburgen). During one of the multitude of financial crises endured by the Dummars, Melvin discovers that the tramp he picked up was none other than billionaire Howard Hughes -- and when Hughes dies, Melvin inherits $150 million. The movie's wide acclaim included Oscars for Steenburgen and Goldman's script and New York Film Critics Awards in almost all major categories, including Best Picture and awards for Demme, Goldman, Steenburgen, and Robards. Demme would gain even greater attention in the 1990s as the director of The Silence of the Lambs (1991) and Philadelphia (1993). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Paul Le Mat, Jason Robards, Jr., (more)
- 1981
When an "ancient" mummy goes under the X-Ray machine, it turns out that the wrapped-up corpse has been dead only a few weeks--and that a fortune in jewels has been stashed on the body. U.S. Customs agents Brice (John Karlen) and Niven (Edward Grover) consult medical examiner Quincy (Jack Klugman), who puts the pieces together and determines that the mummy was being used in a smuggling operation headquartered in Cairo. Before the intrigue plays itself out, several other people have died at the hands of a group of Nazi war criminals. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1982
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, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Tony Curtis, Carol Lynley, (more)
- 1987
- R
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, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Heather Thomas, Jeffrey Combs, (more)
This horror anthology is hosted by Vincent Price and features a quartet of chilling stories, all of which took place in a single town that seems to inspire people to do horrendous things to each other. The stories contain scenes of graphic violence and considerable gore. The film is also known as From a Whisper to a Scream. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Vincent Price, Clu Gulager, (more)
