Gerald Sim Movies

It's late 1944, and the Allied armies are confident they'll win the World War II and be home in time for Christmas. What's needed, says British general Bernard Law Montgomery, is a knockout punch, a bold strike through Holland, where German troops are spread thin, that will put the Allies into Germany. Paratroops led by British major general Robert Urquhart (Sean Connery) and American brigadier general James Gavin (Ryan O'Neal) will seize a thin road and five bridges through Holland into Germany, with paratroops led by Lieutenant Col. John Frost (Sir Anthony Hopkins) holding the most critical bridge at a small town called Arnhem. Over this road shall pass combined forces led by British Lieutenant Gen. Brian Horrocks (Edward Fox) and British Lieutenant Col. Joe Vandeleur (Michael Caine). The plan requires precise timing, so much so that one planner tells Lieutenant Gen. Frederick Browning (Dirk Bogarde), "Sir, I think we may be going a bridge too far." The plan also has one critical flaw: Instead of a smattering of German soldiers, the area around Arnhem is loaded with crack SS troops. Disaster ensues. Based on a book by historian Cornelius Ryan, A Bridge Too Far is reminiscent of another movie based on a Ryan book, The Longest Day. Like that movie, it is loaded with more than 15 international stars, including Sir Laurence Olivier, Robert Redford, Hardy Krueger, Gene Hackman, Maximilian Schell, and Liv Ullman. ~ Nick Sambides, Jr., All Movie Guide

Giving up her career after her stand-in is murdered, alcoholic film star Carla Berotti (Patricia English) takes the first ship to Canada. Here she is blackmailed into acting as a courier for her husband, a double agent. It so happens that Carla's personal physician is Dr. Martin King (Jon Rollason) -- who, of course, is a close associate of John Steed. Apprised of the situation, Steed books passage on the ship in hopes of rounding up the villains once and for all. Written by Lester Powell, "Mission to Montreal" first aired in England on October 27, 1962, and was first shown in America on January 31, 1991. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Steed and Tara are called in when several forestry experts are murdered. It turns out that the dead men had all stumbled onto a diabolical plan to destroy the earth's foliage with a strain of synthetic dry rot. As the villains try to hold up England for a billion pounds, the Avengers do battle with the bad guys' minions. Guest star Eric Barker steals the show as the eccentric Mr. Pym. Written by Dave Freeman, "The Rotters" was first seen in England on January 8, 1969 -- some three weeks after its American TV debut on December 16, 1968. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Partly based on Charlie Chaplin's My Autobiography, this humorous and dramatic biopic features an all-star cast including Oscar nominee Robert Downey Jr., Dan Aykroyd, Anthony Hopkins, Kevin Kline, Diane Lane, and Chaplin's real-life daughter, Geraldine Chaplin, who portrays his mentally ill mother. With the use of flashback, an elderly Chaplin discusses his autobiography with his editor (Hopkins), who urges him to be more vulnerable and emotionally honest with his memoirs while journeying through his poverty-stricken childhood, closest friendships, many marriages, merciless pursuit by J. Edgar Hoover (Kevin Dunn), and ingenious invention of "The Little Tramp." Highlighted works such as The Gold Rush (1925) and The Great Dictator (1940) illustrate significant turning points in Chaplin's prolific filmography. Director Richard Attenborough's film also explores the circumstances surrounding Chaplin's exile from America and his eventual return to receive an honorary Academy Award. ~ Lisa Kropiewnicki, All Movie Guide

This offbeat comedy begins when Doctor Burke (Leslie Phillips) chases the beautiful Ophelia (Angela Scoular) on board an ocean liner and is trapped. He masquerades as a female photographer to avoid detection, hoping to propose marriage to Ophelia. Burke tries to avoids the suspicion of pompous Captain Spratt (Robert Morley), who plays the stuffy skipper with his usual comic flair. James Robert Justice plays the captain's blue-blooded brother Sir Lancelott Spratt. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

This sequel to the stylish 1971 melodrama The Abominable Dr. Phibes once more stars Vincent Price in the title role. Long believed dead, Phibes arises from a state of suspended animation, in search of the means to bring his deceased wife back to the land of the living. Phibes also wears a rubber mask to disguise his own horribly disfigured countenance. (The giveaway: he never moves his mouth when speaking, and eats by applying his fork to his neck!) With the aid of the enigmatic, never-speaking Vulnavia (Valli Kemp), Phibes follows an Egyptian expedition, seeking out an ancient elixir of life and killing everyone who gets in his way. In the original film, all of the doctor's grisly but ingenious murders were motivated, and all were linked by a Seven Deadly Plagues throughline. In the sequel, Phibes kills whenever he feels like it, and utilizes an impressive array of death-dealing contraptions (one victim literally has his skin blown off his body by a high-powered electric fan). This marks one of the only films ever made to wrap with Vincent Price singing "Somewhere, Over the Rainbow." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Alfred Hitchcock entered the 1970s with his commercial reputation virtually in tatters, a far cry from his stature at the start of the 1960s. Then, he'd been in the middle of the massively successful trio of movies, North by Northwest, Psycho, and The Birds, and was a ubiquitous presence on television thanks to his anthology series Alfred Hitchcock Presents -- but the series ended, and he'd suffered three expensive box-office failures in a row, Marnie, Torn Curtain, and Topaz, in the second half of the 1960s. He redeemed himself with Frenzy, however, which marked his return not only to England for the first time in 20 years but also to the subject matter with which he'd started his career in thrillers back in 1926 -- murder, and a hunt for a serial killer in London. As the latest female victim of the "Necktie Murderer" is found in the Thames, raped and strangled, we meet Richard Blaney (Jon Finch), a bitter, belligerent ex-Royal Air Force officer who can't seem to find his way in life. He drinks too much and holds grudges too easily, and has an explosive temper, which is very near the surface as he's just lost his job. We also meet his girlfriend, a barmaid (Anna Massey); his ex-wife, a professional matchmaker (Barbara Leigh-Hunt); and his best friend, Covent Garden fruit seller Bob Rusk (Barry Foster). Their connection to the necktie murders will be clear to us in the first 30 minutes of the movie and, not coincidentally, completely misinterpreted by the police, as Chief Inspector Oxford (Alec McCowan) and his men tighten a circle around the wrong man, who rapidly runs out of options and allies.

The chase and suspense are classic Hitchcock, favorably recalling a dozen of his earlier movies, from The Lodger and The 39 Steps through Saboteur and Spellbound to Dial M for Murder and North by Northwest, with some new twists and the added energy afforded by the extensive use of actual London locations. There's also a good deal more sex and nudity here than Hitchcock was ever allowed to use in his earlier movies, owing to the relaxation of "decency" standards that had taken place in the years leading up to this production. The suspense derives from multiple interlocking and overlapping layers of uncertainty -- when will each of the two men, suspect and murderer, slip? (And which will slip first?) When and how will the police realize their mistake, and will it be in time to save the innocent man? Amid the straightforward storytelling and thriller elements, Hitchcock manages to slip in a few bravura cinematic moments, the best of them a pullback shot down a flight of stairs into a busy street as the killer invites his next victim into his home, as well as a scene aboard a truck, with a murderer desperately wrestling with a corpse hidden in a sack of potatoes. Frenzy was adapted from Arthur La Bern's novel Goodbye Picadilly, Farewell Leicester Square by mystery aficionado Anthony Shaffer, but for all of that and its decidedly modern trappings of sex and violence, it bears the indelible stylistic stamp of Alfred Hitchcock. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

This is a standard yet uneven drama featuring Judy Garland as Jenny Bowman, a powerful singer who obviously has a passion for the stage and performing. At the same time, she once had a passion for a certain British doctor, David Donne (Dirk Bogarde), that resulted in the birth of a baby boy. Unwilling to be a mom at this point in her career, Jenny gives the boy over to David, and he raises him as though he were an adopted son. David marries, and he and Jenny go their separate ways until many years have passed and, finding herself in London again, Jenny decides to visit her son. David is now a widower, and romantic sparks fly once he and Jenny get together -- raising the question of whether her passion for the stage is still stronger than her passion for David. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

In this romantic comedy, a womanizing uncle tells the story of his good-hearted but fickle niece, whose tendency to always champion the underdog causes her endless romantic woes. It all begins when she breaks up with her fiance on the eve of their wedding so she can marry and help out a half-starved aspiring playwright. With her moral support and his talent, the playwright makes it big. Unfortunately, her old fiance shows up. He has lost his fortune and must flee the police. The tender-hearted lass, unable to resist a hard-luck story, then falls for her former love until he is proven innocent. It is at that point that the niece chooses her man once and for all. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Mischief is the name of a frisky circus pony in this British kiddie-matinee fodder. When Mischief inadvertently throws young Adrienne Byrne, the horse is slated to be destroyed. A happy ending ensues after Mischief helps Paul Fraser rescue Adrienne from a grisly fate. The story is fairly cut-and-dried, but children who love ponies won't complain. At 57 minutes, Mischief is just long enough to avoid wearing out its welcome. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This bedroom farce seems better suited to a suburban dinner theatre than the Big Screen, but everyone involved strives to please, and often as not they succeed. The plot hinges upon a misdelivered parcel of pornographic postcards, which end up in the hands of a staid banker and his frigid wife. By the middle of the film (read: Act Two), everyone is being mistaken for someone else. By the end (Act Three), the leading characters have dropped their trousers or lost their dresses. No Sex Please, We're British began life as a stage play by Anthony Marriot and Alistair Foot, which ran for years in London--mostly as a tourist attraction for easily entertained Americans. ~ Hal Erickson, 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

In Patriot Games, Harrison Ford plays former CIA agent Jack Ryan, taking over from Alec Baldwin, who had played author Tom Clancy's brainy protagonist in Hunt for Red October. This time around, Ryan foils an attempted assassination, thereby incurring the wrath of a maniacal Irish radical (Sean Bean). After seemingly neutralizing the villains, and deciding to celebrate the occasion with his wife (Anne Archer) and daughter (Thora Birch), everything appears to be back to normal; then all hell breaks loose. Author Tom Clancy himself bemoaned the liberties taken with his novel in the final sequences; the picture scored with audiences, however, and soon inspired a followup, A Clear and Present Danger (1994), also starring Ford. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide