by Stephen Vagg
The life and times of Peter Reynolds, a star of 1950s British B movies who met an untimely end in Australia.
Peter Reynolds isn’t a particularly well-remembered actor; even in his heyday, he wasn’t that famous, but he carved out a niche, particularly in 1950s British B movies. Film historians Steve Chibnall and Brian McFarlane called Reynolds “the archetypical spiv, unreliable boyfriend, unscrupulous blackmailer, the smoothie ever ready to light a lady’s cigarette”. Another writer dubbed him a “British Richard Widmark”. Like Widmark, Peter Reynolds was a perfectly serviceable actor and leading man but a sensational villain. Few actors of his generation made movies more fun. He had an interesting life and career, which ended up in Australia; he should be better known!
“Peter Reynolds” wasn’t his real name, incidentally – that was Peter Gordon Horrocks. He was born just outside Manchester on 16 August 1921. Reynolds (we’ll call him that for ease of reference) attended a public school and was a cadet officer in the Merchant Navy. He later claimed he “always wanted to be a movie star” but had minimal acting experience prior to a fateful day in 1946 (or 1947, accounts vary) when, while sitting in a theatre lounge, he was approached by a casting agent looking for someone to play the son of Napoleon Bonaparte in a play called The King of Rome. Reynolds got the gig, and a career was launched. Film producers came sniffing around pretty quickly: Reynolds was cast in There is No Escape (1948) aka The Dark Road for Hammer, The Guinea Pig (1948) (playing a prefect) for the Boulting Brothers, and Adam and Evelyne (1949), a dodgy comedy where Jean Simmons falls in love with her adopted father Stewart Granger, and we’re meant to find it sweet.
Reynolds wasn’t solely devoted to acting – in July 1948, it was announced that he had taken over management of the Torch Theatre in Knightsbridge. Reynolds invested, he claimed, five thousand pounds he had been left by his father. The Torch Theatre was a theatre club, which meant tickets could only be sold to members and the plays were not subject to censorship by the Lord Chamberlain. Plays produced under Reynolds’ management included The Haunted, Breach of Marriage (a groundbreaking play for the time about artificial insemination), Ten Shilling Doll, and A Revue for Two. The experience ended messily – Reynolds had legal hassles with the lessee of the theatre, and later said he lost all his investment over a ten month season. As shall be demonstrated, this wasn’t the only business setback he’d encounter during his life.
Fortunately, Reynolds had acting to fall back on. His career received a boost when he played the part of Alfred Lord Douglas on stage in Oscar Wilde, with Frank Pettingell in the title role (the litigious Douglas had just died in real life, presumably making it easier for the play to go ahead). Associated British, a leading British film studio at the time – they owned a chain of cinemas and had actors like Richard Todd and Audrey Hepburn under contract – offered Reynolds the plum role of a caddish getaway driver in Guilt Is My Shadow (1950) aka The Intruder. Reynolds accepted, and basically stole the movie, playing a baby faced, charming crook, a little like James Spader. The film is great fun while Reynolds is in it, although it loses interest when his character dies. Associated British signed the actor to a seven year contract.
Reynolds’ next two films were both for director John Guillermin, then at the start of his career: Smart Alec (1951), based on a play and script by Australia’s own Alec Coppel, and Four Days (1951). Both films are worth tracking down – tightly scripted noirs without an ounce of fat on them, and Reynolds clearly having the time of his life. In Smart Alec, he’s plotting the perfect murder, while in Four Days, he’s sleeping with married Kathleen Byron.
Reynolds was also superb in The Last Page (1952) aka Main Bait for director Terence Fisher at Hammer, supporting American star George Brent and the magnificent Diana Dors. These films would typically play at the bottom half of a double bill, in support of the main feature, but are very entertaining. They would, in fact, be the high watermark of Reynolds’ film career – he never quite matched them again. Indeed, if anyone reading this is interested in checking out Reynolds’ career, start with the tetralogy of Guilt is My Shadow, Smart Alec, Four Days and The Last Page.
Associated British kept Reynolds busy in a series of films, including The Woman’s Angle (1952), 24 Hours of a Woman’s Life (1952) aka Affair in Monte Carlo (with Merle Oberon and Richard Todd) and The Good Beginning (1953). He played another murderer in the English segment of I Vinti (1953) aka The Vanquished directed by Michelangelo Antonioni, which was shot in England. I Vinti is not generally ranked among Antonioni’s masterpieces, but like all works of that director it is worth checking out; it’s about as highbrow as Reynolds’ film career ever got.
In December 1952, Reynolds was in a bad car accident that left him unconscious and temporarily paralysed. He did recover, although three years later, he was fined for driving without a licence.
Reynolds had the lead in Black 13 (1953), a crime drama directed by Ken Hughes. In Devil Girl from Mars (1954), Reynolds plays an escaped convict who stops at an inn that is plagued by regulation subplots and visited by a woman from Mars – it’s bonkers fun. During this time, he continued to perform on stage, playing a comic poisoner in Hugh Mills’ play Angels in Love (1954).
Reynolds was in high demand as an actor, although he seemed unable to break out of the “B”s. He was a boringly ordinary hero in The Delavine Affair (1955), then a villain in You Can’t Escape (1956), and guest starred on TV shows like The Vise, Colonel March of Scotland Yard, Errol Flynn Theatre, White Hunter, Ivanhoe, and The Man from Interpol. In 1956, Diana Dors arranged for Reynolds to have a screen test at RKO (where she was briefly under contract), but although he went over to Hollywood for a few months, he never worked there. This was a shame, as America likes a British villain, and Reynolds might have done well. Reynolds did work with Dors again, playing her brother in the enjoyable crime drama Long Haul (1957) under the direction of Ken Hughes.
In October 1957, Reynolds appeared in bankruptcy court with liabilities of £8,645 – incurred, he claimed, mostly through tax debts and costs from a failed poultry farm, which he established in the 1950s. Part of the reason why Reynolds couldn’t break out of “B”s might have been through a lack of focus about his acting career.
In The Bank Raiders (1958), Reynolds was a gigolo robbing a bank with Sidney Tafler (who was also in a lot of these sort of movies). Reynolds was also in Born for Trouble (1958), The Wrong Number (1959), Man Who Couldn’t Walk (1960) and The Challenge (1960) aka It Takes a Thief; the most famous of these films is the latter, a decent B picture from director Terence Young, where Reynolds is very scary as a gangster cohort of Jayne Mansfield (in a role crying out for Diana Dors). Filming of The Man Who Couldn’t Walk was held up in January 1960 when Reynolds was injured after being beaten up by home invaders who had terrified his mother.
Reynolds appeared in some non-crime movies: Shake Hands with the Devil (1959) with James Cagney, Your Money or Your Wife (1960), a comedy with Donald Sinden, Hands of Orlac (1960), a horror film with Mel Ferrer, and Spare the Rod (1960), a drama with Max Bygraves. However, he could only get lead roles in crime films like The Great Armoured Car Swindle (1961), A Question of Suspense (1961), Gaolbreak (1962), The Painted Smile (1962), aka Murder Can be Deadly. A decade later, Reynolds reflected, “I felt that an actor must learn his craft and that I could learn it much easier in B pictures. I had power, you see. I could ask for the director I wanted. My name spelled box office. At the time, British actors were so frightfully pukka. It was obvious to me that we couldn’t compete with the rugged Americans, so I always tried to be cosmopolitan.” We’re not sure Reynolds actually had that much control over his career, but maybe he did, who knows.
In the early 1960s, the bottom dropped out of the British B picture market, and Reynolds was never able to jump over into those cool movies of sixties British cinema, with kitchen sinks, smashing birds, angry young men, spies and so on. He did have a role in West 11 (1963), a weird combination of angry young man drama and Strangers on a Train, with a fascinating credit list (Michael Winner, David Hemmings, Eric Portman).
He went into the art business, subsidised by his family’s trust fund. By April 1964, he was living at home with his mother and brother in Manchester. He said, “I am hoping to be able to do an occasional play in the future, but art work takes up most of my time.” Then Reynolds suffered a series of setbacks: his mother died, the family business failed, and he was in another car accident. “Everything seemed to happen at once,” reflected Reynolds later. “So, I had to pick myself up off the ground whether I liked it or not.”
It was back to acting. He did guest spots on shows like The Avengers and Department S and stage plays like Barefoot in the Park and The Right Honourable Gentleman. He had a small role in Nobody Runs Forever, starring Australia’s Rod Taylor. “I’m as fit as ever,” Reynolds declared in January 1968. “And certainly, a far better actor than I ever was. It’s really done me a lot of good in many ways. Before it was far too easy for me to get in films.”
In March 1968, Reynolds was granted a discharge from his 1957 bankruptcy, although he still owed money and was living on National Assistance. “I have absolutely nothing,” he told the bankruptcy court. “No clothes, which is a handicap as an actor. I have one suit and one pair of shoes. Things are so bad, my only hope is I have the possibility of washing dishes next week.” Reynolds revealed at his peak, he earned £2,500 pounds a year but claimed “my bankruptcy was heavily publicised. My trouble started from that date.”
It was clearly time to start afresh. In 1969, Reynolds moved to Australia, where his brother had emigrated. “England was depressing me,” he later said. “The taxes and the weather. Ugh! I fell in love with Australia at once.” Reynolds’ timing was ideal – the local television drama and film industries were about to boom, following an injection of government assistance. Australia was also then very impressed by an English accent and Reynolds’ career completely revived.
Harry M Miller cast him in two plays with Gordon Chater, the first being You Know I Can’t Hear You When the Water’s Running. He also appeared on stage in Assault with a Deadly Weapon, What the Butler Saw, Overruled and Village Wooing. Reynolds found himself in high demand for guest roles on TV shows like Riptide, Division 4, Homicide, Skippy, Joan and Leslie, The Link Men, The Rovers, The Long Arm, Delta, Barrier, Reef, Dynasty, Dead Man Running, Spyforce, The Godfathers, Number 96, Elephant Boy, Boney, Behind the Legend and The Evil Touch. He was a panellist on the game show I’ve Got a Secret and made a pilot for Seven called View from Beyond where he starred as a liaison officer who commutes between Heaven and Earth (Don Cash wrote the script and it didn’t go to series).
Reynolds did not neglect feature films either, appearing in Private Collection (1972), The Lady and the Law (1972, for television), and The Love Epidemic (1975). “Professionally being here is like starring in B pictures,” Reynolds commented to an Australian magazine in 1971. “You’re a big fish in a smaller pond.”
The big fish also had a regular gig appearing in Woodbine cigarette commercials. Cigarettes led to Reynolds’ early death – though not how you might think. He lived alone, apart from his little dog, in a flat in Oxford Street, Paddington. On 22 April 1975, Reynolds fell asleep while smoking in bed (an ashtray was later found full of Woodbine cigarette butts). A fire started, totally destroying his bedroom. Two neighbours tried to save Reynolds, but were unsuccessful – the actor died of burns. It was a sad ending to a very talented performer.
Peter Reynolds was not a giant of British (or Australian) cinema – but he was a very colourful character who livened up some entertaining films. If you like your cads suave and your crime British, he’s worth checking out.
