Bud Cort Movies
Inasmuch as there was already a Wally Cox, American actor Walter Edward Cox chose the stage name Bud Cort when applying for his Equity card. Straight off the stage, Cort was cast in the small role of an intern browbeaten into tears by Robert Duvall in M*A*S*H* (1970). This brief appearance was enough to encourage M*A*S*H director Robert Altman to entrust Cort with the lead in his next film, Brewster McCloud (1971), a Vonnegut-like pastiche about a flying boy. Cort was not "standard leading man" material, thus many of his roles were in the offbeat vein of Brewster McCloud, even in more down-to-earth material like The Strawberry Statement (1971). Thus Cort was in many ways perfect for the suicidal teen protagonist of Hal Ashby's Harold and Maude (1972), whose life would be turned inside out (and back on track) by septuagenarian "free spirit" Ruth Gordon. It wasn't that Cort quit acting after Harold and Maude; it's simply that many of his subsequent films tried too hard to emulate Harold and Maude's cult status, and fell so short of this goal as to be forgettable. The later Cort films in this "midnight movie wannabe" vein included Electric Dreams (1984), Invaders From Mars (1989), Love at Stake (1991), and Ted & Venus (1992), a charmingly outdated "crazy for love" opus which Cort also directed. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1983
The Nightingale is a 60-minute cable TV presentation starring Mick Jagger, Barbara Hershey, Bud Cort and Mako. The basic storyline follows the classic Hans Christian Andersen tale The Emperor's Nightingale. A cruel and overbearing Chinese emperor (Jagger) is given the present of a nightingale by a kindhearted kitchen mai (Hershey). Greedily, the emperor forsakes his pet in favor of a mechanical singing bird. Both bird and master nearly meet their Makers as a result of the Emperor's callous behavior. The Nightingale was originally presented as an episode of Shelley Duvall's Faerie Tale Theatre. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1983
- R
Unmarried disc jockey Jamie Lee Curtis happens across a packet of love letters, written by her late mother. As she peruses these missives, she learns that her mother had carried on a lengthy extramarital affair. At firt appalled by mom's "double life," Curtis is slowly brought around to another way of thinking. Soon she has embarked on her own romance with an older man, the very married James Keach. Well cast and sensitively directed, Love Letters is a purposely "small" films that deserves a larger audience. The film was also released as My Love Letters and Passion Play. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jamie Lee Curtis, James Keach, (more)
- 1982
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This charming fantasy was originally part of Shelly Duvall's HBO series Faerie Tale Theatre and features actor Herve Villechaize as the irascible gnome who grants the wish of an impoverished but boastful miller who claims his lovely daughter can spin straw into gold. While Rumpelstiltskin is willing to help the miller, his generosity does not come without a high price: in exchange for the gift, the daughter must give up her first-born child. She can only escape the bargain if she can guess his name. The bargain is struck. When the king learns of her talent, he marries her and puts her in a room to spin. The real trouble begins when she gets pregnant. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1981
Director Robert Dornhelm casts Bud Cort for alter-ego purposes in She Dances Alone. Cort plays a documentary director, seeking to produce a film on the life of controversial ballet star Vaslav Nijinsky. He finds his goal of objectivity blocked by Nijinsky's elderly real-life daughter Kyra, who is as stocky as her father was sylph-like. Kyra's uncompromising insistence on total control over the project literally shapes (and frequently distorts) the film before our eyes. Adding to the Pirandellian atmosphere of the Australian-produced She Dances Alone is Max Von Sydow, also playing "himself." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bud Cort, Patrick Dupond, (more)
- 1980
- PG
In this black comedy, a humble cab driver spends his days daydreaming of becoming a rock-star. His blissful reverie is one day interrupted when ends up inadvertently blamed for the assassination of a world-renowned nuclear scientist. Soon afterward he finds that he has a stowaway, the late scientist's chimpanzee, the only one who knows his master's secret formula, which if ever written down could cause the destruction of the world. Now the hapless taxi driver must evade both the cops and two villainous Russian Spies. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Robby Benson, Linda Grovenor, (more)
- 1980
This 3-hour TV adaptation of the 1932 Aldous Huxley novel is set 600 years in the future. In this "well- ordered" society, the citizens are required to take mind-controlling drugs, sex without love is compulsory, and test-tube babies are commonplace because of a ban on pregnancy. Keir Dullea heads the cast as Thomas Grahmbell, "director of hatcheries". Not everybody is satisfied with society's lack of humanity and feeling; the loudest dissidents are free-thinking poet Heimholtz Watson (Dick Anthony Williams) and brilliant oddball Bernard Marx (Bud Cort). An injection of new "old" ideas are brought in by "primitive" John Savage (Kristoffer Tabori), who lives on an Indian reservation which still honors 20th century values. Meanwhile, Linda Lysenko (Julie Cobb) becomes a natural mother--and in so doing becomes a criminal. In keeping with the style of the original book, the script's newly-minted characters are given names of pop-culture icons (Disney, Maoina, Stalina, and so on). Brave New World was first telecast March 7, 1980. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1978
The leader of a right-wing political party discovers that a young man named Willi (Bud Cort), an illiterate woodcarver, is actually the son of Adolf Hitler. He and his chauffeur kidnap the boy from a mental hospital and then set out to prepare him to start the Fourth Reich. Believe it or not, this is a comedy ... ~ Brian Gusse, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bud Cort, Peter Cushing, (more)
- 1977
Based on the novel by Max Braithwaite, this film follows the trials of young schoolteacher Max Brown (Bud Cort) as he travels to Saskatchewan to serve as a teacher in a one-room, small-town schoolhouse. Struggling with the hardships presented by the Depression, the local townsfolk prove to be unfriendly, until Max meets up with housewife Alice Field (Samantha Eggar). ~ Iotis Erlewine, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bud Cort, Samantha Eggar, (more)
Many observers consider the 60-minute Bernice Bobs Her Hair to be the best-ever filmed adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald. Bernice (Shelley Duvall), a shy retiring girl of the Roaring 20s, yearns to be popular. On the advice of her flapper cousin Marjorie (Veronica Cartwright), Bernice cuts her unfashionable long hair into a short bob, begins dressing more stylishly, and learns the Most Valuable Rule: "When you're with a man, there are only three topics of conversation: you, me and us." Bernice Bobs Her Hair first aired on PBS' American Playhouse on April 5, 1977. It was telecast in tandem with a dramatization of Sherwood Anderson's oft-adapted I'm a Fool. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Shelley Duvall, Bud Cort, (more)
A young man with a death wish and a 79-year-old high on life find love in Hal Ashby's cult black comedy. Deadpan rich boy Harold (Bud Cort) keeps staging elaborate suicide tableaux to get the attention of his mother (Vivian Pickles), but she keeps planning his brilliant future for him instead. Obsessed with the trappings of death, Harold freaks out his blind dates, modifies his new sports car to look like a mini-hearse, and attends funerals, where he meets the spirited Maude (Ruth Gordon). An eccentric to the core, Maude lives exactly as she pleases, with avid collecting and nude modeling among her many pursuits. To the disgust of Harold's relatives and the befuddlement of Harold's shrink, Harold falls in love with her. As lilting Cat Stevens tunes play on the soundtrack, Maude teaches Harold a valuable lesson about making the most of his time on earth. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ruth Gordon, Bud Cort, (more)
Although he was not the first choice to direct it, the hit black comedy MASH established Robert Altman as one of the leading figures of Hollywood's 1970s generation of innovative and irreverent young filmmakers. Scripted by Hollywood veteran Ring Lardner, Jr., this war comedy details the exploits of military doctors and nurses at a Mobile Army Surgical Hospital in the Korean War. Between exceptionally gory hospital shifts and countless rounds of martinis, wisecracking surgeons Hawkeye Pierce (Donald Sutherland) and Trapper John McIntyre (Elliott Gould) make it their business to undercut the smug, moralistic pretensions of Bible-thumper Maj. Frank Burns (Robert Duvall) and Army true-believer Maj. "Hot Lips" Houlihan (Sally Kellerman). Abetted by such other hedonists as Duke Forrest (Tom Skerritt) and Painless Pole (John Schuck), as well as such (relative) innocents as Radar O'Reilly (Gary Burghoff), Hawkeye and Trapper John drive Burns and Houlihan crazy while engaging in such additional blasphemies as taking a medical trip to Japan to play golf, staging a mock Last Supper to cure Painless's momentary erectile dysfunction, and using any means necessary to win an inter-MASH football game. MASH creates a casual, chaotic atmosphere emphasizing the constant noise and activity of a surgical unit near battle lines; it marked the beginning of Altman's sustained formal experiments with widescreen photography, zoom lenses, and overlapping sound and dialogue, further enhancing the atmosphere with the improvisational ensemble acting for which Altman's films quickly became known. Although the on-screen war was not Vietnam, MASH's satiric target was obvious in 1970, and Vietnam War-weary and counter-culturally hip audiences responded to Altman's nose-thumbing attitude towards all kinds of authority and embraced the film's frankly tasteless yet evocative humor and its anti-war, anti-Establishment, anti-religion stance. MASH became the third most popular film of 1970 after Love Story and Airport, and it was nominated for five Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director. As further evidence of the changes in Hollywood's politics, blacklist survivor Lardner won the Oscar for his screenplay. MASH began Altman's systematic 1970s effort to revise classic Hollywood genres in light of contemporary American values, and it gave him the financial clout to make even more experimental and critical films like McCabe and Mrs. Miller (1971), California Split (1974), and Nashville (1975). It also inspired the long-running TV series starring Alan Alda as Hawkeye and Burghoff as Radar. With its formal and attitudinal impudence, and its great popularity, MASH was one more confirmation in 1970 that a Hollywood "New Wave" had arrived. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Elliott Gould, Donald Sutherland, (more)
- 1970
- R
This film is based on the James Simon Kunen book about student unrest on the Columbia University campus. Simon (Bruce Davison) joins the campus protest movement to socialize with the various hippie girls. When a violent police assault breaks up the protest, Simon's thoughts quickly turn from female infatuation to more important social causes. He becomes active in protests against the Vietnam War, police brutality, student's rights and the draft. He is branded a Communist and becomes part of the great worldwide social revolution of his times. Music from Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Thunderclap Newman, Richard Strauss and John Lennon accurately reflect the turbulent times in which the film was released. Bud Cort, James Coco, and Kim Darby star in this uneven political drama. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bruce Davison, Kim Darby, (more)
- 1970
They used to say "don't trust anyone over 30," but there's no one over 30 left to distrust in this loosely plotted satirical comedy directed by Roger Corman. During the opening ceremonies for a chemical and biological weapons facility in Alaska, an experimental gas is accidentally released which has an unusual effect -- it rapidly advances the aging process of those over 25, while those under 25 are left untouched. Soon, the world's elders are dead, with the planet left to the youth. Wisecracking hippy Coel (Robert Corff) and his girlfriend, Cilla (Elaine Giftos), discover that rookie cops and conservative frat rats have taken over their hometown of Dallas, TX, so they hit the road in his vintage Ford Edsel in search of a friendly commune in New Mexico. Along the way, they pair up with music-obsessed Marissa and her radical boyfriend, Carlos (Ben Vereen), and as they look for their new home, they encounter Hell's Angels-turned-country club members, a neo-fascist football team, a pack of painfully shy would-be sexual predators, rock star and self-proclaimed "godhead" A.M. Radio (Country Joe McDonald), and Edgar Allen Poe (Bruce Karcher), who roams the highways on his motorcycle. Gas-S-S-S! (aka Gas-s-s-s...or, It May Become Necessary to Destroy the World in Order to Save It) proved to be the last of Roger Corman's many projects for American International Pictures; according to Corman, AIP subjected the film to severe prerelease cutting without his consent, and the interference was one of the factors that inspired him to start his own company, New World Pictures. The film also provided early supporting roles for Bud Cort and Talia Shire, the latter billed as Tally Coppola; psychedelic rock band Country Joe & the Fish appear in a concert sequence and provide the film's musical score. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Robert Corff, Elaine Giftos, (more)
- 1970
- R
A boy yearns to fly in Robert Altman's whimsical youthquake parable. With the aid of seraphic Louise (Sally Kellerman), owlish Brewster (Bud Cort) constructs a pair of human-size wings in his Houston Astrodome nest to realize his dream. Meanwhile, conservative creeps, including a witchy "Star-Spangled Banner"-belting crone (Margaret Hamilton) and Brewster's skinflint boss (Stacy Keach), keep turning up dead covered with bird droppings; the Houston Establishment calls in blue-eyed, turtleneck-wearing "San Francisco super cop" Frank Shaft (Michael Murphy) to investigate. Brewster cooks his own goose, however, when he defies Louise's edict against sex and hooks up with Astrodome usher Suzanne (Shelley Duvall) after she impresses him (and saves him) by out-driving Shaft in her Road Runner. Despite her apparent sweetness, Suzanne ultimately will not compromise her comfortable home for flight with Brewster. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bud Cort, Sally Kellerman, (more)
- 1970
- R
In this unusual black comedy, Stacy Keach plays Jonas Candide, a former carnival showman who roams the southern U.S. in 1918 with a portable electric chair. He offers his services as a freelance executioner for $100 a pop. He takes a job in a prison in Alabama, where he is supposed to execute a young woman named Gundred Herzallerliebst (Marianna Hill) and her brother. He electrocutes the brother first. On the night before she is scheduled to die, Gundred seduces Jonas and he falls for her. Jonas tries to get Doc Prittle (Graham Jarvis) to help him fake her execution, but the doctor demands a high price. ~ Michael Betzold, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Stacy Keach, Marianna Hill, (more)
