Andrea Malandrinos Movies
Greek-born actor Andreas Malandrinos appeared in British films from 1930 until his death 40 years later. Malandrinos utilized his fluency in six languages to flourish as a dialect comedian in British music halls. Many of his film appearances were so fleeting that his characters often had no names, only descriptions, e.g. "valet with violin" in The Prince and the Showgirl (1957) and "woodcutter" in The Fearless Vampire Killers (1967). During his stage career, Andreas Malandrinos billed himself simply as Malandrinos; conversely, his movie billing was often simply "Andreas." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide- 1970
- PG
In this WW II actioner set in 1942, an American officer serving with the British Royal Navy attempts to blockade Malta and then destroy a German arsenal located in Sicily. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1970
Moon (Michael Latimer) is the mercenary hired to steal 90 million dollars in gold from an Arab country decimated by political chaos. Sex, violence and mayhem accompany the group of double-crossing heavies who covet the purloined loot. Burgess (George Belbin) is the crook who poses as a cop, and Nixon (Derek Aylward) is the criminal who poses as a policeman. A bevy of females willingly submit to seduction, and a sadistic homosexual murderer trails Moon and his malevolent gang for the gold in this uneven crime drama. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Michael Latimer, Luan Peters, (more)
- 1970
- PG
Singer Robert Goulet had already spent a season (1966-67) as a TV secret agent on Blue Light when he signed for the theatrical espionager Underground. Goulet plays an American spy who is disgraced during World War II for divulging the names of his fellow agents while under torture. To redeem himself, he joins a French resistance group called the Maquis and parachutes behind enemy lines. His mission is to kidnap a Nazi general and spirit him back to France. Arthur H. Nadel, director of Underground, is most-closely associated with the non-human endeavors of the Filmation cartoon studios. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Robert Goulet, Daniele Gaubert, (more)
- 1969
When Sir Edward Markham (Alastair Williamson) is horribly disfigured by African natives, he is kept chained and out of sight by his brother Julian (Vincent Price). When Sir Edward escapes, he goes on a killing spree in a desperate attempt to get even with the society that has made him a monstrous outcast. Julian enlists the help of African witch doctor N'Galo (Harry Baird) for medicine to make Sir Edward appear dead so he can be evicted from the house. Dr. Neuhardt (Christopher Lee) attempts to help the hideous human. There are plenty of female corpses around to drip rivers of fresh, hot blood in this feature, the 13th Edgar Allan Poe story in which Price has appeared. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Vincent Price, Christopher Lee, (more)
In Guy Green's adaptation of John Fowles's acclaimed second novel, Michael Caine plays Nicholas Urfe, an English schoolteacher evading serious romantic commitment with stewardess Anne (Godard muse Anna Karina). As a last resort, Urfe escapes the clutches of his paramour by accepting a professorship on the Greek island of Phraxos, and, upon arrival, promptly discovers that his predecessor committed suicide. Via a clue left behind in the room of the deceased, Urfe soon encounters Conchis (Anthony Quinn), an impresario/psychic/black magician/filmmaker who may have been responsible for the former professor's death, and who twists Urfe's mind and perceptions, while subtly leading the young man down the path to higher consciousness. Urfe also discovers the radiant Lily (Candice Bergen), a Diana-like figure (and possibly a literal goddess incarnation), with whom he becomes instantly smitten - and who just happens to be Conchis's lover.
~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide
~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Michael Caine, Anthony Quinn, (more)
- 1967
A murderous mummy is on the loose and it's got the Hammer Films stamp on it, but this tame terror flick never gets the bandages off when it comes to thrills, chills, and gore. A British archeological team consisting of Sir Basil Walden (Andre Morrell), Paul Preston (David Buck), a photographer (Tim Barrett), and psychic linguist Claire (Maggie Kimberley) discover the tomb of Kah-to-Bey, a young heir to Pharaoh who died trying to escape a rebellion. The boy was buried by a loyal slave named Prem, whose mummy stands in a Cairo museum. The expedition is joined by Preston's wealthy, press-hungry father Stanley (John Phillips), who insists they return to Cairo with the body despite warnings of a curse by the tomb's guardian. The curse soon proves to be true as the slave's mummy is reanimated by the guardian and begins murdering each of the explorers who entered the tomb. While Stanley Preston unsuccessfully tries to save his own skin, Paul and Claire find themselves in a showdown with the seemingly indestructible mummy -- until they discover that the strange writing on the boy Pharaoh's shroud may be the secret to their survival. ~ Patrick Legare, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Andre Morell, John Phillips, (more)
British comedy duo Eric Morecambe and Ernie Wise make the movie from the small screen to the silver screen with this zany tale of two traveling salesmen swept up in a South American revolution. Eric and Ernie are eager to test their salesmen skills in a new setting, but upon arriving in South America it quickly becomes apparent that the continent and its people are in a serious state of duress. Now, in order to save both of their necks, Morecambe assumes the role of a dead revolutionary's son. Unfortunately for the hapless salesmen, Morecambe is all too adept at the ruse, and once the uprising quells he is granted complete authority over the entire country. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Eric Morecambe, Ernie Wise, (more)
- 1967
- Add The Fearless Vampire Killers, or Pardon Me but Your Teeth Are in My Neck to QueueAdd The Fearless Vampire Killers, or Pardon Me but Your Teeth Are in My Neck to top of Queue
A pair of bumbling vampire-hunters attempts to destroy an undead nobleman and his cronies and rescue a buxom maiden in actor/director Roman Polanski's playful update of the venerable vampire genre. Bat expert and vampire obsessive Professor Abronsius (Jack MacGowran) barely survives his journey through the Alps into snowy Slovenia to continue his oft-maligned research into the undead. Thawed out by his hapless assistant, Alfred (Polanski), and the frisky local innkeeper, Shagal (Alfie Bass), Abronsius quickly notices the overabundance of raw garlic as a decorating motif in the inn and its environs. Too ineffectual to save Shagal from having his blood sucked, the professor and Alfred miss the boat again when the mysterious Count Von Krolock (Ferdinand Mayne) kidnaps Shagal's built, beautiful daughter, Sarah (Sharon Tate). The itinerant vampire hunters must travel through the icy wilderness to Von Krolock's abode and evade his manservant and his effete son Herbert (Iain Quarrier) before Sarah joins the ranks of the ghouls. They soon learn, however, that the luxury-starved lass actually enjoys her captors' lavish attentions. The action climaxes during a costume ball attended by a phalanx of blood-suckers, although the laughs and surprises continue until the very end. Sixteen minutes of unauthorized cuts have been restored in some video editions of The Fearless Vampire Hunters, although the animated credits sequence that replaced them is also retained. The film marks the feature debut of Tate, who replaced Polanski's original choice, Jill St. John, on the advice of producer Martin Ransohoff. ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Roman Polanski, Jack MacGowran, (more)
In their second feature with director Richard Lester, who oversaw the massive hit A Hard Day's Night, the Beatles again aim for a mix of goofy comedy and sterling pop music. There is slightly more of a plot this time, though it is a patently ridiculous one: a sacred ruby ring comes into Ringo's possession, attracting the unwelcome attention of an exotic religious cult and forcing the boys to go on the run. This chase narrative is thankfully never taken too seriously, serving mainly as an excuse for colorful excursions to international locations from Europe to the Bahamas. The musical numbers include such classic tunes as "Ticket to Ride," "You've Got to Hide Your Love Away," and, of course, "Help!". ~ Judd Blaise, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- The Beatles
In this drama, from director Anthony Asquith, the lives and stories of three different people are linked together by their possession of an unusual car, a yellow Rolls Royce Phantom II. Lord Frinton (Rex Harrison) is a diplomat who purchases the exquisite auto as a gift for his wife (Jeanne Moreau). After Frinton's horse wins the Royal Gold Cup, Lady Frinton incurs the Lord's wrath when she is caught in the back seat of the Rolls with his underling John Fane (Edmund Purdom). In the 1930s, the car is bought by Italian gangster Paolo Maltese (George C. Scott), who is carrying on with the hatcheck girl Mae Jenkins (Shirley MacLaine). The two take a tour of Italy and see all the historic sights, but Mae is less than impressed. While Paolo is in the United States on one of his frequent hit-man assignments, Mae and a street photographer try out the back seat for comfort and carnal pleasure. Art Carney plays Paolo's associate Joey. In the final episode, Gerda Millett (Ingrid Bergman) is the married American woman who buys the car in 1942. With Hitler attacking Yugoslavia the brave and brazen beauty helps fight the Nazis by smuggling Davich (Omar Shariff) across the border, and this duo also find themselves in the back seat for a roll in the Rolls. Davich shows his gratitude by shipping the car along with Gerda back to the United States. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Rex Harrison, Jeanne Moreau, (more)
Based on Jules Verne's novel Captain Grant's Children, In Search of the Castaways is a roller-coaster of a Disney film, making up in excitement what it lacks in credibility or coherence. Hayley Mills and Keith Hamshere play the children of long-missing ship's captain Jack Gwillim. By chance, a note stuffed in a bottle comes to the attention of the kids and professor Maurice Chevalier; the note contains the fragment of a map, which suggests that Gwillim is somewhere in South America. Only after enduring a series of life-threatening adventures do Chevalier and the kids discover that they should have been in Australia all along! Once they're finally in the correct corner of the world, our protagonists are bedeviled by gunrunner George Sanders, the fellow who'd set the captain adrift. With the help of Wilfrid Brambell, a looney ex-crew member of the captain's (and the fellow who sent the bottled message), Chevalier, Mills and Hamshere are finally reunited with Gwillim--and as a bonus, Mills has found a boy friend, in the person of Michael Anderson. It's typical of the crazy-quilt approach taken by In Search of the Castaways that Maurice Chevalier decides to sing a cheery song in a moment of dire peril. Even so, the film was ideal Saturday-matinee fodder for the kiddie trade in 1963. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Maurice Chevalier, Hayley Mills, (more)
- 1961
While returning from a vacation in Chile, Dr. Keel tries to help the victims of a cyclone in Mexico. He soon stumbles onto a particularly nasty example of industrial pollution. Another doctor swears vengeance against the wealthy financier responsible for this ecological outrage, forcing Keel to put his return-to-England plans on hold and to prevent a brutal (if somewhat justified) murder. Written by John Lucarotti, "The Far Distant Dead" was originally broadcast August 19, 1961. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1961
In another standard British comedy of the absurd with the usual eccentric characters who play off each other like tennis pros on a court, A Weekend with Lulu centers on the misadventures of the occupants of an ice cream truck and its rundown trailer. Because of a mix-up, the four inside the truck -- two men at odds with each other, a harridan, and her voluptuous daughter -- do not end up at the seashore as they planned. Instead, they are rattling merrily through France, chased by a wild variety of irate groups -- racing cyclists, rogues, and distraught police. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bob Monkhouse, Leslie Phillips, (more)
- 1960
In this lightweight 1960 musical comedy, rock singer Tommy Steele plays Tommy Tomkins, a British sailor. Steele was popular in England during the time this film was released, and the movie is mainly a showcase for its star's musical talents, with songs including the title tune and others such as Little White Bull. After a few misadventures, Tomkins and his girlfriend Amanda (Janet Munro) find themselves in Spain. There, they meet up with a renowned bullfighter. When the bullfighter is set up by a bunch of smugglers to take the rap for their crimes, Tomkins must step in and replace the bullfighter for one long, awful day. He hopes to win his fortune as the stand-in matador, free the real bullfighter, and get back to England. But the bulls have other ideas. ~ Michael Betzold, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Tommy Steele, Janet Munro, (more)
- 1960
In this comedy set in Spain, Paco (Maurice Reyna) is a young boy with a part-time job as a messenger at a local bank. Paco's father drives a taxicab but has fallen deep into debt, and he loses his hack when he's unable to pay a mechanic for needed repairs. All day long, Paco hears about people getting loans from the bank to pay their bills, and, unaware of the way these things work, he "borrows" one million pesetas from the till to help his father along. It doesn't take long for someone to notice the money is missing, and not only is the bank eager to get it back, a group of local mobsters are after Paco's new fortune as well. A number of cleverly designed chase sequences enliven the second half of this story, which was shot on location in Valencia, Spain. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Virgilio Teixeira, Maurice Reyna, (more)
- 1959
The Boy and the Bridge is a very slight tale based on an original American story by Leon Ware centered on the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. This adaptation by director and co-writer Kevin McClory is set on the Tower Bridge in London. The premise is simple and perhaps too much so for the 90-minute running time. A little boy named Tommy (Ian MacLaine) watches as his father is arrested after a bad brawl. Tommy believes his father must have killed someone and rather than return home, he heads to Tower Bridge to set up housekeeping there. The atmosphere and life around the bridge are a secondary protagonist in the story, introducing several interesting characters. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Liam Redmond, James Hayter, (more)
- 1958
The moral dilemma of a reluctant American spy is chronicled in this psychological drama. He becomes an agent after he, originally a pilot, is grounded during WW II. He is trained to assassinate a Paris lawyer suspected of colluding with the Nazis. During his rigorous training for the killing, the new spy begins to have doubts about his upcoming assignment; these doubts increase when he actually meets his prey as the spy is unsure that the lawyer is really guilty. Still he fulfills his grim duty. Later he learns that the lawyer was innocent. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Eddie Albert, Paul Massie, (more)
- 1958
Boyish leading man Jack Watling is caught up in a rather mature set of circumstances in Links of Justice. In concert with his mistress Kay Callard, Watling plots to murder his wealthy wife Sarah Lawson. The best laid schemes gang aft agley, and the wrong person ends up dead. In a variation of Dial M for Murder, a false murder accusation is dissipated by the timely arrival of a housebreaker. Chalk up another serviceable second-feature British melodrama for the production team of Edward and Harry Danzinger. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1958
In this WW II adventure, five brave Allies endeavor to escape from an Italian POW camp in North Africa. They succeed, but their trials are not over as they must still cross the burning Libyan desert to get safely behind Allied lines. En route they are captured by a Nazi-loving sheik. The sheik takes considerable time to decide the fate of the escapees; in that time, the five manage to escape again. This time they kill their captors. The film is also titled No Time to Die. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Victor Mature, Anthony Newley, (more)
The title of the Anglo-American The Prince and the Showgirl could well have alluded to the genuine stations in life of stars Sir Laurence Olivier and Marilyn Monroe. Based on the Terence Rattigan play The Sleeping Prince, the film casts Olivier as Charles, prince regent of Carpathia, who is in London to attend the 1911 coronation of King George V. Monroe is deceptively dizzy American chorus girl Elsie Marina, who while performing in a West End revue catches Charles' eye. The prince arranges for Elsie to attend an "intimate supper" at his hotel suite. Though Elsie successfully wards off Charles' advances, she drinks too much bubbly and ends up falling asleep. Comes the dawn, and Prince Charles is anxious to show the awkward Elsie the door. She, however, has fallen in love with the prince, and sticks around long enough to upset a plan to overthrow the Carpathian throne, and to patch up a feud between Charles and his son Nicholas (Jeremy Spencer). Olivier directed as well as starred in The Prince and the Showgirl; he knew he had his work cut out for him in dealing with the mercurial Marilyn Monroe, but he managed to hold his temper and to extract a delightful comic performance from the actress. Alas, the film was a box-office disappointment, leading many Hollywood insiders to moan and wail that Monroe was "washed up" in films -- at least until her spectacular comeback in Billy Wilder's Some Like It Hot (1959). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Marilyn Monroe, Laurence Olivier, (more)
- 1957
In this comedy, a milque-toast bank clerk is forced to deliver blackmail money to a seductive woman. Misunderstandings abound when the clerk's brother-in-law sees him leaving the woman's house. Soon word that the clerk has become a dashing rake is spread around the town. In the end, the owner of a sexy lingerie factory offers the clerk a partnership in his business. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1957
Filmed in Italy, this pulse-pounding race-car melodrama stars Anthony Steel as ambitious driver Bill Fraser. Stanley Baker costars as O'Donovan, the purchasing agent for unscrupulous auto magnate Warren Ingram (James Robertson Justice). O'Donovan has no reservations about resorting to murder to steal the blueprints for a revolutionary new vehicle. While escaping, O'Donovan offers Fraser a huge sum of money for safe transport to the Swiss border. For a while, Fraser succumbs to greed, but eventually common sense overtakes him. There's a particularly suspenseful denoument when it looks as though Fraser is going to be the fall guy for O'Donovan's misdeeds. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Anthony Steel, Odile Versois, (more)
- 1956
Adapted from a novel by Bernard Victor Dyer, Port Afrique offers an unusual screen romantic team in the form of two-fisted Phil Carey and ethereally beautiful Pier Angeli. Carey plays Rip Reardon, a WW2 veteran who returns to his "second home" in Morocco for a reunion with his wife. Upon arrival, Reardon discovers that his wife was murdered, though the police insist that she died by her own hand. Smelling a cover-up, Reardon conducts his own investigation, which leads him through some of the seedier portions of Port Afrique. Along the way, he meets and briefly romances nightclub singer Ynez (Angeli), who may or may not have had something to do with his wife's death. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Anna Maria Pier Angeli, Philip Carey, (more)
- 1955
In this detective drama, a biographer researches the death of a heroic pilot who died during a failed test and ends up in love with the deceased's sister. He then learns that the pilot's strange disappearance may not have been accidental and mayhem ensues. Soon other people associated with the case begin to die and the writer becomes nervous until two Scotland Yard inspectors get on the case and solve the mystery. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Margaret Leighton, John Justin, (more)
- 1955
In this drama, a convicted killer serves his time and after his release sets off in search of those who framed him. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
