Deep Space (1988)

An orbiting spacecraft crashes to earth, releasing the creature inside.  Developed in secret as a biological weapon, it's some sort of large, mutant cockroach with lots of scary teeth and tentacles.  Its  life cycle includes an egg phase, a get-inside-the-victim phase (just like the monster in Alien), and a king-crab phase, as well as an adult, tall-as-a-human, phase.  A hardboiled detective and a beautiful lady cop  investigate the mayhem caused by the creature.  The detective intelligently takes home an egg, which  hatches, leading to the death of his partner (played by Harris from Barney Miller).  

James Booth plays Dr. Forsythe, one of the scientists who developed the monster.  Forsythe has a chance to prevent the monster from getting loose; he's actually ordered to  issue the autodestruct code on the spacecraft while the monster's still inside.  But Forsythe objects that this will waste millions of dollars.   He finally agrees to comply  if his superiors and colleagues and everyone else will just leave the room for a minute.  Amazingly, they agree (without even asking why he needs all this privacy).   But Forsythe has no intention of destroying his precious monster; he mutters, "Like hell I will!" (a fine James Booth moment).  He sits down at the computer keyboard and types away, occasionally glancing over his shoulder in a sneaky manner.   This scene is by far the best part of the film.

Booth wears a white lab coat and some very large reading glasses.  He speaks in an educated, refined voice (with that  slight lisp on the s's).  He hardly appears in the second half of the film, which focuses on the hardboiled detective.

General Randolph is played by Norman Burton, who plays Lt. Anderson  in Pray for Death.