Jack Warner Movies

Set in World War II times, this drama involves a highly trained bunch of British soldiers who must parachute into Nazi-held Belgium on a rescue and destroy mission. Documentary film footage is included in the early parts of the film as the trainees get prepared for the task ahead. Robert Beatty plays the priest, Father Phillip, and Simone Signoret appears as an insurgent who falls in love with another of the trained resistors. ~ All Movie Guide

In the tradition of The Window (1949) and The Yellow Balloon, Bang! You're Dead juxtaposes the innocence of childhood with the bleak realities of the adult world. Two rural British youngsters come across an abandoned gun. One of the boys accidentally shoots a much-despised local citizen. The police arrest a man who had a grudge against the victim; will the actual miscreant confess, and bring shame upon his parents? Filmed in England, Bang! You're Dead was released in the U.S. as A Game of Death. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Escape from a German POW camp is the goal of the rescourceful Allied prisoners in this war film. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

When a wealthy man discovers that his wife is having an affair, he murders her lover, committing the perfect crime. ~ All Movie Guide

Easy Money is a satire of that most venerated of all middle-class British traditions, the football pool. The film is divided into four separate episodes, illustrating the effects of the football pool on the "average chap." Among those who participate in the pool in hopes of winning the 50,000-pound jackpot are the Stafford family: husband Phillip (Jack Warner), wife Ruth (Marjorie Fielding), son Dennis (Jack Watling), and daughter Jackie (Petula Clark). Other interested parties are the Atkins clan -- Herbert ($Mervyn Johns) and Agnes ($Joan Young) -- and lovers Pat (Greta Gynt) and Joe (Dennis Price). Among the huge cast of supporting players, Edward Rigby stands out as the hapless Teddy Ball. Critics of the time noted that Easy Money was faintly reminiscent of the all-star 1932 Hollywood film If I Had a Million. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Nigel Patrick plays a suave but dead-serious British narcotics agent in this sporadically exciting crime melodrama. Patrick is determined that the drug traffic will not spread into his territory. He finds an unexpected ally in Joyce Grenfell, an inveterate bird-watcher. Ms. Grenfell aids Patrick in trapping a brother-sister smuggling team (Elizabeth Sellars and Terence Morgan). Apart from the always delightful Joyce Grenfell, Forbidden Cargo is humorless Dragnet material transplanted to the high seas. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Holiday Camp was a British comedy that served the same purpose as Hollywood's The Egg and I--to act as the launching pad for a successful B-movie series. The film takes place at a British summer resort, where various character types interact. A murderer on the loose invades the camp, but the damage he does is slight--and in some instances, his presence is beneficial. Among the secondary characters are the members of the suburban Huggett family, headed by Jack Warner and Kathleen Harrison. They proved popular enough to be spun off into a "Hardy Family" style series of their own, with such titles as Here Come the Huggetts, Vote for Huggett and The Huggetts Abroad. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Alastair Sim is a delight to behold as always in the British Hue and Cry, but the film's true star is approximately 40 years younger and two feet shorter than the estimable Sim. Harry Fowler plays Joe Kirby, an intelligent cockney lad who is addicted to a weekly boys' magazine. He begins to notice a curious pattern emerging in the dialogue of a serialized blood-and-thunder detective story. And well he should: a gang of literate crooks are using that story to transmit information concerning robberies, smuggling, fencing, and the like. When the local constabulary refuse to take Joe's warnings seriously, he rallies his chums together to foil the crooks. Elements of Hue and Cry would later pop up in several American films, including the Bowery Boys' Angels in Disguise (1949) and the Jack Carson vehicle The Good Humor Man (1950). This is only fair, since T.E.B. Clarke's screenplay is inspired in part by the old German perennial Emil and the Detectives. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

After the war, British films began avoiding the heiresses and lordships that had dominated the drama field and began pursuing "realism" -- which often was just as artificial as the earlier white-telephone pictures. John McCallum plays Tommy Swann, a product of the working class who tries to better himself by becoming a criminal. Escaping from prison, Swann hides out in the East London home of his former mistress Rose (Googie Withers), who has since married George Sandigate (Edward Chapman). The film is told from Swann's point-of-view, and a dismal view that is. Nor does Rose seem any happier with her drab lot in life. Swann's return does nothing but further their misery, tearing Rose' family apart and sending Swann back into the arms of the law. Considered a tension-laden slice of life in 1949, It Always Rains on Sunday seems a bit contrived today, though it does full justice to the Arthur La Bern novel on which it is based -- especially when the film leaves the environs of the house and zeroes in on its colorful roster of bit actors. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Knute Rockne-All American was Pat O'Brien's finest hour: thanks to intensive rehearsals and numerous makeup applications, he so closely resembled the title character that, in the words of Rockne's widow, "I almost expected him to make love with me". The life of the legendary Notre Dame football coach is recounted from his childhood, when young Rockne (played by Johnny Sheffield) startles his Norwegian-immigrant parents by announcing at the dinner table that he's just been introduced to "the most wonderful game of the world." As an adult, Rockne works his way through Indiana's Notre Dame university, under the watchful and benevolent eye of Father Callahan (Donald Crisp) A brilliant student, Rockne is urged by Father Nieuwland (Albert Basserman) to become a chemist, or at the very least remain a chemistry teacher. Newly married to Bonnie Skilles (Gale Page), Rockne at first sticks to academics, but the call of the gridiron is too loud for him to ignore, and before long he has built his reputation as the winningest college football coach in America. One of his most significant contributions to the game is the invention of the tactical shift, inspired by the precision choreography of a team of nightclub dancers! Among the players nurtured by Rockne are the immortal Four Horsemen-Miller (William Marshall), Stuhlreder (Harry Lukats), Laydon (Kane Richmond) and Crowley (William Byrne), and of course the tragic George Gipp, superbly enacted by Ronald Reagan. His career continues unabated until his death in a plane crash in 1931. The screenplay of Knute Rockne-All American tends to be all highlights and little story, with several of the more dramatic passages telegraphed well in advance (just before her husband's death, Bonnie Rockne comments forebodingly "It's gotten cold all of a sudden"). Still, the film remains one of the best and most inspirational sports biographies ever made, with a heart-wrenching conclusion guaranteed to moisten the eyes of even the most jaundiced viewer. Ironically, the film's most famous scene, George Gipp's deathbed admonition to "Win one for the Gipper", was for many years excised from all TV prints due to a legal entanglement stemming from an earlier radio dramatization of Rockne's life; fortunately, this and several related scenes were restored to the film in the early 1990s. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Now and Forever is a very slight piece, buoyed by the charm and attractiveness of its young stars. Janette Scott and Vernon Grey play Janette Grant and Mike Pritchard, who fall in love despite the objections of Janette's wealthy parents. Realizing that they will never be permitted to marry, Janette and Mike run off together, sparking a nationwide search for the two elopers. By the time the authorities catch up with the pair, public sentiment is firmly in favor of their union, culminating in a conditional change of mind on the part of Janette's mom and dad. Though the film seems flat and obvious when viewed on television, it truly comes to life before a large and appreciative moviehouse audience. Forgotten for many years, Now and Forever was happily rediscovered by the late film historian William K. Everson in his 1979 book Love in the Film, which was dedicated to star Janette Scott. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this comedy, an amiable rake shows all that he is a whiz at finances after a rumor circulates that he has inherited millions. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide