Duncan Lamont Movies

In the conclusion of the four-part story "Death to the Daleks," the humans and the Daleks on the planet Exxilon have been forced into an uneasy alliance to destroy the "living city" which has been depleting everyone's energy sources. The Daleks intend to blow up the city from the outside, which would have devastating consequences. But the Doctor (Jon Pertwee) comes up with a safer solution -- and in so doing, he also puts a damper on the Daleks' scheme to spread a deadly plague throughout the Universe. Written by Terry Nation, "Death to the Daleks, Episode 4" first aired on March 16, 1974. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

In the second episode of the four-part story "Death to the Daleks," an energy drain on the planet Exxilon has rendered the TARDIS useless. During his enforced stay on the planet, the Doctor (Jon Pertwee) ends up seeking out an antidote for a plague which has spread throughout the galaxy. Things take a deadly turn when the instigators of the plague, the mutant Daleks, likewise show up on Exxilon. Written by Terry Nation, "Death to the Daleks, Episode 2" first aired on March 2, 1974. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Liv Ullman portrays a female pope -- based on a long-held rumor that the papacy was held by a woman between the reigns of Leo IV and Benedict III -- in this rambling saga directed by Michael Anderson. The British version of the film has been cut, not only removing twenty-one minutes of the film but also an entire contemporary framing story. In the full version, a modern-day woman evangelist, played by Ullman, who feels an affinity to the legendary Pope Joan, pays a visit to her psychiatrist (Keir Dullea). Searching through her past lives to see whether she is the reincarnation of Pope Joan, the film then flashbacks 1000 years to pick up Joan (Ullman in an earlier incarnation of her character) undergoing a succession of trials and tribulations. Joan then meets up with and becomes the mistress of Adrian (Maximilian Schell), a monk with an artistic bent. After the death of Charlemagne when roving bands of Saxons are raping women and ransacking the countryside, Joan flees the country by cutting her hair short and dressing like a man. Together Joan and Adrian escape to Greece. In Greece, Joan's street-corner preaching draws the attention of Pope Leo IV (Trevor Howard), who is impressed by her impassioned rendering of the Gospel. Still disguised as a man, Pope Leo, clueless as to her true sex, hires her as his secretary. From there, she rises up the ladder of the Roman Catholic Church, becoming a cardinal and then Pope Leo's successor. But then she becomes pregnant by a lover from her past (Franco Nero) and Joan must hide her delicate condition from the papal authorities and the rowdy masses. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi

More widely seen in Britain as Nothing but the Night, this atmospheric chiller -- based on the novel Children of the Night by John Blackburn -- stars the ubiquitous Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing as a Scotland Yard inspector and a forensics expert sent to investigate a series of mysterious deaths among the elderly caretakers of a Scottish orphanage. Their probing uncovers a diabolical plot perpetrated by members of a Satanic cult, involving the use of an experimental serum which contains the genetic memories of its departed members. The caretakers have been injecting the serum into their young charges in order to use their bodies as healthy vessels for the Satanists' return, and the resulting possession transforms them into sadistic murderers. Although Christopher Lee acted as co-producer on both this film and the superb mystical classic The Wicker Man, it bears little resemblance to the latter, playing more like a Hammer-style variant on the American-made Brotherhood of Satan, released the previous year. Also known as The Resurrection Syndicate. ~ Cavett Binion, Rovi

Greeting Steed after his three-week vacation, Tara asks him if he enjoyed himself. Unfortunately, he can't say, because he has absolutely no memory of the past three weeks. Investigating this curious lapse of memory, Tara stumbles upon a plot to kill Mother -- with Steed in the thick of things. The episode's highlight is a battle of one-upsmanship between a captive Tara and glamorous-but-deadly enemy agent Lisa (Kate O'Mara). Written by Don Chaffey, "Stay Tuned" first aired in England on February 26, 1969, two days after its American TV premiere. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

In this feather-weight version of Evelyn Waugh's novel Decline and Fall, Paul Pennyfeather (Robin Phillips) is an Oxford divinity student who finds himself expelled after a gang of drunken freshmen remove his pants and he is accused of exposing himself to a girl. Looking for work, he retains the services of an unsavory employment agency that secures a position for him at a sleazy Welsh boarding school for boys, presided over by the colorful Dr. Fagan (Donald Wolfit). On staff at the school are an assortment of distasteful screwballs; Mr. Prendergast (Robert Harris) is a withdrawn former clergyman; Captain Grimes (Leo McKern) is a one-legged two-timer with his eye on Fagan's daughter Flossie (Patience Collier); and Soloman Philbrick (Colin Blakely) is an undercover criminal posing as Fagan's butler. All hell breaks loose during the school's annual Sports Day, but Paul manages to meet a wealthy patron of the school, Margot Beste-Chetwynde (Geneviève Page), who hires him to tutor her son. At her estate, Margot seduces Paul, and Paul proposes marriage. But before the wedding, Margot asks Paul, as a favor, to travel to Tangiers on a business trip. He agrees but is soon arrested for trafficking in prostitution. Sent to jail, he runs into Philbrick and Captain Grimes, and now Margot has to scheme to get Paul out of jail. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi

This film was a pet project of Joan Fontaine, based on a novel by Peter Curtis. It was her last feature film. Fontaine stars as teacher Gwen Mayfield, who is in charge of a missionary school in Africa. A witch doctor puts a curse on her, and she has a nervous breakdown. Returning to England, she takes a job running a small rural school. In the village, there is an active voodoo cult. They have targeted a young woman named Linda (Ingrid Brett), whom they plan to offer as a virgin sacrifice. The cult members are led by journalist Stephanie Bax (Kay Walsh), whom Mayfield discovers is the head witch. Mayfield's student Ronnie Dowsett (Martin Stephens) is being harassed by the cult to keep him from protecting Linda, his girlfriend. This British production was titled The Devil's Own in the U.S. ~ Michael Betzold, Rovi

Britisher Trader Faulkner goes on his honeymoon with new bride Marla Landi. Little does he suspect that Landi is conspiring with ex-husband Ken Scott to murder Faulkner for his money. Faulkner tumbles to their little scheme, and plots a revenge. The plotters get their just desserts, but Faulkner ends up just as dead as he would have been had he never caught on. Filmed in England, The Murder Game was released in the US by 20th Century-Fox. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

This British adventure is set in mid-19th century India where a half-caste officer is court-martialed for cowardice. After he is drummed out, the embittered officer joins a wandering band of bandits and gets his revenge upon those who framed him. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

Hardly the best of Hammer Studios' Frankenstein epics, The Evil of Frankenstein is too much the mixture as before to be truly memorable. Back in business once more is Baron Frankenstein (Peter Cushing), who finds his fabled monster (Kiwi Kingston) frozen in a block of ice. Once the creature is thawed out, the Baron, worried that the big lug might develop a mind of his own, engages the services of a hypnotist (Peter Woodthorpe). Instead of keeping the monster docile, the hypnotist decides to use old "Frankie" for his own evil designs, and we're off and running again. At 84 minutes, Evil of Frankenstein was too short for a two-hour network TV slot, so Universal (the film's American distributor) tacked on 13 minutes of pointless additional footage, featuring timorous villagers Steven Geray, Maria Palmer and William Phipps. The film was followed by a vastly superior sequel, Frankenstein Created Woman. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

John Ford's last western film, Cheyenne Autumn was allegedly produced to compensate for the hundreds of Native Americans who had bitten the dust in Ford's earlier films (that was the director's story, anyway). Set in 1887, the film recounts the defiant migration of 300 Cheyennes from their reservation in Oklahoma territory to their original home in Wyoming. They have done this at the behest of chiefs Little Wolf (Ricardo Montalban) and Dull Knife (Gilbert Roland), peaceful souls who have been driven to desperate measures because the US government has ignored their pleas for food and shelter. Since the Cheyennes' trek is in defiance of their treaty, Captain Thomas Archer (Richard Widmark), who agrees with the Indians in principle, reluctantly leads his troops in pursuit of the tribe. While there was never any intention to shed blood, the white press finds it politically expedient to distort the Cheyennes' action into a declaration of war. Thanks to the cruelties of such chauvinistic whites as Captain Oscar Wessels (Karl Malden), the Cheyennes are forced to defend themselves--and whenever Indians take arms against whites in the 1880s, it's usually misrepresented as a massacre. Only the intervention of US secretary of the interior Carl Schurz (Edward G. Robinson) prevents the hostilities from erupting into wholesale bloodshed. Based on a novel by Mari Sandoz, Cheyenne Autumn is a cinematic elegy--not only for the beleaguered Cheyennes, but for John Ford's fifty years in pictures. It is weakest when arbitrarily throwing in a wearisome romance between Richard Widmark and pacifistic schoolmarm Carroll Baker, who out of sympathy for the Indians has joined them in their 1500-mile westward journey. When the Warner Bros. people decided that the film ran too long, they chopped out the wholly unnecessary but very funny episode involving a poker-obsessed Wyatt Earp (James Stewart). Contrary to popular belief, this episode was included in the earliest non-roadshow prints of Cheyenne Autumn; the scene was excised only when the film went into its second and third runs in 1966 (it has since been restored). ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

This is one of a series of competent murder mysteries directed by George Pollock based on the Agatha Christie character, Miss Marple. Margaret Rutherford stars as the grey-haired, wily sleuth who will not give up until all the pieces of a puzzle have been neatly put in place. This time around, an old village recluse is found dead and everyone except Miss Marple believes he had a heart attack. She is suspicious because four members of the dead man's family stand to benefit from his death, especially when a highly valuable painting is added into the kitty. As she follows her instincts and logic, a few more murders eliminate the same number of suspects, and Miss Marple is compelled to lend haste to her investigation before someone else turns up dead. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi