Howard Ross Movies

This fast-paced film stars (Conrad Nichols) as the tough Captain Williams, head of a crack commando squad who goes into Afghanistan to save the U.S.S.R. -- and indirectly, the U.S. -- from some very bad publicity. A journalist and his daughter have evidence that the Russians are using biological and chemical weapons in their war in Afghanistan. The unit of five commandos smuggle themselves into Afghanistan through its neighbor Iran, bribing the leaders of that country with some spare parts for its war planes (shades of Iran-Contra!). Once inside the country they discover that the journalist has already died from exposure to nerve gas, and his daughter is already getting sick. Williams starts to guess that they are all being set up because everything is going just a little too well, and he adjusts his plans accordingly. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Jack Hedley of The Anniversary stars as a hardbitten police lieutenant tracking a sadistic sex-killer in this gruesome thriller from splatter-maven Lucio Fulci. The misogynistic script (by Fulci and prolific collaborators Gianfranco Clerici and Vincenzo Mannino) posits a femme-hating psycho (who talks like Donald Duck) slashing beautiful women with a switchblade and a straight-razor because his daughter is in the hospital and will never grow up to be beautiful. Fulci was apparently trying to work in a statement about American competitiveness by making his heroine (Antonella Interlenghi) an aspiring Olympic athlete, and having a killer who is concerned that his daughter will never be "the best," but the point gets lost amidst the buckets of blood and gratuitously kinky sex scenes. Pandering to the lowest common denominator as never before in his career, Fulci showed with this blatant play for the sicko slasher crowd that the days of well-plotted, stylish Italian horror were gone, replaced with the most vicious sort of sexual violence and perversion. Despite all of that, there is one fairly masterful sequence in which the suspect's S&M sex partner learns his identity from a radio broadcast and must untie herself and escape while he sleeps. This scene is tense and nerve-wracking, a high-point of genuine fear amidst a nauseating collage of metal blades slicing female flesh. A shameful piece of work that makes Mario Landi's Giallo a Venezia look positively liberated, it co-stars Renato Rossini, Andrea Occhipinti, and Paolo Malco, with cult figures Alessandra Delli Colli, Daniela Doria, and Barbara Cupisti on the chopping block. Cinematographer Luigi Kuveiller, editor Vincenzo Tomassi, and composer Francesco De Masi have all done better work. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide

The centuries-old spirit of a wolf creature possesses the body of a young woman in this horror effort also known as Werewolf Woman. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide

Wallach and Testi rob a jewelry store, and when Wallach suspects a double cross, he goes to the Stateline Motel to collect the jewels. An Italian The Postman Always Rings Twice ~ All Movie Guide

In this violent Italian crime drama, a Mafia capo hires an assassin to slay his rivals. The louse then plots to turn the hit-man in to the cops. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

This raw Italian political melodrama investigates the underbelly of Rome in the early '70s, exposing drugs, crime and sexual scandal. Many of the characters and episodes are based on incidents which made Italian newspaper headlines in that period. Throughout, it implies that one important behind-the-scenes personage ("number one") is pulling the strings of the characters. The film's tone of outrage clearly differentiates it from a more easygoing film exploring the similar nightlife of 1960s Rome, La Dolce Vita. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

61-year-old British character actress Patricia Hayes starred in this London Network Television sitcom as an aged pensioner named Lilian. The fun began when Lilian became a lodger in the home of dyspeptic septuagenarian Madge, portrayed by Till Death Do Us Part alumnus Dandy Nichols. In other words, it was "Grumpy Old Women." The Trouble With Lilian was broadcast from July 3 to August 7, 1971. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This drama, based on Alexander Dumas' novel, chronicles the doomed love between Lord Horatio Nelson and the scandalous Lady Emma Hamilton. The tale begins when luscious country girl Emma, who possesses feminine charms no man can resist, uses her beauty to charm her way into the inner circle of the social elite, eventually marrying the prominent Lord Hamilton. She then has an affair with the naval hero, Nelson, whom she marries after her first husband dies. She even has a child with her new man. When he dies, however, she is deeply hurt to discover that her aristocratic "friends" will not allow her to attend the honored man's funeral. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Set near the end of World War II in the Netherlands, Dirty Heroes concerns a group of ex-convicts recruited into the U.S. Army to recover Dutch jewels originally stolen by the Nazis as well as confiscated Allied plans. Ennio Morricone contributed the score music. ~ John Bush, All Movie Guide

Erminio Salvi (Seven Adventures of Ali Baba) directed this bloody, peculiar spaghetti western shot in Florence, Italy. The U.S. Cavalry hires Johnny Texas to shepherd a wagon train through hostile territory. The clever Johnny runs afoul of a band of outlaws, blows up a fort, and mixes it up with a spy (Monika Brugger) undercover as a dancehall girl. Salvio fills the film with bizarre touches, like dressing the Cavalry in blue and red (blue and gold was the proper combination) and having Brugger travel 400 miles to deliver blasting caps which are never used. This is a genuinely strange failure which might almost pass for pseudo-surrealism if it wasn't so obviously based on poor planning and bad research. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide