Leslie Weston Movies

Reminiscent of the film noir detective films like The Maltese Falcon, The House of Seven Hawks is really the same type of bird. Aptly directed by Richard Thorpe, the story features Robert Taylor as John Nordley, the captain of a charter-boat service on the British sea coast. Nordley's problem is that he tends to ignore regulations, and when a passenger is murdered on board, his already tarnished reputation is no help in trying to prove his innocence. As the mystery of the murder is unraveled, the story jumps back to the end of World War II and a cache of valuable diamonds that suddenly disappeared. Nordley had been trying to track down the whereabouts of this treasure trove -- would that be connected to his passengers death? ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Released in the US as Stowaway Girl, Manuela top-bills Trevor Howard as Prothero, the stalwart middle-aged skipper of a tramp steamer. Though he has a weakness for alcohol, Prothero is a model of restraint when it comes to the opposite sex. Thus, when his first mate Mario (Pedro Armendariz) smuggles the beautiful Manuela (Elsa Martinelli) on board, the captain administers a beating to Mario and sternly informs the girl that she'll be put off the ship at the first opportunity. It doesn't take long, however, for Prothero to fall prey to Manuela's considerable charms. Soon his passion is so overwhelming that he doesn't even notice that his ship has caught fire! Despite its melodramatic trappings, Manuela is intellegently written, directed and acted. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

No relation to the 1939 Claudette Colbert-James Stewart comedy of the same name, It's a Wonderful World is essentially a vehicle for British-based bandleader Ted Heath. The thinnish plot is set in motion by would-be songwriters Terence Morgan and George Cole, who manage to sell a tune by claiming that it was composed by a reclusive musical genius. When the tune hits the top of the charts, Morgan and Cole find themselves in the embarrassing position of having to produce the "real" composer. Director Val Guest manages to extract new laughs out of such old setpieces as showing a snobbish audience being gradually won over by pop music. The principal attraction of It's a Wonderful World--to modern viewers, at least is the presence of Ted Heath, whose screen appearances were all too few and far between. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Alistair Sim plays a mild, innocuous little watchmaker who spends his off-hours as a professional assassin. His present target is windbag cabinet member Raymond Huntley. After various misfire attempts, Sim plants a bomb in a small radio and waits for the tube to warm up--but the authorities by now are on to him. The Green Man has some excellent setpieces, notably a droll snatch of black humor involving a body stuffed in a piano. The film's only debit is that, in the play upon which it is based, Frank Launder and Sidney Gilliat's Meet the Body, Sim's character is secondary, almost peripheral. By reshaping the film into a star vehicle, much of the play's intimate (albeit ghoulish) charm is dissipated. ~ 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

Clark Gable's final effort for his longtime home studio MGM, Betrayed is an exciting espionage thriller set during World War II. Intelligence agent Gable is ordered to keep tabs on suspected Nazi collaborator Lana Turner (a brunette for the occasion). Both Gable and Turner join the Dutch underground, making contact with a flamboyant resistance leader known as "The Scarf" (Victor Mature). Turner poses as a sexy chanteuse, the better to gain the confidence of the lascivious Nazi officers. Within the next few weeks, several underground operatives are captured and shot, and it begins to look as though Gable's suspicions concerning Turner are correct. The real collaborator is revealed some twenty minutes before the finale, but the suspense level is expertly maintained throughout. The location-filmed Betrayed would later be mercilessly lampooned in the 1984 spy spoof Top Secret! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This low-key Launder-Gilliat production was inspired by a play by James Bridie. Alastair Sim carries the ball as Captain Paris, an army chaplain who endeavors to organize a camp show for the troops. Practically everyone with whom the Captain comes in contact is an "expert" on the sort of entertainment that the soldiers will like. Ultimately, things degenerate into a battle of egos between an effete artist and his professorial wife. The film's best scenes are those in which Captain Paris tries out his own offbeat notions of entertaining the boys in khaki. Incidentally, the title of the original Bridie play was It Depends What You Mean. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Derby Day is a typically British omnibus feature, delineating the fates of several different people during a single day at the racetrack. Peter Graves (not the American actor of the same name) plays a superficial movie star who has been won in a fan-magazine raffle by housemaid Suzanne Cloutier. Michael Wilding and Anna Neagle play a pair of disconsolates who have recently lost their respective mates in a plane crash. And Googie Withers and John McCallum (who were married in real life) portray a furtive couple whose horrible secret is revealed when they head to the window to collect their winnings. Though we count at least six principle characters in Derby Day, the film was released in the US as Four Against Fate. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

British film-favorite Anna Neagle, having previously played such great historical personages as Queen Victoria and Edith Cavell, tackles the role of Florence Nightingale in Lady with the Lamp. Based on a play by Reginald Berkeley, the film traces the indefatigable Nightingale's efforts to minister to the thousands of casualties of the Crimean War. Opposed in the uppermost circles of British government because she is "merely" a woman, Nightingale is championed by the Hon. Sidney Herbert (Michael Wilding), minister of war. Herbert pulls strings to allow Nightingale and her nursing staff access to battlefield hospitals, and in so doing changes the course of medical history. Lady with the Lamp was, as usual, produced and directed by Anna Neagle's husband Herbert Wilcox. ~ 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

In this comedy, after being discharged from the British army, an idealistic officer and war hero attempts to test his theory that the world would be better if people would harbor more goodwill towards each other. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In this melodrama, a fisherman begins studying to be a doctor. Although he isn't finished with medical school, he begins treating his landlady's daughter who is believed to have a terminal illness. He seems to cure her, and the case draws a lot of attention, some of it negative because he was unlicensed when he treated her. He still does not have a degree when he marries the daughter and begins practicing osteopathy. He soon finds success and happiness until he begins having an affair. Later he jilts his mistress and she kills herself. During the autopsy he is appalled to learn that it was actually his misdiagnosis of her illness and the resulting medical treatment that caused her to die. The distraught osteopath then takes off and does not return until his wife, whose disease has come back, begs him to help her once again. He succeeds and their happiness resumes. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Sleeping Car to Trieste is a remake of one of the best railroad melodramas of the 1930s, Rome Express. The film's "maguffin" is a diary containing important political information. Stolen from a diplomat in Paris, the diary finds its way on board the Orient Express. Already, the two thieves have double-crossed each other, and among the passengers there are plenty of interested parties-heroes and villains alike-who hope to claim the diary for their own purposes. When one of these parties is murdered, police chief Jolif (Paul Dupuis) takes charge of the case, but there's still many a plot twist to come before the guilty are punished and the innocent rewarded. An inordinate amount of footage is devoted to the wisecrackery of Bonar Colleano, cast as yet another stereotyped American. The climax of Sleeping Car to Trieste is a classic, endlessly imitated by future-and lesser-Orient Express espionagers. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide