Carol White

This Michael Apted-directed crime melodrama features Stacy Keach as Jim Naboth, a Scotland Yard cop on the skids, suffering from depression and alcoholism. He is summoned by Foreman (Edward Fox), a British security expert whose wife Jill (Carol White) and daughter are being held hostages by kidnappers until Foreman pays the crooks a million-dollar-plus ransom. Jim has to marshal his forces and regain his clarity to save Foreman's family. The pressure is even more intense for Jim, since Foreman's wife, Jill also happens to be his former spouse. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

In this drama, a young woman must cope with the stresses of single-parenthood and of dealing with a terminally ill mother. Adding to her stress are a young priest and a rock star, both of whom want her. In the end she dumps the both and lives her life independently. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Peter Reaney (Rod Taylor) is the successful talent agent who enjoys the things that money can buy. He also considers himself a parasite, living off the talents of his clients. When his wife Angela (Penelope Horner) walks out on him, he moves in with his friend Val (James Booth) and his wife Jody (Carol White). He and Jody engage in an adulterous affair, but Peter's main worry is doing damage control for the spoiled pop singer Barry Black (Clive Francis). Peter pays off a woman impregnated by Black in order for her to afford an abortion and keep the star's name out of the scandal sheets. Sickened by Black's behavior, he quits the agency and punches out the pop star at a personal appearance. When his friend Val dies, the hard-drinking former agent is free to pursue his romance with Jody in this seriocomic satire. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

John Frankenheimer directed this intense film adaptation of the Bernard Malamud novel. During the days of Czarist Russia, a poor but educated Jew, Yakov Bok (Alan Bates) is abandoned by his wife Raisl (Carol White). Yakov decides to leave his small village and travel to Kiev. Since it is the time of the pogroms, Yakov poses as a gentile and takes a job as a handyman for Lebedev (Hugh Griffith), a drunken anti-Semitic merchant. Yakov rises up the ladder in Lebedev's establishment, and he is eventually promoted to factory overseer-accountant. But when a neighborhood boy is murdered, Yakov's true identity is discovered. Yakov is unjustly accused of the murder and arrested. Bibikov (Dirk Bogarde), a government attorney, believes Yakov to be innocent and attempts to discover the true killer -- realizing that if a confession is forced out of Yakov, the entire Jewish population could be in dire trouble. Bravely, Yakov puts up with the brutal prison life, refusing to confess, hoping Bibikov may discover some new evidence to re-open his case. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

The imprisoning aspects of Success are humorously analyzed in this British-made film. Oliver Reed plays a wealthy advertising man who feels he has sold his soul and wishes to return to his happier earlier existence as a poor but swinging Londoner. Reed is goaded on by his boss, Orson Welles, who represents all the mercenary crassness that Reed despises. Handed a crucial commercial account, Reed plans to destroy himself by producing as offensive and confusing an ad campaign as possible. But Welles and the client are delighted by the "insult," and the disgruntled Reed is more successful than ever. Directed in the fragmentary "psychedelic" style typical of the late 1960s, I'll Never Forget What's'is Name gained notoriety upon its initial release by being the first mainstream British film in which the "F" word was spoken on-screen. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

British filmmaker Ken Loach began his illustrious career making television movies for the BBC's well-regarded Wednesday Play series. From the beginning, his films addressed social issues from a clearheaded leftist point-of-view. As Cathy Come Home demonstrates, Loach is a true social realist, in that he eschews sentimentality. Cathy (Carol White) is a young, attractive, working-class woman. When she marries Reg (Ray Brooks), they take a larger apartment, thinking that between their two modest salaries, they'll be able to squeak by. Reg expects his lot to improve, but it doesn't. Cathy has a baby, and in short order gets pregnant again, and before long, the couple find themselves in dire financial straits. They lose one apartment to an unscrupulous landlord. They're forced out of a caravan park after a fire. They move in with Reg's mother, but she kicks them out of her cramped flat after an argument with Cathy. The couple ends up at the mercy of the British government's grossly inadequate public housing program. Cathy is forced to live with the children in a women's shelter, where Reg is not allowed to stay. Despondent and ashamed at his inability to provide for his family, Reg visits Cathy and the kids less and less frequently, and the couple begin to drift apart. Slipping into financial destitution, Cathy must now struggle to maintain custody of her children. Loach intersperses his vérité-style black-and-white footage of Cathy's travails with what is presumably documentary footage of the housing system's victims. He also uses voice-overs of people describing their experiences in the housing system, and a narrator gives vital statistics on homelessness, the unfair scapegoating of immigrants, and the slow destruction of poor British families by the housing bureaucracy. ~ Josh Ralske, All Movie Guide

An honest news agent realizes that his 2 sons are corrupt. When one criminal son is in jail, the other breaks him out to help with a job. ~ All Movie Guide

The "WHO" in A Matter of Who isn't a "who" but a "what". The word is an anagram for the World Health Organization, a curious subject for a British comedy--especially one which utilizes a communicable disease as a plot device! WHO operatives Terry-Thomas and Alex Nicol trace the outbreak of a smallpox epidemic to ruthless oil millionaire Guy Deghy. Offsetting the (literal) unhealthiness of the plotline is Terry-Thomas' romance with Sonja Ziemann, the widow of a smallpox victim. A Matter of WHO was picked up for U.S. distribution by MGM. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

An Indiana family embarks on their dream vacation to France. The Willard family, led by Harry (Fred MacMurray) and Katie (Jane Wyman), bring their three children along to experience a slice of continental culture abroad. Amy (Deborah Walley) is the lovestruck teenager whose brother Elliott (Tommy Kirk) is easily as eager for love. Younger brother Skipper (Kevin Corcoran) is the mischievous moppet who is always getting lost. Elliott is mesmerized by a pretty French maid, Amy is wooed by a wealthy teen, and Katie fends off the advances of an amorous playboy. From Paris to Monte Carlo, the Willard family experiences culture shock firsthand and realizes quickly they are not back home in Indiana. This Walt Disney production, while focusing on less childlike themes than in other films, still managed to take in five million dollars in its initial domestic release. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

In this adaptation of an Edgar Wallace mystery, two youthful hoods try to rob a bookie as he is leaving the track with his daily winnings. Unfortunately, the two find that the fellow has chained the loot to his wrist and they are forced to take him along with the cash. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

This shockingly violent yet engaging crime drama is about a bitter battle for survival in the lingering poverty of post-World War II London. Richard Todd plays optimistic but ineffectual soap and shampoo salesman John Cummings whose job becomes even harder when his new car is stolen. The theft triggers an unraveling of Cummings' life, and he channels his desperate energy toward retrieving his stolen vehicle. He first tracks it down through young tough Tommy Towers (pop star Adam Faith), who actually stole the automobile, and then to his boss Lionel Meadows (Peter Sellers), who heads the car thief ring. Meadows hides his sadistic tendencies behind the facade of a legitimate business. Above the garage he uses as a front, he has locked Tommy's girlfriend, Jackie (Carol White), in his apartment and appropriated her as his moll. Cummings tries to get the police involved, but they cannot act for lack of any evidence. He then earns the trust of Tommy and Jackie to get better knowledge of how Meadows operates his business. In his naïve attempts to confront the car ring, Cummings is at first treated as an annoyance, but as his intention to destroy Meadows' business and livelihood becomes clear, the crime boss vows to destroy him in turn. ~ Michael Buening, All Movie Guide