Marie Lohr Movies
On stage from the age of 11, Australia-born Marie Lohr eventually toted up more credits than any previous actress in British theatrical history. She settled into the English film industry in 1930, playing many a bejeweled grande dame. Lohr co-starred in the two major pre-war George Bernard Shaw adaptations, Pygmalion (1938; as Mrs. Higgins) and Major Barbara (1941; as Lady Britomart). Marie Lohr's postwar film characterizations included Grace Winslow in The Winslow Boy (1950) and stalwart POW Mrs. Dudley Frost in A Town Like Alice (1956). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide- 1968
Mae West was never permitted to make a film version of her bawdy historical romp Catherine Was Great, yet this British adaptation of George Bernard Shaw's Great Catherine made it to the screen. Where is the justice in this? Anyway, Jeanne Moreau braves it through the nearly unplayable role of Catherine, mother of All the Russias, while Peter O'Toole and Zero Mostel struggle manfully to breathe life into the proceedings. The plot has something to do with Prince Patiomkin's efforts to splice Catherine with Captain Edstaston, thus assuring that the queen's reign will be a happy one. The Captain would rather dally with Claire (Angela Scoular) and spends the rest of the running time escaping the queen's wrath. Throughout Great Catherine, Shavian wit is given short shrift in favor of 2-reeler slapstick. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Peter O'Toole, Zero Mostel, (more)
- 1959
This is an uneven though occasionally hilarious comedy about a remote British colony and diplomatic blunders. Terry-Thomas as a British diplomat and Peter Sellers as a nasty, vile Prime Minister on the island, tend to overshadow the roles they are playing. Carlton-Browne (Terry-Thomas) is sent to the remote island of Gaillardia to prevent any other powers from tapping into its potentially rich mineral deposits. The fact that the Brits have ignored Gaillardia for the last fifty years or that Carlton-Browne is a walking disaster does not stop the Foreign Office. Circumstances quickly spin out of control as the island colony heads toward revolution with a new, young king (Ian Bannen) on the throne. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Terry-Thomas, Peter Sellers, (more)
- 1957
In this British comedy, a young man resorts to spying, extortion and just plain begging after he learns that he is to be replaced as headwaiter by a young woman. The story is based on a popular play. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1957
In this supenseful and provocative high-seas drama, the captain of a luxury liner is suddenly faced with life or death decisions when his ship sinks, leaving himself and a few survivors floating at sea in an overcrowded lifeboat that does not contain enough food, water and medical supplies to support them all. The captain, Alec Holmes (Tyrone Power) is a decent fellow, and initially intends to save everyone. But it soon becomes clear to one of the ship's men, Frank Kelly (Lloyd Nolan) that this is impossible. As Kelly sacrifices himself by leaping overboard and into the sea, he shouts out a warning to Holmes that it will be necessary to rid the boat of its ill passengers if the rest are to survive, as not enough food and water exists to provide for everyone. Defying the requests of his sweetheart, Nurse Julie White (director Mai Zetterling), and his buddy and fellow officer, Will McKinley (Stephen Boyd), Holmes disposes of the sick individuals on board. He initially gains the support of the rest of the passengers, but when a rescue ship finally turns up, their support turns to contempt and hostility. In Great Britain the story is titled Seven Waves Away. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Tyrone Power, Mai Zetterling, (more)
- 1956
A harrowing WWII drama that was a huge critical and commercial success in England, this British production was based on a novel by Nevil Shute. During the war, a group of prisoners, mostly women and children, are led by Japanese soldiers on a brutal march through Malaysia. Some die by the roadside and others are sadistically tortured. One of the women, Jean Paget (Virginia McKenna), is befriended by an Australian man who is also a prisoner of war, Joe Harman (Peter Finch). Joe tells Jean about his hometown of Alice Springs, an oasis in the Australian outback. When he steals a chicken to feed Jean and the others, Joe is caught and treated ruthlessly. The Japanese force Jean and the others to march on while Joe is put on a crucifix and left to die. ~ Michael Betzold, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Virginia McKenna, Peter Finch, (more)
- 1955
Escapade has to be one of the most overused titles in movie history. This particular Escapade is a mild British comedy with something to say. John Mills plays a renowned pacifist author, whose sons Andrew Ray and Peter Asher are completely sympatico with their dad's views. Convincing their schoolmates to sign a petition begging for universal peace, the boys decide to present the list of signatures to the four world powers occupying Germany, including those rascally Russians and unpredictable Yanks. But they have to get to Berlin first, and to do that the headstrong lads steal an airplane. It turns out that the boys' long-term goal, cooked up with their sister Yvonne Mitchell, is to reunite their bickering father and mother. Escapade opens up the original Roger MacDougall play to the extent that we actually witness the plane in flight; beyond that, the dialogue and situations remain the same--even down to the slight pauses after the laugh lines. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- John Mills, Yvonne Mitchell, (more)
- 1955
Basil Dearden was co-producer and co-director of the British "slice of life" drama Out of the Clouds. Filmed in quasi-documentary fashion, the story takes place during one unusually busy day at London's Heathrow Airport. The dramatis personae includes Gus Randall (Anthony Steel), a pilot with a chronic (and potentially fatal) gambling weakness; chief duty officer Nick Milbourne (Robert Beatty), who yearns to be a pilot himself; American engineer Bill (David Lorenz), who finds romance in the form of Jewish girl Leah (Margo Lorenz); and Captain Brent (James Robertson Justice), whose doubts about a new aircraft prove to be well-founded. The obligatory romantic triangle involves Gus, Nick and airline -hostess Penny Henson (Eunice Gayson). Out of the Clouds is an intriguing small-scale precursor to the Airport school of multicharactered drama. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Anthony Steel, Robert Beatty, (more)
- 1953
Always a Bride stars Terence Morgan as an officer of the British Treasury who tells himself he's a honest man. Then he falls in love with Peggy Cummins, the daughter of a jovial swindler (Ronald Squire). Using privileged information, Morgan conspires with the father to separate several people from their earnings, then abscond with the swag. Things get sticky when tougher criminals who play for keeps become involved in the scheme. Always a Bride is consistently fun to watch, even when the plot threatens to overwhelm the comedy. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Peggy Cummins, Terence Morgan, (more)
- 1952
In this crime comedy, the bumbling son of a recently deceased crime boss does his best to follow in his father's footsteps, but it is to no avail. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1949
Roland Pertwee and his son Michael Pertwee penned the stage play The Paragon, and then Michael adapted the play for film. Curiously, the central characters in the story are father and son: a baronet, and his deceased war-hero offspring. The grief-stricken baronet builds a memorial to his son's honor--whereupon sonny boy turns up very much alive, and very much of a jerk. The drama (or rather, melodrama), arises from the father's efforts to preserve the honor of the family name. This is another of director Lance Comfort's compact, compelling film noir-ish programmers of the 1940s. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Sally Gray, Stephen Murray, (more)
- 1949
Based on the infamous Archer-Shee case of 1912, The Winslow Boy features Neil North as the 14-year-old title character. Accused of a petty theft, North is expelled from Naval College. His father, retired bank official Sir Cedric Hardwycke, is prevented by existing British law to clear his son's name. He engages attorney Robert Donat, who successfully petitions for the right to sue the Admiralty and make this august organization prove its charges in court. Public opinion, however, is strongly against Hardwycke and his family: particularly effected is Hardwycke's daughter Margaret Leighton, whose fiance breaks off their engagement. For dramatic purposes, Margaret finds solace in a romantic relationship with barrister Donat. Terrence Rattigan worked on the cinemadaptation of his own play, which was later restaged on American television. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Robert Donat, Margaret Leighton, (more)
- 1948
Nazi war criminal Bruckner (Mervyn Johns) manages to escape capture at the end of WW II. Bruckner sets up shop in England, where he continues his diabolical germ-warfare experiments. Murdering an Australian physician, the regenerate Nazi assumes the dead man's identity to escape detection. His downfall comes when he falls in love with pretty lab assistant Tracy Shaw (Nova Pilbeam), and he refuses to murder her when ordered to do so by his superiors. The ending is right of the "hoist on his own petard" school of dramatics. Devil's Plot was released in the U.S. in mid-1953, and within a few months was making the TV Late-Show rounds. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
This 1948 adaptation of Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina was produced in England by Alexander Korda, and released in the US by 20th Century-Fox. Vivien Leigh plays the title role, a 19th-century Russian gentlewoman married to Czarist official Ralph Richardson. Though her marriage is not intolerable, Anna is swept off her feet by dashing young military officer Vronsky, played by Kieron Moore. The ensuing scandal ruins Anna's status in society. Anna Karenina had previously been filmed twice in Hollywood, with both versions starring Greta Garbo. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Vivien Leigh, Ralph Richardson, (more)
- 1947
Firmly in the fantasy groove previously plowed by such films as The Canterville Ghost and The Time of Their Lives is the 1947 British comedy The Ghosts of Berkeley Square. Robert Morley and Felix Aylmer play a pair of fatuous Colonel Blimp military types, whose efforts to shorten the war results only in getting the both of them killed. Summoned to a Heavenly court, Morley and Aylmer incur the wrath of Queen Anne. She orders them to haunt a mansion until they can prove themselves worthy of entering the Pearly Gates. For a film that practically no one has ever heard of, Ghosts of Berkeley Square is an embarrassment of riches in the casting department: among the British favorites appearing in the film are Martita Hunt, A.E. Mathews, James Hayter, Ernst Thesiger, and Wilfred Hyde-White. The film was based on the novel No Nightingales by Caryl Brahms and S.J. Simon. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Yvonne Arnaud, Felix Aylmer, (more)
- 1947
The dazzlingly handsome Stewart Granger is at least physically well cast as the charismatic 18th century violinist Paganini. The fact that the illusion explodes whenever he opens his mouth mattered not at all to Granger's legions of British female fans. Luckily for the screenwriters, Paganini was as celebrated for his many love affairs as for his musical accomplishments, so it wasn't necessary to cook up a romantic plotline from whole cloth. The actual Paganini solos are performed by Yehudi Menuhin, and in this respect (and this respect only) the film is worthwhile. Magic Bow was another guilty pleasure from Gainsborough Productions, England's principal purveyor of bodice-ripping romances. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Stewart Granger, Phyllis Calvert, (more)
- 1945
Rex Harrison stars in this stylish British drama that caused problems with U.S. censors, who forced the film to be trimmed due to what was considered graphically amoral and sexual content for its time. Harrison is Vivian Kenway, an unrepentant cad who embarks on a campaign of irresponsible behavior after being ejected from Oxford. Among his many sins are seducing Jill Duncan (Jean Kent), the wife of his best friend Sandy (Griffith Jones), marrying a rich Austrian Jew, Rikki Krausner (Lilli Palmer), for her money, and dallying with the secretary (Margaret Johnson) of his father, Colonel Kenway (Godfrey Tearle). The feckless Vivian's actions cause no small amount of collateral damage to his loved ones, including the drunken death of his father and the attempted suicide of Rikki. Vivian ends up serving in World War II, however, where his non-heroic ultimate sacrifice may (or may not) redeem him. The Rake's Progress (1945 was released in the U.S. under the title Notorious Gentleman. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Rex Harrison, Lilli Palmer, (more)
- 1944
In this drama, an amnesiac gardener, who lost his memory after he was buried alive during WW I, works for a wealthy man whose son is about to marry an actress. When he is accused of stealing, the honest gardener becomes so upset that his memory returns. He then remembers that he is a wealthy military officer. He also realizes that the actress is none other than his own daughter. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1944
In this romance, a young woman gets into a real mess when her mother begins meddling in her romantic life by conning her into becoming engaged to her boss. Unfortunately, the girl loves another who has gone off to fight the war. Upon his return, he is enraged to learn about the engagement. Mayhem ensues until the whole mess is straightened out and the lovers are reunited. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1942
Released in the US as Forty-Eight Hours, Went the Day Well? is a solidly constructed wartime melodrama. Actually, the film covers 72 hours in the life of the small British village of Bramley Green, which serves as the focal point for an attempted German invasion. Immediately upon parachuting in the community, vicious Nazi officer Ortier (Basil Sydney) makes contact with local Fifth Columnist Oliver Wileford (Leslie Banks), using the film's British title as their password. Fortunately, Democracy is preserved when postmistress-telephone operator Mrs. Collins (Muriel George), picking up on a simple clue inadvertently left behind by the well-disguised Germans, alerts her neighbors of impending danger. The British home guardsmen and German soldiers seen in the film were drawn from the ranks of of the real-life Gloucestershire Regiment, who volunteered their services for this patriotic morale-booster. The episode screenplay of Went the Day Well (based on Graham Greene story) was unified by the direct-to-camera narration of the town gravedigger, a device deftly borrowed from Our Town. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Leslie Banks, Basil Sydney, (more)
- 1941
George Bernard Shaw's satiric comedy about wealth and poverty is brought to the screen with wonderful performances by Rex Harrison and Wendy Hiller. Hiller plays Major Barbara Undershaft, a major in the Salvation Army who is also a socialist and stridently attacks capitalists -- in particular her father Andrew (Robert Morley), the head of a munitions plant. In love with Barbara is the young Greek scholar Adolphus Cusins (Rex Harrison), whose attentions go unreturned since Barbara spends all her time on her crusade against wealth. To show up his daughter, Andrew donates 50,000 pounds to the Salvation Army which, to Barbara's horror, the Army's general (Sybil Thorndike) happily accepts. Barbara, in protest, quits her post and it is left to Adolphus to take her on a tour of her father's munitions plant and prove to her the benefits of capitalism. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Wendy Hiller, Rex Harrison, (more)
- 1940
In this family comedy, the life of a suburban clan is disrupted when they learn that two old friends are coming to call. The house is thrown into a tizzy as they struggle to prepare. One of the three brothers then chooses an inopportune moment to announce that he is planning to marry the maid. The cook then organizes a kitchen strike. Finally things settle down, and the household is ready to entertain the esteemed guests -- they never show up. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Marie Lohr, Judy Kelly, (more)
- 1939
A wealthy man's valet, Blore, concocts a blackmail scheme about an attempted poisoning when his employer passes out at a party in this farcical comedy. ~ All Movie Guide
Leslie Howard and Wendy Hiller star in Anthony Asquith's and Leslie Howard's classic version of George Bernard Shaw's satiric comedy. Henry Higgins (Howard) is an upper class phonetics professor who encounters low-class guttersnipe Eliza Doolittle (Hiller) and bets his friend Colonel Pickering (Scott Sunderland) that he can pass her off as a duchess within three months. Pickering accepts Higgins' bet, with Eliza readily agreeing to the proposal, since she will get to live in Higgins' fancy home. Once in Higgins' house, Eliza is subjected to intensely repetitive phonetics lessons in an effort to transform her Cockney accent into the speech of proper English. Things are a bit rocky at first, with Eliza blurting out "Not bloody likely" at a tea party. But when Eliza is presented at the Ambassador's Ball, she is not only accepted as a princess but is the talk of the ball, everyone in attendance commenting on her charm, beauty, and poise. Relishing his success, Higgins abruptly dismisses her. But Eliza has fallen in love with Higgins and is aghast at her cursory treatment by him. She tells him, "I sold flowers. I didn't sell myself. Now you've made a lady of me, I'm not fit to sell anything else." When Eliza leaves, Higgins realizes that he loves her too, but Eliza has announced to Higgins that she plans to marry high society playboy Freddie Eynsford-Hill (David Tree). ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Wendy Hiller, Leslie Howard, (more)
- 1938
Set in England in the early 1900s, South Riding is a political and personal drama about a nearly bankrupt estate owner who is trying to keep himself solvent by buying into a real estate plan which he doesn't realize is morally suspect. The original British cut of South Riding ran 90 minutes, but for its American release, several Depression-era scenes were cut from the print. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Edna Best, Ralph Richardson, (more)
