John Crowther Movies
- 1990
- R
Starring Carl Weathers as the title character, Hurricane Smith is an action film about a Texan who travels to Australia's Gold Coast intent on finding his missing sister. Once he arrives down under, he discovers that his sister has been killed by a drug kingpin (Jurgen Prochnow), and Hurricane becomes involved with the underworld so he can avenge his sister's death. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Carl Weathers, Jürgen Prochnow, (more)
- 1989
- R
Four friends decide to travel to Zimbabwe for a white-water rafting trip, but find that its no vacation when their stoic American guide (Stephen Shellen) turns out to be an ex-soldier with a few psychotic grudges against humanity. ~ John Bush, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Stephen Shellen, Lisa Aliff, (more)
- 1987
- R
When uptight FBI agent Joe Jennings (Beau Bridges) is forced to team up with reluctant local officer Benny Avalon (Bubba Smith), the two must learn to overcome their differences and work together to break up a drug smuggling operation. ~ Iotis Erlewine, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Beau Bridges, Bubba Smith, (more)
- 1986
- R
In a complex sci-fi tale set at some point in the not-too-distant future, an evil industrialist named Francis Turner (John Saxon) has created Paco Querak (Daniel Greene), a cyborg who is 70% robot and 30% human. Paco has been programmed to murder a blind ecologist whose environmental activism does not sit well with Turner's bottom-line motivation. But once he is set up to do his job, the 30% human component in Paco only permits him to injure the ecologist, not kill him. With the local police (and eventually just about everyone else) after him, Paco detours to Arizona to look for his true identity. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Daniel Greene, Janet Agren, (more)
- 1985
- R
While the first Missing in Action film told of a rescue mission by ex-POW Colonel James Braddock (Chuck Norris), the second concerns his original stay in a Vietnamese prisoner camp. The camp is governed by the crazed Colonel Yin (Soon-Teck Oh), who forces the POW's to grow opium for French drug runners and tries to get them to admit to and sign a long list of war crimes. Braddock must escape the camp and liberate his fellow prisoners to have any hope of surviving. The third installment in the series, Braddock: Missing in Action 3, was released three years later. ~ John Bush, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Chuck Norris, Soon-Teck Oh, (more)
In yet another slick, formulaic Charles Bronson vengeance film (they would continue until the actor was in his mid-70s, still playing the morally insulted friend/husband/lover), Bronson is Holland, an assassin for hire who has just come out of retirement to finish off a Guatemalan thug by the name of Moloch (Joseph Maher). Moloch tortures and terrorizes the good guys and is protected by a misguided American government agency -- though nothing can stop Holland once he starts killing his way to the chief villain. No one except the wife of one of Moloch's victims -- and perhaps a few viewers now and again -- raises any questions about Holland's trail of corpses. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Charles Bronson, Theresa Saldana, (more)
One of a string of Ramboesque films dashed off in the '80s, Missing in Action is yet another entry that attempts to exploit the lingering public bitterness over the outcome of the war in Vietnam. Colonel Braddock (karate champion Chuck Norris) travels to Vietnam on a mission to recover lost POWs. A former POW himself, Braddock has the saavy and bad temper to kill droves of communists at a time, not to mention the inclination. Together with former war comrade M. Emmet Walsh, he sets off for the POW camp where Americans are supposedly still held. Of course, there are lots of nameless, faceless Asian communists, and of course, every one of them dies in violent fashion. The chop-socky, shoot-em-up, explosion-a-minute action quickly wears thin. Missing in Action is a crass, dopey film that ultimately fails to connect with anything interesting in the realm of fact or fiction. ~ Jeremy Beday, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Chuck Norris, M. Emmet Walsh, (more)
- 1981
- PG
Ivan Hall directs the martial arts action film Kill and Kill Again. Martial arts champion Steve Chase is hired to save the Nobel Prize winning scientist Horatio Kane, who has been kidnapped by a rich, evil genius named Marduk. Chase assembles a team of mercenaries who must overcome treacherous encounters on their way to the villain's stronghold and then fight for their lives after they themselves are captured. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- James Ryan, Anneline Kriel, (more)
- 1970
Sotiris (George Linjeris) is the grandson of Orsetta (Katina Paxinou), the wealthy matriarch of a Greek family. As she lingers near death, Sotiris is repulsed by the ghoulish death watch prompted by greed for the old woman's fortune. He takes off for an unknown country in the Middle East where he joins a bunch of hash smoking hippies. Although no one is actually seen smoking anything, the hippies spend their days in burned out splendor. This is the directorial debut for John Crowther, son of former critic turned studio executive Bosley Crowther. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Katina Paxinou, Takis Emmanuel, (more)
- 1966
A heartless actor scrambles to the top of show business' sleazy summit in this drama. Frank Fane (Stephen Boyd) is a Hollywood leading man who is desperate to boost his career by winning an Academy Award, and he doesn't care who he has to betray to achieve his goals -- including his former best friend and PR man, Hymie Kelly (Tony Bennett), lonely acting coach Sophie Cantaro (Eleanor Parker), slimy agent Kappy Kapstetter (Milton Berle), and long-suffering girlfriend Kay Bergdahl (Elke Sommer). However, as Frank waits for his name to be called, certain that victory is in his grasp, fate has a little secret in store for him. The Oscar marked Tony Bennett's onscreen acting debut. The screenplay, based on the novel by Richard Sale, was written in part by award-winning author Harlan Ellison, who is known to often take comical potshots at the film, which he considers a low point in his career. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Stephen Boyd, Elke Sommer, (more)
