Joss Ackland Movies
Another illustrious graduate of London's Central School of Speech and Drama, Joss Ackland made his first professional stage appearance at 17 in the 1945 production The Hasty Heart. For the next decade, Ackland learned his craft in a variety of regional theatre troupes, taking time out for an unheralded film debut in 1949's Seven Days to Noon. He quit acting in 1955 to manage a Central African tea plantation, finding creative outlets as a playwright and radio disc jockey. Upon his return to the British theatre in 1957, Ackland joined the Old Vic. From 1962 through 1964, he was associate director of the Mermaid Theatre. He subsequently established himself on the West End musical stage, playing such showcase roles as Captain Hook in Peter Pan and Juan Peron in Evita. Launching his film career proper in 1965, Ackland has flourished in characterizations calling for outsized gestures and orotund vocal calisthenics. Among his better-known screen roles are Greta Scacchi's decadent, untrustworthy aristocrat husband in White Mischief (1988), and homicidal South African diplomat Arjen Rudd in Lethal Weapon 2 (1990). On TV, Ackland was seen as C.S. Lewis in the 1985 BBC production of Shadowlands, and as Isaac in the 1994 made-for-cable Biblical drama Jacob. He has also provided voiceovers for the animated features A Midsummer's Night's Dream (1961) and Watership Down (1978). When asked his hobbies in a 1981 interview, Joss Ackland listed his seven children. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
The Marek Kanievska thriller A Different Loyalty stars Rupert Everett and Sharon Stone as war reporters who come across each other's path while they are both on assignment in Beirut. When Everett's character goes missing, Stone's character begins an investigation on her own. She soon realizes that he may have known much more about international politics than he was letting on. Can she rescue him before any number of governments can put a stop to her quest? ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Sharon Stone, Rupert Everett, (more)
This comedy offers yet another sanitized and very loose adaptation of Mark Twain's dark satire A Yankee in King Arthur's Court. This time, the story centers on Calvin Fuller, a nerdy young adolescent living in Reseda. The gangly, unsure youth is first seen standing at bat, ready for yet another strike out. Suddenly a terrible earthquake hits and as the others run for safety, the hapless Calvin is swallowed up in a gaping chasm. He falls and falls until he finds himself landing on the head of a 6th-century black knight. Upon hearing of his miraculous appearance, the elderly King Arthur, seeing him as the savior Merlin predicted would appear, dubs the boy Calvin of Reseda and invites him to dine with the court. Calvin then begins his knightly training. When the earthquake hit, lucky Calvin managed to grab his knapsack and is therefore able to wow the Arthurians with his futuristic magic that includes an introduction to rock & roll via CD-player, and a wonderful Swiss Army knife. The young wizard also shows them how to make rollerblades. His work wins him adulation and renown, but it also rouses the jealousy of the wicked Lord Belasco who will use any means to take over the throne. Meanwhile, Calvin finds himself falling for young-princess Katey. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1963
This 1961 adaptation of Shakespeare's magical comedy of errors was performed entirely by puppets. Let's qualify that: the puppets are of the stop-motion variety, expertly manipulated into "humanity" by Czech animator Jiri Trnka. The adaptation is faithful to the text, while the technique allows a wider range of visual delights than any previous movie Midsummer--and an eminently convincing man-to-jackass transformation for vainglorious amateur thespian Bottom. The English-language version of this Czech animated feature was directed and adapted by Howard O. Sackler, best known for his Pulitzer Prize-winning play The Great White Hope. Richard Burton provided the narration for this version, which was issued in 1963 and is still in circulation. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
A murder investigation at a cloistered boy's school is the subject of this British made-for-television adaptation of John Le Carre's novel. Le Carre's famous detective-hero George Smiley (Denholm Elliott) returns from retirement to look for answers in a mysterious murder at a boarding school, where secret societies, rituals and abuse are the norm. ~ Bernadette McCallion, All Movie Guide
This twisted black comedy is obsessed in turn with swans, twins, and decay. Alba Bewick (Andréa Ferréol) is involved in a swan-related car accident near the zoo. The accident kills two other women, the wives of two twin zoologists, Oliver and Oswald Deuce (Brian and Eric Deacon). Alba is lucky enough to escape with one leg. Eventually her doctor also removes the other "because it was dangerous for the spine." Meanwhile, the Deuce brothers, as a result of losing their wives, have become fascinated with the decay of corpses, and they start making rather gruesome time-lapse films to examine the process more thoroughly. Both brothers become involved with Alba. Needless to say, this film may not appeal to everybody. ~ John Voorhees, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Andréa Ferréol, Brian Deacon, (more)
The World War II set romantic drama Above and Beyond concerns a young man and woman who fall in love, but must consider putting country before self in order to do what is right for the world. Richard E. Grant and Jason Priestley star in this tale of love in the RAF. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Richard E. Grant, Jason Priestley, (more)
- 1985
"The Cooper Beeches" is an episode of the television series The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, an excellent adaptation of the Sherlock Holmes mystery stories, produced in Britain for Granada TV. In this episode, directed by Paul Annett, Jeremy Brett portrays the famed detective, aided by his companion Dr. Watson as the two help a governess, Violet Hunter (Natasha Richardson), who is employed by a strange couple -- Jephro Rucastle (Joss Ackland) and his wife (Lottie Ward). This episode, written by Bill Craig, re-creates the adventures of Conan Doyle's Victorian detective with impeccable faithfulness to the original story first published in the Strand Magazine during the late 19th century. This series was followed by a sequel, as well as several TV movie adaptations. ~ Linda Rasmussen, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jeremy Brett, David Burke, (more)
- 1991
Made for British television, the four-part Ashenden was offered in two-part form over America's A&E cable service on June 7 and 8, 1993. The production was adapted from a Somerset Maugham tale, which in turn was based on his own espionage activities "for King and Country" during World War I. Alex Jennings stars as Ashenden, a patriotic playwright who doubles as a British agent. This first two-hour installment consists of two separate stories. In the first, Ashenden uses a packet of love letters to trap a female spy in Geneva; in the second, he goes after the traitor responsible for his friend's death. For details on the second half of Ashenden (likewise comprised of two separate stories), please refer to entry #123761. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1991
When first telecast in Britain in 1991, Ashenden consisted of four hour-long episodes. When the production was shown over America's A&E cable service on June 7 and 8, 1993, the four episodes were combined into two, with a brace of stories offered in each 2-hour dollop. In A&E's second installment of Ashenden (see entry 123760 for details on the first), our hero, a British playwright-cum-WWI secret agent, travels to Russia with an American businessman (Rene Auberjonois) on the eve of the Bolshevik revolution. He then becomes fed up with the whole espionage business upon meeting an American war widow in Italy. Alex Jennings is starred as Ashenden, a thinly disguised version of Somerset Maugham himself. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Directed by David Mackenzie, Asylum follows a 1950s family living in a home on the grounds of an asylum after Max (Hugh Bonneville), the patriarch, is assigned to serve as deputy director of a remote psychiatric hospital. Neither his wife, Stella (Natasha Richardson), nor his young son, Charlie (Augustus Jeremiah Lewis), are particularly happy about the arrangements, though Stella finds herself slowly becoming attracted to Edgar Stark (Marton Csokas), a charismatic inmate. Despite the obvious repercussions of an extramarital affair and the sage advice of Dr. Cleave (Ian McKellen), a colleague of her husband, Stella's slow-burning attraction becomes an all out obsession; before long, Stella is barely aware that she is risking her family, her sanity, and even her very life for Edgar. Asylum is based on a novel by Patrick McGrath. ~ Tracie Cooper, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ian McKellen, Natasha Richardson, (more)
- 1969
This time the villain is a treacherous double agent named Merlin (Peter Barkworth), who uses sleeping gas to elude his captors. Knocked cold by the snooze gas, Steed, Tara, and Merlin awaken in a deserted -- and heavily guarded -- small town. Handcuffed to Merlin, Steed must rely upon his aid to escape their new surroundings, which will soon be "ground zero" for an atomic bomb detonation. Written by Brian Clemens, "The Morning After" debuted in England on Jnauary 29, 1969; its scheduled January 27 American playdate was pre-empted by a late-breaking news special. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey find the two obtuse pals battling The Grim Reaper, God, robots, great philosophical questions, and girls -- although not necessarily in that order. In this loose parody of the Terminator movies, directed by Peter Hewitt, the ultimate has happened -- at Bill and Ted University of the future, for many years now the people of the world have been "excellent to each other." But fed-up with Bill and Ted's peaceful world and even more fed up with heavy metal, the evil De Nomolos (Joss Ackland) decides to do something about it. De Nomolos creates a cyborg Bill and Ted, who travel back in time to kill the original Bill and Ted, win the Battle of the Bands and pave the way for the hellish reign of De Nomolos. In the past of 1990, Bill (Alex Winter) and Ted (Keanu Reeves) are immediately dispatched by the time-traveling cyborgs. And while the cyborgs Bill and Ted make time with the real Bill and Ted's girls (Sarah Trigger and Annette Azcuy) and prepare to take the real Bill and Ted's place in the Battle of the Bands, Bill and Ted are forced to deal with Hell ("Just like an Iron Maiden album cover"), the Grim Reaper (William Sadler), and God himself. When Bill and Ted are asked the secret of the universe, they get it right and as a reward a pair of Martians construct a set of "good" Bill and Ted robots to go head-to-head with the "bad" Bill and Ted robots at the Battle of the Bands. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Keanu Reeves, Alex Winter, (more)
Stephen Rea stars as a relentless Russian investigator in this made-for-cable thriller. Based on an actual case, this taut film tells the story of Burakov (Rea), a Russian forensic pathologist assigned to track down a brutal serial killer who is targeting young drifters. The nature of the assignment takes its toll on Burakov's personal life, as he tracks the killer for years despite the red-tape and bureaucracy of the Soviet state. Nominated for several awards overall that year, Donald Sutherland won an Emmy and a Golden Globe Award for his co-starring role as Rea's supportive superior, Fetisov. The movie was filmed in Hungary. ~ Bernadette McCallion, All Movie Guide
- 1989
Based on John Trenhaile's A Man Called Kyril, this byzantine-plotted spy melodrama stars Ian Charleson in the title role. Kyril is a supposed Soviet defector who relocates in London. In fact, his defection is a smoke-screen: Kyril has been sent by the KGB to seek out a British mole in Moscow Centre. At four hours, Codename: Kyril affords plenty of breathing space for the various plots and counterplots, but its excess of espionage verbiage may prove confusing to the average viewer. Filmed for British television in locales ranging from Norway to Holland, Codename: Kyril was first telecast in the US on the Showtime cable network on April 27, 1988; a videocassette version running 115 minutes was made available in 1991. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1969
- PG
In this horror film, an American graduate student travels to southern France to research her thesis. She is writing about a famed composer who recently died. She stays with his widow and his son, a disabled drug-addict. She becomes more involved in the family than she wanted after she finds the composer's crazy twin, hidden away in the attic. She almost dies trying to escape. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
A great deal of director Al Viola's version of this film was pruned away for its general release. The missing portions are not only the heart of the story, but they are the heart of the novel by Graham Billings which gave rise to the film. The whole story is that Forbush (John Hurt) is going nowhere in his romance of Tara (Hayley Mills) because he is basically an uninteresting, shallow man. In desperation, he decides to go off to Antarctica and study penguins. He hopes that his heroism in doing this will prove his sincerity to Tara. Once there, he grows genuinely enchanted by his project and develops a real interest in penguins. It is this, rather than his courage, which wins him Tara's affections. The truncated version omits most of the film's reputedly spectacular and affecting Antarctic footage (shot by Arne Sucksdorff) in order to concentrate on the love story. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- John Hurt, Hayley Mills, (more)
Everybody's favorite underdog youth hockey team hits the ice for a third adventure in D3: The Mighty Ducks. This time out, the Ducks' improbable success under lawyer-turned-hockey player Gordon Bombay (Emilio Estevez) has earned the group of misfits a certain degree of fame, and the entire team is given scholarships to attend Eden Hall Academy, an upscale private school with a rich and snobbish student body. The Ducks are dismayed to discover that they have a new coach, Ted Orion (Jeffrey Nordling), and they soon learn that, as freshmen, they get precious little respect from the Varsity team, and the team's melting-pot lineup makes them stick out like a sore thumb in the white, upper-class surroundings of Eden Hall. However, by the film's final reel, the Ducks will have taught their fellow classmates a lesson about teamwork and overcoming adversity. This proved to be the last film in the Mighty Ducks series, but it was followed by an animated television series that improbably turned the team into hockey stars from another dimension. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Emilio Estevez, Jeffrey Nordling, (more)
- 1995
An unlikely romance blossoms at a seaside home in this British made-for-television movie. Joss Ackland stars as Gerald Carmody, an irascible stockbroker who doesn't expect much from his rest at a senior citizen-populated hotel. When he meets Katherine Palmer (Jean Simmons) though, his spirits pick up and a special relationship develops -- however Katherine has something important to reveal to Gerald. ~ Bernadette McCallion, All Movie Guide
- 1981
In this comic-detective movie, Dangerous Davies, a bungling gumshoe uses archaic methods to solve his cases. This time he must solve a 15-year-old murder involving an adolescent girl. He finds himself on a convoluted trail surrounded by the lowest of the lowlife. It is not until the picture is almost over that he realizes that the solution to the mystery has been under his nose all along. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bernard Cribbins, Bill Maynard, (more)
This made-for-cable thriller stars Omar Epps as Ofusu, one of nine asylum-seeking African refugees who sneak aboard a Russian cargo vessel en route to France. When the ship's captain (Joss Ackland) discovers the stowaways, he is reminded by his aggressively ambitious executive officer (Sean Pertwee) of France's current crackdown on illegal immigration, which could result in criminal and financial penalties for the crew and their parent company. To avoid embarrassment, the captain gives in to his exec's suggestion to murder the unwanted passengers and secretly dispose of their bodies at sea. Thus ensues a deadly game of cat-and-mouse, as Ofusu and his compatriots attempt to outwit their malevolent hosts -- who in turn must keep their murderous machinations hidden from a nosy representative of the shipping company (David Suchet). Slick, stylish, and suspenseful, this otherwise conventional thriller employs slasher-movie clichés in a unique setting and benefits from Epps' compelling performance. ~ Cavett Binion, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Omar Epps, Joss Ackland, (more)
- 1989
- PG13
This political drama chronicles the corruption of a mayoral candidate for New York City. His ordeal begins when he launches a campaign for the legalization of heretofore illegal narcotics. Alarmed by the support it gets, Mafiosos frame the candidate for a crime he did not commit and force him to choose between joining their ranks or going to jail. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- James Belushi, Mimi Rogers, (more)
- 1973
Based on a novel by Graham Greene that uses the rise of Nazi Germany as its backdrop, this drama stars Michael York as Anthony Farrant, an idealistic young British businessman. On his way home after a trip to the Far East, Anthony takes a friend up on her advice and makes a stop in Germany, where he calls upon Erich Krogh (Peter Finch), a highly successful financier. While Anthony was taught to value fairness and decency, he soon falls under Erich's spell, in which opportunism, corruption, and decadence hold sway. England Made Me was filmed in Yugoslavia, doubling for both Germany and France; Tony Wollard's art direction was nominated for a British BAFTA Award. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Peter Finch, Michael York, (more)
- 1997
- R
A woman is torn by both romantic and maternal love in this period romantic drama set in the 1830s. Elisabeth (Sophie Marceau), a Swiss governess, is the beautiful daughter of a once-prosperous landowner who has fallen deeply into debt. Charles Godwin (Stephen Dillane) is a prominent British aristocrat whose wife has suffered a crippling accident; doomed to spend the rest of her life in a semi-comatose state, she cannot bear Charles the child he so desperately needs. So Charles strikes an agreement with Elisabeth; she will conceive a child with him and hand it over after it is born in exchange for him paying off her father's debts. Elisabeth and Charles set aside three nights to make a baby, and while the matter is supposed to be purely functional and not romantic, Elisabeth finds it difficult to feel that way at the end of the third evening. She is heartbroken when she has to give up the child, and her obsession with the daughter she gave away is reflected in her journals and sketchbooks. Seven years later, Elisabeth discovers the whereabouts of Charles and their daughter, Louisa (Dominique Belcourt); when she learns they need a governess, she is hired for the position by Charles's sister-in-law Constance (Lia Williams), who is unaware that Elisabeth is Louisa's birth mother. When Charles discovers that Elisabeth is the new governess, he is furious, but he eventually takes pity on her and allows her to stay with the child for one month. However, before long, Elisabeth's attraction to Charles resurfaces, and their clandestine romance forces a number difficult questions. Firelight marked the directorial debut of noted screenwriter William Nicholson. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Sophie Marceau, Stephen Dillane, (more)
