Kings and Desperate Men
| Kings and Desperate Men | |
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Theatrical release poster
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| Directed by | Alexis Kanner |
| Produced by | Alexis Kanner |
| Written by | Edmund Ward Alexis Kanner |
| Starring |
Patrick McGoohan Alexis Kanner Margaret Trudeau Andrea Marcovicci Robin Spry Budd Knapp Jean-Pierre Brown |
| Music by |
Pierre F. Brault Michel Robidoux |
| Cinematography | Alexis Kanner Paul Van der Linden |
| Edited by | Alexis Kanner |
| Distributed by | Magnum Entertainment |
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Release date
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Running time
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118 minutes |
| Country | Canada |
| Language | English |
| Budget | 1.2 million |
Kings and Desperate Men is a 1981 Canadian hostage drama film directed, co-written and produced by Alexis Kanner. The film stars Patrick McGoohan as radio talk show host John Kingsley, Margaret Trudeau as his wife Elizabeth, and Kanner with Andrea Marcovicci as terrorists. The story is set within one day during Christmas Eve. The movie was made on a budget of 1.2 million and was filmed in Montreal.
Film director Kanner later took legal action against the film producers of Die Hard in the late 1980s, alleging the producers stole the idea for Die Hard from his film Kings and Desperate Men. Kanner lost his case.
On Christmas Eve, a radio talk show host, his wealthy wife, their mentally challenged son and a federal judge are taken hostage by a group of terrorists. The group demand a new trial on the air for a convicted comrade of theirs whom the group believes was wrongly convicted of manslaughter. The radio listeners are asked by the terrorists to act as the jury and to telephone in their verdicts to the radio station.
Kings and Desperate Men was shot on location in Montreal, Canada during December 1977. Film director Kanner apparently spent two years editing the film. The movie was eventually released in Canada on August 22, 1981 at the Montreal World Film Festival . It was released in the USA on November 13, 1983 at the Chicago International Film Festival. It also premiered in the UK at the London Film Festival in 1984. Kings and Desperate Men was rated PG-13 in the United States. The movie was later issued on VHS in 1989.
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