Donald Pleasence Movies
Balding, deceptively bland-looking British actor Donald Pleasence was first seen on the London stage in a 1939 production of Wuthering Heights. He then served in the RAF, spending the last years of World War II in a German POW camp. Resuming his career after the war, Pleasence eventually came to New York in the company of Laurence Olivier in 1950, appearing in Caesar and Cleopatra. And although he began appearing in films in 1954, Pleasence's British fame during the '50s was the result of his television work, notably a recurring role as Prince John in The Adventures of Robin Hood from 1955-1958. He also co-starred in TV productions of The Millionairess, Man in a Moon, and Call Me Daddy. Voted British television actor of the year in 1958, Pleasence produced and hosted the 1960 series Armchair Mystery Theatre, before creating the stage role for which he was best remembered: Davies, the menacing tramp in Harold Pinter's The Caretaker. The actor revived the character throughout his career, appearing as Davies for the last time in 1991.Pleasence was fortunate enough to be associated with the success of The Great Escape in 1963, which led to a wealth of American film offers. Four years later, the actor portrayed arch criminal Ernst Blofeld in the James Bond film You Only Live Twice -- the first time that the scarred face of the secretive character was seen onscreen in the Bond series. Firmly established as a villain, Pleasence gradually eased into horror films such as Halloween (1978), The Devonsville Terror (1979), and Buried Alive (1990); commenting on this phase of his career, Pleasence once mused "I only appear in odd films." One of his few "mainstream" appearances during this period was virtually invisible. Pleasence is seen and prominently billed as a rabbi in Carl Reiner's Oh, God! (1977), but the role was deemed dispensable and all the actor's lines were cut.
Pleasence continued to work steadily in the 1980s and early '90s -- making 17 pictures alone in 1987-1989 -- before undergoing heart surgery in 1994; he died from complications two months later. Married four times, the actor was the father of six daughters, among them actress Angela Pleasence. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1987
- R
Ground Zero details a governmental cover-up as seen through the eyes of commercial photographer Colin Friels. Tipped off to the possibility that the death of his father was tied in with radioactive contamination, Friels runs into several official brick walls as he presses his investigation. At the root of everything is a hush-hush nuclear radiation test, conducted in Australia in the mid-1950s. With the help of a slightly-addled survivor (Donald Pleasence) of those tests, Friels uncovers the truth. Ground Zero was inspired by the real-life nuclear testings at Maralinga. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Colin Friels, Jack Thompson, (more)
- 1987
This bloody, slow-moving occult horror film was directed by Marcello Avallone (Maya). The plot concerns an archaeological dig outside of Rome, where Donald Pleasence unearths a monstrous demon (created by effects-guru Sergio Stivaletti). Murder scenes are swiped from A Nightmare on Elm Street and The Night Has 1000 Eyes and the gore is well-handled, but the demon is rarely shown, and the first hour leading up to all the mayhem is a talky bore. Screenwriter Dardano Sacchetti has written over 150 films, including most of the best Italian horror movies of the last quarter-century, but he fumbled the ball with this one. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- John Pepper, Katrine Michelsen, (more)
- 1987
Django was a successful and highly influential "spaghetti western," spawning over 30 pseudo-sequels that borrowed the name and the main character's bloodthirsty ways, but Django 2: Il Grande Ritorno (aka Django Strikes Again) was the first follow-up to feature Franco Nero reprising the title role from the original film, and the only one made with the participation of the director of Django, Sergio Corbucci (though only in an advisory capacity.) In this story, Django (Franco Nero) has spent a decade in a monastery, trying to live down his violent past as a gunman. However, Django is forced to renounce his vows when word gets back to him that a villainous slave trader, Orlowsky (Christopher Connelly), has kidnapped his daughter. Enraged and determined to bring the abductors to justice, Django digs up his old Gatling gun (literally - he had buried it in a graveyard, under a headstone with the name "Django" on it) and once again begins cutting a swath through the countryside as he seeks to free his daughter. Django 2: Il Grande Ritorno also starred Donald Pleasence, William Berger and Robert Posse; some prints are missing a five minute prologue sequence. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Franco Nero, Donald Pleasence, (more)
- 1986
In this sequel to 1987's Nosferatu the Vampire, Nosferatu (Klaus Kinski) is brought back to life by gypsies and shows his thanks by pushing an old lady out of a window onto a row of spikes. He seduces a local princess and battles a professor (Christopher Plummer) who is out to destroy him. Director Luigi Cozzi was brought in to finish the film when Kinski violently disagreed with original director Augustino Caminito and refused to be directed by him. ~ Brian Gusse, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Klaus Kinski, Barbara de Rossi, (more)
- 1985
This version of the classic tale of estranged twin brothers, one good and one evil, whose lives and swords cross as adults, was made for British television. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1985
Greed was originally released as Treasure of the Amazon, the literal translation of its Spanish-language title. Ostensibly based on a true story, the film stars Stuart Whitman as Gringo, an aging but still virile soldier of fortune. Right now, Gringo is foraging deep into headhunter country in South America, in search of a cache of diamonds. Meanwhile, ex-Nazi Klaus (Donald Pleasance) is likewise searching for the gems, and unlike the essentially honorable Gringo, Klaus is willing to leave a few corpses in his path in pursuit of his goal. The international supporting cast includes Emilio Fernandez, Bradford Dillman, John Ireland, and Pedro Armendariz Jr. all of whom seem to have been recently graduated from the Take-The-Money-And-Run School of Dramatic Art. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1985
- R
In this pretentious erotic thriller an American forest ranger heads for Rome to search for his sister, a model who has mysteriously disappeared and later turns up murdered with a pair of scissors. The police know it is the work of a serial killer, but they have few leads. The young brother begins his own investigation and slowly solves the murder. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Tom Schanley, Renee Simonsen, (more)
Erich Maria Remarque's novel Arch of Triumph was originally adapted to film in 1948 with stars Charles Boyer and Ingrid Bergman under the direction of Lewis Milestone. This TV-movie remake aired May 29, 1985. Anthony Hopkins and Lesley-Anne Down play the star-crossed lovers whose prewar romance in Paris is endangered by intrigue and revenge. Hopkins, a doctor recently escaped from a concentration camp, rescues Down, the mistress of a dissipated playboy, from committing suicide. Their chance for happiness is sabotaged by Hopkins' desire to wreak vengeance on SS officer Donald Pleasence. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1985
In this actioner, a band of Vietnam veterans return to the jungle to save their leader from a POW camp. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1984
Robert Mitchum plays as U.S. ambassador to Israel whose efforts at reaching a peace agreement with the Palestinians run afoul of the somewhat questionable ambitions of security advisor Rock Hudson. Meanwhile, Mitchum's wife Ellen Burstyn embarks upon an affair with a PLO leader. When this fact comes to Mitchum's attention, he refuses to pay the prescribed "hush money", sparking a deadly chain reaction. You may need a microscope to discern this, but The Ambassador was adapted from Elmore Leonard's crime novel 52 Pick Up. Though a more faithful-to-the-source cinemazation of the Leonard book was lensed in 1986, The Ambassador remains the better of the two versions. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Robert Mitchum, Ellen Burstyn, (more)
- 1984
An action adventure about a group of fortune hunters who search for gold and jewels in the jungles of South America. ~ All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Stuart Whitman, Emilio Fernández, (more)
- 1984
- PG
- Add Cheech & Chong's The Corsican Brothers to QueueAdd Cheech & Chong's The Corsican Brothers to top of Queue
Filmed on location "Somewhere in France", this umpteenth version of Dumas' The Corsican Brothers stars the zoned-out comedy team of Cheech and Chong. Perhaps inspired by the Ritz Bros.' spin on The Three Musketeers, the duo retains enough of the original story (about twin brothers who feel one another's pain) to keep the plot going, but try to inject their own peculiar brand of humor throughout. The film's highlight is a duel with two loaves of stale bread. Yes, that's the highlight. Just as the 1930s comedy team of Wheeler and Woolsey lost their audience when they dropped their risque humor and Prohibition gags, so too do Cheech and Chong falter when not indulging in the drug-oriented comedy which made them famous in the early 1970s. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Cheech Marin, Tommy Chong, (more)
- 1984
This three-part, seven-hour TV adaptation of Edgar Bulwer-Lytton's 1834 best-seller The Last Days of Pompeii was arguably more faithful to its source than any of the earlier film versions -- and inarguably the most expensive version of all, boasting a 19,000,000-dollar budget and a truly spectacular cast. In recounting the events leading up to the cataclysmic eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 A.D., the film, like the novel, introduces a veritable coliseum full of colorful fictional characters: stalwart Athenian Glaucus (Nicholas Clay), religious-zealot Egyptian Arbaces (Franco Nero), and mighty gladiator Lydon (Duncan Regehr), all of whom vie for the affections of high-born Ione (Olivia Hussey) and lowly, sightless slave girl Nydia (Linda Purl). Also around and about are Ned Beatty as wealthy merchant Diomed, Lesley-Anne Down as belly-dancing courtesan Chloe, and a handful of theatrical stalwarts like Laurence Olivier and Anthony Quayle. Mercilessly drubbed by the critics, who chortled at such dialogue as "Turn the other cheek, Christian lover!" and "Christians. They're everywhere I go. They're spreading through the empire like a pox!," The Last Days of Pompeii nonetheless garnered healthy ratings when it aired over ABC from May 6 to 8, 1984, despite the formidable opposition of the NBC blockbuster miniseries V: The Final Battle. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1984
- R
Surly conservationist Rutger Hauer makes it his life's mission to protect the eggs of the endangered bald eagle. Collector Donald Pleasence wants to appropriate a few of these eggs without invoke Hauer's terrible wrath. Pleasence hires mountain climber Powers Boothe to pose as a magazine photographer, the better to win Hauer's confidence and expedite the egg-poaching. But Boothe is soon converted to Hauer's cause, and with the help of storekeeper Kathleen Turner the two men thwart Pleasence's anti-eco deviltry. While the acting and plotline of A Breed Apart are unremarkable at best, the film is redeemed by the breathtaking location photography of Geoffrey Stephenson. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Rutger Hauer, Powers Boothe, (more)
- 1984
- R
This sci-fi adventure is set in a distant future wherein the scorched, irradiated Earth is run by the tyrannical Omega Force until a courageous motorcycle-riding maverick shows up to stop him. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Robert Ginty, Persis Khambatta, (more)
- 1984
Where Is Parsifal? -- he (Tony Curtis) is in a castle surrounded by nutcakes, himself a hypochondriac who has invented a laser skywriter and wants to sell the patent for his invention to millionaire Henry Board II (Erik Estrada) or to wealthy gypsy Klingsor (Orson Welles). The castle crew are in a frenzy because Mackintosh (Donald Pleasence) is trying to confiscate their belongings to get them out of debt, but Henry II is coming over for dinner, and they need their belongings to impress him, not to mention feed him. Frenetic as though running on amphetamines, this film has tried to replace funny with fast, but it just does not work. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Tony Curtis, Cassandra Domenica, (more)
- 1984
- R
Director Andrew Kuehn has excerpted brief segments of terror and suspense in a wide variety of horror movies and strung them together with added commentary, as well as some enacted narrative, to create a compilation of cinematic, fright-inducing effects. Donald Pleasance and Nancy Allen provide the commentary on topics such as "sex and terror" (Dressed to Kill), loathsome villains (Nighthawks, Vice Squad), and the occult (Rosemary's Baby, The Exorcist). Alfred Hitchcock presents his concepts of how to create suspense in a clip from Alfred Hitchcock: The Men Who Made the Movies, in one of the better segments of this anthology. Horror film buffs may chafe at the selection criteria, the truncated clips, and other scholarly points -- non-specialists will still get an overview of aspects of the genre. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Donald Pleasence, Nancy Allen, (more)
Declared "my most personal film" by Italy's premier horror director Dario Argento, this production marked the director's return to the eerie thematic territory he pioneered in 1977 with the horror classic Suspiria. Much like that film, Phenomena conforms to the logic of nightmares. Jennifer Connelly stars as Jennifer Corvino, the daughter of an American film star, who enrolls in a prestigious Swiss boarding school under the tutelage of the prudish Mrs. Bruckner (played by frequent Argento collaborator and former beau Daria Nicolodi). Possessing a unique telepathic gift, Jennifer is capable of communicating with insects on an instinctive level, often while sleepwalking. This trait soon brands her a "freak" among her snooty classmates but makes her a valuable asset to entomologist Dr. MacGregor (Donald Pleasence), who is currently employing the innate forensic skills of insects to aid police in tracking a serial killer targeting the boarders at Jennifer's school. As Jennifer's tiny friends (including the corpse-hunting Sarcophagus Fly) guide her closer to the murderer's lair, everything from MacGregor's revenge-driven pet chimpanzee to Bruckner's monstrously disfigured son figure into the mix, providing not one but three shocking endings. Shot in English and re-dubbed for various European markets, this graphic thriller was released in drastically edited form as Creepers in the U.S. and England; Argento's original cut runs 110 minutes. ~ Cavett Binion, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jennifer Connelly, Donald Pleasence, (more)
Another of the many Sidney Sheldon novels given the TV-miniseries treatment in the 1970s and '80s, Master of the Game yielded a three-part, nine-hour extravaganza, with enough corporate and romantic intrigue to fill an entire television season. Covering nearly 100 years, the story (which remained astonishingly faithful to the book) begins in the late 19th century, when ruthless young Scottish entrepreneur Jamie McGregor (Ian Charleson) emigrates to South Africa, in hopes of accumulating enough wealth and power to get even with his longtime enemy, Dutch merchant Van der Merwe (Donald Pleasence). Thanks to an extremely prolific diamond mine, the money comes quickly -- as does vengeance, when McGregor deflowers Van der Merwe's convent-educated daughter, Margaret (Cherie Lunghi). The result of this indiscretion is a daughter named Kate (Dyan Cannon), who turns out to be the "Master" of the title. Upon attaining adulthood, Kate assumes control of her father's vast financial empire, ruling her inherited international conglomerate, and her husband, David Blackwell (David Birney), with an iron fist. The story continues into the next several generations, with Kate's lily-livered son, Tony (Harry Hamlin), giving birth to twin daughters, Eve and Alexandra (both played by Liane Langland). One is good, the other evil; the evil twin threatens threaten to destroy everything that Kate has so painstakingly built up. Eventually, they both become the victims of a sneering, malevolent gigolo (Fernando Allende) with a penchant for beating young women senseless. Told in flashback, the narrative comes to a head during Kate's 90th birthday celebration, an event tainted by the efforts of a mysterious killer to wipe the domineering matriarch and her family from the face of the earth. Largely filmed on location, Master of the Game was telecast by CBS from February 19 to 22, 1984. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Dyan Cannon, Harry Hamlin, (more)
- 1984
Produced for cable TV by The Disney Channel, The Black Arrow is based on the classic Robert Louis Stevenson adventure tale. Stephen Chase plays the title character, a dogooding swashbuckler who tries to avenge his father's murder during the War of the Roses. Though Chase carries the bulk of the action, top billing is bestowed upon the film's villains, Oliver Reed (as Sir Daniel Brackley) and Fernando Rey (as the Earl of Warwick). The Stevenson original was previously adapted for the screen in 1948, with Louis Hayward in the lead. Black Arrow made its TV debut on January 6, 1985. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Oliver Reed, Fernando Rey, (more)
- 1983
Ulli Lommel's atmospheric chiller opens with a violent prologue in the 17th-century Colonial town of Devonsville, where a trio of local women are accused of witchcraft by the zealous locals and executed in gory fashion by pitchfork-wielding vigilantes. Flash forward to the present, where the arrival of three progressive young women ignites the same superstitious paranoia among the current generation of townsfolk -- who perceive their new visitors' arrival as the culmination of an ages-old curse. The pretty new schoolteacher (Suzanna Love), plagued by ominous visions, consults the local psychiatrist (Donald Pleasence), whose hypnotic regression therapy reveals the true nature of her ancestry -- which finally surfaces when a new group of vigilantes begins the inevitable witch-hunt. Moody and well-photographed (Lommel once studied under legendary German auteur (Rainier Werner Fassbinder), this film tends to cloud its basically feminist theme with some rather exploitative gross-out effects -- particularly the depiction of Pleasence's ancestral curse, which has him constantly digging tiny worms from various parts of his body. ~ Cavett Binion, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Suzanna Love, Robert Walker, Jr., (more)
