IMDb > Half Moon Street (1986)

Half Moon Street (1986) More at IMDbPro »

Overview

User Rating:
5.1/10   1,158 votes
MOVIEmeter: ?
Down 6% in popularity this week. See why on IMDbPro.
Director:
Bob Swaim
Writers:
Edward Behr (writer)
Bob Swaim (writer)
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Contact:
View company contact information for Half Moon Street on IMDbPro.
Release Date:
26 September 1986 (USA) more
Genre:
Thriller | Drama more
Tagline:
Dr. Lauren Slaughter, professor, emissary, hooker, target.
Plot:
Dr. Lauren Slaughter, a research fellow at the Arab-Anglo Institute in London is utterly frustrated by her job... more | add synopsis
Plot Keywords:
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Awards:
1 win & 1 nomination more
User Comments:
Falls Between Two Stools more (13 total)

Cast

  (Cast overview, first billed only)

Sigourney Weaver ... Dr. Lauren Slaughter

Michael Caine ... Lord Sam Bulbeck
Patrick Kavanagh ... General Sir George Newhouse
Faith Kent ... Lady Newhouse
Ram John Holder ... Lindsay Walker
Keith Buckley ... Hugo Van Arkady
Ann Hanson ... Mrs. Van Arkady
Patrick Newman ... Julian Shuttle
Niall O'Brien ... Captain Twilley
Nadim Sawalha ... Karim Hatami
Vincent Lindon ... Sonny
Muriel Villiers ... Madame Cybele
Michael Elwyn ... Tom Haldane
Ninka Scott ... Mrs. Haldane
Jasper Jacob ... Rex Lanham
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Additional Details

Parents Guide:
Add content advisory for parents
Runtime:
90 min
Country:
UK | USA
Language:
English
Color:
Color (Technicolor)
Aspect Ratio:
1.85 : 1 more
Sound Mix:
Mono
Certification:
Iceland:14 | Iceland:16 (video rating) | Australia:M | Finland:K-16 | Sweden:15 | USA:R | Canada:R (Ontario) | UK:18
Filming Locations:
High Canons, Buckettsland Lane, Well End, Hertfordshire, England, UK more
Company:
RKO Pictures more

Fun Stuff

Trivia:
When this film was reviewed by critic Joel Siegel on WABC-TV Eyewitness News, New York in September 1986, a few seconds of a clip of Sigourney Weaver topless on the exercise bike was accidentally shown. more
Quotes:
Dr. Lauren Slaughter: Am I supposed to say "Your place or mine?"
Karim Hatami: No. These days, you say "Betamax or VHS?"
more
Movie Connections:
Referenced in "Psych: 65 Million Years Off (#2.2)" (2007) more

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User Comments

   (Comment on this title)
Falls Between Two Stools, 13 November 2009
6/10
Author: James Hitchcock from Tunbridge Wells, England

Dr Lauren Slaughter is an American academic who comes to London to work for a foreign-affairs think-tank. Her work is prestigious but badly paid, and Lauren decides to supplement her income by moonlighting for an upmarket escort agency, mostly catering for the needs of wealthy foreign businessmen. The set-up is not officially a prostitution ring, but sails fairly close to being one; the idea is that the man pays for the girl's company and it is then up to her whether she goes to bed with him. Lauren proves a success in her new line of work and is able to leave her downmarket flat for a much more exclusive residence in the Half Moon Street of the title. The film explores what happens when she falls in love with one of her clients, Lord Bulbeck, a Government foreign office minister involved in negotiations towards a Middle East peace settlement.

This is not really one of Michael Caine's best films. Most of his best performances have come in films where he has played characters who are, in one sense or another, outsiders or rebels against the system- the down-at-heel spy in "The Ipcress File", the Cockney womaniser in "Alfie", the gangster in "Get Carter", the cynical, disillusioned academic in "Educating Rita" or the drunken minor diplomat in "The Honorary Consul". Admittedly, his first starring role was in "Zulu", where he played the upper-class Lieutenant Bromhead, but I have never thought he was the best thing about that film. Here he plays a high-ranking establishment figure, but never seems completely convincing in the role, even though Bulbeck, a working-class trade union official raised to the peerage, is a co-opted member of the British establishment rather than one born to the purple.

Sigourney Weaver, however, is better as the heroine. She was, along with the likes of Meryl Streep, Kim Basinger, Jessica Lange and Michelle Pfeiffer, one of the bright new generation of Hollywood actresses who came to prominence in the late seventies and eighties, and gave some great performances in films like "Alien", "Gorillas in the Mist" and "Working Girl". Here she captures the various, often conflicting, aspects of Lauren's personality,- her intelligence, her outgoing nature and a hint of an underlying mercenary ruthlessness, which nevertheless co-exists with a genuine capacity for love.

For most of its length the film is a psychological romantic drama, like a romantic comedy without the jokes, and as such it works reasonably well. Towards the end, however, it morphs into a political thriller as Lauren discovers that she has become embroiled in a conspiracy by opponents of the Middle East peace process to assassinate Bulbeck, and as a thriller it does not work well at all, failing to generate any real tension. Despite a promising beginning, this sudden switch from one genre to another means that "Half Moon Street" is one of those films that fall between two stools. 6/10

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