Derek Bond Movies

The Next Scream You Hear stars graying Christopher George as a ruthless young executive. When George's wife is murdered, he is the prime suspect. The more he tries to prove his innocence, the more the evidence points to him. All this one is missing is a bloody glove and a white Bronco. Shot on videotape, The Next Scream You Hear premiered in 1974 on ABC's late-night anthology Wide World Mystery. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this English comedy, the trouble begins when a bumbling young man embarrasses his grandfather, the British Prime Minister, by selling newspapers on a street corner. Soon the fellow finds himself given a reporter's job and sent to cover a story in a tiny coastal village. There he soon finds himself entangled in a massive scandal. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

This British comedy details what happens to five sailors and a passenger as they spend fifteen hours on shore leave in London while waiting for their cargo ship to unload. The passenger, a lonely widowed business man named George (Bernard Lee), finds his way to a West End bar, where he meets Wanda (Erika Remberg), a seductive blackmailer, working in cahoots with photographer Paul (Derek Bond). Meanwhile, Lee (John Bonney), an Australian sailor, meets and falls in love with wacky beatnik Penny (Heather Sears). Arthur (David Lodge) tells the sailors that he is going to visit his mother when, in reality, he is heading off to seek a prostitute. Rough-and-tumble Harry (Inigo Jackson) finds himself robbed and left penniless after visiting a Soho saloon. Shy and naive Jamie (Colin Campbell) falls in love with the homeless Jean (Francesca Annis). As the hours go by, Jamie has to decide whether to leave Jean or to jump ship and marry her. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

In this odd crime film, Scotland Yard begins searching for the one-armed killer behind a series of gruesome murders. The story begins in Burma during WW II with the capture and torture of a British captain and his two men. The soldiers refuse to give the Burmese information, and their interrogators chop off their right hands. The captain relents and tells them all they want to know; thereby, preserving his own hand. The story leaps ahead into the present where a series of murders involving amputations have occurred. The Yard detectives trace the killings to the former captain. He is pursued by the police. He flees across some railroad tracks, falls and has his hand cut off by a passing train. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Director John Ford traveled to England to film this adaptation of the novel by J.J. Maraca, which details a typical day in the busy life of a detective for Scotland Yard. Inspector George Gideon (Jack Hawkins) begins his working day by confronting one of his fellow officers who is believed to be accepting graft. The sergeant stubbornly denies the charge, but he dies later the same day in a mysterious hit-and-run accident that piques Gideon's curiosity. While confronting internal strife within Scotland Yard, Gideon also has more typical crimes to investigate, including a murder in Manchester and a burglary in London, both of which were performed by the same vicious criminal. Gideon himself becomes the victim of a holdup and is forced to take a bullet for his troubles, while on the home front he finds himself in disfavor with his family when he forgets to bring home salmon for dinner and lets his daughter's recital slip his mind. Along with Jack Hawkins, Gideon's Day features a stellar cast of British actors, including Cyril Cusack, Anna Massey, Laurence Naismith, Dianne Foster, and Billie Whitelaw. For its initial American release, Gideon's Day (also shown as Gideon of Scotland Yard) was cut from 91 minutes to a mere 54, and distributed in black and white prints instead of the original Technicolor. Fortunately, nearly all the prints currently in circulation are of the uncut, color edition. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

In this crime drama, a detective refuses to believe that his client's wealthy, crippled wife died in a boating accident. As he looks deeper, the gumshoe proves that his employer and his mistress were behind it all along. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In Svengali, the 1955 adaptation of George DuMaurier's classic novel Trilby, Donald Wolfit achieves the near-impossible: he out-hams John Barrymore, who'd played Svengali in the 1931 version. A last-minute replacement for the equally flamboyant Robert Newton, Wolfit pulls out all the stops as the scroungy, sinister musician/mesmerist who hypnotizes lovely artist's model Trilby (Hildegarde Neff) and transforms her into a world-famous singer. While under Svengali's spell, Trilby forgets all about "Little" Billy (Terence Morgan) the starving artist who loves her fervently. But Billy doesn't forget, and follows Svengali and Trilby all over the world. The film's best moment is the celebrated Covent Garden climax, wherein Svengali finally, and fatally, relaxes his hold on Trilby. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This anthology tells three stories of feminine crime. In the first vignette, a woman must decide whether or not to rat upon her lover, a killer. In the second a kleptomaniac girl faces prison until her true love shows up to save her. The third tale centers on a wife who knows that her husband has killed his accountant, but loyally keeps silent until she learns that he has been cheating upon her. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Ebullient British music-hall comedian Norman Wisdom made his movie debut in Trouble in Store. The scene is a large department store, where the bumbling Norman (Wisdom) has somehow landed a clerical job. The rest of the film is a series of slapstick catastrophes, some hilarious, others less so. Along the way, Norman saves the store from falling into the clutches of gangsters -- and wins the heroine besides. Wisdom's perennial straight-man Jerry Desmonde has a meaty role, as do British film-faves Margaret Rutherford and Moira Lister. Evidently this film meant a great deal to Norman Wisdom, for in 1992 he titled his autobiography Trouble in Store. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Derek Bond stars as a society doctor in the British A Distant Trumpet. Bond's more idealistic brother Derek Elphinstone tirelessly labors away as a missionary. When Elphinstone becomes to ill to work, Bond reluctantly takes over for his brother. In so doing, Bond finds his true calling in life. Costar Derek Elphinstone also coproduced and wrote the screenplay for this overambitious 61-minute programmer. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This lightweight British satire on Freudianism stars Cecil Parker as a prominent doctor and Anne Crawford as his psychiatrist wife. Parker and Crawford are taken aback when their innocent young son Anthony Lang draws a picture of a horse, with all necessary reproductive equipment lovingly detailed. While Parker is all for paddling his precocious offspring, Crawford decides that the boy should be rewarded for so freely expressing his subconscious. This minor misunderstanding brews into a major brouhaha involving split-ups, supposed infidelity and tearful reconciliations. Tony Draws a Horse was adapted (and somewhat toned down) from a play by Lesley Storm. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

British novelist Erik Linklater was well-represented in 1949, with adaptations of two of his best novels hitting the screen almost simultaneously. In Linklater's Poet's Pub, a rhyme-spinner named Saturday Keith (Derek Bond) assumes control of a rustic inn. All Keith wants is a little peace and quiet so that he can write his poems without interruption. Alas, his little Pub becomes a veritable Grand Central Station for a wide variety of eccentrics, ranging from absent-minded professors to bumbling crooks. Stealing the show is the peerless Joyce Grenfell as a toothy patroness of the arts. Poet's Pub has no real plot to speak of, just a series of vignettes unified by a central locale. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide