Alexander Archdale Movies

Set between the years 1949 and 1956, Newsfront tracks the destinies of two brothers, their adventures and misadventures placed in the context of sweeping social and political changes in their native Australia. Both of the protagonists are newsreel photographers. Frank (Gerard Maguire) is constitutionally resistant to change, while Len (Bill Kennedy) welcomes any alterations in his own life and in the world around him. The film fluctuates between black and white and color, between actual news footage and reconstructed events. Newsfront is what The Way We Were might have looked like on a tiny budget with a cast of unknowns. The film represented a laudable feature-film directorial debut for one-time documentary filmmaker Philip Noyce. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The popular Australian comic strip The Wonderful World of Barry McKenzie was first brought to the screen in this raunchy 1972 romp. Barry Crocker plays the title character, a carefree Aussie cowboy with an inordinate fondness for beer and "Sheilas". Touring England as a stand-up comic, Barry runs across several odd characters, including addlepated discipline freak Dennis Price. Also on hand is Barry McKenzie cocreator Barry Humphries, appearing in drag as Dame Edna Beveridge, a character who would bring Humphries worldwide fame and fortune in the 1990s. Director Bruce Beresford, who went on to such loftier efforts as Breaker Morant, Tender Mercies and Crimes of the Heart, breezes through his scatalogical material with the abandon of a schoolboy scribbling naughty words on the sidewalk. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Something is seriously amiss in the tiny British village of Midwich. At 11 a.m. one morning, every village resident suddenly falls asleep -- and then, just as suddenly, everyone wakes up, completely unaffected by the phenomenon. Well, not completely: virtually every woman of childbearing years has become pregnant. All the babies are born on the same night, at precisely the same moment. All look the same, weigh the same, and even have the same curious cross-hatched hair and underdeveloped fingernails. Four years later, the children have all prematurely reached the age of nine or so -- and all behave in a weird, conspiratorial manner, comporting themselves more like adults than kids. Resident scientist George Sanders, one of the fathers, surmises that the bizarre manner of the children -- from their zombie-like movements to their cold, staring eyes -- is the result of radioactivity, possibly extraterrestrial in nature. One thing is certain: the children possess powers far beyond those of ordinary mortals. And they must be stopped. One of the most influential science fiction films of the 1960s, Village of the Damned was based on the equally eerie John Wyndham novel The Midwich Cuckoos. The more explicit 1995 remake was widely panned in comparison. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Talented special effects and adventure director Michael Anderson (Around the World in 80 Days, 1956) keeps the suspense going in this drama about the wreck of the Mary Deare. John Sands (Charleton Heston) is the captain of a salvage ship that is almost rammed by the apparently abandoned Mary Deare. Sands boards the ship in search of plunder but as it is tossed on the high seas, he discovers a half-crazed captain aboard (Gary Cooper). The captain of the Mary Deare, Gideon Patch, tells Sands his story and in the end, the ship is scuttled and sinks. While Sands believes the story, the court does not believe it and Captain Patch is devastated. Determined to prove his innocence, the two captains dive down to the sunken Mary Deare to dredge up the evidence they need -- building up to a slam-bang climax. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

In this uneven but well-acted mystery story with a few gaps in the plot here and there, Alec Guiness plays a double role. He is John Barratt, a British teacher on vacation in France who is conned into taking on another identity. The identity he assumes is that of his double, Count Jacques de Gue, who has none of John's upright, moral character. Once ensconced as the Count, John discovers that the Count's mother (Bette Davis) is addicted to morphine, his wife (Irene Worth) believes he is out to kill her, and the Count's brother-in-law (Peter Bull) is embezzling funds away from the family business. And those are just a few of his problems, alleviated somewhat by his mistress (Nicole Murray). Once John realizes how decadent and immoral the Count really is he feels duty-bound to challenge him to a duel. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Captain David O'Keefe is a character based on the real-life 18th-century American who introduced modern agricultural methods to the South Seas. Lest you think that His Majesty O'Keefe is merely a feature-length version of your local TV station's agribusiness report, be advised that O'Keefe is played by Burt Lancaster, his biceps fairly bursting out of his period costume. Lancaster's version of O'Keefe is a garrulous mercenary who agrees to help the native farmers in exchange for a fortune in Copra, an oil-yielding form of coconut pulp. In addition to Copra, the island is rich with Rice--Joan Rice, that is, who portrays the dusky native girl with whom O'Keefe dallies. His Majesty O'Keefe arrives at its anticipated slam-bang finale when O'Keefe does battle with greedy, usurping white traders. The film was freely adapted from the popular novel by Lawrence Kingman and Gerald Green. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this psychological thriller, an avaricious man covets his stepbrother's home. The greedy fellow knows that his stepbrother has a heart condition and so sets off a fatal attack by smashing a beloved violin. He then throws his wife and his other step-brother out of the house. But his actions do not come without a terrible price, and soon he begins to go mad. Thinking that he hears the plaintive songs of the broken violin, he runs to the piano and begins to loudly play hoping drown out the hellish sounds. A wild fear overtakes the man as the violin plays on and on until at last he crumples, face down upon the keyboard, a victim of a massive, fatal heart attack. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide