Michael Goodliffe Movies

Alec Guinness plays against stereotype, imbuing his Adolf Hitler with an introverted solemnity in Ennio De Concini's Hitler: The Last Ten Days. Set almost entirely inside Hitler's Berlin bunker, the film chronicles the dying days of the Third Reich as the Allied armies close in on Berlin. Guinness's Hitler is an enclosed depressive who sinks slowly into madness, depression, and ultimately suicide as his 1,000-Year Reich collapses around him. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

Henry VIII and His Six Wives is a feature film based upon the 1971 BBC miniseries The Six Wives of Henry VIII. Keith Michell weathers several makeup changes as the much-married titular monarch. While the miniseries was able to explore the political and personal reasons for the selection (and sometimes rejection) of the wives, the shortened version concentrates chiefly on such highlights as the birth of Queen Elizabeth and the execution of Anne Boleyn. The film is constructed in flashback form, with an aged Henry recalling his marital record. Side note: Donald Pleasence appears as Thomas Cromwell in Henry VIII and His Six Wives; Pleasence's daughter Angela had played Katherine Howard, Bride No. 5, in the original Six Wives of Henry VIII. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This biography of Oliver Cromwell recalls the political and religious struggles of 17th century England. Cromwell (Richard Harris) is the Anglican religious fanatic who fights corruption and Catholicism with equal zeal, while King Charles (Alec Guinness) is the vacillating monarch who believes his crown gives him a direct pipeline to the wisdom of God. Also starring Robert Morley and Timothy Dalton, Cromwell won an Academy Award for Best Costume Design and was nominated for Best Original Score. ~ 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

Originally telecast in England on March 5, 1966, this was one of the first Avengers episodes to show up on home video (albeit usually in bad, washed-out prints). Inheriting a country house from an uncle she never knew she had, Emma shows up at her new lodgings, only to find out that she has been lured into a trap. The instigator of this outrage is an old enemy of our heroine, an electronics genius with a gift for deadly inventions. As Emma eludes one elaborate death trap after another, Steed races to the rescue, though he may not arrive in time to prevent the poor girl from going off her trolley. A typically gimmick-laden Brian Clemens concoction, "The House That Jack Built" made its American network TV bow on May 16, 1966. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this drama, William Holden plays Ferris, an American soldier who led troops in Malaya during World War II. After the end of the war, Ferris opts to stay in Malaya to seek his fortune. He invests in land there and does quite well, but soon his new life with his girlfriend, a local girl named Dhana (Capucine), is disrupted by local politics. Candace (Susannah York), the daughter of Malaya's British governor, is infatuated with Ferris, which puts a crimp in his relationship with Dhana. And one of his old buddies from the war, Ng (Tetsuro Tamba), reemerges with some disturbing news -- following the war, he spent several years in the Soviet Union and is now working with Communist-backed guerilla forces. Ferris doesn't want to help the British capture his old friend, but his friend seems to have no such scruples about framing his buddy Ferris. The Seventh Dawn was adapted from the novel The Durian Tree by Michael Koen. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

This World War II drama is based on an actual incident. Two Nazi soldiers desert and help a Canadian cook when the unit takes over a concentration camp. Trudeau (Richard Johnson) is the Canadian captain who respects his German counterpart (Helmut Schneider). An escape attempt has the Nazis capturing the deserters and the Germans demand they be turned over to them. The Canadians refuse, but the Germans insist the deserters face court martial. The Canadian commander forces the cook to turn over the two men who are shot by the Germans with Canadian rifles five days after the official end of the war. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

A small German town falls prey to an unseen monster that turns its victims into lifeless statues in this mid-'60s outing from Hammer Studios. When the girlfriend of bohemian artist Bruno Heitz (Jeremy Longhurst) becomes the latest townsperson to turn up dead, her corpse transformed to stone, Bruno hangs himself, leaving the town to assume his guilt. But when his father, Prof. Heitz (Michael Goodliffe), comes to investigate, he too encounters the Gorgon and turns to stone. Just before dying, the professor dashes off instructions to his other son, Paul (Richard Pasco), about how to exonerate Bruno. Suspicion falls on Dr. Namaroff (Peter Cushing), proprietor of the local madhouse, although one of his patients (Joyce Hemson) seems just as likely a culprit. Then along comes Prof. Carl Maister (Christopher Lee), a folklore expert from the University of Leipzig, who claims that the murderer is actually a human possessed by the spirit of Magaera, one of Medusa's snake-haired sisters from Greek mythology. Together, Paul and Dr. Namaroff attempt to root out the incognito Gorgon while Paul courts lovely amnesiac Carla Hoffman (Barbara Shelley). Directed by Hammer veteran Terence Fisher, The Gorgon is one of several films to feature British horror mainstays Lee and Cushing side by side. In the States, the film appeared with The Curse of the Mummy's Tomb on a double bill promoted by the distribution of a unique giveaway item: black stamps. ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide

British doctor Richard Johnson arrives in the city of Bath, where a smallpox epidemic has broken out. If he has any hope of stemming the disease, he must locate and isolate its source. As if he hasn't got enough trouble on his hands, Johnson must contend with his failing marriage to Claire Bloom. Both of his problems are solved to everyone's satisfaction, but not without a few hypertense moments along the way. Director Val Guest lifts 80,000 Suspects out of the ordinary with his inventive utilization of darkness and shadows. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Jigsaw was based on Hilary Waugh's play Sleep Long My Love. The scene is Brighton: A woman's body is found in an isolated beach house. The local constabulary painstakingly assemble the "jigsaw" of random clues to reconstruct the woman's history and her last moments on earth, hoping this will lead them to the killer. Though essentially a mystery, the storyline hides nothing from the viewer; the clues are there if you're willing to pick up on them. At 107 minutes, the film is long but never tiresome. With so many films titled Jigsaw floating around the TV schedule, this 1961 production can be characterized as "the good Jigsaw." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Peter Finch portrays the titular flamboyant Irish poet/playwright in The Trials of Oscar Wilde. The storyline, lifted to a great extent from actual court records, recounts Wilde's late 19th century libel action against the Marquis of Queensbury. The author loses, whereupon he himself is tried for sodomy due to his homosexual affair with the Marquis' son, Lord Douglas. Wilde is sentenced to prison; the public humiliation leads to the once-proud writer's immortal poem The Ballad of Reading Gaol--and to his premature death in 1900. The film had to tiptoe around certain touchy legalities, in that sodomy was still a punishable offence in British courts in 1960. The US title for this film was The Trial of Oscar Wilde, effectively killing the ironic double meaning of the plural British title. In certain regions, the film was shown as The Man with the Green Carnation. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide