Noel Travarthen Movies
- 1987
Young Edward (Philip Quast) is an impressionable lad who is used by friends and family in this offbeat drama. While attending a prim and proper boarding school, he loses his best friend when the young Asian hangs himself after repeated racial slurs and taunts from cruel classmates. When he is older, Edward (Marcus Gollings) is set up by his drug-dealing brother in a money-laundering scam. The crooked brother gets off, while Edward suffers the humiliation of being branded a criminal. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Philip Quast, Noel Travarthen, (more)
Two people trying to leave ugly memories behind them find life and love anew in Australia in this made-for-television adaptation of the novel by Nevil Shute. Carl Zlinter (Michael York) was a doctor who was drafted into the German Army during World War II and forced to serve the Axis war effort. After the fall of the Third Reich, Carl becomes a displaced person and in time emigrated to Australia, where he tries to build a new life for himself and forget his horrific past. Jennifer Morton (Sigrid Thornton), meanwhile, is a woman from Great Britain who has her own grim memories of the toll the war took upon her nation, and has decided to visit Australia in search of sunshine and fresh scenery. Carl and Jennifer meet, and they soon fall in love, but it becomes obvious that they must reconcile their very different pasts if they are to make a future together. Originally produced for Australian television, The Far Country first aired as a two-part miniseries. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- 1985
Anzacs: The War Down Under is a two-part Australian TV movie dramatizing the activities of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC). This all-volunteer outfit fought shoulder to shoulder with enlisted men during the First World War. The film concentrates on three Anzacs: An aristocrat (Andrew Clarke), his best friend (Mark Hembrow) and his friend's sister (Megan Williams). Part One details the training of the volunteers, and their first taste of true combat. Part Two details the further activities of the all-volunteer Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZACS). During the first few months of World War I, aristocratic Anzac Andrew Clarke is wounded, and is urged to go home to convalesce by Megan Williams, the sister of his best friend (Mark Hembrow). Meanwhile, heavy fighting in France has thinned the ranks and battered the morale of the other Anzacs. Featured in the cast as a military man is Paul Hogan. It was Hogan's new-found international stardom in 1986's Crocodile Dundee which sparked the American distribution of Anzacs, two years after its initial 1985 Australian run. The video release is edited from the 10-hour Australian miniseries. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1974
- PG
In this historical drama based on actual events, Sweden's Queen Christina (Liv Ullmann) decides in 1654 to give up her throne in order to embrace Catholicism. However, as she studies the faith, she falls in love with Cardinal Azzolino (Peter Finch), a cleric being considered for the papacy. Greta Garbo previously played the same abdicating monarch in the film Queen Christina. Michael Dunn, who plays the dwarf in The Abdication, died during production, and several of his scenes had to be shot with another actor doubling for him. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Liv Ullmann, Peter Finch, (more)
- 1968
A guilt-ridden plastic surgeon becomes murderously obsessed with restoring the beautiful face of his fashion-model fiancee in this horror film. It was he, in a jealous rage, who accidentally disfigured her, when he burst into a photography session, got into a fight with the cameraman and ended up burning her face with a hot lamp. Now, desperate to restore her, he begins harvesting the pituitary glands and the facial skin (removed with a laser) from the severed heads of prostitutes and using them on her wounded face. It works, but they pay a price and both become increasingly insane because the "beauty treatment" is only temporary. One day, an angry band of hippies storms the doctor's house, for he has killed one of their friends. Using his deadly laser, the doctor tries to defend himself, but the laser goes out of control causing all sorts of death and gory destruction. Fortunately, things are not as they seem, and at that point the surgeon awakens from his nightmare and prepares to take his beautiful fiancee to a party. The promo posters for the film advertised "This Is Not a Woman's Picture! No women will be allowed in alone!" ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Peter Cushing, Sue Lloyd, (more)
- 1966
This silly twist on the silent classic Der Golem stars Roddy McDowall as Arthur Pimm, assistant museum curator and would-be Norman Bates who, among other things, preserves the body of his late mother in his home. When Pimm and museum director Grove (Ernest Clark) discover a grotesque statue left intact after a fire at one of the museum storehouses, they transport the stone behemoth to the museum for study. After finding Grove mysteriously crushed to death under the statue, Pimm's curiosity is piqued, leading him to investigate its origins. He discovers that the figure is actually the legendary Golem, an indestructible creature of 16th-century Yiddish myth capable of destroying the enemies of any man who becomes its master. Pimm is eventually able to control the monster with his deranged mind, leading it on a rampage of murder and destruction that devastates half of London. Aside from McDowall's typically eccentric performance, this stodgy film is a fairly tedious exercise, shambling along more slowly than the monster itself and punctuated only by occasional over-the-top moments, particularly at the laughable climax. Director Herbert J. Leder's earlier horror film The Frozen Dead is much more enjoyable. ~ Cavett Binion, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Roddy McDowall, Jill Haworth, (more)
