Peter Proud Movies

This suspenseful crime drama finds a jealous husband hiring a killer to murder his supposedly unfaithful wife. Donald Edwards (Michael Gough) imports the German hit man Kersten (Hans Borsody) to murder his wife Helen (Erika Remberg). He suspects her of having an affair with Robert (John Justin). The usually cold-blooded hit man first agrees to the assignment, but he soon becomes convinced that Helen is innocent of any wrongdoing. When he refuses to kill Helen, he is confronted by the irate husband, something which leads to an inevitable showdown. The feature was filmed in 1962. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

This British comedy details what happens to five sailors and a passenger as they spend fifteen hours on shore leave in London while waiting for their cargo ship to unload. The passenger, a lonely widowed business man named George (Bernard Lee), finds his way to a West End bar, where he meets Wanda (Erika Remberg), a seductive blackmailer, working in cahoots with photographer Paul (Derek Bond). Meanwhile, Lee (John Bonney), an Australian sailor, meets and falls in love with wacky beatnik Penny (Heather Sears). Arthur (David Lodge) tells the sailors that he is going to visit his mother when, in reality, he is heading off to seek a prostitute. Rough-and-tumble Harry (Inigo Jackson) finds himself robbed and left penniless after visiting a Soho saloon. Shy and naive Jamie (Colin Campbell) falls in love with the homeless Jean (Francesca Annis). As the hours go by, Jamie has to decide whether to leave Jean or to jump ship and marry her. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

An engrossing suspenser with dashes of comedy, League of Gentlemen is about a daring group of highly trained army men, turned bank robbers. When Hyde (Jack Hawkins) is drummed out of the army after years of devoted service, he decides to get back at society in general. One by one, he finds seven other army officers who are now broke and who walk on the shady side of the law. All eight men go into hiding as they plan the robbery with the care and attention of a behind-the-lines reconnaissance mission. As they undertake tasks like raiding a military depot for explosives and similar stunts, suspense and incidental humor increase, leading up to bank day when the really big show has to be pulled off without a hitch. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

A mother provides a lousy example for her daughter in this gritty, realistic drama. The mother is a mistress of manipulating the sympathies of others for her own gain. Rather than working, she solicits the sympathy of others. Like her mother, the daughter is equally manipulative and ends up with a rich husband. Her mother decides to go straight and get a real job, but it may be too late for the daughter who forges a check and gets caught. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

At a World War II emergency hospital, a postman dues under anesthetic during a relatively minor operation. One of the nurses who was present announces that the man's death was no accident, but a murder -- and then she, too, is murdered. The police are called in, led by Inspector Cockrill (Alastair Sim) of Scotland Yard, and he soon determines that any one of the five surviving members of the surgical team might have had a motive for the murders. In the course of his investigation, he also uncovers an array of both eccentric and ugly personal information about most of those present, but no killer that he can ascertain for certain. He must finally draw the murderer out by putting one of the suspects at risk. In the midst of the suspense are moments of droll comedy, of the sort that one would expect from a movie made by the authors of The Lady Vanishes, along with a palpably rich late wartime atmosphere which, surprisingly, did not repel war-weary audiences on either side of the Altantic. Indeed, Sim is so beguilingly witty and charismatic in his eccentric way as Inspector Cockrill, that the wonder is that there was never a follow-up movie or even a series built around his character. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

This mystery is set within a synthetic rubber factory. The trouble begins when the senior business partner is murdered. Just before his death, he claimed that a mysterious man had been threatening him. A murder investigation begins. It reveals that the partner was not murdered; he died from a terminal illness. He kept it secret so his foundering company could collect on the insurance money. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In this musical, two students from an English music conservatory elope and go to London. There, the young husband becomes a nightclub singer. Trouble ensues when he begins an affair with a socialite. The despairing wife decides to separate from her spouse. Eventually they are reunited with a little help from a man who has had a secret love for the bride. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

The first film version of The Man Who Knew too Much proved to be the international "breakthrough" film for British director Alfred Hitchcock, transforming him from merely a talented domestic filmmaker to a worldwide household name. While vacationing in Switzerland, Britons Leslie Banks and Edna Best befriend jovial Frenchman Pierre Fresnay. Not long afterward, Fresnay is murdered. He whispers a secret in Banks' ear before expiring. This is witnessed by several sinister foreign agents, who kidnap Banks' daughter Nova Pilbeam to keep him from revealing what he knows: That a diplomat will be assassinated during a concert at London's Albert Hall. Unable to turn to the police, Banks desperately attempts to rescue his child himself, still hoping to prevent the assassination. The film's now-famous setpieces include the "Siege of Sidney Street" re-creation and the climactic clash of cymbals at Albert Hall, followed by the crucial scream of Edna Best. German film star Peter Lorre made his English-speaking debut in The Man Who Knew Too Much, though he was still monolingual in 1934 and had to learn his lines phonetically. Written by A. R. Rawlinson, Charles Bennett, D.B. Wyndham Lewis, Emlyn Williams and Edwin Greenwood (an impressive lineup for a 75-minute film!), Man Who Knew Too Much was remade by Hitchcock himself in 1956. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Anxious to finish off his contract with British International Pictures, Alfred Hitchcock agreed to direct Waltzes from Vienna, a schmaltzy musical about "waltz king" Joseph Strauss and his son Joseph Jr. Edmund Gwenn stars as the elder Strauss, with Esmond Knight as his talented progeny. The crux of the film is the intense rivalry between the two Strausses, which is somehow resolved by the inaugural performance of Joseph Junior's "The Blue Danube." Displeased with his work in this film, Hitchcock at one point threw up his hands and confessed to his actors "I hate this sort of stuff. Melodrama is the only thing I can do." Hitch regarded Waltzes in Vienna and his silent Champagne as his worst films, and never directed anything like them again. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide