John Slater

A mini-series based on the life of Charles Dickens.

Part of BFI's "National Coal Board Collection".

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.

Penniless Lord Whitebait's plan to save his sinking fortunes is to open stately Whitebait Manor to the public. But the public ignores his gesture, and his fortunes fade even further, with a stream of debts threatening to run into a deluge when his daughter's fiancé demands a plush and costly wedding. Where is the cash to come from? Whitebait and his servant Spankforth's answer is a scam involving the theft of a valuable painting from the Manor. How could such a cunningly original ruse fail?

Jacko, a respected union man, is fighting for the promotion of a Jamaican colleague to chargehand, but when his daughter brings home her black boyfriend, he realises that racial prejudice is rife within his own home. This powerful drama exposes the deep-seated racial tensions hidden in British family life during the late 1950s. Written for the stage by Unity Theatre's Ted Willis, this television recording was filmed a few weeks after the play's successful West End run, and most of the stage cast repeat their roles here, including the terrific John Slater, Andree Melly and Lloyd Reckord. The drama's interracial kiss is probably the first to be shown on British TV.

Struggle between a Liverpool Juvenile Liaison officer and a young and dangerous pyromaniac.

Returning late to London, Johnny gives a lift to an attractive female hitch-hiker. Some distance on, he stops to make a phone call and buy a coffee, but on returning to his cab finds the woman gone. Assuming she has hitched another ride, he continues on his way. A short time later he is flagged down by another driver, who has come across a woman lying by the roadside. The woman is Johnny's hitchhiker and she's dead.

An impoverished American sailor is fortunate enough to be passing the house of two rich gentlemen who have conceived the crazy idea of distributing a note worth one million pounds. The sailor finds that whenever he tries to use the note to buy something, people treat him like a king and let him have whatever he likes for free. Ultimately, the money proves to be more troublesome than it is worth when it almost costs him his dignity and the woman he loves.

Squire Pierre St. Laurent returns from wars in India to 17th-century provincial France to find his estate confiscated by governor Narbonne, for back taxes, and resold to Katrina, a Dutch Countess. Katrina offers to return Pierre's property if he will help her get possession of the 'Star of India,' a fabulous sapphire, held at the moment by Narbonne.

1953 British noir thriller, starring John Mills. An innocent man is released from prison after 12 years and tracks down the witnesses who lied about him in court. Based on a 1951 novel by Howard Clewes.

Docudrama recreating events in the Malayan Emergency

The Israeli-made Faithful City stars Jamie Smith as an American in Tel Aviv just after World War II. Smith makes the acquaintance of a group of orphans, Jewish refugees of the concentration camps. It takes some doing, but Smith wins the love and trust of these displaced youngsters. Like most government-funded Israeli productions of the early 1950s, Faithful City is designed more to instruct and inform than entertain. That it happens to be entertaining in the bargain is all the more reason to seek out this extremely rare film.

An underhand solicitor receives threatening notes, and the police are called in to protect him.

Suave supercilious Carling (Karel Stepanek) receives several callers to his isolated house, all of whom hold a grudge against him. Next morning a corpse is found, and later identified as his by one of the visitors.

Prelude to Fame is a 1950 British drama film directed by Fergus McDonell from a story by Aldous Huxley. While vacationing in Italy, Nick Morell (Robin Dowell), son of John Morell (Guy Rolfe), a famous English philosopher and amateur musician and his wife Catherine (Kathleen Ryan), becomes friendly with young Guido (Jeremy Spenser), and Morell discovers the boy has an extraordinary instinct for orchestration and a phenomenal music memory. A neighboring couple, Signor and Signora Boudini (Henry Oscar and Kathleen Byron) become aware of the boy's talents, and she appeals to his parents to let her educate him musically. Torn by their love for their son and, they feel,the duty to let the world hear his talent, they consent.

When an unexploded WWII bomb is accidentally detonated in Pimlico, it reveals a treasure trove and documents proving that the region is in fact part of Burgundy, France and thus foreign territory. The British government attempts to regain control by setting up border controls and cutting off services to the area.

Escape is a thriller about a World War II vet who goes to prison for murder and then escapes. He meets a woman who tries to get him to surrender.

Set in post Second World War Britain, Noose is the story of black market racketeers who face attempts to bring them to justice by an American fashion journalist, her ex-army fiancée and a gang of honest toughs from a local gym. When a corpse turns up at black market front The Blue Moon Club, Yank reporter Carole Landis starts snooping, much to gang boss Joseph Calleia’s annoyance. And soon there’s a hit man on the way...

A disparate group of volunteers are trained as saboteurs and parachuted into Belgium to blow up an office containing important Nazi records and to rescue a prominent S.O.E. agent, who is being interrogated by the Germans for vital information.

During a rainy Sunday afternoon, an escaped prisoner tries to hide out at the home of his ex-fiance.

The growing ambition of Julius Caesar is a source of major concern to his close friend Brutus. Cassius persuades him to participate in his plot to assassinate Caesar but they have both sorely underestimated Mark Antony.

The WW II romance set in Grosvenor square aka Eisenhower's home where the GIs stayed in London. Neagle loves Harrison. There arrives patriot GI Dean Jagger to rouse things up in the square. Snotty British Neagle and Jagger clash and fall for each other. What will Harrison have to say or do about these? What will the consequences be? Will the three finally become two and which two in this extremely patriotic love and war story.

An account of the technique of reading the tabloid press in an intelligent manor via differing editorial techniques that leads to three styles of newspapers giving varying accounts of a strip-tease act.

A WWII flyer fails to join the RAF so he joins the Air - Sea Rescue instead. His boat is out in all conditions picking up downed pilots and taking them to safety.

A new batch of Army recruits, from diverse backgrounds and with varying degrees of commitment, is shaped into an efficient fighting unit.

Millions Like Us is a 1943 British propaganda film, showing life in a wartime aircraft factory in documentary detail. It stars Patricia Roc, Eric Portman, Megs Jenkins, and Anne Crawford, was written by Sidney Gilliat, and directed by Gilliat and Frank Launder. It was filmed at Gainsborough Studios. When Celia Crowson (Roc) is called up for war service, she hopes for a glamorous job in one of the services, but as a single girl she is directed into a factory making aircraft parts. Here she meets other girls from all different walks of life, and begins a relationship with a young airman.

A film Directed by Ronald Haines..

A British factory is inefficient because of pre-war rules and red tape. A Soviet trades union representative shows workers and management the value of unity.

Morale-boosting story released in the middle of World War II. A journalist uncovers a peace organisation at the centre of disreputable dealings.

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.

Eccentric Cambridge archaeologist Horatio Smith (Howard) takes a group of British and American archaeology students to pre-war Nazi Germany to help in his excavations. His research is supported by the Nazis, since he professes to be looking for evidence of the Aryan origins of German civilisation. However, he has a secret agenda: to free inmates of the concentration camps.

Depressing and realistic family drama about the struggles of unemployment and poverty in 1930s Lancashire. The 20-year-old Kerr gives an emotionally charged performance as Hardcastle, one of the cotton workers trying to make life better. Interlaced with humour that brings a ray of sunshine to the pervasive bleakness, this remains a powerful social study of life between the wars, and was a rare problem picture to come out of Britain at the time.

Short war time film about the daily activities of Shunter Trains in British Railway Yards and their importance and contribution to the war effort.

The Common Touch is a 1941 British drama film directed by John Baxter and starring Geoffrey Hibbert, Harry Welchman, Greta Gynt and Joyce Howard. On the death of his father, an eighteen-year old lad leaves school to take over the family firm in the City of London. Realising the other directors want to keep him in the dark he starts asking questions, and is soon undercover as a down-and-out in a hostel which will disappear if a company building project goes ahead.