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Willard Huyck is a Actor, Director, Scriptwriter, Producer and Script American born on 8 september 1945 at Los Angeles (USA)

Willard Huyck

Willard Huyck
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Nationality USA
Birth 8 september 1945 (79 years) at Los Angeles (USA)

Willard Huyck (born September 8, 1945) is an American screenwriter, director and producer, best known for his association with George Lucas. They met as students at the USC School of Cinematic Arts, and became members of Francis Ford Coppola's American Zoetrope group of filmmakers. Along with his wife Gloria Katz, Huyck has created the screenplays of films including American Graffiti, Lucky Lady, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Radioland Murders, as well as uncredited work on the original Star Wars. He also directed four films he co-wrote with Gloria Katz, Messiah of Evil, French Postcards, Best Defense, and Howard the Duck.

Best films

Star Wars (1977)
(Script)
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984)
(Scriptwriter)
American Graffiti (1973)
(Writer)
Howard the Duck (1986)
(Director)

Usually with

Gloria Katz
Gloria Katz
(11 films)
George Lucas
George Lucas
(6 films)
Phil Tippett
Phil Tippett
(3 films)
Ben Burtt
Ben Burtt
(4 films)
Source : Wikidata

Filmography of Willard Huyck (12 films)

Display filmography as list

Actor

Messiah of Evil, 1h25
Directed by Gloria Katz, Willard Huyck
Origin USA
Genres Horror
Themes Medical-themed films, Vampires in film, Zombie films, Films about viral outbreaks, Disaster films
Actors Marianna Hill, Anitra Ford, Royal Dano, Michael Greer, Elisha Cook, Jr., Charles Dierkop
Roles Zombie in Car (uncredited)
Rating62% 3.1486953.1486953.1486953.1486953.148695
A young woman named Arletty (Marianna Hill) drives to the beach town of Point Dune, California, to visit her estranged father, an artist. She finds his house, abandoned. He left a diary in which he addresses her specifically. In it he complains about darkness consuming the town, and horrible nightmares he is having, and implores Arletty to never, ever look for him. His letter tells her to talk to the owner of the art gallery, who sells his paintings. The gallery owner says he has none of her father's paintings, does not sell them, no one ever comes in looking to buy his works, and says he doesn't know where he went. He says Point Dune is "an artist colony" and he only vaguely remembers her father (his paintings are eerie pop art portraits of groups of people in black, white, and gray, standing; the men are always dressed in black suits, white shirts, and black ties, like dead men at a funeral). It is never clear if these are townspeople, or figures from his visions, or both.

Director

Howard the Duck, 1h51
Directed by Willard Huyck
Origin USA
Genres Science fiction, Thriller, Comedy, Fantasy, Action, Comic science fiction
Themes Films about animals, Comedy science fiction films, Films about birds, Superhero films, Super-héros inspiré de comics, Mise en scène d'un canard, Children's films, Films about extraterrestrial life
Actors Lea Thompson, Tim Robbins, Jeffrey Jones, Chip Zien, Ed Gale, David Paymer
Rating47% 2.3568152.3568152.3568152.3568152.356815
Twenty-seven-year-old Howard the Duck (Chip Zien) lives on Duckworld, a planet similar to Earth but inhabited by anthropomorphic ducks and orbited by twin moons. As he is reading the latest issue of Playduck magazine, his armchair begins to quake violently and propels him out of his apartment building and into outer space; Howard eventually lands on Earth, in Cleveland, Ohio. Upon arriving, Howard encounters a woman being attacked by thugs. He defeats them using a unique style of martial arts. After the thugs flee, the woman introduces herself as Beverly Switzler (Lea Thompson), and decides to take Howard to her apartment and let him spend the night. The following day, Beverly takes Howard to Phil Blumbertt (Tim Robbins), a scientist who Beverly hopes can help Howard return to his world. After Phil is revealed to be only a janitor, Howard resigns himself to life on Earth and rejects Beverly's aid. He soon applies for a job as a janitor at a local romance spa. Because of unfair treatment by his boss, Howard resigns and rejoins Beverly, who plays in a band called Cherry Bomb. At the club at which Cherry Bomb is performing, Howard comes across their manager (Tommy Swerdlow), and confronts him when he insults the band. A fight breaks out, in which Howard is victorious.
Best Defense, 1h34
Directed by Willard Huyck
Origin USA
Genres War, Comedy, Action, Spy
Themes Spy films, Political films, United States Armed Forces in films
Actors Dudley Moore, Eddie Murphy, Kate Capshaw, David Rasche, George Dzundza, Helen Shaver
Rating38% 1.905581.905581.905581.905581.90558
The movie takes place as two parallel plots separated by couple years: In 1982, Wylie Cooper (Moore), is an engineer developing a targeting system on a tank for the United States Army. In 1984, Murphy is US Army Lt. Landry, an American tank commander sent to Kuwait to demonstrate "XM-10 Annihilator", America's latest main battle tank, which is equipped with Cooper's system. Because of the tank's poor design and shoddy construction, Landry and his crew are barely able to control or navigate the XM-10 before it leaves the proving grounds and wanders into a combat zone during Iraq's invasion of Kuwait (an unintentional foreshadowing of the Gulf War that occurred six years after the release of the film).
French Postcards, 1h35
Directed by Willard Huyck
Origin France
Genres Drama, Comedy, Comedy-drama, Romance
Themes Films about education
Actors Miles Chapin, Blanche Baker, David Marshall Grant, Valérie Quennessen, Debra Winger, Mandy Patinkin
Rating58% 2.9004852.9004852.9004852.9004852.900485
The story line primarily follows three American students as they feel their ways through a year of studies at The Institute in Paris: Laura (Blanche Baker), who ostensibly narrates the goings-on of the film with the postcards she sends to her boyfriend back home; Alex (David Marshall Grant), whose interests aren't so much in studying but with love and life in Paris; and Joel (Miles Chapin), who can't quite seem to live with the courage of his convictions. Alex becomes ensnared in a tryst with his instructor (and the Institute's co-director Madam Tessier (Marie-France Pisier), while Joel falls in love with a local bookstore employee, Toni (Valérie Quennessen). Real American students were used as extras in the movie.
Messiah of Evil, 1h25
Directed by Gloria Katz, Willard Huyck
Origin USA
Genres Horror
Themes Medical-themed films, Vampires in film, Zombie films, Films about viral outbreaks, Disaster films
Actors Marianna Hill, Anitra Ford, Royal Dano, Michael Greer, Elisha Cook, Jr., Charles Dierkop
Rating62% 3.1486953.1486953.1486953.1486953.148695
A young woman named Arletty (Marianna Hill) drives to the beach town of Point Dune, California, to visit her estranged father, an artist. She finds his house, abandoned. He left a diary in which he addresses her specifically. In it he complains about darkness consuming the town, and horrible nightmares he is having, and implores Arletty to never, ever look for him. His letter tells her to talk to the owner of the art gallery, who sells his paintings. The gallery owner says he has none of her father's paintings, does not sell them, no one ever comes in looking to buy his works, and says he doesn't know where he went. He says Point Dune is "an artist colony" and he only vaguely remembers her father (his paintings are eerie pop art portraits of groups of people in black, white, and gray, standing; the men are always dressed in black suits, white shirts, and black ties, like dead men at a funeral). It is never clear if these are townspeople, or figures from his visions, or both.

Scriptwriter

Radioland Murders, 1h52
Directed by Charles Martin Smith, Mel Smith
Origin USA
Genres Drama, Thriller, Comedy, Musical, Crime, Romance
Themes Radio, Children's films
Actors Brian Benben, Tom Hanks, Mary Stuart Masterson, Michael Lerner, Scott Michael Campbell, Ned Beatty
Rating60% 3.049443.049443.049443.049443.04944
In 1939, a new radio network based at station WBN in Chicago, Illinois begins its inaugural night. The station's owner, General Walt Whalen, depends on his employees to impress main sponsor Bernie King. This includes writer Roger Henderson, assistant director Penny Henderson (Roger's wife, seeking divorce), page boy Billy Budget, engineer Max Applewhite, conductor Rick Rochester, announcer Dexter Morris, director Walt Whalen, Jr. and stage manager Herman Katzenback. After King commissions rewrites on the radio scripts, the WBN writers get angry, adding to the fact that they have not been paid in weeks.
Howard the Duck, 1h51
Directed by Willard Huyck
Origin USA
Genres Science fiction, Thriller, Comedy, Fantasy, Action, Comic science fiction
Themes Films about animals, Comedy science fiction films, Films about birds, Superhero films, Super-héros inspiré de comics, Mise en scène d'un canard, Children's films, Films about extraterrestrial life
Actors Lea Thompson, Tim Robbins, Jeffrey Jones, Chip Zien, Ed Gale, David Paymer
Rating47% 2.3568152.3568152.3568152.3568152.356815
Twenty-seven-year-old Howard the Duck (Chip Zien) lives on Duckworld, a planet similar to Earth but inhabited by anthropomorphic ducks and orbited by twin moons. As he is reading the latest issue of Playduck magazine, his armchair begins to quake violently and propels him out of his apartment building and into outer space; Howard eventually lands on Earth, in Cleveland, Ohio. Upon arriving, Howard encounters a woman being attacked by thugs. He defeats them using a unique style of martial arts. After the thugs flee, the woman introduces herself as Beverly Switzler (Lea Thompson), and decides to take Howard to her apartment and let him spend the night. The following day, Beverly takes Howard to Phil Blumbertt (Tim Robbins), a scientist who Beverly hopes can help Howard return to his world. After Phil is revealed to be only a janitor, Howard resigns himself to life on Earth and rejects Beverly's aid. He soon applies for a job as a janitor at a local romance spa. Because of unfair treatment by his boss, Howard resigns and rejoins Beverly, who plays in a band called Cherry Bomb. At the club at which Cherry Bomb is performing, Howard comes across their manager (Tommy Swerdlow), and confronts him when he insults the band. A fight breaks out, in which Howard is victorious.
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, 1h58
Directed by Steven Spielberg
Origin USA
Genres Fantastic, Fantasy, Action, Adventure
Themes Films about slavery, Children's films
Actors Harrison Ford, Kate Capshaw, Jonathan Ke Quan, Amrish Puri, Roshan Seth, Philip Stone
Rating74% 3.748313.748313.748313.748313.74831
In 1935, Indiana Jones - Indy (Harrison Ford) narrowly escapes the clutches of Lao Che (Roy Chiao), a crime boss in Shanghai. With his 11-year-old Chinese sidekick, Short Round (or Shorty) (Jonathan Ke Quan), and the nightclub singer Willie Scott (Kate Capshaw) in tow, Indy flees Shanghai on an airplane that, unknown to them, is owned by Lao. While the three of them sleep on the plane, the pilots parachute out, and they leave the plane to crash over the Himalayas while dumping its fuel. Indy, Shorty, and Willie discover this and narrowly manage to escape on an inflatable raft and ride down the slopes into a raging river. They come to Mayapore, a desolate village in northern India, where the poor villagers believe them to have been sent by the Hindu god Shiva and enlist their help to retrieve the sacred Sivalinga stone stolen from their shrine, as well as the community's children, from evil forces in the nearby Pankot Palace. During the journey to Pankot, Indy hypothesizes that the stone may be one of the five fabled Sankara stones that promise fortune and glory.
Best Defense, 1h34
Directed by Willard Huyck
Origin USA
Genres War, Comedy, Action, Spy
Themes Spy films, Political films, United States Armed Forces in films
Actors Dudley Moore, Eddie Murphy, Kate Capshaw, David Rasche, George Dzundza, Helen Shaver
Rating38% 1.905581.905581.905581.905581.90558
The movie takes place as two parallel plots separated by couple years: In 1982, Wylie Cooper (Moore), is an engineer developing a targeting system on a tank for the United States Army. In 1984, Murphy is US Army Lt. Landry, an American tank commander sent to Kuwait to demonstrate "XM-10 Annihilator", America's latest main battle tank, which is equipped with Cooper's system. Because of the tank's poor design and shoddy construction, Landry and his crew are barely able to control or navigate the XM-10 before it leaves the proving grounds and wanders into a combat zone during Iraq's invasion of Kuwait (an unintentional foreshadowing of the Gulf War that occurred six years after the release of the film).
More American Graffiti, 1h50
Directed by George Lucas, Bill L. Norton
Origin USA
Genres Drama, War, Comedy, Comedy-drama
Themes Sports films, Transport films, Films about automobiles, Auto racing films, Political films, Road movies, Children's films
Actors Candy Clark, Bo Hopkins, Ron Howard, Paul Le Mat, Mackenzie Phillips, Charles Martin Smith
Roles Characters
Rating53% 2.698822.698822.698822.698822.69882
The film, set over the course of four consecutive New Year's Eves from 1964 to 1967, depicts scenes from each of these years, intertwined with one another as though events happen simultaneously. The audience is protected from confusion by the use of a distinct cinematic style for each section. For example, the 1966 sequences echo the movie of Woodstock using split screens and multiple angles of the same event simultaneously on screen, the 1965 sequences (set in Vietnam) shot hand-held on grainy super 16 mm film designed to resemble war reporters' footage. The film attempts to memorialize the 1960s with sequences that recreate the sense and style of those days with references to Haight-Ashbury, the campus peace movement, the beginnings of the modern woman's liberation movement and the accompanying social revolt. One character burned his draft card, showing a younger audience what so many Americans had done on the television news ten years before the movie's release. Other characters are shown frantically disposing of their marijuana before a traffic stop as a police officer pulls them over, and another scene shows the police brutality with billy clubs during an anti-Vietnam protest.
French Postcards, 1h35
Directed by Willard Huyck
Origin France
Genres Drama, Comedy, Comedy-drama, Romance
Themes Films about education
Actors Miles Chapin, Blanche Baker, David Marshall Grant, Valérie Quennessen, Debra Winger, Mandy Patinkin
Roles Writer
Rating58% 2.9004852.9004852.9004852.9004852.900485
The story line primarily follows three American students as they feel their ways through a year of studies at The Institute in Paris: Laura (Blanche Baker), who ostensibly narrates the goings-on of the film with the postcards she sends to her boyfriend back home; Alex (David Marshall Grant), whose interests aren't so much in studying but with love and life in Paris; and Joel (Miles Chapin), who can't quite seem to live with the courage of his convictions. Alex becomes ensnared in a tryst with his instructor (and the Institute's co-director Madam Tessier (Marie-France Pisier), while Joel falls in love with a local bookstore employee, Toni (Valérie Quennessen). Real American students were used as extras in the movie.
Lucky Lady
Lucky Lady (1975)
, 1h58
Directed by Stanley Donen
Origin USA
Genres Comedy, Comedy-drama, Crime
Themes Seafaring films, Transport films
Actors Gene Hackman, Liza Minnelli, Burt Reynolds, Geoffrey Lewis, John Hillerman, Robby Benson
Roles Writer
Rating53% 2.6540552.6540552.6540552.6540552.654055
During the Prohibition era, a young widow, Claire, gets involved in liquor smuggling and romance with two men, Walker and Kibby, off the San Diego coast. Organized crime controls bootlegging back east and wants to do the same here, so a hit man named McTeague is sent to deal with these amateur crooks, as is the Coast Guard, leading to various battles at sea.
Lucky Lady
Lucky Lady (1975)
, 1h58
Directed by Stanley Donen
Origin USA
Genres Comedy, Comedy-drama, Crime
Themes Mafia films, Films about sexuality, Gangster films
Actors Gene Hackman, Liza Minnelli, Burt Reynolds, Geoffrey Lewis, Robby Benson, John Hillerman
Roles Writer
Rating53% 2.6540552.6540552.6540552.6540552.654055
En pleine prohibition, Claire, une jeune veuve, tente de reprendre les affaires de son compagnon avec la complicité de Walker. Une opération de trafic de travailleurs clandestins à la frontière mexicaine échoue lamentablement. Un américain, Kibby propose au couple une association et le trio se lance dans la contrebande d'alcool. Ils utiliseront pour ce faire un bateau voguant dans la baie de San-Francisco, le Lucky Lady. L'affaire n'est pas si simple puisqu'il faut compter avec la mafia dirigée par l'inquiétant McTeague et aussi par des gardes côtes incorruptibles. La première opération réussit, le trio dépense son argent dans un hôtel de luxe. Les relations entre les trois personnages tournent vite au ménage à trois. Mais Claire pense à son avenir, et sait qu'une fois l'argent dépensé, ils n'auront plus rien, il leur faut donc refaire une nouvelle grosse opération, mais cette fois McTeague n'est pas décidé à se laisser faire et compte bien éliminer ce trio qui le gène dans son propre trafic. On va donc vers une confrontation majeure où tous les moyens vont être bons pour éliminer l'adversaire.
American Graffiti, 1h52
Directed by George Lucas
Origin USA
Genres Drama, Comedy, Comedy-drama
Themes L'adolescence, Films about children, Radio, Sports films, Transport films, Films about automobiles, Auto racing films, Musical films, Road movies, Children's films, Teen movie
Actors Richard Dreyfuss, Ron Howard, Paul Le Mat, Charles Martin Smith, Candy Clark, Mackenzie Phillips
Roles Writer
Rating73% 3.697343.697343.697343.697343.69734
In early September, 1962, recent high school graduates and longtime friends, Curt Henderson and Steve Bolander, meet John Milner and Terry "The Toad" Fields at the local Mel's Drive-In parking lot. Despite receiving a $2,000 scholarship from the local Moose lodge, Curt is undecided if he wants to leave the next morning with Steve to go to the northeastern United States to begin college. Steve lets Toad borrow his 1958 Chevrolet Impala for the evening and while he's away at college. Steve's girlfriend, Laurie, who also is Curt's sister, is unsure of Steve's leaving, to which he suggests - to Laurie's surprise - they see other people while he is away to "strengthen" their relationship. She is not happy with his proposal.
Messiah of Evil, 1h25
Directed by Gloria Katz, Willard Huyck
Origin USA
Genres Horror
Themes Medical-themed films, Vampires in film, Zombie films, Films about viral outbreaks, Disaster films
Actors Marianna Hill, Anitra Ford, Royal Dano, Michael Greer, Elisha Cook, Jr., Charles Dierkop
Roles Ecrivain
Rating62% 3.1486953.1486953.1486953.1486953.148695
A young woman named Arletty (Marianna Hill) drives to the beach town of Point Dune, California, to visit her estranged father, an artist. She finds his house, abandoned. He left a diary in which he addresses her specifically. In it he complains about darkness consuming the town, and horrible nightmares he is having, and implores Arletty to never, ever look for him. His letter tells her to talk to the owner of the art gallery, who sells his paintings. The gallery owner says he has none of her father's paintings, does not sell them, no one ever comes in looking to buy his works, and says he doesn't know where he went. He says Point Dune is "an artist colony" and he only vaguely remembers her father (his paintings are eerie pop art portraits of groups of people in black, white, and gray, standing; the men are always dressed in black suits, white shirts, and black ties, like dead men at a funeral). It is never clear if these are townspeople, or figures from his visions, or both.