Frederick Valk
Frederick Valk (10 June 1895 – 23 July 1956) was a German-born Jewish stage and screen actor of Czech Jewish descent who fled to the United Kingdom in the late 1930s to escape Nazi persecution, and subsequently became a naturalised British citizen. Despite making his later career in the English-speaking world, Valk never attempted to shed his heavy accent in either his stage or film work, and it became a trademark, particularly in film where he was often the first choice for a role which called for a German or generic Central European accent. Stage career Valk made his first appearance on the London stage in 1939, going on to play in numerous productions of classic drama including leading roles in Shakespeare, with his performances as Shylock in ''The Merchant of Venice'' and in the title role of ''Othello'', attracting critical admiration. In 1946 he won the ''Ellen Terry Award'' for best actor for his performance in Fyodor Dostoyevsky's ''The Brothers Karamazov''. Valk also ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Hotel Reserve
''Hotel Reserve'' is a 1944 British spy film starring James Mason as an innocent man caught up in pre-Second World War espionage. Other cast members include Lucie Mannheim, Raymond Lovell and Herbert Lom. It was based on Eric Ambler's 1938 novel ''Epitaph for a Spy''. Unusually, it was both directed and produced by a trio: Lance Comfort, Mutz Greenbaum and Victor Hanbury. It was shot at Denham Studios with sets designed by the art director William C. Andrews. The film was produced and distributed by the British branch of RKO Pictures. Plot In 1938, refugee Peter Vadassy decides to take a holiday at the Hotel Reserve to celebrate both his completion of medical school and his impending French citizenship. When he goes to pick up some photographs at the local pharmacy, he is taken away and questioned by Michel Beghin of French naval intelligence. When his negatives had been developed, some of them turned out to be of French military installations. It is discovered that while the cam ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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The Young Mr
''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the most frequently used word in the English language; studies and analyses of texts have found it to account for seven percent of all printed English-language words. It is derived from gendered articles in Old English which combined in Middle English and now has a single form used with pronouns of any gender. The word can be used with both singular and plural nouns, and with a noun that starts with any letter. This is different from many other languages, which have different forms of the definite article for different genders or numbers. Pronunciation In most dialects, "the" is pronounced as (with the voiced dental fricative followed by a schwa) when followed by a consonant sound, and as (homophone of pronoun ''thee'') when followed by a v ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Dead Of Night
''Dead of Night'' is a 1945 black and white British anthology horror film, made by Ealing Studios. The individual segments were directed by Alberto Cavalcanti, Charles Crichton, Basil Dearden and Robert Hamer. It stars Mervyn Johns, Googie Withers, Sally Ann Howes and Michael Redgrave. The film is best remembered for the concluding story featuring Redgrave and an insane ventriloquist's malevolent dummy. ''Dead of Night'' is a rare British horror film of the 1940s; horror films were banned from production in Britain during the war. It had an influence on subsequent British films in the genre. Both of John Baines' stories were reused for later films and the ventriloquist dummy episode was adapted into the pilot episode of the long-running CBS radio series ''Escape''. While primarily in the horror genre, the film has shades of the comedy that would make the studio's name. Plot Walter Craig arrives at a country cottage in Kent, where he is greeted by his host Elliot Foley. Crai ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Dangerous Moonlight
''Dangerous Moonlight'' (US: ''Suicide Squadron'') is a 1941 British film, directed by Brian Desmond Hurst and starring Anton Walbrook. Among the costumes, the gowns were designed by Cecil Beaton. The film is best known for its score written by Richard Addinsell, orchestrated by Roy Douglas, which includes the ''Warsaw Concerto''. ''Dangerous Moonlights love-story plot, told mainly in flashbacks, revolves around the fictional composer of the ''Warsaw Concerto'', a piano virtuoso and "shell-shocked" combat pilot, who meets an American war correspondent in Warsaw, and later returns from America to join the RAF in England to continue to fight against the Germans and their occupation of Poland.Jahiel, Edwin"Dangerous Moonlight (UK, 1941)."''Movie Reviews by Edwin Jahiel''. Retrieved: 7 May 2012. Plot During the German invasion of Poland, Polish airman and piano virtuoso Stefan Radecki (Anton Walbrook) meets American reporter Carole Peters (Sally Gray). He volunteers to fly a ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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This Man Is Dangerous
''This Man Is Dangerous'' (U.S. title: ''The Patient Vanishes'') is a 1941 British thriller film, directed by Lawrence Huntington and starring James Mason and Gordon McLeod. The film is based on the 1934 novel ''They Called Him Death'' by David Hume. This film was long thought entirely lost, but a dubbed Italian version has been traced. Having named the film on their "BFI 75 Most Wanted" list, the British Film Institute subsequently screened a discovered American reel of the film under its American title of 'The Patient Vanishes' in 2017 at its Big Thrill event - the first time the film had been shown on reel in the United Kingdom in seventy years. Plot Mick Cardby (Mason) earns a living as a self-employed private detective, to the exasperation of his father, Detective Inspector Cardby of Scotland Yard (McLeod), who would much prefer his son to enrol as a regular policeman. A policeman is killed while on duty in Hyde Park and Scotland Yard are keen to catch the killer of t ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Gasbags
''Gasbags'' is a 1941 British comedy film directed by Walter Forde and Marcel Varnel and starring The Crazy Gang as well as Moore Marriott. The film was a morale-booster in the early part of the Second World War. Production It was shot at the Lime Grove Studios in London. The film's sets were designed by the art director Alex Vetchinsky. It was the fourth and final film starring the comedians at Gainsborough Pictures. Flanagan and Allen subsequently moved to British National where they made a further four films over the next few years. Plot summary The Crazy Gang's mobile fish and chip shop is tethered to a barrage balloon which lifts the shop into the air and the gang is carried to Nazi Germany. They are captured but break out of prison, impersonate Adolf Hitler and return to England in a stolen secret weapon. Cast *Bud Flanagan as Bud * Chesney Allen as Ches * Jimmy Nervo as Cecil * Teddy Knox as Knoxy * Charlie Naughton as Charlie *Jimmy Gold as Goldy *Moore Marriott as J ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Neutral Port
''Neutral Port'' is a 1940 British war film directed by Marcel Varnel and starring Will Fyffe, Leslie Banks, Yvonne Arnaud, and Phyllis Calvert, with a supporting role for Wally Patch. It was produced and distributed by Gainsborough Pictures and shot at the company's Lime Grove Studios in West London. The film's sets were designed by the art director Alex Vetchinsky. Plot summary A British merchant ship is torpedoed by a German U-boat U-boats were naval submarines operated by Germany, particularly in the First and Second World Wars. Although at times they were efficient fleet weapons against enemy naval warships, they were most effectively used in an economic warfare role ... and takes shelter in a neutral port. The Captain then strikes back at the German enemy. Cast References External links * 1940 films 1940 war films British war films 1940s English-language films Gainsborough Pictures films U-boat fiction World War II films made in wartime British bl ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Night Train To Munich
''Night Train to Munich'' is a 1940 British-American thriller film directed by Carol Reed and starring Margaret Lockwood and Rex Harrison. Written by Sidney Gilliat and Frank Launder, based on the 1939 short story ''Report on a Fugitive'' by Gordon Wellesley, the film is about an inventor and his daughter who are kidnapped by the Gestapo after the Nazis march into Prague in the prelude to the Second World War. A British secret service agent follows them, disguised as a senior German army officer pretending to woo the daughter over to the Nazi cause. Plot As German forces take over Czechoslovakia in March 1939, Axel Bomasch, a Czechoslovak scientist working on a new type of armour-plating, is flown to Britain. Bomasch's daughter, Anna, is arrested before she can reach the airport and sent to a concentration camp, where she is interrogated by Nazis who are pursuing her father. Anna refuses to cooperate. Soon she is befriended by a fellow prisoner named Karl Marsen, who says he ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Traitor Spy
''Traitor Spy'' is a 1939 British thriller film directed by Walter Summers and starring Bruce Cabot, Marta Labarr, Tamara Desni and Edward Lexy. It was shot at Welwyn Studios with sets designed by Ian White. It has also been released under the title ''The Torso Murder Mystery''. The film is adapted from the novel of the same name by Jacques Pendower. Premise Both Scotland Yard and the security services are on the trail of some stolen blueprints and believe there is a link with a headless body discovered in Devon Devon ( , historically known as Devonshire , ) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South West England. The most populous settlement in Devon is the city of Plymouth, followed by Devon's county town, the city of Exeter. Devon is .... Cast References External links * 1939 films British mystery thriller films British spy thriller films 1930s English-language films Films directed by Walter Summers Films set in London Films set in Devon ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Out Of The Mist
''Out of the Mist'' (German title: ''Der Sohn der Hagar'') is a 1927 German silent drama film directed by Fritz Wendhausen and starring Mady Christians, Werner Fuetterer and Lia Eibenschütz.Grange p.253 It was shot at the Staaken Studios in Berlin. The film's sets were designed by the art directors Erich Kettelhut and Karl Vollbrecht. It was released by the German subsidiary of the Fox Film Company. Cast * Mady Christians as Lore * Werner Fuetterer as Robert Hellmich * Lia Eibenschütz as Christine * Gertrud de Lalsky as Anna Hartmann * Mathias Wieman as Dr. Friedlieb * Bruno Ziener as Jakob Hellmich * Auguste Prasch-Grevenberg as Gertrud Hellmich * Carl Theodor Klock as Berthold * Hermann Vallentin as Steinert * Vladimir Sokoloff as Poleto * Emil Heyse as Gottlieb Peukert * Paul Rehkopf as Gendarm * Frederick Valk * Max Schreck See also * ''Son Without a Home ''Son Without a Home'' (german: Sohn ohne Heimat) is a 1955 West German drama film directe ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Romanoff And Juliet (play)
''Romanoff and Juliet'' is a play by Peter Ustinov. A comic spoof of the Cold War, it is set in the small mythical mid-European country of Concordia, whose leader is wooed by the United States and the Soviet Union, each one wanting him as an ally. Russia's ambassador, a member of the Romanoff family, has a son Igor who falls in love with Juliet, the daughter of the US diplomat. The two opposing families, one communist, the other capitalism, capitalist, represent the warring Capulets and Characters in Romeo and Juliet#House of Montague, Montagues of ''Romeo and Juliet''. The play premiered in Manchester, England on 2 April 1956. The Broadway theatre, Broadway production, produced by David Merrick and directed by George S. Kaufman, opened on 10 October 1957 at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre, Plymouth Theatre and ran for 389 performances. The opening night cast included Peter Ustinov as the General, Gerald Sarracini as Igor, and Elizabeth Allen (actress), Elizabeth Allen as Juliet, ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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The Colditz Story
''The Colditz Story'' is a 1955 British prisoner of war film starring John Mills and Eric Portman and directed by Guy Hamilton. It is based on the 1952 memoir written by Pat Reid, a British army officer who was imprisoned in Oflag IV-C, Colditz Castle, in Germany during the Second World War and who was the Escape Officer for British POWs within the castle. Plot During World War II, the Germans transformed Colditz Castle into a high security prisoner-of-war camp called Oflag IV-C. Its purpose was to restrain those Allied prisoners who had attempted to escape from other Oflags and so Colditz housed various nationalities who were mainly British, Dutch, French and Polish. Among the British prisoners are Pat Reid and Senior British Officer Colonel Richmond. Richmond is warned by the Kommandant that "escaping is verboten" but Richmond has no intention of heeding this advice. All the prisoners are wary of Priem, the chief security officer, who is efficient and tenacious. Reid and othe ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |