Richard Attenborough Movies
One of England's most respected actors and directors, Sir Richard Attenborough has made numerous contributions to world cinema both in front of and behind the camera. The son of a Cambridge school administrator, Attenborough began dabbling in theatricals at the age of 12. While attending London's Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in 1941, he turned professional, making his first stage appearance in a production of Eugene O'Neill's Ah, Wilderness! He made his screen debut as the Young Sailor in Noel Coward and David Lean's In Which We Serve (1943), before achieving his first significant West End success as the punkish, cowardly, petty criminal Pinkie Brown in Brighton Rock.After three years of service with the Royal Air Force, Attenborough rose to film stardom in the 1947 film version of Brighton Rock -- a role that caused him to be typecast as a working-class misfit over the next few years. One of the best of his characterizations in this vein can be found in The Guinea Pig (1948), in which the 26-year-old Attenborough was wholly credible as a 13-year-old schoolboy. As the '50s progressed, he was permitted a wider range of characters in such films as The Magic Box (1951), The Ship That Died of Shame (1955), and Private's Progress (1956). In 1959, he teamed up with director Bryan Forbes to form Beaver Films. Before the partnership dissolved in 1964, Attenborough had played such sharply etched personalities as Tom Curtis in The Angry Silence (1960) and Bill Savage in Séance on a Wet Afternoon (1964); he also served as producer for the Forbes-directed Whistle Down the Wind (1962) and The L-Shaped Room (1962).
During the '60s, Attenborough exhibited a fondness for military roles: POW mastermind Bartlett in The Great Escape (1963); hotheaded ship's engineer Frenchy Burgoyne in The Sand Pebbles (1966); and Sgt. Major Lauderdale in Guns at Batasi (1964), the performance that won him a British Academy Award. He also played an extended cameo in Doctor Dolittle (1967), and sang "I've Never Seen Anything Like It in My Life," a paean to the amazing Pushmi-Pullyu. This boisterous musical performance may well have been a warm-up for Attenborough's film directorial debut, the satirical anti-war revue Oh, What a Lovely War (1969). He subsequently helmed the historical epics Young Winston (1972) and A Bridge Too Far (1977), then scaled down his technique for the psychological thriller Magic (1978), which starred his favorite leading man, Anthony Hopkins. With more and more of his time consumed by his directing activities, Attenborough found fewer opportunities to act. One of his best performances in the '70s was as the eerily "normal" real-life serial killer Christie in 10 Rillington Place (1971).
In 1982, Attenborough brought a 20-year dream to fruition when he directed the spectacular biopic Gandhi. The film won a raft of Oscars, including a Best Director statuette for Attenborough; he was also honored with Golden Globe and Director's Guild awards, and, that same year, published his book In Search of Gandhi, another product of his fascination with the Indian leader. All of Attenborough's post-Gandhi projects have been laudably ambitious, though none have reached the same pinnacle of success. Some of the best of his latter-day directorial efforts have been Cry Freedom, a 1987 depiction of the horrors of apartheid; 1992's Chaplin, an epic biopic of the great comedian; and Shadowlands (1993), starring Anthony Hopkins as spiritually motivated author C.S. Lewis.
Attenborough returned to the screen during the '90s, acting in avuncular character roles, the most popular of which was the affable but woefully misguided billionaire entrepreneur John Hammond in Steven Spielberg's Jurassic Park (1993), a role he reprised for the film's 1997 sequel. Other notable performances included the jovial Kriss Kringle in Miracle on 34th Street (1994) and Sir William Cecil in Elizabeth (1998). The brother of naturalist David Attenborough and husband of actress Sheila Sim, he was knighted in 1976 and became a life peer in 1993. Attenborough has chaired dozens of professional organizations and worked tirelessly on behalf of Britain's Muscular Dystrophy Campaign. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1971
10 Rillington Place is the true story of British mass murderer John Reginald Christie, played with chilling "normality" by Richard Attenborough. Throughout the late '40s, Christie lures middle-aged women to his London flat promising to cure their ailments with nitrous oxide, then kills them, assaults their dead bodies, and buries them. One of his victims is Beryl Evans (Judy Geeson), who misguidedly comes to Christie seeking an abortion -- and in the process, not only loses her own life, but sets in motion a horrid sequence of events that threatens to endanger her husband as well. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Richard Attenborough, Judy Geeson, (more)
It's late 1944, and the Allied armies are confident they'll win the World War II and be home in time for Christmas. What's needed, says British general Bernard Law Montgomery, is a knockout punch, a bold strike through Holland, where German troops are spread thin, that will put the Allies into Germany. Paratroops led by British major general Robert Urquhart (Sean Connery) and American brigadier general James Gavin (Ryan O'Neal) will seize a thin road and five bridges through Holland into Germany, with paratroops led by Lieutenant Col. John Frost (Sir Anthony Hopkins) holding the most critical bridge at a small town called Arnhem. Over this road shall pass combined forces led by British Lieutenant Gen. Brian Horrocks (Edward Fox) and British Lieutenant Col. Joe Vandeleur (Michael Caine). The plan requires precise timing, so much so that one planner tells Lieutenant Gen. Frederick Browning (Dirk Bogarde), "Sir, I think we may be going a bridge too far." The plan also has one critical flaw: Instead of a smattering of German soldiers, the area around Arnhem is loaded with crack SS troops. Disaster ensues. Based on a book by historian Cornelius Ryan, A Bridge Too Far is reminiscent of another movie based on a Ryan book, The Longest Day. Like that movie, it is loaded with more than 15 international stars, including Sir Laurence Olivier, Robert Redford, Hardy Krueger, Gene Hackman, Maximilian Schell, and Liv Ullman. ~ Nick Sambides, Jr., All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Dirk Bogarde, James Caan, (more)
Broadway's celebratory musical about rejection makes it to the screen in a fizzless adaptation by Richard Attenborough that misses the whole point of the Broadway show -- i.e. the dancing and the dancers. Instead, the dancers become a limp Greek chorus for the dead love affair between a choreographer, Zach (a pre-Gordon Gekko Michael Douglas) and his old flame, Cassie (Alyson Reed) the star dancer. Zach is holding try-outs for a new Broadway musical and, as armies of dancers are brought on stage to audition for Zach, he sits in the darkened recesses of the theater, puffing on a cigarette, as he winnows out hopeful dancers who want to become part of the chorus line for Zach's new show. Finally, Zach has reduced the dancers to 16 men and women, and he asks each of them to step to the footlights and tell him about their lives and their dreams. But backstage, while the dancers are confessing their pasts to Zach, Zach's past walks through the stage door. Cassie, Zach's ex-lover, whom Zach met, courted and broke up with in the theatrical environs, has returned. Once a big star, Cassie has returned to the theater -- not to see Zach but to audition for Zach's musical. She needs the work. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Michael Douglas, Terrence Mann, (more)
- 1946
Also known as Stairway to Heaven, A Matter of Life and Death is the remarkable British fantasy film that became the surprise hit of 1946. David Niven stars as Peter Carter, a World War II RAF pilot who is forced to bail out of his crippled plane without a parachute. He wakes up to find he has landed on Earth utterly unharmed...which wasn't supposed to happen according to the rules of Heaven. A celestial court argues over whether or not to claim Carter's life or to let him survive to wed his American sweetheart (Kim Hunter). During an operation, in which Carter hovers between life and death, he dreams that his spirit is on trial, with God (Abraham Sofaer) as judge and Carter's recently deceased best friend (Roger Livesey) as defense counsel. The film tries to have it both ways by suggesting that the heavenly scenes are all a product of Carter's imagination, but the audience knows better. Among the curious but effective artistic choices in A Matter of Life and Death was the decision to film the earthbound scenes in Technicolor and the Heaven sequences in black-and-white. The film was a product of the adventuresome team known as "The Archers": Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- David Niven, Kim Hunter, (more)
- 1956
The Boulting Brothers enjoyed one of their biggest box-office successes of the 1950s with the wry service comedy Private's Progress. Though billed fourth, Ian Carmichael plays the central character, feckless British soldier Stanley Windrush. Interrupting his college education to serve his country, Windrush flunks out of officer's candidate school and is demoted to private. Much of the humor arises from the bookish hero's confrontation with the ruder and cruder side of army life, as represented by rough-hewn fellow private Cox (Richard Attenborough). As Major Hitchcock, Terry-Thomas offers a brilliant parody of the "Mad Dogs and Englishmen" school of military service, while Dennis Price is equally amusing as a nonplussed commanding officer named Tracepurcel (!) Also worth watching is future "Dr. Who" star William Hartnell as a loudmouthed sergeant. Halfway through the film, the plot rears its ugly head as the protagonists become involved with the covert reclamation of art treasures confiscated by the Nazis during WW2. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Richard Attenborough, Dennis Price, (more)
- 1971
This sophisticated black comedy sex romp is based on the novel by Iris Murdoch, which she also turned into a stage play (with J.B. Priestley). Ian Holm, is hapless wine-taster Martin Lynch-Gibbon who has both a mistress (Jennie Linden) and a nymphomaniac wife, Antonia Lynch-Gibbon (Lee Remick). His best friend, psychiatrist Palmer Anderson (Richard Attenborough), is having an affair with Antonia. Palmer's half-sister Honor Klein (Clair Bloom) is having sexual relations with him also, which he is slightly apologetic about. The wine taster has had a lifelong antagonism for his friend's half-sister, but after his wife and mistress leave him, he takes up with Honor. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Lee Remick, Richard Attenborough, (more)
- 1961
The British All Night Long is Othello to a jazz beat. Paul Harris is the Othello counterpart, a bandleader happily married to "Desdemona" Marti Stevens. Patrick McGoohan plays the film's funky Iago character, who covets Harris' job. McGoohan hopes to unnerve Harris by spreading rumors that Stevens has been unfaithful. Like the 1956 Joe MacBeth, All Night Long can either be taken seriously or as what used to be called 'high camp." Jazz aficionados will appreciate the brief appearances by Dave Brubeck, Johnny Dankworth, Paul Mingus, Tubby Hayes, Charles Mingus, Kenny Napper and several other top musicians. Also showing up in a cameo role is dancing star Geoffrey Holder, who wouldn't make a bad Othello (or Iago) himself. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Patrick McGoohan, Marti Stevens, (more)
- 1975
An Italian-French-Spanish version of the much-filmed Agatha Christie story, this film is strangely set in Iran, not Great Britain. Ten guests are invited to a remote desert inn and informed that the mysterious host has described in a nursery rhyme how they will all die during the gathering. One by one, the characters, played by such Continental stars such as Elke Sommer and singer Charles Aznavour as well as Britons Oliver Reed and Richard Attenborough, dwindle in number, each in accordance with a verse of the nursery rhyme, until only a few remain. The final characters then plot to ensnare the criminal mastermind behind the weekend of mayhem. ~ Michael Betzold, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Oliver Reed, Elke Sommer, (more)
- 1949
Brown is the color of the uniforms worn by the residents of a British borstal (boy's reformatory). Jack Warner plays the governor (warden) of the institution, struggling to maintain an even keel with his tempestuous charges. The film aims for a veneer of reality by using an optical camera device to blend actual backgrounds with studio sets, a special effect that works about half the time. The Boys in Brown was based on a British stage play by Reginald Beckwith. Perhaps it was more effective on stage, where the advanced ages of the "boys" were not quite so detectable. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
This offbeat John Wayne vehicle casts the Duke as Detective Jim Brannigan, an Irish-American detective at large in London. After the requisite culture-clash routines, it's down to business as Brannigan teams with Scotland Yard official Commander Swann (Richard Attenborough) to corral a crook who has absconded to England to avoid extradition. Judy Geeson co-stars as Jennifer Thatcher, a cute lady constable who spends most over her time fending off Brannigan's inbred chauvinism. Brannigan was co-written by Christopher Trumbo, the son of former blacklistee Dalton Trumbo. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- John Wayne, Richard Attenborough, (more)
- 1959
Set in an Italian P.O.W. camp during World War II, this conventional escape drama shines the most in the portrayals of the various prisoners. Richard Todd is Lt. Col. David Baird, intensely and single-mindedly set on escaping. Bernard Lee is Lt. Col. Huxley who is the careful senior British officer with a view of the entire situation. Michael Wilding plays the deceptively dashing Major Charles Marquand, and some comic relief is provided by Dennis Price, an actor-prisoner more devoted to his production of Hamlet than leaving before the curtain goes up. The hitch in the plans to escape is insidious -- there is a traitor among the prisoners and before they can succeed, they have to find him. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Richard Todd, Bernard Lee, (more)
- 1947
This unsparing, brutal look at the British criminal underbelly stars Richard Attenborough as Pinkie Brown, a pock-marked gang leader. While leading his men in a racetrack robbery, Pinkie kills a man. He convinces pretty waitress Rose (Carol Marsh) to provide him with an alibi, promising to marry her in exchange. After the wedding, the sociopathic Pinkie conducts a slow and careful campaign to drive his young wife to suicide. A moody, well-acted film with a stunning performance by the 24-year-old Attenborough, Brighton Rock is notable for bringing a new vicious realism to British crime cinema. Adapted by Terrance Rattigan and Graham Greene, from Greene's novel, the screenplay is superlative. The grim realism and sordid subject matter of the film is striking, handled by twin filmmakers Roy and John Boulting, who use mood and dark, stark photography to convey an almost palpable sense of dread. The American distributor of Brighton Rock, smelling disaster with that ambivalent title, renamed the film Young Scarface, and while it was quite controversial in its day, the film can't quite recapture the impact it had upon its initial release. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Richard Attenborough, Hermione Baddeley, (more)
Partly based on Charlie Chaplin's My Autobiography, this humorous and dramatic biopic features an all-star cast including Oscar nominee Robert Downey Jr., Dan Aykroyd, Anthony Hopkins, Kevin Kline, Diane Lane, and Chaplin's real-life daughter, Geraldine Chaplin, who portrays his mentally ill mother. With the use of flashback, an elderly Chaplin discusses his autobiography with his editor (Hopkins), who urges him to be more vulnerable and emotionally honest with his memoirs while journeying through his poverty-stricken childhood, closest friendships, many marriages, merciless pursuit by J. Edgar Hoover (Kevin Dunn), and ingenious invention of "The Little Tramp." Highlighted works such as The Gold Rush (1925) and The Great Dictator (1940) illustrate significant turning points in Chaplin's prolific filmography. Director Richard Attenborough's film also explores the circumstances surrounding Chaplin's exile from America and his eventual return to receive an honorary Academy Award. ~ Lisa Kropiewnicki, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Robert Downey, Jr., Dan Aykroyd, (more)
- 2003
American film historian and author Richard Schickel directs the documentary Charlie: The Life and Art of Charles Chaplin. Schickel offers an exploration into Chaplin's life, from his childhood in London until his death in 1977. The film also contains insight on his multifaceted film career and much-publicized private life. Includes archive footage, film clips, and narration by Sydney Pollack. Interwoven with the vintage bits are contemporary interviews with Hollywood personas such as Woody Allen, Martin Scorsese, and Johnny Depp. Chaplin's children Michael and Geraldine also provide contributions. Charlie was shown at the Edinburgh International Film Festival in 2003. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Sydney Pollack, Charles Chaplin, (more)
Sixty-five years after making his screen debut as a young stoker in co-directors Noël Coward and David Lean's World War II drama In Which We Serve, Richard Attenborough perfects the balance between epic story and intimate tale with this drama starring Shirley MacLaine and Neve Campbell as a mother and daughter who find a relic from the past sparking an incendiary series of events. The year is 1991, and as a small American town mourns the passing of beloved World War II veteran Chuck Harris, his wife Ethel (MacLaine) numbs herself with alcohol to the point where she completely neglects her grieving daughter Marie (Campbell). Later, after Marie receives a telephone call from a boy in Northern Ireland who claims to have recently discovered a ring belonging to Ethel, a mystery nearly five decades in the making comes slowly into focus as the story drifts back into Chuck's wartime past and the days when he and Ethel first formed their powerful bond. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Shirley MacLaine, Christopher Plummer, (more)
Based on a play by Barry England, the British Conduct Unbecoming revolves around a sexual violation--which may or may not have occurred. In British India, highborn Mrs. Scarlett (Susannah York) accuses 2nd Lt. Millington, a Bengal Lancer officer (James Faulkner) of raping her. Lieutenant Arthur Drake (Michael York) is assigned to defend Lt. Millington in a trial held behind closed doors to avoid scandal. Colonel Strang (Trevor Howard.) is a martinet judge who presses for a conviction, only to have his determination shaken by the introduction of new evidence. Conduct Unbecoming has the look and feel of a decades-old stage production, but the dialogue and performances provide a strictly contemporary slant. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Michael York, Richard Attenborough, (more)
Richard Attenborough directed this dramatic story, based on actual events, about the friendship between two men struggling against apartheid in South Africa in the 1970s. Donald Woods (Kevin Kline) is a white liberal journalist in South Africa who begins to follow the activities of Stephen Biko (Denzel Washington), a courageous and outspoken black anti-apartheid activist. Woods and his wife Wendy (Penelope Wilton) get to know Biko, and they become friends, until Biko is brutally murdered at the hands of government troops in 1977 for his activities against the country's repression of the black majority population. Donald is shocked and appalled by Biko's murder and determined that the truth about Biko will become known to the world; eventually, Donald and Wendy Woods and their children must leave South Africa (and nearly everything they have) as they spread the word about Biko's life and death to ensure that he did not die in vain. Washington received an Academy Award nomination for his performance as Biko. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Kevin Kline, Penelope Wilton, (more)
- 1947
Hollywood films were linking up dance halls with criminal activities long before the British-made Dancing with Crime, which does not mean that this 1949 melodrama is any less worthwhile. Adding a contemporary twist, the criminals operating within the shilling-a-dance joint are black marketeers (wartime rationing would be in effect in Britain until the early 1950s). A wisecracking taxi dancer (Sheila Sim) gets wind of what's afoot. Working with the law, the girl tries to get the goods on the criminals but nearly catches a shiv in the rib cage. 1930s crime-film star Barry K. Barnes co-stars in Dancing with Crime, together with up-and-comer Richard Attenborough. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Richard Attenborough, Barry Barnes, (more)
This lackluster 1970 version of Charles Dickens' classic novel, David Copperfield (made as a film twice before) turns Dickens' picaresque tale into an extended flashback, with David Copperfield (Robin Phillips) as a young man, brooding on a deserted beach, recalling his youth. The characters are all trotted out in choppy flashbacks as David remembers his life as a young orphan, brought to London and passed around from relatives, to guardians, to boarding school. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Richard Attenborough, Cyril Cusack, (more)
- 1958
Sea of Sand was distributed in the US in a shortened version, Desert Patrol. John Gregson plays Captain Williams, a martinet mine expert who vows to whip a lackadaisacal patrol into shape. This brings Williams in conflict with patrol leader Captain Cotton (Michael Craig), but also earns him the respect of hard-bitten trooper Brody (Richard Attenborough). The wisdom of Williams' no-nonsense approach is demonstrated when the patrol is besieged by the highly disciplined members of the German Afrika Korps. The film was produced by Robert S. Baker and Monty Berman, best known to American TV viewers as the creative forces behind the weekly series The Saint. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Richard Attenborough, John Gregson, (more)
Featuring Lord Richard Attenborough as narrator, this is a video portrait of Princess Diana, who died prematurely in a tragic automobile accident in August 1997. The video clips, photographs, and interviews are a commemoration of Diana's life from her younger years at her home at Park House in Sandringham near Norfolk, to her years in London, to her wedding and brief years as a mother. The video touches on the troubles in Diana's life: her eating disorder, her troubled royal life, and her divorce from Prince Charles, but also reflects on the joy and love she found in her children. Interviews with the people who knew her, the nanny of her youth, Hillary Rodham Clinton, and friends are some of the people that let the viewer see the personality that was Diana. They tell of the positive influence she had on the world and the people she touched during her brief life. This video does not reveal any new information on Di, but is a tribute to her life and legacy. ~ Linda J. Shriver, All Movie Guide
Rex Harrison, although not at all like the portly man described in Hugh Lofting's charming series of children's stories, is sheer perfection as the kindly animal doctor in Leslie Bricusse's musical fantasy Doctor Dolittle. Sadly, Harrison is the only thing nearing perfection in this overstuffed and over-mounted fiasco that nearly brought down 20th Century Fox. Considered a lunatic because he can converse in 498 animal dialects, Dolittle gathers up his friends Matthew Mugg (Anthony Newley) and Emma Fairfax (Samantha Eggar) and heads off on a journey to the South Seas to find the elusive great pink snail and the giant lunar moth. Along the way, the group encounters a succession of bizarre human and animal characters -- most notably the legendary pushme-pullyou, an animal so freakish that it compels Albert Blossom (Richard Attenborough) to burst out into the exuberant song, "I've never Seen Anything Like It in My Life." Incredibly, the film was nominated for a Best Picture Oscar in 1967. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Rex Harrison, Samantha Eggar, (more)
- 1995
- R
In this psychological drama, a woman tries to get on with her life after she is captured and tortured in a nameless South American country. It begins as US journalist Helen McNulty and her photographer/lover Jan travel to the country to find a rebel leader. Instead they are captured during a protest demonstration, separated, and tortured. She survives the ordeal and ends up back in Portland, Oregon, still grieving for Jan a year later. Though she has buried most of the terrifying experience and is determined to live a normal life, she finds herself forced to face the experience when she attends a symposium for survivors of political torture and decides to write a story on Anna Lenke, the keynote speaker and Holocaust survivor. Lenke runs a center for survivors and while there, Helen finds Anna treating her like a therapy patient, rather than a reporter. Conflict ensues. More conflict erupts when a mysterious, Latin professor, Tomas Ramirez arrives at the clinic. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1948
Assembled by the reliable team of Frank Launder and Sidney Gilliat, London Belongs to Me stars Richard Attenborough as a young, full-of-beans boy looking for fun. Bursting into a staid, wearisome London neighborhood, Attenborough exhorts the others to get some kicks out of life. Unfortunately, his search for thrills gets him involved in a murder. Just when you think that the film is a dour "slice of life" drama, a new comic element is introduced as the locals start up a petition to release Attenborough from jail. The presence of Alastair Sim in the cast should have tipped us off that London Belongs to Me wasn't meant to be taken entirely seriously. The film was released in the US as Dulcimer Street. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Richard Attenborough, Alastair Sim, (more)
- 1958
One of the most significant moments in the history of British warfare (in both the best and worst sense) is given reverent but reserved treatment in Dunkirk. The film takes place during the 1940 evacuation of Allied troops across the English channel. One party of British soldiers becomes detached from the rest of the retreating Allies. John Mills plays an inexperienced lance corporal who resists an increase in rank, but when the chips are down performs with courage and authority in organizing the lost troop and shepherding them to Dunkirk. Running 135 minutes in its original release (much of the footage comprised of newsreel shots), Dunkirk was based on two novels: Eleston Trever's The Big Pick-Up and Lt. Col. Ewan Hunter and Maj. J. S. Bradford's Dunkirk. The above time pertains to the original British theatrical version; the film was reedited and shortened to 113 minutes for U.S. release. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- John Mills, Bernard Lee, (more)
