Chicago Joe and the Showgirl

Last updated

Chicago Joe and the Showgirl
Chicago+Showgirl.jpg
Theatrical release poster
Directed by Bernard Rose
Written by David Yallop
Produced by Tim Bevan
Starring
Cinematography Mike Southon
Edited byCarlos Puente
Music by Shirley Walker
Hans Zimmer
Production
companies
Distributed byPalace Pictures [1]
Release date
  • 27 July 1990 (1990-07-27)
Running time
103 minutes
CountryUnited Kingdom
Language English
Budget$5 million [2]
Box office$85,395 (US) [3]
£58,037 (UK) [4]

Chicago Joe and the Showgirl is a 1990 British crime drama film directed by Bernard Rose and written by David Yallop, starring Kiefer Sutherland and Emily Lloyd. The film was inspired by the real-life Hulten/Jones murder case of 1944, otherwise known as the Cleft Chin Murder.

Contents

Plot

In the film, Karl Hulten (Kiefer Sutherland) is an American GI who is stalking the black market of London after stealing an army truck and going AWOL. There he meets up with Betty Jones (Emily Lloyd), a stripper with a deluded fantasy world view formed by watching a steady stream of Hollywood film noir and gangster pictures. Seeing Karl, who claims he is Chicago Joe doing advance work in London for encroaching Chicago gangsters, Betty takes the opportunity to set her fantasies to life as she connives Karl into a spree of petty crimes. With luck on their side, the spree keeps escalating, until Betty urges Karl to commit the ultimate crime: murder.

Cast

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kiefer Sutherland</span> Canadian actor (born 1966)

Kiefer William Frederick Dempsey George Rufus Sutherland is a Canadian actor. He is best known for his starring role as Jack Bauer in the Fox drama series 24, for which he won a Primetime Emmy Award and a Golden Globe Award.

<i>Sunset Boulevard</i> (musical) 1993 musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber

Sunset Boulevard is a musical with music by Andrew Lloyd Webber, and lyrics and libretto by Don Black and Christopher Hampton. It is based on the 1950 film of the same title.

<i>Flatliners</i> 1990 film by Joel Schumacher

Flatliners is a 1990 American science fiction psychological horror film directed by Joel Schumacher, produced by Michael Douglas and Rick Bieber, and written by Peter Filardi. It stars Kiefer Sutherland, Julia Roberts, William Baldwin, Oliver Platt, and Kevin Bacon. The film is about five medical students who attempt to find out what lies beyond death by conducting clandestine experiments that produce near-death experiences. The film was shot on the campus of Loyola University Chicago between October 1989 and January 1990, and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Sound Editing in 1990. The film was theatrically released on August 10, 1990, by Columbia Pictures. It grossed $61 million at the box office.

<i>Marked Woman</i> 1937 film directed by Lloyd Bacon

Marked Woman is a 1937 American dramatic crime film directed by Lloyd Bacon and starring Bette Davis and Humphrey Bogart, with featured performances by Lola Lane, Isabel Jewell, Rosalind Marquis, Mayo Methot, Jane Bryan, Eduardo Ciannelli and Allen Jenkins. Set in the underworld of Manhattan, Marked Woman tells the story of a woman who dares to stand up to one of the city's most powerful gangsters.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ma Barker</span> American mother of several criminals and Barker Gang leader (1873–1935)

Kate Barker, better known as Ma Barker, was the mother of several American criminals who ran the Barker–Karpis Gang during the "public enemy era" when the exploits of gangs of criminals in the Midwestern United States gripped the American people and press. She traveled with her sons during their criminal careers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Skewen</span> Human settlement in Wales

Skewen is a village within the county borough of Neath Port Talbot, in Wales. The village is served by Skewen railway station and has its own rugby club.

The cleft chin murder was a killing which occurred as part of a string of crimes during 1944, and was mentioned in George Orwell's essay "Decline of the English Murder". It became known as the "cleft chin murder" because the murder victim, George Edward Heath, a taxi driver, had a cleft chin.

<i>The St. Valentines Day Massacre</i> (film) 1967 film by Roger Corman

The St. Valentine's Day Massacre is a 1967 American gangster film based on the 1929 mass murder of seven members of the Northside Gang on orders from Al Capone. The picture was directed by Roger Corman, written by Howard Browne, and starring Jason Robards as Capone, Ralph Meeker as Moran, George Segal as Peter Gusenberg, and David Canary as Frank Gusenberg.

Emily Alice Lloyd-Pack, known as Emily Lloyd, is a British actress. At the age of 16, she starred in her debut and breakthrough role in the 1987 film Wish You Were Here, for which she received critical acclaim and Best Actress awards from the National Society of Film Critics and the Evening Standard British Film Awards. She subsequently relocated to Manhattan at 17, received numerous film offers, and starred in the 1989 films Cookie and In Country.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Larry Cohen</span> American filmmaker (1936–2019)

Lawrence George Cohen was an American filmmaker. He originally emerged as the writer of blaxploitation films such as Black Caesar and Hell Up in Harlem, before becoming known as an author of horror and science fiction films — often containing police procedural and satirical elements — during the 1970s and 1980s. His directorial works include It's Alive (1974) and its sequels, God Told Me To (1976), The Stuff (1985) and A Return to Salem's Lot (1987).

<i>Bloody Mama</i> 1970 film

Bloody Mama is a 1970 American exploitation crime film directed by Roger Corman, and starring Shelley Winters in the title role, with Bruce Dern, Don Stroud, Robert Walden, Alex Nicol and Robert De Niro in supporting roles. It was very loosely based on the real story of Ma Barker, who is depicted as a corrupt, mentally-disturbed mother who encourages and organizes the criminality of her four adult sons in Depression-era southern United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rossif Sutherland</span> Canadian actor (born 1978)

Rossif Sutherland is a Canadian actor, son of actor Donald Sutherland, brother of actors Angus Sutherland, Roeg Sutherland, and half-brother of actor Kiefer Sutherland. Rossif has appeared in various projects including TV series like ER and Crossing Lines and films such as Poor Boy's Game and River.

<i>The Valachi Papers</i> (film) 1972 film by Terence Young

The Valachi Papers is a 1972 neo noir crime film directed by Terence Young. It is an adaptation of the 1968 non-fiction book of the same name by Peter Maas, with a screenplay by Stephen Geller. It tells the story of Joseph Valachi, a Mafia informant in the early 1960s who was the first ever mafioso to acknowledge the organization's existence. The film stars Charles Bronson as Valachi and Lino Ventura as crime boss Vito Genovese, with Jill Ireland, Walter Chiari, Joseph Wiseman, Gerald S. O'Loughlin, Guido Leontini, Amedeo Nazzari, Fausto Tozzi, Pupella Maggio, and Angelo Infanti.

Alexandra Pigg is a British actor who first came to prominence as Petra Taylor in the TV soap opera Brookside. Her best-known film appearances are as Elaine in Letter to Brezhnev (1985), for which she was nominated for a BAFTA award, and as Bridget Baines in A Chorus of Disapproval (1988).

<i>L.A. Confidential</i> Novel by James Ellroy

L.A. Confidential (1990) is a neo-noir novel by American writer James Ellroy, the third of his L.A. Quartet series. It is dedicated to Mary Doherty Ellroy. The epigraph is "A glory that costs everything and means nothing"—Steve Erickson.

Mafia films—a version of gangster films—are a subgenre of crime films dealing with organized crime, often specifically with Mafia organizations. Especially in early mob films, there is considerable overlap with film noir. Popular regional variations of the genre include Italian Poliziotteschi, Chinese Triad films, Japanese Yakuza films, and Indian Mumbai underworld films.

<i>Joe MacBeth</i> 1955 film by Ken Hughes

Joe MacBeth is a 1955 British–American crime drama, directed by Ken Hughes and starring Paul Douglas, Ruth Roman and Bonar Colleano. It is a modern retelling of Shakespeare's Macbeth, set in a 1930s American criminal underworld. The film's plot closely follows that of Shakespeare's original play. It has been called "the first really stand out movie" of Hughes' career.

<i>Those Who Dance</i> 1930 film by William Beaudine

Those Who Dance is a 1930 American Pre-Code crime film produced and distributed by Warner Bros., directed by William Beaudine, and starring Monte Blue, Lila Lee, William "Stage" Boyd and Betty Compson. It is a remake of the 1924 silent film Those Who Dance starring Bessie Love and Blanche Sweet. The story, written by George Kibbe Turner, was based on events that occurred among gangsters in Chicago.

<i>Legend</i> (2015 film) 2015 film by Brian Helgeland

Legend is a 2015 biographical crime drama thriller film written and directed by American director Brian Helgeland. It is adapted from John Pearson's book The Profession of Violence: The Rise and Fall of the Kray Twins, which deals with their career and the relationship that bound them together, and follows their gruesome career to life imprisonment in 1969.

The Innocents of Chicago is a 1932 British comedy film directed by Lupino Lane and starring Henry Kendall, Binnie Barnes and Margot Grahame.

References

  1. "Chicago Joe and the Showgirl (1990)". BBFC . Retrieved 2 May 2021.
  2. "15 years of production". Variety . 14 December 1998. p. 102.
  3. "Chicago Joe and the Showgirl (1990)". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 7 August 2011.
  4. "Back to the Future: The Fall and Rise of the British Film Industry in the 1980s - An Information Briefing" (PDF). British Film Institute. 2005. p. 20.