Rodney Amateau Movies

William Katt, Catherine Oxenberg and Nia Peeples star in this comedy about an advertising agency who are about to lose their biggest client, the Saltaire Swimwear Company, until they come up with a brilliant idea -- create a swimsuit model talent search. Saltaire loves the idea and the media eats it up, but the contestants prove to be more trouble than anyone expected. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Sometimes kids like to do things to gross out or shock their parents. This is only natural, but many companies exploit this tendency by creating toys to appeal to that childish joy in the disgusting. In the late '80s, a new kind of bubblegum card, the Garbage Pail kids, featuring caricature paintings, of ugly, unclean moppets with yukky names such as Greaser Greg and Valerie Vomit, Windy Winston, and Foul Phil, each with an offensive habit, found popularity. This hastily-assembled live-action film-- billing itself as a children's comedy-- was hastily assembled to capitalize on that popularity. Featuring midgets dressed up as the bubblegum card characters, it is the story of an antique collector and his assistant who find a mysterious garbage can from outer-space. The assistant ignores his boss's stern orders not to open the can and frees the Garbage Pail Kids. Now the two must somehow get the raunchy rugrats back into the can before they gross-out the world. Appalled parents found the film, even the very idea of it, so offensive that they launched a nation-wide protest that resulted in its withdrawal from circulation. You've been warned. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

Yet another teen romance and hijinks movie for the pre-pubescent, this film is set in the mid-1950s and involves two rival California high schools whose bands are in serious competition. Other than that plot device, there is a telephone hotline to teen love run by J.D. (Michael Winslow) and the usual collection of teenage gags and pranks. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

Michael J. Fox is among the young sitcom stars enlisted for this made-for-TV teen film, about a battle between the rich, popular kids and their average counterparts. ~ Jason Ankeny, Rovi

While on a boar-hunting expedition, Bo (John Schneider) suffers a concussion which causes him to lose his memory. Turning the situation to his advantage, Boss Hogg (Sorrell Booke) convinces Bo that he, Boss, is our hero's father--effectively turning Bo against the rest of the Duke clan! It's all part of a master scheme to have Bo make a treacherous corn-liquor delivery to Chickasaw County, right under the nose of "shootin' sheriff" Big Ed Little (Don Pedro Colley in his first series appearance). ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Miriam Byrd-Nethery, Edward Edwards and Lori Lethin guest star as the Comfurt family, distant cousins of Jesse Duke (Denver Pyle). Having recently struck it rich, the Comfurts lose their entire fortune--$250,000--when their car is stolen. It is up to the Dukes to locate the car before the thief locates the dough...and before Boss Hogg (Sorrell Booke) can get his hands on the cash. Intended as the pilot for an unsold spinoff series about the "Southern Comfurts", this is the final episode of The Dukes of Hazzard's second season. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

With an unbilled Waylon Jennings providing verbal and musical punctuation throughout, the premiere episode of The Dukes of Hazzard chronicles the latest adventures of cousins Luke and Bo Duke (Tom Wopat, John Schneider), a pair of hot-roddin' Good Ole Boys living in Hazzard County ("East of the Mississippi and South of the Ohio") with their sensible Uncle Jesse (Denver Pyle) and their curvaceous female cousin Daisy (Catherine Bach). With their moonshine-running activities "officially" thwarted by the terms of their probation, Luke and Bo have to get their kicks flummoxing and outrunning the local corrupt authorities, rotund county boss Jefferson Davis Hogg (Sorrell Booke) and Hogg's brother-in-law, Sheriff Roscoe P. Coltrane (James Best, here playing his role along more embittered and less buffoonish lines than he would in future episodes). On this occasion, the Dukes thwart Roscoe's latest crooked enterprise, namely smuggling slot machines across the border, by hijacking the machines and giving the money therein to local orphanages and charities. Naturally, Roscoe tries to arrest the boys, only to find that he'll make a public fool of himself--and probably be voted out of office--if he takes any action at all! Ernie W. Brown, here cast as Dobro Dullyn, would later return in the semiregular role of L.B. Davenport. This is the first of five episodes filmed on location in Covington, Georgia. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Crooked car dealer Ace Parker (Jerry Rushinng) offers to sell the Duke boys a battered car with a really good engine (designed by "R. Petty"!) for a measly 200 bucks. All that Luke (Tom Wopat) and Bo (John Schneider) have to do in exchange is repossess a fancy Rolls Royce on behalf of Boss Hogg's wife Lulu (Peggy Rea, in her first series appearance). Trouble is, the Rolls is currently in the possession of a particulary nasty gang of counterfeiters! Ben Jones (Cooter Davenport) becomes a full fledged series regular in this episodes, which features in the guest-star roster Dukes of Hazzard's executive producer Rod Amateau, real-life former moonshiner Jerry Rushing, and onetime NFL defensive end Claude Humphrey. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

When faced with graduation, four seniors plot to prolong their college experience for fear of steady employment, but they're also loathe to leave behind their accommodating housemate Sylvia (played with mute, topless allure by a pre-Three's Company Priscilla Barnes), who functions as a live-in maid and concubine ("Where else are we going to find a nympho who loves to cook and clean house?"). In between sumptuous meals and bouts in the sack, the boys pester their parents to pay for post-graduate studies, without success. Luckily, a Poindexter science major named Arnold is desperate to lose his virginity to Sylvia, so the guys trade her sexual favors for his complicity in an elaborate scam. He's the only trusted assistant of reclusive genius Professor Heigner (Alan Reed, the voice of Fred Flintstone), a three-time Nobel Prize winner studying the mating habits of mosquitoes. Foundations are eager to fund the professor's work with generous grants, and since Heigner signs anything Arnold hands him without question, the seniors draft their own letter of request for cash and claim to be studying the sexual habits of college-age girls. It works, and with a 50,000-dollar-grant they offer coeds a 20-dollar honorarium to participate in the study by engaging in any kind of sex they like with our four heroes as the only male volunteers. Eventually, exhaustion and avarice lead them to expand the study and allow local businessmen to take part for a 50-dollar fee, which leads to huge profits. Only the intervention of "the establishment" will show the seniors the folly of their ways, when they enter into partnership with a feminine hygiene corporation and find themselves targeted for murder. The female head of the foundation that funds the seniors' project mistakenly believes that Professor Heigner is some sort of sexual dynamo and pursues him endlessly, leading the misanthropic scientist to chase her away by firing a rifle at her, spraying her with sticky white fire extinguisher foam, and setting a blaze beneath her while she frantically climbs up a chimney. Endless lines of co-eds wait breathlessly for the chance to copulate with strangers for a double sawbuck (it's all in the name of science, after all, and why not earn money for something they'd be "giving away" otherwise?). ~ Fred Beldin, Rovi

This off-beat comedy offers viewers the rare opportunity to view two movies nearly simultaneously. It is set in a small Texas drive-in and chronicles the fascinating and funny shenanigans of the various patrons. The drive in feature, a send-up of epic disaster films, is also a genuine hoot. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

David Niven is Alex, a scholar who has won the Nobel Prize for developing a universal language. The U.S. State Department has decided to honor him with a statue, to be displayed in London's Grosvenor Square. The commission for the project went to Alex's wife Rhonda (Virna Lisi), who has designed a statue that is completely nude, without even a fig leaf. Husband Alex sees that is it a perfect replica of himself, except for the part usually covered by fig leaves. He accuses his wife of using one of her lovers as a model and begins a hilarious search for the original. Robert Vaughn has some good lines as the American Ambassador, discussing the couple's controversy with the President. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

This comedy begins when Peter Ingersoll (Jerry Lewis) hears from Dr. Carter (Peter Lawford) that he has only a few months to live. Peter's wife Nancy (Anne Francis) suggests her husband spend his remaining days fishing, so Peter embarks on a world-wide expedition, fishing in the most exotic locales at every corner of the globe. After running up over $100,000 on his credit card, Peter is surprised to see Dr. Carter, who has followed him to Lisbon. The good doctor informs Peter that a mistake has been made; he is not going to die. However, the shock of his credit card debt almost does kill him. He and the good doctor agree he should feign his demise in order to collect on the life insurance. Peter goes along with the plan until he discovers his wife and doctor are in cahoots and plan to use the money for themselves. Lewis provides his legendary physical comedy that has made him an international star, most notably in France. ~ Dan Pavlides, Rovi