Walter Gotell Movies
British character actor Walter Gotell spent most of his screen time as the "enemy." He was especially adept at portraying hissable Nazis in WWII dramas and equally odious KGB agents in Cold War films. His best-known role was Russian General Gogol in three of the James Bond epics: Moonraker, For Your Eyes Only, and View to a Kill. Walter Gotell remained active in films and TV throughout the 1990s, as sinister as ever in such works as Puppet Master IV (1991). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie GuideThe debate still rages as to whether Alfred Hitchcock's 1956 remake of The Man Who Knew Too Much is superior to his own original 1934 version. This two-hour remake (45 minutes longer than the first film) features more stars, a lusher budget, and the plaintive music of Bernard Herrmann (who appears on-camera, typecast as a symphony conductor). Though the locale of the opening scenes shifts from Switzerland to French Morocco in the newer version, the basic plot remains the same. American tourists James Stewart and Doris Day are witness to the street killing of a Frenchman (Daniel Gelin) they've recently befriended. Before breathing his last, the murder victim whispers a secret to Stewart (the Cinemascope lens turns this standard closeup into a truly grotesque vignette). Stewart knows that a political assassination will occur during a concert at London's Albert Hall, but is unable to tell the police: his son (a daughter in the original) has been kidnapped by foreign agents to insure Stewart's silence. The original script for Man Who Knew too Much was expanded and updated by John Michael Hayes and Angus McPhail. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- James Stewart, Doris Day, (more)
In this WWII thriller, an agent parachutes into Holland to retrieve an important document, posing as an American reporter. He meets a baroness sympathetic to the British, and they fall in love and are able to escape the Nazis. ~ Steve Huey, All Movie Guide
In this espionage drama, a young CIA operative gets entangled in the abduction of a scientist who possesses a unique formula for energy. The scientist was abducted as he tried to defect with the formula. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
This was the last trip in the "road" comedies that Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, and a bevy of female stars that featured Dorothy Lamour once made famous. In this road to Hong Kong and parts far beyond, Chester and Harry (Hope and Crosby) are a couple of failed vaudeville stars looking for a way to riches in the confidence game. Chester's memory goes kaputz, and the two end up involved with Diane (Joan Collins), a spy looking for a secret formula, and a bunch of hoodlums who plan on sending up a rocket to the moon with special equipment allowing them to rule the planet earth. The pair of heroes gets caught in the rocket instead of the originally intended monkeys, and the monkey business continues in outer space -- where it seems to be all along. In this mixed collage of events, several stars pop up in cameo roles: Peter Sellers, Dean Martin, David Niven, Frank Sinatra among them. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, (more)
Gregory Peck had made scattered television appearances before, but the 3-hour Scarlet and the Black was his first starring assignment in a made-for-TV movie. Peck plays Monsignor Hugh O'Flaherty, a real-life cleric who, during World War II, rescued thousands of escaped POWs from the Gestapo. Christopher Plummer co-stars as the Rome-based SS official who tries to catch O'Flaherty in the act. The film won several industry and religious awards, and earned three Emmy nominations. Based on J. P. Gallagher's book The Scarlet Pimpernel in the Vatican, The Scarlet and the Black premiered on February 2, 1983. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

- 1965
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Based on the novel by John Le Carre, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold stars Richard Burton as a dispirited, end-of-tether British secret agent. He comes in from "the cold" (meaning he is pulled out of field operations) to act as a undercover man behind the Iron Curtain. To make his staged defection seem genuine, Burton goes on an alcoholic toot and is imprisoned and publicly humiliated. Once he has been accepted into East German espionage circles, Burton discovers that what he thought was his mission was a mere subterfuge--and that he's been set up as a pawn for an entirely different operation. Though Ireland and England "stand in" for East Berlin, Spy Who Came In From the Cold has the air of authenticity throughout, thanks in great part to the bleak black and white photography by Oswald Morris. The film was condemned as incomprehensible by those filmgoers accustomed to the simplistic melodramatics of James Bond; seen today, the double-crosses and double-double crosses seem all too clear and credible. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Richard Burton, Claire Bloom, (more)
Though not Ian Fleming's most famous James Bond novel, 1962's The Spy Who Loved Me was distinguished by the unique device of telling the story from the heroine's point of view; in fact, Bond doesn't make an appearance until the book is two-thirds over. This would hardly work in the film world's Bond franchise, so the original austere plotline of the novel was eschewed altogether in favor of a labyrinthine story involving outer-space extortion. The leading lady, a "hard-luck kid" in the original, is now sexy Russian secret agent Barbara Bach, who joins forces with Bond (Roger Moore, making his third appearance as 007) to foil yet another megalomaniac villain (Curt Jurgens), who plans to threaten New York City with nuclear weaponry. Beyond the eye-popping opening ski-jump sequence, the film's best scenes involve seven-foot-two Richard Kiel as steel-toothed henchman Jaws. Fifteen scriptwriters worked on The Spy Who Loved Me; only two were credited, including Bond-film veteran Richard Maibaum. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Roger Moore, Barbara Bach, (more)
Jackie Collins wrote the best-selling novel The Stud. Her sister Joan Collins starred in the 1978 film version of The Stud. The producer on the film was Joan Collins' then-husband Ron Kass. Need we say more? Well, there is a plot, involving the insatiable Joan's sexual hold over a handsome nightclub manager Oliver Tobias. And there was a sequel, also written by Jackie and starring Joan, titled The Bitch. Need we say more now? ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Joan Collins, Oliver Tobias, (more)
Based on a true story (believe it or don't!), The Wooden Horse is set in a wartime German prison camp. It being the duty for every British POW to attempt escape, internees Leo Genn, David Tomlinson and Anthony Steel hit upon a daring scheme. Building an outsized, boxlike vaulting horse, purportedly for exercise purposes, the trio begin digging a tunnel beneath the horse-right under the noses of their German captors. As one of the first of the British "prison camp getaway" genre, The Wooden Horse establishes many of the form's cliches, including the rule-bound German soldiers whose grasp of the obvious is appalling. Eric Williams adapted the screenplay from his novel The Tunnel Escape. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Leo Genn, David Tomlinson, (more)
Joseph Losey directed this unusual science fiction effort, which has won a small but fervent cult following. Simon Wells (MacDonald Carey) is an American visiting England, where he meets a woman named Joan (Shirley Ann Field). Simon is immediately attracted to Joan, but there's a considerable obstacle in their budding romance: Joan's brother King (Oliver Reed), the leader of a violent pack of motorcycle rockers. King has a barely concealed incestuous attachment to his sister, and he sometimes uses her to lure victims into his gang's clutches. King and his cronies attack Simon, take his money, and leave him stranded, where he's eventually found by a pair of military security men. Simon is brought to the home of Bernard (Alexander Knox), a scientist working on a secret project for the government, and his girlfriend Freya (Viveca Lindfors), a sculptor. Joan eventually tracks Simon down in hopes of winning his forgiveness, but another run-in with King causes Simon and Joan to discover a cave that holds a terrible secret: a group of strange, cold-blooded children who were the products of one of Bernard's experiments gone wrong. The children were genetically engineered to survive a nuclear war, and, as a result, they are radioactive enough to kill anyone who comes in close contact with them. Controversial in its day, The Damned was produced in England in 1961 but was not released until 1963, when Hammer Films booked it as the second-half of a double bill with Maniac. It did not reach American screens until 1965, when it was shown under the title These Are the Damned. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- MacDonald Carey, Shirley Ann Field, (more)
Christopher Plummer stars in The Assignment as a police captain. The setting is an un-named Latin American country, where a high-ranking official is murdered. The incident threatens to tear apart not only the country but its neighboring republics. A calm, selfless diplomat (Thomas Heilberg) is called in from Sweden to mediate between the local police, politicians, and revolutionaries. Also in the cast of The Assignment, which is based on a novel by Per Wahloo, are Carolyn Seymour, Fernando Rey and Per Oscarsson. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Thomas Hellberg, Christopher Plummer, (more)
In 1966, a famous actor (Peter O'Toole) is taken by a rowboat to a fabulous old hotel on an island in the middle of a lake. He comes to find out that time stands still here -- and the reason is that he is dead. He discovers that all the residents of the hotel are famous but dead people, including Albert Einstein and Ernest Hemingway. It seems that as public interest in a dead celebrity fades away, the celebrity is given smaller and smaller rooms, until finally they are thrown out. Among the famous people that the actor meets is the writer who killed him -- for a good reason. ~ Brian Gusse, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Peter O'Toole, Colin Firth, (more)

- 1981
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As indicated by its title, this British miniseries concentrated on the years between the two world wars, when the eminent Winston Churchill (Robert Hardy) was politically out of favor in his own country. Acutely aware of the danger looming in a newly re-armed Germany, Churchill vainly tried to warn his fellow Britishers that Hitler was not a man to be trusted. It was only after the benighted PM Neville Chamberlain (Eric Porter) saw the promise of "Peace in Our Time" blow up in his face that Churchill was ensconced in his proper position as leader of his nation. First telecast in the U.K. in 1981, Winston Churchill: The Wilderness Years aired in the U.S. two years later. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Robert Hardy, Sian Phillips, (more)


















