Helen Fraser Movies
Gorillas in the Mist is based on the autobiographical 1983 book by naturalist Dian Fossey. Before the book could be brought before the cameras, Fossey had been mysteriously killed; her death provides a logical, if somewhat ghoulish climax to the film. A Kentucky girl, Fossey (Sigourney Weaver) is inspired by famed anthropologist Louis Leakey (Ian Cuthbertson) to devote her life to the study of primates. Travelling into deepest Africa, Fossey becomes fascinated with the lives and habits of the rare mountain gorillas of the Ugandan wilderness. Studying them at close quarters, Fossey develops a means of communicating with the gorillas, and in so doing becomes obsessed with the beasts' well-being. She is so devoted to "her" mountain that she loses the opportunity for a romance with a National Geographic photographer (Bryan Brown). Appalled by the poaching of the gorillas for their skins, Fossey complains to the Ugandan government, which dismisses her by explaining that poaching is the only means by which some of the Ugandan natives can themselves survive. She refuses to accept this, and becomes a militant animal-rights activist, burning down the poachers' villages and even staging a mock execution of one of the offenders. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Sigourney Weaver, Bryan Brown, (more)
- 1984
The British made-for-TV production The Box of Delights begins during the Christmas season, when young Devin Stanfield returns home from boarding school. No sooner has he arrived than Stanfield has made the acquaintance of elderly eccentric Patrick Troughton, who entrusts the boy with a mysterious box. Whatever magical powers the box possesses are coveted by evil Robert Stephens, who'll stop at nothing -- including kidnapping -- to get what he wants. The story comes to a rousing finale when Stephens plans "one last great wickedness" to claim the box for himself. The Box of Delights was first telecast in the U.S. as a three-part presentation (December 10, 17, and 24, 1984) on PBS' Wonderworks series. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Patrick Troughton, Devin Stanfield, (more)
- 1984
The Box of Delights, based on the children's book by English poet laureate John Masefield, was produced by the BBC, from a screenplay by Alan Seymour under director Renny Rye in mid-1984. Set in 1934, the six-part miniseries tells the story of young Kay Harker (Devin Stanfield), who, while on his way home from school to join his family for Christmas, meets an old Punch and Judy man named Cole Hawlings (Patrick Troughton), and then a pair of clergymen (Geoffrey Larder, Jonathan Stephens) who seem to have picked his pocket -- and all of whom seem to know all about Kay, who he is, and where he is going. Before long, he is in the center of a struggle for the title object, an artifact dating from pagan times that allows the holder to manipulate time and space. The evil Abner Brown (Robert Stephens) wants the box and will stop at nothing, including kidnapping and murder to get it, while Cole Hawlings, who is actually a 500-year-old alchemist, has sought out Kay's help to keep Brown and the forces he serves from stealing the box. Kay's adventures include a visit to an embattled Arthurian camp beset by wolves, an encounter with flying unicorns and other magical beasts, and other fantastic visions. Kay gradually comes to understand the magical world he has entered, but can he learn enough of the powers he controls before Abner -- who has embarked on a final great wickedness, culminating on Christmas Eve -- can succeed? ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Devin Stanfield, Patrick Troughton, (more)
- 1981
This true-life TV movie stars Glenda Jackson as Oscar-winning actress Patricia Neal and Anthony Page as her author husband Roald Dahl. In 1964, Neal is felled by a stroke, which endangers not only her life but the life of her unborn child. Both survive, but it looks as though Neal will never be able to speak coherently again. Dahl bullies, cajoles and caresses his wife into recovery; she rallies under this treatment and is finally able to resume her career and lead a normal life. The film does not touch upon the serious domestic problems which would lead to Neal and Dahl's later divorce, nor does it dwell on the "dark side" of the notoriously mercurial Mr. Dahl. Nonetheless, both Neal and Dahl felt that the book upon which Patricia Neal Story was based, (Barry Farrell's Pat and Ronald) was far too revelatory for their tastes. They severed their longtime friendship with author Farrell and never spoke to him again; nor did they have anything to say publicly about The Patricia Neal Story. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1972
Also released under the title Something to Hide, this film follows the slow disintegration of a man's (Peter Finch) life due to the problems brought on by his troubled marriage, his drinking, and the appearance of a strange hitchhiker (Linda Hayden). ~ Iotis Erlewine, All Movie Guide
- 1970
- PG
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Two French peasants are mistaken for a pair of aristocratic nobles in this historical situation comedy. Gene Wilder and Donald Sutherland play the dual roles. Happy to be taken for nobles, the pair soon runs to escape the guillotine in the wake of the French Revolution's blood purge of the upper class and royalty. Hugh Griffith play Louis XVI, with Billie Whitelaw as the amorous Marie Antoinette. The pair are chased by the evil Duke d'Escargot (Victor Spinetti). Orson Welles appears at the beginning and the end of the film as the narrator. Wilder and Sutherland encounter a variety of comical situations in their dual roles of peasants and blue-blooded eccentrics. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gene Wilder, Donald Sutherland, (more)
- 1968
- G
Harold Pinter's theatrical piece The Birthday Party was committed to celluloid in 1968 by future Exorcist director William Friedkin. Robert Shaw plays a boarder in a sleazy British seaside-resort rooming house. The landlady (Dandy Nichols) holds a cheerless birthday party for Shaw, which is invaded by a couple of shady characters named Goldberg (Sidney Tafler) and McCann (Patrick Magee). No one knows why they're there except for Shaw, who after being repeatedly humiliated by the despicable duo is taken away by them to parts unknown. The Birthday Party ends with 30 seconds of a totally blank screen. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Robert Shaw, Patrick Magee, (more)
- 1966
Based on the novel by Margaret Adams, this British drama features young Rupert Davies as David, a seven-year-old boy who is unsure of how to act around his seven-year-old nephew. He wants to be a child but feels he should take responsibility for his nephew. His confusion grows and he becomes unsure about how he should act around any children. David even begins to withdraw from his schoolmates and his family. Eventually, he comes to understand that everyone in his family, including his father, with whom he's had some disagreements, wants him just to be himself. ~ Michael Betzold, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Rupert Davies, Brenda Bruce, (more)
The first English-language film of director Roman Polanski is a psychological thriller in the vein of Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (1960) and his own later film Rosemary's Baby (1968). Catherine Deneuve stars as Carol Ledoux, a Belgian manicurist living with her sister, Helen (Yvonne Furneaux), in a London flat. Simultaneously attracted and repulsed by sex, Carol is a virgin who finds her sister's relationship with a married man, Michael (Ian Hendry), extremely disturbing. When her sister and Michael go on holiday, Carol begins to disintegrate mentally, hallucinating bizarre encounters, being forced into taking a sabbatical from her job and ultimately committing a pair of murders in her deranged state. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Catherine Deneuve, Ian Hendry, (more)
Billy Fisher (Tom Courtenay) is known to his blue-collar British mates as Billy Liar because of his vivid imagination. This film version of the Keith Waterhouse-Willis Hall stage play "visualizes" some of Billy's more outrageous fabrications. He periodically escapes the drudgery of his job at a funeral parlor by conjuring up impossible adventures, usually involving the conquest of women. In one of her first film roles, Julie Christie plays one of two "real" girls who wish that Billy would come down to earth and pop the question. Following this film adaptation, Billy Liar was transformed into a stage musical, and later resurfaced as a British TV series. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Tom Courtenay, Julie Christie, (more)
