Peter Madden Movies
Breaking into show business at 16 as the assistant to a "drunken magician" British character actor Peter Madden held down jobs ranging from race-car driver to stand-up comedian before settling into acting. He was frequently cast as slightly tattered politicians, as witness Nothing but the Best (1964) and Dr. Zhivago (1965). His deadpan portrayal of a Tibetan lama was one of the highlights of the otherwise patchy Hope-Crosby vehicle Road to Hong Kong (1962). Espionage fans will remember Peter Madden as Hobbs, John Drake's (Patrick McGoohan) immediate superior, on the mid-1960s TVer Secret Agent. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Produced and directed by Otto Preminger, Exodus is a 212-minute screen adaptation of the best-selling novel by Leon Uris. The film is concerned with the emergence of Israel as an independent nation in 1947. Its first half focuses on the efforts of 611 holocaust survivors to defy the blockade of the occupying British government and sail to Palestine on the sea vessel Exodus. Paul Newman, a leader of the Hagannah (the Jewish underground), is willing to sacrifice his own life and the lives of the refugees rather than be turned back to war-ravaged Europe, but the British finally relent and allow the Exodus safe passage. Once this victory is assured, 30,000 more Jews, previously interned by the British, flood into the Holy Land. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Paul Newman, Eva Marie Saint, (more)
- 1958
After years of suffering through lookalike MGM musicals (at least, that was his complaint), Howard Keel was able to sink his teeth into a dramatic role in the British Floods of Fear. Serving a life term for murder, Donavan (Howard Keel) breaks out of jail with sadistic convict Peebles (Cyril Cusack), taking along a wounded guard (Harry H. Corbett) as hostage. It is Donavan's intention to exact revenge against the man who framed him, but this will have to wait: a driving rainstorm is threatening to precipitate a raging flood. Taking refuge in the tiny house owned by the terror-stricken Elizabeth (Anne Heywood), the convicts and their captives nervously wait out the storm. Slowly, Elizabeth and Donavan are drawn to one another, while Peebles threatens to erupt into a fit of homicidal rage at any moment. When the flood reaches the danger level, Donavan performs several self-sacrificial acts of courage, prompting Elizabeth to try to save him from ruining what's left of his life. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Howard Keel, Anne Heywood, (more)
- 1958
Unseen Heroes, along with Missiles from Hell, represented the US titles of the British The Battle of the V1. Set in wartime Poland, the film involves the secret Nazi missile installation at Peenemunde. British guerilla fighter Michael Rennie leads a group of Polish partisans on a mission to destroy the base and cripple the German war effort. The basic storyline is a good one, though it is muddied by several arbitrary plot transitions. Further undermining Unseen Heroes is the editing, which at times seems to have been accomplished with a paper shredder. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Michael Rennie, Patricia Medina, (more)
This sci-fi horror cult classic is based in and around a U.S. long-range radar installation in the Canadian wilderness, where soldiers and civilians alike are being struck dead by an unseen force. At first, the base commander believes these murders may have been the work of spies operating out of the woods -- a theory supported by unexplained fluctuations in power output from the base's nuclear plant. Because of the proximity of this reactor, residents of the nearby town begin to suspect the deaths are due to a radiation leak. The real answer turns out to be far more insidious. Autopsies reveal that the victims' spinal fluids have been sucked dry through holes at the base of their skulls. The bizarre murders are eventually linked to the work of psychic researcher Professor Walgate (Kynaston Reeves), whose experiments materializing human thoughts have not only been causing the power fluctuations, but have resulted in the creation of invisible brain-monsters. When the creatures attack the plant operators, a massive surge of radiation is released, revealing the creatures in all their hideous glory -- depicted by marvelous stop-motion animation -- as leaping, tentacled brains with wriggling antennae. This leads to the film's notoriously gory final act, in which the brain-things surround our heroes in a mountain cabin, descending in droves as the dwindling band of survivors hack, chop, and blast away at the beasts. After a slightly sluggish start, this intelligent and well-crafted thriller kicks out all the jams for a horrific climax, distinguished by some of the goriest effects seen in any film from the 1950s. ~ Cavett Binion, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Marshall Thompson, Kynaston Reeves, (more)
- 1951
Tom Brown's Schooldays was the second film version of Thomas Hughes' semiautobiographical novel. John Howard Davies, who'd previously essayed the title role in Oliver Twist, stars as first-year Rugby student Tom Brown. In his efforts to adjust to boarding-school life, Tom must contend with the calculated cruelties of all-around bully Flashman (John Forrest). One of the boy's few allies is new schoolmaster Doctor Arnold (Robert Newton), who believes that discipline can be tempered with kindness, a "radical" notion so far as his colleagues are concerned. Despite the authenticity of its British surroundings, the 1951 version of Tom Brown's Schooldays isn't quite as good as the 1940 Hollywood adaptation. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- John Howard Davies, Robert Newton, (more)
- 1949
In this crime drama, a milque-toast bank clerk succumbs to the unending demands of his bullying girl friend for expensive things and embezzles money from his employer. Someone murders the girl, and terrified that he will be accused, the clerk takes his money and flees with a detective and the real killer in hot pursuit. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 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
- 1948
Assembled for British theatrical consumption by Pathe Films, The Peaceful Years covers the era between WWI and WWII. The title is ironic: to the citizens of Manchuria, Czechoslovakia, Ethiopia and Spain, the years were anything but peaceful. Producer Peter Baylis contrasts the starkness of "real life" with the various forms of escapism pursued in the 1920s and 1930s, ranging from miniature golf to Lindbergh's flight to Paris. Providing the narration are such well-known BBC personalities as Stuart Hibbard, Maurice Denham, James McKechnie, Peter Madden, Ann Codrington and Betty Hardy. Excerpts from The Peaceful Years later popped up in the 1963 TV series Time to Remember. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Emlyn Williams, Stuart Hibberd, (more)
- 1943
In this patriotic but romantic musical comedy, a young teacher runs a day school for the workers at a munitions factory. As she makes arrangements to locate the school in the empty home next to her apartment building, she falls in love with the property owner. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
