Film Preview – Bognor Regis Observer – Friday, 04 October 1957

HAILED internationally as a masterful production. the screen adaptation of Al Morgan's best-selling novel, "THE GREAT MAN," stars Jose Ferrer. Ferrer, who also directed the picture, has a strong supporting cast behind him which includes Dean Jagger, Keenan Wynn, Julie London and Joanne Gilbert. Full of keen wit and biting comment, with a rich mixture of pathos, tenderness, and the harshness of a competitive world, the film cuts like a knife through the misshapen past of a widely-lamented hero; a great man who wasn't really so great after all. "TENSION AT TABLE ROCK" stars Richard Egan, Dorothy Malone and Cameron Mitchell. It is the story of two men—Wes Tancred and Sam Older —who are on the run from a law posse. Their quarrel leads to the killing in self-defence by Wes of his companion, and then follows a trail of armed violence leading to Wes shooting three criminals out to rob a coach. Taking an orphaned child to the nearest town, he finds the citizens waiting in fear the arrival of trail-herders who annually wreck the streets in passing on their long cattle drive. Their arrival heralds anarchy, but through Wes and a band of law seekers the town at last gains victory over violence. Rodger and Hammerstein's spectacular musical, "THE KING AND I," stars Deborah Kerr, Yul Brynner and Rita Moreno. In this colourful story set in the 1860's, audiences are introduced to the lavish court of Siam, where an English governess arrives to become mistress to children of the royal household. Horrified at customs foreign to her way of life, the governess played by Deborah Kerr, comes into conflict with Palace rulers. Told that she is part of a plan to bring the good in Western culture to Siam, she finds herself employed by a King who discovers that Victorian England regards him as a barbarian, and the tale is brought to an unexpected and moving climax.