Cicely Oates Movies

The first film version of The Man Who Knew too Much proved to be the international "breakthrough" film for British director Alfred Hitchcock, transforming him from merely a talented domestic filmmaker to a worldwide household name. While vacationing in Switzerland, Britons Leslie Banks and Edna Best befriend jovial Frenchman Pierre Fresnay. Not long afterward, Fresnay is murdered. He whispers a secret in Banks' ear before expiring. This is witnessed by several sinister foreign agents, who kidnap Banks' daughter Nova Pilbeam to keep him from revealing what he knows: That a diplomat will be assassinated during a concert at London's Albert Hall. Unable to turn to the police, Banks desperately attempts to rescue his child himself, still hoping to prevent the assassination. The film's now-famous setpieces include the "Siege of Sidney Street" re-creation and the climactic clash of cymbals at Albert Hall, followed by the crucial scream of Edna Best. German film star Peter Lorre made his English-speaking debut in The Man Who Knew Too Much, though he was still monolingual in 1934 and had to learn his lines phonetically. Written by A. R. Rawlinson, Charles Bennett, D.B. Wyndham Lewis, Emlyn Williams and Edwin Greenwood (an impressive lineup for a 75-minute film!), Man Who Knew Too Much was remade by Hitchcock himself in 1956. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

College students Baxter and Underdown fall in love and are harassed by gym teacher Howard who wants to break up their relationship to the extent of pretending to be the school's headmistress in this comedy. ~ All Movie Guide

Filmed in the Yiddish language, The Wandering Jew features Jacob Ben-Ami as a young Jewish artist living in Germany in the early 1930s. As the Nazis gain in influence, the artist's life and livelihood are slowly eroded: his non-Jewish fiancee leaves him and his paintings are rejected by the Academy of Art. Growing to despise his heritage, the artist prepares to destroy his latest painting, a portrait of his father titled The Eternal Jew. Suddenly the figure in the portrait comes to life, and as the astonished artist listens in rapt attention, the figure relates the history of Jewish perseverance in the face of such horrors as the Spanish Inquisition and the Russian pogroms. Inspired, the artist vows to devote his life to the anti-Nazi cause. The Wandering Jew is a remarkable film for its era, so far and yet so near to the "Final Solution." In retrospect, the film's most poignant moments occur when the hero's father describes the comparatively benign treatment of Jews in the Soviet Union. The filmmakers weren't in possession of all the facts in 1933--nor was the rest of the world, for that matter. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide