Bill Hays

Movies

Quartermaine's Terms
Director
The setting is the staffroom of an English language college for foreign students somewhere in Cambridge. I think that Edward Fox was born to play the role of protagonist St. John Quartermaine. St. John (pronounced 'sinjun') is a kind and lonely language professor who is becoming increasingly absent-minded and forgetful, probably due to some form of creeping dementia. Having loyally served at the college since its founding, his life revolves around work as he appears to have no social life of his own. He is well liked by his colleagues, however they take advantage of his good nature and are always too preoccupied with their own concerns to really notice what we the viewers see- a man gradually and inexorably heading towards crisis, in desperate need of care and support.
Time After Time
Director
'Oh I was naughty. And I'm still naughty so take care.' And so Leda was, all those years ago when she was the childhood friend of Jasper and his three sisters April, May and June. Now she returns to add a little spice to life in their crumbling Irish country house.
Shades
Director
1999: A tower block contains youths ‘bought off’ by the government, in a climate of microchip-created endless leisure, who experience (often pornographic) virtual reality-style fantasies by donning the titular ‘shades’, until a 1980s theme party (they predicted that right, at least) leads to ideology and political thought seeping in under the dazed lifestyle.
A Turn for the Worse
Director
Simon Simpson runs an entertainment agency in Liverpool. At one of his regular auditions in The Bootle Railway Club he sees an aggressive young man fresh from the dole queue who dreams of becoming a professional comedian. Simpson believes the boy has talent and starts to groom him for 'stardom'.
If There Weren't Any Blacks You'd Have to Invent Them
Director
Set in a cemetery, the film tells the story of a young man whom a blind man wrongly imagines to be black, and explores the nature of human prejudice.
Trouble in Tahiti
Director
Leonard Bernstein's 1952 opera is a biting satire on the emptiness of materialist values and the false promise of suburban comforts. This production, conducted by the composer himself, presents a live-action cast performing on an animated set. Inspired by jazz and American musical comedy, the score is a path-breaking fusion of lyric art with popular entertainment.
File It Under Fear
Director
File It Under Fear takes place in an outwardly normal rural British community. The tranquility is shattered by a series of brutal murders, all of them occurring in the library.
Lady Killer
Director
A shy, lonely American girl marries a charming man she meets while on vacation in England, unaware that he has sinister plans for her.