T.E.B. Clarke Movies

This late-'60s spy spoof also borrows a page from late-'50s Alfred Hitchcock, with its everyday man becoming embroiled in the violent and baffling world of international espionage. When American businessman William Beddoes (James Garner) is traveling in Lisbon, he's mistaken for an English spy who's thought to possess a cache of industrial diamonds. Soon he is pursued by Aurora-Celeste da Costa (Melina Mercouri), Steve-Antonio (Tony Franciosa), and a host of other colorful troublemakers, all chasing him for something he doesn't have. Note Bert Kaempfert's music, introducing "Strangers In The Night". ~ Nicole Gagne, All Movie Guide

A father discovers that being a good role model for your son isn't always easy -- especially when you're a criminal -- in this bright British comedy. Percy Brand (Michael Redgrave) is an all-purpose con artist and small-time crook who makes a good living on the wrong side of the law but often finds himself behind bars as a result. Not wanting to present too bad an example to his son and needing an explanation for his frequent time away, he tells young Colin (Jeremy Burnham) that he's a missionary working with a religious group, and his good deeds take him all over the world on sudden missions of mercy. Colin accepts his father's word to the letter, and he grows up to be a law-abiding citizen who works as a barrister for Judge Crichton (Robert Morley), who has had to deal with Percy a number of times over the years. By this time, Percy has retired to a village by the ocean and is living nicely off his ill-gotten gains, but he gets roped into a scheme smuggling brandy and soon finds himself in trouble with the law again. Rather than go back to the pokey (and embarrass Colin), Percy and his mates concoct a bizarre plan by which they'll implicate Judge Crichton in the smuggling and send him to jail in their place. Director Charles Crichton directed a number of fine British comedies, right up to his final picture, A Fish Called Wanda, which he completed at the age of 78. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Director John Ford traveled to England to film this adaptation of the novel by J.J. Maraca, which details a typical day in the busy life of a detective for Scotland Yard. Inspector George Gideon (Jack Hawkins) begins his working day by confronting one of his fellow officers who is believed to be accepting graft. The sergeant stubbornly denies the charge, but he dies later the same day in a mysterious hit-and-run accident that piques Gideon's curiosity. While confronting internal strife within Scotland Yard, Gideon also has more typical crimes to investigate, including a murder in Manchester and a burglary in London, both of which were performed by the same vicious criminal. Gideon himself becomes the victim of a holdup and is forced to take a bullet for his troubles, while on the home front he finds himself in disfavor with his family when he forgets to bring home salmon for dinner and lets his daughter's recital slip his mind. Along with Jack Hawkins, Gideon's Day features a stellar cast of British actors, including Cyril Cusack, Anna Massey, Laurence Naismith, Dianne Foster, and Billie Whitelaw. For its initial American release, Gideon's Day (also shown as Gideon of Scotland Yard) was cut from 91 minutes to a mere 54, and distributed in black and white prints instead of the original Technicolor. Fortunately, nearly all the prints currently in circulation are of the uncut, color edition. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Already a popular TV comedian in 1956, Benny Hill heads the cast of the zany comedy-mystery Who Done It? Eschewing his usual double entendres in favor of pure-and-simple slapstick, Hill plays a would-be private eye named Hugo. Before he quite knows what's happening, Hugo is up to his neck in espionage intrigue. Belinda Lee plays Hugo's dewey-eyed blonde assistant, George Relph is cast as a flustered Scotland Yard inspector, and David Kossof and George Margo portray a couple of sinister Iron Curtain spies. Who Done It? was scripted by T. E. B. Clarke, a mainstay of the droll Ealing comedies of the early 1950s. The film remained unreleased in the US until the late 1970s, when it was put on the market to cash in on the international success of The Benny Hill Show. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The first Ealing Studios comedy shot in color, Titfield Thunderbolt takes place in a tiny British village serviced by a branch railway line. When the government plans to close the line down, the locals are in a panic--except for a group intending to set up an expensive bus service. The local vicar (George Relph) concocts a scheme with the town's wealthiest man (Stanley Holloway) for the villagers to run the rail line themselves; in this way they hope to prove to the railway inspectors that their branch is still worth keeping. When the bus interests attempt to sabotage this undertaking, the villagers respond by stealing a stray locomotive--and when this proves cumbersome, they reactivate a 19th century train engine from the local museum. The Titfield Thunderbolt is uniquely British in humor and approach, but not so "inside" as to alienate American filmgoers. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The producers of Quartet and Trio concluded their cycle with this omnibus film, which features three stories based, as in the previous film, on tales by W. Somerset Maugham. "The Ant and the Grasshopper" concerns Tom Ramsey (Nigel Patrick), a fiscally unstable young man who is constantly borrowing money from his brother George (Roland Culver). Eventually, George falls on hard times and is forced to sell the family estate, just as Tom marries a wealthy woman and is in a position to purchase it. In "Winter Cruise," Miss Reid (Kay Walsh) is an aging spinster taking a voyage aboard a cargo ship. She has little to do but engage the others on board in conversation, which the passengers find so annoying that they arrange a ship-board romance for her with Pierre (Jacques Francois), a porter, in the hopes that it will keep her quiet. And "Gigolo and Gigolette" features Glynis Johns as Stella Cotman, whose husband Syd (Terence Morgan) earns his living as a performer in a high-wire act. Stella is terribly worried that Syd's risky profession will lead to his death, so she takes their life's savings to a casino in hopes of winning enough that he can retire. However, her plan hardly goes as she hoped. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

The British Train of Events explores the consequences of a railroad accident from four different viewpoints. Jack Warner plays the engine driver, whose daughter's boy friend is responsible for the crash. Peter Finch plays a homicidal actor whose "perfect murder" of his wife is thwarted by the wreck. Lonely orphan girl Joan Dowling is killed while trying to help her fellow passenger, duplicitous German POW Laurence Payne, escape. The fourth story is the humorous tale of a woman scorned (Valerie Hobson), who survives the crash with a renewed determination to get even with her composer-conductor lover (John Clements). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Passport to Pimlico is one of the most charmingly whimsical Ealing Studios comedies of the late 1940s-early 1950s. As a result of wartime bombing, an ancient parchment is uncovered, proving that the Pimlico section of London belongs to Burgundy, France. Long taken for granted by other Londoners, the tiny Pimlico populace decides to take advantage of its "foreign" status. Affable oaf Stanley Holloway is made head of the new government, whereupon he merrily begins erecting borders and imposing customs duties. The sweetly satirical script of Passport to Pimlico was written by director Henry Cornelius and Ealing stalwart T.E.B. Clarke. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Alastair Sim is a delight to behold as always in the British Hue and Cry, but the film's true star is approximately 40 years younger and two feet shorter than the estimable Sim. Harry Fowler plays Joe Kirby, an intelligent cockney lad who is addicted to a weekly boys' magazine. He begins to notice a curious pattern emerging in the dialogue of a serialized blood-and-thunder detective story. And well he should: a gang of literate crooks are using that story to transmit information concerning robberies, smuggling, fencing, and the like. When the local constabulary refuse to take Joe's warnings seriously, he rallies his chums together to foil the crooks. Elements of Hue and Cry would later pop up in several American films, including the Bowery Boys' Angels in Disguise (1949) and the Jack Carson vehicle The Good Humor Man (1950). This is only fair, since T.E.B. Clarke's screenplay is inspired in part by the old German perennial Emil and the Detectives. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Johnny Frenchman uses humor to drive home the point that, despite all previous rivalries and hostilties, the French and English should pull together during WW2. Aldwych farceur Tom Walls plays Nat Pomeroy, harbourmaster of a Cornwall fishing village, who is continually outsmarted by clever French fish poacher Lannec Florrie (Francoise Rosay). Pomeroy is further aggravated by the fact that Florrie's son Yan (played by French-Canadian radio favorite Paul Dupuis) is busily romancing Pomeroy's daughter Sue (Patricia Roc). But when the Nazis rear their ugly heads, the Cornish fisherman and the French miscreants band together to thwart the German menace. Many of the cast members of Johnny Frenchman are actual Cornish villagers and members of the Free French resistance movement. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The British Half-Way House is from the Thunder Rock and Outward Bound school of Divine Intervention films. A group of travellers, all of whom have reason to regret the actions of the past, take shelter from a storm in an old inn. There's something eerie about the place and its owner (Mervyn Johns)...something that indicates the guests aren't quite operating in their own time anymore. It develops that the inn really doesn't exist anymore; it had been destroyed by a bomb a year earlier. By staying in this half-way house, the guests all have a chance to rectify the errors that they've made in their own lives during the past year. Half-Way House was adapted from a play by Dennis Ogden. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide