William Goldman Movies

In the William Goldman-scripted, Bryan Forbes-directed adaptation of Ira Levin's savagely satiric sci-fi novel The Stepford Wives, housewife Joanna (Katharine Ross) moves with husband Walter (Peter Masterson) and their children to the "ideal" suburban community of Stepford, CT. Slowly, Joanna deduces that something is amiss; most of the other housewives are vapid creatures who speak in trivialities and live only to please their husbands. Together with new friend Bobby (Paula Prentiss), she investigates this curious status quo. When Bobby also succumbs to cloying sweetness, Joanna discovers that Stepford's husbands have conspired with male chauvinist scientists to replace all the wives with computerized android duplicates. The Stepford Wives became a massive, runaway hit, earning four million dollars domestically. Mega-producer Scott Rudin and director Frank Oz teamed up for a remake in 2004. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Peter Yates directs the early '70s comedy caper The Hot Rock, based on the Donald Westlake novel and adapted for the screen by William Goldman. Robert Redford stars as John Archibald Dortmunder, a former jewel thief just released from prison. His brother-in-law, Andrew Kelp (George Segal), recruits him to steal a diamond from a museum. They are hired by Dr. Amusa (Moses Gunn), an ambassador from Central Fatawi, whose people consider the stone to be sacred. John and Andrew assemble a team with Alan Greenberg (Paul Sand) and Stan Murch (Ron Leibman). They successfully pull off the job until the guards arrest them and Alan swallows the diamond. Alan's father (Zero Mostel) helps him break out of jail, which leads to a series of other heist attempts. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide

New York detective Moe Brummell (George Segal) is assigned to track down a serial killer who has been preying on lonely middle-aged ladies. Each of the bodies is discovered with a lipstick kiss drawn on the forehead. We know (but Brummell doesn't) that the murderer is Christopher Gill (Rod Steiger), a round-the-bend actor whose hatred for his mother has driven him to his killing spree. Gill is fond of adopting a different personality and costume with each killing (a priest, a homosexual, a plumber etc.), making him doubly difficult to trace. When Brummell comments to the media that he's up against a criminal genius, he finds himself the reluctant recipient of Gill's anonymous phone calls, wherein the killer plants cryptic clues leading to his next crime. It may not be readily apparent from the previous sentence, but No Way to Treat a Lady is a comedy-albeit a jet-black one. Moe Brummell is hampered with an archetypal Jewish mamma (Eileen Heckart), who in her own way is as deadly as the elusive Christopher Gill. Lee Remick plays Brummell's girl friend, who, as the only person who might be able to identify Gill, is placed in harm's way at the film's climax. A curious by-product of No Way to Treat a Lady is the fact that Rod Steiger was cast in the lead in the 1976 biopic W.C. Fields and Me on the basis of the third-rate Fields imitation he offers to George Segal during one of his taunting phone calls. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this blend of action-adventure and spy satire, the British government has been negotiating with the Middle Eastern nation of Ramaut to lease their oil fields for drilling by U.K. petroleum companies, but at the last minute, the deal collapses, and Col. Drexel (Jack Hawkins), a military leader who has worked with the authorities in Ramaut before, is given an unusual assignment. The young Prince Jamil of Ramaut (Christopher Witty) is scheduled to take the nation's throne and become the country's leader. Drexel and his men are to kidnap Jamil, hold him until he is of age, and then release him once they've persuaded him to sign the oil lease agreement. American operative David Frazer (Cliff Robertson) is called in to help, and he meets Drexel at the villa where Jamil is being held captive. However, shortly after Frazer is confronted by Sophie (Marisa Mell) and a gang of agents, he's knocked senseless and wakes up to find that Jamil is missing. Drexel's superiors think that Frazer was in on the plot to free Jamil, and while Drexel knows better, it just so happens that he has his own agenda -- Drexel has been negotiating with Jamil's family to release him in exchange for a cash payment that would go directly into his pocket. Incidentally, if you have trouble finding Ramaut on a map, don't worry -- it exists only in the mind of screenwriters William Goldman and Michael Relph. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide