Isobel Elsom Movies

At one time the longest-running Broadway musical, My Fair Lady was adapted by Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe from the George Bernard Shaw comedy Pygmalion. Outside Covent Garden on a rainy evening in 1912, dishevelled cockney flower girl Eliza Doolittle (Audrey Hepburn) meets linguistic expert Henry Higgins (Rex Harrison). After delivering a musical tirade against "verbal class distinction," Higgins tells his companion Colonel Pickering (Wilfred Hyde-White) that, within six months, he could transform Eliza into a proper lady, simply by teaching her proper English. The next morning, face and hands freshly scrubbed, Eliza presents herself on Higgins' doorstep, offering to pay him to teach her to be a lady. "It's almost irresistable," clucks Higgins. "She's so deliciously low. So horribly dirty." He turns his mission into a sporting proposition, making a bet with Pickering that he can accomplish his six-month miracle to turn Eliza into a lady. This is one of the all-time great movie musicals, featuring classic songs and the legendary performances of Harrison, repeating his stage role after Cary Grant wisely turned down the movie job, and Stanley Holloway as Eliza's dustman father. Julie Andrews originated the role of Eliza on Broadway but producer Jack Warner felt that Andrews, at the time unknown beyond Broadway, wasn't bankable; Hepburn's singing was dubbed by Marni Nixon, who also dubbed Natalie Wood in West Side Story (1961). Andrews instead made Mary Poppins, for which she was given the Best Actress Oscar, beating out Hepburn. The movie, however, won Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor for Harrison, and five other Oscars, and it remains one of the all-time best movie musicals. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

While on a drinking binge, Dianne Castillejo (Lois Nettleton) accidentally caused the drowning death of her adopted son, but managed to persuade the child's governess to take the blame. Now a recovering alcoholic, Dianne is finally getting her life back in order when she is visited by Consuela Sandino (Madlyn Rhue), who claims to be the dead child's birth mother -- and who demands a huge amount of money to keep her from revealing Dianne's guilt to the police. Ultimately, Consuela is allowed to move into Dianne's home, where she conducts a systematic campaign to drive Dianne back to the bottle -- and to steal Dianne's rich and influential husband, Victor (Anthony George). ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Carol Lynley stars as Sister Pamela, a young novitiate who is robbed of a priceless statue of St. Francis entrusted to her care. Suffering a crisis of faith, Sister Pamela leaves the order, intending to track down the thief and recover the statue. The events that follow involve a young outlaw named Jimmy Bresson (Clu Gulager), a duplicitious pawnbroker named Wormer (Don Hanmer), and an ostensibly reformed gangster named Downey (Robert Armstrong). ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

The second of Jerry Lewis' directorial endeavors, The Errand Boy, like its predecessor The Bellboy, is essentially a series of "spot gags," some hilarious, others only moderately amusing. The gossamer-thin plot finds Morty Tashman (Lewis) being hired by the CEO of "Paramutuel Pictures" (Brian Donlevy) to spy on studio employees and report any incidents of wastefulness and sloth. This gives Morty a chance to wander all over the Paramutuel Pictures lot, inadvertently interfering with work in progress, encountering strange characters and inexplicable events, and overall making as much of a nuisance of himself as possible. Some of the better gags include Morty's chaotic behavior at the "wrap party" for a vainglorious movie queen (Iris Adrian); his attempts to eat lunch while a noisy battle scene from a war picture rages all around him; his misguided effort to dub in the singing voice of a tone-deaf actress; the "Mr. Baebrosenthal" bit; and Morty's tete-a-tete in the studio swimming pool with a scuba diver. The weakest scenes involve Morty's sugary encounters with the Ritts Puppets, and a smug curtain speech about the importance of laughmakers in this troubled world. The huge supporting cast includes such reliable chucklemeisters as Howard McNear, Sig Ruman, Milton Frome, Benny Rubin, Fritz Feld, Doodles Weaver, Joey Forman, Dick Wesson and Joe Besser; also making fleeting appearances are actress/writer/director Renee Taylor, veteran movie tough guy Mike Mazurki (in drag!), silent film comic Snub Pollard, and the four stars from TV's Bonanza. Even non-Jerry Lewis fans will come down with a case of loose chuckles while watching The Errand Boy. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

This fact-based episode is set in 1912, just before Grace Farley (Barbara Lord) is to embark on her honeymoon with new husband Eric (a pre-Avengers Patrick Macnee). Although she lives in a land-locked area, and despite the fact that the couple will be honeymooning in Switzerland, Grace has a nightmare in which she sees herself drowning in the ocean. Shortly thereafter, hubby Eric shows up with the news that he's changed their travel plans--and that he has booked passage on the maiden voyage of the "Titanic." Though the ending of this story would at this point appear to be a foregone conclusion, there are several surprises in store for both Grace and the viewer . . .and as a bonus, host John Newland links the episode's climactic "psychic wave" sequence with a remarkable novel written in 1898, which predicted the fate of the "Titanic" down to the tiniest detail. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

In this comedy, an awkward TV repairman finds himself falling for an actress who doesn't even know he exists and instead marries a dashing Mexican bullfighter. Unfortunately, he dies the day after their wedding; fortunately, he managed to impregnate her. Unfortunately, she is soon supposed to be starring in a religious epic called The White Virgin on the Nile. To help her, the repairman offers to watch her baby after it is born. Unfortunately, she gives birth to triplets. Later he marries the sister of the actress who bears him quintuplets. Some guys have all the luck. Songs include: "In the Land of La La La", "Dormi, Dormi, Dormi", "The White Virgin of the Nile", "Love is a Lonely Thing" and ""Why Can't He Care for Me?"" ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

This filmed stage play of Charlotte Bronte's novel features an orphaned governess who begins to love her married employer in 19th century England. ~ Rovi

Van Johnson portrays a blind American writer living in London. Blessed with an acute hearing sense, Johnson overhears a kidnapping plot but neither his friends nor the authorities believe him, chalking up his story as the product of a writer's imagination. Disgruntled, Johnson vows to scuttle the kidnapping himself -- with the assistant of his fiancée Vera Miles. Despite his handicap, Johnson puts the pieces together using sounds as evidence and guidance. Ultimately Johnson finds his life in danger when he corners the criminal in a dark alley. 23 Paces to Baker Street was one of several ''50s 20th Century-Fox films shot on location in London to take advantage of Fox's "frozen funds" -- money earned by the studio in England which by law could only be spent in that country. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

This forgettable piece of 1950s sleaze stars Cleo Moore as a voluptuous blonde who becomes a successful commercial photographer. Richard Crenna, making a major break from his TV image as Our Miss Brooks' Walter Denton, plays a reporter who takes a special interest in Moore's career. The beauteous picture taker becomes involved in a blackmail plot when she goes to work for a Confidential-type magazine, nearly losing her life to mobsters. It was the opinion of many contemporary reviewers that the title Over-Exposed referred not to the photographs taken by Moore but to the generous amounts of cleavage displayed by the actress' low cut gowns. Though Cleo Moore has become a "cult" favorite thanks to her appearances in the turgid melodramas directed by Hugo Haas, Over-Exposed demonstrates that her minimal acting talent vanished altogether without Haas' guiding hand. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Based on the autobiographical novel by Han Suyin, Love is a Many Splendored Thing was evocatively location-filmed in Hong Kong. Jennifer Jones plays Ms. Suyin, a Eurasian doctor and the widow of a Chinese general. She falls in love with American news correspondent Mark Elliot (William Holden), who unfortunately cannot obtain a divorce from his present wife. This, together with the disapproval of Dr. Suyin's tradition-bound relatives and Hong Kong's strict racial laws, forces the couple to carry on their romance in a clandestine fashion. The romance ends in tragedy, but with renewed hope for a happier future. The one lasting legacy of Love is a Many Splendored Thing is its Oscar-winning title song, written by Paul Fain and Sammy Webster; Oscars also went to Alfred Newman's musical score and Charles LeMaire's costume design. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Director Henry Koster and writer Daniel Taradash speculate mightily in this historical tableau charting the rise and fall of Napoleon (Marlon Brando), all due to his unrequited love for noblewoman Desiree (Jean Simmons). The film takes a chronological view of Napoleon's reign and posits Napoleon's love of a woman he wanted to marry as a young general but abandoned for the sake of his career. Both Napoleon and Desiree go their separate ways -- he to become Emperor of France and loveless husband to Josephine (Merle Oberon) and she to become Sweden's disinterested Queen. Napoleon and Desiree meet up again in a whimsical confrontation in which Desiree urges the Little Corporal to surrender and go to St. Helena. The film is based on a novel by Annemarie Selinko that, like the film, takes wild liberties with the truth. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi

The oft-filmed Frances Hodgson Burnett novel The Secret Garden was given the usual plush MGM treatment in 1949. Tempestuous orphan girl Mary Lennox (Margaret O'Brien) is sent to live with her reclusive, long-widowed uncle Archibald Craven (Herbert Marshall). The embittered Craven has an invalid son named Colin (Dean Stockwell), with whom the troublesome Mary constantly clashes. Her only real friend is neighbor-boy Dickon (Brian Roper). Things soon change after Mary discovers the key to the Craven household's garden, which has been locked up and neglected since the death of Craven's wife. Through the influence of the Secret Garden, Mary learns to think of others rather than herself, Craven drops his curmudgeonly veneer, and Colin's health slowly but steadily improves. In the tradition of The Wizard of Oz, the sequences taking place in the Secret Garden are lensed in Technicolor. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi