Sarah Miles Movies
The daughter of a British merchant, Sarah Miles enrolled at RADA at the age of 15. Before her formal stage debut at the Old Vic, Miles made her film bow opposite Laurence Olivier in Term of Trial (1962). A marked contrast to the "English Rose" heroines once in vogue, she brought a smouldering sensuality to her roles in Joseph Losey's The Servant (1963) and The Ceremony (1964) and Antonioni's Blow Up (1966). So well established was Miles as a "sex symbol" (though she'd be the first to put down that demeaning term) by 1965 that she was able to spoof her screen image in Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines, playing an outwardly proper lass who gets a subtly erotic thrill out of flying in rickety vintage airplanes -- and who frequently finds herself being accidentally undressed in public. In 1969, Miles was nominated for an Academy Award for her portrayal of the title role in Ryan's Daughter. She then was forced to endure a decade of tabloid-press scrutiny, beginning with her wholly unsubstantiated "involvement" with the suicide of a man named David Whiting on the set of The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing (1973), and culminating with the publicity engendered by her steamy sex scenes with Kris Kristofferson in The Sailor Who Fell From Grace with the Sea (1976). Though she often dismissed adverse press by noting "I have been mocked and ridiculed all my life," Miles would frequently retire from filmmaking for up to three years at a time. She was, however, always available for stage work: her more significant theatrical credits include the roles of Marina Oswald in The Silence of Lee Harvey Oswald, Mary Queen of Scots in Vivat Vivat Regina, and her 1978 one-woman musical S. Miles is Me. Still active in character roles in the 1980s, Miles has recently been seen in the surprisingly sedate role of a wartime London matriarch in Hope and Glory (1987), and more characteristically as an insatiably lusty aristocrat in White Mischief. She was married to playwright Robert Bolt from 1967 to 1976, then remarried him eleven years later. In 1993, Sarah Miles published her autobiography, A Right Royal Bastard. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide- 1973
Based on the novel by L. P. Hartley, The Hireling is a dissection of antiquated but hardly dormant British class distinctions. Chauffeur Robert Shaw is in the employ of aristocratic widow Sarah Miles. When she suffers a nervous breakdown, Shaw helps her through her recovery. They grow to love each other during the convalescence; but when she is cured, Ms. Miles refuses to regard Shaw as an equal, and the original status quo is reinstated. The Hireling provides an interesting contrast to the similarly structured American film of 1991, Driving Miss Daisy. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Robert Shaw, Sarah Miles, (more)
Screenwriter Robert Bolt's directorial debut is a lushly romantic saga concerning the 1812 love affair between the wife of William Lamb, Lord of Melbourne, and the author of the poem Childe Harold, Lord Byron. Excited and embarrassed by the attendant affections heaped upon him, Byron found his writing talent waning, and in 1813 the lovers ended their affair. In her first novel, Glenarvon in 1816, Lady Lamb included a satiric portrait of her former lover. But when she later witnessed Byron's funeral in 1828, she was so affected by his death she never mentally recovered from the trauma. The film charts the doomed romantic course for Lady Caroline Lamb (Sarah Miles), beginning with her marriage to the politically promising William Lamb (Jon Finch) and continuing with her scandalous affair with Byron (Richard Chamberlain). The film then chronicles Lady Caroline Lamb's supreme sacrifice on behalf of her husband's political career. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Sarah Miles, Jon Finch, (more)
The logic behind inflating Robert Bolt's minimalist romantic drama Ryan's Daughter into a 12-million-dollar epic seems to have been "When David Lean directs, it's a super-spectacular." Sarah Miles (who at the time was married to Robert Bolt) stars as Rosy, the daughter of Irish pub keeper Tom Ryan (Leo McKern). Married to tweedy, sexless schoolmaster Charles Shaughnessy (Robert Mitchum), restless Rosy has an affair with British officer Randolph Doryan (Christopher Jones). When village idiot Michael (an Oscar-winning turn by John Mills) innocently uncovers evidence of Rosy's indiscretion, the local gossips begin wagging their tongues. Shaughnessy chooses to remain above the scandal, assuming that Rosy will come to her senses. Later, Rosy's father informs on a group of IRA insurgents, hoping to keep the peace in his village. The locals assume that Rosy, still enamored of Doryan, is the informer, and exact a humiliating punishment. Realizing that his very presence has caused disgrace for Rosy, Doryan kills himself. For Rosy and Shaughnessy, life goes on...not happily ever after, just ever after. The film was lensed on location in Ireland by frequent Lean collaborator Freddie Young. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Robert Mitchum, Trevor Howard, (more)
Italian director Michelangelo Antonioni's first English-language production was also his only box office hit, widely considered one of the seminal films of the 1960s. Thomas (David Hemmings) is a nihilistic, wealthy fashion photographer in mod "Swinging London." Filled with ennui, bored with his "fab" but oddly-lifeless existence of casual sex and drug use, Thomas comes alive when he wanders through a park, stops to take pictures of a couple embracing, and upon developing the images, believes that he has photographed a murder. Pursued by Jane (Vanessa Redgrave), the woman who is in the photos, Thomas pretends to give her the pictures, but in reality, he passes off a different roll of film to her. Thomas returns to the park and discovers that there is, indeed, a dead body lying in the shrubbery: the gray-haired man who was embracing Jane. Has she murdered him, or does Thomas' photo reveal a man with a gun hiding nearby? Antonioni's thriller is a puzzling, existential, adroitly-assembled masterpiece. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- David Hemmings, Vanessa Redgrave, (more)
- 1966
It can't have been box-office considerations that motivated the title-change of the British I Was Happy Here to the American-release title Time Lost and Time Remembered. Director Desmond Davis both directed and wrote this nostalgic story of a London housewife (Sarah Miles), who leaves her husband to take a sentimental journey to her Irish home town. As she strolls around her old stamping grounds, Miles occasionally confides her mixed emotions (disillusionment among them) to the audience. To represent the "one foot in the then, one in the now" ambience of the story, director Davies frequently stages his scenes in time-displacement fashion, with characters in the present stepping directly into the past. Can this delicately handled film be a product of the same Desmond Davis who so badly botched the slapstick setpieces of Smashing Time? ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Sarah Miles, Cyril Cusack, (more)
- 1965
- G
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Ken Annakin's large-canvas comedy Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines is set in 1910. In order to boost circulation of his newspaper, Lord Rawnsley (Robert Morley) offers 10,000 pounds to the first person who can fly across the English Channel. A huge number of hopefuls enter the contest, including the scheming Sir Percy Ware-Armitage (Terry-Thomas), who, with the help of his henchman Courtney (Eric Sykes), attempts to sabotage the other entries. There is also a love triangle featuring Orvil Newton (Stuart Whitman) and Richard Mays (James Fox) competing for the heart of Patricia Rawnsley (Sarah Miles). ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Stuart Whitman, Sarah Miles, (more)
Wealthy wastrel James Fox hires insouciant cockney Dirk Bogarde as a valet. No sooner has he donned his working clothes than Bogarde begins exercising a subtle but insidious control over his master. Suggesting that the house could use a little fixing up, Bogarde convinces Fox to spend a whopping amount of money on it. But this is just a warm-up session for Bogarde, who by mid-film is calling all the shots in the Fox household, all the while pretending to keep his place. Fox's fiance Wendy Craig sees through Bogarde's game. Bogarde then brings his own lady friend Sarah Miles into the house. At Bogarde's insistence, Miles seduces Fox, thereby loosening Craig's hold on the confused young man. And so it goes. The homosexual subtext of The Servant disturbed some of the more hidebound critics of 1963; Harold Pinter based his cryptic screenplay on a novel by Robin Maugham. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Dirk Bogarde, Sarah Miles, (more)
- 1963
Actor Lawrence Harvey made his debut as a writer and director with this downbeat drama. Sean McKenna (Harvey) is awaiting execution in a prison in Tangiers after being convicted of murder. McKenna was trying to prevent the crime in question but was instead made the scapegoat. With his life hanging in the balance, McKenna's girlfriend Catherine (Sarah Miles) and his brother Dominic (Robert Walker Jr.) engineer an escape plan, and McKenna is able to beat his date with the hangman. However, McKenna's reunion with Dominic and Catherine proves not to be as joyous as he had expected when he discovers that they have been having an affair. Harvey was to direct only two more films, the second of which, Welcome to Arrow Beach, would prove to be his final work. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Laurence Harvey, Sarah Miles, (more)
- 1962
Based on James Barlow's novel The Burden of Proof, this is a thoughtful drama revolving around the relationship between a schoolteacher and his students, in particular a fifteen year old girl (played by the debuting Sarah Miles, although she was in fact 21 at the time), who has become infatuated with him. But when he rejects her advances during a school trip to France, out of spite she accuses him of rape. The resulting court-case dominates the latter stages of the film.
In its depiction of school life there does seem to be a ring of truth, even if the situations are somewhat exaggerated and for its time this was very strong stuff with its controversial scenario. But the early 60s was an era when film-makers were challenging social taboos, and subjects that had until then remained off-limits were being explored. Victim (1961) is another good example of this trend. As the movie also examines the precarious state of the man's marriage, this also gives more poignancy to his predicament. A fine cast is employed here, including a young Terence Stamp who went on to become a major star of the late 60s. ~ Mark Hockley, All Movie Guide
In its depiction of school life there does seem to be a ring of truth, even if the situations are somewhat exaggerated and for its time this was very strong stuff with its controversial scenario. But the early 60s was an era when film-makers were challenging social taboos, and subjects that had until then remained off-limits were being explored. Victim (1961) is another good example of this trend. As the movie also examines the precarious state of the man's marriage, this also gives more poignancy to his predicament. A fine cast is employed here, including a young Terence Stamp who went on to become a major star of the late 60s. ~ Mark Hockley, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Laurence Olivier, Simone Signoret, (more)
