Gordon Wellesley Movies

The protagonists of Over the Edge are the teen-aged offspring of the residents of a planned suburban community. This bland little town has been designed with conformity in mind, and with no thought of making the kids' lives worth living. Even worse, there is very little opportunity for any of the teens to grow "out" of the community and live elsewhere. Consequently, the kids rebel by drinking themselves sick, dealing in drugs, and indulging in deadly violence. Inasmuch as the local cops are predisposed to beat the teens into submission, the kids retaliate by directing their frustrations at the Law; the results are tragic, to be sure, but in no way predictable. Over the Edge struck as sensitive a nerve with young 1970s moviegoers as Rebel Without a Cause did with their 1950s forebears. Matt Dillon made his screen debut in Over the Edge, distinguishing himself in an ensemble cast that also includes Vincent Spano, Andy Romano and Ellen Geer. The screenplay was written by Charles Haas and Tim Hunter; the soundtrack songs feature the Ramones. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A bomb planted in a maternity home must be defused by an injured bomb-disposal expert and some volunteers. ~ All Movie Guide

In this drama, an ex-WW II pilot leads a quiet life in Hong Kong when suddenly the US government asks him to do some spying. Reluctantly he accepts the request and begins helping a Chinese woman find her missing son, also a pilot. The American, assisted by a Russian pal, finds the boy, but then gets romantically entangled with an American agent trying to sell a secret formula. As he helps her escape, she is killed and he returns to Hong Kong where he refuses to do anymore work for American intelligence. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

The Green Scarf may be set in France, but its cast, crew, and overall tone is impeccably British. Michael Redgrave, hidden beneath a mattress of whiskers, portrays a French lawyer who takes on a seemingly hopeless case. His client, Kieron Moore, is a blind deaf-mute seaman accused of murder. Moore has already confessed to the crime, but Redgrave is sworn to give the best defense possible. At times, however, it is the dullest defense possible, despite a few random spurts of imagination. The Green Scarf was adapted from the novel The Brute by Guy des Cars. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The Lost People is a pedantic British drama set in a large, abandoned German theatre just after the War. A disparate group of homeless refugees huddle together within the structure. As they get to know each other, old wounds are opened, social and religious clashes break out, recriminations melt into reconciliations, and the theatre threatens to become a metaphor for the World At Large. In fact, it's not a threat but a foregone conclusion. The Lost People is based on Cockpit, a play by Bridget Boland. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Though a top-billed British stage star, Feliz Aylmer seldom rose above the supporting cast in films: Mr. Emmanuel is a rare exception. Aylmer plays the title role, an elderly European Jew living in Manchester, England. Honoring a promise to a young refugee, Mr. Emmanuel makes a perilous journey to Nazi Germany to search for the boy's mother. The gentle, even-tempered old man is subject to all manner of persecution by the jack-booted Gestapo thugs, but he is saved from the Concentration Camps through the intervention of Greta Gynt, a British woman who is the mistress of a high-ranking Nazi. While Mr. Emmanuel himself emerges from Germany intact, his mission ends on an unexpectedly melancholy note. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this patriotic but romantic musical comedy, a young teacher runs a day school for the workers at a munitions factory. As she makes arrangements to locate the school in the empty home next to her apartment building, she falls in love with the property owner. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Produced by Britain's Teddington Studios on behalf of Warner Bros., The Flying Fortress stars Richard Greene, who had to be furloughed from the Army to participate in this wartime morale-booster. Greene plays millionaire playboy Jim Spence, a carefree aviation enthusiast whose avocation becomes his vocation when the war breaks out. Giving up wine, women and song for the duration (well, at least wine and song), Spence mans the controls of a British "flying fortress" for periodic bombing forays over Berlin. The film's "money scene" finds Spence clambering out of his plane to repair a hole in its side in mid-air-a bit of bravado which, amazingly, is based on a true incident. For unknown reasons, Flying Fortress was heavily edited for its American release, rendering its storyline a tad hard to follow at times. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Emeric Pressburger was one of the scenarists on the big-budget British seafaring saga Atlantic Ferry. The film is a romanticized recounting of the first-ever steamship crossing of the Atlantic in 1837. Michael Redgrave and Griffith Jones star as the MacIver brothers (the film is based on a story by one of the MacIver progeny). The siblings battle both the Atlantic and (whenever a woman is involved) each other, but they achieve their goal, making shipping lanes safe for steam power. Inasmuch as the film was made at the outbreak of World War 2, the filmmakers contrive to rabbet a bit of anti-German propaganda into the proceedings. "Has considerable gusto" was the New York Post's pithy critique of this morale-boosting film. The huge cast includes such British-movie stalwarts as Valerie Hobson, Bessie Love, Frederick Leister and Felix Aylmer. Atlantic Ferry was distributed in the US by Warner Bros. under the title Sons of the Sea. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Filmed in England at Warner Bros.' Teddington Studios facilities, This Was Paris stars American actors (and current British residents) Ann Dvorak and Ben Lyon. She is cast as Ann Morgan, a female ambulance driver in the early days of WWII. He is cast as bibulous American newspaperman Butch, who likes to throw his weight around Paris because he knows he can get away with it. As the clouds of war gather all over Europe, Ann finds romance in the form of British Intelligence agent Bill Hamilton, while Butch sobers up and begins taking his responsibilities seriously. Oddly enough, This Was Paris didn't receive an American release until several years after its production. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

With a plot that twists like a plumber's snake, this is more a story of family secrets than anything else, in which the British commander of a West African garrison has to prevent the exposure of an ugly scandal involving his daughter. The story was based on a novel by Lewis Robinson entitled The General Goes Too Far. ~ Tana Hobart, All Movie Guide

The oft-filmed life of Viennese composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is again cinematized in this elaborate but ponderous British production. Stephen Haggard plays Mozart, the former child prodigy who becomes the fair-haired boy of Austria, only to lose it all and die in poverty before his 40th birthday. The screenplay, by Margaret Kennedy (The Constant Nymph), chooses to sidestep the less-savory aspects of Mozart's life and death, choosing to end on a note of triumph as the composer's The Magic Flute temporarily rescues him from bankruptcy. Conspicuous by his absence is the composer Salieri, whose rivalry with Mozart formed the basis of the 1984 Oscar-winner Amadeus. Completed in the late 1930s, Mozart was released in 1940, as the last non-documentary effort by director Basil Dean (whose wife Victoria Hopper appears as Mrs. Mozart). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The inimitable Gracie Fields illuminates the screen in her sole 1935 vehicle Look Up and Laugh. The Lancashire-born comedienne is cast as Gracie Pearson, one of several clerks in a small-town market. When Gracie and her co-workers are threatened with dismissal by a chain-store takeover, they manage to save their jobs by digging up a Royal Charter, declaring their store an autonomous nation. The film was based on a story by J. B. Priestley, who undoubtedly didn't include Gracie's traditional cheer-up songs in his original synopsis. Billed 15th in Look Up and Laugh is 22-year-old Vivien Leigh, whose third film this was. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide