Jennifer Jayne Movies

This spy film purports to be inspired by the true story of Kim Philby (1912-1988), a British intelligence officer and Soviet spy during the 1940s and '50s who gained international notoriety when he blew his cover and defected to the USSR in 1963. But this fictional, unsophisticated, if not naive docudrama portrays a world of espionage in a cross between Nancy Drew and Sam Spade, and Philby's real story is buried in the process. The film opens with British double agent Philip Kimberly (Michael Caine) undergoing complete plastic surgery by order of his Soviet bosses, while his death is announced in the world press. With a different name and face, Kimberly -- now Kuzminsky -- is sent back to England in the guise of a Soviet citizen to retrieve a secret list of names he supposedly hid several years ago. Kusminsky/Kimberly defects at the British passport control, and later escapes his British guards -- leading to a manhunt by both British and Soviet agents. His chief nemesis is Admiral Scaith (Laurence Olivier) and the man he assigns to the case, Jaime Fraser (Robert Powell) -- who just happens to be living with Kimberly's daughter. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Essentially a reworking of their earlier omnibus Asylum, this is another anthology of pulp horror tales from Amicus, this one helmed by the ever-reliable Freddie Francis. It features a quartet of eerie vignettes involving four patients in the care of psychiatrist Dr. Tremayne (Donald Pleasence), who is attempting to justify his strange theories to a colleague (Jack Hawkins, who died shortly after his scenes were filmed) by explaining the horrific events that drove the patients to their current state. The first tale centers on a young boy (Russell Lewis), whose parents' constant squabbling prompts him to conjure an imaginary tiger to devour them. The second involves a Victorian-era bicycle which allows its finder (Peter McEnery) to travel back in time and live as his own ancestor. The goofy third chapter pits a jealous wife (Joan Collins) against a strange rival for her husband's attention: a tree possessed by a human soul. The final segment stars Kim Novak (a last-minute replacement for Rita Hayworth) as a literary agent who must sacrifice her own daughter (Mary Tamm) to appease the restless spirit of her client's mother. Although certainly not the studio's best effort, this is still an amusing diversion, featuring the standard twist ending and a flamboyant approach suggestive of EC horror comics. ~ Cavett Binion, All Movie Guide

This James Bond parody brings a new sort of jet-set secret agent to the screen -- one who hates flying, is afraid to shoot people, and would rather stay at home! Col. Mostyn (Trevor Howard) is the head of a special branch of British intelligence who is appalled to discover that a number of his best agents are either leaving the force or have turned out to be traitors. It is decided that Mostyn and his men need a special agent to ferret out those who leave his employ while knowing too much and silence them permanently. Mostyn decides the right man for the job is his old army buddy Boysie Oakes (Rod Taylor), but there's a bit of a problem -- while the job requires a globe-trotting assassin who can stare calmly into the face of death, Oakes is a mild-mannered fun seeker who is terrified of airplanes and faints at the sight of blood. None of this dissuades Mostyn, who still gives Oakes the assignment, but when he finds out that flying and guns are a big part of his new job, he hires someone else to do the dirty work for him. Oakes eventually develops a taste for the cars, women, gadgets, and danger of his new career, but the real acid test comes when he actually has to go on an assignment himself. The Liquidator was directed by Jack Cardiff, who along with a respected career as a director was one of the most distinguished cinematographers in the British cinema, lensing such classics as The Red Shoes, The African Queen, and Black Narcissus. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Escape by Night was originally released in Great Britain as Clash by Night, which was also the title of the Rupert Croft-Brooke novel on which it was based. Gangster boss Tom Bowman has been arrested and is being transported to prison in a bus containing several innocent "civilians." Bowman's old gang hijacks the bus to rescue their boss, then take refuge in an old barn. The gang holds off the authorities by threatening to torch the barn and all its occupants. The climactic conflagration is predictable, but its outcome isn't. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

One's enjoyment of On the Beat rests solely upon one's tolerance of British comedian Norman Wisdom, who can be described as a Jerry Lewis without the discipline. Wisdom plays a Scotland Yard parking attendant who seemingly can't draw breath without breaking something or knocking someone down. He wants to become a detective, but the Yard isn't quite ready for such a catastrophe. He proves his worth--and wreaks more havoc--by going undercover and trapping a gang of jewel thieves. The slapstick is serviceable in On the Beat; as for the "serious" moments, Wisdom's notion of pathos is to scream at the top of his lungs. You may want to join him. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this crime drama, an American author living in London gets involved with the wicked wife of a well-known jewel fence. The trouble begins when she coerces the writer to rob her own husband. He pulls the job off admirably, but soon afterward, the fence is found dead. To make it worse, a blackmailer begins threatening to tell the authorities that the writer killed the victim. Not willing to take the extortion lying down, the brave author heads for the police to turn himself in. It is then that he learns the true identity of the killer. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

The Trollenberg Terror, authored by Peter Key and directed by Quentin Lawrence, started life on British television as a six-part installment of ITV's Saturday Serial in late 1956 and early 1957. The big-screen version, was adapted by Jimmy Sangster, who compressed most of the best horrific and mystery elements of the original into an under-90-minute vehicle, which Lawrence directed. At a remote Alpine village, mountaineers suddenly start dying, their bodies horribly multilated -- at first, these incidents seem like they could just be accidents. But the arrival of a pair of sisters (Janet Munro, Jennifer Jayne), one of whom feels an almost telepathic connection with someone or something on the mountain, attracts the interest of American Alan Brooks (Forrest Tucker), a trouble-shooter for the United Nations. He and Prof. Crevett (Warren Mitchell), who has been monitoring the radiation levels in the area from a research station set up by the government, determine that there is a pattern to these deaths that Brooks has seen before, in a prior incident in the Andes Mountains. They determine that the Earth has been invaded, at high altitude, by a race of gigantic, tentacled aliens who live in thin atmosphere and at extremely low temperatures. Camouflaging themselves in a dense radioactive cloud, they've been content up until now to hide their existence while experimenting with the inhabitants of their new world -- they've taken over some human subjects telepathically, and also re-animated dead bodies. And they've killed those -- such as the hapless mountaineers who have stumbled upon their new lair, or those few humans whose stronger-than-usual mental powers have allow them to sense the aliens' presence -- who threaten to discover them. But now Crevett sees that the aliens are adapting and moving down the mountain, the cloud bringing their necessary cold temperatures with them, and threatening to engulf the village as prelude to an attack on it and all that lies beyond. The Trollenberg Terror was retitled The Crawling Eye when it was released in the United States, in an obvious attempt to draw the same audience that had made the previous year's British film adaptation of a tv serial -- The Quatermass Xperiment, renamed The Creeping Unknown -- into a huge hit in the US. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

This thriller centers on the possession of a valuable new metal that is able to withstand nuclear radiation. It had been invented by a Belgian metallurgist, but he was murdered by an international ring of thieves who make some of the valuable alloy into a cigarette case that is placed on an unknowing jewel thief in hopes that he will inadvertently sneak it into East Germany. Unfortunately, he decides to sell the case back to the ring leader and is almost killed. Fortunately, he escapes and gets the case to the proper authorities. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In this comedy, an American learns that he is an English earl. He travels to Great Britain to run his estate. Mayhem ensues when he falls in love with a girl there. His girl friend back home is not amused until she finds a new love of her own. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Vernon Sewell, a mercurial filmmaker who preferred to lens his pictures on chunks of his own property, was the director of Black Widow. We don't know which of Sewell's real estate holdings served as the locale for this amnesia meller. We can, however, tell you that the film was inspired by the BBC radio serial "Return from Darkness." Returning from you-know-where is Robert Ayres, who learns that his wife (Christine Norden) is planning to bump him off with the help of her boyfriend (Anthony Forwood). Ayres continues feigning a loss of memory until he is able to get the drop on his would-be murderers. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide