June Cunningham Movies
- 1963
Based on a BBC television program, this underworld drama set in London's Soho district created a different sort of role for star Anthony Newley, normally a performer associated with light musical comedy. Newley is the titular character, the master of ceremonies at a sleazy strip club owned by Gerry (Robert Stephens). Sammy owes a substantial amount of money to a bookie, Fred (Kennth J. Warren), and has only five hours to pay off the debt, but he strikes out with his deli-owner brother Lou (Warren Mitchell). Desperately trying to raise the money before Fred's goons rough him up, Sammy is forced to help a naïve young girl, Patsy (Julia Foster), who shows up to the club ready to strip -- based on Sammy's outrageous claims and promises at an earlier meeting. ~ Karl Williams, Rovi
- Starring:
- Anthony Newley, Julia Foster, (more)
- 1962
No, this isn't Noel Coward's Design for Living, it's the British "beat generation" comedy Design for Loving. Hoping to capture the youth market, fashion mogul-ess June Thorburn hires beatnik Pete Murray as her chief consultant. Murray is actually a nobleman in disguise, so you can imagine the comic complications. This is one of those "trendy" films of the 1960s that wound up an anachronism almost from the moment it hit the theatres. Design for Loving was released in the US by Columbia Pictures. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- 1961
In this comedy, a young man stands to inherit a vast fortune, but first he must spend a small fortune in two months. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi
- Starring:
- Jack Watling, Carole Lesley, (more)
- 1961
When a good-buddy needs an "instant wife" to impress a moneyed uncle, an insurance salesman is only too happy to loan out his wife in this British farce. Unfortunately for the friends, they are not the only two deceivers in the game. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi
- 1959
An abused boy stands accused of killing his drunken father in this British drama. Fortunately two compassionate neighbors take him in and help to prove his innocence. The film is also called Scamp. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi
The power of hypnotism provides the basis of this film that was released in "Hypnovision" (yet another promotional gimmick) A budding and frustrated mystery writer takes extreme steps to insure that his latest thriller contains accurate descriptions of horrible murders in this gory horror thriller. He decides that the best way to do this is to set up and witness similar murders first- hand, so, not wanting to bloody his own hands, he hypnotizes his assistant, turns him into a deformed monster and has him do the dirty work using a few devilishly clever gadgets that include binoculars equipped with spring-loaded spikes, a secret guillotine poised above a young woman's bed, and deadly ice tongs. Afterward, the writer drops the bodies in a vat of acid. Several people die before the assistant rebels and gets bloody revenge. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi
- Starring:
- Michael Gough, June Cunningham, (more)
The Smallest Show on Earth is a gentle, frequently uproarious takeoff of Britain's neighborhood-cinema industry. Real-life husband and wife Bill Travers and Virginia McKenna star as Matt and Jean Spencer, a middle-class couple who inherit a decrepit movie house in a tiny railroad whistle stop. They also inherit the theater's ancient, doddering employees: bibulous ticket-taker Percy Quill (Peter Sellers), former silent-movie accompanist Mrs. Fazackalee (Margaret Rutherford) and doorman/janitor old Tom (Bernard Miles). Making the best of things, the Spencers set up shop going through the usual travails of small-time cinema owners: substandard projection and sound reproduction, a dismal selection of films (all they can afford is American B-Westerns), and sundry mishaps with the audience. Just when they're about to write off the theater as a loss, crafty old Tom comes up with an underhanded but effective method to allow the Spencers to make a huge profit on their shaky enterprise. Though chock full of entertaining vignettes, the best and most poignant scene in The Smallest Show on Earth finds the three elderly employees tearfully reveling in a nostalgic screening of the 1924 silent film Comin' Thro' the Rye. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Bill Travers, Virginia McKenna, (more)
