Stringer Davis Movies

Murder Most Foul represented Margaret Rutherford's third appearance as Agatha Christie's spinsterish sleuth Miss Marple. The film opens with Marple serving on a murder-trial jury. She forces a mistrial because she considers the accused to be innocent; to prove her theory, she traces the trail of evidence to a down-at-the-heels repertory company run by Ron Moody. She auditions for the troupe with a stirring rendition of "The Shooting of Dan McGrew," securing the job by flashing a roll of bills in front of the covetous Moody. While snooping about backstage, Miss Marple discovers both murderer and motive-and, as is customary in the "Marple" films, she nearly loses her own life in the process. Based on the Agatha Christie novel Mrs. McGinty's Dead, Murder Most Foul co-stars Margaret Rutherford's real-life husband Stringer Davis as Marple's friend and confidante Mr. Stringer. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Terrence Rattigan, the playwright who brought us the multicharactered, multistoried Separate Tables, again offers us an episodic cross-section of humanity in The V.I.P.'s. When a heavy London fog paralyzes all air traffic, the lives of several people are profoundly affected. As indicated by the title, most of the characters in this portmanteau film are of the social and/or financial elite. Elizabeth Taylor wishes to leave her enormously wealthy husband Richard Burton in favor of playboy Louis Jourdan. Peripatetic European film producer Orson Welles is hoping to escape London with his newest protegee Elsa Martinelli in order to avoid paying his income tax. Australian businessman Rod Taylor, accompanied by his devoted (and adoring) secretary Maggie Smith, is anxious to head to New York to stave off a hostile takeover of his firm. And impoverished aristocrat Margaret Rutherford (who won an Oscar for her performance) would rather not go to Florida to accept a job as a social arbiter, but the wolf must be kept from the door. Before the fog disperses, you can be sure that at least one of the many plotlines will intersect with another. David Frost, in a tiny part as a reporter, was fond of recalling in later years that, while the major stars of The VIPS were introduced in the opening titles with animated limousines, he was consigned a tiny Volkswagen; alas, no such cartoon joke appears in the film, though on occasion the actors-particularly Mr. Welles-behave as though they were cartoons. Mercilessly skewered by the critics, The VIPS was a winner at the box-office, due in great part to the Cleopatra-inspired publicity concerning the top-billed Liz Taylor and Dick Burton. ~ Hal Erickson, 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

Set in the 1950s in Britain, this award-winning social comedy by director and co-writer John Boulting features Ian Carmichael as the inept Stanley Windrush, a hopeless twit with -- we are to believe -- an Oxford degree. Unlike others in his social circle, Stanley wants to work. When he tries out for jobs in industry with the full expectation of working his way into a management position, he sets off disasters and alienates his interviewers. So his uncle gives him a job in his munitions factory, knowing what an idiot he is, and relying on him to eventually cause a strike (the uncle needs this for his own reasons). Fred Kite (Peter Sellers in a performance that would launch him as an international star) takes Stanley under his wing yet that does not exactly turn out as expected either. Stanley screws up by accidentally being too efficient, and the entire British work force is affected. If one can accept a portrayal of factory workers as shiftless men unwilling to work, and managers as good 'ole boys whose jobs are gained only by networking, then this film will be all the more entertaining. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

The Smallest Show on Earth is a gentle, frequently uproarious takeoff of Britain's neighborhood-cinema industry. Real-life husband and wife Bill Travers and Virginia McKenna star as Matt and Jean Spencer, a middle-class couple who inherit a decrepit movie house in a tiny railroad whistle stop. They also inherit the theater's ancient, doddering employees: bibulous ticket-taker Percy Quill (Peter Sellers), former silent-movie accompanist Mrs. Fazackalee (Margaret Rutherford) and doorman/janitor old Tom (Bernard Miles). Making the best of things, the Spencers set up shop going through the usual travails of small-time cinema owners: substandard projection and sound reproduction, a dismal selection of films (all they can afford is American B-Westerns), and sundry mishaps with the audience. Just when they're about to write off the theater as a loss, crafty old Tom comes up with an underhanded but effective method to allow the Spencers to make a huge profit on their shaky enterprise. Though chock full of entertaining vignettes, the best and most poignant scene in The Smallest Show on Earth finds the three elderly employees tearfully reveling in a nostalgic screening of the 1924 silent film Comin' Thro' the Rye. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Mad About Men is the delightful sequel to the saucy British comedy-fantasy Miranda. Glynis Johns returns in the dual role of amorous mermaid Miranda and her somewhat more reserved "human" lookalike Caroline. Having inherited a house in Cornwall, Caroline goes on an extended holiday, whereupon Miranda takes her place as mistress of the estate. The dialogue is rather silly and obvious, but there's much fun to be had as Miranda casts out her net for every eligible male in the vicinity. Though not a big hit in the US, Mad About Men became a "Late Show" mainstay on TV, especially when color television came into common usage. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Innocents in Paris is a series of anecdotes bundled together by geography. First we see the efforts by British diplomat Alastair Sim to loosen up Soviet-agent Peter Illing long enough to forge an economic plan between Russia and England. Then we watch as dotty artist Margaret Rutherford purchases a copy of the Mona Lisa. Next we see British officer Jimmy Edwards go off on a toot in a Parisian bistro. The next vignette involves impressionable Claire Bloom, who is swept off her feet by a local rake (the human variety, not the garden implement). And so it goes for 102 minutes in the British version of Innocents in Paris, and 93 minutes in the American print. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Most of this hectic British comedy takes place in an ancient Scottish castle. The British National Coal Board, following a real-life policy established in the 1940s, wants to annex the castle as a group home for the local miners and their families. Wealthy, much-married American Mrs. Clodfelter Dunne (Barbara Kelly) wants to claim the castle--and its owner, the Earl of Locharne (David Tomlinson)--for herself. Meanwhile, eccentric boarder Miss Nicholson (Margaret Rutherford) is possessed with the notion that the Earl is actually the rightful King of Scotland. The film's deus-ex-machina is a beautiful ghost, played by Patricia Dainton. With all this going on, it is easy to ignore the antiseptic romantic subplot involving Tomlinson and Helen Cherry. Castles in the Air was based on the popular stage play by Alan Melville. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A battle of the sexes begins to rage in an isolated private school in this charming British comedy. Just outside of London during World War II, Axis bombing forces the evacuation of a private all-girls school, St. Swithins. Thanks to a bureaucratic mix-up, the girls of St. Swithins and their Headmistress Muriel Whitchurch (Margaret Rutherford) are to be billeted at the nearby Nutborne Boys School. While the students learn to make do with the crowded conditions, Nutborne headmaster Wetherby Pond (Alistair Sim) is less than pleased with the situation, especially after he and Whitchurch begin butting heads over which of them is truly in charge. The Happiest Days Of Your Life was based on a popular stage comedy by playwright John Dighton. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide