Geoffrey Keen Movies
The son of prominent stage actor Malcolm Keen, London-born Geoffrey Keen proved his talent in his own right when he won the Gold Medal at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts. On stage from 1932 and in films from 1946, Keen established himself as one of the premiere purveyors of cold-edged corporate types. If a producer wanted a dryly sarcastic executive or intimidating attorney, Keen was the man. In this vein, Geoffrey Keen was the ideal replacement for the late Bernard Lee as "M" in the James Bond films, essaying the role in such Bond escapades as The Spy Who Loved Me (1977), Moonraker (1979), For Your Eyes Only (1981), Octopussy (1983), A View to a Kill (1985) and The Living Daylights (1987). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Adapted from the Graham Greene story The Basement Room, director Carol Reed's The Fallen Idol is told almost completely from a child's eye view-but it isn't a children's story. Young Bobby Henrey idolizes household butler Ralph Richardson. Therefore, when it seems as though Richardson might be implicated in a murder, Bobby does his best to throw the police off the track. The boy succeeds only in casting even more suspicion upon Richardson. As the story progresses, Henrey's hero worship is eroded by Richardson's shifty behavior, and even more so when the boy discovers that the butler's boasts of previous heroism are just so much hot air. The ending of the film differs radically from Greene's story. While it would seem that director Reed was merely paying homage to the "happy ending" philosophy (hardly likely, given the doleful climaxes of such films as Odd Man Out and The Third Man), the director had very solid reasons for altering the story: he was more fascinated by the concept of the boy's imagination nearly sending his idol to the gallows, rather than having the butler entrapped by facts. And though the ending is happy for the boy, the butler's fate is much more nebulous. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ralph Richardson, Michèle Morgan, (more)
- 1948
In this comedy, after being discharged from the British army, an idealistic officer and war hero attempts to test his theory that the world would be better if people would harbor more goodwill towards each other. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jimmy Hanley, Anne Crawford, (more)
In this Cold War spy classic, Holly Martins (Joseph Cotten), a third-rate American pulp novelist, arrives in postwar Vienna, where he has been promised a job by his old friend Harry Lime (Orson Welles). Upon his arrival, Martins discovers that Lime has been killed in a traffic accident, and that his funeral is taking place immediately. At the graveside, Martins meets outwardly affable Major Calloway (Trevor Howard) and actress Anna Schmidt (Alida Valli), who is weeping copiously. When Calloway tells Martins that the late Harry Lime was a thief and murderer, the loyal Martins is at first outraged. Gradually, he discovers not only that Calloway was right but also that the man lying in the coffin in the film's early scenes was not Harry Lime at all--and that Lime is still very much alive (he was the mysterious "third man" at the scene of the fatal accident). Thus the stage is set for the movie's famous climactic confrontation in the sewers of Vienna--and the even more famous final shot, in which Martins pays emotionally for doing "the right thing." Written by Graham Greene, The Third Man is an essential classic, made even more so by the insistent zither music of Anton Karas. The film is currently available in both an American and British release version; the American print, with an introduction by Joseph Cotten, is slightly shorter than the British version, which is narrated by director Carol Reed. Nominated for several Academy Awards, The Third Man won Best Cinematography for Robert Krasker. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Joseph Cotten, Alida Valli, (more)
In 1948, "The Archers" -- the writing and directing team of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger -- had completed The Red Shoes, one of their greatest international successes, but it had yet to be released when the Rank Organization, doubting the commercial appeal of the picture, severed ties with the team and Powell and Pressburger signed a new deal with Alexander Korda's London Films. Their first project for Korda, The Small Back Room, was a dramatic change of pace, a thriller set in London in the midst of World War II. Sammy Rice (David Farrar) is explosives expert who works with British military intelligence as part of a ragtag munitions research team studying new ways to defuse enemy weapons and improve allied arms. While he's brilliant on the job, Rice is a troubled man with an artificial leg that causes him chronic pain and an appetite for alcohol that stands between him and those around him, especially his girlfriend and secretary Susan (Kathleen Byron). Rice's latest project is finding a way to defuse a new German bomb that's cleverly disguised as a children's toy, but Rice finds himself battling his superiors when Waring (Jack Hawkins), an unscrupulous businessman who has been pressed into service with the explosives team, and his colleague Professor Mair (Milton Rosmer) begin lobbying the Army to purchase a new weapon that Rice feels is both ineffective and dangerous. Despite excellent reviews and a fine cast that includes Cyril Cusack, Sidney James and Robert Morley in a cameo appearance, The Small Back Room was a box office disappointment on its original release, and it appeared in edited form in the United States under the title Hour of Glory, though later video releases allowed Americans to see the film in its original British cut. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- David Farrar, Kathleen Byron, (more)
- 1950
Filmed on location in a British industrial town, Chance of a Lifetime is a trenchantly amusing satire of labor-management relations. When a group of angry workers protest their wage and working conditions at a plough factory, they are permitted to take over the operation themselves. It isn't long before they realize that you can't run a business on idealism and goodwill. Wisely, no one in the film is depicted as a clear-cut hero or villain; "hateful" company boss Dickinson (Basil Radford) is just as human and likeable as the incensed workers. For reasons that now seem frivolous, Chance of a Lifetime was rejected by three major British distribution firms before it was picked up--at the behest of the government--by British Lion. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Basil Radford, Niall MacGinnis, (more)
- 1950
The Clouded Yellow stars Trevor Howard as David Sommers, a former member of the British Secret Service. After the war, Sommers takes a low-profile job cataloguing butterfly specimens. While thus employed, he make the acquaintance of Sophie Malraux (Jean Simmons), a curious young lady who seems to be hiding something. Indeed she is, as Sommers discovers when Sophie is brought up on murder charges. Championing her cause, Sommers helps Sophie escape, prompting Scotland Yard to put another ex-secret agent on the couple's trail. The chase extends from London to Liverpool, culminating in a tangled web of murder and madness. The Clouded Yellow was the first independent production supervised by Betty E. Box. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jean Simmons, Trevor Howard, (more)
The Walt Disney production of the Robert Louis Stevenson classic novel Treasure Island is one of the company's best live-action films of the '50s, and one of the best family-oriented adventures ever filmed. Bobby Driscoll plays Jim Hawkins, a young cabin boy who battles the pirate Long John Silver (Robert Newton) for a treasure. Disney changes the ending of the book, yet the film is so entertaining--particularly Newton's scene-stealing performance--that the difference is forgivable. In the '70s, Treasure Island was re-issued with "objectionable" violence cut out of the print; the original version was restored in the 1992 home video re-release. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bobby Driscoll, Robert Newton, (more)
- 1951
Cheer the Brave is a minor British domestic comedy, good for a few laughs during its scant 62 minutes. Elsie Randolph plays the domineering wife of downtrodden Geoffrey Keen. As if wifey isn't enough of a terror, Keen has to contend with mother-in-law Marie Ault. Keen finally gets the gumption to skeedaddle when Randolph's first husband Jack McNaughton make a return appearance. Cheer the Brave was the first directorial effort of former editor Kenneth Hume, who also wrote and produced it. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1951
This deliberately paced British film about a black rural priest and a white landowner whose paths cross in 1940s South Africa remains one of the most powerful cinematic statements on racism. Based on Alan Paton's landmark novel, Cry the Beloved Country is, in hindsight, naïve in its belief that apartheid would be easier to overcome than history proved it to be, but its intentions are certainly in the right place and it never trivializes the importance of the issue. To the credit of both Paton and director-producer Zoltan Korda, the film maintains a dignity and relevancy that is not always true of other "message" movies from the 1940s and '50s. Partly, this is because the characters, both black and white, are much more fully developed than a Hollywood production would have allowed them to be. Another factor is that the filmmakers do not resort to heavy-handedness, and instead allow the story to speak for itself. Knowing that the film was actually shot on location in South Africa during the height of apartheid only compounds the impact of this film. Canada Lee, as the priest Kumalo, and Charles Carson, as the farmer Jarvis, give stunning, multi-layered performances as two men who must go through a wrenching emotional experience. The solid supporting cast includes Joyce Carey as Jarvis' wife and a twenty-something Sidney Poitier as a Johannesburg priest. More than forty years later, after apartheid's fall, Cry the Beloved Country was remade with James Earl Jones and Richard Harris. ~ Bob Mastrangelo, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Canada Lee, Charles Carson, (more)
- 1951
Though Green Grow the Rushes has the look and feel of an Ealing comedy, the film was actually produced through the auspices of British Lion. The story takes place on the southern coast of England, where through a bureaucratic oversight a small patch of land in Kent is protected from outside legal intervention by an ancient charter. It is here that a group of liquor smugglers, headed by Captain Biddie (Roger Livesey), carries on its activities with impunity and with full cooperation of the regional politicians. The fun begins when a cargo of precious potables ends up in a duck pond owned by a local farmer, sparking an onslaught of governmental foolishness. Two future stars carry the slim romantic subplot in Green Grow the Rushes: Honor Blackman plays a well-meaning newspaper columnist, while Richard Burton shows up as a slovenly smuggler (this was Burton's final British film before his move to Hollywood). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Roger Livesey, Honor Blackman, (more)
- 1951
High Treason is a British espionage thriller filmed in the style of such American "docudramas" as The House on 92nd Street. Enemy saboteurs infiltrate the industrial suburbs of London, intending to plant high-powered bombs at several factory sites. Their motivation is to cripple the British economy and enable subversive forces to insinuate themselves in the government. The saboteurs are thwarted not by the traditional counterintelligence agents but by workaday London police officers. Director Roy Boulting also cowrote the screenplay of High Treason, which moves swiftly enough for its plot inconsistencies to be ignored. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Liam Redmond, Andre Morell, (more)
- 1952
In this British drama a veteran laborer rises above the turmoil of unionization to become the governor of Artista, an industrial island that finds itself further embroiled in a terrible fight over low pay and terrible working conditions. A strike ensues, but the new governor remembers what it feels like to be an abused working stiff and so refuses to call out troops to break the strike. He tries to use his experiences on both sides of the fence to mediate between the angry laborers, but it's to no avail and the governor must make a difficult decision. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Eric Portman, Cecil Parker, (more)
- 1952
In this murder mystery, a woman's brother is killed in a freaky accident, or so she believes. Fortunately for her, an American journalist is more suspicious and so begins roaming the London streets in search of the killer. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1952
If the plot of the 1993 Kevin Costner film A Perfect World seemed vaguely familiar, perhaps it's because it bears a more than passing resemblance to the British-made 1952 thriller The Hunted (U.S. title: Stranger in Between). Dirk Bogarde stars in this emotional melodrama as an escaped murderer, sloshing through the North Country mud. Bogarde is reluctantly saddled with a fugitive orphan boy (Jon Whitely), who insists upon tagging along. The murderer ends up sacrificing his freedom to rescue the injured boy from certain death. While The Hunted was greeted with moderate enthusiasm in Britain, its virtues were trumped by the French film critics of the era. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Dirk Bogarde, Jon Whiteley, (more)
- 1952
"Angels One Five" is the cognomen bestowed upon a group of WW II British fighter pilots. The squadron leader is Tiger Small (Jack Hawkins), who is taken out of commission after an accident. Despite the protests from his fellow flyboys, Tiger insists upon taking to the air again, thereby setting the stage for the film's exciting and inspirational finale. Angels One Five differs from other combat films in that the battles generally take place offscreen; the progress of the principal characters is relayed to the audience via radio reports and control-room charts. If this sounds dull and static, it isn't: in fact, Angels One Five is among the best of the "Battle of Britain" war epics. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jack Hawkins, Michael Denison, (more)
- 1953
The rousing adventure novel by Sir Walter Scott was adapted for this swashbuckler. Richard Todd stars as Robert Roy MacGregor, a clan leader in 18th century Scotland attempting to lead his fellow countrymen in a rebellion against the heavy-handed rule of England's King George I. When the king replaces a sympathetic politician with a lackey working against Rob Roy, it's up to the hardy Scotsman to defeat his enemies without the support of a powerful ally, while also romancing and marrying his true love (Glynis Johns). Rob Roy, the Highland Rogue (1953) was the last of 21 British films produced jointly by Disney and RKO. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Richard Todd, Glynis Johns, (more)
- 1953
The plot of the thoroughly captivating British comedy Genevieve can be summed up in a sentence: Two young couples participate in the Vintage Car Rally, a yearly race from London to Brighton. The title "character" is the 1904 Darracq auto owned by John Gregson and Dinah Sheridan. The couple's friendly rivals are Kenneth More and Kay Kendall, the latter graduating to stardom on the basis of this film. At first treating the race as a lark, the two couples become increasingly--and hilariously--competitive as they near the finishing line. Among the film's plethora of small pleasures are Joyce Grenfell as a wry hotel proprietress and Arthur Wontner as an elderly car fancier. Despite the many technical gaffes and continuity errors overlooked by director Henry Cornelius, Genevieve is a uniquely British delight from beginning to end, its charm enhanced by the uncredited harmonica score of American expatriate Larry Adler. The film was a moneymaker in every country that it played, and a multi-award winner in England and abroad. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- John Gregson, Dinah Sheridan, (more)
- 1953
Based on a novel by John Brophy, Turn the Key Softly takes place within a single day. The film follows the exploits of three newly released female convicts. Monica (Yvonne Mitchell) is full of hatred for the man who led her into a life of crime. Stella (Joan Collins) is an impulsive streetwalker who is determined not to return to her old lifestyle. And Mrs. Quillam (Kathleen Harrison), an elderly shoplifter, misses out on her chance to start anew in a most ironic fashion. Slightly hoked up with a rooftop chase, Turn the Key Softly is an otherwise straightforward psychological drama. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Yvonne Mitchell, Terence Morgan, (more)
- 1953
John Mills followed his successful Gentle Gunman with the tensioned-filled meller The Long Memory. Convicted for a murder he did not commit, Davidson (Mills) spends 12 long years in prison. Upon his release, he vows to get even with the three witnesses who perjured themselves and clenched his conviction. Returning to the scene of the crime, he begins gathering clues as to the whereabouts of the witnesses. That's when he discovers that the alleged murder victim is alive and well! John McCallum co-stars as Inspector Lowther, who has spent the past dozen years mulling over the Davidson case, wondering if the man was innocent after all. For the sake of plot convenience, it turns out that Lowther is married to one of the lying witnesses! The Long Memory was based on a novel by Howard Clewes. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- John Mills, John McCallum, (more)
- 1953
Though Meet Mr. Lucifer reads rather better than it plays, the film is still good for a few healthy laughs. Stanley Holloway plays Hollingsworth, an actor who is playing Lucifer in a stage production. While being hoisted through a trap door, Hollingsworth is knocked cold. While unconscious, he is replaced by the real Lucifer. Seeking about for a new form of deviltry to inflict upon the public, Lucifer comes up with the most hellish device of all: Television! The rest of the film details the effects that the boob tube has on otherwise normal, rational British citizens (there's even time for a swipe at 3D movies). Based on a play by Arnold Ridley, Meet Mr. Lucifer is enhanced by an all-star cast, including Peggy Cummins, Kay Kendall and Ernst Thesiger. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Stanley Holloway, Peggy Cummins, (more)
The first of the popular British "Doctor" comedy series, Doctor in the House stars Dirk Bogarde as callow young medical student Simon Sparrow. Beginning his five-year internship at St. Swithin's Teaching Hospital, Sparrow continually runs afoul of head doctor Sir Lancelot Sprat (James Robertson-Justice). His social life is spiced up when Sparrow is taken under the wings of three student repeaters, who've flunked their prelims and are seeking a second chance. Most of the humor is very basic and not a little vulgar, ranging from the character name "Sir Lancelot Sprat" (say it really fast) to the now famous "What's the bleeding time?" routine. The film spawned several theatrical follow-ups, as well as a 1970s TV series; all were based on the semi-satirical novels by Dr. Richard Gordon. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Dirk Bogarde, Muriel Pavlow, (more)
- 1954
Based on a true story, The Divided Heart is an effective, high-gloss British soap opera. Cornell Borchers stars as Inga, a young German woman who disappears and is presumed killed during WW2. Inga's infant son is placed in an orphanage; years later, the boy is adopted by childless couple Sonja (Yvonne Mitchell) and Franz (Armin Dahmen). The adoptive parents' future happiness is shattered when Inga returns, insisting that the child be returned to her. The film is scrupulously fair to both Inga and Sonja, giving generous screen time to the wartime horrors experienced by the former and the eminent parental suitability of the latter. Of the supporting cast, Alexander Knox stands out as the judge presiding over the climactic custody battle. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Cornell Borchers, Yvonne Mitchell, (more)
- 1954
Originally released as High and Dry, The Maggie was one of the most endearing of the "regional" British comedies of the 1950s. Hollywood's Paul Douglas plays an American businessman whose brash, glad-handing techniques earn nothing but cold stares in a tiny Scottish village. Ever anxious to cut costs, Douglas arranges with a local "transport company" to move his luggage to a remote Scots island. That's how he gets mixed up with The Maggie, a ranshackle old shipping vessel captained by taciturn Alex Mackenzie. Our only cavil: The Maggie is slow going at times, cutting its humor potential in half. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Paul Douglas, Alex Mackenzie, (more)
- 1954
This disappointing thriller from horror legend Terence Fisher (The Curse of Frankenstein) stars Alex Nicol as James Bradley, an America trumpet-player visiting London. Falsely accused of murdering a Spanish singer, Bradley can only prevent his own execution by finding the real killer. Not one of Fisher's more rousing films, this modestly-budgeted programmer co-stars Geoffrey Keen and Arthur Lane. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide
- 1954
Dorothy and Campbell Christie's witty courtroom comedy/drama Carrington V.C. was given a classy screen treatment by director Anthony Asquith. David Niven stars as Major Carrington, a war hero who is "kicked upstairs" in peacetime. Compelled to use his own money for his expense account, Carrington becomes convinced that he will never see his money again; thus, he takes back the money from his department's funds without permission. For this gaffe in military protocol, Carrington is court-martialed. During the trial, Carrington's shrewish wife (Margaret Leighton) gets even for a wartime affair conducted by her husband by supplying false testimony. Though Carrington is declared guilty, the implication is that he is well rid of both his wife and his dead-end government post. Carrington VC was released in the US as Court Martial. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- David Niven, Margaret Leighton, (more)
