Janet Munro Movies

Sebastian (Dirk Bogarde) is an undisciplined mathematics genius who works in the "cipher bureau" of the British government. While cracking enemy codes, Sebastian finds time to romance co-worker Susannah York. The film dwells upon Sebastian's rather lax morals (even by 1968 standards), culminating in his refusal to commit himself to York once he's rendered her pregnant. This aspect of the story is frankly more fascinating than the main espionage plotline. Keep an eye out for Canadian actor Donald Sutherland in a bit as an American. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

They All Died Laughing plays for satire what any other film might have played for suspense. Leo McKern plays a college professor, of the addlepated rather than absentminded variety. McKern has come to the conclusion that certain people are leeching off society, and the world would be well rid of them. He heads for his laboratory to create the means of "purging" these useless people. He comes up with a poison that prompts his victims to laugh hysterically before joining the Choir Invisible. A little more heavy-handed than the British "dark farces" of the 1950s, They All Died Laughing was originally released in England as A Jolly Bad Fellow. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

It's Hoppity Goes To Town with sex in this 1963 British version of the old chestnut concerning an innocent country lass who travels to the big city and becomes corrupted, in this film version of Patrick Hamilton's novel The Street Has a Thousand Skies. Janet Munro runs the gamut of emotions as Jennie, a young girl from Wales who, with her girlfriend, is seduced and abandoned by a couple of heartless creeps in London, where she is later befriended by a kindly bartender John Stride. But Jennie snubs the bartender and takes up with a an unfeeling playboy. However, Jennie has gone around the park one time too many and is now torn between going back home or committing suicide. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

Religion and medical ethics clash in this provocative drama that tells the story of a man prosecuted by the system because he refused to grant his dying daughter badly needed blood transfusions because he had faith that God would miraculously heal her. Unfortunately, the girl dies and now, in addition to dealing with the courts, angry doctors and an embittered wife (who had finally caved-in and signed the papers too late), he must also wrestle with his own conflicting feelings. ~ Tana Hobart, All Movie Guide

Despite its come-on title, The Day the Earth Caught Fire is an intelligent, disturbing piece of speculative fiction. Through the eyes of British reporter Peter Stenning (Edward Judd), we learn that both the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. have simultaneously set off nuclear explosions to test their efficiency. The twin blasts have caused the Earth to go off its axis. The result is a disastrous upheaval in the balance of nature; floods and fires being the principal plagues. With the end of the world staring everyone in the face, chaos reigns. The only hope lies in another massive nuclear explosion, which will hopefully rebalance the Earth. The film ends ambiguously, with viewers allowed to decide for themselves whether or not the world has been saved. In the original prints of The Day the Earth Caught Fire, the opening and closing reels were tinted yellow, representing the scorching heat beating down on the frightened populace. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The first portion of this Walt Disney Presents episode is a behind-the-scenes preview of the upcoming Disney theatrical feature Swiss Family Robinson. Hosted by three of the film's stars, John Mills, Dorothy McGuire and Janet Munro, the segment details the difficulties encountered by the production crew while filming on location in the West Indies' island of Tobago -- an island so uninhabited that even the animals had to be shipped in from the States. The second half of the episode consists of the Oscar-winning "True Life Adventure" short subject Water Birds, previously telecast as part of the Disneyland installment "A Trip Through Adventureland and Water Birds." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In its promotional material for the 1959 theatrical feature Darby O'Gill and the Little People, the Disney studio went into whimsical overdrive, hoping to convince the younger viewers that the leprechauns appearing in the film were not merely normal-sized actors made small via special effects, but instead the genuine article. As part of this delightful deception, the weekly Walt Disney Presents TV anthology offered an episode in which Walt Disney explained how he personally persuaded the King of the Leprechauns to appear in his film. It all begins when actor Pat O'Brien, returning from a trip to Ireland, regales Walt Disney with stories of the "little people" of the Emerald Isle. Banking on the fact that he is himself half-Irish, Walt travels to Old Erin to see for himself. After conferring with a local "shanachie," or storyteller (played by Darby O'Gill's titular star Albert Sharpe), Disney is granted an audience with his majesty himself, King Brian (Jimmy O'Dea) -- who has quite a healthy ego for one so tiny. This episode expertly blends new footage with previews from the upcoming film, which among other actors features a young Sean Connery (who was so obscure a performer at the time that he isn't even billed in the TV Guide listings!) While the actual Darby O'Gill scenes were directed by Robert Stevenson, the new transitional scenes were helmed by Harry Keller -- who after handling retakes of Orson Welles' Touch of Evil had no trouble seamlessly matching Stevenson's distinctive style. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The Trollenberg Terror, authored by Peter Key and directed by Quentin Lawrence, started life on British television as a six-part installment of ITV's Saturday Serial in late 1956 and early 1957. The big-screen version, was adapted by Jimmy Sangster, who compressed most of the best horrific and mystery elements of the original into an under-90-minute vehicle, which Lawrence directed. At a remote Alpine village, mountaineers suddenly start dying, their bodies horribly multilated -- at first, these incidents seem like they could just be accidents. But the arrival of a pair of sisters (Janet Munro, Jennifer Jayne), one of whom feels an almost telepathic connection with someone or something on the mountain, attracts the interest of American Alan Brooks (Forrest Tucker), a trouble-shooter for the United Nations. He and Prof. Crevett (Warren Mitchell), who has been monitoring the radiation levels in the area from a research station set up by the government, determine that there is a pattern to these deaths that Brooks has seen before, in a prior incident in the Andes Mountains. They determine that the Earth has been invaded, at high altitude, by a race of gigantic, tentacled aliens who live in thin atmosphere and at extremely low temperatures. Camouflaging themselves in a dense radioactive cloud, they've been content up until now to hide their existence while experimenting with the inhabitants of their new world -- they've taken over some human subjects telepathically, and also re-animated dead bodies. And they've killed those -- such as the hapless mountaineers who have stumbled upon their new lair, or those few humans whose stronger-than-usual mental powers have allow them to sense the aliens' presence -- who threaten to discover them. But now Crevett sees that the aliens are adapting and moving down the mountain, the cloud bringing their necessary cold temperatures with them, and threatening to engulf the village as prelude to an attack on it and all that lies beyond. The Trollenberg Terror was retitled The Crawling Eye when it was released in the United States, in an obvious attempt to draw the same audience that had made the previous year's British film adaptation of a tv serial -- The Quatermass Xperiment, renamed The Creeping Unknown -- into a huge hit in the US. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

In this British comedy, a young man resorts to spying, extortion and just plain begging after he learns that he is to be replaced as headwaiter by a young woman. The story is based on a popular play. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Filmed on location in Switzerland, Walt Disney's Third Man on the Mountain was based on Banner in the Sky, a book by James Ramsey Ullman. James MacArthur plays a Swiss youth who vows to be the first to scale a formidable Matterhorn-like mountain called the Citadel. The fact that MacArthur's father was killed attempting a similar climb only strengthens the boy's resolve. Though discouraged by his mother and uncle, MacArthur prepares for his ascent by taking practice climbs with his friends, learning vital lessons about safety and cooperation along the way. Finally, MacArthur begins making his way up the Citadel in the company of four other hardy souls. The title is a giveaway as to who doesn't reach the top of the mountain first; even so, there's a happy, satisfying ending for the so-called "loser." The film's breathtaking full-color shots of the Matterhorn are brilliantly augmented by the matte work of the legendary Peter Ellenshaw. Watch for Helen Hayes, the mother of Third Man on the Mountain star James MacArthur, in an amusing cameo role. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide