Barbara Hershey

  • Richard Rush – The Stunt Man (1980)

    1971-1980ComedyCultRichard RushUSA

    Vietnam veteran Cameron (Steve Railsback) is on the run from the police when he stumbles onto the set of a war movie directed by megalomaniac Eli Cross (Peter O’Toole). But when the young fugitive is forced to replace a dead stunt man, he falls in love with the movie’s leading lady (Barbara Hershey) while trying to avoid getting arrested or killed. Is Eli trying to capture Cameron’s death on film? And what happens to a paranoid stunt man when illusion and reality change places?Read More »

  • Jane Campion – The Portrait of a Lady (1996)

    Jane Campion1991-2000DramaUnited Kingdom

    Jane Campion directs this notable adaptation of the Henry James novel, The Portrait of a Lady of 1881.
    Independent woman Isabel Archer (Nicole Kidman) refuses two suitors, Lord Warburton (Richard E. Grant) and Caspar Goodwood (Viggo Mortensen), when they propose marriage. Instead she travels to Florence, where family friend Madame Merle introduces her to Gilbert Osmond (John Malkovich) and his daughter Pansy. Soon Isabel finds herself falling for the mysterious Osmond. They are engaged to be married within three months, but much unhappiness lies ahead.Read More »

  • Martin Scorsese – Boxcar Bertha (1972)

    Martin Scorsese1971-1980CrimeExploitationUSA

    Quote:
    ‘Boxcar’ Bertha Thompson, a transient woman in Arkansas during the violence-filled Depression of the early ‘30s, meets up with rabble-rousing union man ’Big’ Bill Shelly and the two team up to fight the corrupt railroad establishment. Based on “Sister of the Road,” the 1937 pseudo-autobiography of fictional character Bertha Thompson, written by anarchist physician Dr. Ben L. Reitman.Read More »

  • Sidney J. Furie – The Entity (1981) (HD)

    1981-1990HorrorSidney J. FurieThrillerUSA

    Based on a supposedly true story, a woman is tormented and sexually molested by an invisible demon.

    Quote:
    This big budget entry from the early ’80s horror boom is one of the most underrated of that genre. The Entity succeeds despite potentially exploitative subject matter because it tells its story in a serious, respectful style. Frank de Felitta’s script devotes as much time to building three-dimensional characters and detailing the inner workings of psychology and parapsychology as it does creating shocks.Read More »

  • Peter Tscherkassky – Outer Space (1999)

    1991-2000ArthouseAustriaExperimentalPeter Tscherkassky

    A premonition of a horror film, lurking danger: A house – at night, slightly tilted in the camera’s view, eerily lit – surfaces from the pitch black, then sinks back into it again. A young woman begins to move slowly towards the building. She enters it. The film cuts crackle, the sound track grates, suppressed, smothered. Found footage from Hollywood forms the basis for the film. The figure who creeps through the images, who is thrown around by them and who attacks them is Barbara Hershey. Tscherkassky’s dramatic frame by frame re-cycling, re-copying and new exposure of the material, folds the images and the rooms into each other. Read More »

  • Andrei Konchalovsky – Shy People (1987)

    1981-1990Andrei KonchalovskyDramaThe Cannon GroupUSA

    Diana (Jill Clayburgh) and her rebellious cocaine snorting daughter (Martha Plimpton) travel to the Louisiana bayou to meat their distant relatives. They find a wild gun-toting marsh woman (Barbara Hershey), and her grown children who she protects from the outside world still, going as far as putting one in a cage. Diana came to write an insightful article about her lost family, but may have gotten in over her head. The atmosphere is beautiful. There are some great performances by the brilliant Barbara Hershey (won best actress in 1987 Cannes), and Martha Plimpton. The turning point of the film is a bizarre rape sequence involving Martha Plimpton, cocaine, a big barrel of honey, a dozen goats, and Patrick Swayze’s brother, Don Swayze. This leads to both Jill Clayburg and Martha Plimpton being alone in the swamp, fighting for survival, and also a serious conflict within the familyRead More »

  • James Bridges – The Baby Maker (1970)

    1961-1970DramaJames BridgesUSA


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    First time writer-director James Bridges shows a pitch-perfect ear and an observant, affectionate eye in this beguiling time capsule of clashing cultures and values during the Age of Aquarius. The film is also a showcase for its luminous leading lady, the ne plus ultra of hippie goddesses, Barbara Hershey “Seagull”.

    From the IMDB:
    “An upper-class, childless couple in Southern California ‘hires’ a comely hippie to bear the husband’s baby (this being 1970, she conceives the old-fashioned way); soon, the straight-laced twosome are drawn into the young woman’s world. Interesting, insightful, provocative (for its time), the movie does follow a typical by-the-numbers pattern (with an ‘open minded’ boyfriend, jealousies and friction on all sides), but writer-director James Bridges is very tasteful and unhurried. He also gets some lovely shots of Barbara Hershey at her chestnut-haired, go-go-booted best (my favorites were her run across the street at the beginning, a stunning glimpse of her through a rain-soaked car window, and under the sheets in bed). The incredible finale refuses to compromise, and even though the medical aspects of the story are dated, the emotions are still on-target.”Read More »

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