Kevin Billington Movies
British filmaker Kevin Billington began his career as a director of distinguished television documentaries in 1959. He began directing feature films during the late 1960s. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide- 1991
Filmed on location in Yorkshire, the three-part British miniseries A Time to Dance related the melancholy tale of a retired banker who inaugurated a romance with an 18-year-old Irish girl. The romance inexorably led to disaster for both the old man and the young girl. Ronald Pickup played the banker, while Dervla Kirwan ascended to stardom in the role of Bernadette Kennedy (thanks in great part to a brief nude scene in the first episode). Adapted by Melvyn Bragg from his own novel, A Time to Dance aired over BBC1 in 1991. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1989
An emotive drama in which a dairy farmer (Anthony Hopkins) is faced with ruin, brought on by the vagaries of European law and takes extreme measures to combat what he feels to be the injustice of a system which no longer supports the traditions and ideals of the past. ~ Mark Hockley, All Movie Guide
- 1984
William Masters (Gabriel Byrne), an aloof and analytical young man studying the life of Sir Isaac Newton, takes up residence in a cottage on a family estate and then becomes involved with the family's own troubles. Masters is secretly enamored of the lady of the house who is burdened with an alcoholic husband, but he has an affair with her niece. This is a prescription for disaster, especially given the young man's tendency to strait-jacket his feelings. Director Kevin Billington has also used an aloof and analytical approach to the story, as a reflection of Masters' own perspective -- yet that treatment does not effectively bring out the psychological turmoil that underlies the restrained behavior of the protagonists -- and distances the audience as well. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gabriel Byrne, Donal McCann, (more)
Jeremy Brett, Robin Ellis, and Susan Fleetwood star in director Kevin Billington's adaptation of author Ford Madox Ford's non-linear tale of marriage, deception, and infidelity. Soon after meeting in a German spa, a British couple and an American couple form a pleasant friendship. In the weeks that follow, the bond between the two couples gradually begins to erode as the deceptive veneer of normalcy is stripped away to reveal that nothing is what it appears to be on the surface. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jeremy Brett, Robin Ellis, (more)
- 1979
Part of a television series entitled "The Shakespeare Plays," Henry VIII is the story of political intrigue and betrayal surrounding this besieged monarch's reign. ~ Tana Hobart, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Claire Bloom, John Stride, (more)
- 1973
Offscreen husband and wife David Hemmings and Gayle Hunnicutt star in this average British shocker from director Kevin Billington. After their son drowns, the woman loses her mind and is committed to a mental hospital. Upon her release, the couple moves into a remote mansion in the country, where ghostly apparitions and terrifying visions threaten her fragile sanity. Billington's film (based on a Richard Lortz play) features a surprisingly effective ending, but its stately pace and drawing-room civility make it as uninspiring as most British horror films of the time. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide
- 1973
Lee Remick made her TV movie debut in And No One Could Save Her. She plays an American heiress whose husband (Frank Grimes) has apparently disappeared in the middle of a transcontinental flight. Remick heads to Ireland, her husband's original destination, to get to the bottom of things. And No One Could Save Her was the first TV production of the Robert Stigwood Group (Saturday Night Fever, Grease, Can't Stop the Music etc.) The film originally aired February 21, 1973. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1971
- PG
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This action adventure is based on Jules Verne's The Light at the Edge of the World. It takes place in 1865 on the chilly tip of Argentina in a lighthouse set up to guide ships around the extremely dangerous and turbulent waters of Cape Horn. The lighthouse keeper (Fernando Rey) and his assistant go out to investigate when a strange sailing ship comes too near to the island the lighthouse is on. Denton (Kirk Douglas), the lighthouse keeper's North American apprentice, is left behind. For their pains, the lighthouse keeper and his assistant are killed, and Kongre (Yul Brynner), the ship's pirate captain, goes to the lighthouse and captures Denton. Kongre shuts down the real lighthouse and sets up a false one so that his pirates can prey on the busy ships that must pass nearby. Denton, set loose by his captors on a nearby island, eventually begins to fight back. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Kirk Douglas, Yul Brynner, (more)
- 1970
- R
Like Socrates of ancient Athens, Michael Rimmer (Peter Cook) of modern England believes the key to success is to ask the right questions. Lots of questions. So he gets a job with an advertising agency that conducts polls, rises swiftly through the ranks, and eventually runs the agency. Then he bombards England with questions. His ingenious system enables him to predict the outcome of a general election. (Every voter in England had received a questionnaire.) So accomplished is Rimmer at asking questions that he finds his future wife through market research. To insure that he gets the right answers, Rimmer is not above manipulating the polls. For example, when he asks residents of Coventry their religion, 95 percent identify themselves as Buddhists, thanks to an influx of Rimmer stooges. Then he enters politics. In a short time, he gets himself elected to Parliament, becomes a cabinet minister and eventually moves into Ten Downing Street as prime minister after pushing the incumbent prime minister off an oil platform. By this time, every eligible voter in Britain can cast ballots with a television remote control. Alas, the electorate tires of the endless referendum questions that they must answer as part of their daily routine. This development serves only to catapult Rimmer to further success, for the people decide to place all decisions in his hands as dictator of England. So Rimmer keeps rising and rising and rising. And asking questions. ~ Mike Cummings, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Peter Cook, Denholm Elliott, (more)
- 1968
Stefan Zelter (Oskar Werner) is a classical orchestra conductor who is sued for libel after statements made in a newspaper interview. He finds himself blacklisted and out of work and leaves his wife Antonia (Virginia Maskell) to be with the reporter Sally (Barbara Ferris). His wife nobly tells him he must never give up his music even though the two may never reconcile. This dramatic, romantic tearjerker has music by Beethoven, Brahms, Dvorak, Mozart, Tchaikovsky, and Rachmaninoff performed by the British Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. Comedian John Cleese has a straight role as a television publicist and Donald Sutherland plays the role of a mutual friend whose marriage is on the rocks. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Oskar Werner, Barbara Ferris, (more)
