Sydney Box Movies

Orson Welles narrates this informative documentary on the life of The Duke of Windsor. With newsreel footage and films from the former king's private collection, the Duke and Duchess (the former Mrs. Wallace Simpson) are interviewed and give candid recollections of the classic story of the man who gave up the royal crown for the woman he loved. The Duchess is not even mentioned in the first 70 minutes of the feature, with the focus being on the scholastic and military training of the young man who would become King Edward VIII. Careful attention was given in portraying the Duke as a right good chap with no mention of his admiration for Adolph Hitler. The Duke was in his 70s at the time of the documentary and reads from his original abdication speech given after only 325 days on the throne. An added bonus are interior scenes of Buckingham Palace and other royal retreats. ~ Dan Pavlides, Rovi

Berlin provides the backdrop for this crime drama that centers on a military doctor falsely accused of dealing illegal drugs. Determined to prove his innocence, he escapes from the MPs and ends up holing up in the apartment his wife rented. He doesn't know that she has sublet the flat to a nightclub singer. When he finds out, he begs the singer to assist him. She is attracted to him and agrees. The doctor believes that his wife is behind the black-market dealings, but in the end, they find the real culprit. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

After years of suffering through lookalike MGM musicals (at least, that was his complaint), Howard Keel was able to sink his teeth into a dramatic role in the British Floods of Fear. Serving a life term for murder, Donavan (Howard Keel) breaks out of jail with sadistic convict Peebles (Cyril Cusack), taking along a wounded guard (Harry H. Corbett) as hostage. It is Donavan's intention to exact revenge against the man who framed him, but this will have to wait: a driving rainstorm is threatening to precipitate a raging flood. Taking refuge in the tiny house owned by the terror-stricken Elizabeth (Anne Heywood), the convicts and their captives nervously wait out the storm. Slowly, Elizabeth and Donavan are drawn to one another, while Peebles threatens to erupt into a fit of homicidal rage at any moment. When the flood reaches the danger level, Donavan performs several self-sacrificial acts of courage, prompting Elizabeth to try to save him from ruining what's left of his life. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

In this thriller a woman witnesses a robbery, runs away from the scene and is rundown by a bus. The two thieves, realizing that she could get them arrested, sneak into the hospital where they plan to kill her. Their repeated attempts all end in failure. At the end, one of the thieves, feeling guilty about killing her, murders the other thief and saves the woman's life. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

This second film version of Somerset Maugham's Vessel of Wrath lacks the casual charm of the first (which starred Charles Laughton and Elsa Lanchester), but is otherwise quite entertaining. Robert Newton stars as Honorable Ted, a slovenly, bibulous South Sea Island beachcomber. The black sheep of a prominent British family, Ted is paid an annual salary to stay as far away from England as possible. Prim-and-proper missionary Martha (Glynis Johns), the sister of heathen-hating Welsh minister Owen (Paul Rogers), takes it upon herself to reform the intractable Ted. The script then goes off on a tangent not found in the Maugham original. Due to illness, Owen is unable to travel to a native village in an attempt to halt a cholera outbreak. So he sends Martha, with a reluctant Ted along as interpreter, to the village in his stead in an attempt to cure the tribal headman's daughter. After they fail, they and an intern are sentenced to a horrible death by the angry villagers. Despite the radicial differences in their separate acting styles, Robert Newton and Glynis Johns make a copacetic screen team. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Mr. Henry Lord (Stanley Holloway) and his wife Lilian (Kathleen Byron) have been asked to move from their home to make room for the 1950 Festival of Britain. But Mr. Lord, as the title makes clear, has no intention of doing so. The government tries all sorts of persuasion and coercion, but ends up stumbling over its own feet. What starts out as a minor legal skirmish snowballs into a nationwide cause celebre, as often happens in whimsical British comedies like Mr. Lord Says No. Based on Michale Clayton Hutton's The Happy Family, the film also features such delightful British supporting players as Naunton Wayne, Dandy Nichols, George Cole, Miles Malleson and the ubiquitous Laurence Naismith. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

So Long at the Fair is based on a true story -- or at least, a story that has been told and retold so often that it is now accepted as truth. The year is 1889: the setting, the Paris Exhibition. Among the thousands in attendance are Vicky Barton (Jean Simmons) and her brother Johnny (David Tomlinson). After the first night of the Exhibition, Vicky is exhilarated, while Johnny seems a bit under the weather. The next morning, Vicky knocks on Johnny's hotel door, only to discover that her brother has disappeared. When she goes to the police and, later, to the British consul, the authorities refuse to believe her story. In fact, there is no evidence that Johnny ever existed! The outcome of this story is rather well known; still, it is perhaps best not to reveal any further details. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Reverent to the point of tedium, Christopher Columbus stars Fredric March in the title role, and he's welcome to it. March's wife Florence Eldredge co-stars as Queen Isabella, who finances Columbus' expedition to find a westward route to India. After several reels devoted to table-top miniatures impersonating the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria (punctuated by rumbles of mutiny--no, not "rumble rumble, mutiny mutiny") Columbus reaches the New World. Though obviously filmed on an extravagant budget (Technicolor was still a rare commodity in 1949), the British Christopher Columbus has less going for it than the 1939 Porky Pig cartoon Christopher Columbus Jr.. Filmgoers stayed away in droves, as they would when the movie industry "rediscovered" Columbus for a brace of disastrous multimillion-dollar films in 1992. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

This disaster movie is based on the true story of ways in which a diverse group of plane passengers managed to survive after their plane crashed in the Swiss Alps. Some of the surviving passengers were publically prominent people. All of them had to face new challenges that tested their inner strength. The rescue of the passengers is particulary dramatic. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

Good Time Girl, directed by David MacDonald and based on a story by Arthur La Bern (It Always Rains On Sunday) starts off unpromisingly, as juvenile justice official Flora Robson tries to keep a would-be female felon on the straight-and-narrow, telling the cautionary tale of Gwen Rawlings (Jean Kent). A victim of an unhappy home and her own stupidity, Rawlings leaves home and, with help from her sleazy new neighbor Jimmy Rosso (Peter Glenville, the future director), gets a job as a hat-check girl at a club run by Max Vine (erbert Lom). But Jimmy's jealousy soon gets him fired, and leaves him aiming for revenge on Max and Gwen. Despite the best efforts of Michael Farrell (Dennis Price), the one truly decent man she's ever met, Jimmy achieves his goal and Gwen is sent to a reformatory. It is there that she's truly corrupted by being locked up with more seasoned juvenile (and not so juvenile) felons, who know how to game the system -- whem she escapes, she's a professional criminal, and, taking on a new alias, falls in with a pair of loose-living gents. She manages to commit a vehicular homicide, and then falls in with a pair of American military deserters (Bonar Colleano, Hugh McDermott) who aren't above committing pre-meditated murder. ~ Bruce Eder, Rovi

The fictional Hugget Family makes the first of three film appearances in this domestic comedy from Great Britain. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

The first of three well-received "omnibus" films hosted by Somerset Maugham, Quartet features four of Maugham's most celebrated stories, each introduced by the author himself. In "The Facts of Life," a seemingly innocent British youth (Jack Watling) is targeted for a shakedown by a beautiful adventuress (Mai Zetterling), while Basil Radford and Naunton Wayne perform their usual brilliant byplay. In "The Alien Corn," a young aristocrat (Dirk Bogarde) hopes to become a professional concert pianist. "The Kite" tells the story of a preoccupied inventor (George Cole) who places his hobbies ahead of his wife (Susan Shaw) as an indirect means of defying his dominating mother (Hermione Badderly). The film concludes with "The Colonel's Lady," wherein the title character (Nora Swinburne) embarrasses her stuffy husband (Cecil Parker) by publishing a torrid volume of romantic poetry. Each of the short tales in Quartet possesses its own mood, pace and rhythm, and each is a gem in its own right. The popularity of Quartet resulted in two more Maugham compendiums, Trio and Encore, not to mention the multistoried American film O. Henry's Full House. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi