D'Artagnan and his fellow Musketeers plot to replace the ineffectual Louis XIV of France with his secretly imprisoned twin brother Phillipe, who is the firstborn and rightful King.
The clash of cultures seen in Outcast of the Islands, is displaced between the Europeans (Trevor Howard plays a Dutchman), Wendy Hillier, Robert Morley and Ralph Richardson. The other, native is occupied by the partially blind Babalatchi (George Coulouris) and Aissa (Kerima) and a multitude of nameless indigenous characters. The opponents to the whites and, to a lesser extent, of the natives are the Arabs, led by Abdullah. The struggle by all three groups for mastery of the economic opportunities of these territories is crystallised in attempts by Willems, an involuntary exile to satisfy his own needs, who along the way compromises his livelihood.
A classic suspense-filled thriller from some of British cinema's greatest talents. The Fallen Idoltells the story of Philippe (Bobby Henrey), the young son of a diplomat who, trying to understand the adult world as seen through the eyes of a child, lies to defend those closest to him. When his butler friend Baines (Ralph Richardson) is suspected of murdering his wife, the vital information that Philippe holds falls on deaf ears Director Carol Reedand Graham Greene collaborated, as they did on The Third Man, to create this exquisitely crafted, intelligent thriller, which once more demonstrates the unique spark that these two mavericks brought to British cinema. With magnificent performances from Richardson and the child actor Henrey, and evoking comparisons with, among others, Alfred Hitchcock, this classic thriller garnered Academy Award® nominations for Best Director and Best Screenplay.
In exchange for political asylum Polish defector Leiser (Jones) agrees to return behind the Iron Curtain to confirm the suspicions of the British Security Chief that East Germany is building a rocket in violation of the disarmament pact. Once in East Berlin Leiser falls in love with a beautiful young girl and the couple decide to flee the espionage experts - both East and West - to start a new life together. But they soon find themselves pawns in the brutal game where the stakes are
Eureka Entertainment to release KHARTOUM, a spectacular and rousing historical epic starring Charlton Heston and Sir Laurence Olivier, as part of the Eureka Classics range in a Dual Format (Blu-ray & DVD) edition on 3 December 2018. The kind of lavish, rousing historical adventure spectacle that doesn't seem to exist anymore, Khartoum is a majestic, star-studded, BAFTA and Oscar-nominated epic that finds director Basil Deardon (Victim) delivering a feast for the eyes, as well as a pointed study of English colonialism, religious fanaticism, and the nature of heroism and sacrifice. In 1880s Sudan, thousands of British-led Egyptian troops are massacred by the forces of Arab fanatic Muhammad Ahmad (Sir Laurence Olivier), who believes he is the Mahdi, and nothing less than Mohammed's chosen warrior in battling against Anglo-Egyptian rule. Legendary Major General Charles George Gordon (Charlton Heston) is sent by Prime Minister William Gladstone (Ralph Richardson) to save the city of Khartoum from the Mahdi, but given only one aide (Richard Johnson), limited support from the British government that sent him there, and a fearless opponent determined to create a new empire, Gordon sees that further bloodshed is imminent. With impressive battle sequences given greater weight by philosophical and moral debates about the righteousness of military action, Khartoum is a widescreen extravaganza and was the final film to be shot using Ultra Panavision 70 (and screened theatrically in Cinerama) until Quentin Tarantino's The Hateful Eight in 2015. Features: 1080p presentation (on Blu-ray) from a gorgeous high-definition transfer Presented in the film's correct aspect ratio of 2.76:1 LPCM 2.0 Audio Optional English SDH subtitles Audio Commentary with Film Historians Lem Dobbs, Julie Kirgo, and Nick Redman Exclusive new video interview with film historian Sheldon Hall Original theatrical trailer PLUS: A collector's booklet featuring a new essay by Phil Hoad, alongside a selection of rare archival imagery
Laurence Olivier produces, directs and stars in this glorious adaptation of Shakespeare's masterpiece - Richard III. Having helped his brother King Edward IV (Cedric Hardwicke) take the throne of England, the jealous hunchback Richard, Duke of York (Laurence Olivier), plots to seize power for himself. Masterfully deceiving and plotting against nearly everyone in the royal court, including his eventual wife, Lady Anne (Claire Bloom), and his brother George, Duke of Clarence (John Gielgud), Richard orchestrates a bloody rise to power before finding all his gains jeopardized by those he betrayed. Winner of multiple BAFTAs including Best British Film and Best British Actor this a stunning restoration produced in collaboration with The Film Foundation.
A global war begins in 1940. This war drags out over many decades until most of the people still alive (mostly those born after the war started) do not even know who started it or why. Nothing is being manufactured at all any more and society has broken down into primative localized communities. In 1966 a great plague wipes out most of what people are left but small numbers still survive. One day a strange aircraft lands at one of these communities and its pilot tells of an organisation which is rebuilding civilization and slowly moving across the world re-civilizing these groups of survivors. Great reconstruction takes place over the next few decades and society is once again great and strong. The world's population is now living in underground cities. In the year 2035 on the eve of man's first flight to the moon a popular uprising against progress (which some people claim has caused the wars of the past) gains support and becomes violent.
Starring alongside Ralph Richardson and Valerie Hobson, Laurence Olivier portrays a test pilot engaged in secret experimental missions in this witty, cleverly plotted World War Two spy drama. Briskly directed by Hollywood veteran Tim Whelan and featuring typically innovative art direction from Vincent Korda, Q Planes is presented here in a brand-new transfer from the original film elements. The frequent disappearance of new bombing planes on their trial flights - one off the coast of ...
Ralph Richardson and Roland Young head the cast in this film in which a group of heavenly observers decide to bestow magical powers on a mild mannered draper's assistant George Fotheringay (Roland Young) with amazing results. At first George doesn't realise the extent of his gift and uses it to play tricks to impress and woo Ada Price (Joan Gardner). When others try to exploit George's gift for their own ends he is dismayed by their selfishness and takes it upon himself to assert moral authority. When things start getting out of hand the celestial beings decide it is time to intervene. Based on the novel by H.G Wells.
Directed by DAVID LEAN and written by TERENCE RATTIGAN, THE SOUND BARRIER is about the men who challenged the speed of sound, told from the viewpoint of central character, Sir John Ridgefield (RALPH RICHARDSON). The oil tycoon and aircraft constructor is determined to manufacture a supersonic jet that will travel faster than the speed of sound. Ridgefield's desire to reach this goal has already led to the death of his test pilot son (DENHOLM ELLIOTT), and his daughter Susan's (ANN TODD) fighter-pilot husband (NIGEL PATRICK). Shocked at the death of her husband and her father's disregard of human life in his single-minded determination to achieve his goal, Susan walks out on him. Unperturbed, Ridgefield approaches another pilot with the challenge of piloting his test craft. The film marked a departure from the domestic or literary concerns which had characterized the director David Lean's choice of subject matter to date. Its heroics pre-empted his later films Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) and Lawrence of Arabia (1962).
With Time Bandits, only his second movie as director, Terry Gilliam's barbed humour and hyperactive visual imagination got themselves gloriously into full gear. Sketched out in a matter of weeks over Michael Palin's kitchen table while Gilliam struggled to get his dream project Brazil off the ground, this is a children's film made by a director who "hates kid films" and all the "mawkish sentimental crap" that goes with them. The 11-year-old hero, Kevin, finds himself lugged out of his suburban bedroom and off through a series of wormholes in time and space by a gang of rapacious, bickering midgets in search of loot, en route encountering (and casually despoiling) a gallery of eminent historical figures that include Agamemnon, Napoleon and Robin Hood, along with assorted ogres, giants and monsters. As co-screenwriters, Gilliam and Palin cheerfully filch ideas from everyone from Homer and Jonathan Swift to Lewis Carroll and Walt Disney, while the sets--as always with Gilliam--ingeniously work towering miracles on puny budgets. "The whole point of fairy tales", according to Gilliam, "is to frighten the kids" and Time Bandits taps into some archetypal nightmare imagery. But the whole farrago is much too good-humoured to be seriously scary. Not least of the movie's pleasures are a series of ripe cameos from the likes of Ian Holm as an irascible Bonaparte, Sean Connery good-humouredly spoofing his own image as Agamemnon, John Cleese's version of Robin Hood as inanely condescending minor royalty ("So you're a robber too! Jolly good!"), David Warner hamming it up gleefully as the Evil Genius, and the great Ralph Richardson playing the Supreme Being as a tetchy public-school headmaster. On the DVD: Time Bandits on disc comes with a generous wealth of extras. Along with the expected trailer--sent up Python-style by a disaffected voice-over--we get excerpts from Gilliam's storyboard and notated script, filmographies for Gilliam, Palin, Connery and David Rappaport (the leader of the vertically challenged gang), stills, production shots, a scrapbook with cast photos and drawings, notes on the film and plenty more background data, plus a cheerfully relaxed 27-minute interview with Gilliam and Palin. There's also an informative and appealingly unpretentious full-length commentary shared between Gilliam, Palin, Cleese, Warner and Craig Warnock, who played Kevin. The transfer, clean and crisp, is in the original full-width ratio, and there's a choice of Dolby Stereo or Dolby 5.1 sound. --Philip Kemp
Uses astonishing visuals to tell the intersecting stories of George Mallory, the first man to attempt a summit of Mount Everest, and Conrad Anker, the mountaineer who finds Mallory's frozen remains 75 years later.
A classic adaptation of Shakespeare's play. Richard III has helped to put his older brother Edward on the throne of England. But jealousy and resentment cause Richard to seek the crown for himself and he conceives a lengthy and carefully calculated plan using deception manipulation and outright murder to achieve his goal. His plotting soon had tumultuous consequences both for himself and for England when after Edward IV is murdered - drowned in a vat of wine - Richard finds his kingdom in dire peril and must defend his realm at the battle of Bosworth.
Much like Richard Adams' wonderful novel this animated tale of wandering rabbits is not meant for small children. It is, however, rich storytelling, populated with very real individuals inhabiting a very real world. The animation is problematic, sometimes appearing out of proportion or just below par; but it seems to stem from an attempt at realism, something distinguishing the film's characters from previous, cutesy, animated animals. A band of rabbits illegally leave their warren after a prophecy of doom from a runt named Fiver (voiced by Richard Briers). In search of a place safe from humans and predators, they face all kinds of dangers, including a warren that has made a sick bargain with humankind, and a warren that is basically a fascist state. Allegories aside, Down is engaging and satisfying, and pulls off the same amazing trick that the novel did--you'll forget that this is a story about rabbits. --Keith Simanton, Amazon.com
Tony Palmer's epic film was made in 1982/3 to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Wagner's death. Filmed in 200 locations throughout Europe, many where the actual historical events took place, with a team from 19 different countries, the entire production was completed in less than a year. Sadly Wagner was to be Richard Burton's last major role, but the stellar cast - including Laurence Oliver, John Gielgud, Ralph Richardson, Vanessa Redgrave, Lszl Gllfi, Gemma Craven, Ekkehardt Schall, Richard Pasco, Marthe Keller, Gabriel Byrne, Franco Nero, Ronald Pickup, Corin Redgrave, Cyril Cusack, Prunella Scales, Andrew Cruickshank, Joan Greenwood, Liza Goddard, Bill Fraser, Arthur Lowe, Joan Plowright, with composer Sir William Walton in a cameo role - assembled partly because of him.Only now is the film being released on DVD as its director Tony Palmer wishes it to be viewed. Previously it's been seen in badly edited versions and been made available on DVD (reproduced from poor-quality VHSs) with sub-standard pictures and sound. Finally, here is the restored presentation as it was originally edited by Tony Palmer in its complete 7 hours 46 minutes duration, issued in wide-screen, re-mastered in Hi-Definition. The music, performed by the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Sir Georg Solti with singers including Dame Gwyneth Jones and Peter Hofmann, has never sounded better, and the astonishing images of cameramen Vittorio Storaro and Nic Knowland have never looked better.The script by Charles Wood remains a miracle of historical compression and accuracy, given that Wagner himself was an appalling fantasist and the truth often hard to ascertain. And Richard Burton, who towers above the production, reminds us what a great actor he was. This is a fitting tribute to his - and to Wagner's - genius.
A "tontine" is drawn up on behalf several young British boys. Each of the boys' parents had placed 1000 pounds in a pool, to be invested and expanded upon. The resultant fortune will go to the last surving member of the tontine. A series of montages depicts the various demises of the heirs. Finally, only two of the tontine participants are left: aged brothers Ralph Richardson and John Mills. On his last legs, Mills is determined that Richardson will not outlive him, and to that end attempts to kill his brother; each attempt fails spectacularly, with the doddering Richardson none the wiser. Standing to benefit from the tontine are Mills' dimwitted med-student son Michael Caine and Richardson's greedy nephews Peter Cook and Dudley Moore. When Richardson is supposedly killed in a train wreck, Cook and Moore don't want the authorities to find out, so they appropriate what they think is their uncle's corpse and ship it home in a box. Thus it is that Caine finds the body of a perfect stranger on his doorstep. The farcical complications begin flying about thick and fast from this point onward. Among the participants in this wacky film are such formidable talents as Peter Sellers, Tony Hancock, Wilfred Lawson, Thorley Walters, Norman Rossington, Irene Handl and Cicely Courtenedge. Based on a novel by Robert Louis Stevenson, The Wrong Box is a delightful harkback to the glory days of Britain's Ealing comedies.
Even now Richard Wagner (1813-83) remains an enigma. His was a rags-to-riches saga with a fairy tale ending. He was loved yet hated admired yet despised a villain yet a hero who was worshipped a man whose fame and exploits were the gossip of Europe. Above all he was an incurable romantic whose love affair with Liszt's illegitimate daughter rivals that of Romeo and Juliet in excitement and drama. But he was also a dangerous political revolutionary whose influence penetrated the
A classic tale of cowardice and bravery Alexander Korda's Oscar-nominated adaptation of A.E.W. Mason's iconic novel is undoubtedly one of the most spectacular of the early Technicolor films. With sweeping battle scenes and a tightly constructed script by Oscar-nominated R.C. Sherriff this is a bold military epic featuring evocative locations and a pounding score by Miklos Rozsa. Showcasing outstanding performances from both John Clements and Ralph Richardson The Four Feathers is featured here in a High Definition transfer made from original film elements in its as-exhibited theatrical aspect ratio. Harry Faversham born into a distinguished military family automatically joins the army with three close childhood friends – Durrance Willoughby and Burroughs. Quickly feeling that he is unsuited to the army life and newly engaged to Ethne he resigns his commission only to be accused of cowardice by his friends. Each sends him the traditional white feather in contempt; the fourth is plucked from Ethne's fan. Realising the disgrace he has brought to himself and his family Harry sets out alone to the distant war to redeem himself... Special Features: Original theatrical trailer A Day at Denham newsreel film Archive 1975 interview with Ralph Richardson Image gallery
In the hazy aftermath of World War III, the fallout from a 'nuclear misunderstanding' (which lasted two minutes and twenty eight seconds, including the signing of the peace treaty) is producing strange mutations amongst the survivors, and the noble Lord Fortnum finds himself transforming into a bed-sitting room. This vividly imagined, darkly satirical filmic version of a post apocalyptic England, directed by Richard Lester (A Hard Days Night, How I Won the War, The Knack) is based on the highly regarded play by Spike Milligan and John Antrobus. It also boasts great performances by the cream of 60s British comedy and acting talent: Rita Tushingham, Ralph Richardson, Peter Cook, Harry Secombe, Dudley Moore, Spike Milligan, Michael Horden, Roy Kinnear, Arthur Lowe, Dandy Nichols and Marty Feldman.
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