Brian Phelan Movies

In this comedy, filmed in Beirut, an American interpreter wins a trip to the Middle East and finds gets a lot more than a guided tour when she hires an adventurer, who is taking the body of a deposed African leader to its final resting place. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

The complex relationships among an Oxford professor, one of his students, and the young woman who captivates both of them is the subject of this difficult but rewarding drama. Director Joseph Losey and writer Harold Pinter had previously collaborated on 1963's The Servant, and they surrounded this recasting of a Nicholas Mosley novel with a similar atmosphere of ominous mystery. The story is presented through flashbacks and disconnected memories that trace the characters' interactions. Though the mood is occasionally brightened by satirical views of the academic world, the overall effect is rather somber, concerned with missed opportunities, unhealthy obsessions, and unavoidable regret. Dirk Bogarde superbly captures the pensive professor's torment, with able support from Jacqueline Sassard and Michael York as the younger couple. ~ Judd Blaise, Rovi

Based on a novel by Richard Hughes, this drama takes an unusual look at both seafaring pirates and the true nature of children. The Thorntons, a British family living in Jamaica, decide to pull up stakes and sail back to England after Frederick Thornton (Nigel Davenport) and his wife (Isabel Dean) decide that life in the Caribbean is having a negative effect on her children's sense of order and discipline. While returning home, their ship is attacked by Capt. Chavez (Anthony Quinn), who along with his first mate Zac (James Coburn), begins to loot the ship for valuables. However, in the midst of the confusion of the pirate raid, the Thornton children scurry onto the pirate ship, and it's not until they've left the other ship behind that Chavez and Zac discover that they have new passengers. While most of the pirates are unenthusiastic about having a pack of kids on board, Chavez declares that they must be allowed to stay on board until they can be taken to a safe port. As they get to know each other, Chaven develops a soft spot for the children, especially ten-year-old Emily (Deborah Baxter), but in time, the kids' mischievous playfulness begins to transform itself into something more sinister. The supporting cast includes Dennis Price, Lila Kedrova, and Gert Frobe. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Wealthy wastrel James Fox hires insouciant cockney Dirk Bogarde as a valet. No sooner has he donned his working clothes than Bogarde begins exercising a subtle but insidious control over his master. Suggesting that the house could use a little fixing up, Bogarde convinces Fox to spend a whopping amount of money on it. But this is just a warm-up session for Bogarde, who by mid-film is calling all the shots in the Fox household, all the while pretending to keep his place. Fox's fiance Wendy Craig sees through Bogarde's game. Bogarde then brings his own lady friend Sarah Miles into the house. At Bogarde's insistence, Miles seduces Fox, thereby loosening Craig's hold on the confused young man. And so it goes. The homosexual subtext of The Servant disturbed some of the more hidebound critics of 1963; Harold Pinter based his cryptic screenplay on a novel by Robin Maugham. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Damn the Defiant! is an 18th-century seafaring drama from director Lewis Gilbert. Alec Guinness plays the stern but compassionate captain of a British warship, engaged in the Napoleonic wars. Guinness is popular with his men, which is more than can be said for his new second-in-command Dirk Bogarde. When Guinness tries to modify Bogarde's sadistic adherence to discipline, Bogarde responds by mistreating Guinness' cabin-boy son, knowing that the captain cannot intervene under the edicts of British maritime law. During an incipient mutiny, Bogarde is accidently killed, and Guinness knows that the crewmen responsible must hang once they reach shore. But after these same men perform courageously in battle, Guinness suffers a crisis of conscience: How can he condemn these fearlessly patriotic men to death, as he knows he must? Based on the novel Mutiny by Frank Tilsley. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Directed by American expatriate Joseph Losey, the British The Criminal is a gloom-wallow elevated by superb performances. Top crook Stanley Baker plans a clever bank robbery. It goes off hitchless, but the clerk responsible for "laundering" the stolen money insists upon a bigger percentage of the take, else he'll blow the whistle. Baker hides the money, whereupon he is turned over to the law by his ex-girlfriend, who is in cahoots with the clerk. Baker refuses to reveal the whereabouts of the loot, so his old gang arranges to have him broken out of jail -- and also arranges for Baker's "accidental" demise. Appearing as the greedy clerk in Concrete Jungle is Sam Wanamaker, who like Joseph Losey fled to England as a result of the Hollywood blacklist. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi