Richard Venture Movies

Tommy Lee Jones won an Emmy for his searing performance as wanton killer Gary Gilmore in The Executioner's Song. The film covers the last nine months of Gilmore's life, beginning with his release from prison in 1976. Linking up with teen-age divorcee Nicole Baker (Rosanna Arquette), Gilmore makes a half-hearted effort to go straight, but ends up embarking on a robbery spree that culminates in two cold-blooded murders. Arrested and sentenced to be executed, Gilmore insists upon being put to death (Utah law required a firing squad for this); he spends his final days as a poster boy for anti-death penalty activists and as a "client" for an entrepreneur (Steven Keats) who wants to make a film of Gilmore's life. Adapted by Norman Mailer from his own book, The Executioner's Song originally aired in two parts on November 28 and 29, 1982. It has since been boiled down to a 97-minute theatrical film for European consumption, with additional scenes of violence and nudity. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This fun, silly thriller written and directed by Michael Crichton manages to combine the dramatic murders of beautiful models, a secret conspiracy to use TV commercials for mind-control, and an unusual seeing-eye device which makes the wearer invisible. Plastic surgeon Larry Roberts (Albert Finney) becomes the prime suspect after two models on whom he operated are killed. Larry becomes suspicious because both of the women came into his office asking for very precise and seemingly unnecessary physical alterations. Agreeing to operate, because the women's jobs depended on the surgery, Larry must now clear his own name and save his life and career. With the aid of a friend and model Cindy (Susan Dey), Larry discovers and foils the plot led by corporation-head John Reston (James Coburn). Larry must then fight for his life against Reston's thugs who are equipped with the devices, called "Lookers." This is good, if silly fun and Albert Finney does his best with a somewhat implausible script. ~ Linda Rasmussen, All Movie Guide

A young girl's dangerous dance with dieting leads to near disaster in this exceptional made-for-television drama. In one of the earliest treatments of the subject, Jennifer Jason Leigh stars as Casey Powell, the quiet daughter of an overbearing mother and milquetoast father. Feeling pressure to be the good girl of the family after her troublesome older sister gets pregnant, Casey retreats into her secretive world of self-starvation. When arguing fails to produce results, her parents (Charles Durning and Eva Marie Saint) send her to a hospital where she meets a spunky fellow patient (Melanie Mayron) and a caring therapist (Jason Miller). Casey's road to recovery is not as simple as merely eating though, and she and her family realize that together they must confront the deeply-rooted familial issues that lay at the heart of Casey's affliction. Jennifer Jason Leigh is utterly compelling in the lead role. ~ Bernadette McCallion, All Movie Guide

This made-for-TV historical drama chronicles the personal and professional lives of Colonel Tibbets and the airmen who dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. The story is based on a book by Gordon Thomas and Max Gordon Witts and also looks at the ways in which the aftermath of the bombing affected their lives. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Steve McQueen's last film concerns a modern day bounty hunter who searches for bail jumpers. Based on real life bounty hunter Ralph "Papa" Thorson, the film details his exciting life, traveling from one city to another, trying to track down fugitives and continually risking his life in the process. Buzz Kulik directed the confusing mish-mash that, nevertheless, features stunt work that anticipates the Lethal Weapon series. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

Joseph Wambaugh's The Onion Field is based on an actual 1963 case. L.A. plainclothesmen Karl Hattinger (John Savage) and Ian Campbell (Ted Danson) routinely investigate a pair of suspicious types, Greg Powell (James Woods) and Jimmy Smith (Franklin Seales). Unexpectedly, Powell pulls a gun on the cops, then forces them into a deserted onion field, where he kills Campbell in cold blood. Hattinger manages to escape, and through his eyewitness account, Powell and Smith are arrested. But that is not that. Thanks to their knowledge and manipulation of the quicksilver legal system, Powell and Smith manage to evade prosecution for years. Meanwhile, Hattinger goes through hell on earth, tortured with guilt over the fact that he lived while Campbell died so ignominiously. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

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

Another of the many Arthur Hailey literary properties which were transformed into TV miniseries in the 1970s, the five-part, ten-hour Wheels took place in Detroit sometime in the late 1960s. Rock Hudson starred as Adam Trenton, executive in charge of project development at the fictional auto-manufacturing firm of National Motors. Ambitious and ruthless, Adam let nothing stand in the way of his development and production of a new, youth-marketed car known as the Hawk. Meanwhile, Adam's bored and neglected wife Erica (Lee Remick, who earned an Emmy nomination for her performance) drifted into an extramarital affair and a brief "career" as a shoplifter. Eventually, Adam himself acquired a mistress, who in turn fell in love with Adam's son Kirk (James Carrol Jordan). As if things couldn't get any seamier, Kirk's brother Greg (Howard McGillin) was plagued by a blackmailer, while crooked car dealer Smokey Stevenson (played by miniseries stalwart Anthony Franciosa) cooked up a sinister deal that threatened to destroy National Motors. Originally telecast from May 7 to 15, 1978 on NBC, Arthur Hailey's Wheels posted such disappointing ratings that, when it was later rebroadcast, the property was whittled down from ten hours to four -- with episodes three and four summarily dropped from the proceedings. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This made-for-TV movie stars Clu Gulager as Cuda Weber, a seafaring loner who has settled down to the life of a beachcomber on the Hawaiian island of Oahu. Weber's carefree, rootless existence is considerably altered when he finds himself in charge of five feisty orphan kids from the MacKenzie clan. Actually, Cuda's guardianship is entirely involuntary; it could be said that the MacKenzie children adopted him, rather than the other way around. Originally telecast April 14, 1978, Stickin' Together was the pilot film for what ultimately emerged as the short-lived TV series The MacKenzies of Paradise Cove, which also starred Clu Gulager and featured most of the movie's supporting cast. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Nightclub singer Francesca Milano (Andrea Marcovicci) is reunited with her father K.C. (William Windom), paroled after serving 14 years for a murder he didn't commit. Worried that her dad will wreak a terrible vengeance against the men who set him up, Francesca goes to Kojak (Telly Savalas), imploring him to help clear her father's name and prevent the old man from ruining what is left of his life. Guest star Andrea Marcovicci sings "You Don't Know Me" and "For All We Know". ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This TV movie stars Jon Rubinstein as a Nassau County assistant D.A. named Dan Corey. Yes, he's idealistic, and yes, he butts his head against (drum roll) THE SYSTEM. His current case involves a battered woman who claims to have killed her doctor husband in self defense. Corey, flying in the face of the Politically Correct Brigade, doesn't believe her (he says he has "bad vibes", which should give you an idea when this film was made). Corey: For the People was the pilot for a series that didn't make it. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This pilot film for the TV series Big Hawaii stars Cliff Potts and John Dehner as a wealthy father-and-son team of Hawaiian cattle ranchers. Neither character is a candidate for the "Mister Nice Guy" award, especially the wayward Potts, who's recently been chased out of Vegas for cheating at poker. Even nastier is Potts' beautiful but scheming stepmother (Ina Balin), who plans to bulldoze his ailing dad's estate to make way for those stock 1970s villains, the Evil Land Developers. Despite a total lack of audience sympathy for the people on screen, Big Hawaii premiered as a weekly series in the fall of 1977. There were all of seven episodes. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Stretching the Airport concept as far as it will go, this third film in the series sticks a jet full of old actors 50 feet underwater in the Bermuda Triangle. Oxygen (and credibility) grows short, and Jimmy Stewart plays an art collector targeted for a heist. Jack Lemmon is the unfortunate pilot, and Christopher Lee shows up along with Brenda Vaccaro, Joseph Cotten, and Olivia de Havilland. Jerry Jameson, auteur of The Bat People, was selected to helm this entry featuring that film's star, Michael Pataki. George Kennedy, the only man to appear in all four Airport films, is along for the ride as well. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide