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Frederick Piper
Frederick Piper (23 September 1902 – 22 September 1979) was an English actor of stage and screen who appeared in over 80 films and many television productions in a career spanning over 40 years. Piper studied drama under Elsie Fogerty at the Central School of Speech and Drama, then based at the Royal Albert Hall, London. Never a leading player, Piper was usually cast in minor, sometimes uncredited, parts although he also appeared in some more substantial supporting roles. Piper never aspired to star-status, but became a recognisable face on the British screen through the sheer volume of films in which he appeared. His credits include a number of films which are considered classics of British cinema, among them five 1930s Alfred Hitchcock films; he also appeared in many Ealing Studios productions, including some of the celebrated Ealing comedies. Stage career Born in London, England in September 1902, Piper worked as a tea merchant before starting his acting career on the st ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Passport To Pimlico
''Passport to Pimlico'' is a 1949 British comedy film made by Ealing Studios and starring Stanley Holloway, Margaret Rutherford and Hermione Baddeley. It was directed by Henry Cornelius and written by T. E. B. Clarke. The story concerns the unearthing of treasure and documents that lead to a small part of Pimlico to be declared a legal part of the House of Burgundy, and therefore exempt from the post-war rationing or other bureaucratic restrictions active in Britain at the time. ''Passport to Pimlico'' explores the spirit and unity of wartime London in a post-war context and offers an examination of the English character. Like other Ealing comedies, the film pits a small group of British against a series of changes to the ''status quo'' from an external agent. The story was an original concept by the screenwriter T. E. B. Clarke. He was inspired by an incident during the Second World War, when the maternity ward of Ottawa Civic Hospital was temporarily declared extraterritorial ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The White Carnation
''The White Carnation'' is a 1953 play by English playwright R. C. Sherriff. Its premiere production had a cast led by Ralph Richardson, but it was not revived until a 2013 Finborough Theatre production featuring Aden Gillett and Benjamin Whitrow. In 2014, the play was performed at the Jermyn Street Theatre Plot John Greenwood says goodbye to the guests from he and his wife's Christmas Eve, but a gust of wind shuts the front door and leaves him locked out of his own house. He breaks a window to gain entry and finds the house ruined and deserted. A policeman questions him what he is doing in the house, all of whose inhabitants were killed by a V-1 flying bomb during a Christmas Eve party in 1944, but Greenwood indignantly insists that he is in his own house. A coroner and doctor are summoned and inform Greenwood that he was one of the inhabitants killed and that he has returned to the house as a ghost - and that is now 1951. Greenwood is visited by Lydia Truscott, niece of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hue And Cry (film)
''Hue and Cry'' is a 1947 British film directed by Charles Crichton and starring Alastair Sim, Harry Fowler and Joan Dowling. It is generally considered to be the first of the Ealing comedies, although it is better characterised as a thriller for children. Shot almost entirely on location, it is now a notable historic document due to its vivid portrait of a London still showing the damage of the Second World War. London forms the backdrop of a crime-gangster plot which revolves around a working class children's street culture and children's secret clubs. Plot Following church choir practice in 1946 east London, Joe Kirby (Harry Fowler) reads aloud to his gang (The Blood and Thunder Boys) from the Trump boys' comic, but finds a page missing. He then buys a copy so he can follow the adventures of fictional detective Selwyn Pike. While reading one part of the latest story, Joe finds the comic adventure being repeated exactly in real life when he comes across two men carrying a crat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hunted (1952 Film)
''Hunted'' (U.S. ''The Stranger In Between'') is a British Noir crime film directed by Charles Crichton and released in 1952. ''Hunted'' is a crime drama in the form of a chase film, starring Dirk Bogarde, and written by Jack Whittingham and Michael McCarthy. It was produced by Julian Wintle and edited by Gordon Hales and Geoffrey Muller, with cinematography by Eric Cross and music by Hubert Clifford. The film won the Golden Leopard award at the 1952 Locarno International Film Festival. Plot Robbie (Jon Whiteley), an orphaned 6-year-old boy, has been placed with uncaring and harsh adoptive parents in London. Having accidentally set a small fire in the house, he fears he will receive severe punishment as he has in the past for misdemeanours, so flees into the London streets. Here, he literally runs into Chris Lloyd (Dirk Bogarde) who is himself on the run as he has, in the heat of passion, just killed his wife's employer, whom Lloyd had discovered, was having an affair wit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The October Man
''The October Man'' is a 1947 mystery film/film noir starring John Mills and Joan Greenwood, written by novelist Eric Ambler, who also produced. A man is suspected of murder, and the lingering effects of a brain injury he sustained in an earlier accident, as well as an intensive police investigation, make him begin to doubt whether he is innocent. Plot When a bus crashes due to faulty steering, passenger Jim Ackland (John Mills) sustains a serious brain injury and a young girl under his care is killed. Guilt-ridden, he attempts suicide twice during his recovery. He starts a new job as an industrial chemist and gets a room in a hotel. When he reluctantly accepts an invitation for a night out, he meets Jenny Carden (Joan Greenwood), the sister of his colleague Harry (Patrick Holt). They begin seeing each other quite regularly. Things reach the point that he confesses he wants to marry her, but he tells her that he wants to be sure he has fully recovered first. Molly Newman (Kay Wa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nine Men (film)
''Nine Men'' is a 1943 British war film, set in the Western Desert Campaign during the Second World War. Production The film is an Ealing Studios production and marked the first fiction film assignment for celebrated documentary film director Harry Watt, who had worked at the Crown Film Unit. With only a £20,000 budget, the film's exterior desert sequences were shot at Margam Sands, Glamorgan. Plot In a barrack room at a Battle Training Ground in England, a platoon of conscripts are complaining about blisters and are impatient to get into action with the enemy. Sergeant Jack Watson tells them that they need a little bit extra to be successful in combat, which he illustrates with a story from his experience in the Western Desert Campaign. His story is then shown in flashback. Lieutenant Crawford, Sergeant Watson and the seven men under their command are travelling through the Libyan desert in an Allied convoy, when their lorry becomes stuck in the sand and the convoy moves ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
In Which We Serve
''In Which We Serve'' is a 1942 British patriotic war film directed by Noël Coward and David Lean. It was made during the Second World War with the assistance of the Ministry of Information (United Kingdom), Ministry of Information. The screenplay by Coward was inspired by the exploits of Captain Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma, Lord Louis Mountbatten, who was in command of the destroyer when it was sunk during the Battle of Crete. Coward composed the film's music as well as starring in the film as the ship's captain. The film also starred John Mills, Bernard Miles, Celia Johnson and Richard Attenborough in his first screen role. ''In Which We Serve'' received the full backing of the Ministry of Information, which offered advice on what would make good propaganda and facilitated the release of military personnel. The film is a classic example of wartime British cinema through its patriotic imagery of national unity and social cohesion within the context of t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charles Laughton
Charles Laughton (1 July 1899 – 15 December 1962) was a British actor. He was trained in London at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and first appeared professionally on the stage in 1926. In 1927, he was cast in a play with his future wife Elsa Lanchester, with whom he lived and worked until his death. He played a wide range of classical and modern parts, making an impact in Shakespeare at the Old Vic. His film career took him to Broadway and then Hollywood, but he also collaborated with Alexander Korda on notable British films of the era, including ''The Private Life of Henry VIII'', for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his portrayal of the title character. He portrayed everything from monsters and misfits to kings. Among Laughton's biggest film hits were ''The Barretts of Wimpole Street'', ''Mutiny on the Bounty'', ''Ruggles of Red Gap'', ''Jamaica Inn'', ''The Hunchback of Notre Dame'', ''The Big Clock'', and ''Witness for the Prosecution''. Daniel D ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jamaica Inn (film)
''Jamaica Inn'' is a 1939 British adventure film, adventure thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock and adapted from Daphne du Maurier's 1936 Jamaica Inn (novel), novel of the same name. It is the first of three of du Maurier's works that Hitchcock adapted (the others were her novel ''Rebecca (novel), Rebecca'' and short story "The Birds (story), The Birds"). It stars Charles Laughton and Maureen O'Hara in her first major screen role. It is the last film Hitchcock made in the United Kingdom before he moved to the United States. The film is a period piece set in Cornwall in 1820, in the real Jamaica Inn (which still exists) on the edge of Bodmin Moor. Plot The film is set in 1820 (at the start of the reign of King George IV, as mentioned by Pengallan in his first scene). Over and above its function as a hostelry, Jamaica Inn houses the clandestine rural headquarters of a gang of cut-throats and thieves, led by innkeeper Joss Merlyn. They have become Wrecking (shipwreck), wre ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Young And Innocent
''Young and Innocent'', released in the US as ''The Girl Was Young'', is a 1937 British crime thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starring Nova Pilbeam and Derrick De Marney. Based on the 1936 novel '' A Shilling for Candles'' by Josephine Tey, the film is about a young man on the run from a murder charge who enlists the help of a woman who must put herself at risk for his cause. An elaborately staged crane shot Hitchcock devised, which appears towards the end of the film, identifies the real murderer. Plot On a stormy night, at a retreat on the English coast, Christine Clay (Pamela Carme), a successful actress, argues passionately with her jealous ex-husband Guy ( George Curzon). Not accepting her Reno divorce as valid, he accuses her of having an affair. Finally, she slaps him and he leaves the room. While they had been arguing, his eyes twitched violently; they continue to do so when, once outside, he turns angrily to look at the closed door behind him. The next ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sabotage (1936 Film)
''Sabotage'', released in the United States as ''The Woman Alone'', is a 1936 British espionage thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock starring Sylvia Sidney, Oskar Homolka, and John Loder. It is loosely based on Joseph Conrad's 1907 novel ''The Secret Agent'', about a woman who discovers that her husband, a London shopkeeper, is a terrorist agent. ''Sabotage'' should not be confused with Hitchcock's film ''Secret Agent'', which was also released in 1936, but which instead is loosely based on two stories in the 1927 collection '' Ashenden: Or the British Agent'' by W. Somerset Maugham. It also should not be confused with Hitchcock's film ''Saboteur'' (1942), which includes the iconic fall from the torch of the Statue of Liberty which presaged the Mount Rushmore scene in ''North by Northwest'' (1959). In 2017, a poll of 150 actors, directors, writers, producers and critics for '' Time Out'' magazine ranked the film 44th best British film ever. In 2021, ''The Daily Telegraph' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The 39 Steps (1935 Film)
''The 39 Steps'' is a 1935 British thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starring Robert Donat and Madeleine Carroll. It is very loosely based on the 1915 adventure novel '' The Thirty-Nine Steps'' by John Buchan. It concerns a Canadian civilian in London, Richard Hannay, who becomes caught up in preventing an organisation of spies called "The 39 Steps" from stealing British military secrets. After being mistakenly accused of the murder of a counter-espionage agent, Hannay goes on the run to Scotland and becomes tangled up with an attractive woman while hoping to stop the spy ring and clear his name. Since its initial release, the film has been widely acknowledged as a classic. Filmmaker and actor Orson Welles referred to it as a "masterpiece." Screenwriter Robert Towne remarked, "It's not much of an exaggeration to say that all contemporary escapist entertainment begins with ''The 39 Steps''." Plot At a London music hall theatre, Richard Hannay is watching a demonst ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
