Ralph Richardson

Harold Pinter’s 1975 play, adapted for television by Granada in 1978.

A legendary pairing for John Gielgud and Ralph Richardson, No Man’s Land is Pinter at his most ethereal and individual. Pinter’s obsession with memory making victims of us all is the starting point for this tale of Hirst, a wealthy writer haunted by his past, and Spooner, the man without a past who tries to rescue him. Spooner’s personality is built on a bundle of self-inventions that are likely to topple at any moment. It is a play of despair, of emptiness, vague in its diction and purveying an air of loneliness and waste. As a hypnotic treatise on the pipe dream of a past made good, it is a spellbinding, haunting cautionary tale.Read More »

From Carol Reed, the renowned director of Night Train to Munich, Odd Man Out, The Fallen Idol, The Third Man, The Man Between, Trapeze and Oliver!, comes this thrilling drama starring Ralph Richardson (The Sound Barrier), Trevor Howard (The Offence), Robert Morley (When Eight Bells Toll), Wendy Hiller (Separate Tables), Kerima (The Devil Is a Woman), George Coulouris (Citizen Kane), Wilfrid Hyde-White (The Browning Version) and James Kenney (The Slasher). When the immoral Peter Willems (Howard) is accused of stealing in his position at a Dutch East Indies port, he persuades the man who gave him his start in life, the merchant ship captain Lingard (Richardson), to take him up-river to a secret trading post on a remote Indonesian island. There, he falls in love with the beautiful native woman Aissa (Kerima), as the cunning Babalatchi (Coulouris) tries to trick and blackmail him into disclosing the entrance of the secret trading route. Beautifully shot in black-and-white by John Wilcox (The Last Valley) and Edward Scaife (An Inspector Calls), Outcast of the Islands is a compelling adaptation of Joseph Conrad’s classic novel.Read More »

A butler working in a foreign embassy in London falls under suspicion when his wife accidentally falls to her death, the only witness being an impressionable young boy.Read More »

Plot summary
After a masterful performance as Othello in a London theater ‘Ralph Richardson’ is asked for an autograph by Fred, his dresser. A short while later, Fred has joined the Fleet Air Arm (Fly Navy) and has become a hero, rescuing a pilot from his burning plane. When Fred goes to Buckingham Palace it’s Ralph’s turn to ask for an autograph.Read More »

One man’s dreams of success take him on a Byzantine journey through the various stations of the British class system in this politically charged black comedy from director Lindsay Anderson. Mick Travis (Malcolm McDowell) is an ambitious young man who is looking to get his foot on the first rung of the ladder of success by landing a job as a salesman. After the death of Imperial Coffee’s leading drummer in the North, Travis’ charm and enthusiasm so impresses manager Mr. Duff (Arthur Lowe) that he’s given the job, and after some coaching from Gloria Rowe (Rachel Roberts), Travis sets out to find his fortune in the coffee trade.Read More »

Nora Helmer has years earlier committed a forgery in order to save the life of her authoritarian husband Torvald. Now she is being blackmailed lives in fear of her husband’s finding out and of the shame such a revelation would bring to his career. But when the truth comes out, Nora is shocked to learn where she really stands in her husband’s esteem.
Read More »

A colorful action film about the Battle Of Thermopylae in 480 B.C. in which the Spartans defend themselves for a Persian invasion against overwhelming odds. King Leodinas (Richard Egan) rallies the locals to stop the attack of thousands of plundering Persian invaders led by evil King Xerxes (David Farrar). Sir Ralph Richardson as Themistocles of Athens leads the international cast this the spectacular cinematic conflict that has more emphasis on action rather than historical accuracy.
— Dan PavlidesRead More »

The Heiress is set in the late 1840s, largely in the opulent New York townhouse of Dr Austin Sloper (Ralph Richardson in his first Hollywood performance). Sloper idolises his dead wife and cruelly dismisses his doting daughter Catherine (Olivia de Havilland) as inferior in every respect: she’s awkward, plain and shy in company. In consequence, he encourages his widowed sister Lavinia Penniman (Miriam Hopkins), who has recently joined the household, to coach Catherine in the social graces.Read More »

A group of rabbits flee their doomed warren and face many dangers to find and protect their new home.

Criterion essay:
Watership Down delivers all the stuff of a solid animated adventure. Its visual style is naturalistic, even cautious, but often quietly lovely. There’s clever interplay among the nervous Fiver, the gently heroic Hazel, and the blowhard Bigwig, and there’s some genuinely funny comedy involving Zero Mostel’s extravagantly accented seagull. The climactic battle is ingenious and exciting. General Woundwort is one of the truly scary cartoon villains. That solidity gives us a comfortable place to stand while the story opens up to less familiar terrain.Read More »