Peter Collingwood Movies

Janet Meyers directed this TV movie about the search for Jack the Ripper in London of 1888. As Inspector Hansen (Patrick Bergin) searches for the murderer of East End prostitutes, his suspicions focus on Prince Albert Victor (Samuel West), eldest son of the Prince of Wales and Queen Victoria's grandson. Filmed in Melbourne, Australia, this drama premiered December 6, 1997 on the Starz! channel. ~ Bhob Stewart, Rovi

Essentially a showcase for the talents of Australian comedian Barry Humphries, this earthy comedy tells the tale of a boorish and boozy Aussie ambassador and his wife (Humphries plays both characters) who are stationed in a Middle Eastern country. There, they end up saving the world from the bio-hazard engineered by the nefarious Dr. Herpes. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

Empty Beach brings Australian novelist Peter Corris' detective hero Cliff Hardy to the big screen. F/X star Bryan Brown plays Hardy, who this time around is hired to confirm or disprove the reported death of a millionaire. Hardy confers with journalist Brian Henneberry (Clifford Tate), who has some potentially explosive evidence -- and who, inevitably, is murdered before he can talk. The trail of evidence runs hot and cold, thanks to a gaggle of suspects and hangers-on who aren't revealing everything that they know. Co-starring in Empty Beach is Anna Maria Monticelli, aka Anna Jemison. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Fifteen-year-old Australian youth Steve Carson (Rod Zuanic) is a product of a home that can charitably be described as dysfunctional. His father is a drunk, his brother a slimy-dope dealer. Carson promises his social worker--and himself--that he'll escape this environment and make something of himself. Unfortunately, this involves grandiose and unrealistic schemes that lead to increasingly severe criminal acts. Fast Talking was co-financed by the Australian Film Commission and Merchant-Ivory. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Director Donald Crombie's fourth feature tackles the problem of out-of-control redevelopment by unscrupulous corporate developers. Angel Street is a row of charming and quaint homes on the shore of Australia's Sydney Harbor. A development company wants to buy the homes, raze the street, and build high-rise apartments in their wake. When B.C. Simmonds (Alexander Archdale), the leader of the residents' group, dies under mysterious circumstances, his daughter Jessica (Liz Alexander) takes up the residents' cause against the developers, assisted by Elliot (John Hargreaves), the Communist union official with whom Jessica had a brief affair. It turns out that the developers are not just businessmen, but have a malevolent connection with the government. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi

Two veterans of Vietnam special-forces (John Hargreaves, Grant Page) have retired to the relatively painless field of stuntwork. They return to active duty, however, when the Australian government hires them to retrieve documents and destroy the fortress of a Filipino overlord. ~ John Bush, Rovi

Peter Weir's haunting and evocative mystery is set in the Australia of 1900, a mystical place where the British have attempted to impose their Christian culture with such tweedy refinements as a girls' boarding school. After gauzily-photographed, nicely underplayed scenes of the girls' budding sexuality being restrained in Victorian corsets, the uptight headmistress (Rachel Roberts) takes them on a Valentine's Day picnic into the countryside, and several of the girls, led by the lovely Miranda (Anne Lambert) decide to explore a nearby volcanic rock formation. It's a desolate, primitive, vaguely menacing place, where one can almost feel the presence of ancient pagan spirits. Something -- and there is an unspoken but palpable emphasis on the inherent carnality of the place -- draws four of the girls to explore the rock. Three never return. No one ever finds out why. The repercussions for the school are tragic, and of course Roberts reacts with near-crazed anger, but what really happened? Weir gives enough clues to suggest any number of explanations, both physical and supernatural. ~ Robert Firsching, Rovi

A classic 1960's cult film in the British "angry young man" tradition, the hero of this film from Czech director Karel Reisz is more lunatic than agitator. Morgan Delt (David Warner) is an artist from a working class background, married to Leonie (Vanessa Redgrave), a woman far above him in social standing. Given to a rich fantasy life to begin with, Morgan goes off the mental deep end when Leonie informs him that she's asking for a divorce and taking up with art dealer Robert Stephens (Charles Napier), a man more befitting her class. Thoroughly gone around the bend, Morgan enacts a series of bizarre gags and stunts in a campaign to win Leonie back, including putting a skeleton in her bed and crashing her wedding dressed as a gorilla. His antics eventually get Morgan arrested and committed to an asylum, where he embraces his mother's ardent communist beliefs. Redgrave was Oscar nominated for Best Actress for her role, her feature film debut. ~ Karl Williams, Rovi

This romp through the comedic world of spy-chase stories starts with Dick Lanchester (David Tomlinson), a less-than-brilliant British diplomat, taking an atomic scientist to a NATO meeting. A simple escort service turns into disaster when the so-called scientist steals major secrets and escapes with the sensitive material on a roll of film -- but not for long. The precious negatives are gobbled up by a racehorse, and the chase begins. The scientist and his fellow spies are after the racehorse, the British security network is after the spies, and meanwhile, there is the matter of how to retrieve the film... ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

Sailor Beware was originally released in England as Panic in the Parlour. The panic begins when a sailor named Albert (Ronald Lewis) plans to get married to a gal named Shirley (Shirley Eaton). On the day of the ceremony, Albert gets cold feet when he discovers that Shirley's gorgonlike mother Emma (Peggy Mount) has bought a house just three doors away from their honeymoon cottage. The question now is: how long will it be before the worm turns and Emma is put in her place by both her prospective son-in-law and her henpecked husband? Based on a popular stage comedy, Sailor Beware is worth watching today to spot an unbilled Michael Caine in a bit part as one of Albert's fellow seamen. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi