Fred Johnson Movies

Adam and Evelyne stars Stewart Granger and Jean Simmons, who were husband and wife in the 1950s. Granger plays a "sang froid" gambler with little room for emotional entanglements in his life. When his best friend dies, Granger agrees to adopt the friend's daughter. She grows up to be Jean Simmons; Granger falls in love, but says nothing about his feelings because Jean accepts him as her real father. The denouement is right out of Daddy Long Legs, but is still effective within its new framework. When Adam and Evelyne made the Atlantic crossing and opened in the US, it was retitled Adam and Evelyn. Who knows why? ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Between his internship in Canadian television and his A-feature work on The Ipcress File, Sidney J. Furie directed an old-fashioned horror flick called Doctor Blood's Coffin. Kieron Moore stars as research scientist Dr. Peter Blood, who's been experimenting with heart transplants. Thrown out of Vienna for wishing to move from lab animals to humans, Blood sets up shop in the village of Cornwall. Within a few months of his arrival, several Cornwallians disappear from view. Dr. Blood, you see, has been merrily transplanting hearts in a secret lab located in an abandoned tin mine. Unfortunately, one of his resurrected humans reacts negatively to the operation--especially after he discovers that Blood has been dallying with his wife. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Three generations of a Scottish clan are chronicled in this melodramatic saga. The film starts with the death of a sickly med student in a Glasgow slum. His fiancee also dies in childbirth. Her brother, who survives, begins raising her baby girl who grows up to have an affair with a lab assistant. Her "father" disapprove and threatens to destroy the wedding. She retaliates by poisoning him and then gets married. She bears a son. Unfortunately she has never recovered from the guilt of her earlier murder and ends up taking her own life. Later her son grows up to discover a vaccine for a fatal disease. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

George Baxt scripted this extraordinarily good chiller from a story by Milton Subotsky, who also co-produced. A college student (Venetia Stevenson) with an interest in witchcraft goes to the Massachusetts town of Whitewood. It's a foggy, spooky town which gets even scarier when Stevenson discovers that the owner of the Raven's Inn, Mrs. Newlis (Patricia Jessel) is in fact a 268-year old witch. Jessel sold her soul to the Devil to regain her life after being burned at the stake. The whole town is her coven, including Stevenson's kindly history professor (Christopher Lee). Stevenson's boyfriend and brother arrive to look for her and discover human sacrifices and all sorts of evil goings-on. One of the few horror films of the period which still has the power to frighten, Horror Hotel is required viewing for genre fans. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide

This zany film marks the screen debut of Britain's popular comedy troupe, The Crazy Gang. The story begins as the gang are busy sweeping up for the almost bankrupt circus they work for. The owner of a rival carnival endeavors to put them out of business for good. The Crazies manage to foil his evil scheme after they find a magical oil lamp containing a helpful genie. Along the way, the troupe performs a variety of specialty acts including a comic trapeze act, juggling, magic, cornball jokes, and songs, which include: "Life is a Circus", "For You, For You", and "Underneath the Arches". ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

A young Susannah York had her first lead role in this drama about a teenage girl on the cusp of womanhood. When her mother falls ill during a vacation in the French wine country, 16-year-old Joss Grey (York) is left to her own devices as she and her three younger siblings are left in the reluctant care of Madame Zisi (Danielle Darrieux), the proprietor of the hotel where they were staying. Eliot (Kenneth More), Zisi's strapping boyfriend, offers to show the youngsters some of the sights in the countryside, and Joss finds herself developing a strong infatuation with the older man. However, when she realizes that Eliot and Zisi are lovers, she becomes despondent and ends up getting drunk on wine with Paul (David Saire), a boy who works in the kitchen at Zisi's hotel. When Joss learns that Eliot is actually a jewel thief wanted by the law, she informs the police of his whereabouts. However, that same night, Paul's efforts to seduce Joss degenerate into a violent attempt at rape, but when Eliot hears her screams for help, he comes to Joss' rescue. Having spared her virtue and perhaps her life, Joss confesses to Eliot that she has turned him in to the police, and urges him to flee for his own safety. One of Joss' sisters is played by Jane Asher, a distinguished actress who was most famous in the United States not for her abilities as a performer, but for spending several years as Paul McCartney's girlfriend. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Virtually every Lutheran in America has seen Martin Luther during a church-basement screening. Niall McGinniss plays the title role, while the rest of the cast is an adroit mixture of professional actors, clerics and Biblical scholars. The film recounts Martin Luther's 16th-century break from Catholicism, his posting of the 95 theses, and his ultimate creation of the Protestant Movement. The dramatic highlight is Luther's "Here I stand" speech, straightforwardly directed by Irving Pichel (who also plays a supporting role). Filmed in West Germany, Martin Luther was a collaboration between Lutheran Productions Inc. and Louis de Rochemont associates. The film caused a minor brouhaha when its Chicago TV debut in 1956 was successfully blocked by the local Catholic Archdiocese. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The exigencies of the first Hollywood "Red Scare", fomented by the Martin Dies committee, prompted the US Senate Civil Liberties Committee to produce Native Land, a 1942 paean to the Four Freedoms. Narrated by Paul Robeson, the film employs a cast of familiar if not stellar character actors in a story of how certain enemies within the US have done their best to suppress their fellow citizens' rights to freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of assembly and freedom from want. The villains are the usual run of fat-cat capitalists, bigoted "patriots" and strikebreakers, while the heroes and heroines are farmers, sharecroppers, union leaders, minorities and the like. The screenplay leans towards the dogmatic at times, but the actors are sincere and the rousing musical score by Marc Blitztein (and old hand at this sort of agit-prop entertainment) is first-rate. Not suprisingly, many of the contributors to Native Land--Art Smith, Howard Da Silva et. al.-ended up being blacklisted during the Communist "Witch Hunt" of the 1950s. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this slick melodrama, a sort of film-noir for women, a nightclub singer has an affair with an unhappily married San Francisco doctor. Though the physician desperately wants to leave his wife, he lacks the courage to ask for a divorce. In retaliation, the singer accepts an offer to move East and start up a new club in New York. Lost without the singer, the doctor is without option until his partner suddenly dies. With a burst of inspiration, he fakes his own death and flees to New York. Later, he is horrified to learn that his death has been officially declared a homicide, and so he goes into hiding in the singer's apartment. To cope with his fear and the increasing success of his lover, the physician begins drinking heavily. This only makes him paranoid and more depressed and he begins to suspect his lover is having an affair. Upon confronting the "lover," a fight ensues, the doctor wins, and thinking he killed his rival, he takes off -- only to end up in a horrible traffic accident that leaves his face unrecognizable. Though plastic surgery gives him a new identity, it is at that time that he is arrested and sent back to California to stand trial for his own murder. Rather than burden his family with the shock that he is still alive, the doctor insists that his lover keep mum, and he stoically goes to trial where he is sentenced to Death Row. Beautifully photographed by James Wong Howe in typically expressionistic style, the film focuses on the desperation and entrapment of the characters and expresses a true bleak, fatalistic film-noir sensibility which makes this film unique in the genre. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Victor McLaglen made his last film appearance in the British Sea Fury. McLaglen plays the brawny captain of a salvage vessel, while Stanley Baker is his second in command. The two men battle over the affections of South American beauty Luciana Paluzzi. Baker has the advantage, but Luciana's father disapproves. During the climactic rescue sequence, Baker proves his mettle, while McLaglen is permanently removed from the scene. Sea Fury was instrumental in the spectacular comeback of director Cyril Endfield, who'd been forced to flee Hollywood and seek out work in England thanks to the Blacklist. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Break in the Circle is one of several late-1950s British films given American distribution by 20th Century-Fox. Forrest Tucker heads the cast as American soldier of fortune Skip Morgan, who is hired by German millionaire Baron Keller (Marius Goring). The baron wants Skip to smuggle a Polish scientist out of East Germany and into England. Our hero agrees, little knowing that the greedy Baron is pursuing an agenda that has nothing to do with freedom and democracy. Eva Bartok plays the requisite mystery woman who, like the baron, hides her true intentions from Morgan until the very end. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Curse of Frankenstein was the "breakthrough" picture for the fabled Hammer Studios. Told in flashback, the story centers around Baron Victor Frankenstein (Peter Cushing), a dangerously arrogant scientist who takes it upon himself to play God. Using portions of dead bodies, Victor fashions a synthetic monster (Christopher Lee) with a bad attitude. In a radical departure from the Frankenstein canon, it is the imperious Victor who orchestrates the film's two murders by "borrowing" the brain of a learned professor, then leaving his next victim at the mercy of the monster. In 1958, the film spwaned the sequel Revenge of Frankenstein. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide