Robert Coote Movies

This late-'60s spy spoof also borrows a page from late-'50s Alfred Hitchcock, with its everyday man becoming embroiled in the violent and baffling world of international espionage. When American businessman William Beddoes (James Garner) is traveling in Lisbon, he's mistaken for an English spy who's thought to possess a cache of industrial diamonds. Soon he is pursued by Aurora-Celeste da Costa (Melina Mercouri), Steve-Antonio (Tony Franciosa), and a host of other colorful troublemakers, all chasing him for something he doesn't have. Note Bert Kaempfert's music, introducing "Strangers In The Night". ~ Nicole Gagne, All Movie Guide

A Yank at Oxford was filmed in England at MGM's "sister studio", Elstree. Robert Taylor plays Lee Sheridan, an arrogant young American scholar/athlete who intends to show the "Brits" a thing or two while attending Oxford University. His abrasive attitude grates against the Oxonian students, who retaliate by subjecting Sheridan to a rather humiliating hazing. Romance enters the picture in the form of Molly Beaumont (Maureen O'Sullivan), the sister of Sheridan's chief academic rival Paul Beaumont (Griffith Jones). When Paul faces disgrace over a breach of student ethics, Sheridan nobly shoulders the blame, simultaneously endangering his own future at Oxford and proving that he's really a "right guy" underneath. All is forgiven during the annual rowing competition against Cambridge, with Sheridan coming through in jolly good fashion. Cast as campus vamp Elsa Craddock is the stunningly beautiful Vivien Leigh, still two years away from Gone With the Wind. A Yank at Oxford was remade in 1984 as Oxford Blues, and mercilessly lampooned by Laurel & Hardy in 1940's A Chump at Oxford. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Bad Lands is a remake of John Ford's The Lost Patrol, with the locale changed from the Mesopotamian to the Arizona desert. The year is 1875: A posse headed by sheriff Robert Barrat is held at bay by Apache warriors. Following the pattern established by the Ford film, the posse members are decimated one by one, until only Barrat is left. Not content with merely changing the location and time-frame, scriptwriter Clarence Upson Young added a subplot involving a much-coveted vein of silver ore. This contrivance aside, Bad Lands is a worthy revision of the original Lost Patrol, though not quite as good as such later WW2 variations as Bataan and Sahara. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this romantic comedy a millionaire must somehow dissuade his daughter from marrying a money-grubbing social-climber. In desperation he offers to back the show of a beautiful starlet--provided she break his daughter's heart. Things don't go exactly as planned, but a lot of fun is had along the way. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

The 80-star cast of Forever and a Day would certainly not have been feasible had not most of the actors and production people turned over their salaries to British war relief -- a point driven home during the lengthy opening credits by an unseen narrator. The true star of the film is a stately old manor house in London, built in 1804 by a British admiral (C. Aubrey Smith) and blitzed in 1940 by one Adolf Hitler. Through the portals of this house pass a vast array of Britons, from high-born to low. The earliest scenes involve gay blade Lt. William Trimble (Ray Milland), wronged country-girl Susan (Anna Neagle), and wicked landowner Ambrose Pomfret (Claude Rains). We move on to a comic interlude involving dotty Mr. Simpson (Reginald Owen), eternally drunken butler Bellamy (Charles Laughton), and cockney plumbers Mr. Dabb (Cedric Hardwicke) and Wilkins (Buster Keaton). Maidservant Jenny (Ida Lupino) takes over the plot during the Boer War era, while the World War I sequence finds the house converted into a way-station for soldiers (including Robert Cummings) and anxious families (including Roland Young and Gladys Cooper). Finally we arrive in 1940, with American Gates Pomfret (Kent Smith) and lady-of-the-house Lesley Trimble (Ruth Warrick) surveying the bombed-out manor, and exulting over the fact that the portrait of the home's founder, Adm. Eustace Trimble (Smith), has remained intact -- symbolic proof of England's durability in its darkest hours. The huge cast includes Dame May Whitty, Edward Everett Horton, Wendy Barrie, Merle Oberon, Nigel Bruce, Richard Haydn, Donald Crisp, and a host of others -- some appearing in sizeable roles, others (like Arthur Treacher and Patric Knowles) willingly accepting one-scene bits, simply to participate in the undertaking. Seven directors and 21 writers were also swept up in the project. Forever and a Day was supposed to have been withdrawn from circulation after the war and its prints destroyed so that no one could profit from what was supposed to have been an act of industry charity. Happily for future generations, prints have survived and are now safely preserved. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Long, long, after her days of filmic glory in the 1930s and 1940s, skating star Sonja Henie made her last movie appearance in the British Hello, London. Henie plays herself, a rich-as-Croesus ice-show celebrity making a tour of Europe. Michael Wilding and Eunice Gayson contrive to keep Sonja in London long enough so that she'll feel obliged to perform at a charity function. Also appearing under their own names are such British showbiz luminaries as Ronnie Graham, Stanley Holloway and Dennis Price; in addition, Oliver Reed shows up in a surly bit part. In the spirit of Auld Lang Syne, Hello London was released in the US by Ms. Henie's longtime home studio, 20th Century-Fox. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this British drama, based on a popular play, a wealthy young Jew goes to a weekend house party and finds himself victimized by anti-Semitic guests. To add insult to injury, his wallet is then stolen. The fellow exposes the pilferer and threatens to take him to court until the other guests, terrified of scandal, offer to make him a member of their exclusive club. It seems, like a good offer until the other members express their racist reservations about his joining. The angered fellow decides to take it to court after all. The distraught thief is found guilty and subsequently suicides. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Shakespeare's tragic tale of the rise and fall of ambitious 12th-century Scottish warrior MacBeth has proven irresistible to filmmakers. Orson Welles was so anxious to transfer the play to the screen that he acceded to the demands of his parent studio, Republic pictures, that he shoot his version of MacBeth in 23 days on standing B-western sets. The result may not be the best-ever cinematic MacBeth, but it's certainly one of the most moody and atmospheric. Director Welles naturally casts star Welles in the title role, with his old radio colleague Jeanette Nolan as Lady MacBeth (her highly stylized performance has been unfairly castigated by purists, but we defy you to take your eyes off her). Dan O'Herlihy plays MacDuff, Roddy MacDowell is Malcolm, and Edgar Barrier the unfortunate Banquo. Erskine Sanford, William Alland and Gus Schilling, veterans all of Welles' masterpiece Citizen Kane, are also prominently featured, as is Welles' daughter Christopher (as one of MacDuff's murdered children). The severe cutting of the original text is compensated for by the addition of a new character, the "Holy Father" (played in Boris Karloff-style makeup by Alan Napier), whose potted Shakespearian speeches help to bridge several continuity gaps. Highlights include MacBeth's tremulous sighting of Banquo's ghost, an extended monologue in which only MacBeth's head is illuminated, and the synthesizer-like interpolations of the three ubiquitous witches. Welles had originally instructed his actors to deliver their dialogue in a thick Scots burr, but this proved so incomprehensible to preview audiences that Republic ordered the film to be completely redubbed. The original, fully restored version of MacBeth (as opposed to the 89-minute general release cut) was made available on videocassette in the mid-1980s. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Japanese detective Mr. Moto finds himself hip-deep in international espionage in this adventure tale. In Port Said, a pair of rogues -- French-born Fabian (Ricardo Cortez) and Englishman Norvel (George Sanders) -- are working for a nameless foreign government and devise a scheme to sabotage French ships passing through the Suez Canal. The criminals plan to leave false clues implicating British agents in hopes of sparking a war between the two nations. Mr. Moto (Peter Lorre), posing as a local shopkeeper after faking his own death to avoid suspicion, is assigned to stop them before any lives (or vessels) can be lost. John Carradine and Virginia Field also appear in this, the sixth of eight films that would feature Peter Lorre as Mr. Moto. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Anyone interested in making a low-budget movie ought to see Orson Welles' screen adaptation of William Shakespeare's Othello, a striking example of how much can be achieved with very little money. For years, stories about this singularly troubled movie circulated more widely than the film itself; Welles began shooting Othello without securing full financing, so he would gather his cast, assemble a crew, and shoot until his money ran out. He would then take an acting assignment to raise some cash, reassemble his cast, and start filming again until the latest batch of money was gone. For the sequence featuring the murder of Cassio, Welles (depending on who tells the story) either couldn't pay the bill for the costumes or they just didn't arrive in time, so he reset the scene in a Turkish bath with his players wrapped in towels borrowed from their hotel. This process went on for four years; by the time Welles was done, the film was on its third Desdemona, and the director, himself, had to dub several voices, since most of the dialogue was recorded after the fact. Remarkably, the finished film not only isn't a disaster, it's a triumph, that rare example of a movie based on a Shakespeare play that's as exciting to look at as it is to listen to. While Welles pared the Bard's story of jealousy, betrayal, and murder to the bone (this version clocks in at a mere 92 minutes), the film's striking compositions and energetic quick-cutting allow the camera to tell more of the story than almost any other Shakespeare adaptation. Repeat viewers will see that Welles picked many of his camera angles to obscure the fact that Othello's mighty army was merely a handful of extras, but the unexpected bonus is a lean, muscular look that's the perfect match for the film's brisk narrative style. The spare, but powerful, visuals feel like a product of Expressionism, not a low budget, and the images have atmosphere to spare. In addition, it's truly a pleasure to hear Welles' rich baritone wrap itself around Shakespeare's dialogue; his con brio performance as the noble Moor undone by jealousy and betrayal has the impact of a fine stage rendition without overplaying its hand. Michael MacLiammoir is his equal as the conniving (and lustful) Iago, and had this film been more widely seen, it could well have sparked the successful screen career he so obviously deserved. And Michael Laurence is fine in an often witty turn as Cassio (with a verbal assistance from Welles). Only Suzanne Cloutier as the virtuous but wronged Desdemona lacks the forceful presence of the rest of the cast (though given how much of the role was edited away, it may not be entirely her fault). Welles' daughter spearheaded a campaign to restore and re-release Othello in 1992; and while the digital sheen of the re-recorded score sometimes makes for an odd contrast to the occasionally scratchy recordings of the dialogue, the new edition of the film looks better than ever (both on the big screen and on video) and is highly recommended to anyone who loves good acting or good cinema. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Prudence and the Pill gained minor notoriety in 1968 as the first film comedy dealing with the new birth-control pill. David Niven substitutes aspirin for his wife's (Deborah Kerr) birth control medicine, hoping that she will become pregnant by her lover (Keith Mitchell) -- thereby freeing him to dally with his mistress (Irina Demich). Meanwhile, Niven's niece (Judy Geeson) does a switch job on her parents' pills, hoping that once her mom is pregnant, Geeson will be left alone to pursue her own love life. How did such prominent actors as Niven, Kerr, Robert Coote and Dame Edith Evans get mixed up in this high-gloss sleaze? Prudence and the Pill was not only unfunny, but was rendered anachronistic within a year of its release. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This delightful adaptation of Rafael Sabatini's swashbuckling novel stars Stewart Granger as Andre Moreau, an 18th-century French nobleman who is publicly humiliated by the Marquis de Maynes (Mel Ferrer). Challenged to a sword duel by the Marquis, Andre, who knows nothing about fencing, runs away, taking refuge with a theatrical troupe. He hides behind the personality of Scaramouche, a zany clown, and in his spare time romances his sexy leading lady Lenore (Eleanor Parker). Seeking revenge against de Maynes, Andre takes fencing lessons from swordmaster Doutreval (John Dehner). It isn't long before Andre has developed a reputation as the finest swordsman in France--which, as intended, arouses the ire of de Maynes. The two opponents face off in a deserted theater; the ensuing sword duel, running nearly seven minutes, is one of the best ever committed to film. Before he can plunge his blade into de Maynes, Andre discovers that he and the Marquis are half-brothers. The two men instantly forget their differences, and Andre's honor is fully restored. He ends up not in the arms of the sensuous Lenore but with a woman of his own class, Aline de Gavrillac (Janet Leigh)--while a gag ending reveals that Lenore has found herself a new and highly influential boyfriend. Lewis Stone, star of the 1923 silent version of Scaramouche, appears in the remake in the supporting role of Georges de Valmorin. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide