''Floods of Fear'' is a 1958

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

thriller film Thriller film, also known as suspense film or suspense thriller, is a broad film genre that evokes excitement and suspense in the audience. The suspense element found in most films' plots is particularly exploited by the filmmaker in this genre ...

directed by

Charles Crichton Charles Ainslie Crichton (6 August 1910 – 14 September 1999) was an English film director and editor. Born in Wallasey, Cheshire, he became best known for directing many comedies produced at Ealing Studios and had a 40-year career ...

and starring

Howard Keel Harold Clifford Keel (April 13, 1919November 7, 2004), known professionally as Howard Keel, was an American actor and singer, known for his rich bass-baritone singing voice. He starred in a number of MGM musicals in the 1950s and in the CBS tel ...

Anne Heywood Anne Heywood (born 11 December 1931) is a British retired film actress, who is best known for her Golden Globe-nominated performance in ''The Fox''. Early life and career Born as Violet Joan Pretty in 1931 to Harold and Edna E. ( Lowndes) Pre ...

and

Harry H. Corbett Harry H. Corbett OBE (28 February 1925 – 21 March 1982) was an English actor and comedian, best remembered for playing rag-and-bone man Harold Steptoe alongside Wilfrid Brambell in the long-running BBC television sitcom ''Steptoe and Son'' ( ...

Plot

During a flood, convicts Donovan (

) and Peebles (

Cyril Cusack Cyril James Cusack (26 November 1910 – 7 October 1993) was an Irish stage and screen actor with a career that spanned more than 70 years. During his lifetime, he was considered one of Ireland’s finest thespians, and was renowned for his int ...

) escape, but they become marooned in a house, along with one of their prison guards Sharkey (

) and a young woman Elizabeth Mathews (

) who lives there. Having managed to escape, Donovan is determined to prove his innocence and that he was wrongly jailed for murdering a woman.

Cast

as Donovan *

as Elizabeth Matthews *

as Peebles *

as Sharkey * John Crawford as Jack Murphy *

Eddie Byrne Eddie Byrne (31 January 1911 – 21 August 1981) was an Irish actor. Career His stage work included many appearances with Dublin's Abbey Theatre, and also work with the National Theatre in London. Outside Ireland he is probably best known ...

as Sheriff * John Phillips as Dr. Matthews *Mark Baker as Watchman *

James Dyrenforth James Dyrenforth (31 January 1895 – 26 December 1973) was an American actor and songwriter. Dyrenforth appeared in '' A Night to Remember'' (1958), ''Fiend Without a Face'' (1958), and ''Lolita'' (1962), and co-wrote "A Garden in the Rain", a s ...

as Mayor *Jack Lester as Businessman * Peter Madden as Banker *

Guy Kingsley Poynter Guy Kingsley Poynter, also known as Guy Kingsley (3 September 1915 – 6 September 1983), was an American actor. Poynter is best remembered for his part as 'Doctor Daniel "Doc" Matthews' in the 1950s radio series '' Journey into Space''. He appe ...

as Deputy Sheriff *

Gordon Tanner Gordon Tanner (July 17, 1918–August 3, 1983) was a Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many ...

as Lt-Colonel *Robert Mackenzie as Police Captain *

Vivian Matalon Vivian Matalon (11 October 1929 – 15 August 2018) was a British theatre director. Born in Manchester, Matalon began his career as an actor in a series of forgettable British films, but his greatest success has been as a director of West End, ...

as Farmer *Gordon Sterne as Farmer *Bill Edwards as 1st Deputy *Graydon Gould as 2nd Deputy *Kevin Scott as 3rd Deputy *

Ed Devereaux Edward Sidney Devereaux (27 August 192517 December 2003), better known professionally as Ed Devereaux, was an Australian actor, director, and scriptwriter who lived in the United Kingdom for many years. He was best known for playing the part of ...

as Sergeant

Production

Howard Keel recalled the filming in his autobiography ''Only Make Believe: My Life in Show Business'': "All the flood scenes were filmed on one of the large stages at

Pinewood Studios Pinewood Studios is a British film and television studio located in the village of Iver Heath, England. It is approximately west of central London. The studio has been the base for many productions over the years from large-scale films to te ...

. The water had to be both dirty and cold, and it was. They couldn't heat it for fear it might get rancid. That was another tough picture. Anne Heywood never once protested about the water.

harles Gottlieb Christoph Harless (originally Harles) (21 June 1738 – 2 November 1815) was a German classical scholar and bibliographer. Biography He was born at Culmbach in Bavaria. He studied at the universities of Halle, Erlangen and Jena. In ...

Crichton, who had a great sense of humor, had directed some very funny pictures. Cyril Cusack and I were good friends. We had a little contest over Anne. He was a real cutie, as well as a hell of an actor, but I won out."

Critical reception

TV Guide TV Guide is an American digital media company that provides television program Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or t ...

wrote, "Heywood is a joy to watch as she stands up to the impending aquatic doom" ; while the

Radio Times ''Radio Times'' (currently styled as ''RadioTimes'') is a British weekly listings magazine devoted to television and radio programme schedules, with other features such as interviews, film reviews and lifestyle items. Founded in May 1923 by J ...

wrote, "well performed by an able cast

Dallas Dallas () is the List of municipalities in Texas, third largest city in Texas and the largest city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the List of metropolitan statistical areas, fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States at 7.5 ...

star Howard Keel,

Steptoe and Son ''Steptoe and Son'' is a British sitcom written by Ray Galton and Alan Simpson about a father-and-son rag-and-bone business in 26a Oil Drum Lane, a fictional street in Shepherd's Bush, London. Four series were broadcast by the BBC in black and ...

's Harry H Corbett, Cyril Cusack and, in particular, damsel in distress Anne Heywood this is typical, and unremarkable, British 1950s

B-movie A B movie or B film is a low-budget commercial motion picture. In its original usage, during the Golden Age of Hollywood, the term more precisely identified films intended for distribution as the less-publicized bottom half of a double featur ...

fare."

References

1959 films British thriller films 1950s thriller films Films directed by Charles Crichton Films based on American novels Flood films 1950s English-language films 1950s British films {{1950s-thriller-film-stub