Wensley Pithey Movies

Monty Python's Michael Palin plays an Oxford don with acute female trouble in American Friends. While on holiday in the Swiss Alps, Palin crosses the path of American tourist Connie Booth and her adopted daughter Trini Alvarado. Both women express an inordinate desire for the bookish Palin, leading to profound changes in the lives of all concerned. Michael Palin insists that the plot of American Friends was drawn from an actual incident in the life of his own great-grandfather. The film unfolds like a good novel; slow on the uptake, but fascinating once it gets going. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Based on one of the most scandalous murders in British history, White Mischief transpires in Kenya at a time just before the beginning of World War II. Jock Broughton (Joss Ackland) is a wealthy rancher who becomes taken with a young gold-digger named Diana (Greta Scacchi). Even though he is fully aware of her reasons for doing so, the pair wed. Broughton falls on hard times and loses his fortune. The hedonistic Earl of Erroll (Charles Dance) realizes this change of fortune may make Diana more open to engaging in an affair. One evening, Erroll is found murdered. Broughton is tried for the crime. Michael Radford would not direct again for seven years, but returned with the international hit Il Postino in 1994. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide

Oh! What a Lovely War is an every-man-for-himself adaptation of Charles Chilton's 1963 play, as staged in London by Joan Littlewood. The tragedy of World War I is redefined in bawdy music-hall terms, beginning with a verbal free-for-all involving the Crowned Heads of Europe. The war is presented as the "new attraction" at the Brighton Amusement Pier, complete with syrupy cheer-up songs, shooting galleries, free prizes and a scoreboard toting up the dead. Throughout the proceedings, the camera concentrates on a middle-class family, whose five sons end up as cannon fodder. The final image is a veddy proper British picnic on a graveyard. Of the many fleeting satiric images parading past the camera, one of the most indelible is the sight of several generals playing leapfrog as the world all around them goes to hell in a handbasket. The awesome all-star cast includes Laurence Olivier, Ralph Richardson, Maggie Smith, John Gielgud, Michael Redgrave, Jack Hawkins, John Mills, Susannah York, Dirk Bogarde and Phyllis Calvert. We haven't seen this many Englishmen in one place since the last Wimbledon match. The whole affair was supervised by Richard Attenborough, making his directorial debut (a question: why was he up to the challenge of this musical extravaganza, yet seemed helpless in the face of 1985's A Chorus Line?). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Colin (Michael Crawford, who much later won a Tony Award for his role in Broadway's Phantom of the Opera) is an uptight schoolteacher whose housemate, Tolen (Ray Brooks) is a consummate womanizer. Colin imagines a long line of young women in tight white sweaters on his stairwell, waiting to get into Tolen's room. Jealous of Tolen's incredible success with the ladies, Colin asks Tolen for advice on how to get a girl. When Tolen's advice doesn't seem very practical, Colin decides that his first order of business is to get a bigger bed. Colin is also trying to find a third roommate to take a spare room. Tom (Donal Donnelly), who seems compelled to paint everything in sight, happens by the house, and inserts himself in the spare room without so much as saying "hello." Nancy (Rita Tushingham of A Taste of Honey) is new in town, and wanders the streets of London in a fruitless search for the YWCA. She runs into Colin and Tom at the dump, where they are procuring a gigantic bed. They offer her a ride, and proceed to race through London on the bed. Colin seems too shy to speak much to Nancy, despite Tom's encouragement. Eventually, the trio reach Colin's house, where Tolen works his gruff magic on Nancy, and havoc ensues. Capturing late 1960s London in black-and-white, Richard Lester's The Knack. . .and How to Get It was released between the director's two successes with the Beatles, A Hard Day's Night and Help. The script, by Charles Wood (An Awfully Big Adventure) is based on a play by Ann Jellicoe. Future stars Jacqueline Bisset, Charlotte Rampling, and Jane Birkin appear briefly amid all the attractive young women in the film. ~ Josh Ralske, All Movie Guide

A lonely barber invents an imaginary family for the benefit of his customers. He tells them he is married with two children, but in reality spends his time playing chess with another lonely friend. Barber Figg (John Bennett) believes his marriage proposal to a young widow with two children will cure his isolation. After spending time with the woman, he decides being alone isn't really all that bad under the circumstances. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

One in the series of St. Trinian's off-beat, irreverent comedies that began in 1953 and continued strong through the '60s, this farce by Frank Launder features the usual bevy of comely young women who attend the school. This time around, the femmes terribles have just burnt down the school and shock the world by getting acquitted when hauled into the Old Bailey. It seems the judge is keen on Rosalie (Julie Alexander) and besides, an unscrupulous shyster posing as a professor offers to rebuild the school. Instead, he takes the offenders on a bogus tour of Greece and once they are underway, he leads them to his real goal -- forced matrimony to the sons of an Arab sheik. As always, this St. Trinian's comedy is meant for audiences who enjoy its own brand of humor. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Terry-Thomas plays the military-officer head of an amiable gang of amateur British thieves. He is recruited for this task by wealthy dowager Athene Seyler, who merely wants to retrieve stolen minks from genuine crooks. Any profits accrued by this undertaking are to be turned over to charity. Once we're aware that everyone's heart is in the right place, we can laugh freely at the film's collection of would-be reprobates, and vicariously hold out hopes for their success. Best bit: Terry-Thomas, backed by Anton Karas' "Third Man" theme, skulking into what appears to be a waterfront dive to make contact with a "fence," only to discover that he's stumbled into a Salvation Army mission. Make Mine Mink was based on Breath of Spring, a play by Peter Coke. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this sad drama, a boozy reporter must cope with a series of personal disasters begin with the death of his wife in a car crash. Next he loses his job. Finally he learns that his son must have a $5,000 eye operation in Switzerland. In desperation he decides to ask his old boss for his job back. Upon arriving to his office, he finds the man dead. He is then offered money by the killer, a diamond smuggler to take the murder rap. What else can the desperate man do? Later he confesses all to Scotland Yard. Unfortunately, they do not believe him. The smuggler hears of the attempt, and thinking the police believe the reporter, attempts to prevent the boy's plane from taking off. The late editor's niece gets involved and makes sure the plane does take off. She then captures the smuggler and his gang. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

One of several British melodramas picked up for American distribution by Columbia in the late 1950s, The Long Haul stars Victor Mature and Diana Dors, two of the prettiest and most amply endowned screen personalities of the era. Mature is cast as American ex-GI Harry Miller, who takes a job as a truck driver to support his British war bride Connie (Gene Anderson). It isn't long, however, before Harry is blackmailed into joining a smuggling operation run by the conniving Casey (Liam Redmond). His resolved momentarily weakened by his obsession with gang moll Lynn (Diana Dors), Harry finally decides to turn honest again--if the other crooks will let him live that long. Director Ken Hughes adapted the screenplay from a novel by Mervyn Mills. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This low-budget swashbuckling film is not in the same league with the Douglas Fairbanks and Errol Flynn portrayals, but still fun if the viewer doesn't do comparisons. Standard Robin Hood plot. ~ Tana Hobart, All Movie Guide

In this thriller, a murderous writer kills his blackmailer and his ex-lover and then tries to convince his fiancee to help him hide the bodies. She does until she learns that he is planning to frame innocent people for his crimes. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

The first Ealing Studios comedy shot in color, Titfield Thunderbolt takes place in a tiny British village serviced by a branch railway line. When the government plans to close the line down, the locals are in a panic--except for a group intending to set up an expensive bus service. The local vicar (George Relph) concocts a scheme with the town's wealthiest man (Stanley Holloway) for the villagers to run the rail line themselves; in this way they hope to prove to the railway inspectors that their branch is still worth keeping. When the bus interests attempt to sabotage this undertaking, the villagers respond by stealing a stray locomotive--and when this proves cumbersome, they reactivate a 19th century train engine from the local museum. The Titfield Thunderbolt is uniquely British in humor and approach, but not so "inside" as to alienate American filmgoers. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this comedy, an off-center widow and her eccentric daughters must deal with a series of comic mishaps while they wait for one of the daughters to have a baby. The nervous father-to-be complicates matters. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide