Ronald Howard Movies

The "Scarlet Pimpernel" legend is updated to WW2 in the breathless actioner Pimpernel Smith. Leslie Howard (who also directed) plays bespectacled and seemingly mild-mannered Professor Smith, who under cover of darkness transforms into a tireless defender of democracy. With the help of several loyal companions, Smith makes several forays into Nazi-occupied territories to rescue the oppressed victims of the Third Reich, using a phony archeological expedition to throw the villains off the track. The picture really roars into life during the cat-and-mouse exchanges between the Professor and his Gestapo antagonist Von Graum, phlegmatically enacted by the corpulent Francis L. Sullivan. In some markets, Pimpernel Smith was retitled Mister V. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This multistoried drama purports to detail the events occurring in a single 24-hour period on Bond Street, a "typical" British thoroughfare. The Grand Hotel-like construction of the film allows for several colorful character vignettes. The "dramatis personae" includes an unpredictably temperamental dressmaker, a blinded war veteran, an escaped POW, a gang of blackmailers, and the owner of a valuable string of pearls. Linking the four main plotlines together is the impending wedding of Julia Chester-Barratt (Hazel Court in her pre-horror days). The presence of Roland Young in the cast assured Bond Street a few healthy American bookings. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this drama, a young Englishman wants to become a surgeon, but after medical school, his father dies, leaving him the responsibility of supporting his mother and paying for his brother's education. He becomes a partner in a small practice and watches the woman he wanted to marry go off with his brother. The brother is killed in WWI, after which his illegitimate son is born. The doctor marries the woman, but she dies in childbirth, leaving him to raise his brother's child. Eventually, he finds a new wife. ~ Steve Huey, All Movie Guide

A popular British stage play by William Douglas Home was the basis for this out-of-the-ordinary prison picture. Richard Greene heads the cast as Turnfell, a murderer facing a death sentence. Turnfell is but one of several inmates whose joys and sorrows are detailed in anecdotal fashion: others include a cockney forger (William Hartnell), an embezzling bank clerk (Ronald Howard) and a bigamist (Lesley Dwyer). Also on hand is the Governor (or warden), played with a refreshing lack of genre cliches by Sir Cedric Hardwicke and an Irish terrorist, well-played by a very young Richard Burton. Now Barabbas was a Robber was eventually given a general release under the streamlined title Now Barabbas. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The presence of Peter Lorre assured a modicum of American business for the British meller Double Confession. It all begins when the wife of Jim Medway (Derek Farr) turns up dead. Since the evidence points to murder, the embittered Medway does his best to pin the "killing" on his wife's lover, Charlie Durham (William Hartnell). But as Scotland Yard inspector Tenby (Naunton Wayne) finally proves, appearances are deceiving--if not downright fraudulent. Lorre's role is largely peripheral, but he does supply a few moments of genuine menace. Filmed in 1950, Double Confession was based on John Garden's novel All on a Summer's Day. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Long before it concentrated on its series of Edgar Wallace mysteries, the British Merton Park studios cut its teeth on taut little home-grown melodramas. Assassin for Hire stars Sydney Tafler as Antonio Riccardi, a professional killer who has long managed to elude the law. Inspector Carson (Ronald Howard) is determined to bring Riccardi to justice, but has no evidence to work with. In a peculiar twist of fate, Riccardi is brought to heel by a crime he didn't commit. Beyond its better-than-usual production values, Assassin for Hire permits us a glimpse at Ronald Howard impersonating a detective several years before starring in the Sherlock Holmes TV series. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Michael Redgrave gives his greatest performance as Andrew Crocker-Harris, a boarding-school teacher who realizes that his life may be a failure, in this powerful adaptation of Terence Rattigan's play with a screenplay by Rattigan himself. Poor health forces Crocker-Harris to give up his teaching position after years of thankless service and scorn from his students and colleagues. His marriage to Millie (Jean Kent) is also in free fall, as his wife is openly having an affair with the school's chemistry teacher, Hunter (Nigel Patrick). The sensitivity of one student (Brian Smith) breaks through Crocker-Harris's reserved British exterior, but it takes the final departure of his wife, right before the school's graduation exercises, to wake him up once and for all. He discards his prepared speech and speaks openly to the assembled students, delivering a moving apology for having failed them as their teacher. The film's rich montage of incident and character detail builds to intense emotional heights that make this version of The Browning Version a classic. ~ Don Kaye, All Movie Guide

The philosophies and practices of London policewomen provide the basis of this exciting and interesting docu-drama that centers on three such women. The film is also known as Street Corner. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In this suspenseful mystery, a woman is imprisoned for murdering her husband. All that knew him are sympathetic to the woman. When her cousin learns of her incarceration, he abruptly ends his vacation to begin investigating the death. He is assisted by the woman's stepdaughter; together they reveal that the husband had been an extortionist and that there are a myriad of suspects. But the real killer is much closer at hand. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Street Corner was a marginally realistic study of British policewomen. The film takes its female cast through a typical day on the Chelsea beat. In the manner of Dragnet and The Blue Lamp, the skimpy plotline is merely there to string together several anecdotal incidents, illustrating that while a policewoman's lot is not a happy one, neither is it dull. Feminist film fans might point with pride to the fact that Street Corner was written and directed by a woman, Muriel Box. The fact that Box had been working in this capacity in the British film industry for years, while Hollywood had been relegating women to second-class status during the same period of time, is equally worthy of being pointed out. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this thriller, a man discovers that the bank notes he has just received actually belong to someone else--a man who is attempting to save his near-bankrupt fur business by buying pelts infected with anthrax. Later the shady furrier is killed. The first man discovers that he was done-in by an ex-con who is killed after his fur-filled truck crashes and explodes. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In this comedy, a woman finds herself addicted to auctions and begins bringing the strangest things back to her home. Her husband, ignorant of her passion, begins suspecting her of kleptomania and hires a detective to spy on her. He next sends her to a psychiatrist. After the woman gets wise to the schemes, she reveals the identity of the real thief. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide