Claire Bloom Movies

The final installment of the British mystery series based on the books by Agatha Christie, Miss Marple: The Mirror Crack'd From Side to Side first aired in 1992. Miss Jane Marple (Joan Hickson) investigates the poisoning death of a party guest at the home of film actress Marina Gregg (Claire Bloom). This story had been filmed once before in 1980 with Angela Lansbury as Miss Marple and Elizabeth Taylor as Marina. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide

Woody Allen spent most of the 1980s and '90s veering between comedy and drama, and he rarely combined the two with greater success than in Crimes and Misdemeanors, in which he weaved together two stories, one deadly serious, one often funny, both ending in sadness. Martin Landau plays Dr. Judah Rosenthal, a prominent ophthalmologist with a successful practice, a loving family, and a reputation for generous charity work. But Rosenthal also has a secret: his mistress, Dolores (Anjelica Huston). What began as a casual fling has become uncomfortably intimate, and as he tries to break off the relationship, Dolores threatens to expose his infidelity to his wife and some unorthodox financial arrangements to his colleagues. Fearful that Dolores will make good on her threats, Judah confesses his secret to his brother Jack (Jerry Orbach), who has ties to organized crime and offers to "make the problem go away." Meanwhile, Cliff Stern (Woody Allen) is a filmmaker working on his pet project, a documentary about philosopher Prof. Louis Levy (Martin Bergmann). However, films about philosophers don't pay the rent, so Cliff's wife Wendy (Joanna Gleason) arranges for him to make a documentary for public television about her brother Lester (Alan Alda), a famous TV comedian whose vapidity is exceeded only by his arrogance. While Cliff tries to bite the bullet and finish the film, he finds himself falling in love with PBS producer Halley Reed (Mia Farrow). ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Adaptation of Barbara Cartland's novel featuring a 17th century adventure romance between an aristocrat and an endangered noblewoman. ~ All Movie Guide

In this alternately comic and grave reflection on the effects of Thatcherism on polyethnic England, middle-class liberals Rosie (Frances Barber) and Sammy (Ayub Khan Din) engage in an openly adulterous marriage while living in a lower-class neighborhood in London. When they're not hiding their troubled marriage behind a series of "enlightened" affairs, the couple associates with a social circle that ranges from leftist to radical and includes enigmatic street philosopher Victoria (Roland Gift). Sammy's long-lost father, Rafi (Shashi Kapoor), a South Asian politician, arrives for a visit just as rioting erupts in response to the killing of an innocent black woman by British police. Rafi decries not only the social upheaval that has transformed the country where he spent his halcyon university years, but also the lack of propriety on display in his son's marriage. Admitting that he's on the run for allegedly corrupt and violent political activities, the well-mannered yet manipulative Rafi uses his wealth to try to reign in what he sees as Sammy and Rosie's sexual and political excesses. Meanwhile, he tries to court Alice (Claire Bloom), the proper British lady he deserted decades earlier. The messy whirl of desire, resentment, and dogma that alternately throws these characters together and rips them apart ultimately reflects the confused and confusing society in which Sammy and Rosie live; soon even the unassailable Rafi must question his beliefs about life after empire. Sammy and Rosie Get Laid marked the second collaboration between director Stephen Frears and writer Hanif Kureishi; star Ayub Khan Din would go on to write another Anglo-Asian culture-clash comedy, 1998's East Is East. ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide

The two-part TV movie Queenie was adapted from the roman a clef by Michael Korda. This is the story of Queenie Kelly,an English girl (Mia Sara) from the slums of Calcutta who is kept from full knowledge of her Indian heritage by her protective mother (Jean Simmons). As a means of bettering herself, Queenie moves to London, where she works as an exotic dancer. Later on, Queenie, using an assumed name, becomes a famous movie star and marries a powerful producer. At the point, we should observe that "Queenie" was the nickname of Michael Korda's aunt: actress Merle Oberon, who was married to British film mogul Alexander Korda. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is purely...well, you know. And any resemblance between awkward newcomer Mia Sara and the ultra-sophisticated Merle Oberon is...well, accidental. Queenie originally aired May 10 and 11, 1987. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This two-part TV movie recounts the life of Anna Anderson, who until the day she died at age 82 insisted that she was really Anastasia Romanov, daughter of Czar Nicholas. Anna first makes her claim in 1920, when she is an inmate in a Berlin asylum. Her story of escape from the Bolsheviks who killed the rest of her family in 1918 seems so vivid that many Russian expatriates are willing to believe her. The film concludes in 1928, with Anna restating her claim before the surviving Romanovs living in New York. Amy Irving plays the leading character in a lady-or-the-tiger fashion, so that we never know if she truly swallows her own tale or if she's merely a clever charlatan. Olivia DeHavilland, Rex Harrison, Claire Bloom, Omar Sharif and Susan Lucci co-star in this opulent, location-filmed production, which originally aired on December 7 and 8, 1986. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This television mini-series sequel to A Woman of Substance finds aging businesswoman Emma Harte (Deborah Kerr) preparing to hand over her empire to granddaughter Paula Fairley (Jenny Seagrave), much to the dismay of the rest of the family. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide

The gardens of Monet and his paintings are both featured in this look at his work. Theodore Robinson, John Breck, Theodore Butler and Frederick Freiseke are also evaluated in this film. The work of Lila Cabot Perry is used for the narration. ~ All Movie Guide

Jaclyn Smith is a curious choice to play the title character in the made-for-TV biopic Florence Nightingale. This fact, however, never enters into the consciousness of the viewer, thanks to Smith's excellent performance. Some liberties are taken with the details of the life of "The Lady with the Lamp," notably the addition of a largely speculative romance between Florence and her young swain (Timothy Dalton). The best scenes--and the most accurate--occur during the Crimean War sequences and during Nightingale's strenuous efforts to form the Red Cross. Co-produced by Tony Richmond, Jaclyn Smith's husband, Florence Nightingale debuted April 7, 1985. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Ghostwriter was based on the 1979 Philip Roth novel, part of his unofficial "Zuckerman trilogy". Based loosely on an incident in Roth's own youth, the story, set in 1956, centers around 23-year-old novelist Nathan Zuckerman (Mark-Lynn Baker). Nathan's insistence upon writing about the Holocaust brings forth a warning from his father that too much dwelling on the past might rekindle anti-Semitism. In response, Judge Leopold Wapter (Joseph Wiseman) advises Nathan to see the Broadway production of Diary of Anne Frank. Nathan is so impressed with the story that he begins to fantasize that Anne Frank is still alive. Later, during a visit to the New England farm of his idol, author E. I. Lonoff (Sam Wanamaker), Nathan meets a gamin-like stranger (Paulette Smit) whom he imagines to be Anne Frank in the flesh. Philip Roth adapted his own novel (with director Tristam Rogers) for the made-for-TV Ghostwriter. Originally slated for telecast over the BBC, the film eventually became a coproduction of the BBC and America's Public Broadcasting System, and had its American debut on PBS' American Playhouse on January 17, 1984. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

British filmmaker John Schlesinger directs Separate Tables, a made-for-cable TV version of the Terence Rattigan plays Table By the Window and Table Number Seven. This 50-minute adaptation features Julie Christie and Alan Bates, each in a dual role. Set in a sleepy British town, a group of residents hide out in a hotel during the off-season and try to forget their troubles. Things get upset when former model Ann Shankland (Julie Christie) comes to visit her alcoholic ex-husband John Malcolm (Alan Bates). He is a struggling writer secretly in love with the hotel's owner, Pat Cooper (Claire Bloom). Other residents of the hotel include the overbearing Mrs. Railton-Bell (Irene Worth), whose distrubed daughter Sibyl (Christie) is strangely attracted to Major Pollock (Bates), a man who claims to be a military officer. The feature-length version of Separate Tables was released theatrically in 1958, starring Burt Lancaster and Wendy Hiller. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide