Henry Koster directs the 1951 aviation drama No Highway in the Sky, based on the novel by Nevil Shute. James Stewart stars as Theodore Honey, a widower and single parent to 11-year-old Elspeth (Janette Scott). He's also an absent-minded engineer who has formed a scientific theory about metal fatigue in a specific model of aircraft. He tries to ...
Nicholas and Alexandra covers the rise and fall of the last of the Russian Romanovs. We first meet Czar Nicholas (Michael Jayston) and his German bride Alexandra (Janet Suzman) at their 1894 wedding. Though Nicholas is devoted to Alexandra, the Russian populace is less politely inclined to having a "foreigner" as their Czarina. Alexandra gains ...
This sweeping, highly literate historical epic covers the Allies' mideastern campaign during World War I as seen through the eyes of the enigmatic T. E. Lawrence (Peter O'Toole, in the role that made him a star). After a prologue showing us Lawrence's ultimate fate, we flash back to Cairo in 1917. A bored general staffer, Lawrence talks his way ...
"Nobody knew how a Pharaoh talked!" That's how producer/director Howard Hawks explained some of the sillier dialogue exchanges in the William Faulkner-Harry Kurnitz-Harold Jack Bloom script for Hawks' Land of the Pharaohs. Extravagantly produced with a cast of seeming millions (actually there were some 10,000 extras), the film speculates on the ...
This 1959 version of Lew Wallace's best-selling novel, which had already seen screen versions in 1907 and 1926, went on to win 11 Academy Awards. Adapted by Karl Tunberg and a raft of uncredited writers including Gore Vidal and Maxwell Anderson, the film once more recounts the tale of Jewish prince Judah Ben-Hur (Charlton Heston), who lives in ...
The Bridge on the River Kwai opens in a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp in Burma in 1943, where a battle of wills rages between camp commander Colonel Saito (Sessue Hayakawa) and newly arrived British colonel Nicholson (Alec Guinness). Saito insists that Nicholson order his men to build a bridge over the river Kwai, which will be used to transport ...
Filmed on a grand scale, Zulu is a rousing recreation of the January 22, 1879, siege of Rorke's Drift in Natal, Africa. An army of 4,000 Zulu warriors have already decimated a huge British garrison; now they are on their way to the much smaller Rorke's Drift. A Royal Engineers officer (Stanley Baker) is determined to stand his ground, despite ...
This lavishly costumed historical epic had an estimated $100 million price tag. Spectacularly photographed battle action contrasts with often plodding individual scenes that bog down the plot. Fearing his growing power, European monarchs force Napoleon Bonaparte (Rod Steiger) to abdicate as Emperor and retire to Elba, and the French are concerned ...
The Malta Story stars Alec Guinness as WW II camera reconnaissance pilot Peter Ross. Crash-landing in Malta, Ross presents his photographs to the resident air officer (Jack Hawkins). The photos reveal that the Italians are planning a major invasion of the island. Low on fuel and men, the officer is all but helpless as the Italians mount their ...
Charlotte Bronte's classic Victorian novel is once again put through the paces, this time by Delbert Mann, in this stodgy Masterpiece Theater style television adaptation. Susannah York is Jane Eyre, the orphan girl who secures a position as a governess to the ward of Edward Rochester (George C. Scott), lord of an English manor house called ...
Partly conceived as a follow-up to Prince of Foxes, 20th Century-Fox's The Black Rose, reunites the earlier film's two stars, Tyrone Power and Orson Welles. Filmed on location in England and Morocco, the story concerns 13th-century Saxon nobleman Walter of Gurnie (Tyrone Power), who, after sparking an unsuccessful rebellion against the Norman ...
Adapted from the Graham Greene story The Basement Room, director Carol Reed's The Fallen Idol is told almost completely from a child's eye view-but it isn't a children's story. Young Bobby Henrey idolizes household butler Ralph Richardson. Therefore, when it seems as though Richardson might be implicated in a murder, Bobby does his best to throw ...
In this seagoing military drama set in World War II, Lt. Comdr. Ericson (Jack Hawkins) is made captain of a British corvette, a small escort vessel used to guide and protect convoys traveling through the Atlantic. Ericson had his confidence severely shaken during his last command, in which he lost his ship and most of its men following an attack ...
British theatrical director Peter Glenville made his film directorial debut with 1955's The Prisoner (Glenville had previous helmed the London stage production of this Bridget Boland play). The film is based on the real-life travails of Hungarian Cardinal Mindszenty, who after suffering under Nazi persecution was imprisoned by the new Communist ...
In 1948, "The Archers" -- the writing and directing team of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger -- had completed The Red Shoes, one of their greatest international successes, but it had yet to be released when the Rank Organization, doubting the commercial appeal of the picture, severed ties with the team and Powell and Pressburger signed a new ...
Joseph Conrad's cerebral, philosophical novel Lord Jim is streamlined and simplified by producer/director/writer Richard Brooks for the action-and-adventure crowd. Peter O'Toole plays the first officer of a tramp steamer, who, during a hurricane, cravenly abandons ship, leaving the passengers to drown. Disgraced, O'Toole seeks out ways to redeem ...
Richard Attenborough stars as a stalwart sergeant-major, stationed in British colony in Africa. When the colony declares its independence, Attenborough is assigned to keep the peace during the governmental transition. Trouble begins when an insurgent African officer (Errol John) attempts to overthrow the new, British-approved rulers. As the ...
In Belloc-Lowndes' original novel The Lodger, the reclusive young man suspected of being Jack the Ripper turns out to be exactly who he's assumed to be. When Alfred Hitchcock directed the 1926 film version of The Lodger, he was advised that the public would never accept the popular star Ivor Novello as a serial killer, thus the film was given a ...
TV commentator Stephen Boyd doesn't believe the official verdict of suicide in the death of a famed London psychiatrist. Boyd tries to get to the truth by studying a list of the shrink's patients. While interviewing three of these worthies (Jack Hawkins, Diane Cilento and Richard Attenborough), Boyd discover that each has a deep dark secret that ...
This historical drama is an account of the early life of Winston Churchill (Simon Ward), including his childhood years, his time as a war correspondent in Africa, and culminating with his first election to Parliament. ~ Linda Rasmussen, All Movie Guide
The Adventurers is set in South Africa at the end of the Boer war. Commando Pieter Brandt (Jack Hawkins) comes across the dead body of a diamond courier. Brandt buries both the courier and his valuable cache of diamonds then heads back to his regiment. After the cessation of hostilities, Brandt raises money for an expedition back into the ...
"Angels One Five" is the cognomen bestowed upon a group of WW II British fighter pilots. The squadron leader is Tiger Small (Jack Hawkins), who is taken out of commission after an accident. Despite the protests from his fellow flyboys, Tiger insists upon taking to the air again, thereby setting the stage for the film's exciting and inspirational ...
Land of Fury is an austere "western" set in New Zealand during the 1820s. The epic-proportioned storyline involves a group of British pioneers seeking a new life in Down Under. Sailor Jack Hawkins and his wife Glynis Johns are the central characters, struggling to impose their British sense of order upon their primitive surroundings. Hostilities ...
Anthony Hopkins stars in this convoluted adventure yarn, scripted by Alistair MacLean. Hopkins is Philip Calvert, a water-logged James Bond. Calvert plays a naval secret-service agent who is assigned to find out why millions of pounds of gold bullion are being stolen under the noses of the British government. Calvert begins his investigations in ...
Jack Hawkins is starred as a gruff, intensely dedicated Scotland Yard superintendent. Working as much by instinct as through scientific methods, Hawkins and rookie sergeant John Stratton tackle the case of a string of unsolved safecrackings, committed by the elusive Richard Leech. This Dragnet approach gives way to suspense as robbery leads to ...
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