Archie Duncan Movies
- 1952
- PG
Better known as The Story of Robin Hood, this colorful costume adventure was the second made-in-Britain production for Hollywood's Walt Disney. Avoiding the familiar episodes covered in previous "Robin Hood" films, this Disney effort still manages to adhere to the basic chronology. Richard Todd stars as the Earl of Huntington, who loses his title and his lands after besting the despotic Sheriff of Nottingham (Peter Finch) at an archery tournament. Reinventing himself as Robin Hood, our hero rounds up other victims of the oppression of the Sheriff and his dictatorial liege Prince John (Hubert Gregg), and thus the "Merry Men" are born. Robbing the rich to give to the poor, Robin manages to elude the villains and to prove his loyalty to John's brother Richard the Lionhearted (Patrick Barr) by raising the money for Richard's ransom. The Queen (Martita Hunt) is to deliver the ransom to Richard's Austrian captors, but Prince John schemes to steal the money and place the blame on Robin Hood. Maid Marian (Joan Rice) gets wind of this plan but is locked in John's dungeon before she can warn Robin and his men. How can virtue triumph with these odds? But triumph it does, as everyone in the audience knew it would. The success of The Story of Robin Hood inspired Disney to produce two additional British films, The Sword and the Rose and Rob Roy, the Highland Rogue. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Richard Todd, Joan Rice, (more)
- 1952
The Brave Don't Cry aspires to the "feel" of a documentary, right down to the deliberate absence of background music. A mine in Scotland falls victim to a cave-in, trapping some one hundred workers. Rescue parties are formed as the tremulous families of the miners wait in agony. As in the actual incident upon which this film is based, the rescue is nip and tuck and times, but eventually successful. The faces of real-life Scottish mining folk are melded with the professional actors in The Brave Don't Cry, adding poignancy to this otherwise cut-and-dried film. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- John Gregson, Meg Buchanan, (more)
- 1952
A notorious Irish rebel poet disguises his true identity while working as a gatekeeper at a Scottish university. He also moonlights as a bookie and things go well until a pretty young relative shows up and spills the beans. Comedy ensues. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1952
A small Scottish island has never paid its mandatory road tax. This brings forth an investigating committee of Parliament members, including the formidable Ronald Squire. The committee heads to the delinquent Hebridean isle, where they succumb to the easygoing charm of the residents. Cowritten by director John Eldridge, Laxdale Hall was an adequate imitation of the Ealing farces (notably Tight Little Island), with an overload of whimsy in place of originality. out to the Hebridean isle to check into this breach of law. The film made it to the States under the title Scotch on the Rocks. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ronald Squire
- 1952
In this drama, a man journeys to the posh British estate of a friend for a weekend soiree. There he learns that the real purpose of the party is to provide the host the opportunity to steal the jewels of his guests. To thwart the plan, the man and the host's adopted step-daughter team up. Unfortunately she winds up getting locked in the room where the jewels were begin stored. The host is attempting to beat a hasty retreat with the jewels but is stopped by an enterprising butler who throws a switch as his boss is attempting to scale the estate fence. The hapless thief is promptly electrocuted. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1951
Though Green Grow the Rushes has the look and feel of an Ealing comedy, the film was actually produced through the auspices of British Lion. The story takes place on the southern coast of England, where through a bureaucratic oversight a small patch of land in Kent is protected from outside legal intervention by an ancient charter. It is here that a group of liquor smugglers, headed by Captain Biddie (Roger Livesey), carries on its activities with impunity and with full cooperation of the regional politicians. The fun begins when a cargo of precious potables ends up in a duck pond owned by a local farmer, sparking an onslaught of governmental foolishness. Two future stars carry the slim romantic subplot in Green Grow the Rushes: Honor Blackman plays a well-meaning newspaper columnist, while Richard Burton shows up as a slovenly smuggler (this was Burton's final British film before his move to Hollywood). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Roger Livesey, Honor Blackman, (more)
- 1951
Three generations of a Scottish clan are chronicled in this melodramatic saga. The film starts with the death of a sickly med student in a Glasgow slum. His fiancee also dies in childbirth. Her brother, who survives, begins raising her baby girl who grows up to have an affair with a lab assistant. Her "father" disapprove and threatens to destroy the wedding. She retaliates by poisoning him and then gets married. She bears a son. Unfortunately she has never recovered from the guilt of her earlier murder and ends up taking her own life. Later her son grows up to discover a vaccine for a fatal disease. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Richard Todd, Glynis Johns, (more)
- 1950
In this drama, set within the slums of Glasgow, an artist reminisces about his youthful days in the impoverished, violent neighborhood. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1950
In this costume adventure set in France during the Reign of Terror, a mysterious man known only as the Scarlet Pimpernel rescues noblemen from the guillotine and leads them to safety across the English Channel. Chauvelin (Cyril Cusack) is determined to unmask the Pimpernel and bring him to justice. When evidence begins to suggest that the hero is actually foppish Sir Percey Blakeney (David Niven), Chauvelin blackmails Percey's wife, Marguerite (Margaret Leighton), into cooperating on the threat that he'll expose the criminal activities of her brother Armand (Edmund Audran). However, Marguerite doesn't much care for her husband, hardly believes he could be the heroic Pimpernel, and is startled when she finds out that he truly is the masked vigilante. The Elusive Pimpernel was originally shot in color as a musical, but the musical numbers were cut before the film was released, and the picture's American distributor chose to make only black-and-white prints (though the current home-video release is in color). ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- David Niven, Margaret Leighton, (more)
- 1949
The all-purpose title Floodtide was trotted out once more for this 1949 British drama. Gordon Jackson plays a lowly shipyard worker who falls in love with Rona Anderson, his boss' daughter. For the girl's sake, Jackson keeps an eye out for opportunities to advance himself. Through determination and resourcefulness, he works his way up to an executive position with a shipping firm, but tries his best not to forget his humble roots. Filmed extensively on location, Floodtide was run on a seemingly hourly basis in the early days of American television. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gordon Jackson, Rona Anderson, (more)
- 1949
George Gordon, aka Lord Byron, the clubfooted 19th-century poet with the uncontrollable libido, is played by Dennis Price in this lavish British chocolate-box epic. From the vantage point of his deathbed, Byron recalls his life and many loves, imagining that he's pleading his case before a celestial court. Joan Greenwood looks like she's just stepped out of a portrait frame as Lady Caroline Lamb (whose own sordid story would also be filmed in due time). Her performance is far more persuasive than that of Dennis Price, who seems less libertine than precocious as Byron. Roundly ridiculed by British film critics in 1949, The Bad Lord Byron has stood the test of time -- not really a classic, but an acceptable rainy-day wallow. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Dennis Price, Joan Greenwood, (more)
- 1948
Nazi war criminal Bruckner (Mervyn Johns) manages to escape capture at the end of WW II. Bruckner sets up shop in England, where he continues his diabolical germ-warfare experiments. Murdering an Australian physician, the regenerate Nazi assumes the dead man's identity to escape detection. His downfall comes when he falls in love with pretty lab assistant Tracy Shaw (Nova Pilbeam), and he refuses to murder her when ordered to do so by his superiors. The ending is right of the "hoist on his own petard" school of dramatics. Devil's Plot was released in the U.S. in mid-1953, and within a few months was making the TV Late-Show rounds. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1948
A Dutch and an English soldier team up to prevent the Nazis from capturing a precious Dutch diamond, the world's largest, in this war drama. Also included is a segment detailing how the giant gem was mined and cut. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
