Victor Kendall Movies

The Assassination Bureau is loosely based on a turn-of-the-century yarn written by Jack London. Nellie Bly-style girl reporter Sonya Winter (Diana Rigg) tries to get the goods on shady businessman Ivan Dragomiloff (Oliver Reed). Ivan is in charge of a wide-reaching organization which, for a price, assassinates those who "need killing." As a challenge, Sonya offers to pay Ivan a huge sum if he'll instruct his minions to assassinate him; Ivan agrees, hoping that it will put a little kick in his work. Despite his profession, Ivan isn't the villain of the piece; that honor goes to evil nobleman Lord Bostwick (Telly Savalas), whose perfidy leads Sonya into joining forces with the Assassination Bureau. A wild climactic chase in a zeppelin caps this tongue-in-cheek escapade. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Cartoonist Ronald Searle's delightfully diabolical private-school girls are back in action in The Great St. Trinian's Bank Robbery. Comedian Frankie Howerd plays the head of a train-robbery gang who cleverly hides the loot from their biggest haul (presumably the infamous "Great Train Robbery" of 1963) in a deserted old mansion. The gang waits the traditional seven years for the statute of limitations to run out then returns to the mansion to dig up their $7 million booty. Unfortunately, the joint has been converted into the new site for St. Trinian's School for Girls. Even more unfortunately (for the crooks, but not the audience) those "girls" are all holy terrors. The film's climax occurs during a riotous Parents' Day ceremony, which predictably segues into a wild train chase. Great St. Trinian's Train Robbery might have been funnier had Alastair Sim, the star of the first three "St. Trinian's" entries, made a return appearance. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this British comedy, a formerly rakish submarine captain is transferred to a desk job. His reputation as a hero and playboy precedes him. He meets an old comrade and his gorgeous fiancee, a Yankee widow. His buddy is quite wealthy and the retired captain realizes that he too must make plenty of dough to steal the woman away. He immediately engineers an elaborate quick money scheme. First he makes it seem as if he has become a traitor in order to get the newspapers to write bad things about him. He then plans to sue them all for libel. He leaves his phony trail and then maroons himself on a desert island. He is later rescued and interrogated by the Special Branch. Fortunately, he convinces them of his innocence and continues with his plan. He then goes to the woman's home and is there discovered by his buddy. The friend sees that the two really are in love and gallantly bows out. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In this British comedy set in Saudi Arabia, a gentle British travel-agency clerk decides that it would be a smashing idea to open up a desert resort in Arabia. He heads to the desert and immediately finds himself on the bad side of a local sheik as the fellow tries to build his resort atop oil-rich land. A war erupts between rival desert bands as they vie for the rights to the oil, but it is the travel agent who wins out in the end. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

A talented director (Charles Saunders) and cast cannot do very much with this weak story about an odd double deception. Two con-men, former Commander Binham-Ryley (Richard Murdoch) and former Major Rory McQuarry (William Kendall), are just out of prison for their dubious money-making schemes. They decide to hook up together to see how to bilk the next mark, when they meet a wealthy widow who obviously cannot see through them, and she hires them to run a factory for her. What the two men do not realize is that the widow needs two fall guys in her own shady, profit-making scheme. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

The otherwise routine story and themes of this comedy are greatly balanced by talents of Anthony Newley as Jeep Jackson, a singing idol called up to serve in the British army and Lionel Jeffries as Bertie, a fussbudget adjutant. One of Jackson's superior officers is the brash Sgt. Lush (William Bendix) whose bark is much worse than his bite. Aside from the usual army types, Caroline (Anne Aubrey), the commander's daughter, adds a romantic nuance to the story when she falls for Jackson. And as in any story about a pop singer anywhere, Jackson manages to belt out a few songs. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Drug abuse is not funny and this mid '50s melodrama does not want the audience to forget that for a minute as it tells the low-budget exploitative tale of a good girl gone bad. Her downward spiral started with a single puff on a marijuana cigarette. From there it was pills and after that it was only a matter of time before she began injecting heroin. Fully addicted, her life became a lurid nightmare as she struggled constantly to maintain the "high" her body craved. Even accidents and hospitalization cannot stop the mad demon inside and soon she becomes a dealer. It is only after the police capture her that she is forced to get the monkey off her back and start upon a new, more productive life. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

A Rage in Heaven was based on a novel by James Hilton, who thanks to Lost Horizon and Goodbye Mr. Chips was a "hot property" in 1941. Going through many of the same paces he'd trod in Night Must Fall, Robert Montgomery stars as British steel mill owner Philip Monrell, whose outward charm and insouciance disguises the fact that he suffers from hereditary insanity. Throughout his life, Monrell has successfully sidestepped responsibility by hiding behind the accomplishments of his best friend, Ward Andrews (George Sanders). When he marries Stella Bergen (Ingrid Bergman), his mother's pretty travelling companion, the neurotic Monrell becomes obsessed with the belief that Andrews is trying to steal Stella away from him-and thanks to his paranoia, Andrews and Stella do indeed fall in love. Unsuccessful in his efforts to murder Andrews, Monrell decides to exact a bizarre revenge by committing suicide and planting enough clues so that Andrews will be charged with his murder! Though absent from the final half-hour of A Rage in Heaven, Robert Montgomery continues to dominate the proceedings; indeed, for a while it looks as though he will "win" in the end after all. Making her third Hollywood film appearance, Ingrid Bergman felt that the role of Stella Bergen was inadequately suited to her and did her best to drop out of the picture; reportedly, she was mollified when MGM promised to let her play against type as the "bad" girl in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Adapted from the novel by Howard Spring, My Son My Son stars Brian Aherne as a self-made success determined to give his son the lavish upbringing he himself was denied. Not surprisingly, the son (Louis Hayward) grows up spoiled rotten, causing grief and pain to everyone who loves him. The limit comes when the boy tries to steal his father's lady friend (Madeline Carroll). When World War I breaks out, the son displays the noble streak that he has hidden so long by dying a hero's death. Its uplifting ending at odds with the darker denouement of the original novel, My Son My Son is high-class soap opera made workable by the multilevelled performances of Brian Aherne and Louis Hayward. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Back at Hal Roach Studios for the first time since 1938's Block-Heads, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy star in the uneven but generally rewarding A Chump at Oxford. The boys are cast as street-sweepers who hope to better their lot in life by attending night school. Fate intervenes when Stan and Ollie are instrumental in the capture of a bank robber, whereupon they are rewarded by the bank's grateful president (Forbes Murray) with an all-expenses-paid education at England's Oxford University. Arriving on the venerable old campus dressed in Eton jackets, our heroes are pounced upon by a group of prankish students and subjected to all manner of practical jokes. After spending most of the night trying to escape from a maze, Stan and Ollie are installed in their "new quarters"-which turns out to be the bedroom of the Dean (Wilfred Lucas). This sort of collegiate nonsense comes to an end when it is discovered that simple-minded Stan is actually Lord Paddington, the brainiest student and finest athlete that ever attended Oxford. According to Meredith the valet (Forrester Harvey), His Lordship wandered away from the university upon being rendered an amnesiac by a blow on the head. An accidental tap on the noggin restores Stan to his aristocratic Lord Paddington status, whereupon he beats up a crowd of bullying students and deposits them one by one in a nearby ditch. Though Ollie is aghast to learn that Stan-er, His Lordship-has no recollection of their previous friendship, he decides to stay on at Oxford as Paddington's manservant. After having been humiliated once too often by his vain and condescending employer, Ollie angrily packs his bags and prepares to head for home, when yet another bop on His Lordship's skull causes him to revert to lovable, bumbling old Stan again. Originally intended as a four-reeler (running approximately 45 minutes), A Chump at Oxford was completed in the spring of 1939, whereupon Laurel and Hardy were loaned out to producer Boris Morros to star in The Flying Deuces. When shooting was finished on the latter film, the team was summoned back to Roach to film a 2-reel "prologue" for Oxford, bringing the film's running time up to 63 minutes. The new footage consisted of a reworking of the boys' 1928 comedy From Soup to Nuts, with temporary servants Stan and Ollie unintentionally wrecking a dinner party held by Mr. and Mrs. Vandevere (played by veteran L&H supporting players James Finlayson and Anita Garvin). The patchwork stucture of A Chump at Oxford works against its overall effectiveness, but the scenes in which Stan Laurel undergoes a complete change of character as the genius-level Lord Paddington more than make up for the film's earlier shortcomings. One of the students (the tall, mustachioed one) is played by Peter Cushing, in his second Hollywood film appearance. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

There's no folly like a Blind Folly, as scripters H.F. Maltby and John Hunter strive to prove in this British comedy. Gus McNaughton plays the head of a criminal gang who heads to the spot where they had long before hidden their stolen loot. Alas, the cache of cash is now sequestered somewhere in a roadhouse that has been built on the site of the hiding place. Now the criminals are forced to steal what they've already stolen--and to keep Clifford Mollison, the inn's current owner, in the dark. Lilli Palmer provides decoration as Mollison's girlfriend. Blind Folly was distributed in the United Kingdom by RKO British. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide