Maxine Audley Movies

A Ghost in Monte Carlo is based on one of the millions of romance novels penned by Barbara Cartland. True to the Cartland canon, the story is set long ago (1875) and far away (The Riviera). Sarah Miles is top-billed as a pompadoured former madam, while Oliver Reed dispenses tons of Armor Star as a lascivious rajah. Christopher Plummer struts about bedecked with medals as a military hero, and Samantha Eggar is a mystery woman shrouded in black. But the story is carried by Lysette Anthony, the niece of Sarah Miles, who tries to break into upper-crust society--a goal impeded by a long-standing thirst for vengeance on the part of one of the older stars. A Ghost in Monte Carlo was produced in Europe by Sir Lew Grade, and first seen in the US over the TNT Cable Network. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this grim drama, a college student remains passive as his friend commits suicide causing his friends to blame him for the death. Eventually he too, kills himself. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In this Cold War espionage-thriller, adapted from the novel of John Le Carre, two veteran British intelligence operatives, Leclerc (Ralph Richardson) and Haldane (Paul Rogers), recruit a young Polish defector (Christopher Jones) to check on some missiles in East Germany. Avery (Anthony Hopkins) is the British agent assigned to help him to cross the East German border. Once behind the Iron Curtain, the recruit meets a sympathetic German girl (Pia Degermark) who tries to help him to evade the East German secret police and to complete his assignment. ~ Yuri German, All Movie Guide

Jamie McGregor (Barry Evans) is in his last year of high school and hoping to lose his status as a virgin, in this romantic comedy romp. He holds hands with his date at a church dance, but things go no farther. He tries to make time with a gangly girl who has a face that could stop a clock. The more poor Jamie tries, the more he is convinced he will die a virgin. His luck seems to change when he spends a weekend with the prettiest girl in school, but there is more arguing than amore. The best thing about the film is the soundtrack provided by The Spencer Davis Group, Steve Winwood, Dave Mason and Traffic (which included Windwood and Mason). All the aforementioned groups had found or would soon achieve worldwide fame for their contributions in music. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

Adapted by Philip Dunne from the novel by Irving Stone, The Agony and the Ecstacy is the story of the 16th century war of wills between Renaissance artist Michelangelo (Charlton Heston) and "warrior pope" Julius II (Rex Harrison). Commissioned to paint a religious fresco on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, the independent-minded Michelangelo balks at the assignment. He is virtually strongarmed into accepting the job by Pope Julius, who wants to leave something for future generations to remember him by. Director Carol Reed deftly juggles screen time between the Pope's activities on the battlefield and Michelangelo's slow, arduous completion of his monumental task. The film also gingerly approaches the subject of Michelangelo's sexual orientation vis-a-vis his relationship with the Contessina de Medici (Diane Cilento). Too long and limited in subject matter to score at the box office, The Agony and the Ecstacy holds up pretty well when seen today, especially when viewed in a wide-screen print. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

They All Died Laughing plays for satire what any other film might have played for suspense. Leo McKern plays a college professor, of the addlepated rather than absentminded variety. McKern has come to the conclusion that certain people are leeching off society, and the world would be well rid of them. He heads for his laboratory to create the means of "purging" these useless people. He comes up with a poison that prompts his victims to laugh hysterically before joining the Choir Invisible. A little more heavy-handed than the British "dark farces" of the 1950s, They All Died Laughing was originally released in England as A Jolly Bad Fellow. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Ricochet originated as an hour-long episode of the TV anthology series Dick Powell Theatre. Van Heflin plays a tough Marine sergeant facing a crisis of conscience. A young Marine recruit has died under Heflin's command during basic training. Though the victim perished because he didn't follow orders, Heflin feels responsible for the death--and the other recruits heartily concur in this opinion. Ricochet first aired October 3, 1961. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Any movie with a title like Petticoat Pirates would be hard to dislike--and equally hard to believe. Anticipating the "feminist" films of the 1970s, the plot concerns a group of female officers in the British Navy. Angered by the sexism inherent in the Admiralty, the uniformed ladies stage a mutiny, taking a timorous male stoker as a sort of hostage. Not terribly credible to begin with, the film ultimately veers off into fantasy. Petticoat Pirates is both innocuous and inconsequential; you may have seen it, but chances are you don't remember it. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Graham Greene wrote this witty comedy inspired by Cold War paranoia. Jim Wormald (Alec Guiness) is an Englishman selling vacuum cleaners in Cuba on the cusp of the revolution. Hawthorne (Noel Coward), a British intelligence agent, is looking for information on Cuban affairs and recruits Jim to act as a spy. Jim has no experience in espionage and no useful knowledge to pass along, but Hawthorne is willing to pay for his services, and since Jim's daughter Milly (Jo Morrow) has expensive tastes, he can use the money. To keep Hawthorne happy (and his paychecks coming in), he turns in reports on the Cuban revolution that are copied from public documents, "hires" additional agents who don't exist, and presents blueprints of secret weapons that are actually schematics of his carpet sweepers. However, Hawthorne and associate "C" (Ralph Richardson) think that Jim is doing splendid work and encourage him to continue; meanwhile, Capt. Segura (Ernie Kovacs), the elegantly corrupt chief of police, has been fooled by Jim's charade into believing he's a real spy -- and has also become attracted to Milly. Our Man in Havana also features Burl Ives and Maureen O'Hara in supporting roles. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

W. Lee Wilder, the lesser-known brother of Billy Wilder, directed this unexceptional story based on the actual history of French serial killer Henri Landru. The killer (played by George Sanders) has been changed here from an ordinary, inconsequential man to a suave antique dealer with a passion for Odette (Corinne Calvet), a nightclub singer whose only interest in him is monetary. The plot places Odette's need for money at the basis of Landru's maniacal killing spree but as the duped, female victims are dispatched one after another, the horror of it all never quite coalesces into gripping suspense. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Michael Powell's controversial meditation on violence and voyeurism effectively destroyed his career when it was first released, but later generations have come to regard it as a masterpiece. Karl Heinz Boehm stars as Mark, the son of a psychologist who kept a video journal of the boy's upbringing for research purposes. The constant intrusions profoundly affected the boy, who grew up to be a photographer himself; but his principal subject matter consists of women whom he murders before the camera. He then runs the films of his victims in their final throes so that he can study their reactions to death--a perverse extension of his father's experiments, which tormented Mark to analyze his reactions to raw fear. The British press had long been hostile to the unorthodox films of Powell and his partner Emeric Pressburger; when Peeping Tom came around, they used the film to castigate him as "sick" and tawdry. The passage of time has proven Peeping Tom as profound and accomplished as any of Powell's earlier films, and it ranks with Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window (1954) and Vertigo (1958) as a landmark exploration of the links among voyeurism, violence, and male sexual desire. Powell himself plays the evil father in the flashback sequences, and his son Colomba plays Mark as a child. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

One of the most significant moments in the history of British warfare (in both the best and worst sense) is given reverent but reserved treatment in Dunkirk. The film takes place during the 1940 evacuation of Allied troops across the English channel. One party of British soldiers becomes detached from the rest of the retreating Allies. John Mills plays an inexperienced lance corporal who resists an increase in rank, but when the chips are down performs with courage and authority in organizing the lost troop and shepherding them to Dunkirk. Running 135 minutes in its original release (much of the footage comprised of newsreel shots), Dunkirk was based on two novels: Eleston Trever's The Big Pick-Up and Lt. Col. Ewan Hunter and Maj. J. S. Bradford's Dunkirk. The above time pertains to the original British theatrical version; the film was reedited and shortened to 113 minutes for U.S. release. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The title of the Anglo-American The Prince and the Showgirl could well have alluded to the genuine stations in life of stars Sir Laurence Olivier and Marilyn Monroe. Based on the Terence Rattigan play The Sleeping Prince, the film casts Olivier as Charles, prince regent of Carpathia, who is in London to attend the 1911 coronation of King George V. Monroe is deceptively dizzy American chorus girl Elsie Marina, who while performing in a West End revue catches Charles' eye. The prince arranges for Elsie to attend an "intimate supper" at his hotel suite. Though Elsie successfully wards off Charles' advances, she drinks too much bubbly and ends up falling asleep. Comes the dawn, and Prince Charles is anxious to show the awkward Elsie the door. She, however, has fallen in love with the prince, and sticks around long enough to upset a plan to overthrow the Carpathian throne, and to patch up a feud between Charles and his son Nicholas (Jeremy Spencer). Olivier directed as well as starred in The Prince and the Showgirl; he knew he had his work cut out for him in dealing with the mercurial Marilyn Monroe, but he managed to hold his temper and to extract a delightful comic performance from the actress. Alas, the film was a box-office disappointment, leading many Hollywood insiders to moan and wail that Monroe was "washed up" in films -- at least until her spectacular comeback in Billy Wilder's Some Like It Hot (1959). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide