Henry Wilcoxon

Danny Noonan (Michael O'Keefe) is an underacheving 17-year-old guy who works as a caddy at the upscale Bushwood Country Club in Beverly Hills to earn enough money to go to college. Danny often caddies for Ty Webb (Chevy Chase), a suave and talented golfer and the son of one of Bushwood's co-founders. Danny decides to gain favor with Judge Elihu Smails (Ted Knight), the country club's stodgy co-founder and director of the caddy scholarship program, by caddying for him. Meanwhile, Carl Spackler (Bill Murray), one of the dim-witted greenskeepers, is entrusted with combating a potentially disastrous gopher infestation. Throughout the film, he tries a variety of methods to kill the gopher (e.g. shooting, drowning) without success. Al Czervik (Rodney Dangerfield), a brash and obnoxious nouveau riche real estate developer, begins appearing at the club. Smails is heckled by Czervik as he tees off, causing his shot to go badly wrong. Smails throws a putter away in frustration and accidentally injures a member of the club. Danny takes responsibility for the incident, as a ploy to gain Smails' trust. Smails encourages him to apply for the caddy scholarship. At Bushwood's annual Fourth of July banquet, Danny and his girlfriend Maggie (Sarah Holcomb) work as servers. Czervik continues to irritate Smails and the club members, while Danny becomes attracted to Lacey Underall (Cindy Morgan), Smails' promiscuous niece. Danny wins the Caddy Day golf tournament and the scholarship, earning him praise from Smails and an invitation to attend the christening ceremony for his boat. The boat is sunk at the event after a collision with Czervik's larger boat. On returning, Smails discovers Lacey and Danny having a tryst at his house. Expecting to be fired or to have the scholarship revoked, Danny is surprised when Smails only demands that he keeps the incident secret. Unable to bear the continued presence of the crude-mannered Czervik, Smails confronts him and announces that Czervik will never be granted membership. Czervik counters by announcing that he would never consider being a member: he insults the place and is merely there to evaluate buying Bushwood and developing the land into condominiums. After a brief scuffle and exchange of insults, Ty Webb suggests they discuss a resolution over drinks. After Smails demands satisfaction, Czervik proposes a team golf match with Smails and his regular golfing partner Dr. Beeper (Dan Resin) against Czervik and Webb. Against club rules, they also agree to a $20,000 wager, quickly doubled to $40,000, on the outcome of the match. That evening, Webb practices for the game against Smails and meets Carl, where the two share a bottle of wine and a joint. The golf match is held the following day. Word spreads of the stakes involved and a crowd builds. During the game, Smails and Beeper take the lead, while Czervik, to his dismay, is "playing the worst game of his life". He reacts to Smails' taunts by impulsively redoubling the wager to $80,000 per team. When his own ricocheting ball strikes him, Czervik feigns injury in hopes of having the contest declared a draw. Lou, the course official who is acting as an umpire, tells Czervik his team will forfeit unless they find a substitute. When Webb chooses Danny, Smails threatens to revoke his scholarship, but Czervik promises Danny that he will make it "worth his while" if he wins. Danny eventually decides he would rather humiliate the selfish, conceited Smails than take the scholarship. By the time they reach the final hole, the score is tied. At the climax of the game, with Danny about to attempt a difficult putt to win, Czervik again redoubles the wager to $160,000 per team. Danny's putt leaves the ball hanging over the edge of the hole. At that moment, Carl, in his latest attempt to kill the gopher, detonates a series of plastic explosives that he has rigged around the golf course. The explosion shakes the ground and causes the ball to drop into the hole, handing Danny, Webb, and Czervik the victory. Smails refuses to pay, so Czervik beckons two hulking men, named Moose and Roco, to "help the judge find his checkbook." As Smails is chased around the course, Czervik leads another wild party attended by all of the onlookers at the match, shouting, "Hey everybody! We're all gonna get laid!" In the final scene, the gopher emerges, unharmed, and dances amid the smoldering ruins of the golf course.

The dramatic lives of trapeze artists, a clown, and an elephant trainer are told against a background of circus spectacle. To ensure a full profitable season, circus manager Brad Braden engages The Great Sebastian, though this moves his girlfriend Holly from her hard-won center trapeze spot. Holly and Sebastian begin a dangerous one-upmanship duel in the ring, while he pursues her on the ground. Subplots involve the secret past of Buttons the Clown and the efforts of racketeers to move in on the game concessions. Let the show begin! —Rod Crawford <puffinus@u.washington.edu> "The Greatest Show on Earth" is a dazzling spectacle of life behind the scenes with Ringling Bros.-Barnum and Bailey Circus, the best three-ring circus in the land. Celebrates the extravagant three-ring circus and depicts the passionate scenes of love and jealousy behind the greatest show on Earth. —Jwelch5742 Brad Braden (played by Charlton Heston) is the manager of a circus. The circus is his life and everything else is secondary. The next most important thing to him is Holly (Betty Hutton), a trapeze artist, but she realises she will always take second place. Then Brad hires a world-famous trapeze artist, The Great Sebastian (Cornel Wilde) and Holly is bumped to second place in the trapeze act. The Great Sebastian has a reputation as a womaniser and Holly soon falls under his spell. —grantss To ensure that the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus stays in the black, rugged, money-oriented manager Brad Braden brings in a famed aerialist known as The Great Sebastian to increase sales. However, as Brad's dogged determination moves ambitious trapeze artist Holly to the second ring, driving her into the arms of another man, the unbridled competition between the duelling star attractions invites heartbreak and disaster. And as profound, turbulent feelings emerge, cryptic clowns and villainous racketeers threaten Braden's future. Yet the circus is above all else. What will it take to keep the greatest show on Earth running? —Nick Riganas

When strongman Samson rejects the love of the beautiful Philistine woman Delilah, she seeks vengeance that brings horrible consequences they both regret. Though his people, the Israelites, are enslaved by the Philistines, Samson (Victor Mature), strongest man of the tribe of Dan, falls in love with the Philistine Semadar (Dame Angela Lansbury), whom he wins by virtue of a contest of strength. But Semadar betrays him, and Samson engages in a fight with her real love, Ahtur (Henry Wilcoxon), and his soldiers. Semadar is killed, and her sister Delilah (Hedy Lamarr), who had loved Samson in silence, now vows vengeance against him. She plans to seduce Samson into revealing the secret of his strength and then to betray him to the Philistine leader, The Saran of Gaza (George Sanders). —Jim Beaver <jumblejim@prodigy.net> Samson (Victor Mature), the hero of the Israelites, wins the hand of a Philistine woman, Semadar (Dame Angela Lansbury), in a contest of strength. When she is killed during a conflict on her wedding night, however, Samson becomes a hunted man, whom the Philistines, including Semadar's sister, Delilah (Hedy Lamarr), want to punish. This becomes complicated, however, when Samson suddenly acquires God-given strength, and Delilah's true feelings for Samson surface. —Jwelch5742

September 1939. Mrs. Kay Miniver (Greer Garson) and her family live a comfortable life at a house called 'Starlings' in Belham, a fictional village outside London, England. The house has a large garden, with a private landing stage on the River Thames at which is moored a motorboat belonging to her devoted husband Clem (Walter Pidgeon), a successful architect. They have three children: the youngsters Toby and Judy (Christopher Severn and Clare Sandars) and an older son Vin (Richard Ney) at university. They have live-in staff: Gladys the housemaid (Brenda Forbes) and Ada the cook (Marie De Becker). As World War II looms, Vin comes down from university and meets Carol Beldon (Teresa Wright), granddaughter of Lady Beldon (Dame May Whitty) from nearby Beldon Hall. Despite initial disagreements (mainly contrasting Vin's idealistic attitude to class differences with Carol's practical altruism) they fall in love. Vin proposes to Carol in front of his family at home after his younger brother prods him to give a less romantic but more honest proposal. Several months later, as the war comes closer to home with the bombing of Great Brittan, Vin feels he must "do his bit" and enlists in the Royal Air Force, qualifying as a fighter pilot. He is posted to a base near to his parents' home and is able to signal his safe return from operations to his parents by cutting his engines briefly as he flies over the house. Together with other boat owners, Clem volunteers to take his motorboat to assist in the May-June 1940 Dunkirk evacuation. Early one morning, Kay unable to sleep as Clem is still away, wanders down to the landing stage. She is startled to discover a wounded German pilot (Helmut Dantine) hiding in her garden and he holds her at gunpoint. Demanding food and a coat, the pilot maniacally asserts that the Third Reich will mercilessly overcome its enemies. She feeds him, calmly disarms him and then calls the police. Soon after, Clem returns home, exhausted, from Dunkirk. Lady Beldon visits Kay to try and convince her to talk Vin out of marrying Carol on account of her granddaughter's comparative youth. Lady Beldon is unsuccessful and admits defeat when Kay reminds her that she, too, was young when she married her late husband. Lady Beldon concedes defeat and realises that she would be foolish to try and stop the marriage. Vin and Carol are married; Carol has now also become Mrs Miniver, and they return from their honeymoon in Scotland. A key theme is that she knows he is likely to be killed in action, but the short love will fill her life. Later, Kay and her family take refuge in their Anderson shelter in the garden during an air raid, and attempt to keep their minds off the frightening bombing by reading Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, which Clem refers to as a "lovely story" as they barely survive a bomb destroys parts of the house. They take the damage with nonchalance. At the annual village flower show, Lady Beldon silently disregards the judges' decision that her rose is the winner, instead announcing the entry of the local stationmaster, Mr. Ballard (Henry Travers), named the "Mrs. Miniver" rose, as the winner, with her own rose taking second prize. As air raid sirens sound and the villagers take refuge in the cellars of Beldon Hall, Kay and Carol drive Vin to join his squadron. On their journey home they witness fighter planes in a 'dogfight'. For safety, Kay stops the car and they see the German plane crash. Kay realises Carol has been wounded by shots from the plane and takes her back to 'Starlings'. She dies a few minutes after they reach home. Kay is devastated. When Vin returns from battle, he already knows the terrible news. Unexpectedly he is the survivor, and she the one who gives her life for England. The villagers assemble at the badly damaged church where their vicar (Henry Wilcoxon) affirms their determination in a powerful sermon: "We in this quiet corner of England have suffered the loss of friends very dear to us, some close to this church. George West, choirboy. James Ballard, stationmaster and bellringer, and the proud winner only an hour before his death of the Beldon Cup for his beautiful Miniver Rose. And our hearts go out in sympathy to the two families who share the cruel loss of a young girl who was married at this altar only two weeks ago. The homes of many of us have been destroyed, and the lives of young and old have been taken. There's scarcely a household that hasn't been struck to the heart. And why? Surely you must have asked yourselves this question? Why in all conscience should these be the ones to suffer? Children, old people, a young girl at the height of her loveliness? Why these? Are these our soldiers? Are these our fighters? Why should they be sacrificed? I shall tell you why. Because this is not only a war of soldiers in uniform. It is the war of the people, of all the people. And it must be fought not only on the battlefield but in the cities and in the villages, in the factories and on the farms, in the home and in the heart of every man, woman and child who loves freedom. Well, we have buried our dead, but we shall not forget them. Instead they will inspire us with an unbreakable determination to free ourselves, and those who come after us, from the tyranny and terror that threaten to strike us down. This is the People's War. It is our war. We are the fighters. Fight it then. Fight it with all that is in us. And may God defend the right." A solitary Lady Beldon stands in her family's church pew. Vin moves to stand alongside her, united in shared grief, as the members of congregation rise and stoically sing "Onward, Christian Soldiers", while through a gaping hole in the bombed church roof can be seen flight after flight of RAF fighters in the V-for-Victory formation heading out to face the enemy.