Gordon McLeod Movies
Gruff, stocky British character actor Gordon McLeod first appeared on stage in repertory in his native Devon. After establishing himself on the London stage, McLeod made his first film in 1925. Almost always cast as a brusque authority figure, he was most often seen as dyspeptic newspaper editors and conclusion-jumping detectives. Though his most famous screen role was the cigar-chomping city editor in The Squeaker (1935), Gordon McLeod is also fondly remembered for his work as Inspector Teal in The Saint in London (1939) and The Saint Meets the Tiger (1943), and as Inspector Venner in Meet Sexton Blake (1946). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide- 1958
Flood Tide can be described as The Children's Hour gone ballistic. Michel Ray is David Gordon a sweet-faced little boy who dotes on his widowed mother Anne (Cornell Borchers) - but has a nasty, pathological penchant for lying. When a body washes up on the beach and a man is arrested, David tells a few "convenient" lies that get the fellow arrested. The owner of the adjacent beach house, Steve Martin (George Nader) returns from a trip, learns of the situation, and discusses in detail why he thinks the boy is being deceptive; he then spends the rest of the movie romantically pursuing Anne while attempting to earn David's trust and extract a confession from him that will free the unjustly convicted fellow. Flood Tide was directed by Abner Biberman, who as a former movie villain had a good grasp of what makes a sociopath tick--even a ten-year-old one. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- George Nader, Cornell Borchers, (more)
- 1954
This anthology tells three stories of feminine crime. In the first vignette, a woman must decide whether or not to rat upon her lover, a killer. In the second a kleptomaniac girl faces prison until her true love shows up to save her. The third tale centers on a wife who knows that her husband has killed his accountant, but loyally keeps silent until she learns that he has been cheating upon her. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1954
Originally released in England as simply The Diamond, this fast-paced melodrama stars Dennis O'Keefe as an American federal agent, assigned to the London beat. On the trail of the gang who robbed a US Treasury vault, O'Keefe works shoulder-to-shoulder with Scotland Yard inspector Philip Friend. It develops that the gang is in a cahoots with a London mob, who plan to pay off the treasury thieves with synthetic diamonds. Most of Diamond Wizard is fluent exposition; the big thrills arrive in the final two reels, when the crooks fall out. Margaret Sheridan costars as O'Keefe's American girlfriend. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Margaret Sheridan, Phillip Friend, (more)
- 1952
Impoverished British bank clerk John Ross (Jack Watling) is hopelessly in love with drop-dead gorgeous Irene James (Pat Kirkwood). Ross will do anything to win Irene's affections -- including embezzlement. She ends up marrying him, but she can't give up her true love, slimy counterfeiter Jimmy Smart (Sydney Tafler). By the time Ross realizes that his former fiancee Vera Lamb (Joy Shelton) was the right girl all along, it's a shade too late. The magnificent Thora Bird steals the show in Once a Sinner as the fickle Irene's slatternly mother. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Patricia Kirkwood, Jack Watling, (more)
- 1951
In this British mystery a private eye must prove that a millionaire was murdered by his fiancee, a beautiful model who discovers that she was slated to inherit his fortune after he died. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1951
In this British melodrama, a husband leaves the country on business. His wife quickly begins a torrid affair with a gigolo. Her husband is devastated when he finds out and winds up jumping off a cliff. Unfortunately he survives, but now suffers terrible amnesia. His repentant wife begins trying to restore his health. Meanwhile the gigolo reappears and begins trying to blackmail the couple. The husband beats him. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1950
This mystery is based upon the popular radio quiz show, Twenty Questions and chronicles the endeavors of panelists to solve a real murder. The killer sends the four players clues which are read on the air. Fortunately, two clever reporters solve the mystery and then use the players to catch the killer. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1950
Filmed on location in a British industrial town, Chance of a Lifetime is a trenchantly amusing satire of labor-management relations. When a group of angry workers protest their wage and working conditions at a plough factory, they are permitted to take over the operation themselves. It isn't long before they realize that you can't run a business on idealism and goodwill. Wisely, no one in the film is depicted as a clear-cut hero or villain; "hateful" company boss Dickinson (Basil Radford) is just as human and likeable as the incensed workers. For reasons that now seem frivolous, Chance of a Lifetime was rejected by three major British distribution firms before it was picked up--at the behest of the government--by British Lion. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Basil Radford, Niall MacGinnis, (more)
- 1949
The all-purpose title Floodtide was trotted out once more for this 1949 British drama. Gordon Jackson plays a lowly shipyard worker who falls in love with Rona Anderson, his boss' daughter. For the girl's sake, Jackson keeps an eye out for opportunities to advance himself. Through determination and resourcefulness, he works his way up to an executive position with a shipping firm, but tries his best not to forget his humble roots. Filmed extensively on location, Floodtide was run on a seemingly hourly basis in the early days of American television. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gordon Jackson, Rona Anderson, (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
Based on a novel by Chris Massie, Corridor of Mirrors is a British attempt to match the poetry and lyricism of the French cinema of the late 1940s. Eric Portman plays a contemporary artist who tends to live in the past. He surrounds himself with Renaissance artwork, obsessed with the notion that he and his lady friend (Edana Romney) are reincarnations of the lovers in a centuries-old painting. Portman's delusions eventually lead to murder. Critical reaction to Corridor of Mirrors was split right down the middle: American critics found the film profound, while British commentators dismissed it as empty and ponderous. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Eric Portman, Edana Romney, (more)
- 1948
Easy Money is a satire of that most venerated of all middle-class British traditions, the football pool. The film is divided into four separate episodes, illustrating the effects of the football pool on the "average chap." Among those who participate in the pool in hopes of winning the 50,000-pound jackpot are the Stafford family: husband Phillip (Jack Warner), wife Ruth (Marjorie Fielding), son Dennis (Jack Watling), and daughter Jackie (Petula Clark). Other interested parties are the Atkins clan -- Herbert ($Mervyn Johns) and Agnes ($Joan Young) -- and lovers Pat (Greta Gynt) and Joe (Dennis Price). Among the huge cast of supporting players, Edward Rigby stands out as the hapless Teddy Ball. Critics of the time noted that Easy Money was faintly reminiscent of the all-star 1932 Hollywood film If I Had a Million. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Frank Cellier, Petula Clark, (more)
- 1946
In this musical, a chimeny-sweep is bequeathed an aging hotel and decides to staff it with his former army buddies. Trouble ensues when two con men try to buy the hotel and it's grounds. They offer the sweep very little, telling him the property is almost worthless. They do not tell him that the value will greatly increase when the new airport is built nearby. Fortunately, the owner and his partners are not about to sell. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1946
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
- Starring:
- Robert Newton, Raymond Lovell, (more)
- 1945
In this thriller, an aspiring actor from London lets a room in a hotel filled with theatrical personalities. No sooner does he arrive, than the man in the adjoining room, an Australian acrobat, is found murdered. Being the newest tenant, the Londoner is immediately blamed. But then the killer attempts to murder him while he wanders through a Hall of Mirrors. The Londoner lives and catches the real killer thereby clearing his name. He then gets an acting job. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1944
In this British comedy, set in Tangleton, a small English village, a handyman finds himself in trouble when he inadvertently assists two London reporters in their investigation of corruption in the town's postwar plans. To protect themselves, the town fathers have the handyman destroy several incriminating housing forms. Unfortunately an errant gust of wind sends the flying. Enlisting the aid of an eccentric inventor, the handyman succeeds in getting the corrupt officials out of office. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1944
The title character in Meet Sexton Blake was created in 1893 as a way of cashing in on the immense popularity of Sherlock Holmes. This 1944 film opens with a bizarre and intriguing murder. Late one night along the London waterfront, a man is desperately tugging at the hand of another man -- a corpse, the audience soon discovers. There clearly is something very important about the dead man's hand, as the living man goes so far as to take out a saw and start removing it. Soon after achieving his prize, he falls from a bridge to his own death. The body is hauled aboard a passing ship, and when they search the body they discover the grisly severed hand. Blake is soon on the scene, using his keen powers of detection to determine that the hand belonged to a photographer from another country. Blake retires to his digs, but it's not long before a new client appears at his door. By coincidence, this man -- an arms manufacturer -- wants Blake to investigate the death of a friend, who just happens to have been a foreign photographer. Blake and his assistant Tinker delve into the case, which leads them to a mysterious villain named Slant Eyes and an espionage plot involving a new alloy for use in airplanes that is of enormous value to both sides in the war. ~ Craig Butler, All Movie Guide
- 1944
The Yellow Canary was one of several wartime collaborations between British producer-director Herbert Wilcox and Hollywood's RKO Radio Pictures. The film stars Wilcox's wife Anna Neagle as pretty aristocrat Sally Maitland. Having alienated many of her friends with her prewar Nazi sympathies, Sally continues hobnobbing with the Third Reich once war has been declared. Actually, her pro-German activities are a sham; she's actually working hand and glove with the British government to smash an Axis spy ring in Canada. Along for the ride is British intelligence officer Jim Garrick (Richard Greene), who ultimately falls in love with Sally. There's a "mystery" angle to the plotline of The Yellow Canary, but it is largely ignored when the story takes a melodramatic turn in the last few reels. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Anna Neagle, Richard Greene, (more)
- 1943
In this episode of the mystery adventure series, Simon "The Saint" Templar finds a dead man on his doorstep. Soon the ace investigator finds himself mired in more murder, smuggling and a South American mine. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Hugh Sinclair, Jean Gillie, (more)
- 1942
Comic actors Bud Flanagan and Chesney Allen, members in good standing of Britain's "The Crazy Gang", head the cast of the wartime mirthspinner We'll Smile Again. The film is set at a movie studio, where production of an Arabian Nights epic is constantly interrupted by the fumbling and bumbling of Bob Parker (Flanagan) and Gordon Maxwell (Allen). The two screw-ups redeem themselves by capturing a Nazi spy ring, headed by film star Gina Cavendish (Phyllis Stanley) and Teutonic director Steiner (Meinhardt Maur). Bumptuous radio comedian Horace Kenny contributes to the zaniness as a self-important studio makeup man. The producers engagingly make fun of the film's ultra-low budget with the opening disclaimer "The Anglo-American Film Corporation announces proudly that no expense has been spared to save money on this production." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bud Flanagan, Chesney Allen, (more)
- 1942
The Balloon Goes Up is a British amalgam of music hall vulgarities and radio one-liners. Ethel Revnell and Gracie West play a couple of cackling cockneys who get mixed up with sergeants Donald Peers and Ronald Shiner. The soldiers are special service entertainers, pretending to be officers. It's all for a good cause: Peers and Shiner hope to capture a nest of Nazis at barrage-balloon launching site. The Balloon Goes Up bears a marked resemblance to the Crazy Gang vehicle Gasbags. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1942
Not a remake of the 1934 Katharine Hepburn film of the same name, Spitfire was originally released in Great Britain as The First of the Few. Director Leslie Howard stars in this dramatization of the life and work of R.J. Mitchell, inventor of the Spitfire fighter plane. The film suggests, accurately as it turns out, that Mitchell was aware of Hitler's plans to conquer Europe by the air long before anyone else caught on (we see him watching a suspicious-looking group of "amateur" German gliding enthusiasts in the mid-1930s). David Niven, then a major in the British Army, was given leave to appear in this morale-boosting film as Mitchell's best friend, a dauntless test pilot. Ironically, Spitfire was released after the death of its star-director Leslie Howard, whose plane was shot down by the Germans somewhere between London and Lisbon. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Leslie Howard, David Niven, (more)
- 1941
Originally released in England in 1941 as This Man is Dangerous, The Patient Vanishes was distributed in the US in 1947 to capitalize on the burgeoning popularity of James Mason. The story concerns the friendly rivalry between private detective Mick Cardby (Mason) and his father, Scotland Yard inspector Cardby (Gordon McLeod). Both father and son work shoulder to shoulder to rescue the kidnapped daughter (Barbara James) of a wealthy industrialist. In "Bulldog Drummond" fashion, the girl had been abducted while a patient at a somewhat shady hospital, leading the detectives to interrogate several suspicious-looking medical types. What romance there is can be found in the bantering relationship between Mick Cardby and his secretary Mollie (Margaret Vyner). Though no evidence exists to support this theory, it's possible that The Patient Vanishes had been intended as the first in a series of "Ellery Queen"-style mysteries starring Mason and McLeod. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- James Mason, Mary Clare, (more)
- 1941
Produced by Britain's Teddington Studios on behalf of Hollywood's Warner Bros., the morale-boosting The Prime Minister details the career of 19th century political wizard Benjamin Disraeli, here played by John Gielgud. Filmed in the early months of WW2, the screenplay parallels the diplomatic cunning of Disraeli with the more recent maneuvers of Sir Winston Churchill. This is especially obvious when Disraeli takes on the Prussian Empire during the 1878 Berlin conference, emerging triumphant over a flock of stock-company crypto-fascists. In the role of Queen Victoria, Fay Compton proves a worthy sparring partner for "Dizzy", while Stephen Murray is equally effective as the Prime Minister's principal parliamentary antagonist Gladstone. Other minor roles are vividly realized by actors ranging from venerable Will Fyffe to teenager Glynis Johns. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- John Gielgud, Diana Wynyard, (more)
- 1941
Never mind that first name; Bunny Doyle is the male protagonist of the British Facing the Music. Doyle plays a clumsy munitions worker, who is incredibly put in charge of a major war plant. Well, maybe it's not so incredible at that; Doyle's plant is actually a decoy, set up to confuse potential enemy saboteurs. Though obviously regarded as expendable by his employers, Doyle emerges as a hero when the Nazis come calling. Future Hollywood starlet Chili Bouchier, billed under her real name of Dorothy, appears as an alluring secret agent in Facing the Music. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
