Orion. Director Phillip Borsos; Producer David Foster, Larry Turman; Screenplay Leon Piedmont; Camera Frank Tidy; Editor Duwayne Dunham; Music Lalo Schifrin; Art Director Philip Jefferies
Kurt Russell
Mariel Hemingway
Richard Jordan
Richard Masur
Joe Pantoliano
Richard Bradford
Based on the novel, In the Heat of the Summer, by former Miami Herald crime reporter John Katzenbach, pic establishes solid Florida heat and humidity as the 'mean' background to a series of murders that perversely link together the killer (Richard Jordan), and a Miami police reporter (Kurt Russell) who becomes the psychopath's personal spokesman.
Jordan is at his shrewdly crazed best, anchoring the movie with a felt terror, initially just through his off-screen voice as he manipulates the reporter over the phone and ultimately through his cunning.
Russell plays a reporter (production used the city room of the Miami Herald) who, credibly enough, gets swept away with all the national hype he's getting as the only man who can talk to the killer.
His live-in elementary school teacher, g.f., essayed rather uneventfully by Mariel Hemingway, grows outraged as the reporter succumbs to his own ego, to the killer's tantalizing calls, and to his increased stature as newsmaker.
(Color) Widescreen. Available on VHS, DVD. Extract of a review from 1985. Running time: 103 MIN.
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