Peter Graves Movies

As indicated by the title, The Woman He Loved is the story of the romance between Britain's King Edward VII (Anthony Andrews) and American divorcee Wallis Warfield Simpson (Jane Seymour). Forbidden by the Church of England and Royal Protocol to wed Mrs. Simpson, Edward abdicates in 1936, spending the rest of his life with his beloved Wallis as the world's most visible non-paying guest. Told in flashback (Wallis, preparing for Edward's funeral in 1972, reflects on their life together), this made-for-TV movie manages to sidestep the pricklier aspects of Edward's post-monarch existence, notably his heavy drinking, his flirtation with Nazism his attempts to avoid military service during World War II. Olivia De Havilland, Julie Harris, Robert Hardy, Lucy Gutteridge and Phyllis Calvert are among the familiar faces dotting the supporting cast. The Woman He Loved was first telecast April 3, 1988. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Filmed in Austria, this British-made musical retells the story of Cinderella as it is found in books of fairy tales. The Prince, Edward, is played by Richard Chamberlain, Cinderella by Gemma Craven. In her role as the Prince's witty mother, Dame Edith Evans provides many of the movie's highlights. The musical score and songs written by Richard Sherman and Robert B. Sherman, who also provided the music to the movie Mary Poppins, were nominated for Academy Awards. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

This zany British comedy finds a homeless hobo (Ringo Starr) being adopted by the world's richest man, Sir Guy Grand (Peter Sellers). Setting sail on the luxury liner The Magic Christian, Sir Grand tests the limit of human avarice. With money to motivate the greedy, Laurence Harvey combines his Hamlet soliloquy with a striptease. A vile cesspool of excrement is seeded with cash and the money-hungry dive right in. Wilfred Hyde White is the drunken captain, Yul Brynner is uncredited in his performance as a chanteuse transvestite, and John Cleese is the director of Sotheby's auction house. Roman Polanski, Richard Attenborough and Raquel Welch also appear in this offbeat comedy. Paul McCartney wrote and produced "Come and Get It," the first international hit from the power-pop group Badfinger. John "Speedy" Keene wrote "Something In The Air" and performed the track with his group Thunderclap Newman. Sellers, Cleese, Graham Chapman and Terry Southern co-authored the screenplay taken from Southern's novel. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

Two brothers looking to avoid becoming pawns of the establishment come up with a better way of making a living -- through theft -- in this satiric comedy. David Tremayne (Oliver Reed) is a successful London architect, and his younger brother Michael (Michael Crawford) is weighing his options after being kicked out of school. The brothers share a bemused disgust with the world around them and a desire to get through life without the burden of labor; toward this end, one day they begin plotting an elaborate scheme to steal the British Crown Jewels. Mind you, they don't intend to sell them, or even keep them very long -- the idea is to return them after a week, simply to prove that it could indeed be done, and make themselves famous in the process. After studying the procedures of Scotland Yard's Bomb Disposal Unit, the inner working of the Tower of London's Jewel Room, and the London ambulance services, the Tremaynes come up with a foolproof plan -- they call in a bomb threat to the Tower, and they are able to enter the Jewel Room posing as men from the bomb squad. They then feign injury and are able to escape in an ambulance. It all seems simple enough, and it actually works, until Michael "forgets" his part of the agreement to take half of the responsibility for the theft. The supporting cast includes Edward Fox, Frank Finlay, and Harry Andrews. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Years before the story proper in The Wrong Box gets under way, a "tontine" is drawn up on behalf several young British boys. Each of the boys' parents had placed 1000 pounds in a pool, to be invested and expanded upon. The resultant fortune will go to the last surving member of the tontine. A series of montages depicts the various demises of the heirs (our favorite occurs when one of them is inadvertently beheaded while being knighted by Queen Victoria). Finally, only two of the tontine participants are left: aged brothers Ralph Richardson and John Mills. On his last legs, Mills is determined that Richardson will not outlive him, and to that end attempts to kill his brother; each attempt fails spectacularly, with the doddering Richardson none the wiser. Standing to benefit from the tontine are Mills' dimwitted med-student son Michael Caine and Richardson's greedy nephews Peter Cook and Dudley Moore. When Richardson is supposedly killed in a train wreck, Cook and Moore don't want the authorities to find out, so they appropriate what they think is their uncle's corpse and ship it home in a box. Thus it is that Caine finds the body of a perfect stranger on his doorstep. The farcical complications begin flying about thick and fast from this point onward. Among the participants in this wacky gigglefest are such formidable talents as Peter Sellers, Tony Hancock, Wilfred Lawson, Thorley Walters, Norman Rossington, Irene Handl and Cicely Courtenedge. Based on a novel by Robert Louis Stevenson, The Wrong Box is a delightful harkback to the glory days of Britain's Ealing comedies. We were so wrapped up in the story that we didn't even notice all those TV antennae sprouting up on the rooftops of Victorian London. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Anna Neagle is so overpoweringly good in Lilacs in the Spring (aka Let's Make Up!) that a times it's easy to forget that her co-star is Errol Flynn! Based on Glorious Days, a play by Robert Nesbitt, the film offers Neagle in four different characterizations. Suffering a concussion while serving in WW II, service performer Catherine Beaumont (Neagle) imagines herself to be Nell Gwynn, and still later fancies herself to be Queen Victoria (both of these historical personages had been played by Neagle in previous films). Finally, Catherine conjures up memories of her own mother Lillian Grey (also Neagle), who married song-and-dance man John Beaumont (Errol Flynn) during WW I, then nearly lost him when he "went Hollywood." Though he'd been having an overabundance of personal problems, Errol Flynn conducted himself with utmost professionalism throughout Lilacs in the Spring, delighting co-workers and movie audiences alike. The film was a hit, prompting a second, less-successful Anna Neagle-Errol Flynn pairing, King's Rhapsody. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The producers of Quartet and Trio concluded their cycle with this omnibus film, which features three stories based, as in the previous film, on tales by W. Somerset Maugham. "The Ant and the Grasshopper" concerns Tom Ramsey (Nigel Patrick), a fiscally unstable young man who is constantly borrowing money from his brother George (Roland Culver). Eventually, George falls on hard times and is forced to sell the family estate, just as Tom marries a wealthy woman and is in a position to purchase it. In "Winter Cruise," Miss Reid (Kay Walsh) is an aging spinster taking a voyage aboard a cargo ship. She has little to do but engage the others on board in conversation, which the passengers find so annoying that they arrange a ship-board romance for her with Pierre (Jacques Francois), a porter, in the hopes that it will keep her quiet. And "Gigolo and Gigolette" features Glynis Johns as Stella Cotman, whose husband Syd (Terence Morgan) earns his living as a performer in a high-wire act. Stella is terribly worried that Syd's risky profession will lead to his death, so she takes their life's savings to a casino in hopes of winning enough that he can retire. However, her plan hardly goes as she hoped. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Maytime in Mayfair is concerned with England's high-fashion set, especially those creatures whose designs set the tone for London's upper crust. Two of the leading emporia are located directly across the street from each other, one run by the lovely Eileen Grahame (Anna Neagle) and the other by the charming but scheming D'Arcy Davenport (Peter Graves). Davenport feels threatened by Eileen and would like nothing more than for her to close up her shop. One day, a young man by the name of Michael Gore-Brown (Michael Wilding) appears. As appealing as he is in debt, it turns out that he has fortuitously inherited the shop for which Eileen designs. Although encouraged to sell it immediately and get some desperately needed ready cash, he becomes quite taken with Eileen and decides to hold on to the salon. At the same time, D'Arcy manages to get his hands on Eileen's latest, top-secret designs and disseminates them to the press, which will ruin Eileen. Thinking that it is Michael that has done this terrible deed, Eileen leaves and goes to Paris. Depressed that his true love has spurned him, Michael is all set to sell the business to two buyers (who are secretly acting on D'Arcy's behalf) when Eileen returns, having discovered the truth. ~ Craig Butler, All Movie Guide

Set in 1783, this romance chronicles the doomed relationship between a prince regent and a Catholic widow. The prince falls for her first, but as there is a great gulf in social class, she laughs at his advances. The poor prince is so distraught he attempts suicide. The widow then feels compassion and secretly marries him. Unfortunately, their secret becomes grist for the rumor mill and when it threatens the relationship between the prince and the king, the prince denies his marriage. The jilted woman runs away, and the prince marries the woman to whom he was originally betrothed. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Peter Graves (not the Mission: Impossible star, but a same-named British actor) heads the cast of the nostalgic Spring Song. Covering the years 1911 to 1946, the story chronicles two different love stories, with the same actors playing both couples. Graves portrays Tony Winster and his own nephew, also named Tony, while Carol Raye plays Janet Hill and her daughter Janet Ware. The 1911 romance ends unhappily due to parental interference; the lovers in 1946 vow not to repeat the mistakes of their forebears. Figuring prominently in the closing scenes is an experimental jet flight piloted by Geoffrey de Havilland (a relative of actresses Olivia de Havilland and Joan Fontaine), who was killed in a crash shortly before the release of Spring Song. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this British costume musical, Carol Raye plays Empress Maria, a young woman of noble blood who has fallen in love with Count Franz Von Hofer (Peter Graves), one of the men assigned to guard her. Maria's guardians attempt to dissuade her interest in Franz because of his reputation as a Casanova, and when Franz is discovered in a playful conversation with Cenci Prohaska (Patricia Medina), they are convinced that their assumptions are correct. When Maria learns of Franz's behavior, she disguises herself as Cenci for an upcoming costume ball with the hopes of catching Franz in a disloyal act. Waltz Time also features a guest appearance by the celebrated operatic vocalist Richard Tauber, who sings two numbers; it was one of Tauber's final screen appearances, as he passed on in early 1948. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

The Caryl Brahams-S. J. Simon novel The Elephant is White is the basis for the British Give us the Moon. Comic actor Vic Oliver delivers a broad performance as Sascha, a dour suicide-prone chap who belongs to an "I won't work" club. The organization was founded by Nina (Margaret Lockwood) on behalf of those who have no intention of ever making a living, and who make no bones about it. Romance enters the picture when the industrious son (Peter Graves) of a hotel owner poses as a member of the idle rich, the better to be close to Nina. To take the curse off an "unemployment" comedy in the middle of WW2 (when everyone was expected to "do their bit"), Give Us the Moon is set in a fanciful postwar London. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this musical an American's daughter owns an escort agency. Even though WW II rages and men are hungry for females, the woman's business is flagging until she comes up with some enterprising schemes to turn things around. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide