Calendar Girl Murders (1984) starring Tom Skerritt, Sharon Stone, Barbara Bosson, Robert Beltran, Pat Corley, Robert Morse, Robert Culp directed by William A. Graham Movie Review

Calendar Girl Murders (1984)   2/52/52/52/52/5


Sharon Stone in Calendar Girl Murders (1984)

Stoner & Stone

"Calendar Girl Murders" has one of those tantalising titles which suggest something which might be a little sexy. "Calendar Girl Murders" also has the tantalising prospect of featuring Sharon Stone before she became a big star. But unfortunately whilst "Calendar Girl Murders" on paper is tantalising the final product is a huge let down, a disappointing and frankly uninteresting detective story with a few recognizable stars.

Millionaire businessman Richard Trainor (Robert Culp) is throwing a bash to celebrate the success of his new calendar featuring scantily clad women but the fun turns to horror when Miss January is pushed off a balcony to her death. Short after Lieutenant Dan Stoner (Tom Skerritt - Alien) is called in to investigate Miss February is also murdered. Stoner's investigation leads him to model Cassie Bascomb (Sharon Stone - Alpha Dog) and they strike up a close friendship but when Cassie is attacked Stoner must work out her connection to the murders before the killer goes through the entire calendar.

Tom Skerritt in Calendar Girl Murders (1984)

As I said the title alone to "Calendar Girl Murders" is tantalising and you can sort of imagine this smutty crime story where he have scantily clad and naked women filling up the back drop of various scenes, you know what I mean where we have a detective having to negotiate topless models during his investigation. But there is none of that, no nudity, no topless women with the closest it comes is the occasional flash of underwear. Now I am not saying that a movie needs nudity to work but this is one movie which certainly would have benefited from some.

But then we have the actual crime story with hot models, well 80s big hair models being bumped off. The sad thing is that the actual story is so uninteresting as Stoner goes about talking to various people and uncovering a few secrets along the way, it is completely lacking in atmosphere. And of course we have various suspects all of which could be the killer except none of them have any depth and so are only reason to suspect them is because they look shifty. Add to that "Calendar Girl Murders" is now cringe worthy because of its 80's look with an excruciating party dance scene and to be frank it is almost unbearable.

But the reason why you keep watching is partly to see who the writers have chosen out of the various suspects to be the killer and because of the well know names. Now none of the characters are that good but because "Calendar Girl Murders" features Tom Skerritt, Sharon Stone, Robert Culp and Robert Morse as well as a few other recognizable faces you sort of keep watching in the hope that at some point one of them will do something to shake things up.

What this all boils down to is that "Calendar Girl Murders" is frankly a dirge and now 30 years after it was made a dated dirge which is almost unbearable.


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