Michael Winner Movies
A one-time Cambridge law student, British director Michael Winner had been geared toward a cinematic career since the age of 16, when he began writing entertainment criticism. His earliest directorial assignments were for the BBC; he entered films as the screenwriter for a brace of programmers, Climb up the Wall and Shoot to Kill (both 1960). Adapting many of the quick-cut, freeze-frame, hand-held techniques popularized by Richard Lester, Winner became typed as a "swinging" director of hip, youthful projects. Although he was virtually a youngster himself, Winner's basic point-of-view was middle-aged conformist. The oh-so-clever young characters in You Must Be Joking (1965), The Jokers (1967), and I'll Never Forget What's 'is Name (1969) are depicted as shallow, status-seeking snots, no better than the adults whom they claim to despise. Transferring his base of operations to Hollywood, Winner turned his back on the trendiness of his British work to become a top violent-action specialist. When Winner attempted a return to the freewheeling irreverence of old, the result was the so-called comedy Won Ton Ton -- The Dog Who Saved Hollywood (1976), which deploys the weakest "camp" device in the world: hiring several icons of Old Hollywood (Victor Mature, Rhonda Fleming, Stepin Fetchit, the Ritz Brothers, and scores of others), then wantonly squandering their talents in pointless cameos. Michael Winner's most successful films have been made in concert with macho superstar Charles Bronson, notably the first three entries in the Death Wish series. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide- 1958
An insurance investigator looks into the suspicious fire that destroyed a prominent nightclub and ends up destroying a crime ring in this mystery. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1961
In this spy thriller clever reporters outfox Communist spies who have come to Geneva to learn more about Western nuclear science. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1963
A stodgy British patriarch sends his naive daughter to Europe so that her rock & roll singing boyfriend will dump her. Unfortunately, things don't go as planned when she ends up linked with a handsome pop idol and his band. Fortunately, she is a good girl at heart and ends up learning some valuable lessons about live, love and rock & roll. Many popular singers from the early '60s perform in this tuneful outing. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1963
In this murder mystery, a reporter finishes his foreign assignment and returns to England. There he learns that his brother, a student at Cambridge has killed himself--or so it seems. The reporter cannot accept that his brother would suicide and travels to Cambridge to look into it. He is assisted by Mary Johnson, whose father, a professor, has mysteriously vanished. Together they prove that his brother was indeed murdered. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1963
In this musical, the Gilbert and Sullivan classic is updated and set in post-war Japan. This time, the trouble begins when a soldier, the son of a Yankee judge, falls in love with a Japanese girl. This enrages her Yakuza (Japanese mafia) fiance who kidnaps him. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1963
Joe Beckett (Alfred Lynch) forgoes working for a living in this seedy district of London. He hangs out in jazz clubs and chases women, which makes him lose what little money he has remaining. Ex-Army veteran Richard Dyce (Eric Portman) shows up at the club, and the two directionless louts begin to talk. Richard wants his Aunt killed for her money, and Joe agrees to do the deed. He travels to the Aunt's house on the South Coast, but Joe loses his nerve. He accidently pushes the woman to her death, leaving a miniature chess kit behind as evidence he was at the scene of the crime. Richard denies everything, and a stool pigeon sings like a bird to the cops, putting Joe in a gilded cage of his very own. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Alfred Lynch, Kathleen Breck, (more)
- 1965
You Must be Joking? draws its laughs from an Army endurance test. Over a 48-hour period, five officers in the British army-including American transplant Michael Callan-must wend their way through a maze, retrieve a hood ornament from a Rolls Royce and steal a lock of hair from beauteous pop singer Gabriella Licudi. There's a big prize in store for the officer who finishes the test first, and since the other contestant include such middle-aged huffers and puffers as Lionel Jeffries and Denholm Elliot, it doesn't take a Rhodes scholar to figure out who the victor will be. Director Michael Winner was still in his "mad mod" period when he lensed the wacky goings-on of You Must Be Joking? His Death Wish pictures of the 1970s were in 1965 as remote as another galaxy. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Michael Callan, Lionel Jeffries, (more)
- 1966
The System is a "Swinging London" comedy with an unsettling undercurrent of bitterness and cynicism. Oliver Reed plays a girlie-magazine photographer, the self-appointed leader of a group of handsome but unscrupulous bachelors who hang out in a British seaside resort. Their avowed goal is to seduce and abandon as many wealthy young girls as possible. One of the group, jealous of Reed's success, uses their "system" to hoist the leader on his own petard. Michael Winner solidified his reputation as a "mod" director in The System--and also displayed his utter contempt for the pretty young people he depicts. The film was released to the US under the more bankable title The Girl Getters. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Oliver Reed, Jane Merrow, (more)
- 1967
Two brothers looking to avoid becoming pawns of the establishment come up with a better way of making a living -- through theft -- in this satiric comedy. David Tremayne (Oliver Reed) is a successful London architect, and his younger brother Michael (Michael Crawford) is weighing his options after being kicked out of school. The brothers share a bemused disgust with the world around them and a desire to get through life without the burden of labor; toward this end, one day they begin plotting an elaborate scheme to steal the British Crown Jewels. Mind you, they don't intend to sell them, or even keep them very long -- the idea is to return them after a week, simply to prove that it could indeed be done, and make themselves famous in the process. After studying the procedures of Scotland Yard's Bomb Disposal Unit, the inner working of the Tower of London's Jewel Room, and the London ambulance services, the Tremaynes come up with a foolproof plan -- they call in a bomb threat to the Tower, and they are able to enter the Jewel Room posing as men from the bomb squad. They then feign injury and are able to escape in an ambulance. It all seems simple enough, and it actually works, until Michael "forgets" his part of the agreement to take half of the responsibility for the theft. The supporting cast includes Edward Fox, Frank Finlay, and Harry Andrews. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Michael Crawford, Oliver Reed, (more)
- 1967
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The imprisoning aspects of Success are humorously analyzed in this British-made film. Oliver Reed plays a wealthy advertising man who feels he has sold his soul and wishes to return to his happier earlier existence as a poor but swinging Londoner. Reed is goaded on by his boss, Orson Welles, who represents all the mercenary crassness that Reed despises. Handed a crucial commercial account, Reed plans to destroy himself by producing as offensive and confusing an ad campaign as possible. But Welles and the client are delighted by the "insult," and the disgruntled Reed is more successful than ever. Directed in the fragmentary "psychedelic" style typical of the late 1960s, I'll Never Forget What's'is Name gained notoriety upon its initial release by being the first mainstream British film in which the "F" word was spoken on-screen. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Orson Welles, Oliver Reed, (more)
- 1969
- PG
Hannibal Brooks (Oliver Reed) is a British prisoner of war assigned to care for an elephant in a zoo in Munich. Along with an American (Michael J. Pollard) and an Austrian (Helmut Lohner), the trio escapes with the elephant and heads for the Swiss border. They use the elephant to tear down a sentry post and gain access to the border crossing. They are betrayed by a Polish girl who aligns herself with the Nazis as the trio of escapees and their pachyderm protector evade the enemy in their attempt to escape. Comical moments are provided by the animal and James Donald who plays a captured British Army chaplain in this World War II adventure feature. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Oliver Reed, Michael J. Pollard, (more)
- 1970
Not to be confused with the 1966 Diabolique rip-off Games, 1970's The Games is set during the Rome Olympics. The film zeroes in on four contestants in the 26-mile marathon race: Briton Michael Crawford, American Ryan O'Neal, Czech Charles Aznavour and Australian Athol Compton. Scenes of the grueling training sessions are placed in context with the personal dramas of the four men. Crawford is being driven to the breaking point by trainer Stanley Baker, O'Neal is suffering from a dangerous heart condition, Aznavour is past forty but obliged to compete by his government, and Compton is an Aborigine fighting a lifelong battle against prejudice. Eric Segal, himself an avid runner adapted the screenplay of The Games from the novel by Hugh Atkinson. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Michael Crawford, Ryan O'Neal, (more)
In Lawman, Burt Lancaster is Jered Maddox, a dedicated marshal with an inflexible adherence to upholding the law at all costs. Riding into a nearby town to pick up a group of local carousers who, during a drunken spree, killed an old man, Maddox meets up with Vincent Bronson (Lee J. Cobb). Bronson is the local town boss, and Maddox discovers that the men he is looking for work for him. Unlike most western heavies, Maddox, although he is powerful and unscrupulous, abhors violence. But violence is something Maddox cultivates. A major confrontation between the reluctant Bronson and the intransigent Maddox builds -- particularly when Maddox enlists the help of weak-willed local sheriff Cotton Ryan (Robert Ryan). ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Burt Lancaster, Robert Ryan, (more)
Marlon Brando delivers a respectably creepy performance in the Michael Winner directed The Nightcomers -- a film inspired by the characters in Henry James' The Turn of the Screw. On a British country estate, two recently-orphaned children, Miles (Christopher Ellis) and Flora (Verna Harvey), live on their own with only a nurse, housekeeper, and gardener as companions. Miles and Flora are particularly fascinated by the gardener, Quint (Marlon Brando). In fact, fascinated to the point of obsession, the boy and girl model their young lives after him. When Quint becomes involved with the prim and proper nurse, Miles surreptitiously views their love-making and keeps it in mind for future reference. Gradually, Miles and Flora adopt the gardener and the nurse's love-hate relationship for their own, copying their adult behavior with child-like abandon. Finally, when the housekeeper finds out and decides to fire the gardener and the nurse, the children are thrown into a panic. Not wanting their two favorite subjects to be separated, the children decide to take things into their own hands. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Marlon Brando, Stephanie Beacham, (more)
Charles Bronson stars in this revisionist western directed by Michael Winner. The film concerns an Apache half-breed, Pardon Chato (Charles Bronson), who finds himself pursued by a relentless posse, headed by Joshua Everette (Jack Palance), after Chato has killed a white sheriff. But when members of Everette's posse rape Chato's wife, Chato stops running. Instead, Chato reverses course and begins to hunt down the posse, seeking vengeful retribution for the rape. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Charles Bronson, Jack Palance, (more)
Charles Bronson re-teams with director Michael Winner -- sandwiched between their first pairing in the underrated Chato's Land and their seminal collaboration in Death Wish -- in this Lewis John Carlino-scripted actioner. Bronson plays Arthur Bishop, a "mechanic" or hired killer, famed for his efficient and unfeeling contract executions. The young and eager Steve McKenna (Jan-Michael Vincent) teams up with him, hoping that Bishop will teach him the bounty-hunting business. Imparting words of wisdom to Steve like, "Murder is only killing without a license and everybody kills -- the Army, the police," the two undergo a series of adventures as Bishop shows Steve the ropes. Between action scenes, Bronson's wife Jill Ireland makes an appearance as a sexy hooker. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Charles Bronson, Keenan Wynn, (more)
This spy thriller from future Death Wish (1974) director Michael Winner stars Burt Lancaster as the enigmatic Cross, a CIA agent who has hired a government assassin, Jean Laurier (Alain Delon), to kill an Arab terrorist. Once they return home, Laurier is arrested by his superior, McLeod (John Colicos), who wants to know why Cross is still alive, as Laurier was ordered to kill him as well. Laurier doesn't think that Cross is guilty of the crime, but he relents and agrees to carry out the contract for a higher price. Cross, suspected of selling secrets to the Soviets, learns that his life is in danger and flees to Vienna, where he is aided by a former comrade-in-arms from WWII, the sympathetic KGB agent Sergei Zharkov (Paul Scofield). When Cross learns that his wife (Joanne Linville) has been murdered by McLeod, he returns to the U.S. and kills him, leading to a bloody final confrontation with a reluctant Laurier, who is shocked to discover that his lover (Gayle Hunnicutt) is in league with Cross. Scorpio (1973) was the writing debut of David W. Rintels, who went on to author several critically respected made-for-TV films. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Burt Lancaster, Alain Delon, (more)
- 1973
- R
The John Gardner novel A Complete State of Death became this bloody crime flick that united frequent action genre collaborators Charles Bronson and director Michael Winner. Bronson stars as Detective Lieutenant Lou Torry, a grizzled undercover New York City cop who ruins his career when he is caught going violently overboard while apprehending a ghetto punk. As punishment, Torry is banished all the way to the L.A. Police Department, where he begins investigating a mysterious chain of events involving ex-soldiers that seem to be Mob related. It turns out that Don Alberto Vescari (Martin Balsam), an aging Mafia chieftain, is planning the use of mentally disturbed Vietnam vets as assassins in a campaign of murder. With one broad, gory stroke, Vescari schemes to wipe out his underworld enemies, retaliating for a massacre that wiped out a generation of Sicilian mobsters 40 years earlier. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Charles Bronson, Martin Balsam, (more)
This drama about a man who takes the law into his own hands was wildly controversial upon first release, sparking much debate about the perceived pro-vigilante stance of the story, and established Charles Bronson as a major box office draw in the United States. Paul Kersey (Charles Bronson) is a liberal architect living in New York City. One day, a group of drug-crazed thugs break into his apartment while he's gone, killing his wife Joanna (Hope Lange) and brutally raping his married daughter, leaving her comatose. When the police are unable to find the culprits, Kersey arms himself and begins patrolling the streets, killing muggers and thieves as he encounters them. While his obsessive search for street justice sickens him at first, in time Kersey begins to enjoy it and becomes a hunted man himself, as Police Detective Frank Ochoa (Vincent Gardenia) tries to find the man who is doing the police's job for them, and a bit too well. Jeff Goldblum made his screen debut as one of the lunatics who attacks Joanna. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Charles Bronson, Hope Lange, (more)
- 1976
- PG
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This spoof makes fun of a certain famous German shepherd movie star from the 1920s. The mayhem begins when the head honcho of a financially struggling studio turns a lost dog into a legend. The story features a number of old stars making cameo appearances. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bruce Dern, Madeline Kahn, (more)
In the wake of such Satanic-themed thrillers as Rosemary's Baby, The Exorcist and The Omen comes The Sentinel. When New York fashion model (Cristina Raines) splits with her fiance (Chris Sarandon) and moves into an old brownstone, she soon discovers she has more than she bargained for in the lease. As luck would have it, a mysterious blind priest (John Carradine) who lives upstairs happens to be guarding the doorway to Hell, and she has been chosen as his replacement. Incidentally, when the door is finally opened, out spills an assortment of deformed humans whom director Michael Winner hand-picked from hospital wards and circus sideshows. ~ Jeremy Beday, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Chris Sarandon, Cristina Raines, (more)
Robert Mitchum reprises his role as Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe from Farewell, My Lovely, in this misconceived remake of Howard Hawks's classic 1946 film -- transferring the setting from 1940s California to 1970s London. Marlowe is hired by a rich and dying General Sternwood (James Stewart) to find out who is blackmailing him. Marlowe then meets Sterwood's daughters -- the crazy and degenerate Camilla (Candy Clark) and the more even-tempered Charlotte (Sarah Miles). Opening up a can of worms, Marlowe unveils a collection of unsavory characters -- Eddie Mars (Oliver Reed), an inveterate gambler having an affair with Charlotte; Joe Brody (Edward Fox), Camilla's ex-lover; and Agnes (Joan Collins), a sexy bookstore clerk. The plot becomes even more chaotic when it is found that Camilla has been posing in the nude for pornographer Arthur Geiger (John Justin). When Geiger turns up dead, Camilla becomes implicated in Geiger's murder. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Robert Mitchum, Sarah Miles, (more)
- 1979
- R
Set in the Caribbean, Firepower is one of those "celebrity salads," featuring a glittering all-star cast. Sophia Loren heads the ensemble as Adele, the widow of a murdered chemist. Believing that a multimillionaire industrialist is the culprit, Adele determines that she can expect no help from the authorities. Thus she engages the services of retired professional assassin Jerry Fanori (James Coburn), who in turn enlists the aid of troubleshooter Catlett (O.J. Simpson). Watch for Jake LaMotta, the ex-prizefighter whose life was dramatized in Raging Bull, in a supporting part. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Sophia Loren, James Coburn, (more)
