London, 1929. Frank Webber, a very busy Scotland Yard detective, seems to be more interested in his work than in Alice White, his girlfriend. Feeling herself ignored, Alice agrees to go out with an elegant and well-mannered artist who invites her to visit his fancy apartment.
Dr. Laurence, a once-respectable scientist, begins to research the origin of the mind and the soul. The science community rejects him, and he risks losing everything for which he has worked. He begins to use his discoveries to save his research and further his own causes, thereby becoming... a Mad Scientist, almost unstoppable...
Three old muckers meet down the boozer for a natter about their alarmingly swiftly-diminishing circle of friends.
The film is a historical drama set during the reign of Elizabeth I (Flora Robson), focusing on the English defeat of the Spanish Armada, whence the title. In 1588, relations between Spain and England are at the breaking point. With the support of Queen Elizabeth I, British sea raiders such as Sir Francis Drake regularly capture Spanish merchantmen bringing gold from the New World.
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.
Ebenezer Scrooge, the ultimate Victorian miser, hasn't a good word for Christmas, though his impoverished clerk Cratchit and nephew Fred are full of holiday spirit. In the night, Scrooge is visited by spirits of the past, present, and future.
A diplomat falls in love with an exiled Russian princess.
A gang of jewel thieves hides out in an abandoned London house after a robbery, unaware that a detective is among them in disguise.
'Manicurist Grete and nightclub waiter Carl share a bed, but not at the same time. They hate each other, even though they have never met. Their rented room is next to a cinema with its frankfurter-munching projectionist and romantic musical numbers that seem to permeate their lives. Might they meet and fall in love?' (BFI)
Timed to bolster public morale at the end of the Great War, Maurice Elvey’s biopic of Nelson frequently steps out of its period setting to give us historical background or contemporary relevance. There are some nice locations but resort to cheap sets and episodic structure don’t quite do justice to the subject.
Criminals pose as ghosts to scare a lighthouse keeper on the Welsh coast, in attempt to distract him. Jim Pearce deliberately maroons himself on the rock along with Alice Bright. When the light is later smashed, Jim reveals that his brother’s ship is the wreckers’ latest target, while Alice is a detective sent to investigate.
The theft of a famous painting leads to murder and many suspects on a plush train speeding from Paris to Rome.
Grierson set out to make "propaganda," and this film--with it's voice-over proclaiming the great value of the British industrial worker, without a hint of ambiguity or doubt--fits that category well. The authoritatarian narrator feels out-of-date and unsophisticated, but the footage is well shot and interesting, and the transparency of the propaganda aspect is almost a reflief at a time when so many films have hidden agendas.
During World War I, a young nurse in a hospital in German-occupied Belgium is secretly feeding military information to the British. Complicating matters is the guilt she feels when she has to treat the German casualties inflicted as a result of the information she's passed on, and the fact that the local German commandant is falling in love with her.
William Kell, the keeper of a lighthouse on a lonely stretch of coastline, marries cabaret dancer Eileen. His young wife, however, goes on to have an affair with Henry Cass, the handsome assistant later taken on by her husband; when she then begins to flirt with a stranger who is rescued from the wreck of a motor-launch, a chain of shocking events is set in motion...
Lord Nelson's life, loves and death.
Urged by famous airman Ellissen the Lennartz Company puts into reality the project proposed by his friend Droste: F.P.1, a huge floating platform in the Atlantic that makes long-distance flights viable. Ellissen is in love with company heiress Claire, but when he returns from his adventures to save the endangered F.P.1 he finds out that he has lost her to Droste. English version of F.P.1 antwortet nicht with Conrad Veidt replacing Hans Albers as the jaded pilot Ellissen.
A woman disguises herself in men's clothes in order to follow her husband to the wars.
The story, about the social interaction of a group of railway passengers who have been stranded at a remote rural station overnight who are increasingly threatened by a latent external force. Only five reels of picture and two reels of soundtrack survive.
Shortly after the start of World War II, a ukelele player (George) takes the wrong boat and finds himself in (still uninvaded) Norway. He is mistaken for a fellow British intelligence agent by a woman (Mary), and becomes involved in trying to defeat Nazi agents.
A bibulous election candidate makes a speech.
'A woman reporter is blackmailed for knowledge of freed suspect's involvement in a murder.' (British Film Institute)
Charley's (Big-Hearted) Aunt is a 1940 British comedy film directed by Walter Forde starring Arthur Askey and Richard Murdoch as Oxford 'scholars'. The film is one of many to be made based on the farce Charley's Aunt. Taking inspiration from a well-known Victorian play, a modern-day prankster poses as a wealthy woman in a ploy to prevent him and his friends from being expelled from college.
A gang of spies held up in a haunted castle gives this team of celebrated British wireless comedians plenty of scope for laughs.
A young couple attend a masked ball before their planned (but secret) elopement. Suddenly everything goes wrong when the young woman is attacked and held hostage by a crazed attacker.
A series of 19 musical and comedy "vaudeville" sketches presented in the form of a live television broadcast hosted by Tommy Handley (as himself).
The husband and wife acting team of Mae Feather and Julian Gordon is torn apart when he discovers she is having an affair with the screen comedian Andy Wilks.
British musical film directed by Carmine Gallone.
Idealistic young Barbara is the daughter of rich weapons manufacturer Andrew Undershaft. She rebels against her estranged father by joining the Salvation Army. Wooed by professor-turned-preacher Adolphus Cusins, Barbara eventually grows disillusioned with her causes and begins to see things from her father's perspective.
George, the inebriate night porter at the Hotel Splendide, develops a series of increasingly outlandish suspicions about Billy and Percy, two guests who have arrived separately yet claim to be a married couple and demand to share a room together.
A comedy short Directed by Castleton Knight,
An ambitious young man secures a job in the colonial service, the only stipulation being that he needs to be married which he isn't. He has just twenty four hours to find a woman to persuade to marry him.
Mathias, an Alsatian innkeeper, murders a rich Pole staying at his inn. However, Mathias' conscience will not let him rest, and the murdered man's spirit drives the innkeeper nearly mad. The victim's brother calls for an inquest and brings with him a sideshow hypnotist, who is supposedly able to read minds. Mathias, as burgomaster, is called upon to conduct the inquest, but under the intuitive eye of the hypnotist cannot resist torment of his own conscience.
An ex-French Foreign Legion soldier comes to Soho and ends up as a singer in a cafe.
A musical directed by G.B. Samuelson.
An old Jewish man is forced to hide the Austrian lieutenant who killed his son and loves his daughter.
'A good-looking chauffeur, employed by an aristocratic married lady is tempted to misconduct. His indifference arouses her wrath and he is charged with assault at the Assizes. ' (British Film Institute)
An elderly couple reminisce about the romantic adventures of their youth.
In Egypt a colonel with a year to live saves a girl from an Arab prince.
A comedy film directed by Norman Walker
A British comedy film directed by John Daumery
As he pursues Joan Blossom, ruined gambler Jeff Cheddar is mistaken for two-faced financier Jay Cheddar, eventually leading to Joan's stockbroker father, Sir Henry Blossom, investing heavily in a supposedly worthless gold mine. Financial chaos ensues in a farcical comedy of confused identities, romantic entanglements, and a fortune hiding in a hat.
English-language version. "Atlantic" is a drama film based on the sinking of the RMS "Titanic" and set aboard a fictional ship, called the "Atlantic". The main plotline revolves around a man who has a shipboard affair with a fellow passenger, which is eventually discovered by his wife. The ship also has aboard an elderly couple, the Rools, who are on their anniversary cruise. Midway across the Atlantic Ocean, the "Atlantic" strikes an iceberg and is damaged to the point where it is sinking into the Atlantic.
A wealthy recluse is murdered in an absolutely sealed room.
A Chinese missionary comes to England. He helps a young girl ill-treated by her father. A remake of D. W. Griffith's Masterpiece.
Ann Harding plays a lovely but somewhat naive young woman who goes on a European vacation after winning a lottery. Swept off her feet by charming Basil Rathbone, Harding finds herself married before she is fully able to grasp the situation. Slowly but surely, Rathbone's loving veneer crumbles; when he casually asks Harding to sign a document turning her entire fortune over to him, she deduces that her days are numbered.
A visiting American engages in a bold business promotion, the likes of which the British have not seen.
Love blossoms after a young man rescues a pretty girl who attempted to drown herself.
An actress cures an aged flirt by posing as his wife.
David Barr is the manager and chief designer of a British shipyard in decline. The shipyard is in financial trouble but Barr has a design for a new ship that will save them all. Can he get the ship built in spite of the opposition from his own bankers as well as the rival shipbuilders and their infiltrated militants.
A fake psychic suddenly turns into the real thing when he meets a young beauty. (TCM)
Stephen Sorrell, a decorated war hero, raises his son Kit alone after Kit's mother deserts husband and child in the boy's infancy. Sorrell loses a promising job offer and is forced to take work as a menial. Both his dignity and his health are damaged as he suffers under the exhausting labor and harsh treatment he receives as a hotel porter. But Sorrell thrives in the knowledge that his son will benefit from his labors. Sorrell has allowed the boy to believe his mother dead, but when the mother shows up, wanting to re-enter the young man's life, Sorrell must make hard decisions.
'Advertisement for Film Weekly, in which British actors impersonate Hollywood stars in scenes from recent films; the audience is invited to compete for a prize of £100 for naming the best impersonation.' (BFI)
It is pouring with rain at one minute to midnight on Friday the thirteenth, and the driver of a London bus is peering through his blurred windscreen as his vehicle sails down an empty road. Suddenly, lightning strikes, and a vast crane above topples into the path of the oncoming bus... Then Big Ben begins to wind backwards. Time recedes. And we discover the lives of all the passengers and the events that brought them to that late-night bus journey, from the con-man with a hundred-pound cheque to the businessman's distraught and elderly wife. Time flows on, inevitably, to the crash -- and past it, as some live and some die.