Michael Carreras Movies

Bill Fraser and Raymond Huntley star in the raucous British farce That's Your Funeral. Fraser and Huntley play Bullstrode and Holroyd, rival undertakers. The animosity between the two is amplified when drug traffickers attempt to use coffins and hearses to smuggle their wares. David Battley and John Ronane co-star in the sitcomish goings-on. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Former Miss Norway Julie Ege stars in this low-budget variation on One Million Years B.C., playing a scantily-clad cave girl who becomes the object of a fierce battle between the contenders for the throne of the tribe's recently-deceased chieftain. The last of the prehistoric adventure films from England's Hammer Studios, this cheap potboiler discards the usual stop-motion or oversized-iguana dinosaurs -- a concept which may be more (pre)historically accurate but is clearly nothing more than a budgetary consideration for the producers. What's left plotwise is little more than the entire grunting, slobbering male cast trying to get into sexy Ege's sabertooth-skin skivvies and brutalizing each other for the privilege (though most of the sex and violence was excised by the distributors to secure a PG rating). The vibrant cinematography is a plus, but there is very little action, and Ege is no Raquel Welch. ~ Cavett Binion, All Movie Guide

The Lost Continent is a crazy-quilt of a film, with chunks of several unrelated plotlines sewn together willy nilly. Eric Porter plays Lansen, the captain of a tramp steamer who has agreed to deliver contraband dynamite for a hefty price. His passengers are a polyglot of the good, the bad and the worse. Shipwrecked on an mysterious isle in the Sargasso Sea, Lansen and party find themselves prisoners of a bizarre inbred colony still governed by the long-abandoned edicts of the Spanish Inquisition. The film is no more coherent than the original Dennis Wheatley novel Uncharted Seas, but that doesn't detract from its endearing wackiness. To their credit, the cast members of Lost Continent play the script straight, which merely adds to the kinky fun. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This film was advertised with the slogan "See Raquel Welch In Mankind's First Bikini!" While archeologists tell us humans did not live at the same time as dinosaurs, and our prehistoric ancestors probably didn't look much like Ms. Welch and her co-stars, One Million Years B.C. is a good bit more fun than more scientifically accurate portrait of the era might have been. Tumak (John Richardson) of the Rock People is exiled from his tribe after a fight with his father, and after days of endless wandering is in sad shape before he's taken in by the more peaceable Shell People. He attracts the attention of well-proportioned cave woman Loana (Raquel Welch), but once again finds himself a man without a country after his violent nature alienates the Shell People. Along with Raquel (whose character is remarkably well-groomed given the time period), this movie's greatest selling point are the special effects; legendary stop-motion animator Ray Harryhausen created a dazzling collection of prehistoric creatures for this film that still look impressive, even in the more sophisticated era of computer generated imaging technology. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Hammer Films co-produced this lavishly mounted adventure, the fourth adaptation of the novel by H. Rider Haggard. In Jerusalem, Leo Vincey (John Richardson) meets with a slave girl, Ustane (Rosenda Monteros), who has been charged with bringing him to an immortal queen, Ayesha (Ursula Andress). Ayesha, who desires Leo because of his resemblance to her long-dead lover, offers riches if he will travel to her lost city in the mountains, where a magical flame will also give him eternal life. Accompanied by his adventurous friend Major Horace Holly (Peter Cushing), Leo sets out for the fabled city across the desert, but along the way Ustane causes trouble when she decides she wants Leo for her own. She (1965) was followed by a sequel, The Vengeance of She (1968), although the follow-up did not star Andress. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide

Alf (Joe Brown) is a young man from London's East End who tries to rise above his impoverished conditions. His parents worry that he will fall into a life of crime hanging around his neighborhood buddies. When he is inspired to write the song "What A Crazy Gang", his efforts pique the interest of a songwriting publisher. His parents still worry about Alf finding steady employment despite the promise of a financial windfall in this teen beat musical. The most famous of the groups to perform in the film are Freddy and The Dreamers, who would later score top ten hits on both sides of the Atlantic with "I'm Telling You Now", "You Were Made For Me"and the novelty smash dance hit "The Freddy." Led by frantic Freddy Garrity, his lively and comical stage machinations belied his vast musical and songwriting talents directly inspired by the late Buddy Holly. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

A ruthless crook abducts the wife and child of a bank manager and then masquerades as an insurance company detective while scheming to rob the institution in this crime drama. Unfortunately, some of the manager's employees learn about the plot and the terrified manager must beg them to remain silent. Fortunately, the cops have been on the case all along. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

The British writer/director team of Jimmy Sangster and Seth Holt was never satisfied unless it scared the bejeepers out of its audience. Scream of Fear stars Susan Strasberg as the crippled daughter of Ann Todd, whom she meets for the first time during a vacation on the Riviera. There's something unsettling about Strasberg's surroundings and her mother's behavior. But when Strasberg insists that she's seen the dead body of her father, it is she who is considered off the beam, while everyone else is treated as normal. Perhaps the authorities are right; perhaps Strasberg is merely neurotic and overwrought. And perhaps there's more than one plot twist ahead of us as we draw nearer and nearer the truth. Scream of Fear was originally released in Great Britain as Taste of Fear. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

With an award-winning screenplay by director Val Guest, this is a first-rate cops-and-robbers crime drama about a dangerous escaped convict and the police inspector who goes after him. The gritty industrial town of Manchester and its outlying moors provide a somber backdrop to the action. Inspector Martineau (Steve Baker) suspects that the escaped thief, Don Starling (John Crawford) is going to return to Manchester to retrieve a cache of jewels he hid away before being convicted. The sudden, brutal murder of a woman and the missing money she was carrying, tips the Inspector off that his suspicions were right. He starts tracking down the killer and the gang of men he knows must be working with him, as suspense builds at every turn. The gang falls one by one, until only the killer is left. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

After emerging as a potent force in the genre with Horror of Dracula, Hammer Films added their handsome Gothic touch to this lesser-known remake of the 1944 suspenser The Man in Half Moon Street (itself adapted from a play by Barre Lyndon). Anton Diffring stars as a century-old artist who maintains a youthful appearance by regularly replacing certain glands -- in transplants that he receives thanks to the unwilling participation of healthy donors. Despite his outward physical vitality, his advanced years lead to an increasing mental instability, evinced by his mad obsession with an old flame (Hazel Court) whose newfound love for a suave doctor (Christopher Lee) compels Diffring to commit acts of diabolical cruelty that ultimately become his grisly undoing. Directed by Hammer regular Terence Fisher, who applies a high polish to this atmospheric period thriller. ~ Cavett Binion, All Movie Guide

In the 17th century, the arrogant, cruel Hugo Baskerville (David Oxley) brutalizes a servant and prepares to turn the man's daughter over to his equally depraved companions, but she escapes. When he catches up with the girl in a ruined abbey, he kills her and then is attacked and killed himself by a huge hound that is never seen. The audience then learns that this story is being told in flashback to Sherlock Holmes (Peter Cushing) and Dr. Watson (Andre Morell) by Dr. Richard Mortimer (Francis DeWolff). He was the physician and friend to the late Sir Charles Baskerville, who recently died -- apparently of fright -- on the Devonshire moors near that same ruined abbey. Holmes is very skeptical, but agrees to meet Sir Henry Baskerville (Christopher Lee), who has just arrived in London to claim the estate. Sir Henry is cold and aloof but becomes convinced he's in danger when he's almost bitten by a tarantula. Holmes insists that he not go to Baskerville Hall alone, so Holmes sends Watson to Devonshire with Sir Henry.

In Devonshire, Sir Henry and Watson learn that an escaped convict, Selden, is at large on the moor. Watson meets local Bishop Frankland (Miles Malleson), and later on the moor, Baskerville's neighbors, Stapleton (Ewen Solon) and his daughter, Cecile (Marla Landi). Watson is almost trapped in one of the many bogs that dot the moors, but he escapes. Later, leaving Sir Henry stricken with a mild heart attack at the hall, Watson ventures again onto the moors, and to his surprise, discovers Sherlock Holmes there. Holmes has been hiding and watching for developments. They hear the howl of the hound, and are too late to prevent the huge beast from killing a man they take for Sir Henry. But back at Baskerville Hall, they find Sir Henry alive and well: the dead man was the convict Selden, dressed in some old clothes of Sir Henry's. At the ruined abbey, they find evidence that a strange rite has been performed.

When Holmes visits Frankland for information, he learns that someone has stolen the bishop's tarantula. (He's an amateur naturalist.) Meanwhile, near Baskerville Hall, Sir Henry meets Cecile, and they are attracted to one another. Holmes, Mortimer and Stapleton descend into a disused tin mine in search of evidence, but a cave-in almost traps Holmes. That evening, when Sir Henry goes to meet Cecile on the moors, he learns that she actually hates him, and that the hound is now on his trail. Holmes and Watson arrive almost too late to save him, but Holmes kills the hound and reveals it's an ordinary, if large, dog in a mask. The villain is a descendant of Sir Hugo's from "the wrong side of the sheets"; he and his daughter were determined to use the legend of the Hound to kill those standing between them and Baskerville Hall.
No movie version of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's most famous novel follows its source very closely, and this colorful Hammer film is no exception. An extra killer is added, events are compressed, and even the novel's most famous line -- "they were the tracks of an enormous hound!" -- is omitted. The film also suffers at times from a budget too low for its ambitions and by extraneous elements aimed at making it more like a Hammer movie, such as the unexplained "rite." However, the movie has a brisk pace and particularly strong characters. Lee, initially icy and arrogant -- perhaps to remind us of Sir Hugo -- thaws into a likable person romantic enough to fall in love, atypically for Lee. Andre Morell is one of the most solid and realistic Watsons ever; there's nothing whatever of the harrumphing Nigel Bruce, no comedy elements to the role at all. He's straightforward, heroic in his own right. But the triumph of the film
was the casting of Peter Cushing as Sherlock Holmes. Cushing's Holmes is vivid, dynamic and arrogant; the actor does not even attempt to make Holmes likable, but instead plays the character exactly as Doyle wrote him. It's a performance of steely integrity and terrific skill, one of the greatest Holmes performances ever. Cushing later played Holmes in a television series, and became as identified with the role in England as Basil Rathbone was in the United States. Cushing returned once again to the role late in life, in the TV movie The Masks of Death, as well as writing about Holmes for several books. ~ Bill Warren, All Movie Guide

This British WW II drama takes place in the wilds of Tunis. Major Gerrard (Leo Genn) is ordered to lead a desperate mission to capture a Nazi-held farmhouse. Despite the fact that this undertaking is tantamount to committing suicide, Gerrard has no trouble rounding up volunteers. There's a bit too much of the old "stiff upper lip" in the dialogue, though the action sequences are first-rate and believable. Of interest to modern viewers is the presence in the cast of Michael Caine; he isn't billed, and barely has a line, but he's instantly recognizable. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This is a so-so early Hammer horror film from Nigel Kneale, who also wrote The Quatermass Experiment. Forrest Tucker and botanist Peter Cushing lead an expedition to the Himalayan Mountains (actually the Pyrenees, but who's complaining?) in search of the legendary Yeti. Several mysterious locals tell them to stay away with the sort of cryptic warnings found only in horror movies, but they carry on regardless. As expected, the furry beast is alive and well and mangles the explorers one by one until the predictable final showdown. The monster isn't shown very often and looks silly when it finally shows up, but there is a fair amount of atmosphere, and the stars are always fun to watch. Director Val Guest's career continued to slide from its 1940's highs until, by the '70s, he was making leering nonsense like The Au Pair Girls. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide