Denny Lawrence Movies

Warm Nights on a Slow Moving Train, written and directed by Bob Ellis, belongs to a genre of highbrow 1980s films which pushed the conventions of art house cinema. An unnamed fine arts teacher struggles to support her brother's drug addiction. To raise money, she moonlights as a prostitute on a midnight train. For each encounter, she dons a different identity, ala Cindy Sherman, and seeks out her john for the night. That is, until she meets the Man and falls for him which forces her to choose between her love or her lifestyle. Warm Nights does have the benefit of Ellis' characteristic fine writing, but it is generally regarded as one of the more dismal failures in this genre. ~ Brian Whitener, All Movie Guide

With a touch of comedy, this Aussie film ("Our Home" spelled backwards) chronicles the unnerving experience of a young couple buying a home when their income is already stretched thin. Terri and Des (Joy Smithers and Martin Sacks) live on a beach with their son Les, and life is difficult, but the scenery is stunning, and their son has playmates, the children of others camped out there in the same circumstances. Both parents work, Terri ironically cleans houses for others, and Des drives a bus. One day Terri gets fed up with not being able to afford a home and contacts an agency specializing in financing such projects, and soon Terri is cleaning house for her own family. But life in suburbia is far from ideal -- Les has no playmates, his father has to leave for work before the crack of dawn because they live so far from the city, and their neighbors are busybodies. Barely making it on their shoestring budget, neither Terri nor Des plan for any unexpected setbacks -- a serious error, it turns out.
~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

In a somewhat far-fetched premise (not uncommon to the genre), this action film has some Australians (including soldiers) joining up with Asian forces, all backed by American money, ready to take over Surfers Paradise, a resort and retirement area on the Gold Coast of Queensland. They are not interested in good surf or securing an ideal retirement home, they just want the off-shore petroleum rights and inland uranium deposits. Right into their scheme walks Michael Stacey (Ray Barrett), a one-time policeman who left the force because of an alcohol problem and now has to make money as a private eye. While he is looking for the missing daughter of an old friend, now in politics, he runs into the usual private-eye characters: the barmaid who is willing to spend some quality time with him, the corpse that shows up in his hotel room, and the former buddies who turn against his investigation. Two of his friends are fronting the coalition of take-over forces and invite Stacey to join them in their conspiracy. Now the detective has to make up his mind about where all this is going, and if he wants to avoid any unhealthy alliances, how can he do that and stay physically intact? ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide