Clifton James Filmography

Hell's Kitchen: A New York Neighborhood

Synopsis: Hell's Kitchen, New York City: In an era when real estate development and gentrification threaten to squeeze low-income residents out of this vibrant, multi-ethnic community, filmmaker Kamal Ahmed turns his camera on the people who walk these streets every day to offer a portrait of the Read More

Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut

Actors: Christopher Reeve, Gene Hackman, Margot Kidder, Marlon Brando, Ned Beatty, Jackie Cooper, Terence Stamp

Synopsis: Reconstructed using archival film and sound elements long thought to be extinct, this special cut of Superman II pieces together unseen footage shot by Richard Donner in order to present the most comprehensive version of what was to be the original cut of the blockbuster sequel. As initially Read More

Interstate 84

Actors: Kevin Dillon, John Littlefield, Megan Dodds, John Doman, Harley Cross

Synopsis: Ross Partridge directed this unconventional American indie flick that starts as a mystery but soon unfolds into an existential tale of life and faith. Joe Weldon (Jon Littlefield) is a hard-drinking cop working the beat in a small town in upstate New York. His life is in utter shambles: his wife Read More

Lone Star

Actors: Miriam Colon, Chris Cooper, Elizabeth Peña, Joe Morton, Ron Canada, Clifton James, Kris Kristofferson

Synopsis: Reminiscent of a fine novel in depth and complexity, writer-director John Sayles' acclaimed drama uses the investigation of a 25-year-old murder as the framework for a detailed exploration of life in a Texas border town. The nominal center of the film is Sheriff Sam Deeds (the superb, subtle Chris Cooper Read More

The Road to Freedom: The Vernon Johns Story

Actors: James Earl Jones, Mary Alice, Tommy Hollis, Cissy Houston, Clifton James

Synopsis: The Vernon Johns Story is the inspirational saga of the man who preceded Martin Luther King Jr. as pastor of a Montgomery, Alabama Baptist Church. Described as "one of God's most brilliant preachers," Johns campaigned tirelessly for Civil Rights long before the cudgel was taken up by the Read More

Carolina Skeletons

Synopsis: Carolina Skeletons is based on a prize-winning novel by David Stout. Louis Gossett Jr. plays a former Green Beret colonel who returns to his home town after thirty years. As a child, Gossett was forced to look on in horror as his brother was tried and executed on a trumped-up murder charge. Now Read More

The Bonfire of the Vanities

Actors: Tom Hanks, Bruce Willis, Melanie Griffith, Kim Cattrall, Saul Rubinek, Morgan Freeman

Synopsis: Brian De Palma's Hollywood sanitization of Tom Wolfe's scabrous satire stars Tom Hanks as Sherman McCoy, the "master of the universe," a shallow Wall Street investor who makes millions while enjoying the good life and the sexual favors of Maria Ruskin (Melanie Griffith), a Southern belle Read More

Night Court: It's Just a Joke

Synopsis: This episode was clearly inspired by the brouhaha stirred up when controversial comedian Andrew Dice Clay) hosted Saturday Night Live in the spring of 1990. The "Clay" character in this instance is stand-up comic Monte Potter (Louie Mustillo), whose profanity-laden monologues have raised a Read More

She-Devil

Actors: Meryl Streep, Roseanne, Ed Begley, Jr., Linda Hunt, Sylvia Miles

Synopsis: Susan Seidelman directed this loose adaptation of Fay Weldon's novel The Life and Loves of a She-Devil concerning the extreme revenge exacted by a dumpy housewife on her philandering husband. Mary Fisher (Meryl Streep) is a best-selling romance novelist of the manner of Danielle Steel or Jackie Collins Read More

Eight Men Out

Actors: John Cusack, Clifton James, David Strathairn, Christopher Lloyd, John Mahoney, D.B. Sweeney, Michael Lerner

Synopsis: Writer/director John Sayles' dramatization of the most infamous episode in professional sports -- the fix of the 1919 World Series -- is considered by many to be among his best films and arguably the best baseball movie ever made. This adaptation of Eliot Asinof's definitive study of the scandal Read More

Murder, She Wrote: The Last Flight of the Dixie Damsel

Synopsis: During the Korean War, Frank Fletcher, late husband of mystery writer Jessica Fletcher (Angela Lansbury), was forced to bail out of the "Dixie Damsel", a crippled C97 cargo plane. Now, 36 years later, the wreckage of the "Dixie Damsel" has been found--with the remains of a murdered man inside! An Read More

The Untouchables

Actors: Kevin Costner, Sean Connery, Charles Martin Smith, Andy Garcia, Robert De Niro

Synopsis: Like the TV series that shared the same title, The Untouchables (1987) was an account of the battle between gangster Al Capone and lawman Eliot Ness, this time in the form of a feature film boasting big stars, a big budget, and a script from respected playwright David Mamet. Kevin Costner stars as Read More

Where Are the Children?

Actors: Jill Clayburgh, Max Gail, Harley Cross, Elisabeth Harnois, Barnard Hughes, Elizabeth Wilson

Synopsis: In this melodrama that emphasizes emotion and a convoluted plot, Nancy Eldridge (Jill Clayburgh) has remarried after her divorce and is trying to recuperate from the tragedy of the deaths of her two children during her previous marriage. That means when her children by current husband Clay (Max Gail Read More

Highway to Heaven: Song of the Wild West

Synopsis: Having never forgiven his wife Evelyn (Ronee Blakley) for deserting him and their daughter Sarah (Michele Greene) to pursue a career as a country & western singer, embittered single dad Tim Higgins (Jerry Hardin) has convinced Sarah that Evelyn is dead -- and he is violently opposed to Sarah's own Read More

The A-Team: Pros and Cons

Synopsis: B.A. (Mr. T) persuades his fellow A-Teamers to help him rescue his pal from Strikersville, a brutal Florida prison farm where sadistic warden (Clifton James) forces the inmates to participate in to-the-death boxing matches--then orders his deputies to hunt down and kill the "winner" like an Read More

The A-Team: The White Ballot

Synopsis: To help reporter Jimmy Baker (Joshua Bryant) expose the corruption of rural New Mexico sheriff Jake Dawson (Clifton James), Face (Dirk Benedict) impersonates the prodigal son of war hero Joe Morgan, who until his recent murder had been Dawson's opponent in an upcoming election. Unfortunately Read More

Kidco

Actors: Scott Schwartz, Cinnamon Idles, Tristine Skyler, Elizabeth Gorcey

Synopsis: Prominently displaying red-white-and-blue title colors, this subtly patriotic fact-based movie about kids who succeed is dated by the fact that all these daring youngsters are white, without any discernible ethnicity. Dickie (Scott Schwartz) is an enterprising kid on a ranch in southern California Read More

Talk to Me

Actors: Austin Pendleton, Michael Murphy, Barbara Eda-Young, Dan Shor, Louise Fletcher

Synopsis: While staying at the Hollins Communication Institute, a stuttering accountant fittingly falls for a squirrel huntress who has a similar speech impediment. ~ Kristie Hassen, All Movie Guide Read More

Cabo Blanco

Actors: Charles Bronson, Jason Robards, Jr., Dominique Sanda, Fernando Rey, Simon MacCorkindale

Synopsis: In this strange, unsatisfying remake of Casablanca, directed by J. Lee Thompson, a bar owner helps a woman find a missing fortune. Right after the end of WWII, Giff Hoyt (Charles Bronson) owns a bar in Peru into which Marie Allesandri (Dominique Sanda) enters one day, in search of her lover and Read More

Superman II

Actors: Christopher Reeve, Gene Hackman, Margot Kidder, Ned Beatty, Jackie Cooper, Terence Stamp

Synopsis: Between giving up his super powers, confronting criminals from outer space, and having problems with his girlfriend, it's a bad time to be the Man of Steel in this sequel to the 1978 blockbuster. When terrorists threaten to destroy Paris with a thermonuclear device as they hold reporter Lois Lane (Margot Kidder Read More

Quincy, M.E.: Last Rights

Synopsis: The sixth season of Quincy M.E. begins as pugnacious, compassionate medical examiner Quincy (Jack Klugman) shows up in a small mill town to lend a helping hand to his colleague Charles Volmer (William Daniels. No sooner has he arrived than Quincy finds himself waist-deep in a brace of ethical Read More

The Dukes of Hazzard: Treasure of Hazzard

Synopsis: Attractive history professor Laura Bardsley (Jeannie Wilson) arrives in Hazzard County in search of an authentic Civil War strongbox, said to contain a huge army payroll. Naturally, Boss Hogg (Sorrell Booke) is anxious to get his lunch-hooks on the strongbox himself--and so, unfortunately, are a Read More

Hart to Hart

Actors: Jill St. John, Lionel Stander, Robert Wagner

Synopsis: Originally telecast September 25, 1979, Hart to Hart was the pilot film for a series which officially debuted three days earlier. Robert Wagner and Stephanie Powers play the fabulously wealthy, blissfully happy married couple Jonathan and Jennifer Hart. He's a conglomerate CEO, she's a mystery Read More

My Undercover Years With the KKK

Synopsis: Ku Klux Klan members are convicted thanks to the work of an undercover informant assisting the FBI in the 1960s. ~ All Movie Guide Read More

Watership Down

Actors: John Hurt, Richard Briers, Michael Graham Cox, John Bennett, Simon Cadell

Synopsis: Unique in the annals of animated films, Watership Down is a serious, even grim tale that many will find relentless and depressing and others will find poetic and moving. It doesn't pull any punches. Death -- violent, disturbing death -- is ever present, portrayed in a manner that is astonishingly Read More

The Bad News Bears in Breaking Training

Actors: William Devane, Clifton James, Jackie Earle Haley, Jimmy Baio, Chris Barnes

Synopsis: The misfit kiddie baseball team from the first film is given the opportunity to play in a Junior League match between double-header games at the Houston Astrodome. Two obstacles stand in their way: beloved teammate Timmy Lupus (Quinn Smith) has broken his leg, and the team has no adult coach. Read More

Little Ladies of the Night

Actors: Linda Purl

Synopsis: Also known as Little Ladies of the Night, the story focuses on a teenager who runs away from home and finds herself in the sordid world of street-life prostitution. She gains help from a police officer, who is still connected to the underground since he formerly worked as a pimp. ~ John Bush, All Read More

Captains and the Kings

Synopsis: One of four dramatic miniseries carried by NBC under the blanket title Best Sellers, Captains and the Kings was adapted from a novel by Taylor Caldwell. Covering a time span from 1857 to 1912, this was the saga of the Irish-immigrant Armagh clan, with emphasis on the rags-to-riches career of Read More

Silver Streak

Actors: Gene Wilder, Jill Clayburgh, Richard Pryor, Patrick McGoohan, Ned Beatty

Synopsis: While taking a train trip from L.A. to Chicago, mild-mannered George Caldwell (Gene Wilder) makes the acquaintance of Hilly Burns (Jill Clayburgh). As they indulge in a brief bit of spooning, Hilly tells George that her boss is on the verge of exposing a group of vicious art forgers. Later that Read More

The Runaway Barge

Synopsis: In this feature-length pilot for an unsold TV series, Bo Hopkins, Tim Matheson and Jim Davis star as Ezel, Owens, and Buckshot, three men carving out a living as the owners of a Mississippi river tugboat. Balancing comedy with melodrama, the story manages to involve our heroes with a gang of Read More

Friendly Persuasion

Actors: Richard Kiley, Shirley Knight, Clifton James, Michael O'Keefe, Kevin O'Keefe

Synopsis: Except for Me and Thee is the syndicated title of Friendly Persuasion, the pilot film for an unsold TV series based on the novel by Jessamyn West. Richard Kiley and Shirley Knight star as Quaker farmers Jess and Eliza Birdwell, whose pacificism is put to the test when the Civil War breaks out. In Read More

Bons Baisers de Hong Kong

Actors: Les Charlots, Mickey Rooney, David Tomlinson, Clifton James

Synopsis: Les Charlots, a French comedy/music troupe, caper through this James Bond spoof. Responding to news that the real James Bond is dead, the French offer the services of the inept foursome, members of France's secret service. The British Queen (Huguette Funfrok) has been kidnapped and taken to Hong Read More

Sniper

Actors: Kurt Russell, Richard Yniguez, Ned Beatty

Synopsis: Made for television, Sniper originally aired under the title The Deadly Tower. In vivid, sweat-inducing detail, the film recreates the horror of August 4, 1966, when outwardly normal student Charles Whitman climbed to the tower of the University of Texas and began firing his rifle on the passersby Read More

Rancho Deluxe

Actors: Jeff Bridges, Sam Waterston, Elizabeth Ashley, Charlene Dallas, Clifton James

Synopsis: In Frank Perry's curious, off-center comedy Western, Jeff Bridges and Sam Waterston play Jack McKee and Cecil Carlson, a couple of cattle rustlers whose special target is taciturn rancher John Brown (Clifton James). Both men are outcasts by choice; McKee can't stand being around his stuck-up Read More

The Man with the Golden Gun

Actors: Roger Moore, Christopher Lee, Britt Ekland, Maud Adams, Herve Villechaize

Synopsis: The Man With the Golden Gun, Roger Moore's second outing as James Bond (Live and Let Die was the first), whisks our hero off to Hong Kong, Macau, Thailand, and then the South China Sea in search of a solar energy weapon. His opponent is Scaramanga (Christopher Lee), who rules the roost on a Read More

Bank Shot

Actors: George C. Scott

Synopsis: This crime-caper film from director Gower Champion stars George C. Scott as a visionary thief. He doesn't merely intend to rob a bank; his plan is to steal the whole bank. This is accomplished by lifting the structure with house-moving machinery in the dead of night, then painting it pink and Read More

Juggernaut

Actors: Richard Harris, Omar Sharif, David Hemmings, Anthony Hopkins, Shirley Knight

Synopsis: Following his successful foray into swashbuckler comedy with The Three Musketeers and The Four Musketeers, director Richard Lester made what has proved to be one of the few quality films from the disaster craze that dominated filmmaking in the mid-'70s. Juggernaut is the pseudonym of a madman (Freddie Jones Read More

Buster and Billie

Actors: J.B. Joiner, Dell C. Payne, Jan-Michael Vincent, Joan Goodfellow, Pamela Sue Martin, Clifton James, Robert Englund

Synopsis: In this coming-of-age movie from 1974 that mines the same territory as Summer of '42 and Class of '44, Joan Goodfellow plays Billie, an obliging blonde more than willing to dispense sexual favors for a group of horny high schoolers in rural Georgia of 1948. The only member of the high school group Read More

The Laughing Policeman

Actors: Dave Belrose, Walter Matthau, Bruce Dern, Louis Gossett, Jr., Albert Paulsen, Anthony Zerbe

Synopsis: Stuart Rosenberg's taut police thriller, based on the Martin Beck novel by Maj Sjowall and Per Wahlöö, concerns a serial killer who is targeting bus riders. When a bus full of innocent commuters are killed on a San Francisco street, Jake Martin (Walter Matthau) is assigned to track down the Read More

The Iceman Cometh

Actors: Lee Marvin, Robert Ryan, Fredric March, Jeff Bridges

Synopsis: John Frankenheimer's screen version of Eugene O'Neill's 1947 Broadway play The Iceman Cometh is set in 1912 at Harry Hope's dingy waterfront saloon. On the occasion of Hope's birthday, several derelicts enter the scene to pontificate on the lives they'd planned, the lives they still dream about Read More

The Last Detail

Actors: Gilda Radner, Jack Nicholson, Otis Young, Randy Quaid, Clifton James, Michael Moriarty, Carol Kane

Synopsis: Two Navy "lifers" and one military innocent briefly attempt to thumb their nose at Authority in Hal Ashby's The Last Detail (1973). "Badass" Buddusky (Jack Nicholson) and "Mule" Mulhall (Otis Young) are assigned to escort young sailor Meadows (Randy Quaid, who beat out John Travolta for the part) Read More

Live and Let Die

Actors: Roger Moore, Yaphet Kotto, Jane Seymour, Clifton James, Julius Harris

Synopsis: Roger Moore makes his first appearance as "Bond...James Bond" in 1973's Live and Let Die. Bond is dispatched to the States to stem the activities of Mr. Big (Yaphet Kotto), who plans to take over the Western Hemisphere by converting everyone into heroin addicts. The woman in the case is Solitaire Read More

Kid Blue

Synopsis: In this western set at the turn-of-the-century, an outlaw finds himself at one of life's crossroads as he must decide whether to go straight or continue a life of crime. After bungling a train robbery he decides he should go straight and settle down. He chooses the town of Dime Box, Texas. There Read More

The Werewolf of Washington

Actors: Dean Stockwell

Synopsis: After being unknowingly inflicted with the bite of a werewolf while on a visit to Europe, White House press secretary Jack Whittier (Dean Stockwell) begins to turn into a deadly beast by night, terrorizing Washington D.C. and presenting a very deadly threat to the President. ~ Iotis Erlewine, All Read More

The New Centurions

Actors: George C. Scott, Stacy Keach, Jane Alexander, Scott Wilson, Rosalind Cash

Synopsis: Joseph Wambaugh's best-seller about patrol-car cops in urban Los Angeles is given a competent yet antiseptic treatment by director Richard Fleischer. The film has a bad-tasting us-versus-them mentality in its depiction of patrolmen-civilian interaction, and its hopeless atmosphere carries over Read More

The Biscuit Eater

Actors: Earl Holliman, Lew Ayres, Godfrey Cambridge, Pat Crowley, Beah Richards

Synopsis: In this touching adventure, a remake of the popular 1940 film, two Georgia boys ignore their racial differences to team up and befriend a feral bird dog, whom they train to participate in a fence-jumping contest. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Bonanza: Winter Kill

Actors: Lorne Greene, Michael Landon, Dan Blocker, Mitch Vogel, Glenn Corbett

Synopsis: The Virginia City Bank refuses to lend money to a group of Sierra Nevade ranchers who lost most of their stock during a particularly brutal winter. Ben Cartwright tries to come to the aid of the imperiled ranchers by bringing in a new breed of cattle from Montana, a breed capable of surviving the Read More

WUSA

Actors: Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, Anthony Perkins, Laurence Harvey, Pat Hingle

Synopsis: Paul Newman served as co-producer of this allegorical drama and stars as Rheinhardt, a opportunistic drifter who ends up in New Orleans and hits up his old friend Farley (Laurence Harvey), a con man-turned-phony preacher, for a job. Farley is able to get Rheinhardt hired on as an announcer at a Read More

Tick, Tick, Tick

Actors: Jim Brown, George Kennedy, Fredric March, Lynn Carlin, Don Stroud

Synopsis: When Jimmy Price (Jim Brown) wins an upset victory for sheriff, he becomes the first black man ever to hold the job (or any elective office) in anyone's memory in his rural southern county. He also sets off an ominous rumblings as the entire county seems split apart by his presence -- Mayor Parks Read More

Ironside: Rundown on a Bum Rap

Synopsis: Mark (Don Mitchell) comes to the aid of his old boxing coach Bakey Baker (James Gregory), now an impoverished derelict. Unjustly accsued of felonious assault, Baker is unable to afford a decent lawyer, and the authorities are callously prepared to hang the man solely on the basis of circumstantial Read More

The Reivers

Actors: Steve McQueen, Sharon Farrell, Will Geer, Rupert Crosse, Mitch Vogel

Synopsis: Adapted from William Faulkner's final novel, The Reivers top-bills Steve McQueen, but the major character is feisty 11-year-old Lucius McCaslin, played by Mitch Vogel. Growing up in Mississippi in the early 1900s, Lucius finds himself (through a hectic series of circumstances) in a bordello, where Read More

Bonanza: The Real People of Muddy Creek

Actors: Lorne Greene, Michael Landon, Dan Blocker, Joe Don Baker, Jean Hale

Synopsis: When Sheriff Walker (Stuart Randall) of Muddy Creek is murdered, Ben and Joe Cartwright volunteer to guard prisoner Luke Harper (Joe Don Baker). Fearful of retaliation from Harper's gang, the townspeople refuse to assist Ben and Joe, going so far as to desert the town. The only remaining citizens Read More

The Caper of the Golden Bulls

Actors: Stephen Boyd, Yvette Mimieux, Giovanna Ralli, Walter Slezak, Vito Scotti

Synopsis: Career bank robber Peter Churchman Stephen Boyd plans to retire from his life of crime and live the good life in this uninspired crime thriller. He is blackmailed by Angela Tresler Giovanna Ralli into pulling off one last heist of some precious jewels located in the bank in Pamplona, Spain. Peter Read More

Cool Hand Luke

Actors: Paul Newman, George Kennedy, J.D. Cannon, Lou Antonio, Robert Drivas, Strother Martin

Synopsis: Paul Newman was nominated for an Oscar and George Kennedy received one for his work in this allegorical prison drama. Luke Jackson (Paul Newman) is sentenced to a stretch on a southern chain gang after he's arrested for drunkenly decapitating parking meters. While the avowed ambition of the Read More

Will Penny

Actors: Charlton Heston, Joan Hackett, Donald Pleasence, Lee Majors, Bruce Dern

Synopsis: Rambling along at its own measured pace, Will Penny is a vivid western character study, completely dominated by the rapport between stars (Charlton Heston) and (Joan Hackett). Heston plays Will Penny, an aging and impoverished cowboy. With his cohorts Blue (Lee Majors) and Dutchy (Anthony Zerbe) Read More

The Happening

Actors: Anthony Quinn, George Maharis, Michael Parks, Robert Walker, Jr., Martha Hyer

Synopsis: Four neophyte criminals get some unexpected help from their first victim in this caper comedy. A quartet of Miami Beach bohemians -- Sureshot (Michael Parks), Taurus (George Maharis), Herby (Robert Walker Jr.), and Sandy (Faye Dunaway) -- are looking for kicks and some fast money, and they hatch a Read More

The Chase

Actors: Marlon Brando, Jane Fonda, Robert Redford, James Fox, E.G. Marshall, Angie Dickinson

Synopsis: All hell breaks loose in a Texas town when an escaped convict heads home in Arthur Penn's Southern gothic melodrama. Appointed by local kingpin Val Rogers (E. G. Marshall), benevolent Sheriff Calder (Marlon Brando) manages to keep the peace in Tarl, but the situation starts to fester one Saturday Read More

Black Like Me

Actors: James Whitmore, Sorrell Booke, Al Freeman, Jr., Roscoe Lee Browne

Synopsis: Black Like Me is the true story of white journalist John Howard Griffin, who "became" a Negro in the late 1950s. Feeling that the best way to understand what it was like to be black in a segregated south was to experience the feeling first-hand, Griffin (James Whitmore) undergoes extensive-and Read More

Invitation to a Gunfighter

Actors: Yul Brynner, Janice Rule, Brad Dexter, Alfred Ryder, Mike Kellin

Synopsis: Matt Weaver (George Segal)