Centering on a lesser-known chapter in the lengthy reign of Queen Victoria, Mrs. Brown is a sensitive, richly detailed drama about the extraordinarily complex and intimate friendship that she developed with her loyal servant John Brown, a relationship that scandalized the entire country and even threatened the stability of the crown. Two superlative performances, by legendary stage actress Judi Dench (in her first leading screen role) and Billy Connolly, elevate this costume yarn way above the level of a well-mounted Masterpiece Theater production.

In this melodrama, directed by Tay Garnett, MGM’s favorite star of the 1940s, Greer Garson, plays a poor American woman who marries into wealth (husband is Walter Pidgeon), determined to conquer Victorian society. Garson, then 35, ages in the course of the story; she appears in old-lady makeup for most of the time. The tale, […]

Directed and written by Jean Negulesco, The Mudlark stars Irene Dunne as the reclusive widowed Queen Victoria. Andrew Ray plays the mudlark, an illiterate London street urchin who, having seen a picture of Queen Victoria on a coin, is determines to meet her.  He sneaks into Windsor Castle, where the Queen has sequestered herself since […]

Set in Osaka in the 1950s, Kohei Oguri’s “Muddy River,” which was nominated for the 1981 Best Foreign Language Film Oscar, is an absorbing tale of friendship between two vastly different boys. The protagonist, Asahara, who’s 9, live with his parents, who own a small restaurant. He befriends Sakurai, who lives with his mother in […]