Allan Cuthbertson Movies

Monty Python's Michael Palin was the guiding force behind East of Ipswich. Set in mid-1950s Britain, the plot concerns a group of teenagers on holiday with their uptight parents. Heeding the call of the galloping hormones, our young heroes and heroines become involved in all sorts of brief amours. The cast includes Edward Rawle-Hicks, John Wagland, Oona Kirsch. Made for British television in 1986, East of Ipswich debuted in America over the A&E cable network in 1988. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Set in 1940, the fourth episode of the seven-part, eighteen-hour miniseries The Winds of War finds American troubleshooter Cmdr. "Pug" Henry (Robert Mitchum) heading to England on a secret mission for President Roosevelt. Here he is reunited with his secret love, Pamela Tudsbury (Victoria Tennant) and later has a tense showdown with Winston Churchill (Howard Lang) over policy matters. Barely escaping the Nazi bombs during the first London blitz (a spectacular sequence), Henry survives to fly in a retaliatory raid over Germany--while both the women in his life (the other being his long-suffering wife Rhoda [Polly Bergen]) wait and worry. The Winds of War was adapted by Herman Wouk from his own novel. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Someone is sexually assaulting and (usually) killing the students of a girls' school. There are entirely too many suspects to make the job of the Scotland Yard detective (Frank Finlay) an easy one. The girls' persistent use of the shortcut through the woods in which the crimes occur has only compounded the problem. Although one of the victims has survived the attack, shock has erased her memory of the event, and the detective's investigations are perforce guided by the vague impressions of the school's art mistress (Suzy Kendall), who witnessed something. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

Steed and Tara investigate the murder of an agent from Cypher HQ. Their progress is stunted by the other Cypher personnel, who insist that they've never seen the dead man. Even so, someone is leaking secrets to the enemy, and the trail of clues leads to an offbeat window-cleaning service. Written by Tony Williamson, "Super Secret Cypher Snatch" made its debut on American television on September 30, 1968; it showed up in England on October 9 of that same year. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

British musical star Tommy Steele had starred in Half a Sixpence in London and on Broadway, thus he was first choice for this garish film version. Based on the H.G. Wells story Kipps (previously filmed in 1941 with Michael Redgrave), Half a Sixpence tells the tale of a humble London drapery clerk (Steele) who inherits a fortune. He briefly forgets his old mates and his faithful girl friend (Julia Foster), but soon discovers that High Society isn't his cup of tea. Filmed during the "monster musical" cycle fostered by The Sound of Music, Half a Sixpence isn't really suited for the spectacular approach dictated by co-producer Charles H. Schneer. Fortunately, the guiding directorial hand is the film's other producer: George Sidney, a veteran of MGM's Arthur Freed unit, who knew how to successfully weld music with story. Thanks to Sidney and star Steele, Half a Sixpence never gets too out of hand, though we'd argue with some of the eyestrain-inducing color choices in the bigger numbers. The film might have done better at the box office had the score yielded a few hit songs. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Based on an Edgar Wallace mystery, this puzzler centers on the attempts of a crook who goes to great lengths to steal another's fortune. It begins as an unjustly incarcerated heiress finishes a prison sentence. The crook wants to steal her father's money and so tries to convince the ailing tycoon that his own lover is really the rich man's daughter; the old fellow is not so easily gulled. In desperation, the crook kidnaps the real heiress in an attempt to force her to marry him. Fortunately for her, a Scotland Yard detective shows up to foil his plans. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In this English comedy, the trouble begins when a bumbling young man embarrasses his grandfather, the British Prime Minister, by selling newspapers on a street corner. Soon the fellow finds himself given a reporter's job and sent to cover a story in a tiny coastal village. There he soon finds himself entangled in a massive scandal. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In this British crime drama a small-town detective gets tired of Scotland Yard's constant meddling and takes a leave-of-absence from his regular duties to start his own detective agency. It is there that he solves the puzzling jewelry store heist that caused the death of the owner's wife who worked there. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

The Informers of the title are a loose grouping of underworld types, upon whom Scotland Yard inspector Nigel Patrick depends for crucial information. Patrick gets in trouble with his superiors when he refuses to reveal the identity of his informants. He gets into even more trouble, when, while investigating the murder of one of his snitches, Patrick is framed on a corruption rap by trollop Margaret Whiting. The Informers was based on Death of a Snout, a novel by Douglas Warner. It was also released under the titles Underworld Informers and The Snout. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Life at the Top is a belated sequel to Room at the Top, John Blaine's "angry young man" British novel that was made into a film in 1959. Laurence Harvey is back as Joe Lampton, the man-on-the-rise protagonist who in Room had given up true love in favor of a career-boosting (and antiseptic) marriage to his boss' daughter. Ten years have passed: Lampton is a business success, but utterly bored by his dead-end marital setup. His wife feels the same, and it isn't long before Mr. and Mrs. Lampton begin conducting separate affairs. While the original Room was a fairly accurate evocation of its era, Life at the Top works too hard and too noisily to be "mod," in reflection of the ethereal Swinging London era. The inclusion of flashbacks from Room at the Top, in which Harvey is seen making love to Simone Signoret, only serves to emphasize the shortcomings of the sequel. The best moments in the later version can be found in the early establishing scenes set in Yorkshire. Life at the Top was followed by a TV series called Man at the Top, starring Kenneth Haigh as Lampton, which in turn was followed by a theatrical feature of the same name. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this confused parody, a lovely South Seas island girl travels to England following her father's death and becomes the ward of her cousin. The women is exotically beautiful and men turn into fools whenever she passes by. But the innocent lass has no idea that she is so lovely and seductive. At one point she poses nude for an artist and nearly starts a riot amongst the normally staid upper-crust gentlemen. In the end, the beautiful native girl marries the son of her kindly cousin who eventually becomes the head of his father's school. Meanwhile his father moves to the girl's native island. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

From Richard Lester, the director of 1980's Superman II and the 1964 A Hard Day's Night, comes this less-successful sequel to the The Mouse that Roared. The Prime Minister of the Duchy of Grand Fenwick (Ron Moody) is in a bind because he has no money to renovate his castle and there is a serious problem with his small country's main export, wine. The stuff tends to explode. So the Prime Minister asks the U.S. for aid to develop space research, knowing full well they are not going to give him money to remodel his castle. Once the U.S. grants a cool million to the country, Russia adds in a used rocket, and things start popping. Like it or not, the Duchy is suddenly involved in space research and contributing to the madness is the discovery that its unique wine makes good rocket fuel. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide