Robert Shaw Movies

Loosely based on the true story of Lieutenant Colonel Peter Ortiz, this mystery centers on an American WW II veteran who heroically served as both an officer and a member of the French Foreign Legionnaire. During the war he had been instrumental in assisting in the French Resistance. With such a sterling war record--his exploits are revealed via flashback-- it is therefore a great shock when he is charged with the murder of a Resistance leader. It does not help that the accused lieutenant is thought dead following a key mission and is not around to clear his sullied name. During the trial, several dubious witnesses tell their version of the tale. A former communist spy presents the most conclusive "proof" that the lieutenant killed the Resistance leader. Fortunately, the lieutenant is not dead and bursts in at the crucial moment to clear his name and point out which of the witnesses is the real killer. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

The British The Dam Busters is the story of the development and utilization of the "bouncing bombs" in World War II. Michael Redgrave stars as Dr. Barnes Wallis, who developed these unorthodox explosives. Wallis' invention is put to practical use during the British raid on the Ruhr Dams in Germany. Most of the film is devoted to the two years spent in creating the bombs and training the pilots; the final sequence is a special-effects masterpiece, even allowing for the obvious models standing in for the dams. Adapted by R.C. Sherriff from both Guy Gibson's book Enemy Coast Ahead and Paul Brickhill's The Dam Busters, this film was Britain's biggest box-office success of 1955. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Ex-Hollywoodite A. Edward Sutherland co-directed the British programmer Bermuda Affair with Robert J. Shaw. Gary Merrill and Ron Randell play a pair of army chums who run a postwar air transport service. Reversing the cliché, it is Merrill, the homelier of the two men, who turns out to be a rat with women. Merrill messes around with Randell's wife Zena Marshall, but makes up for all past misdeeds when he gives up his own life to save his friend from certain doom. Filmed on location, Bermuda Affair was released worldwide by Hollywood's Columbia Pictures. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

In this espionage drama, Soviet spies use a Cornish salmon poacher to ferry them across the English Channel. When the man realizes who they are, he maroons them. He becomes a hero. Then he finds himself up on poaching charges. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

Victor McLaglen made his last film appearance in the British Sea Fury. McLaglen plays the brawny captain of a salvage vessel, while Stanley Baker is his second in command. The two men battle over the affections of South American beauty Luciana Paluzzi. Baker has the advantage, but Luciana's father disapproves. During the climactic rescue sequence, Baker proves his mettle, while McLaglen is permanently removed from the scene. Sea Fury was instrumental in the spectacular comeback of director Cyril Endfield, who'd been forced to flee Hollywood and seek out work in England thanks to the Blacklist. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

In this suspenseful WW II thriller, the hard-bitten commander of a British battleship stationed in Alexandria Harbor early in the war must force two captured Italian frogmen to tell him whether or not they planted time-bombs upon the ship's hull. The captives are uncooperative and the captain has them wait with the crew for the ship to explode. The minutes tick by and the increasingly nervous British sailors begin questioning their leader's judgment. Eventually, one of the hostages cracks and tells them that there is one mine, but he refuses to divulge its location or the time of detonation. The captain evacuates the ship and leaves the prisoners behind. He remains aboard and surreptitiously eavesdrops upon them. When he learns the mine's location, he attempts to have the bomb removed. Unfortunately he is too late and the ship is badly damaged. Desiring to fool the Italian reconnaissance planes he knows will come, the captain puts most of his crew on deck to make the Italian fliers think their mission failed. Meanwhile other crewmen frantically try to repair the ruined hull below deck. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

The Guest is a filmed adaptation of the Harold Pinter play of the same name. Donald Pleasence plays a laconic tramp, who is invited to stay in the home of Robert Shaw, on the implied promise that he, Pleasence, will be hired as caretaker. Shaw's off-in-the-coop brother Alan Bates is delighted to have Pleasence around...to "play" with. In the manner of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Shaw and Bates uses Pleasence as a punching bag for their own hang-ups. Photographed with the proper degree of claustrophobia by Nicolas Roeg, The Caretaker was independently produced by a celebrity consortium including Richard Burton, Elizabeth Taylor, Peter Sellers, and Noel Coward. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Ginger Coffey (Robert Shaw) is an out-of-work Irish immigrant who moves to Montreal with his wife, Vera (Mary Ure), and teenage daughter, Paulie (Libby McClintock), in hopes of a better life. After six months, the family fortunes have not changed, and Vera and Paulie beg Ginger to return to Ireland. He lands a job as a proofreader with a newspaper, but Vera and Paulie move out when Vera realizes his 45 dollar-a-week paycheck will not suffice. Ginger quits his second job as a laundry-truck driver and pins all his hopes on becoming a reporter. Paulie comes back to live with him, but Ginger is fired at the paper and sinks deeper into alcoholism and depression. ~ Dan Pavlides, Rovi

Tomorrow at Ten stars Robert Shaw as a desperate criminal who kidnaps a small boy. He locks his victim in a room with a time bomb set to go off at 10 AM, then posts his ransom demands. When the police catch up with the kidnapper, he dies without revealing the bomb's location. With precious little time left, the police attempt to retrace the criminal's steps, rescue the boy, and keep half of London from being blown to bits. The plot for 1964's Tomorrow at Ten has since been lifted bodily for use in several American TV programs, notably The FBI (in which the kidnapee was a teenager, played by singing idol Bobby Sherman). ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

In December of 1944, the Allied high command is convinced that German forces in Belgium are in a low state of readiness, and perhaps even about to withdraw. Only one officer on the front lines, intelligence specialist Lt. Col. Kiley (Henry Fonda), believes otherwise -- that the Germans are actually planning an attack. His opinion is rejected by his immediate superior (Dana Andrews) and his commanding general (Robert Ryan). Kiley spots several suspicious signs of German activity behind enemy lines on a reconnaissance flight, and he is at the front looking for evidence when the German counter-offensive starts. Taking advantage of Allied unpreparedness and a weather front that grounds all aircraft, their heavy tank units, supported by infantry, roll over the American forces, assaulting the lines at five different points in an attempt to ultimately divide the Allied forces in the west. The German top tank officer, Colonel Hessler (Robert Shaw), has planned his operation perfectly, but he is in a race against time, to take as much territory as possible before the weather front moves out and American aircraft can fly again, and to capture the American fuel supplies so that the offensive can continue right to the port of Antwerp. He has the total dedication of his men, but engenders doubts from his aide, Conrad (Hans-Christian Blech), who is weary of the fighting and wonders what it is all for. Meanwhile, Kiley is trying to uncover the weak spot in the German offensive, and he crosses paths with several other key players in this drama: Charles Bronson as a combat officer charged with the defense of the collapsing American position, James MacArthur as a neophyte lieutenant who becomes a leader, and Telly Savalas as a conniving sergeant in command of a tank who unexpectedly finds a nobler, less mercenary side of himself. ~ Bruce Eder, Rovi

Opening with a montage depicting its subject's Civil War exploits, Custer of the West carries us across four years of fighting in less than four minutes of screen time. The Civil War ended, George Armstrong Custer (Robert Shaw) longs for action and to hold onto his rank of general, so General Phil Sheridan (Lawrence Tierney) sends him West, admitting that there will be no nobility to his cause there -- the government and the people want the land, and that means getting the Indians off of it by any means necessary. He arrives in time to see a party of Cheyenne (whom the real Custer never fought) kill a pair of miners by sending them rolling down a long hill in a runaway wagon -- that motif is repeated, in ever more striking, elaborate, and violent fashions, in two subsequent action scenes. Custer organizes his command around Major Marcus Reno (Ty Hardin), depicted as an ambitious officer with a drinking problem, and Captain Benteen (Jeffrey Hunter), a humane officer with a strange, almost mystical streak, who understands the Indians better than anyone else in Custer's command. Also present are Mary Ure as Custer's loving wife and Robert Ryan in a very flamboyant performance as a larcenous sergeant who comes to no good end after being stricken with gold fever. After getting his command into the shape it needs to be -- mostly by running everyone except a lone sergeant into the ground in an extended drill -- he carries out his mission, quietly detesting the motives behind his orders but executing them out to the letter. Regarded as a hero in the East, Custer returns to Washington only to jeopardize his career by testifying about the corruption he's found around him in the West. He is left a political pariah but once more. Sheridan intercedes, again getting Custer posted with the Seventh Cavalry now engaged against the Sioux. He is, by this time, disillusioned with the army that he serves and the politicians and the business interests in whose service it functions. Though he craves the glory that comes with battle, he sees soldiering of the type he is being asked to carry out as little more than organized slaughter, even relying on machines to do the killing in ever more indiscriminate ways with none of the contest between men, of strategies, and arms and resourcefulness -- that was his real joy. The demons and goals that drive him culminate with Custer's disastrous action at Little Big Horn, which is beautifully (if not necessarily accurately) staged, in a stunning visual and aural denouement. ~ Bruce Eder, Rovi

James Bond-flick director Guy Hamilton helmed this episodic, all-star World War II film. With Sir Laurence Olivier heading up an ensemble cast as flight commander Sir Hugh Dowdling, The Battle of Britain pays tribute to other nationalities instrumental in fending off the waves of Luftwaffe planes, notably the expatriate Polish and Czech pilots. Trevor Howard, Michael Caine, and Michael Redgrave also populate the cast. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi