Rudolph Cartier Movies

Released in Britain in 1944, Man from Morocco made it to American shores the following year. Anton Walbrook plays the title character, the head of an intrepid band of WW2 freedom fighters. The film's heavy is a Nazi-sympathizing French officer of unbounded cruelty. Margaretta Scott portrays Manuela, a patriotic Frenchwoman who poses as a Red Cross nurse to insinuate herself into the villain's lair. In true "Judith of Bethulia" fashion, Manuela romances the fiend, thereby affording her the opportunity to murder him and thus save the lives of 2000 French hostages. It's a good thing that Man From Morocco was a British film; otherwise, the Hollywood production code would have obliged Manuela to be punished for her murder, justified or no. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

For reasons unknown, Storm in Jamaica has been overlooked by many British film historians. It certainly wasn't treated thus by local television programmers: if TV Guide is any indication, this British drama is a Late Late Show audience favorite. The husband-wife team of Bill Travers and Virginia McKenna star, with Eileen Barrie in support. Travers plays a handsome, progressive young schoolteacher assigned to a post in Jamaica. The film details his efforts to help troubled student Barrie. Mostly, however, the story concerns Travers' various romantic adventures with stewardess McKenna and with his headmaster's wife, Yvonne Mitchell. The latter's jealous, obsessive nature leads to tragedy, with innocent young Barrie as the victim. Originally titled Passionate Summer, Storm in Jamaica was also released as Storm Over Jamaica. The film was based on The Shadow and the Peak, a novel by Richard Mason. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

The original 1958 BBC television production of the last of Nigel Kneale's classic Quatermass scripts -- which is best known in association with the 1967 Hammer Films adaptation by Roy Ward Baker -- runs circles around the feature-film version. As with the other Quatermass serials, Kneale's original script goes a lot deeper into meanings, motivations, and consequences of the events depicted, as well as characterization and plot developments. That's understandable, as the producers had six episodes running over 30 minutes each in which to work, instead of the 98-minute running time of the movie. The result is a storyline in which the mystery is developed as much as the horror and science-fiction elements, and is worthy of Sherlock Holmes, one might add. An excavation for a London subway turns up mysterious skeletons, that are almost -- but not quite -- human. An investigation by Dr. Roney (Cec Linder), a paleontologist, reveals that these creatures had abnormally large brain cavities, much larger than was the norm for any known prehistoric proto-human species. There are other specimens as well, large insect-like creatures, and all were clustered around what seems to be a spacecraft buried at the same time as these skeletons, possibly as long as five million years. The unearthing of the space vehicle brings into the case England's greatest rocket expert, Professor Benard Quatermass (Andre Morell), who comes to believe from the evidence that the vehicle is from Mars, as were the insect-like beings. Even as Quatermass and Roney continue to investigate, they run up against resistance from government officials eager to avoid a panic, and from Quatermass' new superior, Colonel Breen (Anthony Bushell), a weapons expert who doesn't trust intellectuals or idealistic scientists, and wants to believe that the spaceship was part of a World War II Nazi hoax intended to raise hysteria among the public. Meanwhile, hysteria seems called for, as strange and potentially deadly manifestations of telekinetic power and other paranormal phenomenon start to overtake workers at the site of the excavation. Quatermass and Roney are convinced that some potentially catastrophic forces are being tampered with, but no one in the government will listen to them until it is too late, and all hell, literally, starts to break loose. ~ Bruce Eder, Rovi

This televised adaptation of Leo Tolstoy's classic novel Anna Karenina originally aired on the BBC 1961. It stars a young Sean Connery as Count Alexis Vronsky and in the title role, then 30-year-old Claire Bloom (Limelight). The familiar story finds Anna, the wife of Russian diplomat Alexis Karenin, embarking on a mission of mercy to help her brother reconcile with his wife following an extramarital affair. In the process, she meets Vronsky and falls helplessly in love with him; the two begin an affair of their own. Karenin learns of the infidelity and judiciously offers to forgive Anna, but she refuses to end the relationship with Vronsky - with heartbreaking consequences. Donald Bull wrote the adaptation. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi

Nigel Kneale's Quatermass TV series spawned a brief film series produced over an eleven-year period; 1967's Quatermass and the Pit, released in the US as Five Million Years to Earth, was the third and (until 1979's Quatermass Conclusion) last of the features. As with previous chapters in the Kneale saga, the film begins with a baffling scientific discovery. This time it's an alien ship, alive after 5,000,000 years, discovered during the excavation of a new subway line. The craft is able to cause psychic disturbances in individuals genetically connected to the machine; it also prompts them to see dead Martians as ghostly entitites nearby. In time, conclusions drawn from these events lead scientists to shocking conclusions about the origins of the human race.
~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

A made-for-TV production of one of Oscar Wilde's peerless stage comedies, this frothy satire concerns Lord Arthur Goring and his close friend Sir Robert Chiltern. Arthur is a wealthy but unambitious man who is proudly lazy and uses his not inconsiderable knowledge and wit for no profitable purpose, other than verbally sparring with Mabel Chiltern, Sir Robert's sister and a woman of no small beauty and charm. Mabel is hardly the only woman interested in Arthur, but despite the pleas of his father, Arthur has little interest in settling down with one woman. In striking contrast, Robert is a member of Parliament who is well-known for his firmly held principles and his devotion to his loving wife, Lady Gertrude. When a proposal is placed before Parliament to build a British canal through Argentina, Robert makes it clear he regards the project as a huge mistake and will speak out against it. However, one Laura Cheveley soon arrives on the scene, telling Robert it is in his best interest to support the canal plan -- and if he does not, Laura has incriminating information that could ruin his career in politics. An Ideal Husband stars Keith Michell, Jeremy Brett, Susan Hampshire, and Margaret Leighton. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi