Avril Elgar Movies
- 1996
This is the first in a television series of British-made murder mysteries, adapted from Caroline Graham's novels about the polite and enigmatic Inspector Barnaby (John Nettles). Barnaby is married to the equally low-key Joyce (Jane Wymark), and they have an assertive daughter, Cully (Laura Howard). Barnaby's opposite is his acerbic partner, Troy (Daniel Casey). This pilot episode is set in the English county Midsomer. After the death of elderly Emily Simpson (Renee Asherson), her friend gets Barnaby to investigate, and the suspects include Michael Lacey (Jonathan Firth), curiously attached to his attractive sister Katherine (Emily Mortimer). The series premiered June 28, 1998 on A&E. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- John Nettles, Daniel Casey, (more)
Peter Davison stars as bespectacled, aristocratic private detective Albert Campion in this two-part adaptation of Margery Allingham's novel Police at the Funeral. This time, Campion finds himself in Cambridge, at the ancestral home of the dissolute Faraday family. Most of the family members are hanging around, waiting anxiously for wealthy, strong-willed Caroline Faraday (Marry Morris) to shuffle off her mortal coil. It is not Caroline who dies, however, but instead two of the greedy relatives: Uncle Andrew Seely (John Franklyn-Robbins) is found floating in a nearby river, and then Aunt Julia (Gillian Martell) is poisoned. With no shortage of suspects with motive and opportunity, Campion is somewhat relieved when yet another Faraday shows up, claiming to have witnessed Uncle Andrew's demise -- but can this relative, or anyone else for that matter, be trusted? In America, "Police at the Funeral" was telecast October 26 and November 2, 1989, as part of the PBS anthology Mystery! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Peter Davison, Brian Glover, (more)
- 1985
Agatha Christie's famous Belgian fussbudget detective Hercule Poirot (Peter Ustinov) is called in after a beautiful American actress (Faye Dunaway) claims that her husband, a prominent British lord, was murdered by a woman who looks just like her. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Peter Ustinov, Faye Dunaway, (more)
- 1983
Director David Jones adapted Harold Pinter's play of the same name -- with the help of Pinter himself -- to better fit this chronologically reversed drama of love and betrayal to the medium of film. The action starts with a scene in a London pub in which Jerry (Jeremy Irons) and Emma (Patricia Hodge) hold a subtly sardonic conversation on the nature of human failings as they meet for the first time after the end of their affair. The next scene, introduced by an intertitle, details how their romance fizzled and is followed by the next vignette, one year earlier, on how Jerry broke the news to Emma's husband Robert (Ben Kingsley) that he and Emma were lovers. And so it continues, through a total of nine scenes, back to the beginning of a complex, interpersonal drama. The film benefits considerably from Kingsley and Irons as the lead males, and the backwards story is in no way hard to follow. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jeremy Irons, Ben Kingsley, (more)
- 1978
- PG
In The Medusa Touch Brunel (Lino Ventura), a French detective on temporary assignment with Scotland Yard, investigates a mysterious series of disasters. The uncanny events begin happening shortly after writer John Morlar (Richard Burton) was hit over the head by an unknown intruder and rendered comatose. Slowly, Brunel begins to connect the strange things that are happening in the world with the deranged dreams of the comatose Morlar. He gets the final clue he needs from Morlar's reluctant psychiatrist, Dr. Zonfield (Lee Remick), who holds the key to Morlar's past. Once it is discovered that Morlar has the ability to think horrible thoughts and make them come true, Brunel and Zonfield must take off with dispatch to a London cathedral, where the Queen is scheduled to make an appearance -- but Morlar is thinking about the cathedral, and it is crumbling fast. Well-liked in Britain, this movie did not do well in the U.S. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Richard Burton, Lino Ventura, (more)
- 1970
A Lancashire lass refuses to eat the meal her mother has prepared for her. Her thick-eared father (James Mason) insists that she ingest every bite. This seemingly minor incident snowballs into big trouble for everyone concerned. Hard to believe, but this was based on a very popular stage play by Bill Naughton. The comic edge is blunted by the film's use of real Bolton locations, which tend to make the exaggerated passions and gesticulations of Mason and his family seem more pathetic than humorous. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- James Mason, Susan George, (more)
- 1964
A British charwoman and her colleagues strike it rich on the stock market when she discovers a wastebasket filled with market tips in this drama. Later they decide to use their money for good after they overhear a wicked financier planning to destroy the cleaning woman's neighborhood. Together they manage to save the neighborhood. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Peggy Mount, Harry H. Corbett, (more)
- 1959
Ruthless young working-class Englishman Laurence Harvey takes a job in a North Country village controlled by millionaire Donald Wolfit. Harvey resents Wolfit's class consciousness and vows to rise to the top by wooing the millionaire's daughter, Heather Sears. Meanwhile he has an affair with Frenchwoman Simone Signoret. Though he regards Signoret as a mere self-gratifying conquest, she takes their romance seriously enough to kill herself when Harvey impregnates Field. Only as he leaves the chapel after marrying the millionaire's daughter does Harvey that his "smart" marriage, coupled with the guarantee of a fabulous business career, has been attained at the cost of his soul. Based on the novel by John Braine, Room at the Top was one of the most successful films of the British angry-young-man school; it later spawned two sequels, as well as a weekly TV series. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Laurence Harvey, Simone Signoret, (more)
