Walter Greenwood Movies
- 1950
British actor Robert Donat's one-and-only film directorial effort was Cure for Love. Adapted from a popular stage play by Walter Greenwood, the film stars Donat as Jack, an army sergeant who returns home on leave. Having falling in love, Jack hopes that his hometown girl friend has forgotten his impulsive marriage proposal, but she hasn't. The film's comic complications arise from the fact that Jack, a war hero of conspicuous courage, turns into a quivering mass of jelly whenever dealing with affairs of the heart. The thick Lancashire dialect used by practically everyone in Cure for Love may be a bit difficult to comprehend for American audiences. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Robert Donat, Renée Ashershon, (more)
- 1950
Filmed on location in a British industrial town, Chance of a Lifetime is a trenchantly amusing satire of labor-management relations. When a group of angry workers protest their wage and working conditions at a plough factory, they are permitted to take over the operation themselves. It isn't long before they realize that you can't run a business on idealism and goodwill. Wisely, no one in the film is depicted as a clear-cut hero or villain; "hateful" company boss Dickinson (Basil Radford) is just as human and likeable as the incensed workers. For reasons that now seem frivolous, Chance of a Lifetime was rejected by three major British distribution firms before it was picked up--at the behest of the government--by British Lion. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Basil Radford, Niall MacGinnis, (more)
- 1949
Released in the U.S. as Massacre Hill, the Australian Eureka Stockade was one of that country's biggest and most expensive postwar productions (it was nearly two years in the making!) Set during the 19th-century Australian gold rush, the film top-bills Chips Rafferty as boisterous prospector Peter Lallor. The gold bonanza is threatened by the arrival of claim-jumpers, usurpers and government bean-counters. At first, the prospectors intend to use random mob violence to ward off the invaders, but Lallor organizes the group into a strong, united front, as willing to mediate as to bust heads. Future star Peter Finch is eighth-billed as "Humffray." Eureka Stockade was remade years later as a TV miniseries. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Chips Rafferty, Gordon Jackson, (more)
Filmed in the North Country of England, this is a film noir set in the 1930s as a family struggles with poverty and unemployment. Depressing and realistic, it portrays the lengths to which a family can go in order to survive., though there is some humor interlaced to keep the bleakness under control. The beautiful, sepia-tinted photography enhances the portrayals, which are excellent. ~ Tana Hobart, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Deborah Kerr, Clifford Evans, (more)
- 1936
In this comedy, a wealthy but inept yachtsman (Buster Keaton) sails to Spain and goes looking for love in all the wrong places when a conniving seductress steals his heart. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Buster Keaton
- 1935
No Limit is purely and simply a vehicle for chipmunk-cheeked British comic George Formby. He plays a provincial auto mechanic who dreams of the Main Chance. He gets it when he decides to soup up an old dirt-bike and enter the vehicle in an upcoming championship race. The climactic road sequences were picturesquely filmed on the Isle of Man. Supporting George is Florence Desmond, one of the foremost celebrity impressionists of her time. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- George Formby, Florence Desmond, (more)
- 1935
Sydney Howard stars as village smithy Alf Scodger, who lives in mortal terror of his henpecking wife (Mabel Constanduros). Alf finds some relief from his domestic travails by looking after a newborn colt named George. Later on, our hero is engaged in a football match, where he is being badly trounced by the opposing team. Upon noticing that George is running away from his barn, Alf develops super strength and runs across the field to victory. Joe E. Brown had been doing this sort of thing in Hollywood long before Where's George first saw the light of day. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Sydney Howard, Mabel Constanduros, (more)
