
            Seattle, Washington. Senator Charles Carroll (William "Bill" Boyce), an independent senator, is holding a luncheon atop the Seattle Space Needle. Joe Frady (Warren Beatty), an alcoholic journalist, tries to gain entry to the luncheon, but is turned away. At the restaurant atop the Space Needle, Senator Carroll is holding a press conference when he is suddenly shot to death by an unseen assassin. Everyone looks around and sees a waiter holding a gun, and he is jumped by security guards. However, a second waiter (Bill McKinney), who also has a gun (and the real or second shooter) leaves unnoticed. The first waiter replies that he didn't do it, and he is chased over the roof of the building by guards, where he accidentally slips and falls off the roof to his death. The real assassin chuckles as he leaves the scene and reports to an unseen contact that the job is finished. Four months later, a commission holds a special public gathering and they conclude that the waiter, named Thomas Richard Lindern (Chuck Waters), acted alone and that there is no greater conspiracy to the assassination of Senator Carroll.Three years later. Joe Frady, writing for a Portland, Oregon newspaper, sets himself up to get arrested to get a story on a major drug bust. Frady is bailed out of jail by his boss and editor Bill Rintels (Hume Cronyn) who always complains that Frady is trying to create news rather than reporting it. Shortly thereafter, Frady is visited by Lee Carter (Paula Prentiss), a Seattle newscaster and his former girlfriend, who tells them that she fears for her life. Lee tells Frady that someone is trying to kill her and that six other reporters at the luncheon have all died mysteriously during the past two years. Frady shrugs her off by telling her that she's just being paranoid. But a few days later, Lee is found dead in her apartment. Frady investigates and the coroner tells him that she apparently killed herself with an overdose of sleeping pills, but Frady knows different.Frady tells Rintels that there is a story brewing here about the events behind the Senator Carroll assassination, and Rintels reluctantly agrees to let Frady pursue his story. Frady meets with a former FBI agent (Kenneth Mars) who informs him that they are many methods that can be used to make someone's death look like an accident or suicide such as certain drugs which are fatal, but show up that a person's heart failed on them.Frady travels to a small fishing village in upstate Washington where one of the witnesses to Carroll's assassination died. At the local bar, a rough deputy, named Red (Earl Hindman), tries to beat up Frady, but after a long and vicious fistfight, Frady wins, knocking out Deputy Red. The sheriff, L.D. Wicker (Kelly Thorsden), appears and applauds Frady for standing up to his loathsome deputy and he is rather friendly towards him. Frady asks the sheriff for information about the dead person, claiming to be an old friend.Sheriff L.D. takes Frady to the spot where the Carroll witness died: a small creek right in front of a large dam. The sheriff explains that the man, Alan Bridges, was fishing when a dam sluice had opened up, releasing tons of water to relieve pressure on the dam as it does every few days and that that Bridges was washed away and drowned. Just then, a siren announces that the dam sluice is opening again. Suddenly, the sheriff pulls a gun on Frady explaining that he cannot let him get too close to what happened to Mr. Bridges. Frady and the sheriff struggle and are swept away by the wall of water that hits both of them. Frady grabs a shore rock and makes it ashore while the sheriff is swept away and drowns.Taking Sheriff L.D.'s car, Frady goes to the sheriff's apartment to search it for evidence and finds test applications to the Parallax Corporation. Just then, Deputy Red arrives at the apartment looking for the sheriff and Frady runs. After a long and wild car case, Frady escapes from the deputy.Returning to Portland, Frady tells Rintels what happened and shows him the copies of the Parallax Corporation application tests, and that there's something big going on. But Rintels refuses to believe Frady is onto something. Frady takes the test application to a psychology lab where the attending psychoanalyst believes that the tests are for measuring one's mental state and ability to commit crimes. Frady allows a lab worker, and a former prison convict who served time for murder, to take the test. Using the alias of "Richard Paley", Frady submits the finished test result to Parallax.A few days later, Frady meets with Austin Tucker (William Daniels), a former Carroll aide, who has arrived in the country and claims that people are trying to kill him for Senator Carroll had many enemies from his past for his liberal views and work. Tucker and his aide/bodyguard take Frady out on a sailboat where he confides in Frady that there is indeed a wide conspiracy in the Carroll assassination and that Thomas Richard Lindern did not act alone and that a powerful corporation may have covered it up. Tucker shows photos that were taken of the luncheon on that day, and points to the second waiter in one of the photographs and asks Frady if he knows the man. Frady doesn't and asks why. Tucker tells Frady that it's probably nothing, but Tucker also explains that he cannot shake the feeling that the second waiter looks familiar. A few minutes later, the boat explodes from a bomb hidden in the cabin. Frady sitting on the bow of the boat jumps overboard, while Tucker and his aide, catching the full blast, are killed.Frady meets with Rintels and tells him about what happened and Rintels agrees to help Frady with his story. Using his alias, Frady checks himself into a fleabag motel in downtown Los Angeles, and a few days later a certain 'Jack Younger' (Walter McGinn), claiming to be a representative of the Parallax Corporation, contacts Frady in his room and says that his aggressiveness (as shown on the test answers) makes him valuable for certain corporations. Younger asks Frady/Richard Paley to join the corporation for the 'special projects' division.Frady goes to the Parallax offices in downtown L.A. and meets with Mr. Younger who shows him a special room where Frady is 'tested' with a series of brainwashing techniques with him being shown various photos and images of death and destruction as if to make him suitable for indoctrination. Frady becomes aware that this branch of the Parallax is a training ground for assassins.As Frady is leaving the building for the day when his 'tests' are finished, he spots the second waiter from the Tucker photo talking to some businessmen. Frady follows the second waiter/assassin outside to his car and tails him driving around the city. The assassin switches cars with another person, and obtains a briefcase which he takes to the local airport.The assassin checks himself on a plane to Chicago, and Frady checks himself on the same plane. The plane takes off, but the assassin does not board for he has apparently checked in his briefcase which has a bomb in it. On the plane, Frady sees that that assassin is nowhere to be found, and after seeing that a prominent senator on board, realizes that the plane must have a bomb on board. After trying to sneak a message on a restroom mirror, Frady anonymously passes a note on a napkin to a stewardess that a bomb is on board. The stewardess relays the news to the pilot who immediately returns the plane to Los Angeles. After everyone has disembarked, the plane explodes.Frady returns to his seedy motel room to find Mr. Younger waiting for him and he informs Frady that Parallax have already had an offer of employment for Frady, but he immediately expresses suspicion as a background check made by Parallax on Frady showed that some of his references were false. Frady then makes up a new alias for Younger explaining that he's an alcoholic and lied on his background to land a job. Younger offers to look into it and again promises Frady that Parallax is a great opportunity for people like him, and then leaves.Realizing that it will only be a matter of time before they discover his real identity, Frady secretly mails the Parallax test papers and an audiotape he made on a mini-tape recorder of his conversation with Younger to Rintels. Along with it is a note from Frady who explains that he may be in way over his head and that if anything were to happen to him, that Rintels should publish this information about Parallax and what they do on the sidelines of recruiting assassins to kill prominent officials who threaten or get too close to the corporation's nefarious plans. Rintels listens to the tape and finally realizes that Frady is onto something big. Rintels, who practically lives in his office and orders take-out food every day from a deli across the street, orders more food as he reviews more of the papers Frady has mailed to him. Just then, the deli delivery guy arrives with Rintels' latest food order. The delivery guy is the Parallax assassin in disguise. The next morning, Rintels is found dead by his employees in his office, dead from an apparent "heart attack" after he was poisoned. The evidence is gone and the audio tape has been erased.In Los Angeles, Frady, unaware of Rintels' murder and that he is now on his own, gets his first assignment to meet with his new co-worker at a local hotel for their "assignments". Frady sneaks out of the planned meeting place and goes to Parallax's offices asking to meet with Mr. Younger, but is told that Younger is out. Frady spots the Parallax assassin and follows him into the hallways of the L.A. Convention Center. Mr. Younger is there with more Parallax businessmen/assassins where they are talking about their latest plans. Frady watches them from a distance as Mr. Younger leaves and the Parallax assassin and a few others go to the platforms above the floor of the convention hall.Frady sees that down below Senator Hammond (Jim Davis), a prominent California senator, is rehearsing a speech he will give that night. Frady believes that the assassin is going to shoot the senator with a rifle that he loads and lies down on the walkway above the convention hall. Then, just as Senator Hammond is planning to leave before he makes his appearance, the assassin suddenly leaves, leaving Frady in hiding on the walkway, alone and locked in the area. Suddenly, shots ring out as one of the assassins shoots and kills Hammond with a second rifle from a concealed location, just as Hammond is riding in a golf cart out of the convention hall. Everyone looks up and around for the shooter, and sees Frady.... standing on the plank way above them near the unused rifle. THEY THINK HE DID IT!!!! Frady realizes (way too late) that he's been set up! Frady hides under the plank way as three Parallax security guards/assassins show up looking for him. When police sirens are heard, the three assassins flee, leaving the door to the exit wide open. After a few minutes, Frady tries to run for the exit, when the assassin appears as a menacing silhouette in the doorway (anticipating that Frady would do just that) and guns him down, and thus announces that they got the shooter.Several months later, a second congressional commission is held where the commissioner members (pompous and easily fooled) report that Frady had blamed Senator Hammond for the Carroll assassination and had sought revenge. Once again for apparently the countless time, the Parallax Corporation gets away with it when the commission rules that there is no conspiracy in the Hammond assassination and the Parallax name is not mentioned at all. Frady was the lone assassin. Case closed.
    

The Parallax View


            Joanna Eberhart (Katharine Ross) is a young wife who moves with her husband Walter (Peter Masterson) and two children from New York City to the idyllic Connecticut suburb of Stepford. Loneliness quickly sets in as Joanna, a mildly rebellious aspiring photographer, finds the women in town all look great and are obsessed with housework, but have few intellectual interests. The men all belong to the clubbish Stepford Men's Association, which Walter joins to Joanna's dismay. Neighbor Carol Van Sant's (Nanette Newman) sexually submissive behavior to her husband Ted, and her odd, repetitive behavior after a car accident also strike Joanna as unusual.Things start to look up when she makes friends with another newcomer to town, sloppy, irrepressible Bobbie Markowe (Paula Prentiss). Along with glossy trophy wife Charmaine Wimperis (Tina Louise), they organize a Women's Lib consciousness raising session, but the meeting is a failure when the other wives hijack the meeting with cleaning concerns. Joanna is also unimpressed by the boorish Men's Club members, including intimidating president Dale "Dis" Coba (Patrick O'Neal); stealthily, they collect information on Joanna including her picture, her voice, and other personal details. When Charmaine turns overnight from a languid, self-concerned tennis fan into an industrious, devoted wife, Joanna and Bobbie start investigating, with ever-increasing concern, the reason behind the submissive and bland behavior of the other wives, especially when they learn they were once quite supportive of liberal social policies.Spooked, Bobbie and Joanna start house hunting in other towns, and later, Joanna wins a prestigious contract with a photo gallery with some photographs of their respective children. When she excitedly tells Bobbie her good news, Joanna is shocked to find her freewheeling and liberal friend has abruptly changed into another clean, conservative housewife, with no intention of moving from town.Joanna panics and at the insistence of Walter, visits a psychiatrist where she voices her belief that all the men in the town are behind a conspiracy of somehow changing the women. The psychiatrist recommends she leave town until she feels safe, but when Joanna returns home, the children are missing. The marriage devolves into domestic violence when Joanna and Walter get in to a physical scuffle. In an attempt to find her children, she hypothesizes Bobbie may be caring for them. Joanna, still mystified by Bobbie's behavior, is desperate to prove her humanity but intuitively stabs Bobbie with a kitchen knife. But Bobbie doesn't bleed or suffer, instead going into a loop of odd mechanical behavior, thus revealing she is a robot.Despite feeling she may be the next victim, Joanna sneaks into the mansion which houses the Men's Association to find her children. There, she finds the mastermind of the whole operation, Dale "Dis" Coba, and eventually her own robot-duplicate. Joanna is shocked into paralysis when she witnesses its soulless, black, empty eyes. It is then suggested that the Joanna-duplicate strangles the real Joanna. In the final scene, the duplicate is seen placidly purchasing groceries at the local supermarket, along with the other "wives" all wearing similar long dresses, large hats and saying little more than hello to each other. The final shot focuses on Joanna's now-finished eyes.
    

The Stepford Wives


            
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Last of the Red Hot Lovers


            The film starts with a thirty-old not-very-good-looking man preparing some joints.Days and nights are touch and go for JJ (George Segal) a petty thief and heroin addict who runs errands and commits robberies to support his habit.He met his girl friend Parm (Karen Black) one night while stealing her car. They have a sexy-kinda conversation and Parm lets him to sleep in her flat. They will stick together through everything JJ gets involved in. While delivering a package of illicit drugs for local drug dealer and pimp Vivian (Hector Elizondo), JJ decides to steal it but is caught by the police. He runs away and hides inside a laundramat dryer machine, but detective Danny (Robert DeNiro) puts the machine to work and waits for him to go out non-chalantly.Finally caught, the police agree to let him go if JJ turns "narc" and sets up the Geek in a sting operation with detective Danny (Robert De Niro), something Jay Jay doesn't want to do because he feels it will ensure his death. JJ arranges a meeting between himself and Vivian. Vivian tells him to go to Kennedy airport the following morning at 9 o'clock for a 800-dollar package.Before doing the "deed", he goes to sleep with Parm, and she says she loves another man during the fastfood dinner they share, but then she says it's a joke. The next morning, when JJ leaves for the airport, she wants to go with him as she is afraid that something dangerous is going to happen to him. JJ tries to convince her to stay at home, saying that it'll a twenty-year sentence for her if she gets caught. Parm threatens him to shout so much that the neighbours will call for the police, so he has to take her with him.A businessman-dressed man (Vic Ramos) gives JJ a briefcase with the drug in the parking of the airport. Parm and that man eye each other with distrust. The exchange happens at another parking, and when Parm asks whether the maffia is involved, the answer is "no". The police appear and they have to run away. Parm is taken by the police, but JJ is left free. The drug dealers hit him until they are convinced hes' telling the truth. The boss dealer tells JJ to undress, and that he'll get his clothes back when he is capable of returning the drugs. They give JJ a fancy and glamurous lady's nightgown and he is imprisoned in one of the rooms of their flat. From there, JJ tries to say something to his neighbrours. The two lady neighbours, a young girl (Jane Elder) and her mother (Diane Molneri), they finally call the police because they think he's a pervert of some kind.When the police arrive, the ensuing shooting gives an opportunity for JJ to escape, dressed in the women's nightgown. He goes to an exclusive executive clothing shop, and he dresses himself up with a pair of trousers and a nice shirt. The shop assistant (Max Brandt) realises that something weird is going on, but JJ asks him what he's gonna do about it and leaves with his new clothes on, with the price tags still on them.He goes to Parm once again. In the snowed freezing beach they are alone, hugging and kissing. He says he wants some payment for his twenty-year spenditure. Parm asks him what he really wants, if money is so important to him. She hummers a tune, a soft ballad. Parm ends up hugging him as if he were a baby.JJ feels the need, his habit kicking back in. He has to go to the diner which is the front for petty drug dealing business. There, in the back yard, JJ wakes his friend Billy (Jay Fletcher) from his drugged sopour. With some difficulty, they find somebody eager to sell them some drugs. They want to share them, so they go to a public restroom. While JJ is preparing his dose, Billy takes his dose first and they immediately make him feel sick. JJ tries to take Billy to hospital but as soon as they reach the lift Billy drops dead. JJ runs away leaving Billy's body in the lift, preventing the lift doors to close. JJ runs like a maniac through the streets until he gets to Parm's flat.JJ and Parm decide to leave New York and on the way they are stopped by the police who arrest Parm for possession of drugs. The police officer in civilian clothes accompanying Danny (Ed Madsen) says that Parm looks like a hooker. They search Parm's car without a warrant. JJ shouts so another police officer punckes him in his belly. She was driving and it was her car, so she is taken in the back seat of the police car.JJ is left alone, without anywhere to go to or lie down. The gossip has spread and nobody wants to sell shit to him. In a seedy bar, JJ has to beg for some drugs. Even Vivian's girlfriend Veronica (Paula Prentiss), feels sorry for him. She still feels some warmth towards him, but the harsh reality of life prevents her from trying to help him in any way.JJ is given some drugs by Geek, but the former feels sure they are bad and that they are designed to kill him. However, he is also so driven by his addiction and the film ends with JJ freezing while sitting in a park bench, tremble half because of the freezing cold and half because of his need for drugs. What will he decide?
    

Born to Win

I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House


            Thursday the 12th: Waldemar (Jeffrey Tambor) and his wife Yolanda (Nancy Lee Andrews), two vampires from Transylvania, are just about to close the deal on a house in Erie, Pennsylvania when they learn that it has been inherited by a family of four who are moving in as the two vampires stand there discussing the deal with the realtor.John (Richard Benjamin) and Mary (Paula Prentiss) are at a will reading where John's recently diseased uncle has left them the house as part of his will. Upon arriving at the old house John and Mary love the look of it, even though it does need some work and is rumored to have a curse on it, but their kids, 16-year-old Debbie (Kari Michaelson) and 12-year-old Billy (Kevin Brando), don't share the enthusiasm. Not even Rover, the family dog, wants to come inside. "You'll be amazed at what some nice curtains will do for this house," Mary assures her family.That evening, bored with television (all channels seem to be showing "The Twilight Zone"), Billy looks through some of the old books in the library. "The Book of Evil" looks interesting and, although the inscription warns, "Whoever shall open this book releases into the world all the evil herein," Billy begins turning the pages. Each page reveals a picture of a monster that suddenly disappears from the page. Later, as they try to sleep, Billy is awakened by a monster in his bedroom, Mary is bitten by Waldemar, and the whole family is kept up by "owls" banging and shrieking in the yard. Watching from their car, Waldemar and Yolanda are dismayed when they see monsters and realize that someone must have found THE BOOK.Friday the 13th: John and Mary go shopping (for curtains), Billy discovers that his mom has cleaned his room and moved THE BOOK. Meanwhile, Debbie takes a bubble bath and is scared silly by the fin floating in her bathwater which rises to reveal a 'gill-man' creature, who chases her, but instead kills a local delivery guy. Later that day, Mary is attacked by a horde of bats in the attic (shades of 'The Birds'). As a result, they family decides to call an exterminator. The exterminator, Mr. Van Helsing (Severn Darden) assures the family that he can cure their bat problem and moves in ("You don't expect to get rid of bats overnight!"). Over dinner that night, Billy admits to having found, opened, and lost THE BOOK, and Van Helsing warns the family that the world is in grave danger if THE BOOK is not found.Saturday the 14th: John and Mary have planned a party for the relatives and a few friends. The guests start arriving, but Billy has come up missing so everyone goes looking for him. At one minute to midnight, Waldemar and Yolanda come calling with Billy and THE BOOK in tow. As the monsters approach from all sides, Van Helsing pleads with Billy to hand over THE BOOK, but Billy refuses. It seems that Billy has seen a picture of Van Helsing in THE BOOK and that Van Helsing is really one of the monsters, too. Van Helsing and Waldemar make faces at each other in attempts at a powerplay. Suddenly, Van Helsing grabs THE BOOK from Billy and disappears along with all the monsters. Instead of THE BOOK's destruction freeing all the monsters, destroying THE BOOK destroyed all the monsters along with it.In the final scene (set on Sunday the 15th) John, Mary, Debbie, and Billy move out and away from the old house and the vampire couple of Waldemar and Yolanda move in.
    

Paula Prentiss

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