Alan Webb

England, 1850s. A master criminal aims to rob a train of a large sum of gold. Security is incredibly tight and the task seems an impossible one. However, he has a plan and just the right people to carry it out. Sutherland and Connery wish to rob a moving train's safe in Victorian England. They need wax impressions of keys, coffins, dead cats, and a great deal of planning in order to pull it off. —John Vogel <jlvogel@comcast.net> In 1855, Edward Pierce (Sir Sean Connery) plans to do something that has never been done, rob a moving train. His target is the monthly shipment of gold destined to the Crimea for British soldiers who are there fighting the Russians. The twenty-five thousand pounds sterling in gold is stored in two locked Chubb safes that requires four separate keys to be opened. One key is held by the President of the bank; the second by its senior manager; and the two remaining keys by the station master. Along with his accomplices, Agar (Donald Sutherland) and Miriam (Lesley-Anne Down), he sets about acquiring each of them. Once in hand, they must now find a way to break into the luggage compartment where the safes are located, off-load the gold, and then go about their merry way without being caught. It doesn't quite go as planned, but a good thief always have a back-up plan. —garykmcd 1855. Edward Pierce (Sir Sean Connery), a member of London high society, is really a criminal mastermind. He is determined to steal the twenty-five thousand pounds sterling of gold shipped once a month via train by the handling bank, Huddleston and Bradford, from London to Folkestone on the coast, where it is shipped to Crimea as payment to the English troops, who, along with their French counterparts, are waging war there against Russia. There has never been a successful robbery on a moving train, which is considered folly by the authorities. Because of the nature of the safe in the luggage compartment of the train where the gold is kept, Pierce believes the easiest way into the safe is to obtain copies of the four keys required to open the safe, the four which are individually entrusted to three key people, who cannot know that copies have been made. Two are kept locked in the offices of the railway despatcher; one is kept in an unknown location by Huddleston and Bradford President, Edgar Trent (Alan Webb); and one is kept at all times around the neck of the bank branch Manager, Henry Fowler (Malcolm Terris), an acquaintance of Pierce's. Pierce needs the assistance of several people to pull off the heist, he enlisting: his beautiful mistress, Miriam (Lesley-Anne Down), who hopes the gold will mean a future for the two of them together; Robert Agar (Donald Sutherland), a screwsman; Barlow (George Downing), his chauffeur; "Clean Willy" (Wayne Sleep), a young cat burglar; and Burgess (Michael Elphick), the railway's security guard in the luggage compartment, who he will need to bribe to cooperate. Getting copies of the four keys is no easy task in and of itself, let alone getting the gold off the train undetected if they are able to get that far. They may have to turn to Plan Bs or Cs if they find the situation changes, and/or improvise on the spot if something doesn't work. But the large number of disparate individuals involved in the heist and the complexity of the plan may make the operation collapse under its own weight. —Huggo In 1855, Edward Pierce plays the business gentleman to get access in a London club to Victorian high society marks for his smart thefts. The fiend sets his mind on the regular trainload of gold from London to Folkestone to be shipped to the British troops in the Crimean war, having overheard the banker boast it's perfectly safe, with four keys for the unbreakable safe aboard divided among bank and rail gentleman, and nobody ever robbed a moving train. Pierce recruits a team including pickpocket Agar, his own brothel 'mistress' Miriam, and even cat burglar 'Clean Willy', who specially escapes from prison and has to be put down after the police lean on him. They painstakingly make unnoticed copies of all keys, but on the day find extra safety measures require improvisation, which renders it far more dangerous. —KGF Vissers

Set in the late 1590s, the film opens when Lucentio (Michael York), a young nobleman, arrives in Padua, Italy to attend the local university with his servant and best friend Tranio (Alfred Lynch). After attending a graduate ceremony with outbound students graduating, Lucentio catches sight of the young and beautiful teenage Bianca (Natasha Pyne) the daughter of a wealthy merchant named Baptista (Michael Hordern). Bianca is eyed and courted by a number of good-looking and well-to-do young men who follow her to her home. However, Baptista announces that Bianca cannot be courted or marry until her elder sister, and his older daughter, Katharine (Elizabeth Taylor) is wed. As Katharine is out-spoken and far from demure, none of the men in the town want to marry her, so Bianca remains unwed even though many suitors hover to woo her. Lucentio sees the competition and devises a plan in which he disguises himself as a Latin tutor, named Cambio, in order to woo Bianca behind Baptista's back and at the same time has Tranio pretend to be him. Meanwhile, two noblemen named Hortensio (Victor Spinetti) and Gremio (Alan Webb), plot to try to woo Katharine hoping to either marry her or find someone to marry her off too. Their debate changes when Petruchio (Richard Burton), a rough-and-ready land owner, arrives in Pauda, accompanied by his personal servant Grumio (Cyril Cusack), having left Verona (the same city which 'Romeo and Juliet' takes place). Petruchio explains to Hortensio, an old friend of his, that since his father's death he has set out to enjoy life and wed. Hearing this, Hortensio recruits Petruchio as a suitor for Katherina. He also has Petruchio present him (Hortensio) to Baptista disguised as a music tutor named Litio (complete with a fake beard and eyeglasses). Thus, Lucentio and Hortensio attempt to woo Bianca while pretending to be the tutors Cambio and Litio respectively. The next day, Petruchio and his entourage, whom are Grumio, Hortensio, Gremio, Lucentio and Tranio, arrive at the Baptista household where he meets Katherine for the first time and falls in love with the fiery femme. After a furious, aggressive, and combative courtship he proposes to her. Katherina agrees to marry Petruchio after seeing that he is the only man willing to counter her quick remarks. However at the wedding the following week, Petruchio makes an embarrassing scene when he strikes the priest and drinks the communion wine. After the wedding, Petruchio takes Katherina to his home outside Verona against her will and through pouring rain where she gets soaking wet. Petruchio and Katherina move into his rustic mansion where their combative relationship continues challenging Katharine's sense of honor. Back in Padua, Lucentio confesses to Bianca that he is not a student, but the son of one of the most respected men in town, and the couple decides to marry with Baptista's blessing. In Verona, Petruchio begins the "taming" of his new wife. She is refused food and clothing because nothing - according to Petruchio - is good enough for her; he claims that perfectly cooked meat is overcooked, a beautiful dress doesn't fit right, and a stylish hat is not fashionable. He also disagrees with everything that she says, forcing her to agree with everything that he says, no matter how absurd; on their way back to Padua to attend Bianca's wedding, she agrees with Petruchio that the sun is the moon, and proclaims "if you please to call it a rush-candle. Henceforth, I vow it shall be so for me." Meanwhile, Hortensio has married a rich widow. In the final scene, there are three newly married couples; Bianca and Lucentio at their wedding party; the nameless widow and Hortensio, and Katherina and Petruchio. Because of the general opinion that Petruchio is married to a shrew, a good-natured quarrel breaks out amongst the three men about whose wife is the most obedient. Petruchio proposes a wager whereby each will send a servant to call for their wives, and whichever comes most obediently will have won the wager for her husband. Katherina is the only one of the three who comes, winning the wager for Petruchio. She then hauls the other two wives, including Bianca, into the room, giving a speech on why wives should always obey their husbands. The film ends with Baptista, Hortensio and Lucentio marveling at how successfully Petruchio has "tamed the shrew".

Beautiful mother of five Jo leaves the banality of her marriage to second husband Giles to wed her passionate screenwriter lover, Jake Armitage. As her suspicion of Jake's philandering grows, Jo's sanity spirals. Screenwriter Jake Armitage (Peter Finch) and his wife Jo (Anne Bancroft) live in London with six of Jo's eight children; the two eldest boys are at boarding school The children are spread over Jo's three marriages; only the youngest is Jake's biological child, but he treats them all as his own. Jo left her second husband Giles (Richard Johnson) after meeting Giles' friend Jake; the two were immediately attracted to each other. Their upper-middle-class life is very different from Giles and Jo's; who lived in a barn in the English countryside. But Jo is ruminating about her strained marriage to Jake, with issues on both sides. Jo suspects Jake of chronic infidelity, only confronting him with her suspicions whenever evidence presents itself. Jo's psychiatrist believes that she uses childbirth as a rationale for sex, which he believes she finds vulgar. The combination of these issues has placed Jo in a fragile metal state. Both state that they love each other, but neither seems to like the other much. As they prepare to move back to the English countryside, into a new house within sight of Jo's old barn, both Jo and Jake come to their own unspoken individual conclusions of whether their marriage can withstand these strains.