Paul Newman made his screen debut in the gloriously nonsensical costume epic The Silver Chalice. Freely adapted from a novel by Thomas B. Costain, the film casts Newman as Basil, a first century Greek sculptor who is sold into slavery by his wicked uncle. Transported to Rome, Basil manages to enjoy a measure of freedom when his captors discover ...
Elizabeth Taylor played her first grown-up romantic lead in the Anglo-American melodrama Conspirator. Taylor portrays Melinda Greyton, the new bride of highly respected Major Michael Curraugh (Robert Taylor). It comes as quite a jolt when Melinda learns that her husband is actually a spy for the communists (ironically, Robert Taylor had been one ...
The 80-star cast of Forever and a Day would certainly not have been feasible had not most of the actors and production people turned over their salaries to British war relief -- a point driven home during the lengthy opening credits by an unseen narrator. The true star of the film is a stately old manor house in London, built in 1804 by a British ...
Errol Flynn is top-billed in Kim, but the title character is played by Dean Stockwell. The son of an Irish sergeant, young Kim wanders through the streets and hills of Colonial India, disguised as a native boy. Kim's adventures include an episode with a horse trader (Errol Flynn) who is actually a British secret agent; a sojourn with a holy lama ...
Based on a play by Leslie Storm, Tonight and Every Night is a musical wartime morale booster in which star Rita Hayworth is but one of a lively ensemble. Set in battle-scarred Britain, the action takes place in a seedy old music hall, which never misses a performance even at the height of the "blitz". Five times a day like clockwork, American-born ...
Directed by Ian Dalrymple, this comedy of manners is based on a German play, and is one of the lesser known pieces of Vivien Leigh and Rex Harrison's filmographies. Set in an old-fashioned Scottish town, Storm in a Teacup features Rex Harrison as an English newpaper reporter who has traveled north in order to take a job. Once there, he meets ...
The old Ben W. Levy war-horse play Evergreen proved to be an excellent film vehicle from British music-comedy star Jessie Matthews. Our heroine plays a popular music hall thrush of the early 1900s, whose impending marriage into nobility is destroyed by the arrival of her long-thought-dead lover. When the latter demands "hush money," Matthews ...
Based on a novel by J. B. Priestley, this British musical-comedy follows an unlikely trio as they try to revive the fortunes of a floundering touring theatrical troupe. Inigo Jolifant (John Gielgud) is a schoolteacher with a talent for songwriting, and Jess Oakroyd (Edmund Gwenn) is a man with theatrical ambitions who has just lot his job. ...
Set in England in the early 1900s, South Riding is a political and personal drama about a nearly bankrupt estate owner who is trying to keep himself solvent by buying into a real estate plan which he doesn't realize is morally suspect. The original British cut of South Riding ran 90 minutes, but for its American release, several Depression-era ...
British musical star Jessie Matthews tops the bill in this song-studded comedy. Elizabeth (Matthews) is a delivery girl for a seamstress who is dispatched to drop off some costumes at a theater where a noted female impersonator is about to open a new show. The star is suddenly stricken with laryngitis, and Elizabeth is drafted to take over in his ...
The unorthodox teaming of Vivien Leigh and Conrad Veidt is but one of the many pleasures of the 1937 spy yarn Dark Journey. Leigh plays a Stockholm dress-shop owner during World War I, who, being a neutral, is permitted to travel unmolested to and from France. Veidt plays a supposedly disgraced German officer who is actually head of his country's ...
Stanley Houghton's enduring 1912 stage play Hindle Wakes had already been twice adapted for the screen when this first talkie version was released in 1931. Belle Chrystal stars as Fanny Hawthorne, a Lancashire mill worker who gets more than she bargained for when taking her annual weekend holiday. After a chance meeting with mill-owner's son Alan ...
Definitely no relation to the horror-film series of the same name, the British Friday the 13th is a variation of the "Bridge on the San Luis Rey" theme, set in motion by a London bus accident. Two passengers are killed and two injured in the crash, but the screenplay (co-written by Hitchcock-contributor Sidney Gilliat) keeps the audience in ...
The Iron Duke is one of the best of the George Arliss biopics -- and one of the few that can claim near-total accuracy (with the usual glossovers and embellishments, of course). Arliss plays the Duke of Wellington, the brilliant and foresighted British diplomat -- warrior of the Napoleonic Era. The film covers the years 1815 and 1816, reaching a ...
This story of espionage in World War I is based on a true story. Marthe McKenna (Madeleine Carroll) is a nurse from Belgium who uses her beauty and charm to serve her native land during the war. McKenna is able to ferret out secret information from German officers and pass it along to Allied intelligence officers with the help of fellow spy ...
Robert Young decides to create a "scoop" by fabricating the impending arrival of a female big-game hunter named Mrs. Smythe-Smythe. Jessie Matthews decides to pose as the fictitious woman, the better to embarrass Young. The comic complications are obliged to share screen time with Matthews' inevitable songs, the best of which is the title tune. ...
In this British musical, a shop assistant attempts to impress a girl by telling her that he is actually the manager. Unfortunately, when he is fired, he is also alone. Later he catches robbers trying to pillage the place. He is then rehired as the store manager for real. The girl comes back and he puts her in charge of the music department. ~ ...
Originally titled 24 Hours in a Woman's Life, the British Affair in Monte Carlo stars Merle Oberon and Richard Todd. A compulsive gambler, Todd is on the verge of disgrace and ruin. Ms. Oberon makes it her mission in life to save Todd from himself. The story is told from the point of view of worldly writer Leo Genn, who is obviously intended as ...
We guarantee every item's condition, as described on Alibris. If you are not satisfied that an item is as described, return your purchase for a refund.
Portions of content provided by All Music Guide or All Movie Guide. © 2009 All Media Guide, LLC. All Music Guide and All Movie Guide are registered Trademarks of All Media Guide, LLC.