James Booth Movies

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

The fourth (and final!) entry in this kick-boxing series, sees the return of Michael Dudikoff as the leading foot flinger. Here a scheming sheik trains a bevy of ninja marauders that he's hoping can help him in his plan to hold the world ransom by holding hostage none other than the city of New York. ~ All Movie Guide

Produced in the Autumn of the Golan-Globus collaboration, Avenging Force serves as a vehicle for American Ninja costar Michael Dudikoff. Cast as a retired secret service agent, Dudikoff runs up against a sinister right-wing political organization called the Pentangle. He comes to the aid of his best friend Steve James, a black political candidate who has become a target for the Pentangle's henchmen. Impressed by Dudikoff's martial arts skills, the Pentangle leaders try to convince him to join their cause-and to ensure his cooperation, they kidnap his little sister Alison Gereighty. Avenging Force concludes with a violent Enter the Dragon-style mano y mano squareoff between Dudikoff and the Pentangle flunkeys. The film's finale is "open" enough to allow for a sequel, which has yet to appear. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Joan Hackett guest-stars as Judith, the fiancee of a young pastor named Jess (James Booth). Blessed-or, perhaps, cursed-with the gift of clairvoyance, Judith is called in to locate a missing Jamie. But her intensely religious sweetheart does not want Judith to use her "special powers." Written by Arthur Weingarten and Suzanne Clauser, this episode, coupled with the earlier Bonanza installment "The Strange One," formed the plot basis for the 1989 TV special Bonanza: The Movie. Due to the religious beliefs of certain cable-network CEOs, "Second Sight" itself has not been seen much since its original airing on January 9, 1972. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this strange, unsatisfying remake of Casablanca, directed by J. Lee Thompson, a bar owner helps a woman find a missing fortune. Right after the end of WWII, Giff Hoyt (Charles Bronson) owns a bar in Peru into which Marie Allesandri (Dominique Sanda) enters one day, in search of her lover and some missing money. Matters are complicated by Gunther Beckdorff (Jason Robards), a Nazi who has his own plans for the money. Terredo (Fernando Rey) observes all the action and helps at an important moment. Despite the very good cast which also includes Camilla Sparv and Gilbert Roland, all of the various subplots and characters fail to gel, and Caboblanco is confusing, unsatisfying and slow-moving. Any fan of Casablanca should skip this and see the original again. ~ Linda Rasmussen, All Movie Guide

Director Peter Jackson's second feature cheerfully trumps the gross-out quotient of his splatterfest debut, the appropriately named Bad Taste. The tone is cartoonishly comic, and the premise is simple: The village dweeb (Timothy Balme) is trying to maintain a budding romance with the sweet Paquita (Diana Penalver) while concealing the fact that his overbearing mum (Elizabeth Moody, in an amazing good-sport performance) is a flesh-eating zombie. (She owes her condition to a bite from a "Sumatran Rat Monkey" at the local zoo.) Complicating matters even further is Les, a greedy uncle (Ian Watkin), who suspects that his sister has died and is eager to occupy her elegantly furnished Victorian mansion. The climax is a housewarming party Les throws to celebrate his "inheritance;" what he really gets is his comeuppance, thanks to his sister and her similarly afflicted zombie pals, who burst out of their basement prison to turn the guests into appetizers. Our hero finally cuts a wide swath through the zombie party crashers with the help of a rotary blade lawn mower, leaving the house awash in blood and body parts in order to save his romance. ~ Tom Wiener, All Movie Guide

A piece of made-for-television hack work that suddenly became sort of topical 23 years later, with the attacks on the New York World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, Evening in Byzantium was a two-part made-for-TV feature based very loosely on Irwin Shaw's best-seller. The book involved intrigue and romance at the Cannes Film Festival, but the television producers evidently thought that this did not justify a two-night prime time movie event, so they added a story about Middle Eastern terrorists using the Cannes Film Festival as part of a larger plot to attack the West. Glenn Ford plays Jesse Craig, a down-on-his-luck producer with a film project in mind involving terrorists, who goes to Cannes to raise money and finds himself dealing with his ex-wife (Shirley Jones) and romancing Erin Gray. But before too long, he uncovers a plot by real terrorists to replace commercial airliners in flight (blowing them out of the sky and taking over their authorized flight paths) with specially converted airliners and bomb targets in the United States. Also on hand is Vince Edwards, playing an actor with a radical political agenda, who is alarmed that Ford's proposed film parallels his own terrorist plans; Michael Cole as Ford's associate; Eddie Albert and Gloria De Haven as a couple with ties to the movie business; Harry Guardino as a skeptical American security officer; and Marcel Hillaire as the French police inspector trying to unravel the terrorists plans. It's all very silly, though played very sincerely by most of the cast, and none of the plot described is less plausible than the notion that Glenn Ford and Erin Gray could ignore the 36-year difference in their ages. Evening in Byzantium was originally shown in August of 1978 as part of the syndicated Operation Prime Time programming series, intended to compete with the three networks. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

Two German spies and a woman physician (Suzy Kendall) are taken by submarine to Scotland where they enter the country at nightfall. Their mission is to assassinate the British Field Marshall Lord Kitchener. The woman's male companions are captured, but she escapes with the knowledge of what boat the Marshall is on. Boarding the submarine, the Germans make plans to bomb the boat with a series of strategically placed land mines. She travels from Russia to Germany to Britain and Spain as she double-crosses double agents in a cat-and-mouse game of espionage. A gruesome scene shows a German gas attack that peels off the flesh of the Allied soldiers as they writhe in agony. James Booth, Capucine, and Kenneth More also star in this World War I drama. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

In this made-for-TV thriller, a volunteer (Lynda Carter) at a crisis hotline is stalked by a psycho. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide

The "nick" in this standard prison farce is a modernistic, forward-looking jail without bars. At its core of staff are dedicated young psychologist Dr. Newcombe (Anthony Newley) and tough-minded but fair overseer Chief Officer Williams (Harry Andrews). Their jobs are made that much more difficult when four hardened criminals are inexplicably sent to the minimum security prison. The leader of this gang of four is Spider (James Booth) whose main job is to rally his cohorts into defeating a rival gang and lording it over other inmates. Their tactics and the efforts of the good doctor to reform them provide the comic fodder for the film. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

This is a crime-comedy-musical romance by director Ken Hughes that has an identity problem. Bert (Anthony Newley) is an electrician who gives the wrong people a "song and dance" about his supposed expertise as a cat burglar and now he has to pay the piper. The gang of young thieves brings him into their plans for a big heist and there is no obvious way Bert can get out of it. Just when things get serious, Bert or someone else then literally breaks into a song and dance routine -- hard to smoothly integrate with the comic sequences and serious moments that have gone before. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Niall Johnson's comedy Keeping Mum concerns the family of a vicar who are beset by a variety of problems. Reverend Walter Goodfellow (Rowan Atkinson) is a well-meaning but hapless religious figure in his town. His son, Petey, is a wimp, forever terrorized at school. His daughter, Holly, enjoys the company of a variety of different boyfriends. Wife Gloria (Kristin Scott Thomas) has had enough of her husband and is considering leaving him for a golf teacher (Patrick Swayze). The family starts to come back together after hiring housekeeper Grace (Maggie Smith), a woman who knows a thing or two about keeping secrets. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide