Ernest Butcher Movies

In this drama, a reporter and his girlfriend pursue a jewel thief through rural Sussex. The tables turn when the thief abducts the girlfriend and holds her hostage in a castle forcing the reporter to assist him. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Background is a tearful flashback drama centering around a dysfunctional family. Valerie Hobson and Philip Friend play a long-married couple on the verge of divorce. As they ponder the question of who will receive custody of their children (Janette Scott, Mandy Miller and Jeremy Spencer), the couple has second thoughts about their upcoming litigation. It is the children who eventually bring Hobson and Friend back together, though the reunion seems strangely without passion. Background was released in the US as Edge of Divorce. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Britain's Margaret Lockwood is teamed with Hollywood's Dane Clark in Highly Dangerous. Set in a mythical Iron Curtain country, the film casts Lockwood as an entomologist who hopes to stop a planned volley of bacteriological warfare. Facing danger at every turn, our heroine is rescued time and again by a two-fisted American reporter (Clark). The story culminates in a glass-enclosed hothouse, where the two protagonists race against time to neutralize thousands of poisonous insects. One bizarre sequence finds a drug-benumbed Lockwood imagining herself as the star of a popular British radio serial! Future Saint mentor Roy Baker directed from a script supplied by no less than Eric Ambler. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Meet Simon Cherry was based on a popular BBC radio program of the 1940s titled Meet the Rev. Hugh Moxey plays the title role, a Father Brown-style clergyman who solves crimes when he isn't saving souls. This time around "Rev" Cherry must prove that an wealthy old recluse wasn't murdered, as it seems. Gale Pedrick, creator of the radio series, coscripted the film with director Godfrey Grayson.. Meet Simon Cherry was evidently not successful enough to result in a film series, nor did it have enough international salability to be distributed in the States--though the film's production company, Hammer Studios, would definitely be heard from in the future. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Also known as While I Live, this British programmer serves as an excellent dramatic showcase for veteran farceur Tom Walls. Covering a period of 25 years, the story concentrates on the reclusive Julia (Sonia Dresdel), who has never come to grips with the fact that her sister Olwen (Audrey Fildes) committed suicide. Each year on the anniversary of Olwen's "disappearance", Julia has regaled the citizens of Cornwall with a sacrament-like radio broadcast of the poem Olwen was writing at the time of her demise. When a young woman who dimly resembles Olwen arrives on the scene, Julia becomes convinced that her sister has returned from the Beyond, leading to a series of mystical events, romantic encounters and tender reconciliations. Billed first, Walls dominates every scene he's in as a local faith healer named Jeremiah, who claims to possess "second sight"-and he's the most normal character in the story! While I Love was adapted from a play by Robert Bell, which also starred Sonia Dresdel. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this comedy, a band of British birdwatchers fight to save a rare species of birds from destruction. The title bird is a skinny little thing that can wag its tail. It lives in English wheat fields. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

British stage star Jessie Matthews, who lit up the silver screen in England during the '30s, returned to the screen for her first starring vehicle in five years in Candles at Nine. Adapted from Anthony Gilbert's novel Mouse Who Couldn't Play Ball, it's a haunted house/mystery film along lines that intersect with Gaslight, Rebecca, and a dozen lesser influences from the same genre. Matthews plays Dorothea Capper, a plucky, unpretentious chorus girl who suddenly inherits 100,000 pounds (easily the equivalent of several million dollars in the British economy of the early '40s) from an eccentric great-uncle whom she never even knew. The problem is the disappointed would-be heirs, who would like her out of the way -- one of whom tries to take care of that matter before she even goes to claim her inheritance. The estate itself, called Brakes, is a pretty forbidding place, especially as maintained under the housekeeper Miss Carberry (Beatrix Lehmann), who likes shadows (as opposed to Dorothea, who loves the sunlight). So not only must she contend with the rivals, but with Miss Carberry as her diametrical opposite in just about every way possible, hating the fact that Dorothea is now the mistress of Brakes. And neither the heroine nor the audience can be certain that detective Bill Gordon (John Stuart), who is trying to protect her, is quite up to the job. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

The popular British music hall and radio team of Gert and Daisy (Elsie and Doris Waters) heads the cast of It's in the Bag. The whole thing starts when the cackling cockney duo sells an old dress. Turns out that there's 20,000 pounds sewn in the lining of the frock, a fact that precipitates a merry chase. Also in pursuit of the money is Reginald Purdell, whose honesty is a matter of grave doubt. It's in the Bag comes to a literally explosive climax in a deserted theater. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The "Scarlet Pimpernel" legend is updated to WW2 in the breathless actioner Pimpernel Smith. Leslie Howard (who also directed) plays bespectacled and seemingly mild-mannered Professor Smith, who under cover of darkness transforms into a tireless defender of democracy. With the help of several loyal companions, Smith makes several forays into Nazi-occupied territories to rescue the oppressed victims of the Third Reich, using a phony archeological expedition to throw the villains off the track. The picture really roars into life during the cat-and-mouse exchanges between the Professor and his Gestapo antagonist Von Graum, phlegmatically enacted by the corpulent Francis L. Sullivan. In some markets, Pimpernel Smith was retitled Mister V. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this entry in the long-running British comedy series, boisterous Irish washerwoman Mother Riley gets into deep trouble when during her crusade to help local shopkeepers fight the presence of a ruthless chain of stores, she inadvertently pushes the chain's boss into the river. She immediately flees to a hospital where she puts on a nurse's uniform. Now she must escape from the hospital. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In this lively musical, a talented little tap dancer enters her grandpa's talent show and not only wins, she also helps her parents mend their differences. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In this drama, a cute blue-collar kid sees her beloved dog run over by a car. A doctor is around and helps the crushed canine recover. The little girl swears life-long allegiance to the physician and later she and her friends stage a charity concert to help keep the doctor's struggling hospital stay afloat. The show is a tremendous success and the hospital is saved. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In this drama, a naval hero finds himself framed by his CO's son for the theft of classified documents. He not only proves his innocence, he also manages to save his girl from the Chinese pirates who kidnapped her. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide