When eccentric candy man Willy Wonka promises a lifetime supply of sweets and a tour of his chocolate factory to five lucky kids, penniless Charlie Bucket seeks the golden ticket that will make him a winner.
A deck-chair attendant at a British resort promotes a film festival featuring a French sexpot.
In 17th century France, young D'Artagnan wants to join the King's Musketeers, but instead befriends three legendary musketeers—Athos, Porthos, and Aramis—and together, they become embroiled in the political intrigue surrounding King Louis XIII and his adversaries, particularly the powerful Cardinal Richelieu.
A master conman leads a pair of British accomplices on an international adventure of highly profitable dirty tricks.
Anyone for Denis? is a British video-taped television version of the stage play of the same name broadcast by the ITV network on 28 December 1982. The original play, first performed at the Whitehall Theatre in 1981, was written by satirist John Wells.
North Africa, World War II. British soldiers on the brink of collapse push beyond endurance to struggle up a brutal incline. It's not a military objective. It's The Hill, a manmade instrument of torture, a tower of sand seared by a white-hot sun. And the troops' tormentors are not the enemy, but their own comrades-at-arms.
Hawk the Slayer, after seeing both his father and bride die at the hands of his malevolent brother, Voltan, sets out for revenge and the chance to live up to his title. Tooling himself up with the "mind-sword" and recruiting a motley band of warriors — a giant, a dwarf, a one-armed man with a machine-crossbow, and an elf with the fastest bow in the land — Hawk leads the battle against Voltan to free the land from the forces of evil and avenge his loved ones.
The Four Musketeers defend the queen and her dressmaker from Cardinal Richelieu and Milady de Winter.
An all-star cast highlights this vibrant musical adaptation of Lewis Carroll's immortal tale. One day, plucky young Alice follows a white rabbit down a hole and discovers a world of bizarre characters.
Chinatown, San Francisco, 1928. Former private detective Dashiell Hammett, a compulsive drinker with tuberculosis who writes pulp fiction for a living, receives an unexpected visit from an old friend asking for help.
A musical adaptation of Charles Dickens' classic ghost tale starring Albert Finney.
An inept British WWII commander leads his troops to a series of misadventures in North Africa and Europe.
Three elderly distinguished gentlemen are searching for some excitement in their boring borgoueis lives and gets in contact with one of count Dracula's servants. In a nightly ceremony they restore the count back to life. The three men killed Dracula's servant and as a revenge, the count makes sure that the gentlemen are killed one by one by their own sons.
A terrorist demands a huge ransom in exchange for information on how to disarm the seven bombs he has planted aboard a trans-Atlantic cruise ship. Inspired by real events.
It's 1649: Mazarin hires the impoverished D'Artagnan to find the other musketeers: Cromwell has overthrown the English king, so Mazarin fears revolt, particularly from the popular Beaufort. Porthos, bored with riches and wanting a title, signs on, but Aramis, an abbé, and Athos, a brawler raising an intellectual son, assist Beaufort in secret. When they fail to halt Beaufort's escape from prison, the musketeers are expendable, and Mazarin sends them to London to rescue Charles I. They are also pursued by Justine, the avenging daughter of Milady de Winter, their enemy 20 years ago. They must escape England, avoid Justine, serve the Queen, and secure Beauford's political reforms.
The story is about the Princess Irene and a young warrior boy named Curty. Irene must use her magic power to fight off goblins and save the kingdom.
Charles Dobbs is a British secret agent investigating the apparent suicide of Foreign Office official Samuel Fennan. Dobbs suspects that Fennan's wife, Elsa, a survivor of a Nazi Germany extermination camp, might have some clues, but other officials want Dobbs to drop the case. So Dobbs hires a retiring inspector, Mendel, to quietly make inquiries. Dobbs isn't at all sure as there are a number of anomalies that simply can't be explained away. Dobbs is also having trouble at home with his errant wife, whom he very much loves, having frequent affairs. He's also pleased to see an old friend, Dieter Frey, who he recruited after the war. With the assistance of a colleague and a retired policeman, Dobbs tries to piece together just who is the spy and who in fact assassinated Fennan.
An obscure Eastern cult that practices human sacrifice pursues Ringo after he unknowingly puts on a ceremonial ring (that, of course, won't come off). On top of that, a pair of mad scientists, members of Scotland Yard, and a beautiful but dead-eyed assassin all have their own plans for the Fab Four.
Daisy Gamble, an unusual woman who hears phones before they ring, and does wonders with her flowers, wants to quit smoking to please her fiancé, Warren. She goes to a doctor of hypnosis to do it. But once she's under, her doctor finds out that she can regress into past lives and different personalities, and he finds himself falling in love with one of them.
Pseudonym Dr. Falke follows his wife through disguises and deceptions in postwar Vienna.
A leading pop star is kidnapped in swinging London.
Sgt. Cannon (Tommy Cannon) and PC Ball (Bobby Ball) run the police station in the quiet town of Little Botham. When the station is threatened with closure due to a lack of crime, they decide to invent some crimes to justify their existence. When they try to steal a painting from a local rich businessman (Roy Kinnear), they accidently stumble across a gang of real art thieves who have just stolen £1 million worth of paintings. It is up to the two bungling cops to stop them escaping with their haul.
Charlie returns to the East End after two years at sea to find his house demolished and wife Maggie gone. Everyone else knows she is now shacked up with married bus driver Bert and a toddler, and they all watch with more than a little interest at the trail of mayhem Charlie leaves as he goes about sorting things out.
Three young men, a scriptwriter, a producer and a director are called in by Benny U Murdoch, an exotic movie producer. He wants to make a new erotic movie starring a big woman - the "Eskimo Nell" of the title. However problems start from the beginning, the scriptwriter is a virgin, a lover of penguins and hasn't a clue on how to write an erotic movie, each of the three main backers want a different type of movie - a western, an erotic and a kung-fu movie with different people in the main part. However problems really start for the three when Benny runs off with all the money and they have to make three different versions of the same film and try not to let the backers and stars know what has happened. And this is made harder when there is a clean-up-filth society breathing down their necks....
A Boy Scout troupe led by their scoutmaster (Sykes) is on a field trip to a seemingly-peaceful English woodland. However, the woods are actually teeming with strange characters, some of whom turn out to be disguised police officers and others criminals. The police are searching for £2,000,000 in stolen banknotes and hope that the criminals will lead them to them. The criminals, on the other hand, are aware that the police are looking for them and doing their best to avoid betraying the location of their stash.
A history of the famous vampire of books and movies, using film clips, previews and other methods.
The Talking Parcel is based on a 1974 book by Gerald Durrell in which a young girl is transported to the fantasy land of Mythologia to save it from cockatrices. She is aided by a talking parrot and encounter many other magical creatures, including a mooncalf.
Story of Sir Thomas More, who refused to accept the spiritual leadership of Henry VIII, and faces death as he struggles to remain loyal to his integrity.
Greed, corruption, ignorance, and disease. Midsummer, 1349: the Black Death reaches northern Germany. Minstrels go to Hamelin for the Mayor's daughter's wedding to the Baron's son. He wants her dowry to pay his army while his father taxes the people to build a cathedral he thinks will save his soul. A local apothecary who's a Jew seeks a treatment for the plague; the priests charge him with witchcraft. One of the minstrels, who has soothed the Mayor's daughter with his music, promises to rid the town of rats for the fee. The Mayor agrees, then renigs. In the morning, the plague, the Jew's trial, and the Piper's revenge come at once.
Not Now, Comrade tells the story of Rudi, a Russian ballet star who defects to the West, and the chaos that befalls those who try to help him... not least London stripper Barbara, with whom he decides to take refuge!
Set in contemporary Bethnal Green in east London, A Place to Go charts the dramatic changes that were happening in the lives of the British working-class at the time.
Three sailors on leave turn a British town upside down.
It's the night before Christmas, and all the toy store rejects are due to be tossed into the furnace. This includes Quincy, a most lifelike doll. In a last ditch effort to save himself and his "unwanted" chums from incineration, he goes on a long and perilous journey in search of the only one who can save them: Santa Claus.
The ghost of the King of Denmark tells his son Hamlet to avenge his murder by killing the new king, Hamlet's uncle. Hamlet feigns madness, contemplates life and death, and seeks revenge. His uncle, fearing for his life, also devises plots to kill Hamlet. An historic BBC production taped on location in and around Kronborg castle in Elsinore (Denmark), in which the play is set.
A clerical error leads to the appointment of a left-leaning small-town priest to a rich village, where he immediately horrifies his snobby parishioners by appointing a dustman and a black man as vicar's wardens and throwing open the vicarage to the sprawling, disreputable Smith family, who have just been evicted from their caravan site. He converts the dowager aristocrat to works of absurd charity but he soon has the town and much of the country in uproar.
When the detective in charge of investigating a series of bank robberies starts to get too close to the culprits, they set up a blackmail scheme to warn him off. But when the crooks begin to fall out with each other, the police learn the truth.
During a game of golf between a police inspector and a vicar the inspector cheats by having a constable move his ball into favourable positions and the vicar's into hazardous ones. when the vicar discovers this he prays for divine intervention which turns the tables.
A team of inept undertakers attempt to get a coffin to a funeral on time. An undertaker is in charge of moving a coffin from a home to the church. The home is on the 26th floor of a skyscraper; the stairs are narrow; the lift is small and prone to stop working. Chaos ensues.
Two youngsters declare to their parents that they want to get married. Not sometime in the future but as soon as possible.
Two funeral parlours fight one another for business, one of whom is more shady than the other.
When the warren belonging to a community of rabbits is threatened, a brave group led by Fiver, Bigwig, Blackberry and Hazel leave their homeland in a search of a safe new haven.
Escaping from China with a microfilm of the formula for the mysterious "Lotus X", Lord Southmere, a Queen's Messenger, is chased by a group of Chinese spies.
Herbie, the Volkswagen Beetle with a mind of its own, is racing in the Monte Carlo Rally. But thieves have hidden a cache of stolen diamonds in Herbie's gas tank, and are now trying to get them back.
Life in Lanarkshire, Scotland.
On arrival at British Albion, Mr Gryce felt that his lack of ambition would be completely fulfilled. There was a luncheon voucher scheme, a pension fund, paid holidays - and (apparently) nothing much doing between the hours of nine to five. Then his colleagues began to take an unhealthy interest in him. They asked questions he couldn't answer, and answered questions he hadn't asked. Only the lovely Pam made life bearable, but even she was not quite what she seemed....
A night watchman at a garage is found murdered, and four teddy boys are put on trial for the crime. Witnesses and suspects give differing accounts of the lead-up to the crime, and the truth emerges.
A wily slave must unite a virgin courtesan and his young smitten master to earn his freedom.
The compère of a seedy strip club struggles to keep one step ahead of the bookies to whom he owes money.
The life story of an 18th century womanizer who's arrested, not so much for his crimes, but because he's viewed as an undesirable by the husbands and families of the women he seduces.
A parody of the long running radio show "The Archers", an everyday story of country-folk based in the fictional village of Umbridge.
Class distinctions, inferiority complexes, and social climbing abound as the bride, groom, and their families gather for a wedding banquet. There's a rumor that a general will be in attendance, secured by a real estate agent at one family's expense. After an argument about electricity, which exposes both the ignorance and the combativeness of the bride, the general does arrive, ear trumpet in hand. He commands the attention of all. But will tranquility last until the group photo?
A mockumentary starring Warwick Davis, the actor who played the Ewok, Wicket W. Warrick in Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi and the Ewok spin-off films. Davis and David Tomblin, Return of the Jedi's first assistant director, created it, with Tomblin directing. Lucasfilm planned to use the movie as a promotional film for Return of the Jedi, but post-production on the film was never completed.
An adaptation of Winifred Holtby's classic novel
A TV play by Graeme McCaig set amongst Blackpool's beach entertainers and starring Roy Kinnear
Rupert Skern's Saturday morning peace is shattered by the arrival of workmen in his garden
Prestwich Clough, near Bury, is the setting for a disastrous family cricket match and a picnic that does little to assuage rising tempers.
In the hazy aftermath of World War III, the fallout from a 'nuclear misunderstanding' is producing strange mutations amongst the survivors, and the noble Lord Fortnum finds himself transforming into a bed sitting room.
An account of how Lech Walesa and the "Solidarity" trade union confronted the might of Communist dictatorship in Poland.
'Egghead' Wentworth adapts his father's robot paratrooper to perform his chores, but forgets to programme it to keep him out of trouble.
The efforts of three children, who live in high rise flats, to save a donkey from two small-time crooks who want to sell it as horsemeat, by providing a temporary stable for the donkey in the block of high-rise flats.
Children's Film Foundation comedy.
James Mason and John Mills star in this comedy-drama about a tough colonel and a refined captain who clashed during the war, and continue their personal battle in peace-time Tahiti.
Josh and his friends visit an airfield to see the gliders and become involved with two lads determined to sabotage the gliders. Alice the Chimp lends a hand to a series of hair raising incidents.
The children visit a waxworks museum near closing time, whilst their grandmother does her shopping. Alice the chimp gets lost, and the children hide as attendants close the building for the night. Meanwhile, an attempt is being made to steal the day's takings.
Josh stands a good chance against Buz, the favourite competitor at the local go-kart junior race. Buz and his friends decide to remove any competition by stealing Josh's go-kart. However, Alice the Chimp moves into action to stop them succeeding.
Judy, Josh and Joey, with Alice the Chimp, take part in a Wild Life Treasure Hunt and are picked to compete against four boys who put winning before everything.
Judy, Joey and Josh are left for a night at a guest house run by Mrs. Ada Witty. Her nephews are anxious to obtain the house and decide to scare her out by pretending to be ghosts. But when Alice the Chimp goes to investigate, it is the villains who get a scare.
A missing formula, a defecting Eastern European scientist kidnapped, car chases, foot chases, air chases, the British secret service, and a couple of American tourists caught right in the middle.
During World War I Major Errol Phipps is determined to escape from Stalag Luft 112B but his attempts all fail. However all the other prisoners and the guards succeed, leaving him alone in the camp to make elaborate plans - including a tunnel system so extensive it becomes the Munich Underground. He is so obsessed with his escape plans he fails to realize that the war has ended and dies a disappointed man. He does however manage to escape from his grave after he has been buried though.
After spending decades living in the shadow of his more famous and successful sibling, Consulting Detective Sigerson Holmes (Wilder) is called upon to help solve a crucial case that leads him on a hilarious trail of false identities, stolen documents, secret codes... and exposed backsides.
The adventures of pirate Captain Red and his first mate Frog.
Thirteen-year-old Nick and his slightly dense older brother Herbert run the Diamond Private Detective Agency above Camden Town Tube Station in north-central London. When a master criminal called The Falcon dies, they come into possession of his box of chocolate Maltesers, which contains the secret key to a fabulous cache of diamonds. Can they unravel the mystery and avoid the clutches of seedy lowlifes Brenda Von Falkenberg, Gott and Himmell, The Fat Man and the dogmatic Chief Inspector Snape, all of whom want to find the swag first.
A telling of the famous fairy tale with actors and voice over
Barry McKenzie's Aunt Edna is kidnapped by Count Von Plasma, the vampire head of an isolated Eastern European dictatorship who mistakes her for the Queen of England and thinks that kidnapping her will draw tourists to his country. Barry and his mates set out to rescue her and bring her back to Australia.
Insurance investigator must find out who is setting fires. Along the way he meets and works with a beautiful newspaper reporter and falls in love.
When a nobleman is threatened by a family curse on his newly inherited estate, detective Sherlock Holmes is hired to investigate.
Comedy play about a seaside photographer, Henry Hunter, who goes to Margate every year to work, staying with his friends Frank and Hylda. However, he is getting older, and his trade is dying out as people have their own instamatic cameras.
The evil brother of Richard the Lionheart is holding the king for ransom, and only Robin Hood and his band of merry men can save him...for a small fee, of course.
Compilation of classic clips, featuring the best performances from across the much-loved comedian's long BBC career, including examples of Emery's best-known slapstick routines and catchphrases. All the greatest clips from Dick Emery's long-running BBC career - a chance for fans both old and new to see what a huge contribution Emery made to contemporary slapstick comedy. All the classic characters appear: the father and son skinheads (with Roy Kinnear), "Oooh! You Are Awful", and a plethora of slapstick Lords, little old ladies, vicars and schoolmasters.
Digby Geste joins his brother, Beau, in the Foreign Legion following the theft of a priceless family heirloom.
A pop band and their girlfriends have fun in Spain
The young talented girl Anya, dreaming of a ballet, enters the choreographic school. Due to poor health, learning for her becomes unbearably difficult, but dreams of a ballerina career make her stubbornly deal with adversity. Anna’s performance and determination does not go unnoticed by the celebrated choreographer Marius Petipa, who helps to stage Pavlova's examination performance. Such a gift becomes a starting point for Ani in the world of big ballet, her fast-paced career, position in high society and world fame make her forget about close friends and especially her faithful Michel Fokine, who invested a lot of energy in the formation of a ballerina.
Olive Major is determined that her year of office as Mayor will be a happy and successful one. But her appointment of Ex-Warrant Officer Higham as Attendant and Mace-bearer causes the storm-clouds to gather over Medburgh Town Hall.
A CIA agent is used as a pawn in an insane woman's plan to steal a Polaris submarine.
Danny La Rue plays Cinderella's wicked stepmother in this grand tradition of a Christmas pantomime.
Davey's milk delivery job offers him scant excitement. But when a few of the lonely housewives, including the alluring Rita, want him to deliver a little more than just pints of milk, Davey launches into a series of sexcapades that quickly get out of hand. Soon, he finds himself engaged to two women, dodging a local gangster who doesn't appreciate his "service" and fighting false rape charges in court.
Alf and his family have been moved from their East End home into a high-rise council estate. Alf is not only having trouble coping with his new 'home', but also with the long commute to work, the long walk to the corner pub, his long-suffering wife Else, rebellious daughter Rita, and her philandering, constantly unemployed husband Mike.
Bradford. Journalist Tristan Hanley, up from the south, is told by his paper's proprietor to get the story on a missing girl. His trail leads through the undergrowth of the city....