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Half Moon Street (film)

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Not to be confused with The Man in Half Moon Street.

Half Moon Street
Theatrical release poster
Directed byBob Swaim
Written by
Based onDoctor Slaughter
by Paul Theroux
Produced byGeoffrey Reeve
Starring
CinematographyPeter Hannan
Edited byRichard Marden
Music byRichard Harvey
Production
companies
Distributed by
Release date
  • 13 August 1986 (1986-08-13)
Running time
90 minutes
CountryUnited States[1]
LanguageEnglish
Budget$8 million[1]
Box office$2.3 million[2]

Half Moon Street is a 1986 American erotic thriller film directed by Bob Swaim and starring Sigourney Weaver, Michael Caine, Keith Buckley, and P. J. Kavanagh. The film is about an American woman working at a foreign research and policy institute in London who moonlights for a British escort service, becoming involved in the political intrigues surrounding one of her clients.

The film was based on the 1984 novel Doctor Slaughter by Paul Theroux.[3] Despite the source material, the film and book have distinct endings.

Half Moon Street was the first RKO Pictures solo feature film produced in almost a quarter-century. The previous one was Jet Pilot, which had been released in 1957.[4]

Plot

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Dr. Lauren Slaughter, Ph.D. is an American academic living in London, where she holds a prestigious but low-paid job at a Middle East policy institute. Her superiors take credit for her work and she struggles to pay the rent on her dilapidated flat.

After an anonymous individual mails her a video tape promoting the financial rewards of working as an escort, Slaughter signs up with the high-end Jasmine Escort Agency and begins moonlighting as a paid escort to rich men. These include a Palestinian businessman called Karim, who gifts her the lease on his rented apartment on Half Moon Street, and Lord Bulbeck, a trusted member of the House of Lords with a key role in international diplomacy and national defence.

Slaughter and Bulbeck strike up a relationship that goes beyond sex, each enjoying the other's conversation and intelligence. However, Bulbeck's work on a delicate Middle East peace process forces him to miss a series of dates, causing Slaughter to feel rejected.

Slaughter briefly takes up with a playboy called Sonny, who later shows up at her apartment. He attacks her and threatens her with a gun, but she tricks and kills him. Karim arrives and also holds her at gunpoint, revealing that he was the one who sent her the video tape. Karim and Sonny are part of a conspiracy to destroy the peace process by murdering Bulbeck while he is in the company of a prostitute, thus killing both the man and his reputation. A special forces team storms the apartment and kills Karim. Slaughter and Bulbeck rekindle their romance.

Cast

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Reception

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Roger Ebert gave Half Moon Street three out of four stars, concluding that the film "is interesting primarily because of the interaction between Weaver and Caine. Swaim deserves credit for the intelligence and wit of the first 80 or 90 minutes, but must also take the blame for the ending, which is a complete surrender to generic conventions."[5]

References

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  1. ^ a b c "AFI|Catalog".
  2. ^ Taylor, Clarke (16 August 1987). "AN EXPATRIATE IN PARIS GETS THE HOLLYWOOD BUG". Los Angeles Times. p. C42. Retrieved 23 June 2023.
  3. ^ Maslin, Janet (7 November 1986). "SCREEN: SIGOURNEY WEAVER IN 'HALF MOON STREET'". nytimes.com. Retrieved 18 August 2024.
  4. ^ "Brown, Geoffrey Howard, (born 1 March 1949), journalist, The Times; film historian", Who's Who, Oxford University Press, 1 December 2007, doi:10.1093/ww/9780199540884.013.u9000, retrieved 13 October 2023
  5. ^ Ebert, Roger (7 November 1986). "Half Moon Street". rogerebert.com. Retrieved 18 August 2024.
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