Sam Kydd Movies

Smashing Time attempts to turn British actresses Rita Tushingham and Lynn Redgrave into a female Laurel and Hardy. The film's second mistake is to prolong the joke for 96 minutes. Tushingham and Redgrave play a couple of dimwitted North Country girls who head to London, in hopes of breaking into the mad, mod world of fashion modeling. Instead they spend most of their screen time getting in each other's way and wreaking havoc on innocent pedestrians. The comic "highlight" of Smashing Time is supposed to be a mammoth pie fight; but outside of one cute throwaway gag involving a street minister, the sequence makes one wish, in the words of Laurel and Hardy buff Leonard Maltin, that Smashing Time "had been handled by someone other than [director] Desmond Davis." ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

This film is taken from the popular British television series. Alf Garnett (Warren Mitchell) is a middle-aged bigot who loves the Queen and all that for which the kingdom (or what is left of it) stands, right or wrong. He puts up with his dizzy wife, Else (Dandy Nichols), his liberated daughter (Una Stubbs), and her long-haired, liberal-minded husband (Anthony Booth), who causes him no end of grief. Till Death Us Do Part is the exact blueprint used for the popular U.S. television series All in the Family. Alf dreams of being knighted by the Queen, gets drunk at a wedding reception, and struggles with the changing world within the framework of his narrow-minded stubbornness. Ray Davies of the Kinks provides the title track for this offbeat but true-to-life comedy feature. ~ Dan Pavlides, Rovi

A spaceman -- with a raygun -- for hire takes on a crooked land baron in this drama that moves Western themes into outer space. In the year 2021, Bill Kemp (James Olson), the first man to walk on Mars, is an astronaut for hire, renting his services to the highest bidder. J.J. Hubbard (Warren Mitchell) is a multi-millionaire who pays Kemp to help blast an oncoming asteroid out of its orbit so that it will avoid the Earth and crash into the moon. However, Hubbard's goal is hardly benevolent. The moon is being excavated for mineral resources, and since fragments of the asteroid in question resemble jewels, it will allow Hubbard to fraudulently jack up land prices on the lunar surface. Kemp also learns that Hubbard was responsible for the death of the brother of Clementine Taplin (Catherine Schell), the woman he loves. Kemp realizes that he can no longer do business with Hubbard, and he sets out to foil Hubbard's schemes before it's too late. Moon Zero Two was directed by Roy Thomas Baker, who also made a number of pictures for Hammer Films, including the respected sci-fi cult film Quatermass and the Pit. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

This science fiction/fantasy is loosely based on a story by John Wyndham (best known for The Day of the Triffids). Scientist Collin (Tom Bell) stumbles across a parallel world in which President Kennedy is not shot, Vietnam hasn't happened, and Ottilie (Joan Collins), the woman he loves, dies unexpectedly of a heart condition. While he is happy enough with the rest of his new world, he can't stand by and let his true love die in his original world, and he determines to return to his own place and time to save her. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

The British "Confessions" film series was reminiscent of the "Carry On" series, albeit far, far dirtier. Many fans consider the first entry, Confessions of a Window Cleaner, to be the best of the batch. Based on a supposedly autobiographical novel by Timothy Lea, the film stars Robin Askwith as an apprentice window washer with a voyeuristic streak. Nearly everyone with whom Askwith comes in contact is an oversexed, underdressed female. Potato-shaped
Dandy Nichols plays the protagonist's mother. An anachronism even before it was released, Confessions of a Window Cleaner was nonetheless successful enough to inspire several sequels, none of which were released to American theatres. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

An old-fashioned drama about old-fashioned values in an old-fashioned town called Shillingbury, this conventional film may not be quite the ticket for a more cynical, demanding audience (whatever their age). Pop musician Peter (Robin Nedwell) and his wife Sally (Diane Keen) take refuge in Shillingbury when their mod, mad life in the Big City gets more than they can handle. The problem is that the small town's band assaults the senses, especially the musical senses, every time the group gathers to play. They can empty out a room quicker than a fire alarm. So Peter agrees to take them on, coach them, and bring back an audience. As a result, the band members rebel because they love their old leader, Saltie (Trevor Howard) and resent his being shoved aside. Their rebellion, it turns out, produces exactly the opposite of what everyone in the town had expected, including themselves. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi