Maxwell Shaw Movies

Two French peasants are mistaken for a pair of aristocratic nobles in this historical situation comedy. Gene Wilder and Donald Sutherland play the dual roles. Happy to be taken for nobles, the pair soon runs to escape the guillotine in the wake of the French Revolution's blood purge of the upper class and royalty. Hugh Griffith play Louis XVI, with Billie Whitelaw as the amorous Marie Antoinette. The pair are chased by the evil Duke d'Escargot (Victor Spinetti). Orson Welles appears at the beginning and the end of the film as the narrator. Wilder and Sutherland encounter a variety of comical situations in their dual roles of peasants and blue-blooded eccentrics. ~ Dan Pavlides, Rovi

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, Rovi

Yul Brynner and Kay Kendall star as Victor and Dolly Fabian in this successful cinematic version of the stage comedy by Harry Kurnitz. Victor is a larger-than-life symphony conductor who loves music but has all the social skills of a wounded rhinoceros. After his wife Dolly gets fed up with smoothing over his relationships with his musicians and everyone else, she dumps him and takes up an offer of marriage from a physicist. Alas! Documentation -- or the lack of it -- soon reveals that the Fabians were never really married in the first place. Unfortunately, they still have to get divorced in order to save face and this, of course, leads to an increasingly unexpected series of complications. Elegant and witty actress Kay Kendall died of leukemia three months after this film was completed. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

This 1959 version of Lew Wallace's best-selling novel, which had already seen screen versions in 1907 and 1926, went on to win 11 Academy Awards. Adapted by Karl Tunberg and a raft of uncredited writers including Gore Vidal and Maxwell Anderson, the film once more recounts the tale of Jewish prince Judah Ben-Hur (Charlton Heston), who lives in Judea with his family during the time that Jesus Christ was becoming known for his "radical" teachings. Ben-Hur's childhood friend Messala (Stephen Boyd) is now an ambitious Roman tribune; when Ben-Hur refuses to help Messala round up local dissidents on behalf of the emperor, Messala pounces on the first opportunity to exact revenge on his onetime friend. Tried on a trumped-up charge of attempting to kill the provincial governor (whose head was accidentally hit by a falling tile), Ben-Hur is condemned to the Roman galleys, while his mother (Martha Scott) and sister (Cathy O'Donnell) are imprisoned. But during a sea battle, Ben-Hur saves the life of commander Quintus Arrius (Jack Hawkins), who, in gratitude, adopts Ben-Hur as his son and gives him full control over his stable of racing horses. Ben-Hur never gives up trying to find his family or exact revenge on Messala. At crucial junctures in his life, he also crosses the path of Jesus, and each time he benefits from it. The highlight of the film's 212 minutes is its now-legendary chariot race, staged largely by stunt expert Yakima Canutt. Ben-Hur's Oscar haul included Best Picture, Best Director for the legendary William Wyler, Best Actor for Heston, and Best Supporting Actor for Welsh actor Hugh Griffith as an Arab sheik. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

A stellar cast redeems the tawdry European-filmed melodrama 3DThe Man Inside3D. Nigel Patrick plays Sam Carter, a mild-mannered British clerk who spends half his life fantasizing about stealing a valuable diamond. When he is finally able to pull off this heist, it is at the cost of another man's life. Escaping to the Continent, Sam lives like a king, throwing his money around and romancing an unending stream of willing females. Private detective Milo March (Jack Palance) suspects that Sam is in some way tied in with the jewel theft, as are several less reputable types. Among the latter category are femme fatale Trudie Hall (Anita Ekberg) and two-bit crooks Lomer (Bonar Colleano, whose last film this was) and Rizzio (Sean Kelly). Anthony Newley also shows up briefly as a comedy-relief cabbie. If 3DThe Man Inside3D seems like a dry run for the "James Bond" films of the 1960s, it may be because the film was produced by Albert "Cubby" Broccoli and scripted by Richard Maibaum, both mainstays of the Bond series. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi