Olga Lindo Movies

This crime drama is set in 1910, and tells the tale of a doctor accused of murdering his wife. He swore that he didn't do it. The evidence speaks otherwise. The doctor staunchly claimed the overdose of tranquilizers found in her tea got there by accident and that he and his beautiful mistress had absolutely nothing to do with it. Never mind that after his wife's "accidental" death, he and his lover just happened to choose that moment for a Canadian vacation. Despite their absence, the London police continue investigating until they find the poor wife's body buried in the doctor's cellar. Even after his subsequent capture, extradition and guilty sentence, Dr. Crippen swears his innocence. It's unbelievable, but the story is true. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

A persuasive ad man cons a British TV makeup artist to slip in a promotion for Bonko Detergent during a show in this comedy. The ploy is a success until the makeup man is fired. He and the ad man team up and create a pirate station that broadcasts their commercials into other shows. They soon find themselves in trouble when thieves, believing their roving broadcast van is filled with gold, steal the vehicle. The adman radios the police and the robbers are captured. This leads him to get a new job with the television network. The makeup man then interrupts the man's first show with his commercials. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Based on a popular British television drama, this 1957 film features a riveting performance from Yvonne Mitchell as a housewife who can't keep house. Mitchell plays Amy Preston, who after 25 years of marriage still hasn't mastered the domestic arts necessary to sustain a traditional 1950s-style marriage. Her long-suffering husband Jim (Anthony Quayle) finally gets fed up with Amy's unpalatable dinners, her slovenly dress, and the messy home. He takes up with Georgie Harlow (Sylvia Sims), a young woman at his workplace and realizes that he will soon have to choose between the two women. ~ Michael Betzold, All Movie Guide

Mary Hilton (Diana Dors) is a young salesgirl in the cosmetics department of a major London store, who chances to meet -- and fall hopelessly in love with -- Jim Lancaster (Michael Craig), a young would-be professional musician. She is attracted to him sufficiently to leave her own, neglectful husband (Harry Locke). But Jim's interest in her, although also sincere, is deflected by his attraction to Lucy Carpenter (Mercia Shaw), a much wealthier and older woman, who seems to be able to offer him the security that he's always lacked. That's difficult enough for Mary to take, but when Jim's relationship with Lucy takes a tragic turn, she snaps -- her love for Jim is transformed into a murderous hatred for her rival, resulting in murder, and a death sentence. Mary's story is told entirely in flashbacks, as she awaits her final sentencing or possible reprieve, and attempts to tie up the loose ends in her life involving her mother, brother, and husband. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

The comfortable complacency of the British Birling family is upset when Inspector Poole (Alastair Sim) comes calling. An impoverished young working girl named Eva Smith (Jane Wenham) has committed suicide, and Poole hopes that the Birlings will help him find out why. As the evening progresses, a series of flashbacks reveal that each member of the Birling family has in some small way been responsible for Eva's demise. A twist ending adds a mystical, thought-provoking touch to the proceedings. Bryan Forbes, who plays the Birling son, matriculated into the noted director of such films as The L-Shaped Room, King Rat and The Whisperers. An Inspector Calls was based on a play by J.B. Priestley, which recently scored a huge hit when it was revived in London and New York. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The British Train of Events explores the consequences of a railroad accident from four different viewpoints. Jack Warner plays the engine driver, whose daughter's boy friend is responsible for the crash. Peter Finch plays a homicidal actor whose "perfect murder" of his wife is thwarted by the wreck. Lonely orphan girl Joan Dowling is killed while trying to help her fellow passenger, duplicitous German POW Laurence Payne, escape. The fourth story is the humorous tale of a woman scorned (Valerie Hobson), who survives the crash with a renewed determination to get even with her composer-conductor lover (John Clements). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

An amiable poltergeist causes problems in a family's home by taking over the body of the youngest daughter in this comedy. It is a scientist and an insurance investigator who figure out what happened. Real mayhem ensues when the spirit jumps into the body of the insurance detective. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

I See a Dark Stranger manages to be both an absorbing espionage yarn and a slyly amusing send-up of the entire genre. Deborah Kerr is terrific as Irish colleen Bridie Quilty, raised from childhood to despise the British and everything they stand for. Bridie's anglophobia proves useful to Nazi spy Miller (Raymond Huntley), who hopes to use the girl to help him steal the plans for the D-day invasion. Playing her "Mata Hari" role to the hilt, Bridie wholeheartedly throws herself into a world of clandestine meetings and coded messages, certain that by helping the Germans she is also helping Mother Ireland. Eventually she realizes the error of her ways, enabling her to turn the tables on Miller and his co-conspirators. Trevor Howard co-stars as David Baynes, with whom the impulsive Bridie falls in love despite his English forebears. I See a Dark Stranger was released in the U.S. as The Adventuress. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

If nothing else, the British melodrama Night Boat to Dublin had topicality going for it. As Captain David Grant, Robert Newton heads the cast of this spy-hunt caper. The plot concerns the efforts to rescue a Swedish scientist from the clutches of Nazi ringleader Keitel (Herbert Lom) and his minions. The scientist is of course of the "atomic" variety, meaning that it's crucial to smuggle him to safety before the Germans can learn his secrets. The authentic Dublin dialects heard throughout the film add charm and authenticity to the proceedings, though they are a bit hard to understand at times. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Give Me the Stars is a British comedy aimed squarely at the regional audiences of the 1940s. Lenni Lynn plays an American girl (complete with a line of unconvincing slang) who heads to Scotland on family business. She appoints herself protector of her cranky Scots grandfather (Will Fyffe), who of course is not nearly as helpless as she believes. While tolerably produced, Give Me the Stars rather resembles an elongated music hall sketch. But Will Fyffe was enormously popular, and the film brought in the shillings. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The British Alibi is based on the warhorse story by Marcel Archard, previously filmed in France in 1931. Raymond Lovell steps into the old Erich Von Stroheim role as Professor Winkler, a phony mystic playing to capacity crowds in Paris. Confronting a man who'd previously exposed him as a fraud in the US, Winkler kills the man. He then establishes an alibi by paying nightclub hostess Helene (Margaret Lockwood) to tell the police that she was in his company at the time of the murder. The upshot of this is that Helene herself is accused of the crime. Hoping to get to the truth of the matter, Inspector Calas (Hugh Sinclair) asks his deputy Andre Laurent (James Mason) to pretend to be in love with Helene. The plot thickens when Laurent genuinely falls for the distressed damsel. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A delightful film that begs to be rediscovered, Return to Yesterday was adapted from Goodness, How Sad, a play by Robert Morley. Clive Brook is ideally cast as Robert Maine, a famous movie star who longs for the simpler days before he became the idol of millions-and before he was trapped into a loveless marriage with his present wife. Maine takes a sentimental journey to the provincial repertory theatre where he got his first break, only to discover that the little troupe is teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. Without revealing his true identity, he joins the actors and helps to get them over their financial hump. He also happens to fall in love with ingenue Carol Sande (Anna Lee, the wife of director Robert Stevenson), but realizes eventually that she will be better off without him. Dame May Whitty heads the hand-picked supporting cast as Mrs. Truscott, the troupe's garrulous character woman, who is wise enough not to say anything when she overhears Maine letting Carol down gently by replaying a scene from one of his earlier stage triumphs. Long ignored by movie historians, Return to Yesterday was given an honored spot in William K. Everson's affectionate volume Love in the Film (1979). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A. J. Cronin's novel was brought to the screen by director Carol Reed. The film is set in a northern England mining town (far more realistically depicted than the back-lot Welsh village in John Ford's How Green Was My Valley. The parents of Michael Redgrave have labored long and hard so that their son can escape his grimy environs and make something of himself. While away at school, Redgrave is trapped into marriage by Margaret Lockwood, previously the lady friend of ill-tempered Emlyn Williams (the actor was himself a product of the Welsh mining community). When Lockwood and Williams resume their romance, the disillusioned Redgrave returns home, where he becomes deeply involved in a labor dispute. He ultimately decides that it is best for all if he remains in the village of his birth, working tirelessly on behalf of his friends, relatives and neighbors. Denied the larger budgets indigenous to Hollywood films, Carol Reed invested a gritty documentary "feel" into The Stars Look Down; the film brought him international acclaim, serving as a stepping stone for even greater cinematic accomplishments. Curiously, Reed himself didn't subscribe to A. J. Cronin's opinions vis-a-vis the nationalization of the coal mines; he was simply attracted to the dramatic possibilities of the tale. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide