D.J. Williams Movies

Tomorrow we Live is the more upbeat American title of the British war drama At Dawn we Die. When his village is overtaken by Nazis, Frenchman Jean Baptiste (John Clements) tries to go to England. Armed with secret information about a German submarine base, Jean hopes to avenge his countrymen. Unfortunately, thanks to inquisitive soldiers and fifth columnists, Jean may never make it to the White Cliffs of Dover. On the plus side, however, Jean's fellow patriots do their best to sabotage the enemy until the (hopefully) inevitable day of Liberation. The strangest aspect of Tomorrow we Live is that all the Frenchmen are played by popular British actors, despite the influx of French expatriates in the United Kingdom. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Bob Randall (Richard Greene) is a reporter who gets to witness first-hand the British retreat from Dunkirk in May of 1940. He returns to his job in a London now facing nightly German bombing raids, and finds himself saddled with Carol Bennett (Valerie Hobson), a neophyte reporter. Bob is eager to take on the Nazis and, in the absence of any on the ground that he can fight, he turns to the leaders of a pacifist movement, The People for Peace. But no sooner does he start to look into who they are than he finds himself being shadowed by mysterious men and stirring up a hornet's nest of activity in his wake. While Carol tries to keep up and do her bit, and Bob tries to look out for her and find out just what he's stepped into -- which soon involves kidnappings and murder -- the German bombers keep coming and the newspaper's survival is threatened. Bob and Carol are drawn together romantically in the midst of these overlapping crises, and manage to find some time for each other while helping their long-suffering editor (Brefni O'Rourke) save the newspaper and the British secret service save the country. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

The tumultuous life of 18th-century composer Handel is chronicled in this dramatic biography. The story begins when the self-exiled German composer adopts England as his new homeland. While there, he and the bishop of the Anglican Church get into a heated argument while they rehearse a choir for the upcoming royal coronation. The fight is over who is the better Englishman, the bishop, a native, or the ex-patriate Handel, who deliberately chose his nationality. The argumentative composer also has a row with the Prince of Wales, but he makes it up to him by writing the "Messiah." Much of the musical score is comprised of Handel's work. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Penn of Pennsylvania was the original British title of the economical biopic The Courageous Mr. Penn. Clifford Evans stars as Quaker leader William Penn, who leaves the comfort of his family estate to fight for the rights of his religious brethren. Penn's crusade for spiritual freedom leads him to the New World and the ultimate founding of the colony of Pennsylvania. The film's highlight is Penn's courtroom trial, an admittedly overlong sequence redeemed by the give-and-take between actors Evans and Joss Ambler (as the judge). Deborah Kerr is merely decorative in the thankless role of Penn's wife Gulielma. Honorable in its intentions, Penn of Pennsylvania is compromised somewhat by its minimal production values, including some of the most unconvincing miniature work ever seen on film. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Onetime Hollywood silent film producer Joe Rock packed himself off to his native England in the 1930s to make British programmers. Captain Bill is a vehicle for the all-but-forgotten music hall comic Leslie Fuller, who teamed with Rock to put up the money for this minor-league production. The corpulent Fuller plays a bargee (dock worker) who develops a fondness for schoolteacher Kay Strozzi. He helps teacher foil a gang of scuzzy criminals. Directed by Ralph Cedar, best known for his fast-paced second unit work on such American comedies as W.C. Fields' The Bank Dick (40), Captain Bill was filmed in 1935, but not released overseas until six years later. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this drama, an amiable steel worker suddenly changes when he becomes a foreman. Suddenly Mr. Nice Guy becomes Mr. Hard Nose and he mercilessly pushes his men to work harder and faster. His callous attitude comes home with him and his wife, too suffers. Trouble ensues when the foreman pushes the men so hard that a man dies. The other workers revolt, and at home, his wife leaves. The foreman turns to his friend, a preacher, for guidance and begins to see where he went wrong. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

What a combination! Break the News boasted the talents of English stage star Jack Buchanan, French entertainer Maurice Chevalier, legendary director Rene Clair, and songwriter Cole Porter. But what should have made for dynamite entertainment, fizzled in the eyes of disappointed contemporary reviewers. Buchanan and Chevalier play a song and dance team that is getting nowhere fast. In an effort to jump-start their flagging careers, the two dream up an elaborate scheme that begins when Buchanan 'mysteriously' vanishes. Soon afterward Chevalier turns himself in, claiming that he killed his partner, fully aware that Buchanan is actually hiding out in a Balkan village and will magically reappear at the crucial moment. Unfortunately, unbeknownst to the jailed Chevalier, poor Buchanan has been captured by revolutionaries who have mistaken him for an enemy general. Will he escape in time to save Chevalier from final justice? The film's source material, a novel by Loic de Gouriadic, has been re-filmed several times, most recently as The Art of Love (65) with James Garner and Dick Van Dyke. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The British adventure film The Challenge is based on a real-life turn-of-the-century competition. The race is on between a team of British mountain climbers and a government-sponsored Italian team to conquer a hazardous alpine peak. Edward Whimper (Robert Douglas) heads the English expedition, while Jean-Antoine Carrel (Luis Trenker) is in charge of the Italians. Actual footage of the Alps is seamlessly blended with studio mockups. Emeric Pressburger, on the verge of his felicitous teaming with Michael Powell, wrote the original story for The Challenge. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Innocent antique shop owner Rigby is actually the leader of a spy ring, attempting to kill a scientist with the use of a time bomb in a clock sold from the antique shop. ~ All Movie Guide

In this comedy, a young man must give up smokin' and drinkin' if he is to get his large inheritance. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

The unusual amalgam of documentary maven Robert Flaherty and pure-entertainment producer Zoltan Korda resulted in the 1937 money-spinner Elephant Boy. In his screen debut, eleven-year-old Indian-born Sabu plays the title character, a mahout named Toomai. When his father is killed by a tiger, Toomal is left alone and unprotected and not long afterward loses his beloved elephant to a sadistic "driver." Stealing back the pachyderm and heading into the wilderness, Toomal stumbles across a herd of wild elephants, which the British government has long been seeking. With visions of a huge reward in his head, Toomal offers to lead the authorities to the elusive herd -- whereupon the "dramatic" portion of the story gracefully gives way to the "documentary" portion. More intriguing than entertaining, Elephant Boy was nonetheless one of the most successful films of its kind. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Sherlock Holmes and Watson travel to the home of their old friend Baskerville who wants Holmes to figure out who stole his prized race horse Silver Blaze and murdered the groom. The primary suspect is the young rider who loves the daughter of Baskerville, but he is innocent. Holmes finds the horse on a neighboring farm and deduces that his old enemy Moriarity is behind the mayhem. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

This romantic comedy, set amidst the exciting world of horseracing is Britain's first Technicolor film. The story, set in the late 1880s, concerns the tempestuous love between an Irish nobleman and the fiery Spanish gypsy he loves. Despite the strident objections of his stuffy, blue-blooded parents, the lovers wed. Unfortunately, the woman is widowed when her husband falls from a horse. The grieving lass returns to her wandering clan in Spain and does not return to Erin for thirty years. When she finally does, it is with a fabulous race horse and her beautiful granddaughter (the spitting image of the old woman in her youth) who masquerades as a boy so she can ride the horse in the Epsom Downs Derby. While awaiting the big race, the granddaughter meets a handsome Canadian horse trainer. He finds out her true sex, but says nothing. One night, he sees her dressed for a gala and seeing that she is truly a beauty falls deeply in love, even though he knows that the lass is engaged to another. Still the trainer and the bogus jockey fall in love. The excellent cinematography offers one of the film's highlights. Rather than following the Hollywood custom of using almost garish and vividly contrasting colors (to create a larger-than-life, almost cartoonish ambiance) in shooting, cinematographers Ray Rennahan and Jack Cardiff elected to film the story in beautiful pastel hues that add a soft pastoral feeling. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide