Matthew Guinness Movies

In a novel and intriguing approach to storytelling, director David Hare has created an engaging mystery and human drama that ostensibly focuses on an innocent dinner party but is really about something else. Jean Travers (Vanessa Redgrave) is an old-maid schoolmarm who has lived in Wetherby, a small town in northeastern Yorkshire, all of her life. She is still haunted by memories of a passionate love affair with a young man who was later murdered while on military duty in Malaysia nearly 35 years ago in the '50s. One evening, Jean invites a group of friends over for dinner; the group is comprised of two couples, one of which spends the time sniping at each other. A young man, John Morgan (Tim McInnerny) is also in the dinner party. Jean thinks he was brought along by one of the couples; the couples, in turn, believe he was invited by Jean -- in short, he is a total stranger that everyone assumes is a friend of someone there. As the evening progresses, political topics of the moment are brought up and chewed over; Margaret Thatcher, Richard Nixon, and other notables of the era are discussed, and various comments are made on the laziness of today's youth. The dinner party ends, and the next day John Morgan comes back to visit Jean. While she is in the midst of preparing tea for them both, he takes out a gun and kills himself. The shock waves from his senseless act later reverberate among the dinner-party guests, as the police investigator tries to piece together the man's background and the dinner party itself. Questions are raised about his motives, and viewers see the dinner party again, moment by moment, in an entirely new light. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Lady Jane Grey, the 16-year-old girl who for nine days in the 16th century was Queen of England, is here portrayed by Helena Bonham Carter. Lady Jane Grey's sickly cousin, who becomes Edward VI upon the death of Henry VIII, is on the threshold of death himself. The Protestant powers-that-be, fearing that England will fall under Catholic rule, contrive to marry off Edward VI's most likely successor Lady Jane to the wastrelly Guilford Dudley (Cary Elwes), the future Duke of Suffolk. The dying Edward is coerced into naming Jane as his successor. Jane is forced to assume the throne, attempting to impose reforms on the corrupt Protestant government during her brief reign. A coup led by Jane's cousin Princess Mary (Jane Lapotaire) results in the ouster, and eventual execution, of Queen Jane and her consort. The story is told through anti-establishment themes; teen-agers Lady Jane and Guilford Dudley are seen as the only hope for a brighter future, making their deaths all the more tragic. An earlier version of the same story, Tudor Rose, was filmed in 1936. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

An Anglo-American co-production, S.O.S. Titanic is a costly, 150-minute reenactment of the infamous sea disaster of 1912. Heading the cast is David Janssen as millionaire John Jacob Astor, who went down with the Titanic, and Cloris Leachman as raucous Denver dowager Molly Brown, who didn't (for the record, Leachman had previously played Brown on a 1957 episode of the TV anthology Telephone Time). Third-billed is Susan Saint James as fictional passenger Leigh Goodwin, who carries most of the dramatic load. Written by Hallmark Hall of Fame veteran James Costigan, the made-for-television S.O.S. Titanic premiered September 23, 1979. In subsequent network and syndicated showings, the film was pared down to 102 minutes. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Alexander Solzhenitsyn's novel about brutal individual survival in a Russian labor camp in the 1950s is brought to the screen in this stark and spare adaptation by director Caspar Wrede, writer Ronald Harwood, and cinematographer Sven Nykvist. Tom Courtenay is Ivan, who is a prisoner in the eighth year of a ten-year sentence at a Siberian labor camp. Ivan's day consists of small accomplishments that enable Ivan to retain his humanity during conditions of extreme oppression -- he does not get sick, he grabs an extra smoke, he discovers a saw, and he helps to work on a concrete wall. When he prepares for sleep, Ivan is contented that the guards have not beaten him and that he has gotten through the day in one piece. And tomorrow morning, Ivan must start all over again. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

The Promoter was based on the Arnold Bennett novel The Card, which served as its British release title. Impoverished young clerk Alec Guinness works his way up the financial ladder until he has become a successful and highly respected loan officer. Actually, Guinness is not as above-board as the world perceives him. Beginning with cheating on a high school exam, he has wheeled and dealed his way to the top, and ethics be damned. Balancing Guinness' cold-blooded business savvy is his comparative ineptitude with women, particularly the bewitching Glynis Johns. Only Alec Guinness could succeed at making his "Sammy Glick" character appealing from first scene to last. The Promoter was scripted by Eric Ambler, who managed to unearth moments of sly cynicism that original author Bennett had barely touched upon. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide