Bert Batt Movies

John Hurt plays the British jockey Bob Champion in this true story of how Champion overcame cancer and the rigors of chemotherapy for an impressive personal and professional comeback. Just as Champion is in the middle of a vacation in Kentucky, he finds out he has cancer, and, like others before him, submits to the full, painful treatments of multiple injections and radiation, suffering as much or more from the cure as from the illness (these treatments are graphic). Gaunt and nauseous, Champion also endures realistic meetings with his doctors that hold forth no guarantee of a cure. His eventual remission leads to yet another grueling physical schedule to get him back into shape for the Grand National Steeplechase -- a 30-fence, well-publicized race that offers difficult hurdles for both the horses and their jockeys. If the 115-minutes running time of this film were cut in places, it would create a better, trim and slim, fast-paced telling of an even more focused tale. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

After wiping out half a village of native South Pacific tribesmen, Captain Bully Hayes (Tommy Lee Jones) is eventually captured, put in prison, and the rest of this swashbuckling action film is told in a series of flashbacks as he remembers the recent past. The lead-in scene may be off-putting, but its larger context is soon revealed. Hayes had just left a young couple, Nate (Michael O'Keefe) and Sophie (Jennie Seagrove) on an island so they could set up housekeeping and follow in the missionary footsteps of an uncle, when the villain Ben Pease (Max Phipps) shows up, kidnaps Sophie and leaves her husband for dead. Pease runs into a German naval officer who feels it would be advantageous to join up with him -- so when Captain Hayes saves Nate and, the two go looking for Sophie, their enemies are formidable villains indeed. Laced with humor and acting in the grand pirate-movie tradition, Nate and Hayes has enough adventure and style to stay entertaining for its 100-minute running time. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

What if General George S. Patton didn't die in a car accident, as history tells us, but at the hands of a paid assassin? That's the premise of Brass Target, another in a series of espionage thrillers, like The Eagle Has Landed, that speculates on the fates of real-life figures from World War II. Robert Vaughn, Ed Bishop, and Edward Herrmann are three Allied officers in occupied Germany who steal Nazi gold with the help of OSS officer Patrick McGoohan. Patton (George Kennedy) personally supervises the investigation of the theft, assisted by Major Joe DeLuca (John Cassavetes). Soon, however, a professional assassin (Max Von Sydow) is on their trail, Patton is killed on the orders of his own staff, and only DeLuca and his lover (Sophia Loren), who is also involved with the assassin, are left alive for the finale. ~ Don Kaye, All Movie Guide

A quote from Bertolt Brecht ends this bitter and angry war film by Sam Peckinpah: "Do not rejoice in his defeat, you men. For though the world has stood up and stopped the bastard, the bitch that bore him is in heat again." Peckinpah's intense and belligerently non-commercial work, (based on the book by Willi Heinrich), is a World War II tale told from the German perspective, following a platoon of German soldiers in the Russia of 1943, when the German Wehrmacht forces had been decimated and the Germans were retreating along the Russian front. James Coburn is Steiner, a German corporal and recipient of the Iron Cross who feels that he owes his loyalty to his family and fellow soldiers and not to Hitler and the German war machine. But when a new commander, Captain Stransky (Maximillian Schell), takes over the platoon, Steiner and Stransky come into immediate conflict. Stransky is a career soldier, the complete opposite of Steiner, and a man who pledges himself heart and soul to Hitler and the war. But he envies Steiner for having been awarded an Iron Cross and deeply desires one himself. The problem is Stransky is a complete coward and recognizes that the only way he can be awarded an Iron Cross would be to get the bitter Steiner on his side. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

The British "Confessions" film series was reminiscent of the "Carry On" series, albeit far, far dirtier. Many fans consider the first entry, Confessions of a Window Cleaner, to be the best of the batch. Based on a supposedly autobiographical novel by Timothy Lea, the film stars Robin Askwith as an apprentice window washer with a voyeuristic streak. Nearly everyone with whom Askwith comes in contact is an oversexed, underdressed female. Potato-shaped
Dandy Nichols plays the protagonist's mother. An anachronism even before it was released, Confessions of a Window Cleaner was nonetheless successful enough to inspire several sequels, none of which were released to American theatres. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Richard Matheson adapted the screenplay of The Legend of Hell House from his own novel. In the tradition of Shirley Jackson's Haunting of Hill House, four people with alleged extrasensory powers are called upon to spend a weekend in a supposedly haunted house, to either prove or disprove the presence of ghosts. Roddy McDowall has been in the house before, and refuses to treat the possibility of paranormal activity lightly; scientist Clive Revill believes that he can trace the happenings to rational explanations involving electric current; Pamela Franklin is convinced that, if spirits exists, she will be able to communicate with them; and Gayle Hunnicutt plays Revill's young wife, ripe for "possession." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

An institutionalized schizophrenic with a Messiah complex inherits the position of an English Earl in this cutting satire of British society, based on a play by Peter Barnes. The film's irreverent tone is established with the disturbingly hilarious death of the thirteenth Earl of Gurney during a bizarre attempt at auto-erotic asphyxiation. To the dismay of the earl's family, the title passes to his son Jack (Peter O'Toole), who has been locked away for eight years after claiming to be the second coming of Jesus Christ. Mad but harmless, Jack is released to assume his seat. However, his embrace of Christianity proves incompatible with a position of power in "normal" society, where peace and love are considered serious weaknesses, and a somewhat unhinged psychiatrist is called to help him adjust. Meanwhile, Jack's scheming uncle, Sir Charles (William Mervyn), works on developing a complex scheme to trick Jack out of his position. Loaded with idiosyncratic touches from eccentric camera angles to unexpected outbursts of song, the film creates an experience nearly as inspired and mad as O'Toole's brilliantly hilarious central performance. The film's devilish invention may at times seem overloaded, but most drawbacks are redeemed by the sharpness of the satire, particularly during the memorably disturbing finale. ~ Judd Blaise, All Movie Guide

This science fiction/fantasy is loosely based on a story by John Wyndham (best known for The Day of the Triffids). Scientist Collin (Tom Bell) stumbles across a parallel world in which President Kennedy is not shot, Vietnam hasn't happened, and Ottilie (Joan Collins), the woman he loves, dies unexpectedly of a heart condition. While he is happy enough with the rest of his new world, he can't stand by and let his true love die in his original world, and he determines to return to his own place and time to save her. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

This offbeat comedy begins when Doctor Burke (Leslie Phillips) chases the beautiful Ophelia (Angela Scoular) on board an ocean liner and is trapped. He masquerades as a female photographer to avoid detection, hoping to propose marriage to Ophelia. Burke tries to avoids the suspicion of pompous Captain Spratt (Robert Morley), who plays the stuffy skipper with his usual comic flair. James Robert Justice plays the captain's blue-blooded brother Sir Lancelott Spratt. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

The key image of this film occurs early on, as a hideous monster removes its face, only to reveal itself as Baron Frankenstein in a mask. Hammer's fifth installment in the series sees the transformation of doctor into monster complete. Peter Cushing's portrayal of the Baron here is all insanity and hatred, rather than the misunderstood (if unethical) genius of previous entries. Frankenstein transplants the brain of an insane doctor into Freddie Jones' body, creating a pathetic, misshapen beast, while using blackmail and rape to control the people around him. This was director Terence Fisher's favorite film, and his pacing and composition have rarely been better. Jones (the nasty showman in The Elephant Man) is great at communicating the disorientation and helpless agony of his condition, and while Cushing's character is more one-dimensional than usual, he does his normal excellent job as the Baron. Hammer's next installment was the silly Horror of Frankenstein before Fisher returned to end the series with Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide

Director Robert Aldrich took what he considered a hopelessly old-fashioned script by Lukas Heller and Nunnally Johnson and fashioned The Dirty Dozen into one of MGM's biggest moneymakers of the 1960s--and the sixth highest-grossing film in the studio's history. Lee Marvin plays Major Reisman, assigned to coordinate a suicide mission on a French chateau held by top Nazi officers. Since no "normal" GI can be expected to volunteer for this mission, Reisman is compelled to draw his personnel from a group of military prisoners serving life sentences. This "dirty dozen" includes a sex pervert (Telly Savalas), a psycho (John Cassavetes), a retarded killer (Donald Sutherland), and the equally malevolent Charles Bronson, Trini Lopez, Jim Brown, and Clint Walker. On the dim promise of receiving pardons if they survive, the criminals undergo a brutal training program, then are marched behind enemy lines dressed as Nazi soldiers, the better to overtake the chateau and kill everyone in it--including the innocent wives and mistresses of the German officers. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Not to be confused with David Hewitt's abominable Dr. Terror's Gallery of Horrors (AKA The Blood Suckers), this clever horror omnibus is one of the better early anthologies from Amicus Productions, thanks to Freddie Francis' stylish direction and a tongue-in-cheek approach from writer Milton Subotsky (who would later apply the same sardonic treatment to the EC Comics-based productions Tales from the Crypt and The Vault of Horror). The framing story is set in a train car, where five passengers have their fortunes told by the all-seeing Dr. Schreck (Peter Cushing), who refers to his ominous tarot deck as his "House of Horrors." Their respective stories involve all manner of occult happenings: a jazz musician's involvement with a voodoo curse; an estate haunted by a werewolf; a doctor (Donald Sutherland) who suspects that his wife has become a vampire; a cottage besieged by a monster kudzu vine; and the most entertaining segment, in which arrogant art critic Christopher Lee is avidly pursued by a snubbed artist's severed hand. In the end, it doesn't take a jaded horror buff to deduce Schreck's true identity or the ultimate destination of the train passengers, but it's a fun ride nonetheless. Not all of the stories work (the vampire story's "twist" ending is rather silly, the voodoo tale painfully dated), and the effects are generally sub-par, but Francis keeps the pace snappy throughout, giving the entire film a throwaway, Halloween spook-house feel. Hammer horror fans will certainly find this a keeper on the strength of Cushing and Lee's performances. ~ Cavett Binion, All Movie Guide