George Mikell Movies

In this slow-paced thriller set just before D-Day in Paris, Gus Lang (Ed Harris) is an American agent who has to make sure a captured U.S. officer is not forced to divulge the secret of the Normandy invasion. Since audiences know the invasion worked, the success of Gus Lang's espionage forays into Nazi officialdom, and the French resistance appears to be a foregone conclusion. At least Paris provides an excellent backdrop for his undercover work, both with the attractive Claire Jouvet (Cyrielle Claire) and the less-attractive Nazi military. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Set in India during World War II, this fair action drama relies heavily on the good acting talent gathered to convey its slight, uninvolved story. Gregory Peck is Col. Lewis Pugh, backed up by Roger Moore as Capt. Gavin Stewart, David Niven as Col. Bill Grice, Patrick MacNee as Major Crossley, and several others -- all retired and past the age for active duty. At issue are three German freighters that are parked in the waters off Goa, the Portuguese coastal colony on the subcontinent of India. Since Portugal is neutral, the regular army cannot destroy the freighters, and it is up to the retired army officers and a large corps of over-the-hill volunteers to take on the mission of eliminating the German ships. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Blake Edwards's stylish direction bolsters this Cold War romance starring Julie Andrews and Omar Sharif. Andrews plays Judith Farrow, a British civil service functionary who meets dashing Russian agent Feodor Sverdlov (Omar Sharif) under the romantic skies of the Caribbean. The Caribbean breezes work their magic and soon Judith is head-over-heels in love with Feodor. Feodor then tries to enlist Judith to become an agent for the Soviet Union. But after Judith is warned by the British government to stay away from him, Feodor decides that he'd rather have her than the Soviet Union. However, a kink is thrown into their love affair when an undercover Russian secret agent, posing as a British agent, decides to eradicate the two lovers. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

This historical drama is an account of the early life of Winston Churchill (Simon Ward), including his childhood years, his time as a war correspondent in Africa, and culminating with his first election to Parliament. ~ Linda Rasmussen, All Movie Guide

A previously unknown planet is discovered within our solar system, orbiting on the far side of the sun exactly opposite the position of the Earth, and at precisely the same speed. The European space agency Eurosec, headed by Jason Webb (Patrick Wymark), whose solar probe made the discovery, decides to send a manned mission to investigate, teaming America's top astronaut Glenn Ross (Roy Thinnes) and British astro-physicist John Kane (Ian Hendry). Their voyage aboard the space vehicle Phoenix is supposed to take six weeks, but when the ship returns to orbit in only three weeks -- ending in a crash of their landing vehicle that kills Kane -- Eurosec can only conclude that Ross has engaged in some sort of sabotage. The astronaut is at a loss as to how they could have done a round-trip in just three weeks, until he makes a startling discovery -- that everything that he sees, from the layout of rooms and buildings to all of the writing around him, is reversed, left to right and right to left. It takes Ross, amid his confusion, to arrive at the only possible conclusion -- that he and Kane did, indeed, journey to the new planet, and that world is a duplicate of Earth (and visa versa) down to the last molecule, a perfect mirror-image; and that world dispatched its own mission, with its own Ross and Kane. He and Webb, and Eurosec, scarcely have time to absorb the implications of this discovery -- if true -- as they prepare for a return flight for Ross, despite enormous risks and some potentially very dangerous unknowns in getting him back to the Phoenix. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

In this espionage thriller, Dan Slater (Yul Brynner) is a CIA agent who travels to Austria after his son dies in a skiiing mishap. Slater begins to suspect that his son's death wasn't an accident and begins investigating the matter on his own. Slater finds that fellow agent Frank Wheatley (Clive Revill) is of little help to him. Beautiful Gina (Britt Ekland), the companion of prominent socialite Mrs. Carrington (Moira Lister), then slowly draws Slater into her web. In time, he discovers that his son's death was all part of a diabolical plan to lure him to Austria; Soviet agents led by Bethold (Anton Diffring) have performed extensive plastic surgery on one of their top spies until he's identical to Slater, and they intend to send him back in Slater's place, giving them an insider at the highest levels of U.S. intelligence. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

This big-budget, big-studio espionage film is set in the last years of World War II. George Peppard, Tom Courtenay and Jeremy Kemp parachute into Germany, with orders to destroy the Nazis' V-1 rocket base at Peenemunde. Given the order of billing, guess which special operative survives the longest. This being an MGM production, Peppard has time to commiserate with Sophia Loren, the wife of the Nazi collaborator whom Peppard is pretending to be. If you're wondering about the film's outcome, remember who won the war. Operation Crossbow failed badly in its first release; MGM, deciding that the title misled moviegoers into thinking that the picture was a "Robin Hood" derivation, cleared up matters by renaming the film The Great Spy Mission. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Based on the novel by John Le Carre, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold stars Richard Burton as a dispirited, end-of-tether British secret agent. He comes in from "the cold" (meaning he is pulled out of field operations) to act as a undercover man behind the Iron Curtain. To make his staged defection seem genuine, Burton goes on an alcoholic toot and is imprisoned and publicly humiliated. Once he has been accepted into East German espionage circles, Burton discovers that what he thought was his mission was a mere subterfuge--and that he's been set up as a pawn for an entirely different operation. Though Ireland and England "stand in" for East Berlin, Spy Who Came In From the Cold has the air of authenticity throughout, thanks in great part to the bleak black and white photography by Oswald Morris. The film was condemned as incomprehensible by those filmgoers accustomed to the simplistic melodramatics of James Bond; seen today, the double-crosses and double-double crosses seem all too clear and credible. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The Great Escape is based on the true story of a group of Allied prisoners of war who managed to escape from an allegedly impenetrable Nazi prison camp during World War II. At the beginning of the film, the Nazis gather all their most devious and troublesome POWs and place them at a new prison camp, which was designed to be impervious to escapes. Immediately, the prisoners develop a scheme where they will leave the camp by building three separate escape tunnels. Richard Attenborough is the British soldier who masterminds the whole plan, and who commands his motley squad--featuring Charles Bronson as a Polish trench-digging expert, James Garner as an American with a talent for theft, Donald Pleasence as a masterful forger, and Steve McQueen as an American rebel--through the construction of the tunnels and, eventually, their escape. An epic adventure film, The Great Escape runs nearly three hours, featuring a rousing Elmer Bernstein score and exciting action sequences -- including a notorious motorcycle chase between McQueen and the Nazis -- the likes of which had never been seen before in Hollywood productions. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Movie Guide

In this crime drama, a dancer and her assistants don interesting disguises to pull off a jewel theft. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

The guns of Navarone are huge Nazi cannons, installed on an Aegean island behind enemy lines. Anthony Quayle is the officer assigned by the British to lead a task force to put the guns out of commission. When Quayle is injured, the mission winds up in the relatively inexperienced hands of Gregory Peck. There's little love lost between Peck, explosives expert David Niven and Greek patriot Anthony Quinn, especially when it becomes known that there's a traitor in their midst. Resistance leader Irene Papas weeds out the traitor, but there's still those guns to take care of. Filmed on location in Rhodes and distinguished by Oscar-winning special effects, Guns of Navarone (based on Alistair MacLean's best-seller was a major box-office hit of 1961; less successful was the pared-down 1977 sequel, Force Ten From Navarone. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A British officer is slated to parachute into Normandy. What he doesn't know is that he is being set up by British Intelligence to be captured by the enemy and reveal erroneous information to the Nazis. Officer Raine (Bradford Dillman) is the unknowing soldier who has intentionally been given false information. His superiors justify the expenditure of one man verses the thousands of lives that will be saved by his mission. The unlucky officer faces capture, brutal torture and debilitating guilt leading to alcoholism over his perceived "failure" to keep the information secret. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide