Stanley van Beers Movies

Robert Aldrich (Kiss Me Deadly) directed this cloak-and-dagger yarn (based on a bestseller by Leon Uris), filmed on sumptuous locations in Greece. Set in Athens in 1941, before the Nazis overran the country, Robert Mitchum plays American war correspondent Mike Morrison, who has come into the possession of a list of 16 Greek underground leaders that he agrees to deliver to British intelligence in London for a $20,000 fee. Trying to keep him from getting there is the local Gestapo chief Conrad Heisler (Stanley Baker) and fifth columnist Tassos (Theodore Bikel). Morrison also becomes involved with a group of Greek freedom fighters -- particularly the beautiful Eleftheria (Gia Scala). But then Morrison comes down from the mountains and back to Athens, where he finds himself trailed, not only by the Nazis, but by charming widow Lisa Kyriakides (Elisabeth Muller). ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

In this horror movie, a scientist resuscitates the head of 16th-century seer Nostradamus by transplanting it onto the body of a man suffering from a brain tumor for the benefit of an avaricious financier who wants the prophet to give him the power of prediction in business. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

A rocket crash-lands in England after a flight of more than 57 hours into deep space. The design of Professor Bernard Quatermass (Brian Donlevy), a forceful, misanthropic American scientist, the Q-1 had three astronauts aboard when it left Earth, but only one of them, engineer Victor Caroon (Richard Wordsworth), is on board upon landing, and he is in a near-comatose state. Even more baffling, the spacesuits of the other two men are still aboard the wrecked ship and are still interlocked, as though they were in them when whatever transpired. Quatermass's investigation is complicated by the presence of Inspector Lomax (Jack Warner) of Scotland Yard, who is treating the disappearance of the two men as a potential murder case, and by Caroon's wife Judith (Margia Dean), who blames the scientist for what has happened to her husband. An on-board camera, although damaged, shows an encounter with some form of energy that invaded the ship and attacked the crew, seemingly killing the other two astronauts and rendering Caroon unconscious. Caroon's condition keeps worsening -- Quatermass's medical expert, Dr. Gordon Briscoe (David King-Wood), is alarmed by the man's impossible heart- and pulse-rate, his degenerating skin and apparent changes in his bone and facial structure. Judith Caroon tries to spirit her husband out of the hospital where he's being cared for, not knowing that something horrific is happening to him. Quatermass and Briscoe soon realize that Caroon is little more than the shell of a man, masking an invading alien life form that can literally draw the life out of any living thing that it touches. The manhunt turns into a fight for survival as the creature continues to kill and mutate, threatening to release spores into the air and spread itself by the millions throughout the Earth. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

In this exciting drama, three people spy an empty yacht adrift at sea. They get on board and begin investigating, thinking it was used for smuggling. Not long afterwards, all of them develop radiation burns on their arms. They soon discover that the ship's mast is filled with stolen uranium. They radio the cops, but before they can get there, the crooks return and a chase ensues, culminating in a deadly explosion. In Great Britain, the film was titled Dangerous Voyage. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In this crime drama an American is assigned to guard a US art exhibit in London to protect one of da Vinci's most priceless paintings, "Madonna and Child." A series of art thefts has put the museum officials on red alert and they anxiously await the painting's arrival. Unfortunately, the painting is stolen en route to the show and replaced by an imitation. The intrepid guard follows the thieves to a private gallery run by a wealthy criminal. The film contains some useful and interesting information on art forgeries. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

This deliberately paced British film about a black rural priest and a white landowner whose paths cross in 1940s South Africa remains one of the most powerful cinematic statements on racism. Based on Alan Paton's landmark novel, Cry the Beloved Country is, in hindsight, naïve in its belief that apartheid would be easier to overcome than history proved it to be, but its intentions are certainly in the right place and it never trivializes the importance of the issue. To the credit of both Paton and director-producer Zoltan Korda, the film maintains a dignity and relevancy that is not always true of other "message" movies from the 1940s and '50s. Partly, this is because the characters, both black and white, are much more fully developed than a Hollywood production would have allowed them to be. Another factor is that the filmmakers do not resort to heavy-handedness, and instead allow the story to speak for itself. Knowing that the film was actually shot on location in South Africa during the height of apartheid only compounds the impact of this film. Canada Lee, as the priest Kumalo, and Charles Carson, as the farmer Jarvis, give stunning, multi-layered performances as two men who must go through a wrenching emotional experience. The solid supporting cast includes Joyce Carey as Jarvis' wife and a twenty-something Sidney Poitier as a Johannesburg priest. More than forty years later, after apartheid's fall, Cry the Beloved Country was remade with James Earl Jones and Richard Harris. ~ Bob Mastrangelo, All Movie Guide

Written and directed by Peter Ustinov, Vice Versa is a one-joke fantasy comedy which manages to hold up almost to the very end. Anthony Newley plays the funloving son of stuffy stockbroker Roger Livesy. Father and son come into possession of a magic stone, and place a wish upon it. The result: Newley inherits Livesy's brain and personality, and vice versa. The best moments involve the suddenly matured Newley's besting of feet-of-clay schoolmaster James Robertson Justice. Not successful enough to spawn a cycle in 1947, Vice Versa is nonetheless an intriguing precursor of the brief spate of identity-switch comedies of the late 1980s--one of which was also titled Vice Versa. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide