Harry Benn Movies

Steve Soderbergh did a 180 degree turnaround from his debut film sex, lies, and videotape with Kafka, a stark art-film fable for literature majors. Jeremy Irons plays a fictional Franz Kafka, living in Prague in 1919. By day, Kafka works in a massive, impersonal insurance company. At night, he spends his time alone writing stories about men who turn into giant cockroaches. Although quiet and solitary, he becomes a suspect in a murder investigation conducted by Inspector Grubach (Armin Mueller-Stahl) when a friend of his turns up dead. Rather than being harassed by Grubach, Kafka decides to investigate his friend's murder on his own. Kafka speaks to his dead friend's girlfriend, Gabriela (Theresa Russell) and talks with gravestone carver Bizzlebek (Jeroen Krabbe). Kafka follows the clues to the Castle, a menacing tower that casts its shadow over the city and houses files on everything. He winds his way through the cellars and tunnels of the Castle, where he encounters the evil and insidious Dr. Murnau (Ian Holm), whom he hopes holds the solution to the murder. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

Also released under the title Young Sherlock Holmes and the Pyramid of Fear, this film follows the adventures of young John Watson (Alan Cox) when he is shipped off to boarding school and meets up with the brilliantly bizarre Sherlock Holmes (Nicolas Rowe). The two boys strike up a friendship and promptly become involved in the investigation of a number of mysterious murders. When their curiosity gets them into trouble with a dangerous religious cult, Watson and Holmes must struggle to avoid capture while attempting to notify the authorities. ~ Iotis Erlewine, All Movie Guide

Fanny Hill (Lisa Raines) is a buxom country maiden who arrives in the big city and quickly begins an affair with the scion of a wealthy family in this softcore version of an old British tale. When the clan patriarch dies, Fanny is ready to marry her lover until she discovers he has been unfaithful -- that sets her on a course of erotic adventures that begins in protest and ends in great wealth. By the time she has experienced almost every kind of sex imaginable -- or unimaginable -- she is a millionairess. Loosely based on the scandalous, 18th-century novel Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure by John Clelland, Fanny Hill had two different cinematic incarnations in the 1960s (by Russ Meyer and Mac Ahlberg). No one has accused this version of subtle sophistication or profoundly interpretive acting. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

English archaeologist Matthew Corbeck (played by the emphatically-American Charlton Heston) undertakes an expedition to find the tomb of the Egyptian princess Kara, despite his awareness of a nefarious curse that is said to befall anyone who disturbs the tomb. Eighteen years after Corbeck's discovery of the burial site, his teenage daughter (who was born at the very moment of the tomb's violation) begins to behave strangely. Turns out she's been possessed by Kara's malevolent spirit, carrying out the princess's revenge by causing several deaths and developing a less-than-healthy obsession with Daddy. Based very loosely on Bram Stoker's novel The Jewel of Seven Stars (itself the inspiration for Hammer's superior Blood from the Mummy's Tomb), this is basically Warner Brothers' attempt to jump on the big-budget horror bandwagon in the wake of The Omen's staggering success. The result is a good-looking but artistically hollow film -- with elaborate sets, lush cinematography and a sweeping musical score, but little in the way of logic or suspense. ~ Cavett Binion, All Movie Guide

Writer/director John Byrum filmed this bizarre and controversial period picture on one massive set. It takes place in the 1930s, and stars Richard Dreyfuss as Boy Wonder, a once-great Hollywood director, who spends all of his time in decrepitude in his rococo mansion (which will soon be leveled and replaced by a major highway), half-soused, unshaven and clad in his bathrobe and pajamas. Instead of shooting major Hollywood pictures, this impotent has-been is now reduced to shooting pornographic films with a coke-addled actress, Harlene (Veronica Cartwright) and a moronic leading man, Rex (Stephen Davies). Rex's employer, the financier Big Mac (Bob Hoskins) turns up, bringing along his shy and dim-bulb fiancee, Cathy Cake (Jessica Harper), whom he treats condescendingly but hopes to launch to megastardom as a movie actress. When Harlene overdoses, Rex and Big Mac haggle over her body. Mac then leaves Cathy with Boy Wonder, who tells the burned-out director that her one dream in life is to appear in movies, and asks if she could pose for insert shots for his next stag film. By shooting the inserts, Boy Wonder manages to regain his potency, but he is completely put off by Cathy, who suddenly realizes, after the fact, that the camera wasn't running. At that point, Big Mac returns and catches them in the filmmaking process. Although he is not really sure what went on, Big Mac vamooses with Boy Wonder's camera and paraphernalia and takes Cathy with him. Meanwhile, an aspiring thesp named Clark Gable turns up at the door, wanting Boy Wonder to direct him to stardom. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

A sensitive old British spy/assassin is accused of getting emotionally involved with his victims and gets a demotion in this drama that is titled The Neutralizer on video. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

The Boy Friend began life as Sandy Wilson's small-scale pastiche of British musical comedies of the 1920s. When the play was brought to America in 1954, its star was the
teenage Julie Andrews. Because The Boy Friend requires a minimum of sets, props, and costumes, it has become a favorite of amateur theater groups throughout the world. But director Ken Russell, notorious for his onscreen excesses, abandoned the film's simplicity. He fashioned a humongous parody of the Busby Berkeley film musicals of the 1930s, staged on a scale that made Berkeley seem stylistically modest. Fashion model Twiggy plays Polly Browne, an aspiring musical comedy star, working as stage manager of a production of The Boy Friend. She is transformed into a star when she replaces leading lady Rita Monroe (Glenda Jackson, unbilled), who twists her ankle seconds before the curtain goes up. Before the evening is over, Polly is scampering over outsized sets, and ducking around seemingly thousands of chorus girls and boys. Christopher Gable, who plays Polly's on-stage leading man, also choreographed the lavish musical numbers. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide