Tom Bell Movies
With his lean, tough, chiseled face, sallow complexion, and dark brow, Liverpudlian character actor Tom Bell consistently found himself at the mercy of producers eager to cast him as shady, sinister types - an image he never quite outgrew. Born August 2, 1933 in one of the seedier outlying areas of London, and shuttled north to Morecambe during World War II, Bell participated in drama during secondary school, then received his formal training as a thesp at the Bradford Civic Theatre, alongside Billie Whitelaw (The Omen) and Robert Stephens (The Bonfire of the Vanities). He performed in regional repertory stage productions for a term, then took his initial television bow in 1959, in episodes of Armchair Theatre and on an episode of the popular American series The Virginian.Bell then fell in with the 'kitchen sink' school of filmmakers, such as Bryan Forbes, Tony Richardson and Karel Reisz, who at the time were single-handedly defining the British New Wave with the 'Angry Young Man' movement. Bell appeared in several of the more noteworthy cinematic productions during this time, including The Kitchen (1960), The Concrete Jungle (1960), and The L-Shaped Room (1962). He left a particularly memorable impression in the latter, as Toby, the prospective suitor of Leslie Caron's Jane Fosset -- a man who turns from a sympathetic emotional anchor into a complete bastard when he discovers that Caron's character is pregnant with another fellow's baby. Bell appeared in well over forty-five additional films throughout the sixties, seventies, and eighties. After The L-Shaped Room, his two highest-profiled turns were probably the role of Adolf Eichmann in the 1978 TV miniseries Holocaust, and the Eric in David Leland's Wish You Were Here, a sleazy suitor who gleefully defiles Emily Lloyd's flirtatious sixteen-year-old Lynda.
Bell teamed up with former schoolmate Whitelaw in Peter Medak's The Krays (1990), as a low-level gangster knifed to death at the hands of thug Reginald Kray (Ronald Kemp). A year later, he portrayed Antonio in Peter Greenaway's revisionist Shakespeare outing Prospero's Books. He played Henry Harding, an MP of Parliament who hires a computer hacker to break into London's S&M underground, in Stuart Urban's Preaching to the Perverted (1997).
Tom Bell died on October 5, 2006, in Brighton, East Sussex, England, of unspecified causes, just two months after his seventy-third birthday. His ex-wife was actress Lois Dane, with whom he had a son. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
First time writer-director James Marquand's feature debut, the steel-tough crime thriller Dead Man's Cards, marks one of the venerable British actor Tom Bell's final onscreen roles prior to his death in 2006. The tale unfolds in the seedy Merseyside borough of Liverpool, where Tom Watts (James McMartin), a former pugilist forced to retire from an eye injury sustained in the ring, accepts a position as a bouncer at a dilapidated nightclub run by Billy the Cowboy (Bell). Tom's wife, upset by his new occupation and embarrassed by the discovery of her husband's sexual impotence, abandons him. Meanwhile, at work, Watts is immediately befriended and mentored by his co-bouncer, Paul (Paul Barber), who has become implicated with a shady element thanks to his ex-girlfriend's involvement with the cocaine pusher Romeo Brown (Andrew Simister), a slimy thug in hock to the gangster and cocaine boss Chongi (Mark Russell). The latter attempts to strongarm Paul and then Tom into joining his security firm; when both refuse, Chongi grows psychotically hostile and plans to rub out both men with the help of a trained assassin. He doesn't count, however, on Tom's decision to stop him in his tracks. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi
- Starring:
- Paul Barber, Tom Bell, (more)
Produced and aired in 2006, the final, four-hour installment of the 15-year Granada/WGBH television series Prime Suspect -- entitled Prime Suspect: The Final Act -- nominally continues to follow author Linda La Plante's literary character, Detective Superintendent Jane Tennison (Helen Mirren), but segues dramatically away from Tennison's casework and toward incidents and developments from her private life. This alteration reshapes Prime Suspect, in its concluding installment, from a detective mystery program centered around hot-button social issues (child molestation, bigotry, gender bias) into more of a domestic drama with an incidental detective subplot. The tale opens with Tennison poised on the edge of retirement, with only a few weeks of work ahead of her. In her off time, she struggles to care for her dying father (Frank Finlay), and battles her own periodic blackouts, brought on by encroaching alcoholism. The central crime plot involves Tennison's attempts to pinpoint those responsible for the sudden death of a pregnant teenage schoolgirl and bring the unsavory characters to swift justice. As she investigates, she comes into increasing contact with the girl's family, and begins to perceive the broken relationship that existed between the victim and her deeply dysfunctional father (Gary Lewis); she also befriends Penny, the best friend of the deceased -- a relationship that imparts her with much-needed insight into the case at hand. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi
- Starring:
- Helen Mirren, Stephen Tompkinson, (more)
Eleanor H. Porter's novel about a cheerful girl who brightens the lives of those around her is brought to the screen once again in this made-for-television melodrama. Pollyanna Whittier (Georgina Terry) is an eleven-year-old girl who, after the unexpected death of her parents, is taken in by her Aunt Polly (Amanda Burton). Aunt Polly and her friend are not an especially happy lot, but despite the recent tragedy in her life, Pollyanna is the sort of person who invariably looks at the sunny side of life. Pollyanna invents what she calls "the Glad Game," in which she challenges those around her to see the positive side of every situation, and her upbeat outlook proves infectious. Produced for British television, this adaptation of Pollyanna received its American premier on the award-winning anthology series Masterpiece Theater. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
- Starring:
- Georgina Terry, Amanda Burton, (more)
In between the big-budget Blade and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, British filmmaker Stephen Norrington directs the straight-to-video crime drama The Last Minute. Told in flashback, the story follows the rise and fall of Billy Byrne (Max Beesley). With a determined goal to be famous, he lands his first big show with the help of his slick agent, Walsh (Anthony Higgins). Fame comes quickly as he travels the globe and gets invited to hip clubs, becoming the darling of the London art scene. Due to his excessive, self-centered behavior, his girlfriend Janey (Kate Ashfield) leaves him. His fame fades away and he falls into a life of crime, drugs, and gangsters led by Grimshanks (Tom Bell), where he meets Anna (Emily Corrie). ~ Andrea LeVasseur, Rovi
- Starring:
- Max Beesley, Emily Corrie, (more)
- 2002
A cinematic showcase for British newcomer Joe Tucker, this frenetic crime comedy concerns a loud-mouthed thug who offers to take out the guy who landed his best pal's brother in the hospital. A supermarket worker who has long awaited the day his brother's attacker Darrel (Grahame Fox) is released from the slammer, Philip (James Holmes) enlists the aid of lodger Smiggy (Tucker) in assisting him in revenge, making their way Darrel's flat after acquiring a questionably useful pistol. Undeterred by the fact that Darrel isn't home upon their arrival, the duo is mistaken for cocaine buyers by his girlfriend, Julie (Nicola Stapleton), and invited in to wait. Soon discovering that Julie has stolen a stash of cocaine from some dangerous Jamaicans, things heat up in the Notting Hill apartment as the body count rises and Smiggy slowly reveals his inner psychotic. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
- Starring:
- Joe Tucker, James Holmes, (more)
- 2001
William Shakespeare's King Lear is transposed into a modern-dress British crime drama in this tense tale of family ties and the lust for power. Sandeman (Richard Harris) is the elderly leader of a Liverpool crime syndicate who is fiercely loyal to his wife Mandy (Lynn Redgrave) and his daughters Jo (Emma Catherwood), Tracy (Lorraine Pilkington), and Kath (Louise Lombard). When Mandy is shot dead during a street robbery, Sandeman is shattered, and decides it's time to turn the business over to one of his daughters. Jo, the middle child, has long been Sandeman's favorite, and he decides to give her control of the business, as well as the lion's share of his estate when he dies. Loyal Jo, however, does not want to get involved in her father's dealings, which leads to a heated battle between Tracy and Kath over Sandeman's empire; adding fuel to the fire are Dean (Paul McGann), a strong-arm man for Sandeman who's married to Kath, and Jug (Jimi Mistry), Tracy's spouse and a notorious drug dealer. As a civil war rages among Sandeman's family and associates over control of his syndicate, police officer Puttnam (Aidan Gillen) and customs agent Quick (Tom Bell) make one last attempt to put Sandeman behind bars before he retires from his life of crime. My Kingdom isn't the first gangland drama to be based on the work of William Shakespeare; another of the Bard's tragedies received similar treatment in 1955's Joe Macbeth. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
- Starring:
- Richard Harris, Lynn Redgrave, (more)
- 1999
This omnibus film is both a tribute to 1990s Cool Britannia and an opportunity for many of Britain's best actors to step behind the camera. Set in the London's underground (AKA the Tube), the film's nine shorts depict England's most hallowed form of public transportation in wildly divergent manners, from gritty to surreal. Jude Law's "A Bird in the Hand" is a quietly affecting tale about an ailing old man, while "Horny", by Stephen Hopkins is an extended sexual fantasy imagined by a sweaty commuter enduring both the dog days of summer and his obvious arousal. Ewan MacGregor's "Bone" is a fanciful tale about a trombonist and his imagined lover on their way home from a concert, while Bob Hoskins' "My Father the Liar" is an emotionally powerful tale about a child who witnesses a suicide. But perhaps the standout segment from this film is Armando Iannucci's uproarious "Mouth", featuring a beautiful, poised woman vomiting on her fellow commuters set to Bruckner's 9th Symphony. Frank Harper appears in a number of these short works as an overly officious subway staffer. This film premiered at the London Film Festival and was later showed on the UK's BSkyB cable channel. ~ Jonathan Crow, Rovi
- Starring:
- Kelly MacDonald, Jason Flemyng, (more)
- 1998
- NR
Swing is the story of working-class friends who escape their bleak Liverpool lives to launch a swing band. Martin (Hugo Speer) spends two years in jail for his brother. When he gets out, he is handed two years of unopened love letters and a piece of advice: get a job or end up back in jail. Nothing much has changed back home during his absence. His sax-playing cell-mate Jack is the only sage person to guide him. Martin decides to start his own band. He recruits bassist Buddy, a skirt-chasing football star and drummer, and Oi, an ex-skinhead. The brass section is made up of barflies who owe his dad a favor. But one person who can lead the band to success is the beautiful singer Joan (Lisa Stansfield), the love of Martin's life who is now married to Martin's arresting officer and is not sure if the band is another one of Martin's hopeless dreams. Martin convinces everyone that the dream is worth fighting for. Despite a raid by Joan's jealous husband, the band's gig is a success and a recording contract is on its way. Then the police find out that Martin's brother backed the band with stolen money. Martin is back in jail, but this time when he comes out, he has Jack with him and Joan is waiting with the whole band to start again. ~ Gönül Dönmez-Colin, Rovi
- Starring:
- Hugo Speer, Lisa Stansfield, (more)
Swept From the Sea was inspired by a short story by Joseph Conrad. Set in late 19th-century Cornwall England in a small farming community, the story is told via flashback in a conversation between Dr. James Kennedy (Ian McKellen) and his patient Miss Swaffer (Kathy Bates). Dr. Kennedy despises indentured servant Amy Foster (Rachel Weisz). Miss Swaffer asks why, and so he recounts the love that blossomed between Amy and Yanko Goorall (Vincent Perez), a shipwrecked Russian who was trying to get to America. Born prior to her parent's wedding, Amy was relegated to a servant's life by rigid British society. Yanko was the sole survivor of a Russian shipwreck and he met Amy when he wandered onto her master's farm looking for food and shelter. Frightened and suspicious, no one but Amy is willing to help the bedraggled foreigner. Yanko eventually becomes a laborer for the Swaffer family. As he could speak no English at first, they know nothing of his origins. It is Dr. Kennedy who deduces his nationality after Yanko proves his mettle at chess. Impressed, the doctor offers English lessons in exchange for chess tutorials. In time, Kennedy comes to regard Yanko as a son. As soon as Yanko is able to converse, he asks about the maid who saved him, Amy. A love blossoms between them, one that deeply disturbs Kennedy. Still, he cannot prevent Swaffer from setting them up with land and a home so they can marry. A son is born, but Yanko is unable to withstand the harshness of Cornwall life, and tragedy ensues. Kennedy blames Amy for the tragic turn of events, but Miss Swaffer intervenes and tells the doctor the heartbreaking true circumstances surrounding Yanko. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi
- Starring:
- Vincent Perez, Rachel Weisz, (more)
A young man learns that love hurts (or at least it does if you're doing it right) in this saucy comedy from England. Henry Harding (Tom Bell) is a member of British Parliament and a self-styled moral crusader who is deeply disturbed by reports that Tanya Cheex (Guinevere Turner), a dominatrix from the U.S., has opened a night club for S&M enthusiasts in England. Harding is determined to put Cheex out of business, but first he needs to collect evidence of her activities, so Harding persuades Peter Emery (Christian Anholt) -- a young man with political ambitions, Christian principles, and his virginity intact -- to attend the club incognito and videotape the proceedings. To Peter's great surprise, he discovers that he rather likes a bit of spanking and leather fetishism, and he soon becomes quite infatuated with Tanya, making him all the less inclined to help shut down her club. Preaching to the Perverted presented Guinevere Turner in her first starring role after her breakthrough in the acclaimed independent feature Go Fish. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
- Starring:
- Guinevere Turner, Christien Anholt, (more)
Based on the novel by H.E. Bates, this period drama stars Embeth Davidtz as Bella Ford, a woman living in rural England during the Victorian era. Bella fell victim to Arch Wilson (Greg Wise), a unprincipled man who claimed to be from the nearby village. He seduced her only to vanish without a trace when she became pregnant. When she is outcast after her child is stillborn, a kindly villager named Ben Wainwright (Tom Bell) allows her to stay with his family in exchange for helping with the chores. However, the presence of a young and beautiful woman in the house creates a certain amount of tension between Ben, his wife (Gemma Jones), and sons Jedd (James Purefoy), a soldier; Matty (Kent Anderson), a shoemaker; and Con (Ben Chaplin), a homebody and social misfit. Con takes a shine to Bella and eventually proposes marriage; Bella accepts, but matters become complicated when she discovers that the dastardly Arch has returned to the village. Ismail Merchant served as executive producer. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
- Starring:
- Embeth Davidtz, Ben Chaplin, (more)
- 1994
This period drama was based on the best-selling novel by Catherine Cookson. Edward MacFell (Tom Bell) is a violent and tyrannical man who operates a large farm, but treats both his family and hired help with casual brutality. One day, Edward pushes someone too far and is killed. While his son Charlie (Lloyd Owen) witnessed the murder, he refuses to inform on the guilty party. But there is another witness, Ginger Slater (Antony Byrne), who sees this as a perfect opportunity to make a fortune through blackmail. Circumstances force Charlie to marry Victoria Chapman (Catherine Zeta-Jones), a woman with a scandalous reputation, even though he's in love with her sister Nellie (Maria Miles), but both affairs are put on hold when Charlie is sent off to war. The Cinder Path was originally produced as a miniseries for British television, though an edited feature-length version was released on home video in the U.S. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
Hired to help locate a missing author, an insurance investigator discovers to his terror that the nightmarish events depicted in the writer's best-selling horror novels are coming true. Wishing to be both a horror film and a parody of the genre, John Carpenter's In the Mouth of Madness combines supernatural thrills with winking references. For instance, the vanished author, Sutter Cane (Jürgen Prochnow), is modeled on writers like Stephen King and Howard Phillips Lovecraft, from his great popularity to his obsession with small-town New England. Indeed, it is to one such hamlet that investigator John Trent (Sam Neill) and Cane's female editor (Julie Carmen) travel, discovering a town filled with terrifying scenes right out of Cane's books, from random axe murders to far worse. Have Cane's fans gone psychotic and begun imitating his writings, or are Cane's stories of an otherworldly evil invading the earth actually true? In the Mouth of Madness's mix of self-referential satire and real frights anticipates the later Scream (1996). ~ Judd Blaise, Rovi
- Starring:
- Sam Neill, Julie Carmen, (more)
Detective Chief Inspector Jane Tennison (Helen Mirren) investigates the connection between a teen's murder and a pedophile ring in this third installment of the acclaimed BBC series Prime Suspect. Reassigned to a new district and a new department -- vice -- Tennison is drawn back to homicide when her squad discovers the immolated body of rent boy Connie (Greg Saunders) in the flat of timid transsexual Vera Reynolds (Peter Capaldi). The trail soon leads to James Jackson (David Thewlis), a vicious pimp with mysterious connections to Edward Parker-Jones (Ciarán Hinds), the director of a youth shelter where young Connie hung out. Forced to work alongside her old nemesis Sgt. Bill Otley (Tom Bell), Tennison spars with her superiors, who want her to focus on vice and resolve her homicide investigation posthaste. But when a TV reporter (Kelly Hunter) shows up with evidence that Connie was going to provide her with the names of his famous clients, Tennison must race to uncover the real motivation behind Connie's murder. The only installment other than the first to be written by series creator Lynda LaPlante, Prime Suspect 3 was filmed for the BBC and originally aired stateside on PBS. ~ Brian J. Dillard, Rovi
- Starring:
- Helen Mirren, Tom Bell, (more)
Helen Mirren delivers a standout performance in this TV miniseries as Jane Tennison, a London police detective. Tennison is trying to track down a sex-crazed killer who is murdering prostitutes, while at the same time doing battle with her male colleagues for her fair share of respect and responsibility on the force. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
- Starring:
- Helen Mirren, Tom Bell, (more)
- 1993
Following up the goofy big-screen comedies Dragnet and Delirious, director Tom Mankiewicz delivered this made-for-cable thriller starring Tony Goldwyn and Lynn Whitfield. After witnessing a murder, Goldwyn finds himself pursued by a group of thugs led by mafia boss Alan Arkin. Whitfield stars as the detective assigned to ensure that Goldwyn not only doesn't flee out of fear for his life, but stays alive long enough to testify at the murder trial. Along the way, as the two spend more time together, a romance ensues. Peter Boyle, George Segal and Will Patton round out the cast, and the film was scripted by Dan Gordon who would later gain noteriety as a scribe on 1999's The Hurricane. ~ Matthew Tobey, Rovi
- Starring:
- Lynn Whitfield, Tony Goldwyn, (more)
- 1991
- R
Puzzle-master Peter Greenaway exposes another aspect of his peculiar obsessions to the filmgoing public. Prospero's Books uses Shakespeare as a foundation and then skips along to define its own lush territory. The books of the title are briefly referenced in The Tempest -- Prospero is a magician who gets to keep only a small fragment of his enormous library when he is exiled with his daughter to an enchanted island. In the film, Prospero is played by Sir John Gielgud. Indeed, everybody is voiced by Gielgud as he describes the events that unfold. But mostly, he describes the books, and as he does, the screen fills with florid calligraphies, astonishing diagrams, extravagant paintings, and lots and lots of naked people. ~ John Voorhees, Rovi
- Starring:
- John Gielgud, Michael Clark, (more)
- 1991
Created by Lynda La Plante, the sporadically broadcast British TV series Prime Suspect succeeded in bestowing international stardom upon actress Helen Mirren. Set in London, the series dealt with female homicide detective Jane Tennison (Helen Mirren), who did her best to do her job in the face of sexual prejudice on the job and political corruption from the higher-ups. Virtually every time that Tennison investigated a murder, the trail of clues led to a compromising situation for a prominent civic leader, who invariably pulled strings to get the heroine off his scent. Not unexpectedly, Tennison was plagued with feelings of doubt and inadequacy, especially whenever her instincts proved (initially) to be wrong. Even so, by the time the series had run its course, Tennison had been promoted to superintendent. Making its British debut on April 7, 1991, Prime Suspect was broadcast for six seasons, each season progressively retitled as Prime Suspect 2, Prime Suspect 3, and so forth. In America, the property was seen over the PBS network and the A&E cable service. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Helen Mirren
The Derek Bentley Case has been an uneasy blight on the British legal system since the early 1950s. Two young, frightened boys were caught by police trying to break into to a building. One of the boys had a gun. When the policeman reached out to the youth to turn over the gun, his friend shouted "Let him have it," and the policeman was killed by a gun blast. Whether the boy understood "Let him have it" to mean he should turn over the gun or to kill the police officer has been debated ever since. But the result was the 19-year-old boy was executed for the crime -- only to be posthumously exonerated in 1953. In this dark and biting film by Peter Medak, the life of Derek Bentley (Chris Eccleston) that led up to the crime is recreated in pitiful detail, as well as the ensuing trial and execution. The story begins in 1952, when the likable Bentley is released from reform school. Bentley is an impressionable young man who returns home to his loving family -- his parents (Tom Courtenay and Eileen Atkins) and sister (Clare Holman) -- but becomes involved with a group of friends, led by the intimidating Chris (Paul Reynolds), who live in the poverty of post-World War II Britain and escape their bleak world by emulating the American gangster films they see at the local cinema. They play-act at being gansters, but with real guns ... and tragic results. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi
- Starring:
- Christopher Eccleston, Paul Reynolds, (more)
- 1990
In this British drama, the sorts of Britons who live in colonial encampments outside of Britain tend to be the most conventional people imaginable, recreating a little bit of home (and not the most interesting bits) in whatever uncouth foreign place they have landed in. In this story, they are living in Africa, and Johnny Deacon (Tom Bell) is so very tired of them. He's tired of his ex-girlfriend who married another; he's tired of his ex-girlfriend's mother, and he's tired of the men. Instead of coping with them any longer, he goes on a solo journey down the Dark River, and there is a good possibility (which he knows at the outset) that he will not survive the experience. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi
- Starring:
- Tom Bell, Kate Buffery, (more)
- 1990
- R
Peter Medak directed this fact-based drama, chronicling the lives of the infamous Kray Brothers, notorious celebrities in 60s London. The Krays were twin gangsters who ruled London's stylish East End club scene, staking out their territory by committing the most violent crimes imaginable, preferring to perform the most torturous acts themselves. The film stars Gary Kemp and Martin Kemp, founding members of the pop group Spandau Ballet, as Ronald and Reginald Kray. The film opens as their mother Violet Kray (Billie Whitelaw) recalls a dream in which she is a swan from which two beautiful babies have hatched. She can't tell if the swans are angels or demons, but the film soon answers that question for her. Brought up in London's East End in the 1930s, Ronald and Reginald Kray are raised in the resentful world of Violet, who is hateful of her lot in life and bitter at the control men have in running the world ("Housework is a lethal business," she says). The twins react to each other almost telepathically and they take out their anger by clogging the nose of their sleeping father (Alfred Lynch), pushing around fellow schoolboys, and even beating each other to pulp at a boxing match. When her mother chastises them for their fight in a fairground boxing ring ("You fight them up, but you don't fight each other"), the twins veer into the London underworld. In their self-contained world of Us-Against-Them, the Krays rapidly rise to the height of power, first taking over the territory of a petty mobster by violent means and then putting together an underworld empire of posh clubs, cars, and fancy suits. But at the height of their fame, the twins begin to break from each other. Reginald falls in love with Frances (Kate Hardie), while Ronald gets involved in a homosexual relationship with one of his underlings. Ronald, in a jealous rage over Frances stealing his brother away from him, becomes even more brutal in his crimes and while the brothers' backs are turned, a group of older mobsters challenge the Krays' authority, invoking a horrible bloodbath that effects not only the two brothers but Frances and Violet as well. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi
- Starring:
- Billie Whitelaw, Tom Bell, (more)
- 1989
Tom Skerritt plays an end-of-tether CIA agent in Red King, White Knight. His superiors persuade Skerritt to take one last assignment: to prevent the assassination of the Russian president. Max Von Sydow plays Skerritt's opposite number at the KGB, who despite orders to kill the American agent, teams up with him to save the Soviet leader. Meanwhile, Skerritt's private life is complicated by the return of ex-lover Helen Mirren. Though unrated, the film contains violence and nudity. Produced for the HBO Cable Service, Red King, White Knight was first telecast November 25, 1989. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
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