Belinda Lee Movies
Groomed for stardom by the Rank Organisation, British actress Belinda Lee made her first film appearance at 18 in The Runaway Bus (1953). Subsequent films like The Belles of St. Trinian's (1954), Who Done It? (1955) and The Feminine Touch (1956) bolstered Lee's popularity, but she never quite graduated to full stardom. She repaired to Europe in 1958 to appear in sword-and-sandal historical epics, where she was paid a great deal to wear very little. By 1961, Belinda Lee's voice and features were beginning to take on a harsh, hard edge; it's likely that her starring career would have been short even if she hadn't been killed in a car accident at the age of 27. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide- 1955
In this comedy, a clever chemist develops a pill that cures smokers of nicotine addiction. Realizing the marketing potential, he makes his discovery public, but encounters strong resistance from the international tobacco industry, which does its best to stop him. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
Norman Wisdom made his third film appearance in the slapstick musical Man of the Moment. This time, Norman is a clerk in the British ministry who is forced to sub for an ailing delegate at a Geneva Peace Conference. In his usual bumbling fashion, our hero becomes intimately involved in the affairs of a tiny Pacific-island monarchy. As a result, the island's queen refuses to participate in any sort of negotiations unless Norman sits in at the proceedings. The nervous British government immediately bestows a knighthood on the hapless delegate. . .and then the fun begins, as several scurvy types try to kill off Norman and topple the Queen from her throne. Featured in the cast of Man of the Moment is Norman Wisdom's music-hall straight man Jerry Desmonde in a prominent but thankless role. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Norman Wisdom, Lana Morris, (more)
- 1954
Slim Callaghan, a fictional British private detective in the American "hard boiled" mode, was the central character in several popular Peter Cheyney novels, in a stage play by Gerald Verner, and in the 1948 movie programmer Uneasy Terms, which top-billed Michael Rennie. Meet Mr. Callaghan stars Derrick DeMarney, no stranger to detective films, in the title role. In this "pilot" for a proposed Callaghan movie series, Slim is required to solve the death of a much-hated rich man. Meet Mr. Callagahan made money (no surprise, since it cost practically nothing to make), but no sequels resulted. In the late 1950s, however, a French-made group of Slim Calaghan pictures went on the market, starring Eddie ("Lemmy Caution") Constantine. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Lantern-jawed British comedian Frankie Howerd, best known to American TV fans as the star of the raucous historical satire Up Pompeii, heads the cast of The Runaway Bus. Howard plays Percy Lamb, a novice bus driver assigned to drive a coach from one London ariport to another. Alas, the city is enveloped in a thick fog, and poor Percy gets lost, along with his half-dozen passengers and a hidden cache of stolen gold. Most of the film's best moments go to Margaret Rutherford as a not-so-sweet old lady and Belinda Lee as a spy-novel addict. Petula Clark, who was already a top recording star in 1954, appears as a perky airline hostess. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Margaret Rutherford, Petula Clark, (more)
- 1954
Dane Clark plays a down-at-heels war vet who enters into an odd agreement. If he'll marry a gorgeous blonde (Belinda Lee), Clark will be paid a hefty sum of money. Unfortunately he's being set up as the fall guy in a murder scheme. Awakening from a drunken stupor, Clark finds that all the evidence in the murder points to him--and even he is convinced that he's guilty. Filmed in England, Blackout is based on the Helen Nielsen novel Murder by Proxy. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Dane Clark, Belinda Lee, (more)
