A Place Of One's Own (1945)

Starring Margaret Lockwood, James Mason, Barbara Mullen, Dennis Price, Helen Haye
Directed by Bernard Knowles
(actor & director credits courtesy IMDB.com)

A retiree and his wife invest in a beautiful estate, but discover afterward that their new home is haunted, and its ghost has taken possession of a young woman they've hired.

Despite a refined cast which includes Lockwood, Mason, Price, and even Ernest Thesiger in a small but pivotal role, the film falls short of becoming a memorable ghost story due to an overemphasis on advancing the plot through dialogue, and a lack of imagination in the film's photography and direction.  While the movie looks crisp and the set decorations do capture the period well, there's no hint of menace using shadow or any effort to create chills through staging or via eerie notes on the soundtrack.  It's not a badly written film, based on a novel by Osbert Sitwell, who apparently collaborated with screenwriter Brock Williams, but when the most exciting scene in the movie is Price driving Lockwood around a circular path in a motorcar, there's clearly a need for something more dynamic.  One compensation in that regard is the presence of Mason, who although oddly cast as an aged retiree despite being still under 40 at the time of the film's release, gives the most watchable performance, bringing the character of a charming but occasionally fiery Scottish gentleman to life.

Frozen Alive (1964)

Starring Mark Stevens, Marianne Koch, Wolfgang Lukschy, Joachim Hansen, Delphi Lawrence
Directed by Bernard Knowles
(actor & director credits courtesy IMDB.com)

Two scientists who have succeeded in deep-freezing and thawing monkeys want to do the same to a human being, but the head of their project is against it.

This is an entertaining sci-fi drama, although it places the ethics of experimenting on human beings on the back burner in favor of playing up a love triangle between the female scientist, the male scientist, and his wife.  Set in and filmed in Germany, the film doesn't appear to be dubbed, but actually filmed in English, with the German accents of some of the actors adding some color here.  Although the film's fairly straightforward without much depth, there's good acting all around, and I enjoyed it.

Spaceflight IC-1 (1965)

Starring Bill Williams, Kathleen Breck, John Cairney, Donald Churchill, Jeremy Longhurst
Directed by Bernard Knowles
(actor & director credits courtesy IMDB.com)

One year into a twenty-five year journey to a new planet, a spaceship's crew starts to rebel against their captain's strict demands.

Using the spaceship as a microcosm to illustrate humanity's fight for freedom against an oppressive government, this sci-fi drama casts the captain in the role of dictator, who refuses to turn back when a crew member becomes deathly ill, and denies any requests for a democratic vote.  It's an intriguing premise, and the filmmakers rightly center the film around the actors' performances, employing only pedestrian special effects to maintain the futuristic setting.  The cast are fine throughout,  and the screenplay smartly casts certain characters as ready to revolt, while others are supportive of the current regime, with the rest simply wanting to follow along and not make waves, as would be the case in any similar society.