Michael HordernFilmography

Freddie as F.R.O.7

Actors: John Sessions, Billie Whitelaw, Ben Kingsley, Jenny Agutter, Brian Blessed, Nigel Hawthorne, Michael Hordern, Jonathan Pryce

Synopsis: A steamer trunk full of the voices of British acting greats (Ben Kingsley, Billie Whitelaw, Michael Hordern, Brian Blessed, and Jonathan Pryce) enliven this absurd pop-cartoon parody of the James Bond films. In a prologue taking place in a faraway time, a widowed magician-king (voice of Michael Hordern Read More

Memento Mori

Actors: Stephanie Cole, Renée Ashershon, Michael Hordern, Thora Hird, Maggie Smith, Maurice Denham, Cyril Cusack

Synopsis: Based on a novel by Muriel Spark (The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie), the British TV drama Memento Mori boasts an impressive cast of veterans, including Maurice Denham, Cyril Cusack, Sir Michael Hordern, Renee Ashershon, and Maggie Smith. The story concerns an eccentric group of senior citizens who Read More

Ending Up

Synopsis: Made for British television, this is a black comedy/drama concerning the exploits of five elderly people whose friendship during one long Christmas holiday is sorely tested. The film features a notable cast of distinguished performers from stage and film. ~ Mark Hockley, All Movie Guide Read More

Titmuss Regained

Synopsis: A sequel to John Mortimer's Paradise Postponed, the Thames Television miniseries Titmuss Regained detailed the further misadventures of bemused British bureaucrat Leslie Titmuss (here played by David Threlfall). As the new Conservative secretary of state for Housing, Ecology, and Planning, Titmuss Read More

The Green Man

Synopsis: The satirical Kingsley Amis novel The Green Man served as the basis for this three-part BBC2 miniseries. Albert Finney headed the cast as Maurice Allington, the libidinous, money-grubbing owner of a quaint British bed-and-breakfast hotel. In hopes of attracting customers, and also desirous of Read More

Dark Obsession

Actors: Gabriel Byrne, Amanda Donohoe, Michael Hordern, Judy Parfitt, Douglas Hodge

Synopsis: Dark Obsession is a slow, English-made, psychological thriller dealing with erotic obsession, guilt and betrayal. Sir Hugo Buckton (Gabriel Byrne), an aristocrat strapped for money, is married to beautiful, sensual and successful Virginia (Amanda Donohoe). His alcoholism and his envy of her lead Read More

Fool

Actors: Derek Jacobi, Cyril Cusack, Ruth Mitchell, Paul Burke, Corin Redgrave

Synopsis: Husband and wife producers Richard Goodwin and Christine Edzard return to the same milieu as in their epic version of Little Dorrit in The Fool. This slight story stars Derek Jacobi as Mr. Frederick, a theatrical clerk in the London of 1857, who concocts a monetary scam to bilk the rich. In order Read More

Danny, the Champion of the World

Actors: Robbie Coltrane, Cyril Cusack, Jeremy Irons, Jean Marsh

Synopsis: Danny, the Champion of the World is set in rural England. Nasty country squire Robbie Coltrane, who owns half the land, covets the other half. His principal opponents are a father-and-son team of farmers. The warm relationship between the two "good guys" hardly needs to be forced, since the roles Read More

Dog It Was That Died

The Trouble with Spies

Actors: Donald Sutherland, Ned Beatty, Ruth Gordon, Lucy Gutteridge, Michael Hordern

Synopsis: Appleton Porter (Donald Sutherland) is an inept international secret agent sent by the U.S. to the island of Ibiza in this uneven spy comedy. His mission is to secure the secret recipe for a truth serum to use on enemy agents. Appleton miraculously avoids being killed on several occasions as Read More

The Secret Garden

Actors: Alison Doody, Lucy Gutteridge, Derek Jacobi, Gennie James

Synopsis: This made-for-TV adaptation of Frances Hodgson Burnett's The Secret Garden stars Gennie James as spoiled-rotten Mary Lennox. When her parents die of cholera, Mary is whisked from her home in India to live in the forbidding Victorian mansion of her flint-hearted uncle (Derek Jacobi). Thanks to the Read More

Suspicion

Synopsis: In this remake of Hitchock's great suspense film, a new bride is filled with dread as her suspicions that her groom is a ruthless killer mount. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Scoop

The Wind in the Willows

Actors: Paul H. Frees, Charles Nelson Reilly, José Ferrer

Synopsis: Completed in 1985, Rankin/Bass' feature-length cartoon version of Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows had its network debut delayed several times; the film finally premiered on July 5, 1987. This adaption of the 1908 Grahame story was more faithful to the source that the enjoyable but overly Read More

Labyrinth

Actors: David Bowie, Jennifer Connelly, Toby Froud, Brian Henson, Shelley Thompson, Christopher Malcolm

Synopsis: George Lucas produced and Jim Henson directed this gothic fantasy which pits living and breathing actors Jennifer Connelly and David Bowie (who, along with Trevor Jones, provides the film's music) against a motley collection of Muppet monsters. The film centers upon teenage Sarah (Connelly), who Read More

Lady Jane

Actors: Helena Bonham Carter, Cary Elwes, John Wood, Michael Hordern, Jill Bennett

Synopsis: Lady Jane Grey, the 16-year-old girl who for nine days in the 16th century was Queen of England, is here portrayed by Helena Bonham Carter. Lady Jane Grey's sickly cousin, who becomes Edward VI upon the death of Henry VIII, is on the threshold of death himself. The Protestant powers-that-be Read More

Paradise Postponed

Comrades

Actors: Robin Soans, William Gaminara, Stephen Bateman, Philip Davis, Jeremy Flynn

Synopsis: Set in the 1830s, this historical drama stars Robin Soans as George Loveless, a Methodist minister whose flock is a group of working families in Tolpuddle, a small town in the British Southwest. Most of the workers in the community are under the thumb of Frampton (Robert Stephens), a ruthless land Read More

Young Sherlock Holmes

Actors: Nicolas Rowe, Alan Cox, Sophie Ward, Anthony Higgins, Susan Fleetwood

Synopsis: Also released under the title Young Sherlock Holmes and the Pyramid of Fear, this film follows the adventures of young John Watson (Alan Cox) when he is shipped off to boarding school and meets up with the brilliantly bizarre Sherlock Holmes (Nicolas Rowe). The two boys strike up a friendship and Read More

Paddington Bear

The Zany Adventures of Robin Hood

Synopsis: In this made-for-TV spoof, Robin Hood (George Segal) and his merry men must attempt to gather together the necessary ransom money to free King Richard from a nasty Duke. ~ Iotis Erlewine, All Movie Guide Read More

Barry Gibb: Now Voyager

The Wind in the Willows

Synopsis: For many aficionados of Kenneth Grahames' The Wind in the Willows, the definitive film version was seen in Disney's omnibus animated feature Ichabod and Mr. Toad (1949). Even so, this 1983 British adaptation is every bit as accomplished and worthwhile as the Disney film. Consisting of three short Read More

King Lear

Actors: Michael Hordern, Anton Lesser

Yellowbeard

Actors: Graham Chapman, Peter Boyle, Tommy Chong, Eric Idle, Peter Cook

Synopsis: This colorful spoof of pirate movies had all the makings of a classic farce and yet sank straight to Davy Jones' locker at the box-office, for despite it's all-star international cast of famous comedians, and despite the fact that it was largely co-written by "Monty Python"-veteran Graham Chapman Read More

The Missionary

Actors: Michael Palin, Maggie Smith, Trevor Howard, Denholm Elliott, Michael Hordern

Synopsis: Michael Palin wrote and stars in this comedy as The Reverend Charles Fortescue, an unassuming missionary called back to England after spending ten years in Africa teaching children in a native village. Upon arriving in London, he finds that his new assignment is to take charge of a slum mission Read More

Oliver Twist

Actors: George C. Scott

Synopsis: Clive Donner directs Oliver Twist, the 1982 made-for-TV version of the classic Dickens novel. Richard Charles plays Oliver Twist, an orphan boy who gets kicked out of his juvenile workhouse when he asks for some more food. He is sent to work as an apprentice, but he quickly escapes and joins a Read More

Gandhi

Actors: Ben Kingsley, Candice Bergen, Edward Fox, John Gielgud, Trevor Howard

Synopsis: It was Richard Attenborough's lifelong dream to bring the life story of Indian political and spiritual leader Mahatma Gandhi to the screen. When it finally reached fruition in 1982, the 188-minute, Oscar-winning Gandhi was one of the most exhaustively thorough biopics ever made. The film begins in Read More

Ivanhoe

Actors: James Mason, Anthony Andrews, Olivia Hussey, Sam Neill, Michael Hordern

Synopsis: The classic adventure novel by Sir Walter Scott, which covers the same ground as the various Robin Hood legends, becomes this impressive television production, boasting a well-heeled British cast, a robust pace, and solid production values. Wilfred of Ivanhoe (Anthony Andrews) is a young Saxon Read More

Gauguin the Savage

Actors: David Carradine, Lynn Redgrave

Synopsis: The story of Paul Gaugin (1848-1903), the Parisian stockbroker who left his job, his wife and his five children for the life of an artist in Tahiti, was superbly fictionalized in Somerset Maugham's The Moon and Sixpence. Gaugin the Savage is the same story with no names changed, told in two Read More

All's Well That Ends Well

Actors: Ian Charleson, Angela Down, Celia Johnson

Shogun

Actors: Richard Chamberlain, Toshiro Mifune, Yoko Shimada, Frankie Sakai, Alan Badel

Synopsis: Based on the epic novel by James Clavell, Shogun originated as an epic five-part television miniseries, filmed on location in Japan. Richard Chamberlain stars as John Blackthorne, a 17th century British sea pilot in charge of a Dutch vessel. Shipwrecked off the coast of Japan, Blackthorne is in Read More

The Wildcats of St. Trinian's

Synopsis: Back in the early 1950s, cartoonist/satirist Ronald Searle dreamed up the "Belles of St. Trinians," a gaggle of sweet-faced, diabolically inclined British schoolgirls. These characters were featured in several popular British comedies of the 1950s and 1960s, many of which hold up pretty well today Read More

The Tempest

Actors: Michael Hordern, Christopher Guard

Romeo and Juliet

Actors: John Gielgud, Patrick Ryecart, Rebecca Saire

Synopsis: This 3-hour TV adaptation of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet features Patrick Ryecart and Rebecca Saire in the title roles. Though these names may not be familiar to the casual viewer, the same cannot be said of the supporting cast. Celia Johnson appears as the Nurse, Michael Hordern is Lord Read More

Watership Down

Actors: John Hurt, Richard Briers, Michael Graham Cox, John Bennett, Simon Cadell

Synopsis: Unique in the annals of animated films, Watership Down is a serious, even grim tale that many will find relentless and depressing and others will find poetic and moving. It doesn't pull any punches. Death -- violent, disturbing death -- is ever present, portrayed in a manner that is astonishingly Read More

The Medusa Touch

Actors: Richard Burton, Lino Ventura, Lee Remick, Harry Andrews, Marie-Christine Barrault

Synopsis: In The Medusa Touch Brunel (Lino Ventura), a French detective on temporary assignment with Scotland Yard, investigates a mysterious series of disasters. The uncanny events begin happening shortly after writer John Morlar (Richard Burton) was hit over the head by an unknown intruder and rendered Read More

Joseph Andrews

Actors: Ann-Margret, Peter Firth, Michael Hordern, Beryl Reid, Jim Dale

Synopsis: Tony Richardson attempts to re-create the glory days of Tom Jones in this adaptation of the 1742 Henry Fielding novel. Peter Firth stars in this picaresque tale as Joseph Andrews, a young servant switched at birth who undergoes a series of romantic escapades. Joseph even has the fortune of Read More

A Christmas Carol

Actors: Michael Hordern, John Le Mesurier, Bernard Lee, Patricia Quinn, Clive Merrison

Synopsis: In this adaptation of Dickens' classic, Scrooge and company are animated. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

The Slipper and the Rose

Actors: Richard Chamberlain, Gemma Craven, Annette Crosbie, Edith Evans, Christopher Gable

Synopsis: Filmed in Austria, this British-made musical retells the story of Cinderella as it is found in books of fairy tales. The Prince, Edward, is played by Richard Chamberlain, Cinderella by Gemma Craven. In her role as the Prince's witty mother, Dame Edith Evans provides many of the movie's highlights. Read More

Barry Lyndon

Actors: Ryan O'Neal, Marisa Berenson, Patrick Magee, Hardy Kruger, Gay Hamilton

Synopsis: With ornate imagery reminiscent of paintings from the story's 18th century period, Stanley Kubrick's adaptation of William Makepeace Thackeray's novel depicts the rise and fall of a sensitive rogue in the British aristocracy. Young Irishman Redmond Barry (Ryan O'Neal) leaves home to seek his Read More

King Lear

Actors: Angela Down

The Old Curiosity Shop

Actors: Anthony Newley, David Hemmings, David Warner, Michael Hordern, Paul Rogers

Synopsis: The musical Mr. Quilp was based on one of Dickens' grimmest works, The Old Curiosity Shop, which has as its highlight the death of its heroine. The principal character is a villain, a hunchbacked usurer who wishes to take over the business of an antique dealer. Anthony Newley plays the horrid Mr. Read More

Royal Flash

Actors: Malcolm McDowell, Alan Bates, Florinda Bolkan, Oliver Reed, Britt Ekland

Synopsis: Novelist George MacDonald Fraser penned the script for this swashbuckling, picaresque adventure tale. The story is based on one of the books in his "Harry Flashman" series, loose sequels to "Tom Brown's Schooldays" that followed that story's central bully character through his checkered Read More

Lucky Lady

Actors: Gene Hackman, Liza Minnelli, Burt Reynolds, Geoffrey Lewis, John Hillerman

Synopsis: During the Prohibition era, Walker (Burt Reynolds) and Kibby (Gene Hackman) run a liquor smuggling operation in Mexico; they team up with Claire (Liza Minnelli), a cabaret entertainer who has an "in" with several big-time nightclub owners. Complications ensue when both men fall in love with Read More

Juggernaut

Actors: Richard Harris, Omar Sharif, David Hemmings, Anthony Hopkins, Shirley Knight

Synopsis: Following his successful foray into swashbuckler comedy with The Three Musketeers and The Four Musketeers, director Richard Lester made what has proved to be one of the few quality films from the disaster craze that dominated filmmaking in the mid-'70s. Juggernaut is the pseudonym of a madman (Freddie Jones Read More

England Made Me

Actors: Bill Baskiville, Cvetka Cupar, Mira Nikolic, Vladan Zivkovic, Peter Finch, Michael York, Hildegard Neil, Michael Hordern, Joss Ackland

Synopsis: Based on a novel by Graham Greene that uses the rise of Nazi Germany as its backdrop, this drama stars Michael York as Anthony Farrant, an idealistic young British businessman. On his way home after a trip to the Far East, Anthony takes a friend up on her advice and makes a stop in Germany, where Read More

The Mackintosh Man

Actors: Paul Newman, Dominique Sanda, James Mason, Harry Andrews, Ian Bannen

Synopsis: John Huston directed this cold war spy thriller (from a script by Walter Hill) concerning a British agent trying infiltrate the organization of a nefarious communist spy. Paul Newman is Joseph Reardon, a British secret agent commissioned by Mackintosh (Harry Andrews) to impersonate a jewel thief. Read More

Theater of Blood

Actors: Brigid Eric Bates, Stanley Bates, Jack Maguire, Bunny Reed, Vincent Price, Diana Rigg, Ian Hendry, Harry Andrews, Coral Browne

Synopsis: The darkly comic and sometimes quite gory Theatre of Blood is a vehicle tailor-made for its star Vincent Price, brilliantly capitalizing on his reputation as a master of period horror drawn from "literary" sources. Price portrays Shakespearean actor Edward Lionheart, who becomes enraged after Read More

Demons of the Mind

Actors: Shane Briant, Robert Hardy, Patrick Magee

Synopsis: Hammer Films apply their characteristic Gothic touch to this offbeat psychological thriller about a bombastic 19th-century Baron (Robert Hardy) who keeps his two adult offspring imprisoned in the family estate, convinced they are afflicted by an evil curse of madness passed down from their late Read More

The Possession of Joel Delaney

Actors: Jose Fernandez, Aukie Herger, Paulita Iglesias, Marita Lindholm, Shirley MacLaine, Michael Hordern, Perry King, Lisa Kohane, Edmundo Rivera Alvarez, Robert Burr

Synopsis: In this supernatural thriller, Norah Benson (Shirley MacLaine) is a wealthy woman living in Manhattan who keeps a close and protective eye on her brother Joel (Perry King), who has a flat in a rough section of the East Village. Joel is a frequent guest at Norah's home and loves her two children Read More

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Actors: Fiona Fullerton, Michael Crawford, Ralph Richardson, Flora Robson, Peter Sellers

Synopsis: A star-studded cast highlights this musical adaptation of the classic fantasy tales of Lewis Carroll. One day young Alice (Fiona Fullerton) takes a nasty spill down the rabbit-hole and finds herself in the bizarre kingdom of Wonderland, where she encounters a number of strange and enchanted Read More

Girl Stroke Boy

Actors: Straker

Synopsis: In this comedy, the WASPy parents of an adolescent son, who heretofore showed no interest at all in the opposite sex, are shocked when he suddenly brings home an androgynous girl from the West Indies. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

A Christmas Carol

Actors: Alastair Sim, Michael Hordern, Melvyn Hayes, Joan Sims, Paul Whitsun-Jones

Synopsis: This well-animated version of Dickens' classic Christmas story stays quite faithful to its source as it chronicles the painful lesson learned by a bitter old miser whose money lust alienates him from humanity. His lesson comes in the form of ghostly intervention from a trio of spirits who force Read More

Up Pompeii

Actors: Andrea Lloyd

Synopsis: Actor Frankie Howerd reprises his role from the British TV series Up Pompeii, in the tradition of the hugely popular Carry On series. The rest of the cast comes from these two series as well. There is a plot to kill the Emperor Nero (Patrick Cargill), and his loyal slave Lurcio (Howard) Read More

Some Will, Some Won't

Synopsis: In this farce, four people go to extremes to inherit the giant fortune of a wealthy practical joker. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

The Bed Sitting Room

Actors: Rita Tushingham, Ralph Richardson, Peter Cook, Dudley Moore, Spike Milligan

Synopsis: The specter of atomic warfare raises its head once again in this bizarre 1969 black comedy, directed by Richard Lester and hatched from the mind of twisted British comic Spike Milligan. England lays in ruins after World War III, and a number of dazed survivors try to carry on as if nothing is Read More

Anne of the Thousand Days

Actors: Richard Burton, Geneviève Bujold, Irene Papas, Anthony Quayle, John Colicos

Synopsis: Anne of the Thousand Days is the belated film adaptation of Maxwell Anderson's 1948 stage play. The story concentrates on the romance between Britain's King Henry VIII (Richard Burton) and his ill-fated second wife Anne Boleyn (Genevieve Bujold). After holding out for marriage rather than an Read More

Where Eagles Dare

Actors: Richard Burton, Clint Eastwood, Mary Ure, Michael Hordern, Patrick Wymark

Synopsis: An expensive but enormously profitable war picture, Where Eagles Dare centers upon a daring rescue and even more daring escape. Disguised as Nazi officers, commandoes Maj. John Smith (Richard Burton), Lt. Morris Schaffer Clint Eastwood and six other courageous souls parachute behind enemy lines. Read More

Prudence and the Pill

Actors: Deborah Kerr, David Niven, Robert Coote, Irina Demick, Judy Geeson, Vickery Turner

Synopsis: Prudence and the Pill gained minor notoriety in 1968 as the first film comedy dealing with the new birth-control pill. David Niven substitutes aspirin for his wife's (Deborah Kerr) birth control medicine, hoping that she will become pregnant by her lover (Keith Mitchell) -- thereby freeing him to Read More

The Taming of the Shrew

Actors: Alfred Lynch, Richard Burton, Elizabeth Taylor, Michael York, Vernon Dobtcheff, Michael Hordern, Natasha Pyne, Victor Spinetti

Synopsis: Franco Zeffirelli's adaptation of William Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew is a zesty version of the classic comedy, highlighted by performances by Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor and Nino Rota's score. Instead of simply filming a play, Zeffirelli turned Shakespeare's text into a lively Read More

The Jokers

Actors: Michael Crawford, Oliver Reed, Harry Andrews, James Donald, Daniel Massey

Synopsis: Two brothers looking to avoid becoming pawns of the establishment come up with a better way of making a living -- through theft -- in this satiric comedy. David Tremayne (Oliver Reed) is a successful London architect, and his younger brother Michael (Michael Crawford) is weighing his options after Read More

I'll Never Forget What's 'is Name

Actors: Orson Welles, Oliver Reed, Carol White, Harry Andrews, Michael Hordern

Synopsis: The imprisoning aspects of Success are humorously analyzed in this British-made film. Oliver Reed plays a wealthy advertising man who feels he has sold his soul and wishes to return to his happier earlier existence as a poor but swinging Londoner. Reed is goaded on by his boss, Orson Welles, who Read More

How I Won the War

Actors: Michael Crawford, John Lennon, Roy Kinnear, Lee Montague, Jack MacGowran

Synopsis: Among the first of the late 60s anti-war films that reflected growing concern over the Vietnam War, How I Won the War takes a cold, dark look at the Good War, World War II. In adapting Patrick Ryan's 1963 novel, screenwriter Charles Wood and director Richard Lester offered a narrative fractured by Read More

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum

Actors: Zero Mostel, Phil Silvers, Buster Keaton, Jack Gilford, Michael Crawford

Synopsis: Director Richard Lester uses the Burt Shevelove/Larry Gelbart/Stephen Sondheim Broadway musical hit as a launching pad for some of his wildest slapstick gaggery. Zero Mostel repeats his stage role as Pseudolus, the cunning Roman slave who'll do anything to win his freedom. The plot hinges on three Read More

Lamp at Midnight

Synopsis: Adapted for television by Robert Hartung from the play by Barrie Stavus, Lamp at Midnight deals with the 16th-century conflict between the Catholic Church and Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei. After exhaustive research, Galileo (played by Melvyn Douglas) concludes that the Aristotelean concept Read More

Khartoum

Actors: Charlton Heston, Laurence Olivier, Richard Johnson, Ralph Richardson, Alexander Knox

Synopsis: After declaring a holy war to rid the Sudan of Anglo-Egyptian rule in the 1880s, the fanatical Sudanese leader Muhammad Ahmad (Laurence Olivier) massacres a British-led force of 8,000 and marches on the strategic city of Khartoum at the confluence of the Blue Nile and the White Nile. The British Read More

Cast a Giant Shadow

Actors: Kirk Douglas, Senta Berger, Angie Dickinson, Frank Sinatra, Yul Brynner

Synopsis: Cast a Giant Shadow is a big-budget, glossy action/adventure story set at the time that Israel became a nation. American Army officer Colonel David Marcus is recruited by the yet-to-exist Israel to help form an army. Marcus is conflicted because of his sudden appreciation for his Jewish heritage. Read More

The Spy Who Came in From the Cold

Actors: Richard Burton, Claire Bloom, Oskar Werner, Sam Wanamaker, George Voskovec

Synopsis: Based on the novel by John Le Carre, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold stars Richard Burton as a dispirited, end-of-tether British secret agent. He comes in from "the cold" (meaning he is pulled out of field operations) to act as a undercover man behind the Iron Curtain. To make his staged Read More

Genghis Khan

Actors: Stephen Boyd, Omar Sharif, James Mason, Eli Wallach, Françoise Dorléac

Synopsis: The internationally produced historical epic Genghis Khan sometimes wavers uncertainly between spectacle and self-parody. Though Omar Sharif essays the title role, top billing is bestowed upon Stephen Boyd as Genghis Khan's mentor-turned-enemy Jamuga. It's hard to generate audience sympathy for a Read More

Dr. Syn, Alias the Scarecrow

Actors: Patrick McGoohan, Geoffrey Keen

Synopsis: This Disney drama, originally broadcast as a three-part TV episode, tells the story of a vicar's double life. Outwardly, he is the model of upstanding citizenship and loyalty to an oppressive British government. But he is also a notorious smuggler who uses his ill-gotten gains to benefit his Read More

The Yellow Rolls-Royce

Actors: Rex Harrison, Jeanne Moreau, Edmund Purdom, Shirley MacLaine, Moira Lister, George C. Scott, Isa Miranda, Ingrid Bergman

Synopsis: In this drama, from director Anthony Asquith, the lives and stories of three different people are linked together by their possession of an unusual car, a yellow Rolls Royce Phantom II. Lord Frinton (Rex Harrison) is a diplomat who purchases the exquisite auto as a gift for his wife (Jeanne Read More

The V.I.P.'s

Actors: Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Louis Jourdan, Elsa Martinelli, Margaret Rutherford, Maggie Smith

Synopsis: Terrence Rattigan, the playwright who brought us the multicharactered, multistoried Separate Tables, again offers us an episodic cross-section of humanity in The V.I.P.'s. When a heavy London fog paralyzes all air traffic, the lives of several people are profoundly affected. As indicated by the Read More

Cleopatra

Actors: Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Rex Harrison, Roddy McDowall, Pamela Brown, George Cole, Martin Landau

Synopsis: In 1963, this colossal and opulent $60 million spectacular was epic in every sense of the word -- an epic investment, an epic in the annals of Hollywood gossip, and, ultimately, an epic flop that nearly dragged 20th Century Fox down the Nile along with Cleopatra's barge. Handsomely mounted by Joseph L. Mankiewicz Read More

El Cid

Actors: Charlton Heston, Sophia Loren, Raf Vallone, Gary Raymond, Ralph Truman, John Fraser

Synopsis: When French playwright Pierre Corneille wrote El Cid, a fanciful version of the life of 11th-century Spanish hero Rodrigo Diaz de Bivar, aka "El Cid", an attempt was made to honor the "classic unities" and to compress the whole story into a single day! Be assured that the 1961 film version of El Read More

Macbeth

Actors: Malcolm Keen, Maurice Evans, Judith Anderson, Michael Hordern, Ian Bannen, Felix Aylmer

Synopsis: Breaking with their usual videotape tradition, the producers of NBC television's Hallmark Hall of Fame decided to commit its 1960 production of Macbeth to film. Maurice Evans stars as the fatally ambitious Scots warrior, with Judith Anderson as Lady MacBeth and Malcolm Keen as Duncan, whom MacBeth Read More

Malaga

Actors: Trevor Howard, Dorothy Dandridge, Edmund Purdom, Michael Hordern, Paul Stassino

Synopsis: This routine crime drama with a dash of romance begins with a tense opening, a jewel theft is carried out almost without a word of dialogue. One of the thieves, John Bain (Trevor Howard) an expert locksmith plagued by a stint in prison, has been coerced into helping the master thief Peter Curran (Edmund Purdom Read More

Sink the Bismarck!

Actors: Kenneth More, Dana Wynter, Carl Möhner, Laurence Naismith, Karel Stepanek, Geoffrey Keen

Synopsis: The Bismarck was the fabled German battleship of World War II. This film traces the "life" of the Bismarck from its launching (courtesy of newsreel footage) through its many battles and narrow escapes, concluding with its far-from-inevitable sinking in the Spring of 1941. Since one couldn't expect Read More

Man in the Moon

Actors: Kenneth More, Shirley Ann Field, Norman Bird, Michael Hordern, John Glyn-Jones

Synopsis: Kenneth More was beginning to segue into comedy roles when he took on the character of William in this standard sci-fi parody by director Basil Dearden. William is an unsuccessful guinea pig for a medical group interested in researching the common cold when he is soon fired and offered a job by Read More

Back to Back

Actors: Michael Hordern, Leucen MacGrath, Jeanne Marsh, George Rose

The Spaniard's Curse

Synopsis: The eponymous Spaniard--actually a Britisher of Spanish heritage--is Basil Dignam, falsely convicted of murder. As he is led away, Dignam places a curse on the heads of his judge (Michael Hordern) and jury. Two of the jurors die mysteriously. The notion that Dignam may be orchestrating these Read More

Girls at Sea

Actors: Guy Rolfe, Ronald Shiner, Alan White, Michael Hordern, Anne Kimbell

Synopsis: The celebrated stage farce 3DThe Middle Watch3D was the basis of the maritime comedy 3DGirls at Sea3D. While briefly in port, the British battleship 3DScotia3D, hosts a wild party, brimming over with wine, women and more women. Three of the female revellers-Mary (Ann Kimball), Jill (Mary Read More

I Accuse!

Actors: José Ferrer, Anton Walbrook, Viveca Lindfors, Leo Genn, Emlyn Williams

Synopsis: The still-controversial L'Affair Dreyfuss of the late 19th century is the focal point of I Accuse! Jose Ferrer (who also directed) stars as French Army captain Alfred Dreyfus, who is chosen as the fall guy for a major military scandal for no other discernable reason than his Jewishness. Wrongly Read More

I Was Monty's Double

Actors: John Mills, Cecil Parker, Patrick Allen, M.E. Clifton-James, Patrick Holt, Michael Hordern, Marius Goring

Synopsis: If official documentation didn't exist, we'd never believe a fantastic yarn like I Was Monty's Double. Actor M.E. Clifton James plays himself, a British stock-company actor who becomes an unsung hero during World War II. It seems that James, serving his country as a junior officer, is the exact Read More

The Spanish Gardener

Actors: Dirk Bogarde, Jon Whiteley, Michael Hordern, Cyril Cusack, Maureen Swanson

Synopsis: A story of family interaction, this is an adaptation of an A.J. Cronin novel, with Dirk Bogarde in the title role. More a character study, the movie depicts an insecure man who sees his son's close relationship with their Spanish gardener and is jealous of it. Torn by the jealousy, he contrives to Read More

Windom's Way

Actors: Peter Finch, Mary Ure, Natasha Parry, Robert Flemyng, Michael Hordern

Synopsis: Peter Finch plays Dr. Alec Windom, a British medico working in the remote Far Eastern island village of Selim. Feeling a strong bond with the natives, Dr. Windom champions their cause during a tense period of romantic upheaval. Eventually, he is forced to quell a native uprising--and to try to Read More

The Baby and the Battleship

Actors: John Mills, Richard Attenborough, Bryan Forbes, Harold Siddons, Clifford Mollison, Lisa Gastoni

Synopsis: British sailors John Mills and Richard Attenborough would like to take Neopolitan lass Lisa Gastoni out on a date. But Gastoni can't leave the house unless her baby brother tags along. During a rowdy evening on the town, Mills is forced to sneak the infant on board his ship. When Gastoni and Attenborough Read More

The Man Who Never Was

Actors: Clifton Webb, Gloria Grahame, Robert Flemyng, Josephine Griffin, Stephen Boyd

Synopsis: The Man Who Never Was is the true story of how the Allies threw the Nazis off track in planning the invasion of Sicily. The British Royal Navy exhumes the corpse of a man who died of natural causes, arranging to make it appear as though the dead man was a special services operative carrying the Read More

Alexander the Great

Actors: Richard Burton, Fredric March, Claire Bloom, Danielle Darrieux, Harry Andrews

Synopsis: The short life and quick death of Alexander the Great is recounted in this literate historical epic. Decked out in a blonde wig, Richard Burton stars as the Grecian warrior who conquered the known world while only in his twenties, then wept because there were no more worlds left to conquer. While Read More

Pacific Destiny

Actors: Denholm Elliott, Susan Stephen, Felix Felton, Peter Bathurst, Clifford Buckton

Synopsis: This biopic chronicles the true experiences of a British government representative who is sent with his wife to wild, exotic Samoa. Their primary task is to somehow please the persnickety resident bureaucrat. Unfortunately, he is not easily pleased and the harder the representative tries, the Read More

Storm Over the Nile

Actors: Anthony Steel, Laurence Harvey, Mary Ure, Ronald Lewis, Ian Carmichael, James Robertson Justice

Synopsis: This fourth film version of A.E.W. Mason's adventure yarn The Four Feathers relies heavily on stock footage from the more famous 1939 adaptation (both were produced by Alexander Korda and codirected by Korda's brother Zoltan). Anthony Steel stars as 19th cntury British officer Harry Faversham, who Read More

The Constant Husband

Actors: Rex Harrison, Margaret Leighton, Kay Kendall, Cecil Parker, Nicole Maurey

Synopsis: Rex Harrison is The Constant Husband in this delightful British comedy. It all begins when amnesia victim Charles Hathaway (Harrison) tries to reconstruct his past with the aid of psychiatrist Llewellyn (Cecil Parker). Our hero would have been better off had his memory remained lost: Llewellyn Read More

The Merchant of Venice

Actors: Michael Hordern

The Night My Number Came Up

Actors: Michael Redgrave, Sheila Sim, Alexander Knox, Denholm Elliott, Ursula Jeans

Synopsis: The Night My Number Came Up was based on an actual incident in the life of Britain's Sir Victor Goddard. Michael Redgrave stars as an RAF pilot who is tormented by the premonition that his plane will crash. After much trepidation, he agrees to take a routine flight. As Redgrave prepares to take Read More

The Warriors

Actors: Errol Flynn, Joanne Dru, Peter Finch, Yvonne Furneaux, Patrick Holt

Synopsis: The Dark Avenger was the European-release title of the Errol Flynn swashbuckler The Warriors; 20th Century-Fox handled European distribution, while Allied Artists released the film stateside. Lensed on location in Hertfordshire, England, the film stars Flynn as Edward, the "Black Prince" of Read More

You Know What Sailors Are

Actors: Akim Tamiroff, Donald Sinden, Sarah Lawson, Naunton Wayne, Bill Kerr

Synopsis: While off on a drunken toot, three British naval officers attach an old baby carriage and a pawnbroker's sign to the stern of a foreign naval vessel. The next morning, a zealous officer spots the curious appendage and comes to the conclusion that the "pram" and sign are actually part of a Read More

The Beachcomber

Actors: Glynis Johns, Robert Newton, Donald Sinden, Paul Rogers, Donald Pleasence

Synopsis: This second film version of Somerset Maugham's Vessel of Wrath lacks the casual charm of the first (which starred Charles Laughton and Elsa Lanchester), but is otherwise quite entertaining. Robert Newton stars as Honorable Ted, a slovenly, bibulous South Sea Island beachcomber. The black sheep of Read More

Forbidden Cargo

Actors: Nigel Patrick, Elizabeth Sellars, Terence Morgan, Jack Warner, Greta Gynt

Synopsis: Nigel Patrick plays a suave but dead-serious British narcotics agent in this sporadically exciting crime melodrama. Patrick is determined that the drug traffic will not spread into his territory. He finds an unexpected ally in Joyce Grenfell, an inveterate bird-watcher. Ms. Grenfell aids Patrick Read More

The Heart of the Matter

Actors: Trevor Howard, Elizabeth Allan, Maria Schell, Denholm Elliott, Peter Finch

Synopsis: Heart of the Matter is a faithful if somewhat austere adaptation of the same-named novel by Graham Greene. Set in Sierra Leone during WW II, the film stars Trevor Howard as assistant police commissioner Scobie. While his wife Louise (Elizabeth Allan) is away on vacation, Scobie falls in love with Read More

Street Corner

Actors: Peggy Cummins, Anne Crawford, Terence Morgan, Rosamund John, Barbara Murray

Synopsis: Street Corner was a marginally realistic study of British policewomen. The film takes its female cast through a typical day on the Chelsea beat. In the manner of Dragnet and The Blue Lamp, the skimpy plotline is merely there to string together several anecdotal incidents, illustrating that while a Read More

Grand National Night

Actors: Nigel Patrick, Moira Lister, Beatrice Campbell, Betty Ann Davies, Michael Hordern

Synopsis: Grand National Night began life as a stage play, which was promptly adapted as a popular British radio serial. The film combines the best elements of both previous incarnations. Racehorse owner Gerald Coates (Nigel Patrick) accidentally kills his spiteful wife Babs (Moira Lister) during a quarrel. Read More

Personal Affair

Actors: Gene Tierney, Leo Genn, Glynis Johns, Pamela Brown, Walter Fitzgerald

Synopsis: The star power of leading lady Gene Tierney enabled the British Personal Affair to get good bookings in the U.S. The story is set in motion by impulsive schoolgirl Barbara Vining (Glynis Johns), who develops a crush on teacher Stephen Barlow (Leo Genn). Barlow's wife Kay (Tierney) confronts Read More

Both Sides of the Law

Synopsis: The philosophies and practices of London policewomen provide the basis of this exciting and interesting docu-drama that centers on three such women. The film is also known as Street Corner. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

The Hour of Thirteen

Actors: Peter Lawford, Dawn Addams, Roland Culver, Derek Bond, Leslie Dwyer

Synopsis: The Hour of 13 is a leisurely remake of the 1934 thriller The Mystery of Mr. X. The year is 1890: London is being plagued by a series of murders. The victims are all policemen, and the killer seems to be operating in a deliberate pattern. Suave jewel thief Nicholas Revel (Peter Lawford) is Read More

The Promoter

Actors: Alec Guinness, Petula Clark, Glynis Johns, Valerie Hobson, Edward Chapman

Synopsis: The Promoter was based on the Arnold Bennett novel The Card, which served as its British release title. Impoverished young clerk Alec Guinness works his way up the financial ladder until he has become a successful and highly respected loan officer. Actually, Guinness is not as above-board as the Read More

The Story of Robin Hood

Actors: Richard Todd, Joan Rice, Peter Finch, James Hayter, James Robertson Justice, Martita Hunt

Synopsis: Better known as The Story of Robin Hood, this colorful costume adventure was the second made-in-Britain production for Hollywood's Walt Disney. Avoiding the familiar episodes covered in previous "Robin Hood" films, this Disney effort still manages to adhere to the basic chronology. Richard Todd Read More

A Christmas Carol

Actors: Alastair Sim, Kathleen Harrison, Mervyn Johns, Michael Hordern, Hermione Baddeley

Synopsis: Widely considered to be the definitive of the many film versions of Charles Dickens' classic novel is this 1951 British adaptation, starring Alastair Sim (entitled "Scrooge" in its U.K. release). Sim plays Ebenezer Scrooge, a London miser who, despite his wealth, refuses to make charitable Read More

Flesh and Blood

Actors: Richard Todd, Glynis Johns, Joan Greenwood, Andre Morell

Synopsis: Three generations of a Scottish clan are chronicled in this melodramatic saga. The film starts with the death of a sickly med student in a Glasgow slum. His fiancee also dies in childbirth. Her brother, who survives, begins raising her baby girl who grows up to have an affair with a lab assistant. Read More

Tom Brown's School Days

Actors: John Howard Davies, Robert Newton, Diana Wynyard, Francis de Wolff, Kathleen Byron

Synopsis: Tom Brown's Schooldays was the second film version of Thomas Hughes' semiautobiographical novel. John Howard Davies, who'd previously essayed the title role in Oliver Twist, stars as first-year Rugby student Tom Brown. In his efforts to adjust to boarding-school life, Tom must contend with the Read More

The Magic Box

Actors: Robert Donat, Margaret Johnston, Maria Schell, Robert Beatty, John Charlesworth, James Kenney

Synopsis: The Magic Box was the English film industry's contribution to the 1951 Festival of Britain. Its all-star cast generously forsook their usual salaries for the privilege of paying tribute to that unsung pioneer of cinema, William Friese-Greene, here played by Robert Donat. Adapted by Eric Ambler Read More

The Astonished Heart

Actors: Noël Coward, Celia Johnson, Margaret Leighton, Graham Payn, Joyce Carey

Synopsis: With his previous collaborator David Lean busy on other own projects, Noel Coward had to rely on director Terence Fisher to bring his The Astonished Heart to the screen. Fisher and his stars--Celia Johnson, Margaret Leighton, and Coward himself--vividly convey the playwright's brittle Read More

Highly Dangerous

Actors: Margaret Lockwood, Dane Clark, Marius Goring, Naunton Wayne, Michael Hordern

Synopsis: Britain's Margaret Lockwood is teamed with Hollywood's Dane Clark in Highly Dangerous. Set in a mythical Iron Curtain country, the film casts Lockwood as an entomologist who hopes to stop a planned volley of bacteriological warfare. Facing danger at every turn, our heroine is rescued time and Read More

Trio

Actors: James Hayter, Anne Crawford, Nigel Patrick, Felix Aylmer, Lana Morris, Jean Simmons, Michael Rennie, Michael Hordern, Kathleen Harrison

Synopsis: Trio was the 1950 follow-up to the successful Somerset Maugham "omnibus" feature Quartet. Maugham himself introduces the three short playlets in this captivating collection. "The Verger" stars James Hayter as a church verger who loses his position when it is discovered that he can neither read nor Read More

Train of Events

Actors: Jack Warner, Valerie Hobson, John Clements, Peter Finch, Irina Baronova, Joan Dowling, John Gregson

Synopsis: The British Train of Events explores the consequences of a railroad accident from four different viewpoints. Jack Warner plays the engine driver, whose daughter's boy friend is responsible for the crash. Peter Finch plays a homicidal actor whose "perfect murder" of his wife is thwarted by the Read More

Passport to Pimlico

Actors: Stanley Holloway, Betty Warren, Barbara Murray, Paul Dupuis, John Slater, Jane Hylton, Raymond Huntley, Philip Stainton, Roy Carr

Synopsis: Passport to Pimlico is one of the most charmingly whimsical Ealing Studios comedies of the late 1940s-early 1950s. As a result of wartime bombing, an ancient parchment is uncovered, proving that the Pimlico section of London belongs to Burgundy, France. Long taken for granted by other Londoners Read More

Third Time Lucky

Actors: Glynis Johns, Dermot Walsh, Harcourt Williams, Yvonne Owen, Helen Haye

Synopsis: Professional gambler Lucky (Dermot Walsh) is having trouble living up to his name. That's before Lucky meets Joan (Glynis Johns), a winsome lass who proves to be a human good-luck charm. Lucky woos Joan into accompanying him on the gambling circuit so he can clean up. She convinces herself that Read More

Night Beat

Actors: Anne Crawford, Maxwell Reed, Ronald Howard, Hector Ross, Christine Norden

Synopsis: The oft-used title Night Beat was applied to the 1948 British melodrama. After serving as commandoes in WW2, Felix (Maxwell Reed) and Andy (Ronald Howard) follow widely divergent paths in peacetime. Andy joins the London police, while Felix falls in with the Black Market. As a result, their Read More

Portrait from Life

Actors: Mai Zetterling, Guy Rolfe, Patrick Holt, Herbert Lom, Robert Beatty

Synopsis: Portrait from Life is an over-orchestrated "guilty pleasure" from the glory days of British romance pictures. A German professor sees a portrait in an art gallery which looks exactly like his daughter, who is assumed to have died in the war. The girl (Mai Zetterling) has been living as an amnesiac Read More

The Small Voice

Actors: Valerie Hobson, James Donald, David Greene, Michael Balfour

Synopsis: The Small Voice is a tense British character study utilizing an old plot device with a modicum of freshness. American actor Howard Keel (mistakenly billed as Harold Keel in the credits) makes his film debut herein as an escaped convicts. He and fellow fugitive David Greene invade a country cottage Read More

Good Time Girl

Actors: Jean Kent, Dennis Price, Herbert Lom, Bonar Colleano, Peter Glenville, Flora Robson, Griffith Jones

Synopsis: Good Time Girl, directed by David MacDonald and based on a story by Arthur La Bern (It Always Rains On Sunday) starts off unpromisingly, as juvenile justice official Flora Robson tries to keep a would-be female felon on the straight-and-narrow, telling the cautionary tale of Gwen Rawlings (Jean Read More

Mine Own Executioner

Actors: Burgess Meredith, Dulcie Gray, Michael Shepley, Christine Norden, Kieron Moore

Synopsis: London psychiatrist Burgess Meredith takes on the case of schizophrenic ex-POW Kieron Moore. So long as Meredith is diligent in his approach, Moore shows signs of improvement, and a lessening of his more violent tendencies. But the moment Meredith takes too much for granted, Moore goes off the Read More

The Years Between

Actors: Michael Redgrave, Valerie Hobson, Flora Robson, James McKechnie, Felix Aylmer

Synopsis: Adapted from a play by Daphne Du Maurier, The Years Between stars Valerie Hobson as war widow Diana. Determined to carry on her husband's work, Diana enters the business world, ultimately emerging as a Member of Parliament. On the eve of her second marriage, Diana's first husband Michael (Michael Read More

A Girl in a Million

Actors: Hugh Williams, Joan Greenwood, Naunton Wayne, Wylie Watson

Synopsis: Feminists beware! This blatantly sexist comedy may definitely raise a few hackles as it tells the story of a recently divorced inventor who becomes a scientist for the War Office to escape women, especially overtalkative, nagging ones like his ex-wife. Unfortunately, his female-free peace is Read More

School for Secrets

Actors: Ralph Richardson, Raymond Huntley, John Laurie, Ernest Jay, David Tomlinson

Synopsis: Produced, directed and scripted by Peter Ustinov (who did not star), Secret Flight was released in Great Britain in 1946, but not distributed in the U.S. until 1951 -- at which time it was panned as being out-of-date! The fact-based screenplay details the efforts of five dedicated British Read More

A Girl Must Live

Actors: Margaret Lockwood, Renee Houston, Lilli Palmer, George Robey, Hugh Sinclair

Synopsis: A Girl Must Live is the philosophy of gold-digging chorus girls Gloria Lind (Renee Houston) and Clytie Devine (Lilli Palmer). Both feel that they could live most comfortably off the money inherited by the Earl of Pangborough (Hugh Sinclair) a handsome but unworldly nobleman. Despite the most Read More