Anna Massey Movies

In this fact-based drama, a British man accused of his wife's murder becomes the target of his friends' and neighbors' wrath. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

When a father attempts to return to his abandoned family after 23 years his grown son tries to murder his drunk, unemployed father. ~ All Movie Guide

Louise (Elizabeth Bourgine) is a young woman working at a publishing house who develops an unusual affection for submitted manuscript. She breaks up with Serge (Philippe Leotard), the printer who loves her. Louise tells the heartbroken Serge she has fallen in love with the author whom she has never met or even seen. She travels to New York to hunt down the elusive author and ends up in a remote farmhouse in Vermont, where she is greeted by Norma (Anna Massey), the mother of the elusive author. The two women wait for his return in this psychological drama that later becomes a thriller. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

Hazard of Hearts was adapted for television from a 1948 bodice-ripper by Barbara Cartland. Set (where else?) in 1810 England, the film stars Helena Bonham Carter as the obligatory innocent young lass with a dynamite figure. Falling in love with a Rochester-like Marquis (Marcus Gilbert), Helena is whisked off to the mysterious Castle Mandrake ("played" by England's Belvoir Castle and Burghley House). Here, our heroine is menaced by Diana Rigg, the Marquis' evil, possessive mother. First broadcast December 27, 1987, Hazard of Hearts was buried in the ratings by NBC's repeat showing of Terms of Endearment (1983) and ABC's telecast of Stir Crazy (1980). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Victor Banerjee, the India-born star of David Lean's A Passage to India, is the central figure of director Ronald L. Neame's Foreign Body. Jobless in Calcutta, Banerjee steals money from his own father to afford passage to Britain. There he makes contact with his cousin Warren Mitchell, who arranges for Banerjee to get a job as a bus conductor. But when he begins to ardently pursue a lovely young white woman, Banerjee loses his job at the behest of the girl's influential father. His luck changes radically when Banerjee administers mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on a bus accident victim, whereupon he is mistaken for a doctor by friendly model Amanda Donohoe (probably the nicest she's ever been on film). Donohoe talks up the skills of this "new Indian doctor", and before he knows what has hit him, Banerjee is head physician to the Prime Minister of England--with virtually every woman in the land vying for his services in bed! Never letting on where it is heading next, Foreign Body is adapted from an equally tricky novel by Roderick Mann. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The Chain is linked by a series of moves. As one couple moves out of their current residence to live in posher quarters, another moves in, and so it goes all the way up to the lavish mansioned owned by self-made millionaire Leo McKern. The cycle starts all over again when McKern, wishing to be closer to his roots, returns to the working-class neighborhood whence he came. Each move is wryly commented upon by the team of professional movers headed by Warren Mitchell. The enormously gifted British cast includes Billie Whitelaw, Nigel Hawthorne, Maurice Denham, Denis Lawson, Phyllis Logan, and David Troughton. This multistoried seriocomedy is at its best a fond throwback to the Ealing films of the 1950s. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Sacred Hearts in one of the more trenchant of the "nun- bashing" films of the 1980s. Anna Massey plays the unbalanced Mother Superior in charge of a British convent during the war years. Through the rigid enforcement of her Spartanlike rules, Sister Massey puts her fellow nuns through the torments of the damned (are we mixing metaphors?). Her greatest crime is to refuse to acknowledge the doubts and fears of the novices in times of extreme crisis--such as the war itself. Sacred Hearts might be even more fascinating if it were double-featured with The Nun's Story--or The Sound of Music. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A pair of British lads, one gay and one socialist, chafe at the restrictions of boarding school life in this period piece, which was adapted from Julian Mitchell's novel and play of the same name and loosely based on the Burgess-Maclean spy scandal of the 1950s. In the 1930s, upper-class scions Tommy Judd (Colin Firth) and Guy Bennett (Rupert Everett) are both nearing the end of their careers at an unnamed public school that bears a striking resemblance to Eton. Tommy, a Marxist intellectual, refuses to participate actively in the school's rigid social hierarchy. But Guy, when not mooning after pretty boys, angles for a position next term as one of the "gods," or master prefects, of his house. When a faculty member stumbles onto the homosexual fumblings of a pair of students, one boy commits suicide and a scandal erupts. The administration and senior students do their best to ensure nothing of this sort ever sullies their reputation again. Considering that homosexual experimentation is rampant and that Guy has slept with most of the prefects in his house, the strict new rules leave a bad taste in his mouth. They also put a damper on his Wildean lifestyle, especially after he falls hopelessly in love with James Harcourt (Cary Elwes), a dreamy boy from one of the other houses. Things come to a head when autocratic prefect Fowler (Tristan Oliver) intercepts a letter from Guy to James and sentences Guy to a savage beating. By film's end, Guy's complicity in the power games of the British class system has been challenged, and his friend Tommy's communist dogma has made a lasting impression; a framing device portrays Guy as an elderly former spy living in exile in Soviet Moscow. Another Country was shot at Cambridge, Oxford, and Althorp Hall (Princess Diana's childhood home) after the producers were denied permission to shoot at Eton. Everett and Firth both appeared in the original London theater production alongside Kenneth Branagh and Daniel Day-Lewis; on-stage, it was actually Firth who played Guy. For a more factual account of the Burgess-Maclean affair, see the TV movie An Englishman Abroad. ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide

Adapted from the novel by Jane Austen, the British miniseries Mansfield Park starred Sylvestra La Touzel as Fanny Price, a "poor relation" deposited at the doorstep of the titular country estate at age ten. Raised by her cynical uncle, Sir Thomas Bertram (Bernard Hepton), the ugly-duckling Fanny was ignored or rebuffed by everyone on the estate except for her cousin, Edmund (Nicholas Farrell). Eventually blossoming into a beautiful woman, Fanny found herself the romantic bone of contention between Edmund and neighboring aristocrat Henry Crawford (Robert Burbage). Though fond of both men, Fanny was not about to make an impulsive choice between them; both Edward and Henry would have to prove their mettle to her before either man could claim her hand in marriage. Telecast in six hour-long installments by the BBC in 1986, Mansfield Park was remade 13 years later as a theatrical feature film. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A single woman still living with her boring parents secretly dreams of sexual passion in this erotic drama. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

A British-American production, Sweet William is an R-rated movie about sexual relationships that focuses on the flings of an untamed Scotsman named William (Sam Waterston). William has had two marriages and many affairs, and he approaches more romantic adventures without feeling any guilt. His next target is a sensitive and naïve London woman, Ann (Jenny Agutter). Her boyfriend is away on business in the U.S., and the irresistible William woos her by acting lovably loony. Ann soon learns of William's reputation, even though he does his best to hide his past and his current fancies. She decides that some woman finally needs to take a stand against William's charms. Ann eventually makes him choose between continuing his philandering ways and settling down for true happiness. Despite its theme and rating, the film has no explicit sexual scenes. ~ Michael Betzold, All Movie Guide

This historical dramatic series, produced by the BBC, explores political and social intrigue among England's privileged classes during the Victorian era. Plantagenet Palliser (Philip Latham) weds Lady Glencora (Susan Hampshire) in a match that has more to do with power than love as Palliser enters into a career as a member of Parliament. The supporting cast includes Anna Massey, Barbara Murray, Roland Culver, and Caroline Mortimer. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide