Secret Lives

During the First World War, a woman doctor falls in love with one of her patients who turns out to be a German spy. She herself ends up working for German intelligence.

A French novelist passes off a African shepherdess as a princess.

Although the Dutch Veertig Jaren is a film by committee -- the Special National Committee, to be exact -- director Edmond T. Greville and his actors are able to maintain their individuality throughout. The film's English-language title is Forty Years, in commemoration of the 40th anniversary of the reign of Queen Wilhelmina. In the manner of Noel Coward's Cavalcade, the story recounts those four decades as experience by two "typical" Dutch families, one headed by an Amsterdam surgeon, the other by a rural factory owner. Historical events touched upon include the Boer War, the General Strike and WWI. Mercifully, Veertig Jaren was completed in 1938, two years before Queen Wilhelmina was forced to surrender the Netherlands to Hitler's Germany.

The happiness of a newly-married couple, Henry and Jeannie Saint Clair, is shattered when the husband is made a paralytic in an automobile accident. The wife still loves him, although he is incapable of any physical love. She is slowly drawn into a short-lived affair with a handsome athlete, Robert Vanier. When the husband learns of the affair, he commits suicide. But the wife cannot forget him and she sends her lover away.

A British architect's teenage daughter, who has joined a group of Soho beatniks, detests her new stepmother and, after learning she was once a stripper, tries to ruin her with her father.

The farm of Jan Alting, a Dutch patriot who has disowned his son for his collaboration with the occupying German forces, is known by the Dutch Resistance as a place of refuge for those who are in danger from the Germans. With the help of his daughter, Alting is currently providing shelter for Jewish couple Mark and Mary Meyer, van Nespen, an aristocrat with active links to the underground movement, and Bakker, a Communist wanted by the Germans for sabotage. When Jan's son Anton unexpectedly returns to his former home he orders his father to turn all shelterers in immediately -- or he will shoot them all. Jan is faced with the stark moral choice of failing those to whom he has given refuge, or conspiring with them to kill his own son.

A man of of principle leads a double life: one for his mistress and one he takes home to his wife.

Due to a complex series of events a Guards Officer in a small European country is imprisoned. He manages to escape in the company of an idiotic milliner and they briefly take shelter with some gypsies, where the Captain falls in love with a young woman. Having been discovered by an American promoter while performing with gypsy orchestra in a tavern, the three accompany him to London as the latest new musical sensation. A great success, they begin a European-wide tour when their plane is forced down by bad weather in their homeland. Here events are satisfactorily resolved.

The oft-filmed Maurice Renard novel Hands of Orlac was given another cinematic go-round in this Franco-British production. Famed concert pianist Stephen Orlac (Mel Ferrer) survives a plane crash, but his hands are permanently destroyed. Helpful surgeon Volcheff (Donald Wolfit) grafts a pair of new hands on the hapless Orlac. Unfortunately, they're the hands of an executed murderer--useless for a pianist, but quite handy (no pun intended) for less delicate work. Before long, Orlac is convinced that he himself has become a killer thanks to his new extremeties. Two-bit magician Nero (Christopher Lee) decides to exploit Orlac's fears for his own financial gain, with horrifying results. Originally filmed in 1959, Hands of Orlac was finally released in the US in 1964 .