William Hutt Movies

A classically trained stage actor who spend the majority of his career in the theater, Canadian William Hutt gained recognition as one of the founding members of the famous Stratford Festival. As a participant in that annual event, Hutt immersed himself in an estimated 130 productions, in both dramatic and directorial capacities. Hutt also performed occasionally on Broadway, as in the 1964 production of Edward Albee's Tiny Alice.

Born in Toronto in 1920, Hutt later served in World War II. He returned home and enrolled in the University of Toronto, then graduated from Trinity, one of its colleges, in 1949. Hutt initially launched his dramatic career by working summer stock and signing on as an associate director for the Canadian Repertory Theatre.

Though the importance and number of Hutt's theatrical roles far outweigh his cinematic contributions, he did appear onscreen from time to time, from the late '50s up through the time of his death in 2007 -- often with lengthy periods of time in between roles. His early parts were thinly disguised cinematic renderings of stage plays, such as Tyrone Guthrie's 1957 Oedipus Rex and George Schaefer's 1960 made-for-television Macbeth. After Hutt's portrayal of a czar in John Frankenheimer's period drama The Fixer (1968), he spent almost an entire decade offscreen, but for some reason opted to appear in a series of extremely low-grade Canadian pictures in the early '80s. These included Covergirl, The Wars, and The Kid Who Couldn't Miss (all 1983). In 2006, about a year before his death from leukemia, Hutt appeared on television as a gruff and irascible Shakespearean master in the TV series Slings & Arrows. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide
1983  
R  
An electronics tycoon takes a shine to a beautiful aspiring model and decides to turn her into a superstar in this melodrama that was funded by the Canadian Film Development Corporation. First he buys the modeling agency where she works and then sets about towards turning her into the "The Dreamworld Girl." Along the way the young girl becomes disillusioned by the lurid assortment of sleazy characters she encounters. The tycoon too, must deal with a ruthless partner who wants to dethrone him. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

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Starring:
Jeff ConawayIrena Ferris, (more)
1996  
 
This slightly abridged version of Eugene O'Neill's classic play was originally staged by director David Wellington at the prestigious Stratford Festival in Canada. In order to better fit the unusually designed stage at the Tom Patterson Theatre where the production was staged, Wellington utilized minimal sets. To maintain a keen emotional edge, he filmed the play in sequence. The somewhat autobiographical story chronicles the strife within a dysfunctional Irish family. The mother is a morphine addict; the cheapskate father is an alcoholic. Their sons are caught in the middle between the couple's endless struggles as is the family maid. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

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1960  
 
Breaking with their usual videotape tradition, the producers of NBC television's Hallmark Hall of Fame decided to commit its 1960 production of Macbeth to film. Maurice Evans stars as the fatally ambitious Scots warrior, with Judith Anderson as Lady MacBeth and Malcolm Keen as Duncan, whom MacBeth murders in order to further his own advancement. The production was a restaging of Hall of Fame's live presentation of the play, which was telecast in 1954. So impressed were Shakespeare scholars by Evans' interpretation of Macbeth that few complaints were made about the rather ruthless cutting of the Shakespearean text. This George Schafer-directed Macbeth was eventually released theatrically in Europe, its running time expanded by outtakes and newly filmed footage. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

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Starring:
Maurice EvansJudith Anderson, (more)
1957  
 
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Oedipus Rex looks just like what it was: a photographed stage play. Any cinematic deficiencies are, however, quickly forgotten as the "magic" of the Sophocles tragedy (translated by William Butler Yeats) takes hold. Staged by Sir Tyrone Guthrie at the Stratford (Ontario) Shakespeare festival, the film spotlights such formidable Canadian-based talents as Douglas Campbell (Oedipus Rex) and Douglas Rain (Messenger). The story, of course, concerns Oedipus' detective work in locating the murderer of his father, and his nonplused (to say the least) reaction when he discovers that, not only is hehimself the guilty party, but his wife Jocasta is actually his own mother. When Douglas Rain comes on screen, see if you can pin down his voice. That's right: Rain was the dispassionate voice of homicidal computer Hal 9000 in Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (Douglas Campbell was later in the McKenzie Brothers' slapstick comedy Strange Brew, but that's hardly in the same category as 2001). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

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Starring:
Douglas RainDouglas Campbell, (more)
1968  
 
John Frankenheimer directed this intense film adaptation of the Bernard Malamud novel. During the days of Czarist Russia, a poor but educated Jew, Yakov Bok (Alan Bates) is abandoned by his wife Raisl (Carol White). Yakov decides to leave his small village and travel to Kiev. Since it is the time of the pogroms, Yakov poses as a gentile and takes a job as a handyman for Lebedev (Hugh Griffith), a drunken anti-Semitic merchant. Yakov rises up the ladder in Lebedev's establishment, and he is eventually promoted to factory overseer-accountant. But when a neighborhood boy is murdered, Yakov's true identity is discovered. Yakov is unjustly accused of the murder and arrested. Bibikov (Dirk Bogarde), a government attorney, believes Yakov to be innocent and attempts to discover the true killer -- realizing that if a confession is forced out of Yakov, the entire Jewish population could be in dire trouble. Bravely, Yakov puts up with the brutal prison life, refusing to confess, hoping Bibikov may discover some new evidence to re-open his case. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

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Starring:
Alan BatesDirk Bogarde, (more)
1983  
 
This biographical semi-documentary casts a slight shadow of human vulnerability and a little doubt over the legendary Canadian national hero and World War I pilot William (Billy) Bishop. Director and writer Paul Cowan started out by wanting to turn the musical "Billy Bishop Goes to War" into a screenplay -- and then after a little research, changed his mind and produced this documentary instead. Interviews with people who knew Bishop are mixed with segments from the stage play about him and a summary of his life. Actor Eric Peterson plays Bishop's mechanic, giving his own impressions of the man. Taken all together, director Cowan raises some questions without toppling the legends. Canadians are more likely to sustain an interest in these proceedings rather than foreigners unfamiliar with Bishop. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

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Starring:
Eric Peterson
1979  
PG  
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This is a remake of a 1936 sci-fi, future dystopia tale by H.G. Wells, but the drama, as interpreted by director George McCowan and scripter Martin Lager is not altered to accommodate today's more demanding audiences. As a result, the story, characters, and dialogue are a little weak. After a nuclear holocaust has forced people on earth to set up house on the moon (covered by an insulating, glass-like bubble), their continuing existence depends on some medication to fight off the effects of radiation (!). The trouble is that this medicine is now controlled by the villainous Omus (Jack Palance) who lives on the planet where the miracle drug is made. He is in the process of blackmailing the earth people into accepting him as a dictator when a group of them sneak out in a rocket to defeat him and save the day, whatever the day is on the moon. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

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Starring:
Jack PalanceCarol Lynley, (more)
2003  
R  
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A man who has been able to avoid the consequences of his actions for nearly 50 years suddenly finds he must answer pursuers on both sides of the law in this drama, based on the novel by Brian Moore and inspired by a true story. After France fell to German occupation during World War II, the Nazi-controlled Vichy government established a law-enforcement group known as the Milice, who were under the direct control of Nazi authorities. In 1944, Pierre Brossard (George Williams) is one of a handful of Milice officers who round up and execute seven Jewish resistance members in the village of Dombey. After the liberation of France, Brossard is tried and convicted for his crimes, but he manages to escape capture, and years later is pardoned. In 1992, Brossard (now played by Michael Caine) is an elderly man living a quiet life in Provence and modestly supported by fellow veterans of the Vichy regime when he's ambushed and nearly killed by a man whom he learns was a hired killer. Brossard discovers this is hardly his only problem; new legislation will allow Vichy-era war criminals who escaped punishment to be charged and tried again, and Anne Marie Livi (Tilda Swinton), a bright and aggressive French prosecutor, has joined forces with Col. Roux (Jeremy Northam) to bring Brossard, among others, to justice. While Brossard is still being clandestinely assisted by church officials and Vichy sympathizers, he must go on the run to avoid capture, and finds himself hiding from the French police as well as a cadre of underground assassins, whose alliances and purposes are frustratingly unclear. The Statement also stars Charlotte Rampling, Alan Bates, and Frank Finlay. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

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Starring:
Michael CaineTilda Swinton, (more)
1983  
 
Set in the years before World War I, this film is about Robert, a young man growing up in a wealthy family in Toronto who is burdened by a distant, cool mother and a father dedicated to duty, both highly conservative people. When Robert loses his beloved invalid sister in a car accident he is further tormented by the family's decision to kill her pet rabbits - and quarrels with them so intensely that he enlists in the army and goes off to war. Once "over there," he discovers brothels and romance, and in a climactic scene, decides to free a barn full of horses from certain death - in spite of contrary orders from his superiors. The juxtaposition of Robert's internal conflict and the external horrors of combat may have been intended to illustrate the nature of "war," although that is difficult to surmise since the evidence in the film is not that strong. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

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Starring:
Brent CarverMartha Henry, (more)
1960  
 
In this British comedy, an amiable demolitions expert finds himself entangled with a band of criminals masquerading as doctors. In this guise, the thieves attempt to build a tunnel between the hospital and the bank next door. The expert successfully blows open the vault, and the criminals escape with their loot, leaving the hapless safecracker to take the rap. Five years pass before he is released from prison. The man has learned his lesson and tries to reform by taking a job in a small resort. More trouble ensues when he sees the most prominent citizen in town cheating his neighbors by selling bogus shares in the future of the town. To stop him the ex-safecracker enlists the aid of his old gang who begin masquerading as American soldiers offering to build a missile base in the town. Naturally the avaricious businessman desires a piece of the pie and so buys back all of the land he had sold. Using his special talent, the hero blows up the villain's land. Fortunately, the real American army gets involved by offering to rebuild the destroyed town on the land, causing the townsfolk to cheer the former con-man on as the police haul him back to prison. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

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Starring:
Norman WisdomAlfred Marks, (more)

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