Xanadu (1980)

Michael Beck plays artist Sonny Malone

Sonny Malone's album cover painting comes to life

Xanadu on IMDB



'Sonny Malone (Michael Beck) is a talented artist who dreams of fame beyond his job, which is the uncreative task of painting larger versions of album covers for record-store window advertisements. As the film opens, Sonny is broke and on the verge of giving up his dream. Having quit his day job to try to make a living as a freelance artist, but having failed to make any money at it, Sonny returns to his old job at AirFlo Records. After some humorous run-ins with his imperious boss and nemesis, Simpson, he resumes painting record covers.

At work, Sonny is told to paint an album cover for a group called The Nine Sisters. The cover features a beautiful woman passing in front of an art deco auditorium (the Pan-Pacific Auditorium). This same woman collided with him earlier that day, kissed him, then roller-skated away, and Malone becomes obsessed with finding her. He finds her at the same (but now abandoned) auditorium. She identifies herself as Kira (Olivia Newton-John), but she will tell him nothing else about herself. Unbeknownst to Sonny, Kira is one of nine mysterious and beautiful women who literally sprang to life from a local mural in town near the beach.

Sonny befriends a has-been big band orchestra leader-turned-construction mogul named Danny McGuire (Gene Kelly). Danny lost his muse in the 1940s; Sonny has not yet found his muse. Kira encourages the two men to form a partnership and open a nightclub at the old auditorium from the album cover. She falls in love with Sonny, and this presents a problem because she is actually an Olympian Muse (she is Terpsichore, the muse of dance). The other eight women from the beginning of the movie are her sisters and fellow goddesses, the Muses, and the mural is actually a portal of sorts and their point of entry to Earth.'
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Turks Fruit (1973)

Rutger Hauer plays artist Eric Vonk, the sculptor



Turks fruit on IMDB


'Turkish Delight introduces Eric waking up recalling a disturbing dream followed by frantically picking up random women from the streets and taking them back to his studio for sex. However, he is clearly distressed about something, and it turns out that this is the aftermath of his breakup with Olga. The movie then recounts his relationship with Olga.

Olga picks up Eric when he is hitchhiking, and immediately they hit it off together, both sexually and spiritually. They live together and marry. However, their relationship is strongly resisted by Olga's mother. She does not approve of this Bohemian sculptor, who lives poorly off his occasional commissions, as a suitable match for Olga. Nevertheless, Eric and Olga get married and Olga's family accepts him.

After a number of adventures, Olga suddenly starts acting strangely. At a party organised by her family, she flirts with a businessman, and after some arguments with Eric, he slaps her and she leaves him. Eric trashes his studio, violently crushing anything that reminded him of Olga. This brings the movie to the point where it opened, ending the flashback.

Eric is still obsessed about Olga, but sees her only occasionally. She acts more and more outrageously, often in the presence of other men. Her family refuses to let Eric visit her, until he says he has come to arrange a divorce. After a short while Olga gets married to an American businessman which soon goes wrong and Olga moves back to Holland.

One day he meets Olga, who is flamboyantly dressed and acting almost completely incoherent. She collapses and is taken to the hospital, where she is diagnosed as having a brain tumor, but surgical intervention could not remove all of it. It becomes clear that she will die. Eric brings her turkish delight, which is the only thing she will eat, as she is afraid that harder food will break her teeth. Soon after, she dies.'
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Sudden Impact (1983)

Sondra Locke plays artist Jennifer Spencer
Sudden Impact on IMDB

'Seven years have passed since Dirty Harry foiled the psychopathic Scorpio Killer, rogue officer Lt. Neil Briggs and his band of murderous patrol cops, and the terrorist People's Revolutionary Strike Force. But now the aging Harry Callahan (Clint Eastwood), now in his 50's, is back on the trail of a new cold-blooded killer, who may be more dangerous than himself or any of the killers he ever faced.

Jennifer Spencer (Sondra Locke) and her sister were gang raped years ago, after a female friend of the gang had persuaded them to come to a fair. The brutal rape left the sister permanently catatonic and almost vegetative. Jennifer is now out for revenge, killing her attackers one by one.'
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Nothing Lasts Forever (1984)

Zach Galligan plays artist Adam Beckett


Marc Alderman plays artist Claus Weiner

German conceptual artist Claus Weiner performing his piece 'Lifewalk 5000'
on a treadmill counting to a million

artist Adam Beckett watching Claus Weiner's Lifewalk 5000 sitting next to a Claus Weiner fan girl

Nothing Lasts Forever on IMDB



'The plot concerns a young man (Galligan) who dreams of becoming an artist. On returning to his relatives in Manhattan, he finds that the Port Authority has taken control of the city, and is forced to work in a menial job under a trigger-happy boss (Aykroyd). His kindness to a tramp leads him to be taken into an underground network where he discovers that the city's tramps are controlling the destiny of all the cities in the world. They instruct him to travel to the moon on a mission to spread peace and find his true love. Galligan accidentally finds a bus travelling to the moon. Bill Murray plays the bus conductor.'
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Privilege (1967)

Jean Shrimpton plays artist Vanessa Ritchie


Privilege on IMDB

'The story is set in the near future of the 1970s and concerns a disillusioned pop singer, who is manipulated by the church and state which seek to turn him into a messianic leader.' When he meets the artist Vanessa Ritchie she makes him take a look at whats happening.
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Artists and Models (1955)

Dean Martin plays artist Rick Todd



Dorothy Malone plays artist Abigail 'Abby' Parker

Abigail Parker drawing the Bat Lady

Artists and Models on IMDB



'Rick Todd (Dean Martin) is a struggling painter. His roommate, Eugene Fullstack (Jerry Lewis), is an aspiring children's author. Fullstack has a passion for comic books, especially those of the "Bat Lady." However, each night he has nightmares which he describes aloud during his sleep. They are about "Vincent the Vulture," who is half-man, half-bird.

A neighbor in the complex, Abigail Parker (Dorothy Malone) is a professional artist and works for a comic book company, Murdock Publishing. Her roommate is Bessie Sparrowbush (Shirley MacLaine), who is Mr. Murdock's secretary, and the model for "Bat Lady". Sparrowbush develops a crush on Fullstack, who is unaware that she is the "Bat Lady."

Parker becomes frustrated at work and quits at the same time that Todd gets a job with them after pitching the adventures of "Vincent the Vulture" from Fullstacks' dreams. He attains success at his new job, but after falling for Parker he keeps his work a secret from her.

Unbeknownst to all of them, Fullstacks' dreams also contain a top-secret rocket formula that Todd publishes in his stories. With spies all around them, they manage to entertain at the annual "Artists and Models Ball" and capture the enemy, preserving national security.'
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The Clairvoyant aka The Killing Hour (1982)

Elizabeth Kemp plays artist Virna Nightbourne



The Clairvoyant on IMDB

Elizabeth Kemp plays Virna Nightbourne a psychic artist helping the New York Police Department by drawing images of death scenes as seen through the eyes of the killer they are investigating

Morgan: A Suitable Case for Treatment (1966)

David Warner plays artist Morgan Delt



Morgan on IMDB




'Morgan Delt is an artist from a working class background, married to Leonie, a woman far above him in social standing. Given to a rich fantasy life to begin with, Morgan goes off the mental deep end when Leonie informs him that she is asking for a divorce and taking up with art dealer Charles Napier (Stephens), a man more befitting her class. Thoroughly gone around the bend, Morgan enacts a series of bizarre gags and stunts in a campaign to win Leonie back, including putting a skeleton in her bed and crashing her wedding dressed as a gorilla (the film segues into brief extracts from the original King Kong film). His antics get Morgan arrested and committed to an insane asylum, where he embraces his mother's ardent communist beliefs.'
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Beauty's Worth (1922)

Forrest Stanley plays artist Cheyne Rovein

Beauty's Worth on IMDB

The artist Cheyne Rovein designs outfits for Marion Davis' character Prudence Cole, a prim Quaker girl. The outfits show off her good looks and she catches the eye of Hallam Cooley, the man she has been infatuated with. She however realizes that Hallam was only intersted in her for her surface beauty whereas Cheyne saw her inner beauty so she falls in love with him.

The Song of Songs (1933)

Brian Aherne plays sculptor Richard Waldow

The Song of Songs on IMDB

Portrait of Jennie (1948)

Joseph Cotten plays artist Eben Adams





Portrait of Jennie on IMDB

'The film, set in 1934, tells the story of an impoverished painter in New York City, who meets a fey little girl in Central Park wearing old-fashioned clothing. He makes a sketch of her from memory which involves him with an art dealer who is impressed with his work. This inspires him to paint a portrait of her - the "Portrait Of Jennie." Jennie has seemed to age a few years each time Adams meets her. He soon falls in love with her, but is puzzled by the fact that she seems to be experiencing events that took place many years previously as if they had just happened. He sets out to investigate but does not reveal what he discovers to anyone, and is puzzled by what he finds.'
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Violent Midnight aka Psychomania (1963)

Lee Philips plays artist Elliot Freeman
Violent Midnight on IMDB

Elliot Freeman is a reclusive artist who is suspected of murdering his model

The Peanut Butter Solution (1985)

Michael Hogan plays artist Billy Baskin








Michel Maillot plays the evil artist Sergio (The Signor)

The Signor's magic paintings

The Signor paints one of his magic paintings

The Peanut Butter Solution on IMDB

'Michael Baskin is an average 11-year old boy. His father, Billy Baskin, is a struggling artist and temporary sole caregiver of the children while his wife attends to the needs of her recently deceased father in Australia. Upon hearing the news that an abandoned mansion has recently burned down, Michael and his friend Connie decide to explore the remains. Outside the mansion, Connie dares Michael to take a look inside, leading to a frightening encounter with the ghosts of its homeless inhabitants who had died in the fire. Michael does not know this yet, but his fearsome run in with the ghosts has given him a mysterious illness simply known as "The Fright". Michael wakes up the next morning to find out that "The Fright" has made him lose all of his hair. After a failed attempt with a wig (his wig was pulled off by an older boy during a fight in a soccer game), the ghosts visit Michael in his sleep and give him the recipe of a magical formula for hair growth, the main ingredient of which is peanut butter. Michael's first attempt to make the formula is thwarted when his father and sister think he is making something unwanted and dispose of it. The ghosts return the following night, giving Michael a second chance to pay him back for giving his money to some homeless people, and also give Michael special instruction not to add too much peanut butter, as it will end in dreadful results. Michael successfully makes the formula this time, but ignores their instructions not to overdo the peanut butter, and wakes up the next morning to find that his new hair has already began to grow. After only a few minutes, Michael has grown a full head of hair. Suspicious of his fast growing follicles, Connie confronts Michael about his unusual ability. When Michael reveals to him his concoction, Connie decides to apply some of it too (to his genital area) Pretty soon, Michael and Connie's hair grows to such lengths that it has become a nuisance for the school and their classmates, resulting in their suspensions. While Michael frantically searches for a solution, Connie discovers that the hair will stop growing by yelling at it. The art teacher at Michael's school, simply called the Signor, frightens children and forbids them from using their imagination. After getting fired from the school, the Signor finds out about Michael's condition and kidnaps him (and many other neighborhood children) to make magic paint brushes from Michael's ever-growing hair, in which he subdues Michael with a knockout drug. The kidnapped children are put to work under tough conditions. "We have to make 500 brushes a day, or we don't eat!" The paintbrushes are so powerful that they paint whatever their user imagines. Connie and Michael's sister, Susan Allison Baskin, discover the Signor's magical paintbrush factory and try to rescue Michael. Connie tries to use force, but he is overpowered by Signor and his dog James. Instead, Susan tricks the Signor into painting a picture of the abandoned mansion. Connie then dares him to investigate inside, leading "The Fright" to be passed on from Michael to the Signor. Signor, now bald, escapes from the haunted house to then be arrested by the local police. The film ends with the family reunited as the mother has returned home, and Michael's hair has stopped growing out of control.'
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