The story of a century: a decades-long second World War leaves plague and anarchy, then a rational state rebuilds civilization and attempts space travel.
Poor New York shop girl Nadina receives the unexpected news that she is next in line to be queen of an Eastern European country. On her arrival in Ruritania, a revolution is in progress, and only minutes before her coronation, Nadina is forced into exile. She flees to Paris with her nurse, and then travels on to Switzerland. There Nadina encounters the Ruritanian revolutionary leader Carl, recuperating from the trials of revolution, and the couple unexpectedly fall in love. When the revolution collapses in Ruritania, they return and marry, thus forming a constitutional monarchy supported by all the people.
When actress Diana Baring is found in a daze beside her colleague’s murdered body, all evidence points to her guilt. During the trial, juror Sir John Menier doubts the verdict, but yields to pressure. Haunted by remorse, he launches his own investigation.
Army radiation experiments awaken a subterranean monster from a fissure that feeds on energy and proceeds to terrorise a remote Scottish village. An American research scientist at a nearby nuclear plant joins with a British investigator to discover why the victims were radioactively burned and why, shortly thereafter, a series of radiation-related incidents are occurring in an ever-growing straight line away from the fissure.
During a rainy Sunday afternoon, an escaped prisoner tries to hide out at the home of his ex-fiance.
Hapless Henry Palfrey is patronised by his self-important chief clerk at work, ignored by restaurant waiters, conned by shady second-hand car salesmen, and, worst of all, endlessly wrong-footed by unspeakably rotten cad Raymond Delauney who has set his cap at April, new love of Palfrey's life. In desperation Henry enrolls at the College of Lifemanship to learn how to best such bounders and win the girl.
A charming and ambitious young man finds many ways to raise himself through the ranks in business and social standing - some honest, some not quite so. If he can just manage to avoid a certain very predatory woman.
Norman Puckle, a well-meaning but clumsy grocer's assistant, can't seem to do anything right. After being rejected by Marlene, the love of his life, he attempts suicide, but can't even do that. He is saved from jumping off a cliff at 'Lover's Leap' by a Royal Navy petty officer. He persuades Puckle to join the Royal Navy, where he'll meet 'lots of girls'. Life in the Navy proves not to be as rosy as it's been described, and Puckle fails at every task during basic training. But despite this, he's regarded by the Admiral in charge of a rocket project to be a 'typical average British sailor', and chosen to be the first man to fly into outer space in an experimental rocket.
Norman Pitkin and Mr Grimsdale are council workmen mending the road outside an Army base when they come into conflict with the military. Shortly afterwards, they get drafted and fall into the clutches of the Sergeant they have just bested. They are sent to France to repair roads in front of the Allied advance but get captured. Pitkin takes advantage of a useful similarity to impersonate General Schreiber and manages to return a hero
An accident in the butchers shop leads Norman Pitkin and Mr Grimsdale to the hospital where, after causing the normal amount of chaos, Pitkin finds Lindy, a little girl who hasn't spoken or smiled since her parents were killed in an aeroplane accident. Pitkin decides to help.
Norman works in a jewellers workshop and fantasises (in the nicest way) about meeting the window dresser across the road from his workshop. He wants to buy her a diamond pendant but calculates it will take him over 100 years to save up for it. He is talked into betting a pound on a six horse accumulator at the Goodwood races with a slightly shady bookmaker. When he has won on the first five races, the bookie owes him over 16,000 pounds and everyone begins to worry. Everyone's future depends on a single race ... what can be done ?
In the slums of Dublin during the Irish Civil War, the Boyle family’s fragile stability collapses after news of an unexpected inheritance lures them into a false sense of prosperity. Captain Boyle, a boastful idler, squanders their meager resources, while his wife Juno holds the household together. When the fortune proves illusory, the family faces ruin, betrayal, and tragedy.
A professor of astronomy helping on a missile development program. An old friend of his is a Russian chess champion. The Russian is working with shady businessman Marek and they plan to kidnap the professor and make it look as though he has defected to the Soviet Union.
Jim Ackland, who suffers from a head injury sustained in a bus crash, is the chief suspect in a murder hunt, when a girl that he has just met is found dead on the local common, and he has no alibi for the time she was killed.
An ordinary man, while vigorously asserting the impossibility of miracles, suddenly discovers that he can perform them.
A character study depicting the life of Rembrandt Van Rijn at the height of his fame in the mid 1600s. Beginning with the death of his wife, Rembrandt's work takes a dark turn, which offends many of his patrons.
Now old, ill, poor, and largely forgotten, William Freise-Greene was once very different. As young and handsome William Green he changed his name to include his first wife's so that it sounded more impressive for the photographic portrait work he was so good at. But he was also an inventor and his search for a way to project moving pictures became an obsession that ultimately changed the life of all those he loved.
An old traditional family and a modern family battle over land in a small English village.
Quiet and somewhat direction-less, Alfred Polly uses the money he inherits from his father to marry and to set up shop in a small town. His heart is in neither of these enterprises and he eventually resorts to desperate measures to break free. His random wanderings in the countryside lead him to a new opportunity that just might be what he's been looking for all along.
Andrew Manson, a young, idealistic, newly qualified Scottish doctor arrives in Wales takes his first job in a mining town, and begins to wonder at the persistent cough many of the miners have. When his attempts to prove its cause are thwarted, he moves to London. His new practice does badly. But when a friend shows him how to make a lucrative practice from rich hypochondriacs, it will take a great shock to show him what the truth of being a doctor really is.
A young boxer falls in with a crooked fight promoter.
In a Welsh coal mining valley, a young man with a beautiful singing voice is called upon to make the ultimate sacrifice when a pit disaster threatens.
Hazel Woods, a beautiful and young Welsh girl, lives a wild, rustic life and loves animals — in particular, her pet fox. She is hotly desired by Jack Reddin, a fox hunting squire who vies for her affection and pursues her, despite the purer amorous intentions of the local pastor.
The story of flyer Amy Johnson the girl from Yorkshire who won the hearts of the British public in the 1930s with her record-breaking solo flights around the world. Her marriage to fellow aviator Jim Mallison was less noteworthy.
Anglo-Indian Victoria Jones seeks her true identity amid the chaos of the British withdrawal from India.
George Pearson, an employee at an underwear factory, is caught between his modern wife and his meddling mother. After buying a special yarn and getting his wife to promote it, he has an argument with his boss, Mr Dawson who insults Pearson's wife and refuses to apologise. Pearson then resigns. After finding out that the yarn is actually worth a fair amount, Mr Dawson tries to buy it from Pearson but he has some competition.
"The Spider and the Fly is set in Paris during the cloud-cuckoo days before WW I. The storyline intertwines the destinies of three people. Guy Rolfe plays Phillipe de Ledocq, a resourceful safecracker who always manages to elude arrest. Eric Portman is cast as police-chief Maubert, who will not rest until Ledocq is behind bars. And Nadia Gray is Madeleine, the woman beloved by both Ledocq and Maubert. Just as Maubert has managed to capture his man, Ledocq is released at the behest of the government, who wants him to steal secrets from the German embassy revealing the whereabouts of the Kaiser's secret agents. And just how does Madeleine figure into all of this? Spider and the Fly is a diverting precursor to the 1960s TV series It Takes a Thief." ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
When a meek secretary goes to work for her new boss, she becomes a sophisticated lady.
Troubled married couple who, through the intervention of a mysterious stranger, settle their problems and move on with their lives.
A group of men from a London pub are going on a darts team outing to Boulogne. Various members of the party have different reasons for going and get involved in various adventures.
A trade union official becomes governor of a British island colony.
Third and final film in the 'Inspector Hornleigh’ series of comedy-thrillers. Inspector Hornleigh (Gordon Harker), disappointed at not being handed an important spy case, is assigned by Scotland Yard to an army barracks to investigate the mundane thefts of supplies from the stores. This accidentally leads Hornleigh and Sergeant Bingham (Alastair Sim) to a nest of fifth columnists when his dim-witted assistant carelessly talks to a girl in the cafeteria – and that night, news of Hornleigh and Bingham’s arrival is embarrassingly transmitted back to Germany.
During a holiday by the British seaside, Hornleigh and Bingham grow bored and turn their hand to investigating a local crime.
A handsome young master at a boys school incurs the jealousy of an embittered colleague. From the novel by Hugh Walpole.
Marigold is a 1938 British drama film set in Scotland in the Victorian era. It was filmed in Edinburgh. It was based on a 1914 play of the same title by Lizzie Allen Harker and Francis R. Pryor.
An underhand solicitor receives threatening notes, and the police are called in to protect him.
Norman Pitkin is the assistant helping to run a small, old fashioned dairy which is threatened by a larger, modern organisation. Pitkin does his best to save the dairy (and his horse) and the usual chaos ensues
The Cinderella story is reversed in this light-hearted adaptation, with Cinders a young man who eventually wins the 'princess' – in this case, an oil millionaire's daughter!
World-renowned tenor Richard Tauber features in a dramatisation of the life of Schubert, focusing on the composer's unrequited love for a dance master's daughter.
An overheard conversation leads to clues that a kidnapping plot is afoot.
An Army deserter, still a fugitive in Post-War Britain, wanders into a pawn-shop robbery and finds himself wanted for murder. He meets a war widow who helps him elude the police while he looks for the real criminals.
Based on Aimee Stuart's play. Little Scots girl decides to use her inheritance for a "grand tour" of the Continent.
The Duke of Bridgewater sends for the heir he's never seen. His heir is Patricia, and the Duke is a woman-hater, so Patricia disguises herself as a boy.
Parents veto the romance of two high-school students, forcing them to meet in secret.
Vestø island's isolated community's prize cow is in danger of being abducted by German WWII occupation forces.
The Four Men of the title are British WWI veterans who decide to work secretly against enemies of the country. They aren't above a bit of murder or sabotage to serve their ends, but they consider themselves to be true patriots.
The inhabitants of a peaceful village begin receiving mysterious hate mail penned by someone with malicious thoughts.
A neglected girl in post-World War II London befriends street urchins who help her build a tiny garden in a bombed-out church.
Unscrupulous business Sir Pierson Cale is determined to win the contract to build a power station. He sees John Hamilton as someone who can get the job done but he wants him to bid half a million less than his nearest competitor.
A tale of life on board a Royal Navy cruiser assigned to protect the vital convoys between America and England during WWII.
When Sally inherits a country house, her young brother Ronald, an aspiring journalist, hits on a sensational way to make his first big scoop: Sally will 'disappear', and he will be arrested for her murder! At his trial she will reappear, his acquittal will follow, and he will be able to supply his paper with an exclusive story. Sally and her fiance, Bill, fall in with the scheme. However, there are complications which they had not foreseen.
Before the war, a Fleet Air Arm pilot is dismissed for causing the death of a colleague. Working for a small Greek airline when the Germans invade Greece, he gets a chance to redeem himself and rejoin his old unit on a British carrier. This is regarded the last of the conventional, rather stiff 1930's style Ealing war films, to be succeeded by much more realism and better storytelling.
British musical film directed by Carmine Gallone.
Tommy Trinder promotes the virtues of the wartime communal British Restaurants.
England, 1891. Ascending writer Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) meets Lord Alfred Douglas, a young nobleman. Over the years, they will maintain an intimate relationship that will be openly criticized by Alfred's father, the Marquis of Queensberry, in such a harsh way that Wilde, instigated by Alfred, decides to sue Queensberry in 1895, accusing him of defamation.
During the Second World War, a special constable and former solicitor is called upon to defend his son who is accused of the theft of a car
The daughter of a Cockney drunkard marries a young aristocrat who is presumed killed in action in WWI. When she gets the news she goes to stay with her aristocratic in-laws.
A young woman falls in love with an aristocrat and tries to convince his parents that she is herself wealthy.
The officers of the Flying Squad attempt to track down a drug-smuggling gang.
After being arrested for assaulting a football referee, desperate train driver Bill (Arthur Askey) raids the railwaymen's holiday fund to cover his £55 fine. He knows he's going to be discovered though, leaving him no choice but to get the money back by hook or by crook! His last chance is to run a book on the United v City football derby. If that wasn't tense enough, Bill's son is also making his debut for United. It looks like it's going to be a day to remember - do you dare look? ...The Love Match.
London, the early 1950s. Born deaf, Mandy is mute for most of her childhood. As she reaches school age her family itself is in danger of breaking up. Christine, Mandy's mother, has heard of a residential school for the oral education of the deaf.
When Ex Colonel Merton discovers a burglar ransacking his home, he is shocked to find out that the thief is a former soldier from his tank regiment. When the thief escapes, Merton tries to contact former members of the regiment, in order to find out what set the thief on the road to crime.
Who Killed John Savage?
Londoner Harry Fabian is a second-rate con man looking for an angle. After years of putting up with Harry's schemes, his girlfriend, Mary, becomes fed up when he taps her for yet another loan.
A newly-arrived army chaplain is put in charge of camp entertainment and has the idea of putting on a Brains Trust with local notables. Unfortunately for him, it emerges from a question on the rights and wrongs of marriage that there is more going on between three of the panelists than he wants to know about - though the audience obviously thinks differently.
While posters urge austerity and vigilance in wartime Britain, 'Joey Boy' Thompson has never had it better. In a cellar beneath his East London fish shop, a gambling club thrives – and austerity provides a nice black-market sideline. But the dolce vita crumbles when police arrive in a lightning raid, and offer Joey and his fellow reprobates a stark choice: sign up for active service, or face another stint inside. Thus the lads find themselves heading off to Italy, determined to make the best of it...
An American airman inherits an Earldom in England along with the small matter of $3 million on the proviso that he gives up his US citizenship. Unsure if he is prepared to make the sacrifice he takes a trip with his two best friends to try our his new title, but will he be able to cope with the British aristocracy?
Losing out to Dr. Bingham (Michael Medwin) in a competition for house surgeon when he offends a member of the board, young Dr. Simon Sparrow (Dirk Bogarde) finds himself going from post to post, filling in for other physicians. At one distant country post, he is taken aback when he works with a patient whose husband died after Simon treated the man years before. In another hospital, Simon examines a surprisingly mature teen and also tries courting devoted nurse Nan McPherson (Shirley Eaton).
For Capt. Robert John Evans, smuggling black-market goods is nothing out of the ordinary. But one day he's hired by Aristides Mavros for a more involved assignment -- sneaking an imprisoned American out of communist-controlled territory. The job seems challenging enough, but when he meets the prisoner's sultry wife, Sylvia, he realizes his mission comes with a startling catch: Not only must he rescue this man, he must bring him back from the dead.
Executive Harold Pelham suffers a serious accident after which he faces the shadow of death. When, against all odds, he miraculously recovers, he discovers that his life does not belong to him anymore.
Commissioned by the Ministry of Information and specifically target working class audiences; ‘Now you’re talking’ follows a plant worker, who lets slip vital information about some overnight research on a captured enemy aircraft. This inevitably leads to this most important of secrets falling into the lap of the enemy.
One day in the lives and loves of the staff in a large department store.
Having been given enforced retirement due to his age, Mick-Mack creates strain upon his extended family.
On the eve of WWII a young defence lawyer, assisted by his wife, invaigles his way into a gang of foreign saboteurs. Comedy thriller, ably executed by a satisfactory cast.
Two window cleaners help a girl who is trying to get to Hollywood.
In Paris a leading theatre impresario is murdered on opening night, shortly after replacing his leading lady. A police Inspector in the audience takes over the investigation. The film was shot at Elstree Studios. It was a close remake of the 1937 Austrian film Premiere and re-used a number of musical scenes from the original which were dubbed into English.
A short film made to mark the occasion of the 11th International Dental Congress, held in London in 1952.