Roy Scheider Movies
One of the most unique and distinguished of all Hollywood actors, Roy Scheider first hit his career peak in the 1970s, and will forever be associated with the "American film renaissance" of that decade thanks to his prominent billing in four vital motion pictures from the period: The French Connection (1971), Klute (1971), Jaws (1975), and All That Jazz (1979). As this list demonstrates, Scheider exhibited versatility in choice of material. He also, however, established a trademark persona that carried him from project to project: that of a slightly sardonic, wizened everyman who nonetheless evinced an unmistakable degree of sensitivity and emotional fragility beneath a tough exterior. Born November 10, 1932, in Rutgers, New Jersey, Scheider attended Rutgers University, as well as Franklin and Marshall College, where he studied history; meanwhile, an early boxing injury (in the New Jersey Diamond Gloves Competition) left Scheider with a broken nose that would soon become one of his trademarks. He subsequently joined the United States Air Force and served three years, ascending to the rank of first lieutenant, then returned to Franklin and Marshall for drama work, beginning with a much-acclaimed performance in Shakespeare's Richard III.Scheider inaugurated his professional career as a thespian by cutting his chops on the New York stage, as Mercutio in the New York Shakespeare Festival's 1961 production of Romeo and Juliet, and appeared in a couple of shoestring-budget cheapies (such as the 1963 Curse of the Living Corpse). Additional movie roles followed, but the actor really only made his breakthrough in 1971, with two of the said parts -- in Klute (as the pimp of hooker Bree Daniels) and in William Friedkin's groundbreaking cop thriller The French Connection (as Buddy Russo, the somewhat low-key and subdued partner of Gene Hackman's manic Popeye Doyle). An additional cop role, in The Seven-Ups (1973), followed, but by this point, Scheider had reportedly grown concerned that he would be pegged and typecast as a policeman and decided to branch out with an offbeat turn in the romantic comedy Sheila Levine Is Dead and Living in New York (1975). When that picture unequivocally flopped, Steven Spielberg helped rescue Scheider (and in many ways put the actor on the proverbial map) by casting him as the lead, Police Chief Martin Brody, in the blockbuster shocker Jaws (1975). After this, roles proliferated; Scheider evoked a death-wish-laden Bob Fosse in the gonzo musical drama All That Jazz (1979, a part he inherited from Jaws co-star Richard Dreyfuss), and also chalked up a series of leads in Hitchcockian thrillers including Jonathan Demme's The Last Embrace (1979) and Robert Benton's Still of the Night (1982).
Scheider remained equally active through the 1980s and '90s, though his choice of projects waxed slightly more uneven, ranging from the inspired (1986's 52 Pick-Up, 1990's The Russia House) to the abysmal (1986's The Men's Club). The actor retained a firm hold on his craft, however, and delivered some of the finest work of his career late in the game, with prominent roles in David Cronenberg's 1991 Naked Lunch (as a wiseacre physician) and Bart Freundlich's family-themed psychodrama The Myth of Fingerprints (1997, as a seriously deranged father with a seedy and twisted past). The 1990s also found Scheider embarking on a television career for the first time, with a regular role as Captain Nathan Hale Bridger in Steven Spielberg's sci-fi adventure series seaQuest DSV (1993-1996). Scheider would return to television a decade later, with a recurring portrayal of Fyodor Chevchenko on the prime-time drama Third Watch; in the mean time, the actor continued to tackle roles in additional features and even direct-to-video movies, including Time Lapse (2001), Red Serpent (2002), Wes Craven Presents Dracula II: Ascension (2003), and The Poet (2007). By the mid-2000s, Scheider contracted multiple myeloma and began to suffer from related health problems; he died in February 2008 of complications from a staph infection. The actor was 75. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide
This belated sequel to Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) is directed by Peter Hyams. Roy Scheider plays the astronaut/skipper of a U.S.-Soviet space mission, sent to find out what happened to the missing Discovery flight that carried Keir Dullea into the beyond in the original 2001. Scheider's polyglot crew includes Americans John Lithgow and Bob Balaban (the latter a computer whiz, responsible for the notorious HAL 9000) and Russians Helen Mirren, Elya Baskin and Natasha Schneider. The reason for this international mixture is that the world is on the brink of nuclear war, and it is hoped that the space mission will assure east-west solidarity (in this respect, 2010 dates far more than 2001, given the collapse of the Iron Curtain). When the astronauts catch up with Dullea, still in orbit around Jupiter, producer/director/writer Hyams attempts to demystify the enigmatic climax of 2001. Arthur C. Clarke, author of the story upon which 2001 was based, appears in 2010 as a man on a park bench. Incidentally, the voice-over credited to Olga Mallsnerd is actually Candice Bergen. (The name Mallsnerd is a play on the name of one of the characters created by her ventriloquist father Edgar.) ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Roy Scheider, John Lithgow, (more)
Wealthy metallurgist Harry Mitchell (Roy Scheider) lives to regret his extramarital affair with pretty young Cini (Kelly Preston). A trio of vicious blackmailers (John Glover, Robert Trebor, Clarence Williams III) show Mitchell a videotape of his most recent roll in the sack with Cini. They demand a huge amount of hush money, but Mitchell calls their bluff, going so far as to tell his politicially ambitious wife Barbara (Ann-Margret) about the affair. But the extortionists haven't even gotten started yet. Tying Mitchell to a chair, they force him to watch a tape of Cini being horribly murdered-with the evidence arranged so that Mitchell will be accused of the crime. But Mitchell remains firm in his refusal to pay up, whereupon he mounts a "fight fire with fire" plan all his own. 52 Pick Up was based on a novel by Elmore Leonard, which was previously filmed in 1984 as The Ambassador. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Roy Scheider, Ann-Margret, (more)
In the late '60s, American culture experienced a period of change as the youth movement challenged conventional attitudes about politics, sex, drugs, and gender issues, while the advancement of the Vietnam War found many citizens questioning the actions and wisdom of their government for the first time. As American attitudes continued to evolve, so did the American film industry; as costly big-budget blockbusters nearly brought the major studios to the brink of collapse, smaller and more personal films such as Bonnie and Clyde, Easy Rider, and Five Easy Pieces demonstrated there was a ready audience for bold and challenging entertainment. As the '60s faded into the 1970s, American cinema moved into an exciting period of creativity and stylistic innovation, which led to such landmark films as The Godfather, MASH, The Last Picture Show, Shampoo, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Chinatown, and Taxi Driver, and new freedom for directors and screenwriters. Ironically, however, it was another pair of big-budget blockbusters directed by students of the new wave of filmmaking -- Jaws and Star Wars -- which brought the studios back to power and put an end to Hollywood's flirtation with offbeat creativity. A Decade Under the Influence is a documentary which explores the rise and fall of new American filmmaking in the 1970s, and features interviews with many of the key directors, screenwriters, and actors whose work typified the movement, including Francis Ford Coppola, Robert Altman, Martin Scorsese, Paul Schrader, Roger Corman, Dennis Hopper, Jon Voight, and Julie Christie. A Decade Under the Influence received its world premier at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival, and an expanded version of the film was later shown on the premium cable outlet The Independent Film Channel; the documentary was the final work of co-director Ted Demme, who died shortly before the film was completed. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, (more)
"It's showtime!" In this part film à clef, part musical phantasmagoria, director/choreographer Bob Fosse takes a Felliniesque look at the life of a driven entertainer. Joe Gideon (Roy Scheider, channeling Fosse) is the ultimate work (and pleasure)-aholic, as he knocks back a daily dose of amphetamines to juggle a new Broadway production while editing his new movie, not to mention ex-wife Audrey (Leland Palmer), steady girlfriend Kate (Ann Reinking), a young daughter, and various conquests. Joe cannot, however, avoid intimations of mortality from white-clad vision Angelique (Jessica Lange) that lead him to look back at his life as he heads for a near-inevitable coronary and his departure from this mortal coil with the appropriate razzle-dazzle. Taking his cue from Federico Fellini's 8 1/2 (1963), Fosse moves from realistic dance numbers to extravagant flights of cinematic fancy, as Joe meditates on his life, his women, and his death. Following a similarly dark revisionist vein as Martin Scorsese's New York, New York (1977), Fosse shows the stiff price that entertaining exacts on entertainers (among other things, he intercuts graphic footage of open-heart surgery with a song and dance), mercilessly reversing the feel-good mood of classical movie musicals. Critics praised Fosse's daring even as they damned his self-indulgence, while Scheider was lauded for giving the best performance of his career. Though not a disastrous failure, All That Jazz came nowhere near the popularity of 1978's Grease, as late '70s audiences increasingly turned away from "difficult" movies. For all its excesses, Fosse's fiercely personal approach turned All That Jazz into another striking work from one of the few directors able to make, and experiment with, movie musicals after the 1960s. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Roy Scheider, Jessica Lange, (more)
- 1996
- Add American Experience: Spy in the Sky - The Untold Story of America's U-2 Spy Plane to QueueAdd American Experience: Spy in the Sky - The Untold Story of America's U-2 Spy Plane to top of Queue
Written, produced, and directed by Linda Garmon, this episode of the Emmy award-winning PBS series The American Experience chronicles the development of the CIA supersonic spy plane dubbed the U-2, and the international crisis triggered when American pilot Francis Gary Powers got shot down while flying the jet over the Soviet Union. As Roy Scheider narrates, the 1960 incident ended U-2 flights over the Soviet Union, but it was a U-2 that later discovered the missiles the Russians tried to sneak into Cuba. The documentary features interviews with various people involved in these historic events, including U-2 pilots Bob Ericson and Hervey Stockman. Highlights also include archival film footage from Lockheed Martin Skunk Works, the BBC, the CIA, the National Air and Space Museum, and Fox Movietone News, as well as archival photographs from the CIA, NASA Ames Research Center, and UPI/Bettmann Archive, Inc. Hosted by David McCullough. ~ Steve Blackburn, All Movie Guide
A man returns to his hometown determined to find out the truth about a 20-year-old crime in this drama. Harry Porter (Roy Scheider) is the mayor of a city that, while once quiet and peaceful, has since become a hotbed of vice and corruption. Russell Stark (Robert Patrick), one of the top men in the city's police department, has made it his job to keep any evidence of wrongdoing from sticking to Porter, but that may change with the return of Michael Daniels (Dana Ashbrook). Michael's twin brother Jessie disappeared under suspicious circumstances two decades ago, and his body was never found; Michael is now a trained forensic pathologist who has landed a job with the police department, and in his spare time he's been running tests on a number of "John Doe" bodies at the coroner's office, determined to find out what happened to Jessie. Angels Don't Sleep Here also features Kelly Rutherford and Kari Wuhrer. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Dana Ashbrook, Kelly Rutherford, (more)
- 1972
Scenes of the real Munich are interspersed with shots of studio mockups in Assignment: Munich. Roy Scheider stars as an American expatriate running a saloon in Munich (shades of Casablanca). He agrees to help the US government locate a cache of gold, appropriated by the Nazis during the war. This TV pilot was a long time in getting a network commitment--so long, in fact, that star Roy Scheider took another job in the interim. By the time the series premiered in the fall of 1972, the role played by Scheider had been rewritten several times for several actors; Robert Conrad, who was then "between jobs", ended up playing the part. The city of Munich was also "replaced", and the series was retitled Assignment: Vienna. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1998
In this dark comedy, three sisters try to make the most of their lives in a supremely dysfunctional family. Maryann (Catherine Corpeny), Elizabeth (Deborah Hedwall), and Gail (Wendy Hoopes) were raised by their eccentric mother Nora (Olympia Dukakis), mostly without the help of their father Tom (Roy Scheider), a policeman who left the house 15 years earlier and never came back. Now Maryann is a nervous wreck who cries most of the time, Elizabeth is a lawyer who works as a public defender and doesn't enjoy it very much, and Gail prefers to stay home with her dumb lug of a boyfriend, Junior (James Villemarie). However, they're all busy dealing with Nora, who has decided to build a cavern in the basement (with the help of a jackhammer that threatens to destroy the house), and Tom, who has made an unexpected return after developing a survivalist bent. The sisters eventually have to enlist the help of their Uncle Jack (Edward Herrmann), a priest with rather lax moral fiber, to get things back to "normal." This was the debut feature for writer/director Max Mayer. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Olympia Dukakis, Roy Scheider, (more)
Ex-Vietnam chopper pilot Roy Scheider is now in charge of Blue Thunder, a high-tech copter designed to quell possible terrorism during the 1984 LA Olympics. His onetime comrade-in-arms Malcolm McDowell, now his bitter enemy, will stop at nothing to neutralize Blue Thunder and expedite an armed takeover of the United States. Well, there's the plot: now sit back and enjoy those eye-popping aerial scenes. Blue Thunder was later adapted into a weekly TV series. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Roy Scheider, Malcolm McDowell, (more)
Roy Scheider) stars as the president of the United States in this tense drama. The briefcase containing the remote launching system that allows the chief executive to fire nuclear weapons from anywhere in the world is stolen by terrorists, and it's up to the Secret Service to get it back. Chain of Command also stars Maria Conchita Alonso, Michael Biehn, and Patrick Muldoon. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Michael Biehn, Roy Scheider, (more)
The Kid Stays in the Picture director Brett Morgen turns his unique eye toward the infamous 1968 Democratic National Convention in this 2006 documentary. Using a star-studded voice cast along with a blend of archival footage and animation, Morgen tells the story of the eight demonstrators who were arrested and tried for conspiracy in the wake of the violent anti-war protests. Featuring the voices of Nick Nolte and Mark Ruffalo among others, Chicago 10 premiered at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival. ~ Matthew Tobey, All Movie Guide
Justice is turned into a game show, with life and death as the stakes, in this satirical drama. Florida governor Bull Tyler (Roy Scheider) is trying to ease the dissatisfaction of his constituents in the midst of a major crime wave by getting tough on wrongdoers, and television producer Marty Rockman (Jerry Springer) has offered him a high-profile way to do just that. Rockman, best known for his splashy reality programs, has come up with an idea for a new show -- "Citizen Verdict," in which an alleged murderer is tried in three hours on broadcast television, with the viewers voting on the guilt or innocence of the accused. If 75 percent or more of those who call in vote to convict, the defendant will be executed as part of a pay-per-view special to follow. Tyler thinks the show could be a good publicity stunt and gives his OK, with Ricky Carr (Raffaello Degruttola), accused of murdering the host of a popular cooking show, given the honor of starring in the first episode. Carr is being defended by Sam Patterson (Armand Assante), a once-respected civil rights lawyer fallen on hard times, while prosecutor Jessica Landers (Justine Mitchell) represents the state. Citizen Verdict was the first directorial project from producer Philippe Martinez. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Armand Assante, Jerry Springer, (more)
- 1988
- R
Travis (Harley Cross) is a nine-year-old boy who lives in Oklahoma with his federally protected parents. After the mob kills his parents for ratting on them, the gangleader demands that Travis be brought to Houston. Cohen (Roy Scheider) is the veteran hitman who signs on for one last job. Much to Cohen's dismay, he is paired with the psychopath Tate (Adam Baldwin). When Cohen does nothing to hide his dislike for his new partner, young Travis begins to play one thug against the other in a psychological mind game in hopes their confrontation will lead to his freedom. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Roy Scheider, Adam Baldwin, (more)
- 1963
Future Jaws star Roy Scheider makes his big screen debut in this forgotten frightener about a deceased New England millionaire who returns from beyond the grave to torment his greedy heirs. Rufus Sinclair suffers from seizures that make it appear as if he has died, and as a result he is terrified that he will one day be buried alive. When Rufus does eventually pass away, his family gathers at the Sinclair estate for the reading of the will. Within that document dwells an ominous clause stating that should his relatives fail to follow his strict demands precisely as stated, Rufus will return from the dead to murder them in the manner which they fear most. Later, when his relatives casually brush off the macabre warning, Rufus returns to prove that he is indeed a man of his word. In addition to serving as Scheider's first feature film venture, Curse of the Living Corpse also marks the only documented film appearance of actress Candice Hilligoss with exception to her starring role in the atmospheric cult classic Carnival of Souls. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
Roy Scheider, Tia Carrere, Daryl Hannah, and Eric Roberts headline writer/director Phillip Leftfield's tense thriller about a newly hitched groom who discovers that you never really know a woman until you marry her. Their courtship was brief, but then again life is short. After exchanging martial vows with an enchanting young woman, the elated groom takes his beautiful new bride on a romantic honeymoon down the foggy Oregon coast. But why does everyone that the couple comes into contact with seem to meet such a grisly demise? As the body count and the tension begin to rise, the once happy husband gradually realizes that his bride's enchanting beauty masks a deep-rooted psychosis. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Roy Scheider, Tia Carrere, (more)
- 2000
Dillan Johansen (Ted McGinley) is a disorganized transit authority supervisor suffering from a serious personal tragedy. His boss, the stern-yet-kindly Stan Marshall (Roy Scheider), is understanding and has a lot of faith in the younger man. That faith -- and Dillan's bravery -- are put to the test the day a major earthquake hits Los Angeles and traps Dillan in an underground tunnel with a handful of subway riders. Dillan works underground to save the panicked citizens from raging fire, rushing water, and a secret cache of toxic chemicals hidden by a corrupt assistant mayor who is now topside trying to get Stan to lure the now-witnesses to the toxins so their deaths might keep his secret a secret. ~ Buzz McClain, All Movie Guide
A checkered past full of deception and anger threatens to bring both a family and a diamond empire crashing to the ground in this absorbing mini-series starring Roy Scheider, Alyssa Milano, and Sean Patrick Flanery. Abandoned by his powerful father Jacob (Scheider) nearly twenty years ago, diamond hunter Johnny Lance (Flanery) returns to South Africa's Emerald Coast to confront a past that continues to haunt him. As simmering tensions quickly swell to a furious boil, Johnny must struggle not only to regain the empire he risked losing two decades ago, but to escape with his own life in a desperate attempt to impress Jacob and elude the vengeful wrath of his half-brother Benedict (Michael Easton). ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
This silly but absorbing horror film from executive producer Roger Corman's New Concorde studio concerns four college students who accept an offer of ten thousand dollars to fix up an old house. What they don't know is that the house was owned by a cult of devil worshippers in the 17th century and that there is a gateway to Hell in the basement. Before long, severed hands are caressing the naked Susan (Suzanne Bridgham) in the shower, her boyfriend Rick (Christian Harmony) is possessed and has sex with their friend Tammy (Lauren Woodland), and goofy Owen (Don Maloney) is menaced by what appears to be a clawed ghost. It's actually Evelyn Van Buren (Teresa De Priest), a demon in human form who slept with the house's original owner, corrupting his soul and leading him to take part in vile Satanic orgies before the whole place was burned to the ground and the current home built on top of the remains. The kids bring in Professor Lamont (Roy Scheider), who reluctantly agrees to investigate and ends up getting his face gorily ripped off his skull by the vengeful Evelyn, whose direct descendant Lydia, a clairvoyant, must help the terrified students battle her ancestor before they all get sucked down to Hell. Writer/director Michael B. Druxman throws in elements of everything from The Haunting to Night of the Demons, but his primary influence seems to be the Italian cult classic L'Aldila. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide
In this actioner, a genius crook concocts an elaborate scheme for kidnapping the President, but before he can enact it, he must bust a certain racecar driver out of prison. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Michael Madsen, Roy Scheider, (more)
In this tense thriller, Peter Connelly (Gordon Currie) is an American security expert attached to the State Department who is assigned to the United States embassy in Paris. Peter reports to Lou Fairchild (Peter Weller) and learns he's to work alongside fellow security man Earl Miller (Roy Scheider). As Peter becomes accustomed to his routine at the embassy, he begins to notice things that seem a bit strange, and he finds himself making the acquaintance of a beautiful but mysterious Russian woman named Kateryna (Yekaterina Rednikova). In time, Peter discovers that his colleagues at the embassy have a lucrative and potentially dangerous sideline -- they sell forged American visas to people who are eager to enter the United States but cannot do so legally. Despite its French setting, Falling Through was actually filmed in Luxembourg. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gordon Currie, Peter Weller, (more)
- 1988
Harold Clurman: A Life of Theatre profiles the career of celebrated director/producer Harold Clurman. A man known for his passionate commitment to working with actors, Clurman devoted his life to the theatrical arts, serving not only as a director and producer, but as a respected critic as well. The program features footage of Clurman on the job delivering thought-provoking lectures and helping actors construct roles. Meryl Streep narrates. Stella Adler, Karl Malden, and Julie Harris are interviewed. ~ Betsy Boyd, All Movie Guide
- 2007
Sibling filmmakers Benjamin and Orson Cummings write, produce, and direct this Hitchcock-influenced noir thriller starring Bill Sage as Davis Meyers, a trophy husband who lives in the Hamptons and resorts to infidelity and murder as a means of producing a suitable heir. By the time local investigator Linus (Roy Scheider) catches wind of the scheme, the stage has already been set for tragedy. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bill Sage, Roy Scheider, (more)
- 1984
This compilation documentary covers the massive anti-nuclear peace march held in New York City on June 12, 1982, including the preparations that led up to the march and interviews with concerned and knowledgeable people on the issue of peace, as well as Japanese survivors of the atomic bomb attacks on Nagasaki and Hiroshima in World War II (see No More Hibakusha). The producers, Robert Richter and Stan Warnow have smoothly spliced-together views of the protest march, its speakers and musicians, filmed by more than 40 separate individuals. Among the noted artists who either were there to lend their presence or contributed their talents in one way or another to the success of the protest (estimated at 1,000,000 people) are Pete Seeger, James Taylor, Carly Simon, Peter, Paul, and Mary, Jerry Stiller, Anne Meara, Roy Scheider, Orson Welles, Ellen Burstyn, Joan Baez, Judd Hirsch, Bianca Jagger, Susan Sarandon, Jill Clayburgh, and others. Meryl Streep and Anne Twomey did a moving voiceover of the testimony of the Japanese atomic bomb blast survivors. Among the non-artistic notables adding stature to the event were Dr. Benjamin Spock, and Helen Caldicott, representing Physicians for Social Responsibility. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Dr. Helen Caldicott, Benjamin Spock, (more)
