More Cars

 

 (themoviedatabase)

HOT CARS-1956-Happily married used car salesman Nick (John Bromfield) is fired from his job for being too honest. To support his wife (Carol Shannon) and sickly baby son, he takes a job selling cars for the shady Mr. Markel (Ralph Clanton), working for manager Smiley Ward (Mark Dana; in PHAROAH'S CURSE the next year). Later he meets police detective Davenport (Dabbs Greer) who's investigating the stolen car racket. Ater the delivery of some “hot” cars, Nick realizes he's part of the stolen car ring. 

He quits Markel but when he gets home, he finds his wife in hysterics because their baby is in the hospital. He goes back to Markel and meets head hot car guy Otto (Kurt Katch) and learns “the business”. He almost has to sell a stolen car to Davenport but Smiley helps him out of it. Nick hooks up with Karen Winters (Joi Lansing), then gets involved in Davenport's murder. She could provide him with an alibi but pretends not to know him. Markel decides to do away with Nick and a fist fight on a rollercoaster between Nick and Smiley caps this story. 

This average crime drama was one of the few feature films directed by Don McDougall, a very versatile TV director. Star Broomfield was in CURUCU, BEAST OF THE AMAZON the same year. 

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SECRET WINDOW-2004-Yet another Stephen King adaptation saved mostly by Johnny Depp's performance in the lead. He plays writer Mort Rainey who six months after catching his wife (Maria Bello)with her lover (Timothy Hutton) in a hotel bedroom, lives alone in a small New England town. An Amish like farmer (John Turturro) accuses him of plagiarism. After that Rainey's life begins to unravel and some deaths occur. It's very reminiscent of another King story THE DARK HALF (which George Romero made into a movie in 1993 that starred Hutton) and the whole thing is very predictable. The director David Koepp also made STIR OF ECHOES and wrote several major screen plays including JURASSIC PARK, CARLITO'S WAY, MISSION IMPOSSIBLE, SPIDER-MAN and WAR OF THE WORLDS.

SLASHER-(2004)-Despite it’s title this is not a horror movie. In fact it’s actually a documentary directed by John Landis about a super car salesman named Michael Bennett who’s brought in by local car dealers to get rid of their over stocked cars. The guy knows his craft and talks the talk really working hard to sell the unwanted cars. He drinks a lot of beer when not working but does seem to be doing it all to support his family. The customers however don’t need much convincing. They all think they are getting something for nothing!

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