Peter Barnes Movies

A movie set becomes a metaphor for the tragic rise of World War II in Europe in this historical drama. It's 1939, and as Benito Mussolini rules Italy and war sweeps through Europe, Italian film producer Davide Rieti (Alfred Molina) is attempting to set up his latest project, a historical epic adapted from Puccini's opera Tosca. While Rieti is short on money, that's the least of his problems -- as a gay Jew, he's an easy target for the fascist pogroms which have become commonplace in Europe, and working at Rome's lavish Cinecitta Studio is one of his few respites from the grim realities of life under Mussolini. Eager to turn his adaptation of Tosca into an international epic, Rieti hires Hungarian Lazlo Molnar (Andras Balint) to direct, and casts German Kristina Baumgarten (Catherine McCormack), Italian Maria Grazia (Surama De Castro) and British James Clavel (Jonathan Pryce) in the leading roles. Rieti also finds room in the cast for his handsome lover Renzo (Rupert Friend), but while the cast offers one another a certain grudging respect (and Baumgarten and Clavel enjoy a brief romance off-set), the tensions that have gripped the world can be felt on set, and fascist and anti-fascist factions arise among the crew. The turmoil is aided and abetted by the presence of Annibale (Ivano Marescotti), the film's chief backer and an ardent supporter of Il Duce, while free-spirited director Molnar makes no secret of his leftist views. The Moon and the Stars received its North American debut at the 2007 Palm Springs Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

An American businessman rents a cottage in Ireland, only to find the cottage is also inhabited by leprechauns as well. Soon, the American finds himself embroiled in a fierce dispute between the leprechauns and their enemies, the fairies, that only he can help settle. ~ All Movie Guide

The biblical story of Noah and the Great Flood gets a decidedly unusual retelling in this film, produced as a two-part TV movie and first aired on NBC in May 1999. Noah Jon Voight is an ordinary laborer who one day begins receiving messages from God. It seems the Lord has a special assignment for him: since God is planning on destroying the world with a massive flood, he wants Noah to build a giant ark and fill it with one male and one female of each animal on earth. So why Noah of all people? As God tells him, "You fit the bill. Good times, bad times, you believe in me." And why a 500-foot-long ark? "I think big! I made the world in seven days!" Joining Noah on the trip of a lifetime is his wife Naamah (Mary Steenburgen); those not invited along for the ride are F. Murray Abraham as Lot, Carol Kane as his wife Sarah, and James Coburn as a peddler. Some video versions run 140 minutes. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Peter Warlock was a noted British composer during the 1930s. Philip Heseltine was his harshest critic. This strange-but-true, highly dramatized British biopic brings to light a little known fact about the two enemies: they were same man. Much of the story centers upon reviewer Heseltine, one of the most feared figures in music criticism, a man known by peers as "The Grim Reaper." In his columns about Warlock's work, Heseltine calls the composer a pirate who gets his ideas from other composers. Heseltine falls in love after seeing the performance of American singer Lily Buxton. He arrogantly trashes her work, but she sees something good about him and goes out with him. Meanwhile, Warlock keeps composing and Heseltine's attacks upon him become excessively vitriolic causing Lily to get curious. She begins investigating and finds the chaotic, ramshackle apartment where Warlock lives. It is there that she learns the strange truth.th. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Previously filmed in 1935 with Ann Harding, Enchanted April, a romantic novel by Elizabeth, was remade in 1992. The first film skips along superficially at 66 minutes: the second, directed by the always intriguing Mike Newell, runs 101 minutes, allowing for richer characterizations and a bottomless reserve of brilliant dialogue. Two cloistered, married English women (Josie Lawrence, Miranda Richardson) impulsively rent an Italian villa and embark upon a vacation without their spouses. They are joined by two other ladies: the high-flown aging widow Joan Plowright, and elegant upper-crust beauty Polly Walker) whom they've never met. Under the spell of an exotic new location, the foursome are in for quite a few life-altering experiences, many of them amusing, and not a few very surprising. Impeccably accurate in its recreation of European manners and mores in the 1920s, Enchanted April is sheer bliss from fade-in to fade-out. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this silly Italian comedy, a trio of robbers burst into an Italian restaurant and place its five employees in a storage room to hold them hostage. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In the words of Hamlet, there's a plentiful lack of wit in Not with My Wife, You Don't! Korean war vet Tony Curtis is living in London, blissfully married (so he thinks) to Virna Lisi. In strolls old air force buddy George C. Scott, who has a history of stealing Curtis' ladies away from him. Unable to woo Lisi by fair means, Scott resorts to foul; he exercises his prerogative as Curtis' superior officer, shipping him out to a faraway post. George C. Scott may have been right to refuse his Oscar for Patton; he doesn't look like much of an award-winner in Not With My Wife, You Don't! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this mystery, a Scotland Yard agent must break up a ring of jewel thieves. He goes undercover and successfully infiltrates the gang, but trouble begins when he finds himself falling for one of the late gang members' widows, and she learns his real identity. She threatens to expose him until he decides to quit the Yard and become a real criminal. Fortunately, Fate intervenes, and he accidentally leads the gang to the waiting police. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In this tragic drama, an imprisoned war hero worries about his wife who is just about to give birth to their first child. An old war buddy helps him escape and get to the hospital. There he creeps into his wife's ward. She gives birth to a healthy boy, but the trauma is too much for her and she dies. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide