Ronnie Stevens Movies

The husband-and-wife team of Nancy Meyers and Charles Shyer, who scored with their 1991 remake of the 1950 Father of the Bride, returned for this updating of the 1961 comedy about twins who hope to bring their divorced parents back together. Sheyer and Meyers stayed close to the original screenplay by David Swift, based on Erich Kastner's book Das Doppelte Lottchen. At a summer camp in Maine, 11-year-old Hallie Parker (Lindsay Lohan) meets Annie James (also Lindsay Lohan). Despite a curious resemblance, Hallie develops an immediate dislike for Annie, and the feeling is mutual. However, the two eventually discover they are twin sisters separated not long after they were born. Their parents, Elizabeth (Natasha Richardson) and Nick (Dennis Quaid), had met on the Queen Elizabeth 2 and married on that same voyage. After a divorce, Nick brought up Hallie at his Napa Valley vineyard, while Annie lived with wedding-gown designer Elizabeth in London. Neither twin was aware she had a sister, until their summer-camp meeting. To learn more about their parents, they switch places and maintain the deception until Nick states he will remarry. The twins then try to engineer a renewed romance between Nick and Elizabeth, but Nick's annoying but attractive fiancee Meredith (Elaine Hendrix) presents a major problem in reaching their happy-ending goal. Hayley Mills portrayed the twins in the 1961 original and subsequent TV-movie sequels: In The Parent Trap II (1986), the twins are adults with their own romantic problems. In The Parent Trap III (1989), the twins compete for a widower (Barry Bostwick), the father of triplets, and that same year, the twins also returned in Parent Trap Hawaiian Honeymoon (1989). ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide

Brevity may be the soul of wit, but that doesn't make the 79-minute Blame It on the Bellboy any funnier. Orton (Dudley Moore) is an ambitious real estate agent. Horton (Richard Griffiths) is a middle-aged married man looking for extracurricular activity via a dating service. And Lawton (Bryan Brown) is a professional hit man. Orton, Horton and Lawton all check into adjoining rooms at a posh Venetian hotel. Bellboy Bronson Pinchot, whose grasp of the English language is virtually nonexistent, delivers the wrong messages to the three men. That's why Orton is trying to sell a valuable piece of property to a roomful of mafiosi, Horton is "paired up" with an unwitting female real estate broker, and Lawton is preparing to rub out a hapless dating-service subscriber......Written by director Mark Herman, this old-style doorslamming farce might have passed muster as a dinner-theater attraction, but on film it comes across as strained and tiresome. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

When a father attempts to return to his abandoned family after 23 years his grown son tries to murder his drunk, unemployed father. ~ All Movie Guide

In this partially successful Brit sci-fi comedy, four invading aliens cannot really think their way out of a paper bag, much less conquer Earth with their superior knowledge (apparently also non-existent). Of the aliens, Desmond (Jimmy Nail) is particularly thick-headed and leaves Bernard (Mel Smith) dangling out in space, Sandra (Joanne Pearce) attracts the romantic interest of British Commander Matteson (Dinsdale Landen), and Julian (Paul Brown) is along for the ride. After this trio causes a traffic snarl when they land on a British expressway, they are first interrogated and then given jobs in showbiz so they can support themselves. This leads to a great rock singing career, which in turn, leads to a U.S. tour -- though this does not equate rock singers and aliens. Meanwhile, Bernard has been saved from his abandonment in space by an unlikely space-wanderer who drops him off in the U.S., where he is put in an insane asylum. Sure enough, when his three companions start their U.S. tour, Bernard escapes and tries to rejoin them. The saga continues on until some sort of very unlikely rescue seems in store. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Part of the TV series entitled "The Shakespeare Plays," this is one of the subtlest and most enjoyable of the Shakespearian plays. Portraying the different types of love, it is set in a country house of aristocrats and there are practical jokes, poetry and songs that make this a most entertaining view. ~ Tana Hobart, All Movie Guide

In this unusual exploitation film, a war widow expresses her grief by sleeping with any man who will oblige her. A year later she decides that this is a bad thing and so visits a psychiatrist who uses hypnosis to get to the bottom of her problem. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Smashing Time attempts to turn British actresses Rita Tushingham and Lynn Redgrave into a female Laurel and Hardy. The film's second mistake is to prolong the joke for 96 minutes. Tushingham and Redgrave play a couple of dimwitted North Country girls who head to London, in hopes of breaking into the mad, mod world of fashion modeling. Instead they spend most of their screen time getting in each other's way and wreaking havoc on innocent pedestrians. The comic "highlight" of Smashing Time is supposed to be a mammoth pie fight; but outside of one cute throwaway gag involving a street minister, the sequence makes one wish, in the words of Laurel and Hardy buff Leonard Maltin, that Smashing Time "had been handled by someone other than [director] Desmond Davis." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Doctor in Clover is the next-to-last entry in the British "Doctor" comedy film series. After losing his government job, doctor Gaston Grimsdyke (Leslie Phillips) signs up for a medical school course with his old tutor-nemesis Sir Lancelot Spratt (welcome back, James Robertson Justice). What follows is the standard melange of double- and single entendres, not to mention the usual dalliances with such underdressed lovelies as Shirley Ann Field, Fenella Fielding and Elizabeth Ercy. A subplot involves a rejuvenation serum that is disastrously applied to the behemothlike Sir Lancelot. Though allegedly based on the original "Doctor" novel by Richard Gordon, any resemblance is purely coincidental.Doctor in Clover was also released as Carnaby MD, in deference to the "Swinging London" craze. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Ken Annakin's large-canvas comedy Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines is set in 1910. In order to boost circulation of his newspaper, Lord Rawnsley (Robert Morley) offers 10,000 pounds to the first person who can fly across the English Channel. A huge number of hopefuls enter the contest, including the scheming Sir Percy Ware-Armitage (Terry-Thomas), who, with the help of his henchman Courtney (Eric Sykes), attempts to sabotage the other entries. There is also a love triangle featuring Orvil Newton (Stuart Whitman) and Richard Mays (James Fox) competing for the heart of Patricia Rawnsley (Sarah Miles). ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide

In this British comedy, a group of aged travelers on vacation in France have many fun encounters. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

The British series Space Patrol (not to be confused with the earlier American series of the same name) was the creation of noted children's book author Roberta Leigh. Leigh had started in television in the mid-'50s when she co-produced the adaptation of one of her books into the series The Adventures of Twizzle. Her partner in that venture was Gerry Anderson, whose then-struggling animation studio, A.P. Films, was the production company for the series. Space Patrol was set in the year 2100 and told of the men and women of that service, from Earth, Mars, and Venus, and their efforts to explore and keep peace within (and sometimes outside) the solar system. The characters were all portrayed by highly articulated marionettes, moving amid very elaborate sets, supported by superb (for the time) special effects and a highly memorable electronic music score. The hero of Space Patrol was Captain Larry Dart (voiced by American-born Dick Vosburgh, future author of the Broadway hit A Day in Hollywood, a Night in the Ukraine), the commander of Galasphere 347 and its two-member crew, consisting of Husky (voiced by veteran character actor Ronnie Stevens), a Martian engineer with a usually insatiable appetite, and Slim (voiced by Libby Morris), a lithe Venusian communications expert.

Their ships, called galaspheres, were top-like in construction, spinning to create artificial gravity within and capable of accelerating to speeds of tens of thousands of miles an hour in deep space. As Space Patrol members, their primary job was exploration and investigation, not enforcement, but their assignments sometimes required them to go into action against individual wrongdoers or invading ships. Their commanding officer, based at Space Headquarters on Earth, was Colonel Raeburn (voiced by American-born Murray Kash), who, aided by his hyper-efficient Venusian secretary Marla (voiced by Libby Morris), sent out the galasphere fleet on its assignments. Supporting them on the scientific side was the whimsical, eccentric Professor Haggerty (voiced by Stevens) and his daughter Cassie (also voiced by Libby Morris). The crew's adventures took them across the solar system, from Mercury to Pluto, and also, on rare occasions, into contact with alien races from other star systems.

Leigh and her co-producer, Arthur Provis, tried to retain as much scientific accuracy as possible for the context of the stories. Toward that end, contacts from outside the solar system and -- even more so -- voyages there, were treated as rare and extraordinary occurrences. In the course of the crew's ordinary duties within the solar system, the series followed the rules of orbital mechanics. Even with the capability of accelerating to (or decelerating from) tens of thousands of miles an hour, the solar system is a huge territory, and as the quarters of a galasphere were very cramped and not overloaded with creature comforts, the crew would have to go into suspended animation for anywhere from ten days to many months, depending upon the position of their destination relative to Earth, and visa versa for the return trip. Their fundamental mission was peaceful, and their main weapon in case of trouble was the plastiform gun, which immobilized and imprisoned malefactors, but did no lasting harm.

The series lasted 39 episodes, produced on an amazingly low budget and shot in black-and-white. Space Patrol/Planet Patrol had the bad fortune to go into production around the same time as a rival space-oriented series populated by marionettes, Fireball XL5, produced by Leigh's former partner Gerry Anderson, which had the advantage of being distributed by Sir Lew Grade's organization and was sold to the NBC network in America. Lower-budgeted but more cleverly written and much more inventive visually, Space Patrol was syndicated in the United States under the title Planet Patrol to avoid confusion with an earlier long-running live-action science fiction series. It became the top-rated children's program in many of the markets in which it was broadcast, including New York City. It was rerun in America until 1967, and in England until a year or so after that, and then disappeared from the air, principally owing to the fact that it had been filmed in black-and-white. It disappeared from the minds and memories of most American viewers, and even in England was long forgotten (or else confused with Fireball XL5). Among those who did remember the series, however, was future Babylon 5 producer/creator J. Michael Straczynski, who made no secret of his debt to the earlier science fiction series.

In the late '90s, episodes of Space Patrol turned up in England, in 16 mm, with many in dubious states of preservation, and began getting distributed on VHS tape under the auspices of the legitimate owner. Eventually, all episodes -- including two in 35 mm -- were located, and masters of varying quality (some excellent, some less than excellent) were prepared. A series of VHS tapes, several featuring bonus interviews with Leigh and many of the surviving participants (and interviews with fans such as Straczynski) surfaced in the late '90s, and a DVD containing a handful of episodes also appeared. The promise of a DVD set of the entire series was made, but it was then delayed for two years, until late 2003. As of the early 21st century, there are active websites devoted to the series, its characters, and its jargon. The cast members report receiving fan mail from now-adult fans of the series (some to their initial bewilderment, over a project from 40 years earlier), and Space Patrol/Planet Patrol is better known than at any time since 1964. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

One's enjoyment of On the Beat rests solely upon one's tolerance of British comedian Norman Wisdom, who can be described as a Jerry Lewis without the discipline. Wisdom plays a Scotland Yard parking attendant who seemingly can't draw breath without breaking something or knocking someone down. He wants to become a detective, but the Yard isn't quite ready for such a catastrophe. He proves his worth--and wreaks more havoc--by going undercover and trapping a gang of jewel thieves. The slapstick is serviceable in On the Beat; as for the "serious" moments, Wisdom's notion of pathos is to scream at the top of his lungs. You may want to join him. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A familiar cast and crew -- which will continue carrying on for several more of these comedies by director Gerald Thomas -- once again star in well-established character types. This time around, the put-upon captain of a cruise ship (Sidney James) has five top positions suddenly needing to be filled by replacements, and unfortunately, he gets a rather inept lot. The quintet does not lack for trying, but then that attitude engenders the difficulties in the first place. The new and amateur cook, the sophisticated bartender, and the shapely femme fatale all make their appearance among the eccentrics on board. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide