Derek Sydney Movies

The Carry On gang carries on with this 17th entry in the gang's never-ending series of lowbrow British comedy films. This time the Carry On crowd spoofs the stiff-upper-lip, "defending-the-Empire" epics of an earlier era. Comic opera British troops are sent to the Khyber Pass to prevent the local citizenry from discovering what's under the kilts of the Scottish Devil's Regiment. Series regulars Sidney James, Kenneth Williams, Charles Hawtrey and Joan Sims are put through their usual risque paces by their usual director Gerald Thomas. This stirring historical saga was followed by the equally inspiring 1970 epic Carry On, Up the Jungle. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In the third episode of the four-part story "The Romans," the Doctor (William Hartnell) is still in the court of Roman emperor Nero (Derek Francis), still trying to secure the release of his enslaved travelling companions Ian (William Russell) and Barbara (Jacqueline Hill). As if this isn't peril enough, the tone-deaf Doctor is forcibly pressed into service as a court musician. Meanwhile, conspirators plan to murder Nero in mid-debauch. Originally telecast on January 30, 1965, "Conspiracy" was written by Dennis Spooner. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In the first episode of the four-part story "The Romans," the Doctor (William Hartnell), Vicki (Maureen O'Brien), Ian (William Russell), and Barbara (Jacqueline Hill) climb into the TARDIS and take a trip to ancient Rome. No sooner have they arrived at a picturesque villa than the Doctor and his companions are attacked by slavers. In the ensuing fracas, Ian and Barbara are captured and sold into bondage. Originally telecast on January 16, 1965, "The Slave Traders" was written by Dennis Spooner. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this drama, an American agent for the OSS after the war, hides a large treasure in Czechoslovakia for a Nazi general. The general commits suicide before getting the jewels. The general's top aide then convinces the American to help him get them back. They enlist the aide of the general's daughter, a hooker and find the valuable stones. Later the Yankee and the hooker are double-crossed by the aide who was working with the prostitute's roomie. The roommate then kills the aide, and escapes on the Munich Express. The agent also boards the quickly moving train. He almost has his hands on the box of jewels when it slips from his fingers and falls into the rushing river below. As the cops arrive and take the roommate away, the agent and the general's daughter decide to start a new life together. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In this British comedy set in Saudi Arabia, a gentle British travel-agency clerk decides that it would be a smashing idea to open up a desert resort in Arabia. He heads to the desert and immediately finds himself on the bad side of a local sheik as the fellow tries to build his resort atop oil-rich land. A war erupts between rival desert bands as they vie for the rights to the oil, but it is the travel agent who wins out in the end. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In this crime drama, an innocent man is imprisoned and his 10-year-old son is left to suffer the consequences at the hands of his schoolmates who taunt him mercilessly. One day the boy witnesses the same type of crime that got his father in prison. To bring the real culprits to justice, the police use the brave boy as a decoy. Though his life is endangered for a time, the ruse works and his father is finally freed. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

The Trollenberg Terror, authored by Peter Key and directed by Quentin Lawrence, started life on British television as a six-part installment of ITV's Saturday Serial in late 1956 and early 1957. The big-screen version, was adapted by Jimmy Sangster, who compressed most of the best horrific and mystery elements of the original into an under-90-minute vehicle, which Lawrence directed. At a remote Alpine village, mountaineers suddenly start dying, their bodies horribly multilated -- at first, these incidents seem like they could just be accidents. But the arrival of a pair of sisters (Janet Munro, Jennifer Jayne), one of whom feels an almost telepathic connection with someone or something on the mountain, attracts the interest of American Alan Brooks (Forrest Tucker), a trouble-shooter for the United Nations. He and Prof. Crevett (Warren Mitchell), who has been monitoring the radiation levels in the area from a research station set up by the government, determine that there is a pattern to these deaths that Brooks has seen before, in a prior incident in the Andes Mountains. They determine that the Earth has been invaded, at high altitude, by a race of gigantic, tentacled aliens who live in thin atmosphere and at extremely low temperatures. Camouflaging themselves in a dense radioactive cloud, they've been content up until now to hide their existence while experimenting with the inhabitants of their new world -- they've taken over some human subjects telepathically, and also re-animated dead bodies. And they've killed those -- such as the hapless mountaineers who have stumbled upon their new lair, or those few humans whose stronger-than-usual mental powers have allow them to sense the aliens' presence -- who threaten to discover them. But now Crevett sees that the aliens are adapting and moving down the mountain, the cloud bringing their necessary cold temperatures with them, and threatening to engulf the village as prelude to an attack on it and all that lies beyond. The Trollenberg Terror was retitled The Crawling Eye when it was released in the United States, in an obvious attempt to draw the same audience that had made the previous year's British film adaptation of a tv serial -- The Quatermass Xperiment, renamed The Creeping Unknown -- into a huge hit in the US. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

In this suspenseful, convoluted crime drama, the wife of a wrongly-condemned murderer begins looking for the real killer. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In this crime drama, a movie stunt man finds himself caught up in a wicked scam designed to exploit post-WW II Algerian refugees after the members of a passport forging gang try to frame him for murder. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Passport to Treason was put together by Robert S. Baker and Monty Berman, the same team who'd later collaborate on the TV series The Saint. Rod Cameron stars as an American private eye, stationed in London. For the sake of a murdered friend, the detective takes over the dead man's case, which turns out to have international ramifications. The villains are members of a phony pacifistic society, all of whom harbor plans for taking over the world. Aiding and abetting Cameron is Lois Maxwell, several years away from her duties as Miss Moneypenny in the "James Bond" series. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Rex Harrison is The Constant Husband in this delightful British comedy. It all begins when amnesia victim Charles Hathaway (Harrison) tries to reconstruct his past with the aid of psychiatrist Llewellyn (Cecil Parker). Our hero would have been better off had his memory remained lost: Llewellyn discovers that he's had seven wives -- simultaneously! Lady lawyer Chesterman (Margaret Leighton) tries to keep Llewellyn out of jail, though in fact he'd prefer incarceration to multiple matrimony. Of the seven spouses, Kay Kendall (the real-life Mrs. Rex Harrison) stands out with a sparkling comic characterization. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Norman Wisdom made his third film appearance in the slapstick musical Man of the Moment. This time, Norman is a clerk in the British ministry who is forced to sub for an ailing delegate at a Geneva Peace Conference. In his usual bumbling fashion, our hero becomes intimately involved in the affairs of a tiny Pacific-island monarchy. As a result, the island's queen refuses to participate in any sort of negotiations unless Norman sits in at the proceedings. The nervous British government immediately bestows a knighthood on the hapless delegate. . .and then the fun begins, as several scurvy types try to kill off Norman and topple the Queen from her throne. Featured in the cast of Man of the Moment is Norman Wisdom's music-hall straight man Jerry Desmonde in a prominent but thankless role. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this adventure, set in North Africa, a secret agent must find a band of smugglers. The man who recommended her for the job is another American agent who works in foreign law enforcement. Only he knows her real identity and he is soon killed leaving her to break up the ring with the assistance of another agent masquerading as a smuggler. The are also assisted by a friendly saloonkeeper. The story was shot on location in Tangiers. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide