Peter Cushing Movies

Back at Hal Roach Studios for the first time since 1938's Block-Heads, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy star in the uneven but generally rewarding A Chump at Oxford. The boys are cast as street-sweepers who hope to better their lot in life by attending night school. Fate intervenes when Stan and Ollie are instrumental in the capture of a bank robber, whereupon they are rewarded by the bank's grateful president (Forbes Murray) with an all-expenses-paid education at England's Oxford University. Arriving on the venerable old campus dressed in Eton jackets, our heroes are pounced upon by a group of prankish students and subjected to all manner of practical jokes. After spending most of the night trying to escape from a maze, Stan and Ollie are installed in their "new quarters"-which turns out to be the bedroom of the Dean (Wilfred Lucas). This sort of collegiate nonsense comes to an end when it is discovered that simple-minded Stan is actually Lord Paddington, the brainiest student and finest athlete that ever attended Oxford. According to Meredith the valet (Forrester Harvey), His Lordship wandered away from the university upon being rendered an amnesiac by a blow on the head. An accidental tap on the noggin restores Stan to his aristocratic Lord Paddington status, whereupon he beats up a crowd of bullying students and deposits them one by one in a nearby ditch. Though Ollie is aghast to learn that Stan-er, His Lordship-has no recollection of their previous friendship, he decides to stay on at Oxford as Paddington's manservant. After having been humiliated once too often by his vain and condescending employer, Ollie angrily packs his bags and prepares to head for home, when yet another bop on His Lordship's skull causes him to revert to lovable, bumbling old Stan again. Originally intended as a four-reeler (running approximately 45 minutes), A Chump at Oxford was completed in the spring of 1939, whereupon Laurel and Hardy were loaned out to producer Boris Morros to star in The Flying Deuces. When shooting was finished on the latter film, the team was summoned back to Roach to film a 2-reel "prologue" for Oxford, bringing the film's running time up to 63 minutes. The new footage consisted of a reworking of the boys' 1928 comedy From Soup to Nuts, with temporary servants Stan and Ollie unintentionally wrecking a dinner party held by Mr. and Mrs. Vandevere (played by veteran L&H supporting players James Finlayson and Anita Garvin). The patchwork stucture of A Chump at Oxford works against its overall effectiveness, but the scenes in which Stan Laurel undergoes a complete change of character as the genius-level Lord Paddington more than make up for the film's earlier shortcomings. One of the students (the tall, mustachioed one) is played by Peter Cushing, in his second Hollywood film appearance. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The short life and quick death of Alexander the Great is recounted in this literate historical epic. Decked out in a blonde wig, Richard Burton stars as the Grecian warrior who conquered the known world while only in his twenties, then wept because there were no more worlds left to conquer. While the film's 141 minutes are occasionally bogged down by near-existential dialogue sequences (What doth it profit a man etc. etc.), the battle sequences are among the best and most accurate ever filmed. Fredric March and Danielle Darieux costar as Alexander's parents Philip of Macedonia and Olympius, Claire Bloom does what she can with the nothing role of Alexander's wife Barsine, and Michael Hordern and Harry Andrews are cast as Demosthenes and Darrius, respectively. Lensed in Spain and Italy, Alexander the Great conquered no new worlds at the box-office, perhaps because Richard Burton, brilliant though he was, hadn't yet attained "saleability". ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A valiant prince battles an evil sorcerer to rescue his true love in this colorful fantasy, which features high adventure and plenty of special effects. The hero must overcome a number of dangers, along the way receiving help from a beautiful street urchin and a magical rose. ~ Judd Blaise, All Movie Guide

This is the second sci-fi adventure based on a novel by Edgar Rice Burroughs, the first being 1975's The Land That Time Forgot. At The Earth's Core stars Doug McClure as explorer David Innes and Peter Cushing as professor Abner Perry, whose experimental "iron core" drill goes out of control and leads them to the underground kingdom of Pellucidar, where the Wing People are ruled by the monstrous, flying Mahars. With the help of the professor, Innes leads the Wing People in revolt against their evil masters. Monsters and mayhem abound in what is essentially a well-produced, if somewhat juvenile, knockoff of The Time Machine. ~ Don Kaye, All Movie Guide

Based on the characters created by popular fantasy author Capt. W. E. Johns, Biggles: Adventures in Time casts Neil Dickson in the title role. Biggles is a World War I British flying ace with a gift for time travel. Sucked into Biggles' adventures is a 1980s fast-food entrepreneur, played by Alex Hyde-White. Once he's figured out what's what, Hyde-White vows to help Biggles stay alive. Also along for the ride is Hyde-White's girlfriend Fiona Hutchinson. The beauty part of Biggles: Adventures in Time is that the audience is just as disoriented and confused as Hyde-White; as a result, the film never lowers itself to the Pat and Predictable. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Mr. Shatter (Stuart Whitman) is an international assassin, hired to bump off a top government official. He is compelled to fend off a host of Oriental kung-fu and karate experts. Peter Cushing and Anton Diffring make brief appearances. The film -- shot simultaneously with Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires, which also co-starred Peter Cushing -- was something of an experiment for the ailing Hammer studios in the mid-'70s, shortly before they expired, attempting to mix an Oriental style with their own distinctly British brand of filmmaking. In most markets, Call Him Mr. Shatter was released simply as Shatter. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Captain Gort (Bernard Lee) is an airline pilot who must answer to a Court of Inquiry after the crash of a Phoenix jet. Although he passes a battery of tests, pilot error is the determined cause of the accident. Sir Hobbes (George Sanders) is the Queen's council whose relentless prosecution helps blame Gort. When a second crash occurs, Gort is defended by Captain Judd (Peter Cushing), who is convinced that mechanical malfunctions, not the pilot, caused both crashes. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

The final installment in Hammer Studios' Dracula series is also the least interesting of the lot. A fairly direct follow-up to Dracula A.D. 1972, this sequel finds the Count (Christopher Lee) developing a potent strain of bubonic plague which he and his devil-worshipping disciples plan to release from 1970's London to wipe out nearly all life on earth. His efforts are challenged once again by the dedicated Dr. Van Helsing (Peter Cushing), leading to a rather uninvolving climax. Despite the always-welcome presence of Lee and Cushing, this installment plays too flagrantly with the time-honored Hammer Gothic formula, giving Dracula actual dialogue and surrounding the leads with a dull, amateurish supporting cast -- with the possible exception of Joanna Lumley (later of BBC-TV's Absolutely Fabulous). This also marked Lee's final performance as the Count and signaled the beginning of the end for Hammer's horror heyday. Also known as Satanic Rites of Dracula and Dracula is Dead and Well and Living in London. ~ Cavett Binion, All Movie Guide

Toward the end of 1918, soldiers in the Austrian army were well aware that things were not going well. In this story, an army cadet arrives to serve in Belgrade and receives orders to serve in a regiment which is accompanying a Hanoverian princess on her return to Vienna. While in Belgrade, the young man and the princess are able to meet, and they fall in love. The cadet knows that it is foolish to expect the Slavs, who have been drafted into the army, to fight very hard for an empire they would happily see dissolved, but his superior officers are oblivious to this simple fact, and as a consequence, they suffer serious military reverses. Inspired by their ancient code of military honor, the regiment's officers fight and die to preserve the regiment's battleflag, which comes into the keeping of the cadet. He is entrusted with the task of returning it to the Hapsburg royal family. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

This sequel to the stylish 1971 melodrama The Abominable Dr. Phibes once more stars Vincent Price in the title role. Long believed dead, Phibes arises from a state of suspended animation, in search of the means to bring his deceased wife back to the land of the living. Phibes also wears a rubber mask to disguise his own horribly disfigured countenance. (The giveaway: he never moves his mouth when speaking, and eats by applying his fork to his neck!) With the aid of the enigmatic, never-speaking Vulnavia (Valli Kemp), Phibes follows an Egyptian expedition, seeking out an ancient elixir of life and killing everyone who gets in his way. In the original film, all of the doctor's grisly but ingenious murders were motivated, and all were linked by a Seven Deadly Plagues throughline. In the sequel, Phibes kills whenever he feels like it, and utilizes an impressive array of death-dealing contraptions (one victim literally has his skin blown off his body by a high-powered electric fan). This marks one of the only films ever made to wrap with Vincent Price singing "Somewhere, Over the Rainbow." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Hammer Studios attempted to inject new blood into their Dracula series by setting their next installment in ultra-mod '70s London, where the Count is revived after 100 years by a gang of devil-worshipping swingers led by the not-so-cleverly-named Johnny Alucard (Christopher Neame), and later joined by Jessica (Stephanie Beacham), granddaughter of the legendary vampire hunter Dr. Van Helsing (Peter Cushing, returning to the role after more than a decade). After the group manages to resurrect the Count, he sets about the task of destroying the house of Van Helsing once and forever, leading to a battle in a de-sanctified cathedral. Despite some well-staged scenes, a thrilling prologue (involving a tense battle between Lee and Cushing aboard a runaway coach) and the presence of the stunning Caroline Munro, this is definitely one of the weaker entries in the series, and the script gives Lee very little to do with the hissing, red-eyed villain. Lee may have been bored with reprising the role altogether, as he would only return for one more sequel, The Satanic Rites of Dracula. ~ Cavett Binion, All Movie Guide

Hammer Studios followed up Evil of Frankenstein with this entertaining sequel, again starring Peter Cushing as the quintessential mad scientist obsessed with the reanimation of dead bodies and the creation of superhuman creatures. His latest project involves transferring the mind of a wrongly-executed man into the body of his lover (former Playboy centerfold Susan Denberg), whose own suicide left her horribly disfigured. After restoring her beauty, the Doctor performs the mind-transference, which comes off without a hitch... until the lust for revenge against his executioners begins to surface. He/she then pursues this vendetta by seducing and murdering those who wronged him. Hammer stalwart Terence Fisher directs this quirky entry with his usual flair -- aided considerably by a decent budget -- and spices things up with a fair share of titillation (courtesy of Ms. Denberg). ~ Cavett Binion, All Movie Guide