Eynon Evans Movies
- 1962
Three losing crooks are featured as Stooge-like misfits (sans slapstick) in this conventional comedy by director Michael Truman. Bernard (Dave King) is the ringleader, while Harry and Alfie (Daniel Massey and Norman Rossington) do their best to contribute to the trio's success -- and fail each time. First the group screw up their escape after a robbery because they are stuck in traffic by a fire engine. That gives them the idea of getting a fire engine to pull off a heist, and that goes wrong because they are detoured to a real fire. Next, they recruit an ex-fireman with a record for setting blazes himself (Robert Morley) in the hopes that a decoy fire can take attention away from the bank they want to rob. With their batting average, the bank seems fairly safe. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Dave King, Robert Morley, (more)
- 1962
Welsh librarian John Lewis (Peter Sellers), unhappily married to Jean Lewis (Virginia Maskell), falls in love with the glamorous Elizabeth Gruffydd Williams (Mai Zetterling). Zetterling is likewise saddled with a dull spouse, wealthy Vernon Gruffyd-Williams (Raymond Huntley). Finding themselves to be kindred spirits, Sellers and Zetterling plan an illicit affair. Alas, none of their carefully calculated schemes for a romantic tryst come to fruition thanks to a series of comic (but utterly credible) complications.
John ultimately concludes that adultery simply isn't worth the bother. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
John ultimately concludes that adultery simply isn't worth the bother. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Peter Sellers, Mai Zetterling, (more)
Peter Sellers stars as an inmate in a "model prison" run by Maurice Denham. Though Sellers is disinclined to escape (he's never been as comfortable in his life), he is convinced to do so by phony vicar Wilfred Hyde-White, who breaks into jail to outline a robbery scheme. Hyde-White's plan is to have Sellers and his cellmates David Lodge and Bernard Cribbins take a brief "vacation" from jail, pull off a big-time robbery, then return undetected to prison, thereby establishing a perfect alibi. Within its 87-minute time span, Two-Way Stretch takes satirical potshots at political bleeding hearts, obese Middle Eastern potentates, and regulation-bound British police officials. One cannot be faulted for wishing that Peter Sellers had stuck to engaging small-scale British farces such as this and had never ventured into such unamusing big-budgeters as The Bobo and There's a Girl in My Soup. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Peter Sellers, Wilfrid Hyde-White, (more)
- 1959
Twelve-year-old Hayley Mills made her film starring debut in the location-filmed melodrama Tiger Bay. Horst Buchholz plays a Polish sailor who, while docked in Cardiff, jealously murders his ex-girlfriend Yvonne Mitchell. The killing is witnessed by Hayley, a lonely, hoydenish preteen whose only interest in the crime is Buccholz' abandoned gun. Hayley picks up the weapon, intending to impress the other kids in town. She succeeds only in attracting the attention of police inspector John Mills (Hayley's real life father), who wants to know where she found the gun and under what circumstances. An experienced liar, Hayley drives the inspector crazy with her fabrications. Sent home with a stern reprimand, Hayley is kidnapped by Buccholz, who doesn't want to kill the child, but doesn't want to be revealed to the police, either. Convinced that Buchholz means her no harm, Hayley offers to help him escape. He returns the favor by rescuing her from a watery grave, at the cost of his own freedom. On the basis of her performance in Tiger Bay, Hayley Mills not only won a special prize at the Berlin Film Festival, but was invited to star in Disney's Pollyanna (1960). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- John Mills, Horst Buchholz, (more)
Set in the 1950s in Britain, this award-winning social comedy by director and co-writer John Boulting features Ian Carmichael as the inept Stanley Windrush, a hopeless twit with -- we are to believe -- an Oxford degree. Unlike others in his social circle, Stanley wants to work. When he tries out for jobs in industry with the full expectation of working his way into a management position, he sets off disasters and alienates his interviewers. So his uncle gives him a job in his munitions factory, knowing what an idiot he is, and relying on him to eventually cause a strike (the uncle needs this for his own reasons). Fred Kite (Peter Sellers in a performance that would launch him as an international star) takes Stanley under his wing yet that does not exactly turn out as expected either. Stanley screws up by accidentally being too efficient, and the entire British work force is affected. If one can accept a portrayal of factory workers as shiftless men unwilling to work, and managers as good 'ole boys whose jobs are gained only by networking, then this film will be all the more entertaining. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ian Carmichael, Peter Sellers, (more)
- 1958
Kenneth More portrays a British gunsmith who travels to the American West. After winning a rigged poker game, More is appointed sheriff of Fractured Jaw, a wide-open town where law officers are plugged and planted on a regular basis. He befriends hard-bitten saloon gal Jayne Mansfield, who doesn't give the gentlemanly More much chance of survival. Using his wits, and blessed with a generous amount of raw luck, Sheriff More escapes death at every turn, finally becoming the "blood brother" of a previous hostile Sioux tribe. With the help of his Native American friends, More brings law and order to Fractured Jaw. The film's main advantages are Kenneth More, who is superb as always, and Jayne Mansfield, giving one of her best and least mannered performances. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Kenneth More, Jayne Mansfield, (more)
- 1956
The Boulting Brothers enjoyed one of their biggest box-office successes of the 1950s with the wry service comedy Private's Progress. Though billed fourth, Ian Carmichael plays the central character, feckless British soldier Stanley Windrush. Interrupting his college education to serve his country, Windrush flunks out of officer's candidate school and is demoted to private. Much of the humor arises from the bookish hero's confrontation with the ruder and cruder side of army life, as represented by rough-hewn fellow private Cox (Richard Attenborough). As Major Hitchcock, Terry-Thomas offers a brilliant parody of the "Mad Dogs and Englishmen" school of military service, while Dennis Price is equally amusing as a nonplussed commanding officer named Tracepurcel (!) Also worth watching is future "Dr. Who" star William Hartnell as a loudmouthed sergeant. Halfway through the film, the plot rears its ugly head as the protagonists become involved with the covert reclamation of art treasures confiscated by the Nazis during WW2. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Richard Attenborough, Dennis Price, (more)
- 1955
In this comedy, a widow tries living with each of her three sons. She becomes quite upset when her favorite son heads for America. In the end, the young men rally together and buy her a cottage of her own in the village. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1954
Postman Evans helps 3 women who wish for better lives after throwing coins into a wishing well in this drama. ~ All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Petula Clark, Donald Houston, (more)
- 1943
Undercover is a British-made WWII picture glorifying the efforts of a small group of Yugoslavian resistance fighters who struggled against the Nazis. In the tradition of Hollywood, virtually all the Slavic characters are played by such doggedly British types as Tom Walls, Michael Wilding and John Clements. As was customary, the Nazi invaders are shown to be the products of an evil totalitarian regime (quite true) while the Yugoslavs are freedom-loving individuals treated with equanimity by their expansive Communist government (not quite true). After the war, it became common knowledge that many supposedly patriotic Yugoslavian partisans, notably those commandeered by General Mihajlovic, were actually pro-Nazi. As a result, films like Undercover and Hollywood's Chetniks were hastily, and without explanation, withdrawn from circulation. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- John Clements, Tom Walls, (more)
