Sandra Francis Movies
- 1961
The rise of a Broadway star is chronicled in this drama. Elvira Kowalski is first seen entering the Big Apple after winning a bogus beauty contest. City life is not what she expected and so she involves herself with an actress and a painter who help her find work as a hat-check girl. In this capacity, the aspiring star meets an older gossip columnist who takes a shine to her and has her change her name to Mona Kent. She is invited to a party at his home and there ends up stripping down to her lingerie and going for a swim. This attracts considerable interest and soon she is cast in summer stock productions. One night, Mona goes skinny dipping at a deserted beach. While she swims, a young cameraman snaps her picture, but later promises never to show a soul. They become good buddies. About then, her career stalls and she must go back to being a hatcheck girl. She also continues to pose for the photographer. Later, the artist proposes and she is very surprised. Then she learns that both the artist and the photographer have been exploiting her by selling her pictures behind her back. She angrily drops them both and ends up marrying the gossip columnist who has promised to turn her into a star. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1959
In this crime drama, two crooked brothers, an embezzler and a gambler, find themselves in deep trouble when the embezzler steals from a steel mill so he can buy his lover fancy clothes. During the theft, he kills a night guard. This spawns an investigation by the slain watchman's son who locates a sightless witness. The son then convinces the killer that the witness saw him and this causes him to confess. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1958
W. Lee Wilder, the somewhat less prestigious producer-director brother of Billy Wilder, went to Holland to film his 1958 opus Spy in the Sky. Steve Brodie plays Cabot, a U.S. intelligence agent who heads to Vienna (actually Amsterdam) in search of a missing rocket scientist. Cabot's quest is jeopardized by the machinations of a communist spy ring, headed by a Colonel Benedict (George Coulouris). The Reds hope to coerce the scientist to build a spy satellite, the better to keep tabs on the Decadent Democracies. A spy in the sky? What a ridiculous notion! What self-respecting nation would stoop to outer-space espionage? ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Steve Brodie, Sandra Francis, (more)
- 1958
Bachelor of Hearts stars Hardy Kruger as Wolf, a German exchange student attending Cambridge University. Initially arousing the distrust and disdain of his classmates (WWII was, after all, only thirteen years in the past), the affable Wolf slowly wins them over. He also finds romance in the lovely form of an English miss named Ann (Sylvia Sims)-but only after he has gotten himself in quite a pickle by lining up several dates simultaneously (hence the film's title). Filmed on location at Cambridge, Bachelor of Hearts affords ample screen time to the music of the university's highly regarded Jazz Club. The script was cowritten by Leslie Bricusse, later the composer/lyricist/librettist of such filmusicals as Dr. Dolittle and Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Hardy Kruger, Sylvia Syms, (more)
- 1957
Time Lock is a textbook example of how a talented director and cast can do a lot with a little. Lensed in Canada, the story gets under way when a child is accidentally locked in a bank vault. The vault's time-lock isn't set to open for another 63 hours -- by which time, of course, the child will have suffocated. One expert after another tries to open the lock, to no avail. Finally, an appeal for help over the local radio station yields salvation. Though the film works best as an ensemble effort, Robert Beatty emerges as the star of the proceedings in the role of a no-nonsense vault expert. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Robert Beatty, Betty McDowall, (more)
