Tom Smith Movies

The lives of five L.A. natives intertwine in this romantic comedy from independent filmmaker and former Robert Altman protégé Alan Rudolph. Eve (Lesley Ann Warren) is a bar owner who has sworn off permanent commitments, seeking only the temporary sexual satisfaction of men. Her roommate Ann (Genevieve Bujold) is her polar opposite. In reality, Ann is secretly the radio sex therapist Dr. Nancy Love, but she has little romantic experience despite her profession. Into their lives comes Mickey (Keith Carradine), a recent mental patient who might be an enigmatic pathological liar. Though she's powerfully attracted to Mickey, Eve's kept at arm's length by her lover Zack (Patrick Bauchau), a married man whose wife (Rae Dawn Chong) also finds Mickey irresistible. When Nancy sleeps with Mickey, he proposes marriage, but she rejects him, though the assignation does have a positive effect on her radio show. Considered Rudolph's seminal work, Choose Me (1984) was the third in a thematically-linked trilogy from the quirky low-budget director, the first two being Welcome to L.A. (1977) and Remember My Name (1978). ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide

In the final episode of the Star Wars saga, Han Solo (Harrison Ford) emerges intact from the carbonite casing in which he'd been sealed in The Empire Strikes Back. The bad news is that Solo, together with Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) and Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher), is prisoner to the grotesque Jabba the Hutt. But with the help of the charismatic Lando Calrissian (Billy Dee Williams), our heroes and our heroine manage to escape. The next task is to rid the galaxy of Darth Vader (body by David Prowse, voice by James Earl Jones) and the Emperor (Ian McDiarmid), now in command of a new, under-construction Death Star. On the forest moon Endor, the good guys enlist the help of a feisty bunch of bear-like creatures called the Ewoks in their battle against the Empire. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) is no ordinary archeologist. When we first see him, he is somewhere in the Peruvian jungle in 1936, running a booby-trapped gauntlet (complete with an over-sized rolling boulder) to fetch a solid-gold idol. He loses this artifact to his chief rival, a French archeologist named Belloq (Paul Freeman), who then prepares to kill our hero. In the first of many serial-like escapes, Indy eludes Belloq by hopping into a convenient plane. So, then: is Indiana Jones afraid of anything? Yes, snakes. The next time we see Jones, he's a soft-spoken, bespectacled professor. He is then summoned from his ivy-covered environs by Marcus Brody (Denholm Elliott) to find the long-lost Ark of the Covenant. The Nazis, it seems, are already searching for the Ark, which the mystical-minded Hitler hopes to use to make his stormtroopers invincible. But to find the Ark, Indy must first secure a medallion kept under the protection of Indy's old friend Abner Ravenwood, whose daughter, Marion (Karen Allen), evidently has a "history" with Jones. Whatever their personal differences, Indy and Marion become partners in one action-packed adventure after another, ranging from wandering the snake pits of the Well of Souls to surviving the pyrotechnic unearthing of the sacred Ark. A joint project of Hollywood prodigies George Lucas and Steven Spielberg, with a script co-written by Lawrence Kasdan and Philip Kaufman, among others, Raiders of the Lost Ark is not so much a movie as a 115-minute thrill ride. Costing 22 million dollars (nearly three times the original estimate), Raiders of the Lost Ark reaped 200 million dollars during its first run. It was followed by Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1985) and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989), as well as a short-lived TV-series "prequel." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

It's late 1944, and the Allied armies are confident they'll win the World War II and be home in time for Christmas. What's needed, says British general Bernard Law Montgomery, is a knockout punch, a bold strike through Holland, where German troops are spread thin, that will put the Allies into Germany. Paratroops led by British major general Robert Urquhart (Sean Connery) and American brigadier general James Gavin (Ryan O'Neal) will seize a thin road and five bridges through Holland into Germany, with paratroops led by Lieutenant Col. John Frost (Sir Anthony Hopkins) holding the most critical bridge at a small town called Arnhem. Over this road shall pass combined forces led by British Lieutenant Gen. Brian Horrocks (Edward Fox) and British Lieutenant Col. Joe Vandeleur (Michael Caine). The plan requires precise timing, so much so that one planner tells Lieutenant Gen. Frederick Browning (Dirk Bogarde), "Sir, I think we may be going a bridge too far." The plan also has one critical flaw: Instead of a smattering of German soldiers, the area around Arnhem is loaded with crack SS troops. Disaster ensues. Based on a book by historian Cornelius Ryan, A Bridge Too Far is reminiscent of another movie based on a Ryan book, The Longest Day. Like that movie, it is loaded with more than 15 international stars, including Sir Laurence Olivier, Robert Redford, Hardy Krueger, Gene Hackman, Maximilian Schell, and Liv Ullman. ~ Nick Sambides, Jr., All Movie Guide

Victor Frankenstein (Ralph Bates) is the son of the Count who plans his father's demise. He inherits the castle and the comely housekeeper (Kate O'Mara) who doubles as his mistress. Soon Victor is busy murdering people to build his monster (David Prowse). His victims include his neighbor, his housekeeper, a gravedigger, a professor and his best friend. He patches the various body parts together to make his horrible creation in this horror story with a good dose of comedy. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

This sexy horror story from Britain's Hammer Films finds Ingrid Pitt playing three roles, the most notable being a lesbian vampire who will resort to biting a man only when it is absolutely necessary. A doctor and a manservant are victims, but only after she has exhausted all attempts to sink her fangs into the bosoms of young women. The General (Peter Cushing) finds his daughter Laura (Pippa Steel) is victimized by the bite of the vampiress. With the help of Baron Hartog (Douglas Wilmer), they try to end the horror brought by the blood-sucking beauty. Blood, gore and a few decapitations are depicted before the wooden stakes and crosses are brought out. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

A pair of bumbling vampire-hunters attempts to destroy an undead nobleman and his cronies and rescue a buxom maiden in actor/director Roman Polanski's playful update of the venerable vampire genre. Bat expert and vampire obsessive Professor Abronsius (Jack MacGowran) barely survives his journey through the Alps into snowy Slovenia to continue his oft-maligned research into the undead. Thawed out by his hapless assistant, Alfred (Polanski), and the frisky local innkeeper, Shagal (Alfie Bass), Abronsius quickly notices the overabundance of raw garlic as a decorating motif in the inn and its environs. Too ineffectual to save Shagal from having his blood sucked, the professor and Alfred miss the boat again when the mysterious Count Von Krolock (Ferdinand Mayne) kidnaps Shagal's built, beautiful daughter, Sarah (Sharon Tate). The itinerant vampire hunters must travel through the icy wilderness to Von Krolock's abode and evade his manservant and his effete son Herbert (Iain Quarrier) before Sarah joins the ranks of the ghouls. They soon learn, however, that the luxury-starved lass actually enjoys her captors' lavish attentions. The action climaxes during a costume ball attended by a phalanx of blood-suckers, although the laughs and surprises continue until the very end. Sixteen minutes of unauthorized cuts have been restored in some video editions of The Fearless Vampire Hunters, although the animated credits sequence that replaced them is also retained. The film marks the feature debut of Tate, who replaced Polanski's original choice, Jill St. John, on the advice of producer Martin Ransohoff. ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide

Ingrid Thulin plays a Polish inmate of the Dachau concentration camp who is liberated at the end of the war. Presumed dead, Ingrid returns to visit her husband (Maximillian Schell) She finds that his grief was fleeting at best; his new mistress is his "deceased" wife's daughter (Samantha Eggar) from a previous marriage. Since Ingrid's identity is masked by plastic surgery, she subtly re-enters their life without undue stress for either husband or daughter. But when the husband figures out the ruse, he murders his young paramour in the bathtub (a moment lavishly exploited in the print ads for this film) and plots to kill Ingrid for her money. A textbook case of implausibility, Return from the Ashes was adapted from an equally unbelievable novel by Hubert Monteilhet. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The first English-language film of director Roman Polanski is a psychological thriller in the vein of Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (1960) and his own later film Rosemary's Baby (1968). Catherine Deneuve stars as Carol Ledoux, a Belgian manicurist living with her sister, Helen (Yvonne Furneaux), in a London flat. Simultaneously attracted and repulsed by sex, Carol is a virgin who finds her sister's relationship with a married man, Michael (Ian Hendry), extremely disturbing. When her sister and Michael go on holiday, Carol begins to disintegrate mentally, hallucinating bizarre encounters, being forced into taking a sabbatical from her job and ultimately committing a pair of murders in her deranged state. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide

In this thriller (which represented something of a departure for Hammer Films, noted for their gothic period pieces), Joey Fane (William Dix) has returned home after two years in an institution for mentally ill children. His sister drowned, and his family believes that Joey was to blame, despite his claims of innocence. Joey is convinced that the family's Nanny (Bette Davis) was responsible and refuses to have anything to do with her, but only neighbor girl Bobby (Pamela Franklin) agrees that there's something sinister about the woman minding the house. When Joey's neurotic mother Virginia (Wendy Craig) nearly dies after eating tainted food prepared by the Nanny, Virginia's sister Penelope (Jill Bennett) comes by to help. Penelope soon witnesses the bad blood between Joey and the Nanny, though before long she begins to think that the boy might be right about her after all. Jimmy Sangster adapted the screenplay from a novel by Evelyn Piper. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

In this drama, from director Anthony Asquith, the lives and stories of three different people are linked together by their possession of an unusual car, a yellow Rolls Royce Phantom II. Lord Frinton (Rex Harrison) is a diplomat who purchases the exquisite auto as a gift for his wife (Jeanne Moreau). After Frinton's horse wins the Royal Gold Cup, Lady Frinton incurs the Lord's wrath when she is caught in the back seat of the Rolls with his underling John Fane (Edmund Purdom). In the 1930s, the car is bought by Italian gangster Paolo Maltese (George C. Scott), who is carrying on with the hatcheck girl Mae Jenkins (Shirley MacLaine). The two take a tour of Italy and see all the historic sights, but Mae is less than impressed. While Paolo is in the United States on one of his frequent hit-man assignments, Mae and a street photographer try out the back seat for comfort and carnal pleasure. Art Carney plays Paolo's associate Joey. In the final episode, Gerda Millett (Ingrid Bergman) is the married American woman who buys the car in 1942. With Hitler attacking Yugoslavia the brave and brazen beauty helps fight the Nazis by smuggling Davich (Omar Shariff) across the border, and this duo also find themselves in the back seat for a roll in the Rolls. Davich shows his gratitude by shipping the car along with Gerda back to the United States. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

One of the most highly regarded haunted house films ever produced, Robert Wise's The Haunting (based on Shirley Jackson's novel The Haunting of Hill House) weaves the dark tale of a questionably sane young woman and a sinister house which holds a terrifying past. Invited to join anthropologist Dr. Markway (Richard Johnson), ESP expert Theodora (Claire Bloom), and probable heir to the estate Luke Sanderson (Russ Tamblyn) in order to dispel the near mythical tales that surround the house, unstable Eleanor Vance (Julie Harris) agrees to spend a few nights in the house following the death of her mother. As they slowly begin to discover, the horrific and seemingly unbelievable tales may hold more truth than the skeptical guests might have previously expected. With a seemingly unstoppable supernatural force lurking in every shadow, the probability of anyone escaping the evil clutch of the cursed mansion seems increasingly remote. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide