It's a 60-year old film that still resonates today

Cone of Silence (aka "Trouble in the Sky") (1960)
Starring: Michael Craig, Bernard Lee, Peter Cushing, Elizabeth Seal, Gordon Jackson, George Sanders, Noel Willman, Marne Maitland, and Andre Morell

Director: Charles Frend

Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

An aging pilot (Lee) is blamed for a near-crash with the latest passenger jet design, the Phoenix. While the designer of the jet (Willman) and a pilot-turned-airline-executive (Cushing) are pushing all the blame onto pilot error, a training pilot (Craig) starts to discover evidence that the problem may be with the aircraft design.

"Cone of Silence" is a nice little drama that revolves around the business and politics involved in running an airline and the processes by which mistakes and accidents are investigated, blame is assigned, and steps are taken to understand why the mistake or accident happened and how they can be prevented from occurring again. In the hands of less talented people, and with a cast that wasn't comprised entirely of top-notch actors--with even smaller roles being filled by the likes of Gordon Jackson, George Sanders, and Andre Morell--this could easily have turned into a preachy melodrama. Instead, we're treated to some nice performances by talented actors and a character-driven story that's made even more suspenseful by the fact that the audience knows there's going to another plane crash (or several) than just the one that got pinned on old Captain Gort (played with great charm by Bernard Lee) at the outset.

One interesting aspect of the film is that none of the major characters are ever acting out of malice--every character has blind spots/fatal flaws that contribute to the film's chain of events, but there isn't anyone who can truly be described as villains. Everyone is acting in a way that they believe forwards the greater good, and in the interest of truth and public safety. (There is one character who remains as apparently shady and misguided at the end of the film as he seemed at the beginning, but even he is more arrogant than outright bad.)

Further, with the plane crashes that have been dominating the news about the airline industry in recent years, this sixty year-old movie still has relevance today. I suspect that you'll find the exact same personalities in those same jobs, performing the same functions, today as you did back then... and I think that they'll behave in much the same fashion and be motivated by the same outlooks as those in "Cone of Silence."

If you have some time, you can watch "Cone of Silence" from this very post. I think you'll enjoy it. It's got fine performances from Elizabeth Seal, in her only starring role, as a dutiful daughter hoping that her father's name will be cleared; Michael Craig striking a nice balance between earnest and smarmy as a cocky pilot; and Peter Cushing as a "company man" trying to find a truth that is most beneficial to growing the bottom line. (It may be because I'm a huge fan of him, but I think that out of all the cast Cushing gave the most excellent of performances. He communicates more with a shift in body language, a darting of the eyes, or a slight change in tone than pages of dialog might reveal about a character. I don't recall ever seeing him give a bad performance, but he is particular excellent in this film.)

The Avengers Dossier, Page Five

Continuing the mini-profiles of supporting players in Season Four episodes of "The Avengers":

ANDRE MORELL

In "Death at Bargain Prices", Andre Morell played Horatio Kane. He's an eccentric businessman who's grown embittered with society and who has withdrawn from public life and taken up residence on the top floor of a department store he owns. From here, he is overseeing his ultimate deal and money-making scheme.

Andre Morell was born in London, in 1909. He was a classically trained actress who began his professional career at the Old Vic in the early 1930s, and transitioned into television with parts in screen adaptions of classic novels and various other made-for-television movies during the late 1930s. For the next three decades, and into the 1970s, Morell was a fixture on British television, as well as a familiar face in big screen thrillers and horror films during the 1950s and 1960s from the legendary Hammer Films and other studios, His appearance along side Peter Cushing in "Cash on Demand" being a favorite here at Shades of Gray. 

Playing Horatio Kane in "Death at Bargain Prices" was Morell's second appearance on "The Avengers". He was also in the Season Three episode "The Death of a Batman" as a different character. 

Morell, who had started smoking at the age 14, passed away from lung cancer in 1978. 

The Avengers: Death at Bargain Prices

Death at Bargain Prices (1965)
Starring: Patrick Macnee, Diana Rigg, Andre Morell, T.P. McKenna, John Castor, and Allen Cuthbertson
Director: Charles Crichton
Rating: Ten of Ten Stars

When the mysterious death of a government agent traces back to a department store owned by a reclusive millionaire (Morrel), top secret agents John Steed (Macnee) and Emma Peel (Rigg) uncover a scheme to wipe London from the map and hold the entirety of Great Britian for ransom.

"Death at Bargain Prices" is another perfect episode of "The Avengers". We get great banter between Steed and Peel; we have a fascinating and highly intelligent villain who very nearly bests our heroes--even after he himself has been defeated; we a talented supporting cast portraying interesting characters among whom it's difficult for both the Avengers and the viewers to tell ally from enemy; and we have the unusual setting of a high-end department store used effectively and to its fullest extent.

From serving as a vehicle for veiled observations on the way British society was changing in the 1960s--with centuries-old class structures and gender roles melting and morphing and melding, something that's also embodied in the styles and characterizations of both John Steed and Emma Peel--to providing a backdrop from the climactic confrontation between the Avengers and the villains who want to blow up London.

As Steed and Peel conduct their investigation--with Steed undercover as an efficiency expert, and Peel (under protest) taking a job there (under protest) as a shop girl--we get to see that some floors are the traditional upscale store, with traditional staff divisions, but others are being renovated and out of service for the time being, as they are being reworked for modern days. The owner of the store, an old-school industrialist brilliantly played by Andre Morrell is living in a private apartment and storage area on the facility's top floor, embittered at a society and peers that have rejected him and are leaving him behind. Peels interactions with her male coworkers, and some of Steed's hilarious but over-the-top sexist jokes illustrate how women's place in society was changing. It's all very clever commentary... and it's delivered wrapped up in a package of light-hearted action and excitement.

And that excitement is at its finest during the episodes climactic moments where there is another spectacular mix of the goofy and the deadly serious, as the Steed and Peel square off against the bad guys in a fight that starts in the toy section and moves through the departments of the store, getting increasingly lethal as it goes. Even after the bad guys have been put down, the heroes still have to deal with the issue of finding and stopping a nuclear bomb from going off. 

From beginning to end, and in every way, this is one of the best episodes from Season Four of "The Avengers".

'Cash on Demand' is an excellent thriller

Cash on Demand (1961)
Starring: Peter Cushing, Andre Morell, and Richard Vernon
Director: Quentin Lawrence
Rating: Nine of Ten Stars

A bank manager (Cushing) is forced to assist in plundering his own bank when a robber (Morell) holds is wife and child hostage.


This is an undeservedly obscure thriller with stars Peter Cushing and Andre Morell showing that you don't need hundreds of millions of dollars, gunplay and lots of violence to make an exciting movie. Most of this film takes place within a single room--the bank manager's office--and most of it is Cushing and Morrel talking. This is a movie that shows that a great film can arise from a solid script, good actors, and competent direction and editing. (This film cost about $60,000, adjusted for inflation; not single shot is fire; and the worst violence is when Andre Morrel slaps Cushing a couple of times.)

The film is a remarkable entry into the psychological thriller genre, one of roughly a dozen of this type of film co-produced with Columbia Pictures during the early 1960s in the hopes of capturing the success Universal Pictures and Alfred Hitchcock had with "Psycho." This wasn't new territory for Hammer, however, as they had released numerous crime dramas and thrillers during the 1940s and 1950s, before the studio hit cinema gold with their celebrated Technicolor gothic horror flicks.

But the black-and-white thrillers the studio produced during the early 1960s were better than those earlier efforts, and "Cash on Demand" is one of the best.

The film's strength comes to a large degree from Peter Cushing and his portrayal of Fordyce, a man who treats the bank he manages as his kingdom, his staff as serfs, and his office as his throne room. He is an unliked and unlikable in his professional life, but Cushing presents Fordyce's soft side with a single glance at the picture of his wife and son that he keeps on his desk... and that one glance is all the audience needs to be on Fordyce's side once Andre Morell's villanious and manipulative Hepburn enters the bank and turns Fordyce's throne room into his prison and forces him to destroy his kingdom in order to save his the ones he loves.

We feel for Fordyce as he is reduced from a proud and unyielding to sniveling and begging. But we also watch to see how far Hepburn can push Fordyce, if Fordyce will break, and what the result will be if he does.

But Cushing's performance wouldn't be as strong if he didn't have Andre Morell to play off. Morell presents Hepburn as a charming, cheerful person and he delivers every line with a smile in his voice... but in a couple of instances, he reveals his character's true nature and it becomes apparent that he is a mirror image of Fordyce: Fordyce is a soft man within a cold, hard shell, but Hepburn is a hard man with an even harder core hidden behind a soft and smiling exterior. Hepburn has seen through Fordyce's exterior and he takes a great deal of pleasure at breaking it down while lecturing him on proper interaction with his fellow man. The humanistic approach that Hepburn takes to life--and it is one that seems to be genuine, not just part of his picking at Fordyce as he waits for the right moment to clean out the bank vault--makes him a fascinating and interesting character.

One of the biggest surprises is the film's ending. It is a far more modern one that I anticipated, and it's a great close for a great film. Another appealing aspect is that the film, which takes place just before Christmas, ultimately ends up like a sideways take on "A Christmas Carol," with Fordyce standing in for Scrooge and Hepburn being all the Christmas Ghosts in one smiling--yet very menacing--package.

"Cash on Demand" is one of the six movies featured in "Icons of Suspense: Hammer Films." It's worth the price of the almost all by itself.




For more reviews of movies starring Peter Cushing, visit The Peter Cushing Collection by clicking here.