Hugh Griffith Movies

The concept behind the 1977 Hound of the Baskervilles involved having "underground" director Paul Morrissey bring an irreverent slant to the original Sherlock Holmes mystery. The film thus casts Peter Cook and Dudley Moore as Holmes and Watson, with such reliable British performers as Terry-Thomas, Joan Greenwood, Denholm Elliott, Hugh Griffith, Spike Milligan, and Roy Kinnear in cameos. Producer Michael White took on the project; it mirrored his previous experience of combining spoofery and fidelity to source material with Monty Python's Jabberwocky. Examples of the film's zaniness include the casting of a lovable Irish wolfhound as the "deadly" Baskerville mastiff and having Holmes and Watson speak in thick provincial accents. For its American release, Hound of the Baskervilles was whittled down to 78 minutes, with several of its scenes out of sequence. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Tony Richardson attempts to re-create the glory days of Tom Jones in this adaptation of the 1742 Henry Fielding novel. Peter Firth stars in this picaresque tale as Joseph Andrews, a young servant switched at birth who undergoes a series of romantic escapades. Joseph even has the fortune of becoming the personal footman to Lady Booby (Ann-Margaret). Joseph's romantic peccadilloes cause consternation among a collection of stuffy noblemen and women in 18th-century England. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi

Was Jesus Christ the son of God -- or a clever political activist who staged his crucifixion and resurrection to help promote his point of view? The latter possibility is proposed in this bit of historical speculation, based on the best-selling novel by Hugh J. Schonfield. Yeshua (Zalman King), as the Hebrews called him, was a member of the Zealots who sought to end to the rule of the Romans who had taken control of their land. To rally support for their cause, Yeshua proclaims himself the son of God, born of mortal woman, and carefully orchestrates the events that lead to him being sentenced to death; he's also able to add to his martyrdom by falsifying a resurrection two days later. Understandably controversial upon release, The Passover Plot also stars Donald Pleasance, Scott Wilson, and Hugh Griffith; Mary Wills' costume design earned an Academy Award nomination. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

In this Italian sex comedy, everyone in a small provincial town sleeps with everyone else, except for Nico, the shy, hapless nephew of Don Carlo, an important landowner. When his beautiful blonde cousin is sent to the manor for the summer, she uses all her wiles to get him into bed before she has to return to her family. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

Jon Finch stars as Jerry Cornelius, swinging London's leading scientific genius, in this screen adaptation of the acclaimed science fiction novel by Michael Moorcock. As the world teeters on the brink of collapse following a nuclear war, Jerry discovers that a batch of microfilm containing "the final programme" -- the plan for an ideal, self-replicating human being, which was designed by his father -- has fallen into the wrong hands. With the assistance of Miss Brunner (Jenny Runacre), a voracious and bisexual computer expert, Jerry discovers the programme has been taken by his unscrupulous brother Frank (Derrick O'Connor), and Jerry and Miss Brunner must recover it and put the system to work, leading to the creation of a new messiah (which isn't quite what one would expect). The distinguished supporting cast for this thoughtful bit of satire includes Patrick Magee, Sterling Hayden, and George Coulouris. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

One of Roman Polanski's lesser-known films, Diary of Forbidden Dreams (also known as What?) stars Sydne Rome as an attractive young hitchhiker who, as the film opens, accepts a ride from three men in a car, who later attempt to rape her. She escapes their clutches and makes her way to a mansion owned by millionaire Joseph Noblart (Hugh Griffith), who is overseeing a decadent party. Among the guests at his home are a pair of table-tennis players, a man with a harpoon (played by Polanski himself), and a hedonistic pimp played by Marcello Mastroianni. The woman's sexually charged adventure is an homage to Alice in Wonderland. ~ Perry Seibert, Rovi

Italian director Pier Pasolini tells four of the Chaucer tales in this graphic and satirical picture that chronicles the 14th-century's social, sexual, and religious standards in England. In Pasolini's Trilogy of Life, this second entry follows The Decameron and precedes The Arabian Nights. ~ Kristie Hassen, Rovi

Long thought dead, the victim of a horrible accident, Dr. Anton Phibes (Vincent Price) still lives, surrounded by art-deco bric-a-brac and attended by mute beauty Vulnavia (Virginia North). Outwardly normal in appearance, Phibes actually wears a rubber mask, covering his hideously deformed countenance; giving away the artifice is the fact that, when he dines, he takes his food through his neck rather than his mouth. Able to speak only when plugging a wire into his damaged vocal chords, Phibes elucidates his plan to murder the medical team whom he holds responsible for the death of his wife. Each of the killings is patterned after the ten deadly plagues. Phibes saves his worst for last: trapping chief surgeon Dr. Vesalius in his lair, Phibes forces the hapless medico into a race against time to save the life of his own son. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

The inimitable Vincent Price puts an interesting spin on this otherwise pedestrian witch-hunt exercise -- a rehashing of Witchfinder General (aka The Conqueror Worm) and several of Roger Corman's numerous Poe variations from the previous decade. Here Price plays Edward Whitman, a corrupt, sadistic magistrate in 16th-century Ireland who puts a quick and deadly stop to the activities of a local Druidic coven... but not before the sect's leader Oona (Elisabeth Bergner) puts a curse on him and the Whitman family line, calling up a vengeful spirit known as a "sidhee" which takes flesh in the form of an otherwise mild-mannered stable boy (Patrick Mower). As swift and violent retribution works its way through the Whitman family, so does this film snowball toward its bizarre and muddled conclusion -- made all the more confounding by rather choppy editing. Just like Conqueror Worm and half a dozen others, this was fallaciously marketed by distributor American International Pictures as yet another adaptation of the works of Edgar Allan Poe -- as if AIP hadn't kicked Poe's corpse around enough in the '60s. ~ Cavett Binion, Rovi

John Frankenheimer directed this intense film adaptation of the Bernard Malamud novel. During the days of Czarist Russia, a poor but educated Jew, Yakov Bok (Alan Bates) is abandoned by his wife Raisl (Carol White). Yakov decides to leave his small village and travel to Kiev. Since it is the time of the pogroms, Yakov poses as a gentile and takes a job as a handyman for Lebedev (Hugh Griffith), a drunken anti-Semitic merchant. Yakov rises up the ladder in Lebedev's establishment, and he is eventually promoted to factory overseer-accountant. But when a neighborhood boy is murdered, Yakov's true identity is discovered. Yakov is unjustly accused of the murder and arrested. Bibikov (Dirk Bogarde), a government attorney, believes Yakov to be innocent and attempts to discover the true killer -- realizing that if a confession is forced out of Yakov, the entire Jewish population could be in dire trouble. Bravely, Yakov puts up with the brutal prison life, refusing to confess, hoping Bibikov may discover some new evidence to re-open his case. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi

Inspired by Charles Dickens' novel Oliver Twist, Lionel Bart's 1961 London and Broadway musical hit glossed over some of Dickens' more graphic passages but managed to retain a strong subtext to what was essentially light entertainment. For its first half-hour or so, Carol Reed's Oscar-winning 1968 film version does a masterful job of telling its story almost exclusively through song and dance. Once nine-year-old orphan Oliver Twist (Mark Lester) falls in with such underworld types as pickpocket Fagin (Ron Moody) and murderous thief Bill Sykes (Oliver Reed), it becomes necessary to inject more and more dialogue, and the film loses some of its momentum. But not to worry; despite such brutal moments as Sikes' murder of Nancy (Shani Wallis), the film gets back on the right musical track, thanks in great part to Onna White's exuberant choreography and the faultless performances by Moody and by Jack Wild as the Artful Dodger. The supporting cast includes Harry Secombe as the self-righteous Mr. Bumble and Joseph O'Conor as Mr. Brownlow, the man who (through a series of typically Dickensian coincidences) rescues Oliver from the streets. Oliver! won six Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Director, and a special award to choreographer Onna White. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi