Jack Melford Movies

This is one of three Hammer films loosely based on Sheridan LeFanu's book Camilla, which gives the standard vampire story a lesbian twist. The other two films are The Vampire Lovers and Twins of Evil. In this film, Count Karnstein, through a magical ritual, relies on the feedings of the newly re-fleshed and voluptuous vampire Mircalla (Yutte Stensgaard) for his own sustenance. This keeps her very busy indeed. She finds a ready supply of victims at a girls' finishing school. Her troubles begin when two male teachers from the school decide to investigate. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

In the first episode of the four-part story "The Myth Makers," the TARDIS lands on a sandy plain somewhere in Greece. Disembarking, the Doctor (William Hartnell) soon learns that his ship has been plunked in the middle of the Trojan War. Even sooner, the Doctor is mistaken for the great god Zeus -- and his travelling companion, Steven (Peter Purves), is thrown into prison. Adrienne Hill joins the cast as the Doctor's new travelling companion, Katarina. Written by Donald Cotton, "The Temple of Secrets" first aired on October 16, 1965; unfortunately, only a brief fragment is known to presently exist. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A murder has been committed at the palatial Parisian residence of Benjamin Ballon (George Sanders). All the evidence points to sexy, wide-eyed housemaid Maria Gambrelli (Elke Sommer). Police inspector Dreyfuss (Herbert Lom) is prepared to make an arrest -- and then the gloriously, monumentally inept Inspector Clouseau (Peter Sellers) arrives on the scene. Clouseau may have difficulty getting through the day without falling into ponds, knocking people cold with opened doors, and pocketing flaming cigarette lighters, but his instincts are right on target when he decides that Mme. Gambrelli is being framed by someone else in the Ballon household. Even as the murder victims pile up, Clouseau is determined to prove Mme. Gambrelli's innocence. As he cuts a bumbling, destructive swath through Paris, Clouseau drives Dreyfuss literally insane. This fact leads to the literally explosive climax, and to the ultimate vindication of Mme. Gambrelli. While we first met Inspector Clouseau in The Pink Panther, Shot in the Dark is the film that truly established the Clouseau mythos: the festive clumsiness, the convoluted dialogue ("You shot him in a rit of fealous jage!"), the Fractured French ("A beump on zee head!"), the twitching lunacy of poor Inspector Dreyfuss, the unexpected "judo lessons" of Clouseau's houseboy Kato (Burt Kwouk), and of course the hilariously macabre jokes involving dead or seriously injured bystanders. You'd never know it, but A Shot in the Dark was inspired by a standard three-act stage comedy by Harry Kurnitz, which in turn was adapted from the French play L'Idiote by Marcel Achard. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

An embezzlement scheme is pinned on an unlikely suspect who works to locate the real criminal in this crime comedy. ~ All Movie Guide

In this crime drama, an FBI agent and a vengeful sister pursue diamond thieves who pulled their latest caper by placing a time-bomb aboard a plane piloted by the woman's brother. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Even as respected small-town banker Wyndham Roberts (Meredith Edwards) is seated in his regular pew during Sunday morning church services, several miles away a man claiming to be Wyndham Roberts is confessing the murder of a child to Constable John Jones (Clifford Evans). With irrefutable evidence in hand, Jones has no choice but to arrest Roberts. But his friends and fellow parishioners protest that Roberts could not possibly be guilty: at the time of the murder, several people saw him sitting in church, fast asleep. This is one of several One Step Beyond episodes filmed in England. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

W. Lee Wilder, the lesser-known brother of Billy Wilder, directed this unexceptional story based on the actual history of French serial killer Henri Landru. The killer (played by George Sanders) has been changed here from an ordinary, inconsequential man to a suave antique dealer with a passion for Odette (Corinne Calvet), a nightclub singer whose only interest in him is monetary. The plot places Odette's need for money at the basis of Landru's maniacal killing spree but as the duped, female victims are dispatched one after another, the horror of it all never quite coalesces into gripping suspense. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

In this crime drama, an engineer is falsely accused of selling secret information to enemy spies and receives a life sentence in prison. The engineer thinks his ex-partner is behind the frame-up and so asks his son, a law student, to look into it. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In this crime drama, an American author living in London gets involved with the wicked wife of a well-known jewel fence. The trouble begins when she coerces the writer to rob her own husband. He pulls the job off admirably, but soon afterward, the fence is found dead. To make it worse, a blackmailer begins threatening to tell the authorities that the writer killed the victim. Not willing to take the extortion lying down, the brave author heads for the police to turn himself in. It is then that he learns the true identity of the killer. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Lucian Currie (Griffith Jones) approaches Peter Brady with a bizarre proposition: Currie intends to murder his partner in a gold mine, and he wants the invisible Brady to pull off the dirty deed. To bind the bargain, Currie threatens to unleash his vicious guard dog on Brady--who knows all too well that even an Invisible Man can be sniffed out by a dog. Highlights in this episode include the opening scene wherein Brady is "seen" mowing his lawn, and a brief moment in which the deadly dog appears to be attacking thin air. Appearing as Currie's hapless partner Vickers is Patrick Troughton of Doctor Who fame. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Background is a tearful flashback drama centering around a dysfunctional family. Valerie Hobson and Philip Friend play a long-married couple on the verge of divorce. As they ponder the question of who will receive custody of their children (Janette Scott, Mandy Miller and Jeremy Spencer), the couple has second thoughts about their upcoming litigation. It is the children who eventually bring Hobson and Friend back together, though the reunion seems strangely without passion. Background was released in the US as Edge of Divorce. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Based on a novel by Mary Mitchell, Warning to Wantons is the story of 17-year-old Renee (Anne Vernon). After wriggling out of a convent school, Renee manages to crash high society. She twists several wealthy men around her little finger before making a surprising marital decision. David Tomlinson, stuffy second lead of many a Disney film, is fun to watch as a high-society twit. The film's 144-minute running time had to be boiled down considerably before the film was distributed to America. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

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