Tag Archives: James Franciscus

When Time Ran Out (1980)

Posted on September 21, 2026 | Leave a comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 0 out of 10

4-Word Review: A big volcanic eruption.

Hank (Paul Newman) works on an oil rig that’s on a small tropical island who becomes concerned that the giant volcano there is ready to erupt. Shelby (William Holden) owns and runs a resort hotel that’s also on the island and is reticent to accept the warnings that Hank gives him as he’s afraid the news might panic his guests and cause undue harm to his business. He’s further backed up by Bob (James Franciscus) who has inherited the island from his father and wants to turn the location into a tourist local. He tries to assure the guests that even if the volcano erupts the hotel will be sturdy enough to withstand it, but Hank openly disagrees and tells those that are willing to listen that they should come with him who will take them to a safer location.

While disaster flicks were quite plentiful during the 70’s and often times ridiculed, I found most of them to be marginally entertaining and sometimes even well done, but this one is quite clearly the absolute worst. The idea for the film was ‘inspired’ by the 1969 novel ‘The Day the World Ended’ by Gordon Thomas, which was the true account of when Mount Pelee erupted in 1902 and killed 30,000 people. Had it stuck to being a historical recreation it might’ve worked, but producer Irwin Allen decided to modernize the setting and characters until nothing from the original story is left making it just another generic formula piece too reminiscent of other better films that had done it before and which offers no substance, or anything new.

The characters are of a stock variety and unable to propel the story. Newman is especially weak, he’s one of my favorite actors, but here it’s quite obvious that his heart wasn’t in it and he’s just phoning it in the whole way. Bisset is also wasted and the secret love affair that they have, she’s supposed to be marrying Holden who proposes to her, isn’t interesting because there’s never any big clash between the two men, so what’s the point of introducing a dramatic element if it comes with no payoff?

The rest of the cast suffer similarly boring dilemmas including Red Buttons who plays a fugitive being tailed by a cop played by Ernest Borgnine. The two are immediately at odds, but then when Borgnine gets injured during the volcanic event Buttons decides to come to his aid. While this is initially touching it ends up getting overplayed as Buttons continues to help him more and more until you forget that they were ever adversaries and the original irony gets completely lost.

Veronica Hamel is wasted here too playing the wife of Franciscus who is apparently unaware that she’s been played throughout her marriage, as he’s been secretly carrying on with another woman. I just can’t believe that she would be that fooled that much. Most women have a sense when something in their relationship is off, and I think she would’ve internally known he was cheating even if she couldn’t prove it. The scene where she’s finally forced to face the harsh reality doesn’t have much energy as all she does is walk away. Having her angrily attack the cheater, or the other women, or maybe even pushed them into the lava when it hits the place, would’ve given it some interesting payoff, instead of it just ending on a flat note like everything else.

Having so many people refuse to go with Newman to seek safety I didn’t buy into. There was nothing special about the hotel, which resembled more like a business building, that would convince me that it was ‘specially built, for volcanoes and would be a safe place to stay. Most people when they’re in a dangerous situation want to be doing something and not just sitting in one place waiting to die and feebly hoping for the best. Granted there still might be some that would choose to stay behind, but I felt it would’ve been a much smaller number and with that in mind we should’ve seen them pay for their bad decision by observing the shocked looks on their faces when the hotel crumbles versus an explosion that gets matted onto the film negative and looks completely fake.

I could almost handle the cardboard characters and storyline if the special effects were at least halfway decent, but they end up being the biggest letdown. Apparently, the budget got slashed significantly halfway through the production forcing them to put up with subpar effects that is just so bad it’s laughable. What’s the point of even doing a disaster flick if the whole source of what we’re supposed to fear, which is the volcano, resembles nothing more than an animated painting? Even the flowing hot lava looks cheesy like it was all done in front of a green screen making the whole crossing the bridge segment, which was intended to be the film’s tension packed highlight, come off as boring and unconvincing.

The only positive thing I can say about it is that Franciscus plays an excellent antagonist. He spent most of his career as generic good guys, so having him go against type for once, was a refreshing change of pace, but unfortunately the rest of the film is so bad that his efforts were largely forgotten and didn’t help propel his career in any type of interesting way.

My Rating: 0 out of 10

Released: March 28, 1980

Runtime: 1 Hours 49 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: James Goldstone

Studio: Warner Brothers

Available: DVD, Amazon Video, YouTube

 

 

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Posted in 80's Movies, Disaster Flicks, Movies Based on Novels, Movies with a Hotel setting

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Butterfly (1982)

Posted on July 1, 2024 | Leave a comment

butterfly

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 0 out of 10

4-Word Review: Family has genetic birthmark.

Jess (Stacy Keach) takes care of an unused mine outside of a small Arizona desert town. One day Kady (Pia Zadora) shows up at his doorstep. Jess doesn’t recognize her at first, but then realizes she’s his 17 year-old daughter the product of his marriage to Belle (Lois Nettleton) who abandoned him 10 years earlier for another man named Moke (James Franciscus). She is pregnant by a man who refuses to marry her, so she  wants to steal silver from the mine that Jess protects in order to help her financially with the child who’s on the way. At first Jess disapproves, but Kady uses her provocative body and looks to essentially seduce him and get him to relent. However, a local man named Ed (George Buck Flower) witnesses their stealing from the mine as well as their lovemaking later on, which gets them arrested for incest.

The story is based on the 1947 novel ‘The Butterfly’ by James M. Cain, who at the time was an immensely popular author, who had many of his books made into movies, but due to the controversial nature of this one it had to wait 35 years until it finally went to the big screen. He was inspired to write the story when years earlier, in 1922, he got a flat tire while driving through a mountainous area in California and a farm family that had moved there from West Virginia helped him fix it, but at the time he speculated that the young daughter they had with them was a product of incest.  The movie makes several deviations from the book. In the book Jess was the overseer of a coal mine and the plot took place in West Virginia while the Kady character was 19 instead of 17.

While the plot has some tantalizing elements, and on the production end it’s well financed, the whole thing comes crashing down due to the really bad performance of its lead actress. Zadora at the time had done only one other film before this one, Santa Claus Conquers the Martians, which was universally lambasted. It probably should’ve killed anyone’s career who had been in that, but she continued to struggle on in the business. Then in 1972 while performing in a small role in a traveling musical show, she caught the eye of a rich businessman named Meshulam Riklis, who was 29 years her senior. The two began dating and eventually married in 1977. Her new husband was determined to make her a star even if it meant buying her way in. He put up the entire $3.5 million budget for the film while demanding that she be placed as the star forcing director Matt Cimber to cast all the other parts around her. Riklis even put up big money to help get her promoted to winning the Golden Globes Newcommer of the Year Award, but all of this didn’t get past the critics, or audiences who rightly saw her as undeserving of all the attention and while she did a few other movies after this, which were equally panned, and even a few music videos and singing ventures, she is overall largely forgotten today and hasn’t been in a movie in 30 years.

To some extent her performance isn’t completely her fault as her character is poorly fleshed-out, which is my main gripe. I just couldn’t buy in that this chick on the verge of adulthood would be so extraordinarily naive that she’d come-on to her own father and not see anything wrong with it. First of all why is she sexually into her dad anyways as majority of girls tend to want to go for guys their own age and if not there has to be a reason for it, which this doesn’t give. In either case she should have some understanding that the rest of society doesn’t condone this behavior nor having her aggressively flirt with literally any guy she meets. The fact that she’s so blissfully ignorant to the effects of her behavior made her not only horribly one-dimensional, but downright mentally ill. Sure there’s people walking this planet that harbor some sick, perverse desires, but virtually all of them know they’re taboo and not dumb enough to be so open about, or if they do they learn real fast. Having her unable to understand this, or never able to pick-up on even the slightest of social cues is by far the most annoying/dumbest thing about it.

Keach, who gives a good performance and the only thing that holds this flimsy thing together, has the same issue with his character though not quite as bad. The fact that he doesn’t even recognize his daughter at first is a bit hard to believe. Sure he left the family 10 years earlier, but that would’ve made her 7 at the time and although she has clearly grown I think she’d still have the same face. He gives into his temptations too quickly as at one point he massages her breasts while she’s in the tub. Now if he weren’t religious then you could say he didn’t care about the taboos and had been living so long alone that he’d be happy to jump at any action he could irregardless if they were related, but the fact that he goes to church regularly should make him feel guilty and reluctant to follow through. In the book he’s portrayed as fighting these internal feelings by turning to alcohol, which is the way it should’ve been done here as well.

The eclectic supporting cast does make it more interesting than it should. Orson Welles caught my attention not so much for his role as a judge, but more because of his wacky combover. James Franciscus, who usually played sterile good guys is surprisingly snarly as the heavy and Stuart Whitman has a few good moments as a fiery preacher though even here there’s some logic loopholes that aren’t explained like how did he know Kady was Jess’ daughter, which he mentions while at the pulpit much to the surprise of Jess as he hadn’t introduced her to anybody.

My Rating: 0 out of 10

Released: February 5, 1982

Runtime: 1 Hour 48 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Matt Cimber

Studio: Analysis Film Releasing Corporation

Available: DVD-R

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Posted in 80's Movies, Drama, Movies Based on Novels, Movies with a rural setting, Movies with Nudity, Obscure Movies

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Nightkill (1980)

Posted on May 13, 2023 | Leave a comment

nightkill1

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 5 out of 10

4-Word Review: Somebody is listening in.

Kathy (Jaclyn Smith) is married to Wendell (Mike Connors) a wealthy, but unethical businessman living in Arizona. She’s unhappy in the marriage and wants a divorce, but Wendell promises to make things hard for her if she does, so she reluctantly stays in it, but on the side has an affair with Steve (James Franciscus) his close business associate. Steve poisons Wendell and sticks his body inside the freezer of Wendell’s home and then impersonates him on a flight to Washington to make it appear that he’s still alive. Kathy remains at home only to become harassed by a aggressive detective Donner (Robert Mitchum) who’s suspicious that Wendell has become a victim of foul play. Kathy decides she must get rid of the body, but when she opens up the freezer she discovers it’s no longer Wendell’s corpse that’s inside, but instead Steve’s.

Odd thriller that was produced by a German film company, but filmed in the US. The film succeeds with having a distinct score and great location shooting of Arizona in which it’s dry, desolate landscape helps reflect the empty, inner nature of the characters. It was directed by Ted Post, who’s best known for the cult hit The Baby, which is famous for its twist ending, and there’s a lot of story twists here too, but for whatever reason fails to be captivating and this is mostly due to the dull characters.

Kathy was the one that got on my nerves the most. One minute she’s telling him that she can’t stand him and then the next minute she’s upset and sobbing over his unexpected death, so which is it? It seems like she should’ve been elated when he keeled-over and having her played-up as being this innocent is unrealistic. When you spend your life associating with bad people it tends to rub-off and it’s hard to imagine she wouldn’t have been tainted by the corruption of not only her spouse, but lover and Smith’s poor attempt at crying just makes it all the more worse. I rather have openly bad people going after each other and seeing which one is left standing then some idealized angel who’s completely out-of-place in the setting and would have to be extraordinarily naïve not to have caught-on to the shenanigans that were going on long before she does. If anything Sybil Danning, who is seen in a much smaller role, should’ve been given the lead as her conniving, sauciness was exactly what the character needed to have made it interesting.

Franciscus isn’t in it long enough to make much of an impression and Mitchum sleep walks through his part and thus making his onscreen presence quite bland and his big name, star status adds nothing. The only one that is fun is Connors, best known for his starring role in the cop TV-show ‘Mannix’. Here he plays against type by being an obnoxious jerk that delights in upsetting some caged monkeys that they have in his home. The rotten personality of his character is over-the-top enough to be fun and it’s just a shame he had to die-off so quickly.

Spoiler Alert!

An mentioned there are some nifty twists, but it ultimately adds up to little. The biggest problem is that Mitchum, who’s just as shady as Connors and Franciscus, ends up getting away with it, by stealing the stolen money that Connors has in his airport locker and flying out of the country, which isn’t exactly an audience pleaser. Smith doesn’t completely die either as we see her injured body on the bathroom floor calling the police making it seem that with her information there was still a chance he could get caught and the film should’ve played this out to completion and not left it open to guessing.

Lots of logistical issues too. For instance Mitchum kills Francsicus supposedly at the airport, but for some reason, we never see it but can only presume, drags the dead body back to Smith’s home just so he can put it into the freezer, but why bother? Also, where does he put Connor’s body when he replaces it with Franciscus’? Where does he get the mask of Mike Connors’ face that he uses to disguise himself that he is him? Does he know a manufacturer that makes specially made masks  to resemble someone they know and if so what company is this because I’ve never heard of it? Also, how does he know there’s a cop inside the police department named Donner as he pretends to be this man when he investigates the case even though he’s really a private eye named Rodriguez? These along with several other questions never get answered, which significantly hurts the plausibility.

Original Cinema Quad Poster - Movie Film Posters

Original Cinema Quad Poster – Movie Film Posters

My Rating: 5 out of 10

Released: December 18, 1980

Runtime: 1 Hour 35 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Ted Post

Available: DVD-R, Blu-ray

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Posted in 80's Movies, Mystery, Thrillers/Suspense

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Good Guys Wear Black (1978)

Posted on December 29, 2022 | Leave a comment

good

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 4 out of 10

4-Word Review: He’s marked for murder.

John T. Booker (Chuck Norris) was once the head of an elite CIA assassin group known as The Black Tigers. The group was sent into Vietnam on a mission to rescue American POW’s, but instead finds that they were set-up and marked for demise. Only Booker’s brave and cunning leadership allowed the group to survive. Five years later Booker now works as a UCLA professor where he lectures about the problems with the Vietnam War and how it should never have happened. During one of his classes he meets Margaret (Anne Archer) a beautiful, young reporter who works in Washington and relays to him some troubling information: his buddies that were a part of that unit are now being picked-off one-by-one and Booker is most likely the next target. He decides to team up with her to not only warn the remaining members, but also to weed-out the culprit, or secret organization, who are behind it.

This was Norris’ second starring feature with a story based off an outline written by one of his friends, but the biggest problem with it is that there isn’t enough action sequences and I was genuinely shocked. I’ve not seen too many of his movies, so I’m still new to the formula, but I was honestly expecting fights every 5-minutes. Instead it isn’t until an hour in before Chuck displays his karate expertise and even then it’s brief. This was apparently because he wanted to do it differently than with the Bruce Lee movies he had been in, in the early part of his career. He described those as being ‘all karate with a little story thrown-in’ and he wanted to do something that had a lot of story and only some karate scenes.

While this may sound good in theory the plot is weak and the budget sparse to the point that adding in a few more exciting sequences to make-up for the otherwise anemic production would’ve been a good idea. This really comes into play during the rescue mission where The Black Tigers are in Vietnam looking for the POW’s, but the lighting and camera work are so poor that you can barely see what’s going on. The film also cuts away, so we never see how Norris and his buddies manage to escape from their enemies and make it out. It just immediately jumps to them 5 years later working regular jobs and having moved-on from the traumatic experience, which makes the whole thing seem too rushed.

The story has a few logic loopholes as well. Namely the fact that these assassins seem intent to kill their targets in broad daylight with a lot of people around. Most professional killers can find more subtle ways to off their targets like through poisoning, which can work slowly and harder to trace back to the original source. Shooting someone in big crowds is just asking for trouble because it brings in many potential witnesses and no guarantee they’ll be able to get out of there in time before the authorities arrive. If they must do away with their target through shooting then at least have it done when the victim is alone and the fact that this supposedly slick organization thinks of doing it the other way makes both them and the movie seem pretty dumb.

While Norris’ fighting skills are excellent his acting is not and even he admitted that he felt like ‘hiding behind a chair’ while watching it every time his character came onscreen. His voice inflection is poor and he seems unable to convey any type of emotion. Pairing him with Archer helps as her performance anchors it. I thought too that James Franciscus was terrific as the villain as his dashing good looks effectively reflected a slimy politician willing to accept any underhanded agreement in order to close a deal, but he should’ve been in it more. I was disappointed though with Jim Backus’ appearance as he’s given a very nondescript part as a doorman at an upscale condo building. You’d think bringing in a well-known celebrity he’d have something amusing to say, or do, but it’s a bland bit that could’ve easily been done by a no-name actor. He probably needed the work so that’s why he accepted it, but the producers could’ve at least allowed him to ad-lib, in order to jazz the scene up a bit.

My Rating: 4 out of 10

Released: March 23, 1978

Runtime: 1 Hour 35 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Ted Post

Studio: American Cinema Releasing

Available: DVD, Blu-ray, Pluto, Freevee, Amazon Video

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Posted in 70's Movies, Martial Arts, Political Thrillers

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