Raymond Francis Movies

The first installment of the British mystery series based on the books by Agatha Christie, Miss Marple: The Body in the Library was first aired in 1984. In the village of St. Mary Mead, Miss Jane Marple (Joan Hickson) investigates the home of Colonel Arthur (Moray Watson) and Mrs. Dolly Bantry (Gwen Watford). The couple was shocked to discover the body of a dead girl wearing makeup and an evening gown in the library of their country manor, Gossington Hall. As soon as the police can identify her, another mysterious dead body is discovered. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, Rovi

James Herriot wrote several well-loved books about his experiences as a small-town veterinarian in the Yorkshire countryside of Britain in the 1930s. One of them gave its title to the film All Creatures Great and Small. That family movie was so successful that this movie It Shouldn't Happen to a Vet, or All Things Bright and Beautiful was made. All the stories told explore the richness of the interactions between humans and animals and the quirky wisdom which a young country veterinarian develops under the wise and eccentric tutelage of his senior in practice, Siegfried Farnon. These stories later inspired a popular BBC television series. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

Norman Wisdom, Britain's much-funnier answer to Jerry Lewis, stars in Just My Luck. Wisdom plays a humble jewelry-store clerk who begins playing the horses, the better to raise enough money to buy a fancy gift for girlfriend Anne (Jill Dixon). Much to his surprise, Wisdom wins a fortune at the track: collecting the money, however, may not be as simple as he thinks. The funniest scene finds our hapless hero being trundled off to the hospital for a wholly unecessary operation; also good for laughs is a movie-house routine dominated by Carry On regular Joan Sims. Curiously, Just My Luck was bypassed by American distributors in favor of lesser Norman Wisdom vehicles. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

In this espionage drama, Soviet spies use a Cornish salmon poacher to ferry them across the English Channel. When the man realizes who they are, he maroons them. He becomes a hero. Then he finds himself up on poaching charges. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

This fourth film version of A.E.W. Mason's adventure yarn The Four Feathers relies heavily on stock footage from the more famous 1939 adaptation (both were produced by Alexander Korda and codirected by Korda's brother Zoltan). Anthony Steel stars as 19th cntury British officer Harry Faversham, who begs off from serving with Kitchener's forces in the Sudan, preferring to stay in London with fiancee Mary Burroughs (Mary Ure). Almost immediately, Faversham receives the traditional "white feather" of cowardice from his three closest friends--and then is handed a fourth feather by Mary. Determined to prove that he is not a coward, Faversham heads off to the Sudan to fight shoulder-to-shoulder with his comrades. He also intends to return those dreaded feather to his three former friends, even resorting to native disguise at one point to do so. Laurence Harvey essays the old Ralph Richardson role of John Durrance, who is blinded by the sun and thus unaware of Faversham's true identity, while James Robertson Justice fills the shoes of Four Feathers' crusty C. Aubrey Smith ("War was war in my day, sir!") ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Mr. Denning (John Mills) is bedeviled by a blackmailer with whom his daughter Liz (Eileen Moore) has fallen in love. In a sudden fit of rage, Denning murders the scoundrel. Panicking, he drives northward with the corpse in the back seat, dumps the body in a lonely rural area, and carefully eliminates all traces of his involvement in the crime. To deflect the authorities, Denning places a highly distinctive ring on the body's finger, so that the dead man will be misidentified. A perfect crime? Well, it seems that Denning's new prospective son-in-law (Sam Wanamaker) is an American attorney with a very inquiring mind. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi