Denholm Elliott Movies

Made for television from the Dylan Thomas classic, the film concerns a traditional Christmas in Wales around the turn of the 20th century. ~ John Bush, All Movie Guide

In this drama, a black man fights for freedom from racial oppression in the troubled country of Rhodesia. ~ Iotis Erlewine, All Movie Guide

A British couple's attempts to circumvent local food-rationing regulations trigger a chaotic series of events in this satirical comedy set in post-World War II England. The couple's scheme centers on a massive hog which has been illegally raised by a local farmer. Seeing a chance to capitalize on pork's scarcity, the ambitious Joyce Chilvers (Maggie Smith) convinces her mild-mannered husband (Michael Palin) to steal the pig. Unfortunately for the Chilverses, a vigilant food inspector is on duty and determined to stop all such illegal activity. The couple's efforts to hide the pig provide much material for frantic and sometimes grotesque farce. Playwright Alan Bennett's acerbic targets the British class system and the wife's social ambitions. ~ Judd Blaise, All Movie Guide

Michael Caine's first starring role was a foray into dramatic irony, scripted by Bill Naughton from his novel and play. Alfie (Caine) is a charming, rogueish Cockney who cannot get his fill of women. He uses them without shame or malice, jumping from one promiscuous female's bed to another without much thought or feeling. Of course, Alfie's not as carefree as he would have the audience -- to whom he often speaks directly -- think: he treats his pregnant, common-law wife, Gilda (Julia Foster), quite shabbily, and has an affair with a married woman (Vivien Merchant) that leaves her pregnant, for which Alfie arranges an abortion. In the end, Alfie never finds lasting meaning or pleasure but remains an unrepentant, if low-class, Don Juan. Caine was Oscar-nominated for his performance. ~ Don Kaye, All Movie Guide

Shortly after murdering Arthur Chaundry (Arthur Gould-Porter), Jack Lyons (Denholm Elliott) marries Arthur's widow, Phyllis (Hazel Court). Although she is naturally distraught over her first husband's demise, Phyllis seems equally concerned with her missing crocodile-skin makeup case. To mollify Phyllis, Jack reports the loss of the case, providing the police with a thorough description of the missing item -- a description which, alas, turns out to be just a wee bit too thorough. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In one of her first adult starring roles, Nicole Kidman played the lead in the three-part Australian miniseries Bangkok Hilton. Searching for her long-estranged father at Bangkok airport, Katrina "Kat" Stanton unwittingly becomes a "mule" for drug-smuggler Arkie Ragan (Jerome Ehlers). Captured by the authorities, Kat is charged with smuggling and locked away in a horrible prison known as the Bangkok Hilton. Also in the cast were Denholm Elliot(Hal Stanton) and such familiar Australian film and TV regulars as Norman Kaye, Joy Smithers, and Gerda Nicholson. After its original ABC network run from November 5-7, 1989, Bangkok Hilton was rebroadcast in six one-hour segments, rather than its original three two-hour episodes. As for Nicole Kidman, she earned an AFI award (the Australian equivalent of the Emmy) for her brilliant and harrowing performance. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This 1985 television production faithfully adapts Charles Dickens' Bleak House, an indictment of Victorian England's corrupt legal and class systems that prey on the weak and the innocent. Esther Summerson (Suzanne Burden), a kind and level-headed young woman introduced as an orphan, is the link who knits several storylines together as a witness to injustice. She and two other young people -- the naïve and vulnerable Richard Carstone (Philip Franks) and Ada Clare (Lucy Hornack) -- are wards in an estate case before the High Court of Chancery. They stay at the home of John Jarndyce (Denholm Elliott), a relative. Like so many other lawsuits, the case drags on indefinitely, depleting the estate while garnishing lawyers' bank accounts. Richard and Ada fall in love and marry in secret, but his health declines as legal fees and delays consume his expected fortune. Eventually, he dies. Meanwhile, in the upper reaches of society, Lady Dedlock (Diana Rigg) harbors a secret that would ruin her and her doting husband if it became known. Years before, while in love with a Captain Rawdon, she gave birth to his child after she received news that Rawdon had been lost at sea. Upon discovering that the report was false, she attempts to track him down with the help of a guttersnipe named Jo, a friendless little boy who later dies, and finds him -- buried in a pauper's field. Lady Dedlock's attorney, the grasping and devious Tulkinghorn (Peter Vaughan), learns of Lady Dedlock's secret and threatens to disclose it, but a mysterious intruder murders him before he can do so. Miss Summerson, who has been a good friend to Richard and Ada, attracts the attentions of her benevolent but much older host John Jarndyce, and he proposes to her. However, she has already fallen in love with Dr. Allan Woodcourt (Brian Deacon), who was with little Jo when he died. As the various storylines merge, Esther Summerson discovers that she is Lady Dedlock's daughter, Lady Dedlock's husband learns his wife's secret, and Lady Dedlock runs off in deep despair. The conclusion reveals the fate of Lady Dedlock, the murderer of Tulkinghorn, and the future of Esther Summerson. ~ Mike Cummings, All Movie Guide

The arrival of a mysterious stranger disrupts the lives of the members of a British family in this dark, psychological thriller. The stranger is one Martin Taylor (Sting), a dangerous charmer who ingratiates himself with the Bateses, a dignified, older couple (Denholm Elliott and Joan Plowright). The couple becomes especially fond of Martin after he demonstrates a strong, caring rapport with their daughter, a disabled invalid. It is only when he has become a part of the household, unofficially serving as the daughter's caretaker, that Martin's true, potentially demonic nature begins to show itself. Based on a script by Dennis Potter, the creator of the brilliant British television miniseries Pennies from Heaven and The Singing Detective, the film layers its already charged situation with hints of the supernatural, aspiring to be both disturbing family drama and provocatively ambiguous morality play. Some moments of MTV-like stylization threaten to diminish the mood of slow suspense and unhealthy obsession, but Potter's distinctly warped sensibility and the solid performances generally carry the film over its rough patches. ~ Judd Blaise, All Movie Guide

Alexandre Dumas fis first dramatized his own novel La Dame aux Camelias in 1852. Before the century was out, the work had been transformed by Giuseppe Verdi into the opera La Traviata; before the next century was out, the Dumas book had been made into no fewer than 25 films. The 1984 TV-movie adaptation, titled Camille like most of the others (including the first film, way back in 1907), stars Greta Schacchi as Marguerite, the popular Parisian courtesan who is wooed by innocent young Armand (Colin Firth). She is willing to give up her libertine lifestyle for Armand, but is gently convinced by the boy's father (John Gielgud) that such a union would be impossible. She renounces Armand, but he returns to her side, just as she is dying of consumption. Blanche Hanalis' adaptation of the Dumas novel takes a franker approach to the subject matter than the more familiar 1937 filmization with that other Greta (Garbo), and also manages to insert a soupcon of feminism. Filmed in Paris, the 1984 Camille was originally offered as a Hallmark Hall of Fame special. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

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

Cecil Parker is the whole show in Dear Mr. Prohack, just as he'd been in the stage version by Edward Knoblock. The eponymous Prohack is a Royal Treasury official who is an expert at managing other people's money. Alas, when he himself inherits a fortune, Prohack is as financially naïve as a kid with a piggy bank. Denholm Elliot makes his film debut in the role of Ozzie Morfrey; others in the high-powered cast include Glynis Johns, Dirk Bogarde, Hermione Baddely, Ian Carmichael, future director Bryan Forbes, and Jon "Dr. Who" Pertwee. Both the play and film versions of Dear Mr. Prohack were based on a novel by Arnold Bennett. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This fast-paced thriller examines the amorality of a nation's secret services and the responsibility of journalistic investigations in an era of nuclear tensions and bureaucratic deceit. The film examines an unspooling series of events occurring after a near crash of a nuclear bomber at an American Air Force base in the English countryside. When Dennis Markham (Ian Bannen), a well-respected member of Parliament, is reported by a London paper to have been seen leaving a woman's home, and the woman is found to also be familiar with a dignitary from East Germany, his loyalty to his country is questioned, and he is forced to resign. The author of the newspaper exposé, Nick Mullen (Gabriel Byrne), continues his investigation with his colleague Vernon Bayliss (Denholm Elliott). But when Vernon dies from a mysterious heart attack, Mullen suspects something deeper at work and finds evidence of a complex web of deceit concerning a secret Air Force base. With the help of Vernon's secretary, Nina Beckman (Greta Scacchi), Nick fights the dark forces in order to bring the truth to light. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide