Kay Walsh Movies

In this actioner, two guards lose their jobs after they start a fight with a lascivious Arab prince who tries to seduce one of their girl friends. Fortunately, the girl friend's father is thankful and gives her love a job managing one of his tobacco warehouses in Turkey. Unfortunately, he meets a beautiful Russian girl there and soon falls in love. Later he learns that she is being used by the prince who is conspiring to take over the Turkish government. Later his ex-partner and his girl come to Turkey to help him stop the prince. Action ensues, but in the end the prince is defeated and Turkey is saved. In 1940, the film was reissued as The Spy in White. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In this comedy, a scrawny barber must compete with a muscle bound thug for the love of a manicurist. Naturally the manicurist is most attracted to the brute until the barber can prove that he is a crook. The two then duke it out in the boxing ring. Later it is the weakling who gets the girl. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In 1954 there was Godzilla, the lizard transformed by radiation, and in 1959, the British gave us Behemoth, the Sea Monster, Godzilla's Anglo, radiated cousin. Now there is the "man of steel" in this undistinguished, "B"-grade, sci-fi melodrama that was the last film directed by Allan Dwan. The unsuspecting Eddie Candell (Ron Randell) is on the lam from a crime he never committed when he is exposed to a dangerous, radioactive cobalt substance emanating from an atomic bomb test site in the desert. This exposure does not cause cancer or radiation sickness; it turns Eddie's epidermis into an iron-clad suit of armor that no bullet can penetrate. Thus protected, Eddie the human tank decides to wreak revenge on the villains who framed him for that crime. The only question is not whether he will rust, but whether this odd skin condition is as permanent as it seems. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

In this comedy, a battleship captain has a large party to celebrate their next voyage and is dismayed to find that two glamorous women are still aboard after they set sail and cannot turn back. To protect them, and himself, he hides the unwilling stowaways in his quarters. Unfortunately, they are too soon discovered and mayhem ensues. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Originally released in England by British Consolidated, Sons of the Sea was the last film to be distributed in America by Grand National Pictures. Generally cast in villainous roles, Leslie Banks plays the film's true-blue hero Captain Hyde. Alas, Hyde's young son Philip (Simon Lack), though a graduate of the Royal Naval College at Dartmouth, does not possess the noble purpose of his father, and soon finds himself inadvertently involved with a foreign spy. But with the British Secret Service involved, the villains don't stand a chance. Sons of the Sea was lensed in Dufaycolor, a two-tint process which looked suspiciously like America's Cinecolor. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The Marion Osmond-James Corbett stage melodrama The Chinese Bungalow was filmed three times over a thirty-year period. The plot involves a wealthy mandarin named Yuan Sing, who marries a British woman and lives to regret it. The climax is pure melodrama, with Yuan Sing hatching a plot to do away with his wife's paramour. The story was old hat even when it was first filmed in 1926, but the film itself was of superior quality, more than can be said for the creaky 1930 talkie version. This 1956 adaptation attempts to "modernize" the property by making unsubtle references to the Communist takeover of China, suggesting that the protagonist's murderous intentions are (at least partially) politically motivated. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Will Fyffe makes another appearance as Mr. Reeder, the seemingly absent-minded Scotland Yard sleuth created by Edgar Wallace. This time, the canny Reeder is hot on the trail of a counterfeiting gang. In his own disshevelled fashion, he puts the criminals off guard long enough to swoop in for the kill in the final reel. Among the suspects is George Curzon, the eye-twitching murderer from Hitchcock's Young and Innocent. In keeping with his character's essential Britishness, Will Fyffe dispenses with his trademarked Scottish accent in this outing. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Few morale-boosting wartime films have retained their power and entertainment value as emphatically as Noël Coward's In Which We Serve. To witness Coward's sober, no-nonsense direction (in collaboration with his co-director/editor, David Lean) and to watch his straightforward portrayal of navy captain Kinross, one would never suspect that he'd built his theatrical reputation upon sophisticated drawing-room comedies and brittle, witty song lyrics. The real star of In Which We Serve is the British destroyer Torrin. Torpedoed in battle, the Torrin miraculously survives, and is brought back to English shores to be repaired. The paint is barely dry and the nuts and bolts barely in place before the Torrin is pressed into duty during the Dunkirk evacuation. The noble vessel is finally sunk after being dive-bombed in Crete, but many of the crew members survive. As they cling to the wreckage awaiting rescue, Coward and his men flash back to their homes and loved ones, and, in so doing, recall anew just why they're fighting and for whom they're fighting. Next to Coward, the single most important of the film's characters is Shorty Blake, played by John Mills. (Trivia note: Mills' infant daughter Juliet Mills appears as Shorty's baby.) Even so, the emphasis in the film is on teamwork; here as elsewhere, there can be no stars in wartime. For many years, the only prints available to television were from the bowdlerized American version, which crudely cut out all "hells" and "damns." Fortunately, this eviscerated American release has since been shelved in favor of the full, glorious 115-minute version. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Immediately grabbing the audience's attention with a heart-stopping opening scene in a dark graveyard, acclaimed British director David Lean realizes the cinematic potential of Charles Dickens' classic 1861 novel, and the result is considered by many to be one of the finest literary adaptations ever made as well as one of the greatest British films of all time. Crystallized into a tight 118-minute running time by Lean, Ronald Neame, and a corps of uncredited contributors, this is the story of young Pip, a lad of humble means whose training as a gentleman is bankrolled by a mysterious benefactor. Along the way, Pip falls in love with the fickle Estella, befriends the cheerfully insouciant Herbert Pocket, has memorable encounters with the escaped convict Magwitch and the lunatic dowager Miss Havisham, and almost (but not quite) forgets his modest origins as the foster son of kindhearted blacksmith Joe Gargery. The role of Pip is evenly divided between Anthony Wager as a child and John Mills as an adult; Alec Guinness makes his starring film debut as the jaunty Pocket; Jean Simmons and Valerie Hobson are costarred as the younger and older Estella; and Martita Hunt is unforgettable as the mad Miss Havisham ("It's a fine cake! A wedding cake! MINE!") Remade several times, Great Expectations resurfaced in 1989 as a TV miniseries, with Jean Simmons, originally the young Estella, tearing a passion to tatters as Miss Havisham; and in 1998 it was remade again, in a contemporary version, with Ethan Hawke, Gwyneth Paltrow, Robert DeNiro, and Anne Bancroft in the Miss Havisham role. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The second of director David Lean's adaptations of a Charles Dickens novel (Great Expectations (1946) was the first), Oliver Twist expertly boils down an enormous novel to a little less than two hours' screen time. The film begins with baby Oliver left on the doorstep of an orphanage/workhouse by his unwed mother. Proving a difficult charge to the wicked orphanage official, Oliver (John Howard Davies) is sold into a job as an undertaker's apprentice. He runs away and joins a gang of larcenous street urchins, led by master pickpocket Fagin (Alec Guinness). Oliver is rescued from this life by the kindly Mr. Brownlow (Henry Stephenson); but, with the complicity of evil Bill Sikes (Robert Newton), Fagin abducts Oliver. Sikes' girl friend Nancy (Kay Walsh) restores Oliver to Brownlow, leading to tragic consequences before an ultimately happy ending. Oliver Twist was filmed in England in 1948, but its American release was held up for three years due to the allegedly anti-Semitic portrayal of the duplicitous Fagin. Even in its currently censored form, Oliver Twist is one the best-ever film versions of a Dickens novel. It served as a blueprint for Oliver! (1968), the Oscar-winning musical version. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This gentle Ealing Studios comedy features young William Fox as a mischievous English lad. A goodly portion of the film shows Fox and his companions at play, aimlessly but enjoyably wandering about their neighborhood in search of adventure. Eventually the boy finds a discarded magnet, believing it to be a good-luck token; it turns out to be just that, enabling the boy to become a hero of sorts. The Magnet scores with young and old viewers alike, principally because it is told from the boy's point of view. William Fox would later sprout up to become leading British actor James Fox. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide