New Releases 1952 – I have been flicking through a Picturegoer Magazine of August 1952 and picked out these pages featuring the films on release or imminent release.

The Sound Barrier is a film that is quite well known and has been on Television many times over the years. It stars Ann Todd, Nigel Patrick and Ralph Richardson

Doris Day just reaching the top of her career- and what a career it was is here to be seen in ‘Ill See You in My Dreams‘

At the time of the release of ‘Something Money can’t Buy’ Patricia Roc and Anthony Steel had been in a very close romantic relationship – in fact Patricia gave birth to a son by Anthony Steel during 1952.

The son called Michael Roc Thomas –   was child born of the union between the famous British film stars Patricia Roc and Anthony Steel. He was Patricia Roc’s only child

Born in Paris, Michael was barely nine months old when his mother took him to Rome, where an Italian nanny cared for him.

Years later after studying at Stowe, Buckinghamshire, he became a fashion photographer working in Cape Town, London and Madrid.

A few years earlier Patricia Roc had gone to Hollywood and starred in ‘Canyon Passage’with Ronald Reagan who fell in love with her
Pat, as she liked to be called by everyone, from tea-boy to fellow actors and Directors, was a big star and a huge box-office attraction.

Movie mogul J Arthur Rank described her as “the archetypal British beauty, the goddess of the Odeons”.

On August 19, 1945, two days after completing her work on The Wicked Lady, Patricia Roc was Hollywood bound.

Her first and only production in America was Canyon Passage, which cost $2.3million and was a great hit.

She certainly seemed able to attract the opposite sex

‘Untamed Frontier’ with Joseph Cotten and Shelley Winters was a Technicolor Western – the reviewer above says that normally counting sheep is a way of falling to sleep but seeing this film with cattle stampedes he thought it would have a similar effect.

However a much less ambitious film was ‘Thief of Damascus’ again in bright Technicolor – a film that gives us fun and doesn’t take itself too seriously – and one of it’s stars is none other than Paul Henreid

Back to Patricia Roc – she was in the very first episode of The Saint

I am copying BELOW an earlier article I wrote on this episode of the Sainy entitled:

‘The Talented Husband’ is the first episode of the iconic ‘Saint’ television series, based on the novels by Leslie Charteris and starring Roger Moore

The first couple of series were shot in crisp black and white with Roger Moore Moore playing Simon Templar

In this the very first episode, we have an unusual to-camera introduction by the Saint himself before we get into the story of an invalid wife at the mercy of her husband’s sinister and devious plotting. There are twists and turns from the very beginning and Roger Moore doesn’t really appear much at all until the final 20 minutes, but along the way he is helped by the lovely Shirley Eaton playing an Insurance Investigator.

Derek Farr is extremely good value as the twitchy husband, who at first seems to be very caring towards his wife Patricia Roc. Gradually though, we see what he is up to

ABOVE – A shot outside Cookham Railway Station

This first episode of ‘The Saint’ had two top line actors of the forties and fifties, namely Derek Farr and Patricia Roc.

Patricia Roc, whose last screen appearance this was, had in 1945 gone over to Hollywood briefly and made a Western ‘Canyon Passage’ – a successful Technicolor film – and during her visit she met and had a romance with Ronald Reagan who fell in love with her and wanted them to marry.

Back in London, where she was now one of Britain’s top ten box-office stars, the lovers were ­reunited at the Royal Command Film ­Performance at the Odeon, Leicester Square, in November 1948, at which Patricia Roc and Ronald Reagan both appeared on stage.

‘Ronnie seemed heartbroken and bitterly hurt,’ said Patricia. ‘His wife had told him: “You’re a bore! Get out! I want a divorce.” He was so damaged that often he was drinking and not able to perform sexually. He spent a lot of time at my London flat in Hallam Street, and ­repeatedly asked me to marry him.’

Reagan presented Patricia Roc with ‘the most beautiful ruby ring’. British sex symbol Christine Norden, who also appeared at the Royal Film Performance, heard Roc announce: ‘I love rubies, they are so hot, just like sex.’

But Patricia Roc by then had become engaged to the French lighting cameraman, André Thomas, who was to become her second husband in 1949, and with whom she set up home in Paris.

Reagan, divorced and again disappointed in love, began a brief affair with Patricia Neal, his co-star in the British film The Hasty Heart. In 1952, the year in which he married actress Nancy Davis, Patricia Roc co-starred with the Rank Organisation’s ‘Mr Beefcake’, Anthony Steel, in the film Something Money Can’t Buy.

Succumbing to what she described as Anthony Steel’s ‘animal magnetism’ — ‘I’m afraid he was very, very good in bed’ — they began an affair which resulted in the birth of a son, Michael. Her husband André, although knowing the child could not be his, accepted paternity, but suffered a massive stroke in 1956, and died at the age of 45.

Patricia was very good in ‘The Talented Husband’ and it was thought that , after this, her film and TV career would kick back into gear, but alas this did not happen for whatever reason. Although she was excellent, she spent most of the time being ill in bed – maybe that didn’t endear her to film producers – I just don’t know. It does seem strange