George "Buck" Flower Movies

Carolina-based actor/writer/producer George "Buck" Flower started out in "regionals"--non-Hollywood productions aimed at Southern neighborhood moviehouses and drive-ins. Flower also showed up in "four-wallers" for the family-matinee trade: he was seen as Boomer in all three Wilderness Family flicks of the late 1970s-early 1980s. Additional appearances include the Cook in John Carpenter's Starman (1984), the title character's father in Alan Parker's Birdy (1984), and "Nuke" LaLoosh's dad in Ron Shelton's Bull Durham (1988). The bulk of George "Buck" Flowers' work can be found in such low-budget esoterica as Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-o-Rama (1987). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
1971  
 
Sexploitation vet John Tull stars as Sammy Beal, a less-than-scrupulous boxing manager whose current protégé is virginal country boy Johnny (Steven Hodge). Half-pint Sammy is a walking textbook example of Napoleon complex: when he's not screaming his sweaty head off at Johnny or punch-drunk assistant Benny Bravo (George "Buck" Flower"), he's mauling and berating any woman that comes within grabbing distance (including sexploitation mainstays Rene Bond and Uschi Digart, whose poolside romp with Tull should please her fans). Naturally, he dissolves into a whimpering man-baby immediately after sex. Johnny's rough-hewn skill at the sweet science catches the eye of cigar-chomping mobster Louie Gardino Frank Finklehoffer, who dispatches comely B-girl Lisa (Mirka) to distract him from his training. The naïve puglist naturally falls for her voluptuous charms, but trouble rears its head when he catches her in a bedroom tussle with Sammy. Things rapidly come to an ugly end for all involved. ~ Paul Gaita, All Movie Guide

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Starring:
John TullSteven Hodge, (more)
1973  
PG  
In this modern-day western adventure, a jailed crook busts out after killing a deputy and with his two murderous brothers takes off down the road. The crooks then commandeer a church bus and perform other nasty deeds while trying to keep ahead of the law. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

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1974  
R  
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Basically the final act of Peter Bogdanovich's Targets stretched to feature length (and without any redeeming subtext), this weak slasher thriller involves a psycho who stalks unsuspecting moviegoers with a variety of sharp implements, particularly a massive sword, during a drive-in screening of a cheesy western. This naturally leads to various scenes of necking patrons being shish-kebabbed with the weapon of choice. Although this might have been an amusing novelty when actually shown at a drive-in, it's just a dreary mess on home video, making the otherwise terse 80-minute running time seem like three hours. One trivial point of interest is the behind-the-camera participation of familiar "B"-movie character actor Buck Flower, who collaborated on the screenplay. ~ Cavett Binion, All Movie Guide

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Starring:
Jake BarnesAdam Lawrence, (more)
1975  
R  
In this drama, a fine upstanding LA businessman, and caring family man, reveals a much darker side when the sun goes down and the lights go out. Eventually his secret is discovered: the fellow is a prominent Sunset Strip pimp. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

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1976  
 
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Set in 1876, this family-oriented wilderness adventure centers on a pair of adorable orphans who will stop at nothing to successfully navigate the rugged Rockies and trek to Salem, Oregon where they are to inherit a 400-acre ranch. The two are assisted on their dangerous but scenic journey by a shifty but good-hearted gambler. Along the way, the travelers see cuddly bears, beautiful horses and frolicsome deer. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

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1976  
PG  
This by-the-numbers action-revenge drama that plays like several other similarly-plotted, good ol' boy pulp flicks of its era, such as Billy Jack (1971) and Walking Tall (1973). Timothy Bottoms stars as Poke Jackson, a convict who's just been released from prison after a stint for drug trafficking. The catch is that Poke was innocent, having been framed for the crime by a corrupt lawman, Sheriff Duke (Bo Hopkins). Poke makes his way home to his beautiful girlfriend Mary Lee (Susan George) and their illegitimate son, only to find that Duke has moved into his place as Mary's lover. Incensed, Poke sets out on a course of vengeance that will pit him against the tough cop and culminate in a lethal car chase. With supporting characters named "Bull," "Cleotus," and "Buford," the redneck pedigree of A Small Town in Texas (1976) is distinct. The film was penned by screenwriter William W. Norton, who wrote several better examples of this high-octane, macho genre, including White Lightning (1973) and Gator (1976). ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide

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Starring:
Timothy BottomsSusan George, (more)
1976  
 
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The Adventures of the Wilderness Family was among the first-and the most successful-of the family-oriented films of the 1970s. Robert F. Logan plays a city-dwelling construction worker who decides to kick over the traces and head to the mountains. His family-wife Susan Damante Shaw, children Holleye Holmes and Ham Larsen-are at first resistant, but soon they learn to love the Great Outdoors as much as Logan. The film's highlights include an up-close-and-personal confrontation with a hungry bear. Successfully released on a city-by-city, limited-run basis all over the US, The Adventures of the Wilderness Family was popular enough to spawn two sequels...not to mention innumerable ripoffs. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

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1976  
R  
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Two interesting figures in offbeat cinema -- director Matt Cimber (who was married to Jayne Mansfield and directed her final film before going on to a handful of expressive blaxploitation efforts) and screenwriter Robert Thom (who wrote Wild in the Streets and Bloody Mama) -- teamed up for this unusual portrait of one woman's descent into madness. Molly (Millie Perkins) is a woman who is haunted by vivid memories of abuse and molestation at the hands of her father, who was a ship's captain; now middle-aged, Molly is obsessed by the ocean and images associated with pirates and sailing lore, which fill her with both fascination and loathing. Molly dotes on her young nephews (Jean Pierre Camps and Mark Livingston) and often spins tall tales for them in which her father is a noble hero, but her sister, Cathy (Vanessa Brown), is not comfortable with her presence, and soon the boys are old enough to spend their time elsewhere. Single and lonely, Molly longs for a man, and is openly attracted to strong, burly types, but at the same time she bears a deep hatred for them, and sometimes murders and dismembers the men she lures into her home. However, given Molly's penchant for fantasy, how much of her story is real, and how much is the product of her twisted imagination? Shot in 1971 but not released until 1976, The Witch Who Came From the Sea was one of the first feature films for cinematographer Dean Cundey, who later went on to work with Steven Spielberg and Ron Howard. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

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Starring:
Millie PerkinsLonny Chapman, (more)
1977  
 
In this martial arts thriller, a bounty hunter must find and stop an urban slasher from killing any more women. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

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Starring:
Robert ViharoSherry Jackson, (more)
1977  
 
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The redundantly-titled Further Adventures of the Wilderness Family, Part 2, is the 1977 follow-up to the successful 1974 independently distributed film (aka a "four-waller") Adventures of the Wilderness Family. The titular family, appropriately named Robinson, is once more headed by Robert Logan. The film contains the usual quota of brushes with danger and shots of cute woodland creatures, with the added complication of a bout of pneumonia suffered by Mrs. Robinson (Susan D. Shaw). Barry Williams, of Brady Bunch fame, sings the tunes heard on the soundtrack. Marketed on a theater-to-theater basis in the same manner as its predecessor, Further Adventures of the Wilderness Family scored a hit--resulting in yet another sequel, Mountain Family Robinson. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

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Starring:
Robert LoganSusan Shaw, (more)
1978  
 
Nice to see veteran hardcase character actor Charles Napier in a leading role, even if it's in something as eminently forgettable as Big Bob Johnson and His Fantastic Speed Circus. The eponymous Big Bob (Napier) is head man of a spit-and-vinegar auto racing team. Bob's aggregation makes a brief pit stop to save a deserving young man from being swindled by his devious uncle (William Daniels). The upshot of all this is a cross-country race between two souped-up Rolls Royce. Aimed squarely at the Smokey and the Bandit crowd, the made-for-TV Big Bob Johnson debuted June 27, 1978. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

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Starring:
Charles Napier
1978  
 
A progressive scientist builds a machine that allows him time travel in this adaptation of the classic from H.G. Wells. ~ Kristie Hassen, All Movie Guide

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1979  
 
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Disgusted with city life, the family Robinson decides to chuck it all and head for the Rockies. There they find that rural living can be just as hectic, with hungry bears as well as the forestry service after them. ~ John Bush, All Movie Guide

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Starring:
Robert LoganSusan Damante-Shaw, (more)
1979  
 
Bigfoot has managed to elude capture for nearly 25 years. One small town has made a cottage industry out of Bigfoot sightings and ancillary merchandising. All this may come to an end very soon, however. A local fat-cat businessman hopes to trap Bigfoot once and for all, so that he can get all the publicity gravy. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

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1980  
 
Bo (John Schneider) and Duke (Tom Wopat) join forces with Texas Ranger Jude Emery (John Shearin) to capture "Snake" Harmon (Sam Melville), an outlaw race driver who traffics in contraband critters. Pursuing their quarry into the dismal reaches of Yuchee Swamp, our heroes try to catch a Snake by thinking like a Snake--with fascinating results. Featured in the cast is former pro football player and future Hollywood stuntman Ben Davidson. This episode was intended as the pilot for a weekly spinoff series starring John Shearin, which alas never came to be. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

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1980  
R  
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Following the phenomenal box-office success of his seminal horror classic Halloween, director John Carpenter teamed up with producer Debra Hill for a second independent horror project, this time in the mode of an old-fashioned ghost story. The end result was The Fog, a spooky romp about a dark secret that returns to haunt the Pacific fishing community of Antonio Bay on the 100th anniversary of the town's charter. Carpenter sets the mood in the film's prologue, which features grizzled old sea salt Mr. Machen (John Houseman) spinning ghost stories for a group of local children. For his final tale, he recounts the legend of the Elizabeth Dane -- a ship which crashed 100 years ago against the very rocks upon which the children are sitting. Meanwhile, as the clock strikes midnight on the fateful anniversary of that disaster, eerie phenomena begin to plague the town as a dense fog bank creeps toward the bay. Seeming to appear from nowhere and emitting a ghostly glow, the fog surrounds a small trawler filled with drunken fishermen, who glimpse the vague outline of a decrepit sailing vessel before being brutally killed by shadowy figures brandishing hooks and swords. That morning, news of their disappearance is relayed to the town by Stevie Wayne (Adrienne Barbeau), owner and operator of the local radio station. The news reaches the wife of one of the fishermen, city councilwoman Kathy Williams (Janet Leigh) and local boy Nick Castle (Tom Atkins), who takes a trip out to the abandoned boat to investigate, accompanied by teenage drifter Elizabeth Solley (Jamie Lee Curtis). As the day progresses, a grim series of events paints a decidedly unpleasant picture of Antonio Bay's founders, and foreshadows the ghostly retribution that awaits the town's present-day residents. When Mrs. Williams visits local priest Fr. Malone (Hal Holbrook) about a benediction for that night's centennial ceremony, he relates a ghastly tale discovered in his grandfather's journal, which details the town fathers' decision to murder a group of lepers who had planned to build a commune outside of Antonio Bay. Just as the night's proceedings are haunted by the horrors of the past, the ghosts of the murdered dead have returned to seek symbolic revenge by claiming the lives of six townspeople, arriving amid the ominous fog bank which has completely engulfed Antonio Bay. Carpenter reportedly shot and inserted additional gory scenes after the original 'PG' cut failed to impress preview audiences. ~ Cavett Binion, All Movie Guide

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Starring:
Adrienne BarbeauHal Holbrook, (more)
1981  
R  
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Pia Zadora stars in an over-cooked melodramatic adaptation of the 1946 James M. Cain novel that is every bit as smutty and sleazy as Zadora's vampish character of Kady. The location of the novel has been switched from Appalachia to the barren lands of Arizona and Nevada in 1937. Stacy Keach plays Jess Tyler, a desert hermit who has spent years guarding an abandoned silver mine. Suddenly, Jesse is confronted by his very grown-up and sexy daughter, who, when she was a baby, had been taken away from him by his wife, Belle (Lois Nettleton). Kady, it so happens, hasn't come home for a family reunion -- she has just been dumped by a rich young man who is the father of her illegitimate child and whose family owns the very silver mine that Jess is guarding. Kady hopes to use her feminine wiles to seduce Jess and reopen the mine and extract the money from the earth that she feels is due her from the family. As if his seductive daughter walking around bare-breasted in front of him isn't enough, Jess must also deal with the sudden return of his older daughter, Janey (Ann Dane), who appears with Kady's son; Belle, who comes back to Jess dying of tuberculosis; and Moke Blue (James Franciscus), the man who stole Belle away from Jess years ago. Also squeezing his way into Jess's shack is Wash Gillespie (Edward Albert), the father of Kady's child, who now wants to marry her. Butterfly also features Orson Welles as Judge Rauch. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

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Starring:
Stacy KeachPia Zadora, (more)
1981  
R  
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The year is 1997. Manhattan Island is now a heavily guarded maximum-security prison, where the scum of the earth have converged. When Air Force One crash-lands in Manhattan, the president (Donald Pleasence) is held hostage by its denizens. One-eyed mercenary Snake Plissken (Kurt Russell) is strong-armed into rescuing the chief executive. He is aided, not always willingly, by a tough gal (Adrienne Barbeau) and a manic cab driver (Ernest Borgnine). Escape from New York was followed by a sequel of sorts in 1996, Escape From L.A., again starring Kurt Russell. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

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Starring:
Kurt RussellLee Van Cleef, (more)
1983  
 
The Clowns are the hottest new rock band on the scene, with a wild stage show that features simulated acts of violence and dismemberment. Outfitted identically in theatrical makeup and skin-tight outfits, not even their biggest fans know what they really look like or which one is which. One night after a Clowns performance, a drug dealer is found stabbed to death in the alley outside the theater, and the police believe that one of the group's crazed fans took their bloody stage antics a little too seriously. When a private party for the band results in a pile of mutilated groupies, the suspicion falls directly on the Clowns and their road crew. Could the killer be the hotheaded roadie, or maybe the pill-addict drummer? The introverted stagehand who secretly puts the band's makeup on to meet girls? The levelheaded manager who left behind a life of religious dogmatism for the rock & roll world? Or the guitarist who feels conflicted about the sick show the Clowns put on, and wonders just what is wrong with their fans? A young juvenile delinquent with a bad rap sheet is recruited by the police force to infiltrate the band's inner circle and search for clues to the maniac's identity, but she soon finds herself a target. In between the drug-fueled bashes and loud, pulsating rock, the killer stalks the bowels of the theater, waiting for another victim to destroy. ~ Fred Beldin, All Movie Guide

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Starring:
Rick StylesChip Greenman, (more)
1984  
PG  
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Three children, who fear being put into a foster home after the death of their parents, take flight into the wilderness with their uncle. ~ All Movie Guide

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1984  
R  
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Director Alan Parker tackles this adapation of William Wharton's novel, which retains much of the source material's texture and complexity. Matthew Modine is Birdy, who comes back from Vietnam mentally shattered and deludes himself into thinking that he is a bird, an animal that has obsessed him since childhood. Birdy is confined to a military hospital, where he spends his time sitting naked in his room, not acknowleding anyone, moving and acting like a parakeet. His best friend Al (Nicolas Cage), also a wounded Vietnam vet, visits Birdy every day, determined to bring him back to reality. Birdy is occasionally disjointed but enriched by strong performances from Modine and Cage and a number of hard-to-forget moments. ~ Don Kaye, All Movie Guide

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Starring:
Matthew ModineNicolas Cage, (more)
1984  
 
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This lifeless action feature finds mafia hitman Carmine Longo (Mike Lane) seeking vengeance against the Zebra Force led by Cougar (Timmy Brown). Frank Barnes (Jim Mitchum) joins the group when his Zebra Force buddy is killed. Lindsey Crosby (son of Bing) plays a police sergeant, and Frank Sinatra, Jr. appears briefly as the mob lawyer Kozlo. Only those interested in the offspring of aging or dead performers could find anything of interest in this film. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

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Starring:
James MitchumMike Lane, (more)
1984  
PG  
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Having crashed to Earth, an extraterrestrial space traveller must assume a human identity lest he be captured by the authorities. The alien (Jeff Bridges) chooses the likeness of the recently deceased husband of Jenny Hayden (Karen Allen). At first dumbstruck, Jenny becomes both hostile toward and frightened of her guest. He gradually wins her confidence, learning a few vital English-language phrases so that he can explain his presence. The "starman" has come to Earth with a message of peace, in response to the similar message sent out on Voyager One. He asks for Jenny's help in transporting him to the Nevada desert, where his fellow aliens are to pick him up and take him to his home planet. Soon he and Jenny form a united front against a mean-spirited National Security Council agent (Richard Jaeckel), who intends to seize the starman and turn him over for scientific scrutiny (and possible extermination). While en route to Nevada, Jenny grows closer to the gentle-natured Starman, eventually making love with him. By the time he is poised to leave, she is carrying his child, leaving the field wide open for a sequel--which was never produced, though a weekly TV version surfaced in 1986. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

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Starring:
Jeff BridgesKaren Allen, (more)
1985  
PG  
Contemporary high schooler Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) doesn't have the most pleasant of lives. Browbeaten by his principal at school, Marty must also endure the acrimonious relationship between his nerdy father (Crispin Glover) and his lovely mother (Lea Thompson), who in turn suffer the bullying of middle-aged jerk Biff (Thomas F. Wilson), Marty's dad's supervisor. The one balm in Marty's life is his friendship with eccentric scientist Doc (Christopher Lloyd), who at present is working on a time machine. Accidentally zapped back into the 1950s, Marty inadvertently interferes with the budding romance of his now-teenaged parents. Our hero must now reunite his parents-to-be, lest he cease to exist in the 1980s. It won't be easy, especially with the loutish Biff, now also a teenager, complicating matters. Beyond its dazzling special effects, the best element of Back to the Future is the performance of Michael J. Fox, who finds himself in the quagmire of surviving the white-bread 1950s with a hip 1980s mindset. Back to the Future cemented the box-office bankability of both Fox and the film's director, Robert Zemeckis, who went on to helm two equally exhilarating sequels. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

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Starring:
Michael J. FoxChristopher Lloyd, (more)

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