89% (2) The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp 163 min, Not Rated, [Drama, Romance, War] [Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger] [04 May 1945]Ratings & Reviews: IMDb Reviews: 82%, Rotten Tomatoes: 96%, External Reviews
Awards: 1 win & 2 nominations.
Actors: Anton Walbrook, Deborah Kerr, Roger Livesey, Roland Culver
Writer: Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger
External Links: Rotten Tomatoes IMDb Language: English, French, German Country: UK
Plot: Portrays in warm-hearted detail the life and loves of one extraordinary man. We meet the imposingly rotund General Clive Wynne-Candy, a blustering old duffer who seems the epitome of stuffy, outmoded values. Traveling backwards 40 years we see a different man altogether: the young and dashing officer "Sugar" Candy. Through a series of relationships with three women and his lifelong friendship with a German officer, we see Candy's life unfold and come to understand how difficult it is for him to adapt his sense of military honor to modern notions of "total war."
Rotten Tomatoes: Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's much-lauded epic Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, which satirizes British traditionalism, stirred up impassioned hostilities and indignations among the Brits when released in 1943. It so infuriated Winston Churchill, in fact, that he refused to allow its exportation to other countries, particularly the U.S. When Blimp finally did premiere in the States in 1945, it screened in a drastically cut version. The sweeping story covers several decades. It begins at the tail end of the Boer War, when handsome young British officer Clive Candy, recently back from the battlefront, is infuriated by his discovery that Deutschland papers have played up the British atrocities in South Africa, propagandistically. He grows so irate, in fact, that he travels to Germany to address the problem. Once there, he meets an attractive British educator, Edith Hunter (Deborah Kerr) who spends her days teaching English as a second language to German students. They grow close, but Candy so aggravates the local indigenes that he winds up in a duel with a German officer, Theo Kretschmar-Schuldorff (Anton Walbrook). The men wound each other and are sent to the same hospital, where they become friends. Candy - who doesn't yet realize he's fallen in love with Edith -- senses that Theo and Edith are attracted to one another, and encourages the couple's marital union. Candy subsequently returns to England, then falls for and marries Barbara (again played by Kerr), a nurse who bears a strong resemblance to Edith. She later dies, but Candy meets a third woman during WWII, Johnny (Kerr a third time), assigned to drive him from one locale to another during his campaigns. Meanwhile, Theo - disgusted by Nazi atrocities -- absconds to England, where he reencounters his old friend, now a prattering old shuffler rapidly approaching the end of his career and raving continuously about Nazi conduct (or lack thereof) in battle. Powell and Pressberger adapted Colonel Blimp from a comic strip; it became one of the hallmarks of their careers. ~ Sidney Jenkins, Rovi
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88% (2) 'I Know Where I'm Going!' 91 min, Not Rated, [Drama, Romance] [Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger] [09 Aug 1947]Ratings & Reviews: IMDb Reviews: 76%, Rotten Tomatoes: 100%, External Reviews
Actors: Duncan MacKechnie, George Carney, Roger Livesey, Walter Hudd, Wendy Hiller
Writer: Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger
External Links: Rotten Tomatoes IMDb Language: English, Scottish Gaelic Country: UK
Plot: Joan Webster is an ambitious and stubborn middle-class English woman determined to move forward since her childhood. She meets her father in a fancy restaurant to tell him that she will marry the wealthy middle-aged industrial Robert Bellinger in Kiloran island, in the Hebrides Islands, Scotland. She travels from Manchester to the island of Mull, where she stays trapped due to the windy weather. Whilst on the island, she meets Torquil McNeil and as the days go by they fall in love with each other.
Rotten Tomatoes: While awaiting access to England's Technicolor cameras for their upcoming super-production Stairway to Heaven, the producer-director team of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger dashed off a delightful "personal" project, I Know Where I'm Going. Young middle-class Englishwoman Joan Webster (Wendy Hiller) is determined to have the finer things in life, and to that end she plans to marry Sir Robert Bellinger (Norman Shelley), a wealthy, middle-aged industrialist whom she does not love. En route to the Island of Mull, where her future husband resides, Joan is stranded in a colorful Scottish seacoast town. Inclement weather keeps her grounded for a week, during which time she falls in love with young, insouciant naval officer Torquil McNeil (Roger Livesey). Ignoring the dictates of her heart (not to mention common sense), Joan stubbornly insists upon heading out to sea towards her marriage of convenience, but the exigencies of Mother Nature finally convince her that her future resides on the Mainland. A winner all the way, I Know Where I'm Going is full of large and small delights, including a wonderful sense of regional detail and endearing, three-dimensional characterizations (even the mercenary heroine is a likeable character). The film is easily one of the best of the Powell-Pressburger films of the 1940s, and arguably the team's all-time best romantic drama.
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80% (2) The League of Gentlemen 116 min, UNRATED, [Comedy, Crime, Thriller] [Basil Dearden] [15 Apr 1960]Ratings & Reviews: IMDb Reviews: 75%, Rotten Tomatoes: 86%, External Reviews
Awards: Nominated for 1 BAFTA Film Award. Another 1 win.
Actors: Jack Hawkins, Nigel Patrick, Richard Attenborough, Roger Livesey
Writer: John Boland (novel), Bryan Forbes (screenplay)
External Links: Wikipedia Rotten Tomatoes IMDb Language: English Country: UK
Plot: Involuntarily-retired Colonel Hyde recruits seven other dissatisfied ex-servicemen for a special project. Each of the men has a skeleton in the cupboard, is short of money, and is a service-trained expert in his field. The job is a bank robbery, and military discipline and planning are imposed by Hyde and second-in-command Race on the team, although civilian irritations do start getting in the way.
Rotten Tomatoes: 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.
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75% (2) The Entertainer 96 min, [Drama] [Tony Richardson] [02 Dec 1960]Ratings & Reviews: IMDb Reviews: 71%, Rotten Tomatoes: 80%, External Reviews
Awards: Nominated for 1 Oscar. Another 1 win & 4 nominations.
Actors: Brenda de Banzie, Joan Plowright, Laurence Olivier, Roger Livesey
Writer: John Osborne (adapted from the play by), John Osborne (screenplay), Nigel Kneale (screenplay)
External Links: Wikipedia Rotten Tomatoes IMDb Language: English Country: UK
Plot: On the far side of middle age, Archie Rice lives in a British seaside resort with his father, retired successful vaudevillian Billy Rice, second wife Phoebe Rice, and doting son Frank Rice. Following in retired Billy's footsteps, Archie is a song-and-dance music hall headliner, with Frank supporting his dad as his shows' stage manager. The waning popularity of Archie's type of shows, a dying form of entertainment, is not helped by Archie's stale second rate material, which brings in small unappreciative crowds. Archie clings to his long held lifestyle, including heavy drinking and chronic infidelity, of which Phoebe is aware. What Archie has not told his offspring is that Phoebe was his mistress while he was still married to their now deceased mother. His want to be a music hall headliner is despite his financial problems, he an undischarged bankrupt who now signs Phoebe's name to everything. Phoebe wants them to escape this life to something more stable, such as the offer from her relations to manage a hotel in Ottawa, Canada, while Archie, always one step ahead of his creditors for his current show, wants to mount another for the winter season. Long suffering Phoebe often drowns her sorrows with booze. One person in their immediate family who has somewhat escaped their life is Archie's daughter, Jean Rice, an art school teacher in London, she who is still trying to find her place in the world. Her pre-engagement boyfriend Graham wants her to move to Africa with him for a job, which she is reluctant to do if only because of not yet being ready to leave her dysfunctional family behind, they who she still feels to need to watch over. Unlike Archie, Jean is more concerned about the fact of her brother Mick Rice just having been shipped overseas to fight in the Suez Crisis. Archie's steps in his determination to mount that new show, seemingly at any cost, may break the family apart once and for all.
Rotten Tomatoes: Laurence Olivier recreates his stage role of Archie Rice in this in-your-face film adaptation of John Osborne's play. The son of a legendary music hall comedian (Roger Livesey), Archie is strictly a third-rater, headlining a tacky music hall revue in a seedy seaside resort town. Archie can't admit that he's a failure, and his grim insouciance destroys everyone around him. Archie finagles his dying father into financing one last revue; he cheats shamelessly on his alcoholic wife (Brenda De Banzie); and he all but forces one of his sons (Albert Finney) to run off to join the army, only to die in the Suez. Through all his personal crises, Archie jigs and jabbers before his ever-diminishing audience, but by the end of the film he isn't even entertaining himself. Joan Plowright, who married Olivier shortly after completing The Entertainer, plays the film's one sympathetic character: Archie's daughter, whose love for her father blinds her to his flaws. The Entertainer was remade for television in 1976, with Jack Lemmon as Archie Rice and original songs by Marvin Hamlisch.
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68% (1) Girl in the News 78 min, [Crime, Thriller] [Carol Reed] [31 Jan 1941]Ratings & Reviews: IMDb Reviews: 68%, External Reviews
Actors: Barry K. Barnes, Emlyn Williams, Margaret Lockwood, Roger Livesey
Writer: Sidney Gilliat (screenplay), Roy Vickers (from the novel by)
External Links: Rotten Tomatoes IMDb Website Language: English Country: UK
Plot: Nurse Anne Graham is controversially - but rightly - acquitted of murder after her elderly patient dies in suspicious circumstances. Changing her name she gets a position nursing wheelchair-bound Edward Bentley, little suspecting that his wife and the butler are lovers setting Anne up so that when Bentley is found dead it looks like a repeat of the earlier case.
Rotten Tomatoes: In this serpentinely plotted mystery, a butler poisons his boss and begins framing the attending nurse knowing full well that she had been acquitted of a similar poisoning years before. The truth is eventually revealed, after many plot twists and blind alleys, and justice prevails.
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66% (1) The Master of Ballantrae 90 min, Approved, [Action, Adventure, History, Romance] [William Keighley] [05 Aug 1953]Ratings & Reviews: IMDb Reviews: 66%, External Reviews
Actors: Anthony Steel, Beatrice Campbell, Errol Flynn, Roger Livesey
Writer: Herb Meadow (screenplay), Harold Medford (additional dialogue)
External Links: Wikipedia Rotten Tomatoes IMDb Language: English Country: USA, UK
Plot: Buckle on your swashes for this swashbuckling adventure with a highlander who fought for Bonnie Prince Charlie who, after various escapades, becomes a pirate.
Rotten Tomatoes: Errol Flynn buckled his last swash in The Master of Ballantrae, playing out the final film of his Warner Brothers contract in this high seas adventure, liberally adapted from the Robert Louis Stevenson yarn. Flynn plays Jamie Durrisdeer, a Scottish heir, who fights for freedom against the British. When the rebels are defeated, Jamie must flee to the West Indies with Col. Francis Burke (Roger Livesey), an Irish soldier of fortune, in order to escape capture. After battling pirates, Jamie puts together a small fortune and returns to Scotland to marry his true love, Lady Alison (Beatrice Campbell). But Jamie's hopes are dashed when he finds that Lady Alison, thinking that Jamie was dead, is now engaged to his brother Henry (Anthony Steel), who may have betrayed Jamie to the English.
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