Peter Gray Movies
South Korean filmmaker Lee Jong-hyeok makes his directorial debut with the psychological thriller H. Head cop Kim Mi-yeon (Yeom Jeong-ah) and detective Kang (Ji Jin-heui) lead an investigation of several copycat murders. It seems that all the recently gruesome murders are mimicked in the style of serial killer Shin Hyeon (Jo Seung-woo), who is locked in prison on death row. After the suspects start getting killed in the same way, Kim and Kang seek the help of psychiatrist Chu Gyeong-suk (Kim Seon-gyeong) to get some answers. H was shown at the 2003 Cannes Film Festival. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Yeom Jeong-ah, Ji Jin-heui, (more)
- 1997
This Korean drama centers on a trio of young outcasts as they try to find their place in life and prepare to serve two years mandatory military service. Kim is a cartoonist and is the leader of the three. He wants to win an art contest or get a job, but both endeavors prove difficult. Cho longs to become a cosmetologist and work in his mother's shop, but his father will not have his son working in a women's profession. Kong is slower than the other two and very overweight. He is lonely and living only to eat, but whenever he tries to diet, his parents, who own a restaurant, laugh at him until he starts overeating again. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
Lionel Chetwynd's film documents the horrific struggles that faced American POWs held in the North Vietnamese prison Hoa Lo -- more infamously known as the Hanoi Hilton -- between 1964 and 1975. Williamson (Michael Moriarty) leads a group of American servicemen who are prisoners at the detention camp. He assumes command after Cathcart (Lawrence Pressman) is dragged off to be tortured. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Michael Moriarty, Jeffrey Jones, (more)
- 1982
Blood and gore abound as good takes on evil in this futuristic sci-fi actioner that is basically a knock-off of the Mad Max series with a low-budget Italian twist. The year is 2020 and the setting is post-nuclear holocaust Texas. It's a dusty, nasty world now as can be seen in the opening scenes when a band of drunken outlaws viciously rape and murder innocent nuns at a mission. They then crucify the priest. Their debauched reveling is interrupted by roving rangers who engage the villains in a blood-soaked, bone crunching fight. The rangers manage to save a terrified young woman from the melee, and the heroic leader and she fall in love and head for the peaceful land she describes to him. Years pass. The hero and the girl are married and she is pregnant. He is working at a refinery. Trouble erupts when a meglomaniacal Neo-Nazi dictator and his cruel minions attack the heavily fortified refinery and begin trying to convert the hapless workers to his insane idea of the New Order. Of course, the hero, after witnessing the rape of his wife, decides to get revenge. Unfortunately, the dictator blows the hero away with a machine gun. More time passes and the workers have become slaves to their new leader, but fortunately at this point, the story is far from over and eventually after considerably more blood is graphically spilled, the forces of good inevitably triumph. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Harrison Muller, Al Cliver, (more)
- 1965
This convoluted crime drama chronicles the exploits of an ingenious trio of car thieves who work out of a junkyard. There they write bad checks to the people who sell their cars. A young man is killed in a car and one of the thieves takes the wreck to the yard. There he removes the plates, which say KIL 1, puts them on another wreck of the same make, paints it to look like the other, and then tries to sell it. Meanwhile a mechanic for the mob is discovered sleeping with the thief's girl friend and is beaten up. The mechanic gets revenge by killing the thief. He then steals the newly painted car and sets off with the girl. Unfortunately, the dead boy's father sees the plate, and believing it is his son's car, reports the sighting to Scotland Yard. The news is sent to the Yard inspector assigned to the check fraud scam. Meanwhile the mechanic continues to flee. He sees a police roadblock, and as he tries to avoid it the car careens over a cliff. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1956
The Scarlet Hour was a relatively bold experiment for a mid-1950s Paramount release. The studio expended a great deal of money on the project and enlisted the services of top-flight director Michael Curtiz -- then populated the cast with young unknowns. Carol Ohmart and Tom Tryon (yes, the future novelist) star as Paulie and Marsh, respectively the film's villainess and protagonist. Knowing that Marsh is hopelessly in love with her, Paulie uses him as a dupe in an upcoming jewelry heist. Only after a killing has occurred does Marsh come to his senses. Jody Lawrance, whose previous career as a Columbia contract player had led nowhere, is "introduced" as the good girl to whom Marsh eventually retreats. Other comparative newcomers in the cast include Elaine Stritch, James Gregory and Edward Binns. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Carol Ohmart, Tom Tryon, (more)
- 1956
The Steel Jungle is the prison where most of this film takes place. Perry Lopez heads the cast as two-bit bookie Ed Novak, who goes to jail rather than squeal on his Syndicate higher-ups. Novak's silence exacts a toll on his wife Frances (Beverly Garland), who is expecting a child. The longer he remains in prison, the more Novak becomes aware that the mob has deserted him--and the more he's willing to spill what he knows. Fellow prisoner Steve Marlin (Ted De Corsia) intends to see that Novak keeps his mouth shut permananently. Produced independently, The Steel Jungle was distributed by Warner Bros. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Perry Lopez, Beverly Garland, (more)
- 1955
Lana Turner stars as Diane in this opulent costume drama. Set in 16th century France, the film finds the gorgeous Diane de Pottiers rising to a position of absolute power through her manipulation of the men in her life. Those men include King Francis I (Pedro Armendariz), Prince Henri (Roger Moore) and Diane's husband, the Count de Breze (Torin Thatcher). Diane's principal foe is the scheming Catherine de Medici (Marisa Pavan), who for the first time in her life has met her match in Our Heroine. Christopher Isherwood's screenplay is literate to a fault, though the film could have used a few more action highlights. The tepid box-office receipts of Diane hastened the end of Lana Turner's long association with MGM. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Lana Turner, Pedro Armendáriz, (more)
Samuel Fuller directed and cowrote this typically hard-boiled drama set in Japan following World War II. Eddie Kenner (Robert Stack) is given a special assignment by the Army to get the inside story on Sandy Dawson (Robert Ryan), a former GI who has formed a gang of fellow servicemen and Japanese locals who use their muscle to take over Tokyo's pachinko racket and commit a series of train robberies, targeting deliveries of military ammunition. Eddie is supposed to gather evidence on the murder of a soldier believed to have fallen in with the gang, and Eddie tries to blend in with the group to find out how they work. Hoping to learn more, Eddie also begins romancing Mariko (Shirley Yamaguchi), a Japanese woman who was married to the slain gangster, and he learns that the ruthless Dawson kills men who are injured during robberies rather than leave them behind to possibly testify against him. After a burglary goes wrong, Dawson becomes convinced that there's an informer in the group; wrongly believing it's Griff (Cameron Mitchell), Dawson kills his loyal soldier and makes Eddie his second in command. Veteran Japanese actor Sessue Hayakawa appears as Inspector Kito, a Japanese police detective working with Eddie to crack the case. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Robert Ryan, Robert Stack, (more)
