John Saxon Movies

Half Slave, Half Free is the reissue title for African-American director Gordon Parks' TV movie Solomon Northup's Odyssey. Based on the autobiography Twelve Years a Slave, the film relates the story of Solomon Northup, a black freedman who, in 1841, was kidnapped in Washington D.C. and sold into slavery. Avery Brooks stars as Northup, having spent a dozen years' servitude in Louisiana before managing his escape. Northup's own written words bespeak a rebellious spirit not far removed from the firebrand freedom fighters of the '60s. Curiously, director Parks downplays this in favor of sentimentality. Under its original title, Half Slave, Half Free was originally telecast December 10, 1984, on PBS. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This low-budget film is about a scientist (Kenneth Hendel) and two other people (Kay Lenz and Richard Hatch), in the wrong place at the wrong time, who are transported to another world in another dimension when an earthquake occurs just as the scientist is experimenting with his "matter" transmitter. As the transmitter beeps and flashes, the trio end up in the strange world of Vonya (which looks very much like the African plains where this film was shot, and where everyone speaks English). Their main objective is to escape back to Earth, but in the meantime, they have several comic-book style villains to handle, of course. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

The A-Team is hired by a distraught father to rescue his daughter from a fanatical religious community. No sooner have Hannibal (George Peppard), B.A. (Mr. T) and Face (Dirk Benedict) caught up with the girl than they are kidnapped themselves. At this point, the cult's crazed leader Martin James (John Saxon) inaugurates a hunting expedition--with the captured team members as his quarry! Originally telecast right after Super Bowl XVII, this episode introduces Dirk Benedict as Templeton "Faceman" Peck, a role played in the A-Team pilot film by Tim Dunigan. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This two-hour TV movie was the pilot for the adventure series Hardcastle and McCormick. The premise: Judge Milton C. Hardcastle (Brian Keith), incensed by civil-liberty laws that allow known criminals to escape imprisonment, becomes an erstwhile private detective, determined to bring "untouchable" crooks to justice. His assistant in this endeavor is Mark "Skid" McCormick (Daniel Hugh-Kelly) a reckless racecar driver. In exchange for exoneration on an auto-theft charge, McCormick agrees to work with Hardcastle in tracking down scofflaws. As a means of softening the two protagonists, it was made clear in the pilot episode that McCormick wasn't really a thief, and that Hardcastle was going after criminals only for their current crimes. Their first mission: to trap the industrialist (John Saxon) responsible for the death of Skid's closest friend. This inaugural Hardcastle and McCormick episode debuted September 18, 1983; the series itself ran until July 23, 1986. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Dario Argento leaves a distinct and bloody impression with this Italian horror film that took the slasher genre to graphic new limits at the time of its release. Novelist Peter Neal (Anthony Franciosa) jets into Rome to promote his new book. Simultaneously, a killer obsessed with Neal begins a brutal series of murders that are followed by cryptic notes to the author. Inspector Germani (Giuliano Gemma) questions Neal, who then begins his own investigation into the bizarre case with the help of his assistant, Anne (Daria Nicolodi), and local youth Gianni (Christian Borromeo). Neal and Gianni follow leads to the home of a TV talk-show host (John Steiner), who is axed to death in front of Gianni while Neal is knocked unconscious. As they close in on the killer, flashbacks show the killer's murderous beginnings and an obsession with red shoes. Meanwhile, Neal's publicist, Bullmer (John Saxon), is revealed to be having an affair with the author's ex-lover, Jane (Veronica Lario), making them both potential suspects. Inspector Germani insists that Neal leave town, but even when he does, the killer strikes again, knifing Bullmer in broad daylight. At the same time, Gianni returns to the home of the dead talk-show host and recalls an important detail about the murder. However, he is strangled before he can tell anyone. At her apartment, Jane is brutally slain just as Inspector Germani arrives to discover the murderer's identity, along with the shocking, twist-filled truth behind the entire case. ~ Patrick Legare, All Movie Guide

Sergio Martino directed this strange mixed-genre horror film starring Elvire Audray as the young widow of an archaeologist (John Saxon), who was murdered while working on an Etruscan dig. Dreaming a premonition of his death, the widow leaves New York for Italy to investigate. Before long, she is attacked by bats and is involved in several murders. Her father (Van Johnson) is smuggling heroin in one of 12 crates of Etruscan artifacts, but gets killed in a cave-in. Other victims have their heads twisted around backwards by an unknown assassin as the woman's premonitions continue and people tell her that she may be an Etruscan immortal. The secrets lie in a hidden tomb, and are revealed in a bizarre climax involving undercover narcotics agents, Etruscan zombies, magic stones and a huge anti-gravity crystal. The mystery is a clever one, the supernatural touches are never overdone, and there are a few real jolts in the screenplay by Ernesto Gastaldi and Dardano Sacchetti. The film is relatively bloodless for the time, but features a large number of maggots. Some prints eliminate the score in favor of over-dubbed music from Lucio Fulci's Paura nella Citta dei Morti Viventi. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide

In this drama, a renegade detective, determined to rid his city of violence, feels no qualms about bending the rules as he searches for two vicious crime lords. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Golden Gate revolves around a San Francisco-based newspaper empire run by a family named Kingsley (it could just as well have been "Kane," since the family was based on you-know-what Frisco-based publishing dynasty). Richard Kiley, the cold and commanding Kingsley patriarch, suffers a heart attack. Kiley's long-estranged son Perry King returns to San Francisco to save the newspaper from bankruptcy, and to stave off a hostile takeover by a crooked money man. There's plenty of tense infighting and terse dialogue, courtesy of veteran TV scenarist Stirling Silliphant. Golden Gate may have smelled like a pilot film, but the story was too self-contained to allow for a subsequent series. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Half zombie epic, half cannibal gorefest, this unusual blend of two popular Italo-horror subgenres results in a high-octane thriller that delivers the gory goods. The story involves a group of former Vietnam POW's who contract a bizarre disease in captivity which compels them to eat human flesh. Needless to say, this makes assimilation into post-war American life rather difficult as the gestating disease takes hold on the returning veterans, whose cannibal instincts eventually fight their way to the surface. One such victim is commando Norman Hopper (John Saxon), who is bitten by one of the POW's during a rescue mission and carries the gestating contagion back home. When the soldier who bit him (John Morghen) is released from a veterans' psychiatric hospital after apparently being cured, he makes brief phone contact with Saxon before succumbing to an immediate relapse, leading to a gory rampage and subsequent shootout with police. When Saxon begins feeling the urge to munch -- first developing an appetite for the teenage cupcake next door -- he springs his fellow cannibals from the hospital, leading to another bloody confrontation with the police -- this time in the city sewers. Director Antonio Margheriti (alleged ghost-director of Andy Warhol's Blood for Dracula and Flesh for Frankenstein) manages to fuse crime-thriller conventions with gory cannibals-in-the-streets horror without losing viewers' interest, although the drastically-edited video version (under the title Invasion of the Flesh Hunters) suffers badly from the absence of Gianetto De Rossi's chunk-blowing makeup effects. The dialogue, while better than the average Italian post-dubbing job, is so overloaded with profanity that it becomes unintentionally hilarious. Released under a dozen titles, the best-known being Cannibal Apocalypse. ~ Cavett Binion, All Movie Guide

A cowboy-turned-huckster unexpectedly finds love as he tries to regain his self-respect in this romantic comedy drama. Sonny Steele (Robert Redford) is a one-time rodeo star whose career as a cowboy has ground to a halt. He makes a good living as a spokesman for Ranch Breakfast, a sugar-coated cereal for kids, but he's lost most of his self-respect in the process; his boss, corporate mogul Hunt Sears (John Saxon), considers him a property rather than a human being, and Sonny has developed a serious problem with alcohol. Sears' cereal company is negotiating a highly profitable merger with another firm and brings Sonny to Las Vegas for a publicity stunt, in which Sonny, wearing a garish cowboy outfit complete with blinking lights, will ride on-stage at Caesar's Palace aboard prize-winning thoroughbred stallion Rising Star. When Sonny discovers Sears' men have drugged the horse so that it will be able to walk on an injured leg, he's appalled, and he rides Rising Star off the stage at Caesar's and into the Nevada desert, looking for grazing land where he and the horse can heal their wounds. Sears is shocked to discover that Sonny has run off with a 12 million dollars, and he realizes that Sonny knows enough to make his firm look very bad in the press, potentially scotching the merger. Sears files charges against Sonny and posts a reward for Rising Star's safe return, though he implies that it wouldn't bother him if Sonny died in the rescue attempt. Hallie Martin (Jane Fonda), a television journalist covering Sonny's Vegas appearance, is convinced that something is fishy and manages to catch up with him in the desert; as Hallie tries to get Sonny to tell her his story, the has-been cowboy and the city-girl reporter fall in love. The Electric Horseman also stars Valerie Perrine and Willie Nelson; the country & western star made his screen debut in this film and has a very memorable line about tequila and trailer hitches. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

In this above-average, exciting Canadian-made action thriller, four psychopaths, led by Christie (Robert Carradine) take over and vandalize a ritzy Manhattan apartment building during the New York power blackout. They move from apartment to apartment, victimizing the occupants until stopped by the police. This low-budget thriller has an exciting, well-written script by John C. Saxton, excellent photography by Jean-Jacques Tarbes and well-acted cameo performances by several well-known actors, including Jean-Pierre Aumont, Ray Milland and June Allyson. While highly derivative and predictable, this film is well worth watching if only to see James Mitchum give an unusually strong performance. ~ Linda Rasmussen, All Movie Guide