Joyce Carey Movies

This romantic comedy finds Candida (Barbara Ferris) going to live with her elderly spinster aunts after the death of her father. Finding things very unexciting there, she quickly leaves for Paris and enrolls in a university to study. She becomes pregnant after meeting a young student at a museum. When the baby is born, she manages to convince the nosey relatives she is just caring for the baby of a friend. A trip to Italy finds her in the arms of an American man and Candida is soon pregnant again. A woman gives her baby to Candida as she prepares to leave for home at the train station. She suddenly has two young babies and another on the way, getting far more education than she had bargained for. Her main confidant is Savage (Harry Andrews), her late father's caretaker, to whom she reveals the truth about her experiences. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

Mother regales his two elderly aunts with the thrilling story of "The Great Great Britain Crime." It seems that a group of international criminals planned, Ocean's Eleven-style, to steal all Britain's great treasures simultaneously, using a phony missile attack on London as their cover. Only the two aunties are at all surprised when the villains are thwarted by Steed and Tara. Utilizing generous library footage from the unaired Avengers episode "The Great Great Britain Crime," "Homicide and Old Lace" first aired in America on March 17, 1969, and in England nine days later. The original episode, and its new "wraparound" segments, were written by series stalwart Malcolm Hulke. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The philosophies and practices of London policewomen provide the basis of this exciting and interesting docu-drama that centers on three such women. The film is also known as Street Corner. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

This deliberately paced British film about a black rural priest and a white landowner whose paths cross in 1940s South Africa remains one of the most powerful cinematic statements on racism. Based on Alan Paton's landmark novel, Cry the Beloved Country is, in hindsight, naïve in its belief that apartheid would be easier to overcome than history proved it to be, but its intentions are certainly in the right place and it never trivializes the importance of the issue. To the credit of both Paton and director-producer Zoltan Korda, the film maintains a dignity and relevancy that is not always true of other "message" movies from the 1940s and '50s. Partly, this is because the characters, both black and white, are much more fully developed than a Hollywood production would have allowed them to be. Another factor is that the filmmakers do not resort to heavy-handedness, and instead allow the story to speak for itself. Knowing that the film was actually shot on location in South Africa during the height of apartheid only compounds the impact of this film. Canada Lee, as the priest Kumalo, and Charles Carson, as the farmer Jarvis, give stunning, multi-layered performances as two men who must go through a wrenching emotional experience. The solid supporting cast includes Joyce Carey as Jarvis' wife and a twenty-something Sidney Poitier as a Johannesburg priest. More than forty years later, after apartheid's fall, Cry the Beloved Country was remade with James Earl Jones and Richard Harris. ~ Bob Mastrangelo, All Movie Guide

The British TV sitcom Father Dear Father originally ran from 1968 through 1973. Veteran farceur Patrick Cargill starred as a divorced father with two nubile daughters. Complications ensued when the girls moved into the flat just below Cargill's. You may recognize this property as the basis for the 1980s Ted Knight series Too Close For Comfort. This feature-film version of Father Dear Father merely rehashes plot devices from the series; neither of the property's original writers, Brian Cooke and John Mortimer (of Rumpole of the Bailey fame) seem to have been involved in the movie adaptation. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Disney's Greyfriars Bobby is a remake of A Challenge to Lassie; both are based on the same novel by Eleanor Atkinson, and both feature Donald Crisp in a major role. A true story, set in Edinburgh around 1875, the Disney version stars Alex McKenzie as the shepherd Old Jock, the owner of a loyal Skye terrier named Bobby. When Jock dies of "old age, exposure, and starvation," and is buried in the Edinburgh cemetery known as Greyfriars Kirk, Bobby spends his days playing with street children, begging for scraps, and evading the police constables, but by night he sleeps on his late master's gravesite and refuses to leave, despite graveyard caretaker John Brown's (Crisp) efforts to chase Bobby away. Slowly but surely, the taciturn Brown comes to love the steadfast dog, which brings him into conflict with stiff-necked Constable MacLean (Donald MacRae), who intends to "arrest" Bobby if Brown doesn't pay the minimal license fee. Standing on principle, Brown refuses, but a group of local children raise the necessary funds, setting the stage for a heartwarmingly Disneyesque finale. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Few morale-boosting wartime films have retained their power and entertainment value as emphatically as Noël Coward's In Which We Serve. To witness Coward's sober, no-nonsense direction (in collaboration with his co-director/editor, David Lean) and to watch his straightforward portrayal of navy captain Kinross, one would never suspect that he'd built his theatrical reputation upon sophisticated drawing-room comedies and brittle, witty song lyrics. The real star of In Which We Serve is the British destroyer Torrin. Torpedoed in battle, the Torrin miraculously survives, and is brought back to English shores to be repaired. The paint is barely dry and the nuts and bolts barely in place before the Torrin is pressed into duty during the Dunkirk evacuation. The noble vessel is finally sunk after being dive-bombed in Crete, but many of the crew members survive. As they cling to the wreckage awaiting rescue, Coward and his men flash back to their homes and loved ones, and, in so doing, recall anew just why they're fighting and for whom they're fighting. Next to Coward, the single most important of the film's characters is Shorty Blake, played by John Mills. (Trivia note: Mills' infant daughter Juliet Mills appears as Shorty's baby.) Even so, the emphasis in the film is on teamwork; here as elsewhere, there can be no stars in wartime. For many years, the only prints available to television were from the bowdlerized American version, which crudely cut out all "hells" and "damns." Fortunately, this eviscerated American release has since been shelved in favor of the full, glorious 115-minute version. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Screenwriter Robert Bolt's directorial debut is a lushly romantic saga concerning the 1812 love affair between the wife of William Lamb, Lord of Melbourne, and the author of the poem Childe Harold, Lord Byron. Excited and embarrassed by the attendant affections heaped upon him, Byron found his writing talent waning, and in 1813 the lovers ended their affair. In her first novel, Glenarvon in 1816, Lady Lamb included a satiric portrait of her former lover. But when she later witnessed Byron's funeral in 1828, she was so affected by his death she never mentally recovered from the trauma. The film charts the doomed romantic course for Lady Caroline Lamb (Sarah Miles), beginning with her marriage to the politically promising William Lamb (Jon Finch) and continuing with her scandalous affair with Byron (Richard Chamberlain). The film then chronicles Lady Caroline Lamb's supreme sacrifice on behalf of her husband's political career. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

A man is forced to prove who he really is -- and discovers that it isn't as easy as one might think -- in this drama. Sir Mark Loddon (Dirk Bogarde) is a titled member of the British aristocracy who lives a life of wealth, privilege, and notoriety, until one day Jeffrey Buckenham (Paul Massie), a pilot from Canada, makes a startling accusation. Buckenham and Loddon were both inmates in the same POW camp during WWII, and Buckenham is convinced that Loddon is not the man he claims to be; Frank Welney, an actor who was also a prisoner in the same camp, bore a striking resemblance to Loddon, and he is convinced that the actor has taken Loddon's place. The press picks up Buckenham's story, and the question of Loddon's identity becomes the talk of all England; Lady Maggie Loddon (Olivia de Havilland), Mark's wife, is deeply offended and insists that he sue for libel to restore his good name. Mark obtains the services of Sir Wilfred (Robert Morley), one of the nation's best-respected attorneys, but it soon becomes evident that proving Mark's identity in court may not be as simple as it might seem; Mark suffered severe head injuries during the war that cause him to stutter at times and also result in periodic spells of amnesia; the testimony of the many witnesses called by Sir Wilfred and his opponent, Hubert Foxley (Wilfrid Hyde-White), establish no clear consensus of who Loddon really is. Libel was based on the popular stage drama by Edward Wooll. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Essentially a one-joke comedy hanging on the thinnest of plots, this routine series of slapstick situations is directed by Don Chaffey and concerns the ineptitude of an Air Force officer, Captain Kingsley (Jimmy Edwards). The likeable Captain has a fixation on mechanical contrivances, but at the same time he is an accident waiting to happen. The wait is never long, and so the Prime Minister himself orders everyone into action when the Captain comes up missing -- who knows what disaster may lie in the wings. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

After spending most of the 1950s in Europe, writer/director Robert Siodmak filmed his only picture in England: The Rough and the Smooth (US title: Portrait of a Sinner). Based on a novel by Robin Maugham, the story concerns a young archaeologist (Tony Britton), engaged to marry the daughter (Natasha Parry) of a wealthy publisher (Donald Wolfit). At the last moment, the archaeologist leaves his bride-to-be for a nymphomaniac (Nadja Tiller) with a masochistic streak. He must wrest her away from an abusive relationship with a no-good lout (William Bendix). Even Robert Siodmak was embarrassed by the lunatic excesses of Rough and the Smooth, dismissing the film with "I've seen worse, but not much worse." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this light-hearted crime drama, a rivalrous pair of reporters team up to solve the murder of a prominent artist's wife. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide