Olaf Olsen Movies

Alec Guinness has one of his finest comic roles in this Ealing satirical comedy about a much patronized amateur scientist whose latest invention creates an uproar in the British textile industry. In the British manufacturing country of Northern England, factory owner Michael Corland (Michael Gough) is showing competitor Alan Bimley (Cecil Parker) around his plant, hoping to borrow some money and marry off his daughter Daphne (Joan Greenwood). They come upon a curious contraption that turns out to be an experiment by employee Sidney Stratton (Alec Guinness). Being a lower class worker, Sidney is summarily fired from his job. Sidney ends up working at Bimley's factory, where he is befriended by militant worker Bertha (Vida Hope). Daphne spots Sidney at the factory and he explains to her the results of his experiment -- a material that is indestructible and impervious to dirt. Bimley discovers this project and throws Sidney out. But Daphne, impressed by his experiments, funds Sidney, installing him in his own laboratory. After a few false starts, Sidney develops a pure white material that can't be dirtied or ruined. But it seems Sidney's invention is too brilliant and effective; if a material is marketed that will last forever, textile mills will go out of business and workers will lose their jobs. Suddenly, poor, luckless Sidney has both management and labor banding together to combat his new invention. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi

Set in World War II times, this drama involves a highly trained bunch of British soldiers who must parachute into Nazi-held Belgium on a rescue and destroy mission. Documentary film footage is included in the early parts of the film as the trainees get prepared for the task ahead. Robert Beatty plays the priest, Father Phillip, and Simone Signoret appears as an insurgent who falls in love with another of the trained resistors. ~ Rovi

Also known as The Avengers, the British The Day Will Dawn is set in Norway at the outbreak of WW2. British foreign correspondent Lockwood (Ralph Richardson), forced out of Norway by the Nazi invasion, returns to the occupied Scandanavian country at the request of the War Office. Lockwood's assignment is to guide the RAF to a heavily camouflaged German U-boat base for sabotage purposes. With the help of patriotic Norwegian seaman Alstad (Finlay Currie), Lockwood completes his mission, only to be arrested as a spy and sentenced to be shot. The final portions of the film detail our hero's attempt to escape back to England with Alstad's daughter Kari (Deborah Kerr), with whom he has fallen in love. The intricately crafted screenplay is attributed to three of Britain's finest scriveners, Terence Rattigan, Anatole de Grunewald and Patrick Kirwen-and one suspects that there were even more talented hands involved in this thrill-packed wartime adevnture. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Anna Neagle repeats her role from the successful Victoria the Great (1937) as the domineering Queen Victoria in this slice-of-life melodrama on royalty and the upper classes. The 60 years of the title refers to Victoria's reign on the throne of England. ~ Mark Hockley, Rovi