Francis "Frank" Finlay, CBE (b. 6 August 1926, Farnworth, near Bolton, Lancashire, England) is a British stage, film and television actor of English, Irish and Scottish descent.
Finlay began his stage career in rep before graduating from RADA. There followed several appearances at the Royal Court Theatre, notably in the Arnold Wesker trilogy. He is particularly associated with the National Theatre, especially during the Olivier years and its predecessor, the Chichester Festival Theatre, where he played a wide variety of roles ranging from the First Gravedigger in Hamlet to Saint Joan, Hobson's Choice, Much Ado About Nothing, The Dutch Courtesan, The Crucible, Mother Courage, Juno and the Paycock and culminating in his controversial Iago to Lord Olivier's title character in the film Othello.
Finlay's original stage performance of Iago as an NCO left critics unmoved, but later received high praise when the play was filmed and earned him an Academy Award nomination.
He was also seen on ...
Created by dipity on Feb 7, 2008
Last updated: 03/10/10 at 10:30 PM
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Lifeforce is a 1985 science fiction film directed by Tobe Hooper. Screenplay by Dan O'Bannon and Don Jakoby, from the novel Space Vampires by Colin Wilson. Starring Steve Railsback, Peter Firth, Frank Finlay, Mathilda May, Patrick Stewart, Aubrey Morris, Michael Gothard, Nicholas Ball.
While investigating Halley's Comet, an Anglo-American space mission aboard the space shuttle HMS Churchill finds a large spaceship hidden in the comet's nucleus. Upon entering the spacecraft, the shuttle crew finds three human bodies, two male and one female (played by Mathilda May), in suspended animation in the spacecraft. The shuttle starts the return trip to Earth with the three beings. On Earth, Mission Control loses communication with the shuttle. As it nears Earth, a rescue mission is conducted. The rescuers find the Churchill gutted by fire, except for the three suspended animation cases bearing the aliens. The three are taken to earth where they eventually unleash havoc. They are actually...,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089489
The Wild Geese is a 1978 film about a group of mercenaries in Africa. It stars Richard Burton, Roger Moore, Richard Harris and Hardy Krüger. The film was the result of a long-held ambition of its producer Euan Lloyd to make an all-star adventure film similar to The Guns of Navarone.The film was based on an unpublished novel titled The Thin White Line by Rhodesian author Daniel Carney. The film was re-named The Wild Geese and Carney's novel was subsequently published under that title by Corgi Books.The novel was based upon rumors and speculation following the 1968 landing of a mysterious airplane in Rhodesia, which was said to have been loaded with mercenaries and "an African President" believed to have been a dying Moise Tshombe.Allen Faulkner (Richard Burton), a British mercenary, is hired by merchant banker Sir Edward Matherson (Stewart Granger), to rescue Julius Limbani, the former leader of a central African country, who is due to be executed by the military dictator who overthrew...
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090323
Murder by Decree is a 1979 Anglo-Canadian film involving Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson in the case of the serial murderer Jack the Ripper. As Holmes investigates London's most infamous case, he finds that the Ripper has friends in high places. The film's story of the plot behind the murders is taken from the book Jack the Ripper: The Final Solution by Stephen Knight.The movie was directed by Bob Clark. It stars Christopher Plummer and James Mason as Holmes and Watson, respectively, and presents a largely different version of Holmes from the Rathbone days, with the aesthete still prevailing, yet tinged with a humanity and emotional empathy. James Mason's Dr. Watson is also a departure. Although he may appear at first to resemble the bumbling Nigel Bruce version of the character, he soon shows his level head and scientific and medical training to be valuable assets. The supporting cast includes Donald Sutherland, Susan Clark, John Gielgud and Geneviève Bujold. Frank Finlay plays ...
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0079592
The Four Musketeers is the title of a 1974 Richard Lester film, which follows upon his film of the previous year, The Three Musketeers, and covers the second half of Dumas' novel. See The Three Musketeers. Fifteen years later, the cast and crew returned to film The Return of the Musketeers, loosely based on Dumas' Twenty Years After.
During post production on The Three Musketeers, the producers realized that there was enough footage for two films and split the film in two, creating The Four Musketeers. Most of the actors were incensed that their work on the long shoot was used to make an entirely separate film. All SAG actors' contracts now have what is known as the "Salkind clause", which stipulates how many films are being made. Charlton Heston — who was handsomely paid for what was essentially a cameo role — was the only actor who did not feel cheated.
This is much the darker of the two films. There is less of the lighthearted horseplay seen in the first film. Constance is murdered...
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0073012
Shaft in Africa, released in 1973, is the third film in the trilogy of films that starred actor Richard Roundtree as John Shaft. John Guillermin directed and Stirling Silliphant did the screenplay. The cost went up to $2,142, 000, but the gross fell to $1,458,000. MGM quickly sold the property to television, but the television series was cancelled after just seven episodes.
While in Africa, John Shaft is persuaded by threats of physical force, the promise of money, and the lure of a pretty tutor, to assume the identity of a native-speaking itinerant worker in the country. His job is to help break a racket that is smuggling immigrants into Europe then exploiting them. But the villains have heard that he is on his way.
Shaft must pass a test before being hired for the job; the test involves him surviving in a small, overheated room without water, and a floor covered in deep sand, mimicking the supposed conditions of Africa. Shaft ingeniously covers himself with the sand, thereby...,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070679
The Three Musketeers is a 1973 film based on the novel by Alexandre Dumas, père. Directed by Richard Lester and written by George MacDonald Fraser (famous for his Flashman series of historical comic novels). The film was originally intended to run for three hours, but later the film was split in two (resulting in 1974's The Four Musketeers). The actors themselves were not informed that they were working on two films simultaneously, only Charlton Heston — handsomely paid for his handful of scenes — did not feel cheated by this duplicity. In 1989, the cast and crew returned to film The Return of the Musketeers, loosely based on Dumas' Twenty Years After.
The film adheres strongly to the novel, but it also injects a fair amount of humour. The films were shot by David Watkins, with an eye for period detail. The fight scenes were choreographed by master swordsman William Hobbs and turn the swashbuckling movies of the Forties and Fifties on their collective ear; these are more like brawls,...
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0072281
Cromwell is a 1970 film, based on the life of Oliver Cromwell, the Lord Protector of Great Britain and Ireland. It stars Richard Harris in the title role, with Alec Guinness as King Charles I of England, Robert Morley as Edward Montagu, 2nd Earl of Manchester and Timothy Dalton as Prince Rupert of the Rhine.
Disgusted with the policies of King Charles I, Oliver Cromwell plans to take his family to the New World. But on the eve of their departure, he is drawn into the tangled web of religion and politics that will result in the English Civil War.
Although publicity for the movie boasted that it had been made "after ten years' research", it has been criticised for its historical inaccuracies:
...,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0065593
Twisted Nerve is a 1968 film about a disturbed young man, Martin, who pretends to be a mentally retarded child, George, in order to be near Susan, a girl he has become infatuated with. In covering his tracks he kills his father, Susan's mother and a boarding house guest.
The film falls within crime/psycho drama genres. The film's style is very similar to that of the Giallo Horror films popularized by Dario Argento and Mario Bava in the succeeding decade.
The film opens with Martin playing catch with his young mentally challenged brother Pete at a special school in London. We learn that Martin is but the only thread to his brothers family life, his father having died years before, and his mother having moved on to a new life with her new husband. Martin expresses his concern for his brother's well-being to the school's physician, who asserts his comfort with Pete's progress.
The film disolves to a hypnotic opening sequence to the tune of Bernard Hermann's classic theme. Then we see...,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0063729
The Deadly Bees is a 1966 British horror–thriller film based on H.F. Heard's novel A Taste for Honey. It was directed by Freddie Francis, and stars Suzanna Leigh, Guy Doleman, and Frank Finlay. It was featured in a 1998 episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000.Critics invariably deride the film, generally citing its uninspired acting, ludicrous special effects, including plastic flies glued to actors' faces to show them being "stung", and continuity errors.The film opens with two men from an unnamed ministry commenting a spate of letters from a beekeeper claiming to have developed a strain of killer bees. They dismiss him as a lunatic, though his letters claim he start killing people if he is not taken seriously.Meanwhile, pop singer Vicki Robbins (Suzanna Leigh) collapses from exhaustion on television, and is sent to recuperate in a cottage on Seagull Island. The proprietors of the "rest home" are a depressed and disgruntled couple, Ralph and Mary Hargrove (Guy Doleman and Catherine...,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0061557
Othello is a 1965 film based on the Shakespeare play Othello; starring Laurence Olivier, Maggie Smith, Frank Finlay, and Joyce Redman. It was simply a filmed version of a performance by the actors for the National Theatre, staged by John Dexter, from 1964-66. It even used enlarged duplicates of the original stage settings, rather than having elaborate new and different sets built specifically for the film. Olivier's former backers for his Shakespeare films were all dead by 1965, and he was not able to raise the money to do a real film version. Olivier had in fact been planning on doing Macbeth, but the film's main backer, Alexander Korda, died a year after the release of Richard III. In the U.S., it did not play the usual several-week run given to most films; instead, it received an extremely limited release.
Ironically, it is the only Shakespeare film in which all the leading actors and actresses have been nominated for Oscars. Olivier's portrayal of Othello, for which he wore highly...
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0059555
Frank Finlay was born
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