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Half Moon Street
Half Moon Street
	Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Bob Swaim
Written by	Edward Behr; Bob Swaim; Paul Theroux;
Based on	Doctor Slaughter; by Paul Theroux
Produced by	Geoffrey Reeve
Starring	Sigourney Weaver; Michael Caine;
Cinematography	Peter Hannan
Edited by	Richard Marden
Music by	Richard Harvey
Production; companies	RKO Pictures; Edward R. Pressman Film; Geoff Reeve Enterprises;
Distributed by	20th Century Fox (United States theatrical); Embassy Home Entertainment (International theatrical and worldwide home video);
Release date	13 August 1986;
Running time	90 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$8 million
Box office	$2.3 million

Half Moon Street is a 1986 American erotic thriller film directed by Bob Swaim and starring Sigourney Weaver, Michael Caine, Keith Buckley, and P. J. Kavanagh. The film is about an American woman working at a foreign research and policy institute in London who moonlights for a British escort service, becoming involved in the political intrigues surrounding one of her clients.

The film was based on the 1984 novel Doctor Slaughter by Paul Theroux.^[3] Despite the source material, the film and book have distinct endings.

Half Moon Street was the first RKO Pictures solo feature film produced in almost a quarter-century. The previous one was Jet Pilot, which had been released in 1957.^[4]

Plot

Dr. Lauren Slaughter, Ph.D., is an American academic living in London, where she holds a prestigious but low-paid job at a Middle East policy institute. Her superiors take credit for her work and she struggles to pay the rent on her dilapidated flat.

After an anonymous individual mails her a video tape promoting the financial rewards of working as an escort, Slaughter signs up with the high-end Jasmine Escort Agency and begins moonlighting as a paid escort to rich men. These include a Palestinian businessman called Karim, who gifts her the lease on his rented apartment on Half Moon Street, and Lord Bulbeck, a trusted member of the House of Lords with a key role in international diplomacy and national defense.

Slaughter and Bulbeck strike up a relationship that goes beyond sex, each enjoying the other's conversation and intelligence. However, Bulbeck's work on a delicate Middle East peace process forces him to miss a series of dates, causing Slaughter to feel rejected.

Slaughter briefly takes up with a playboy called Sonny, who later shows up at her apartment. He attacks her and threatens her with a gun, but she tricks and kills him. Karim arrives and also holds her at gunpoint, revealing that he was the one who sent her the video tape. Karim and Sonny are part of a conspiracy to destroy the peace process by murdering Bulbeck while he is in the company of a prostitute, thus killing both the man and his reputation. A special forces team storms the apartment and kills Karim. Slaughter and Bulbeck rekindle their romance.

Cast

Sigourney Weaver as Dr. Lauren Slaughter
Michael Caine as Lord Bulbeck
Patrick Kavanagh as General Sir George Newhouse
Faith Kent as Lady Newhouse
Ram John Holder as Lindsay Walker
Keith Buckley as Hugo Van Arkady
Ann Hanson as Mrs. Van Arkady
Patrick Newman as Julian Shuttle
Niall O'Brien as Captain Twilley
Nadim Sawalha as Karim Hatami
Vincent Lindon as Sonny
Muriel Villiers as Madame Cybele
Michael Elwyn as Tom Haldane
Ninka Scott as Mrs. Haldane
Jasper Jacob as Rex Lanham
Donald Pickering as George Hardcastle
Maria Aitken as The Hon. Maura Hardcastle
Joseph Karimbeik as Colonel Hassan Ali
Anita Edwards as Mrs. Hassan Ali
Angus MacInnes as Bill Rafferty
John Sinclair as French Businessman
Eiji Kusuhara as Japanese Businessman
Togo Igawa as Japanese Waiter
Rupert Vansittart as Alan Platts-Williams
Anne Lambton as Sidney Platts-Williams
Philip Whitchurch as Plainclothesman
Robert Lee as Chinese Ambassador
Janet McTeer as Van Arkady's Secretary
Carol Cleveland as American Wife
Katherine Schofield as Overdressed Lady
Siobhan Redmond as Institute Secretary

Reception

Roger Ebert gave Half Moon Street three out of four stars, concluding that the film "is interesting primarily because of the interaction between Weaver and Caine. Swaim deserves credit for the intelligence and wit of the first 80 or 90 minutes, but must also take the blame for the ending, which is a complete surrender to generic conventions."^[5]