Thorley Walters
At the request of his old war time colleague Ailsa Brimley, George Smiley agrees to look into the murder of Stella Rode. Brimley had only just received a letter from her saying she feared for her life at her husband's hand. The husband, Stanley Rode teaches at Carne School, but Smiley is doubtful that he had anything to do with his wife's death. As Smiley investigates, he learns that Stella was a nosy busybody who loved to learn other's little secrets and then gossip about them - or possibly blackmail them. When a student is killed and Smiley unearths a secret, he has the evidence to name the killer.Based on John Le Carré's 1962 thriller (his first) in which George Smiley is brought out of spy retirement to solve a murder in a British public school. The setting is based on Le Carre"s own schooldays in Sherborne and his brief experience teaching at Eton.
After a sheltered upbringing in St. Helena, Norah arrives in England and goes to live in London, taken under the wing of her Uncle and his business associate Andy. She works for the latter and falls in love with him, but he refuses to reciprocate her feelings. When she starts receiving a series of obscene phone calls and letters at home and work, she is determined to identify the caller, and strongly suspects Andy
Sixty years ago Ian Sinclair was a revolutionary leader. Today he is in an old folks' home, but has not lost his sense of humour, or his appetite for the struggle. In protest at the proposed closure of the home, the old socialist firebrand embarks upon a hunger strike that ends up having wide-range repercussions.
A retrospective of the films of Britain's Hammer Studios, renowned for making stylish horror films in the 1950s, '60s and '70s. Included are clips from Hammer productions and interviews with actors, actresses, directors and producers who worked on these films.
This British series, based on books by John Mortimer, follows the rise of Leslie Titmuss from humble beginnings in the 1950s to Tory cabinet minister in the 1980s. The rise of the slippery Titmuss is contrasted with the more modest progress of his neighbours, the intellectual Simcoxes and the aristocratic Fanners. Made by Eustom Films, a subsidiary of Thames Television for the ITV Network.
A Government Department with data on us all in its computers is not functioning quite as its ex-Head intended. Frank Strange sets out to clear his own name and finds he is investigating a murder.
An American Actress with a penchant for lying is forceably recruited by Mosad, the Israeli intelligence agency to trap a Palestinian bomber, by pretending to be the girlfriend of his dead brother.
Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson try to track down the Great Mogul, the second-largest diamond in the world.
Clarissa, the wife of a Foreign Office diplomat, is given to daydreaming. 'Supposing I were to come down one morning and find a dead body in the library, what should I do?' she muses. Clarissa has her chance to find out when she discovers a body in the drawing-room of her house in Kent.
The girls of St. Trinian's decide they are being asked to do too much work so they go on strike.
Cribb is a television police drama, Adapted from Peter Lovesey's Sergeant Cribb novels and set in Victorian London around the time of the Jack the Ripper murders in 1888, Alan Dobie starred as the tough Detective Sergeant who worked for the newly formed Criminal Investigation Department, determined to remove crime from the streets of London using the latest detection methods.
Tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor, rich man, poor man, beggar-man, thief. George Smiley, the aging master spy of the Cold War and once heir apparent to Control, is brought back out of retirement to flush out a top level mole within the Circus. Smiley must travel back through his life and murky workings of the Circus to unravel the net spun by his nemesis Karla 'The Sandman' of the KGB and reveal the identity of the mole before he disappears.
Worzel Gummidge is a children's comedy series, produced by Southern Television for ITV, based on the books by Barbara Euphan Todd. Starting in 1979, the programme starred Jon Pertwee in the title role and ran for four series in the UK until 1981. Channel 4 reprised the show in 1987 as Worzel Gummidge Down Under, which was set in New Zealand.
Strangers is a UK police drama that appeared on ITV between 1978 and 1982. After the success of the TV series The XYY Man, adapted from books by Kenneth Royce, Granada TV devised a new series to feature the regular characters of Detective Sergeant George Bulman and his assistant Detective Constable Derek Willis. The result was Strangers. The series began as a fairly standard police drama series with Bulman as its eccentric lead. Its premise was that a group of police officers have been brought together from different parts of the country to the north of England. There, the fact that they are not known locally gives them the opportunity to infiltrate where a more familiar local detective could not. Initially, the team consisted of Bulman, Willis and Linda Doran. Their local liaison was provided by Detective Sergeant David Singer; their superior was Chief Inspector Rainbow. Despite being based around a comparatively small team of detectives, a regular feature of the programme in its early years was that few episodes featured the entire team, with most using just two or three of the regulars in any major role.
A sequel to The Land That Time Forgot. Major Ben McBride organises a mission to the Antarctic wastes to search for his friend (Doug McClure) who has been missing in the region for several years. McBride's party find themselves in a world populated by primitive warriors and terrifying prehistoric creatures, all of whom they must evade in order to get back safely
Treasure Island is a 1977 television adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson’s famous 1883 novel. It was filmed in 1977 on location in Plymouth and Dartford, and in Corsica, and also at BBC Television Centre at Wood Lane, London. Jim Hawkins discovers a treasure map and embarks on a journey to find the treasure, but pirates led by Long John Silver have plans to take the treasure for themselves by way of mutiny. This four-episode adaptation by John Lucarotti, while particularly faithful to the original, adds an expanded narrative concerning the declining Daniel Hawkins, as well as clarifying Squire Trelawney's naiveté in trusting Blandly and Silver. This takes place in the first episode; Billy Bones tempts Jim's father into arranging a two-man treasure voyage, the corrupt shipping agent Ezra Blandly guesses their intentions and tips off Silver, who hoodwinks and then cruelly tortures the information out of a hapless alcoholic Mr Arrow. Billy Bones plans founder, and Hawkins snr catches pneumonia in the rain, which finishes him. Lucarotti's additions to the original provide useful backstory, and the pirate idiom is sufficiently well captured for these additions not to be too obvious.
A washed-up actor has a nervous breakdown and believes that he really is the movie monster that he has been hired to play. Created as an episode of Nigel Kneale’s “Beasts” horror anthology miniseries.
Set in London between 1900 and 1925, the story follows Louisa Leyton/Trotter, the eponymous "Duchess", who works her way up from servant to renowned cook to proprietress of the upper-class Bentinck Hotel in Duke Street, St. James's.
"All I said was the gramophone's too loud." Tony and Zoe Lyle 's silly row starts like any other, but Tony finds that Zoe means it this time. She's walking out and he's got a week to save a marriage that he hasn't looked at in 18 years, and with it all the trappings of a good life in Maida Vale.
In this comedy, set during the Nazi occupation of France, Peter Sellers plays most major male parts, so he stars in nearly every scene, always bumbling in inspector Clouseau-style. As British Major Robinson he is hidden in Madame Grenier's Parisian brothel, right under the nose of the Nazi clients, such as Gestapo agent Herr Schroeder (again him). As Général Latour he leads the French resistance, which includes the brothel madam -made a colonel in charge of her sexy 'troops'- and a priest, and is joined by young US diplomat Alan Cassidy. As Japanese imperial Prince Kyoto he becomes a target for the resistance in a monastery on his way to Hitler (again him). At the end he decorates the heroes as French president. Written by KGF Vissers
It was a time when England was a nation on the cusp of change, an evolving landscape tht lay between Victorian England and the First World War. 'The Edwardians' explores the lives of and events in the lives of many who helped define the era, the "Belle Epoque".
The Lotus Eaters is a BBC television drama made between 1972 and 1973. The series, written by Michael J. Bird, dealt with the lives of various British expats living on the island of Crete and their reasons for being there. The central characters were a married couple, Erik and Ann Shepherd who ran a tavern called "Shepherd's Bar". In the first episode, Ann was revealed to be a "sleeper agent" of British Intelligence with Erik having been a broken down drunk whom she was made to marry as part of her cover story. A clash with Soviet and Chinese agents resulted in both of them having to leave Crete. In the final scene on a plane leaving Heraklion airport, they have a partial reconciliation, since each is the only person the other can trust. The Lotus Eaters was filmed in the Cretan resort of Aghios Nikolaos and derived its title from the Lotus Eaters of Greek mythology, where those who ate the fruit of the Lotus tree lost the desire to return home. The series was also the first of the Mediterranean based dramas written by Michael J. Bird for the BBC. The others included Who Pays the Ferryman?, also set in Crete, The Aphrodite Inheritance set in Cyprus and The Dark Side of the Sun set in Rhodes.
After a spate of murders, the villagers of Schtettel kill the depraved perpetrator, Count Mitterhouse. Fifteen years later the Circus of Nights appeared in the plague-ridden village and its performers include Mitterhouse's mistress, children and cousins. They have come to Schtettel to fulfil the Count's last words, an evil, vicious curse of death and destruction on those who participated in his impaling. The children of Schtettel become the targets for a brutal and devastating revenge as the Vampire Circus rehearses for its most deadly performance.
Life for Richard Forbush, brilliant biology student and conceited philanderer, is one long round of eat, drink and be merry. But his decision to accept a six-month research post in the Antarctic, making the first detailed study of a penguin colony, changes all that... Living in Shackleton’s derelict hut, Forbush is alone at the frozen edge of the world, his only links to civilisation a two-way radio and letters to his elusive, would-be girlfriend, Tara, in London. Through an often ferocious winter in the company of the penguins, he grows increasingly attached to his hardy, endearing subjects – learning profound lessons in endurance and humility.
Adaptation of the Balzac novel. A poor and homely spinster, who feels she's been walked on all her life, teams up with a scheming courtesan to wreak elaborate revenge on her rich and handsome relatives.
Updated to 1970s London, this faithful adaptation of Herman Melville's classic follows a young accounting clerk rebelling against his employer by responding to demands to do work by saying, "I prefer not to." This is carried on ad absurdum until the office is in chaos because the other employees must do Bartleby's work. His boss is unable to fire or help him and eventually has him placed in a mental hospital.
Executive Harold Pelham suffers a serious accident after which he faces the shadow of death. When, against all odds, he miraculously recovers, he discovers that his life does not belong to him anymore.
Anthropologist Dr. Brockton unearths a primitive troglodyte -- an Ice Age "missing link": half-caveman, half-ape -- in a local cave. Through medical experimentation, she manages to communicate with him and domesticate him before he's let loose by an irate land developer and goes on a rampage, terrorizing the local citizenry.
TV personality Robert Danvers, an exceedingly vain rotter, seduces young women daily, never staying long with one. He meets his match in Marion, an American, 19, who's available but refuses any romantic illusions.
Blackmailing a young couple to assist with his horrific experiments the Baron, desperate for vital medical data, abducts a man from an insane asylum. On route the abductee dies and the Baron and his assistant transplant his brain into a corpse. The creature is tormented by a trapped soul in an alien shell and, after a visit to his wife who violently rejects his monstrous form, the creature wreaks his revenge on the perpetrator of his misery: Baron Frankenstein.
Satire about the First World War based on a stage musical of the same name, portraying the "Game of War" and focusing mainly on the members of one family (last name Smith) who go off to war. Much of the action in the movie revolves around the words of the marching songs of the soldiers, and many scenes portray some of the more famous (and infamous) incidents of the war, including the assassination of Duke Ferdinand, the Christmas meeting between British and German soldiers in no-mans-land, and the wiping out by their own side of a force of Irish soldiers newly arrived at the front, after successfully capturing a ridge that had been contested for some time.
Two crooks are hired to rob an eccentric old lady's estate, but once they get to know her, they can't bring themselves to do it.
Charles Nordeck is a successful marriage counselor whose own marriage is on the rocks. When his wife Anne seeks a divorce, Charles refuses to sign the papers fearing the bad publicity could ruin his career. The adulterous Anne then convinces her lover Peter to take care of the problem.
In Victorian London, the British Government attempts a solution to the problem of prostitution by establishing the world's most fabulous brothel.
TV play by David Mercer. First in a trilogy concerning Marxist novelist Robert Kelvin. The occasion is a dinner party, Kelvin is concerned with a summation of his life, addressed in his head to his lover, Emma.
Hywel Bennett stars as Martin Durnley, a rich but damaged Oxford University drop-out with a hatred of his banker stepfather, played by Frank Finlay. His mum babies the boy, a consequence of Martin's elder brother, a Down Syndrome sufferer (or 'Mongoloid' - or even 'mentally backward' as they say here), being in full-time care, and the doctors having warned Martin's parents not to have any more children - just to be on the safe side. Too late: troubled mummy's boy Martin, with his cuddly toys and penchant for smashing his own reflection, appears to have proved the doctors misgivings.
A deformed tormented girl drowns herself after her lover is framed for murder and guillotined. Baron Frankenstein, experimenting with the transfer of souls, places the boy's soul into her body, bringing Christina back to life. Driven by revenge, she carries out a violent retribution on those responsible for both deaths.
In Victorian England, a fortune now depends on which of two brothers outlives the other—or can be made to have seemed to do so.
Following the wedding of young Jenny Piper and Arthur Fitton (Hayley Mills and Hywel Bennett), a rowdy reception is held at a local pub where the newlyweds are subjected to much well-meaning but vulgar ribaldry. The couple returns to the Fitton home to spend their first night together before leaving for a honeymoon in Majorca, but they are followed by some of the wedding guests who keep the party going until early morning. Worse yet, when the youngsters finally are permitted to retire, their bed collapses as the result of a practical joke.
Whilst vacationing in the Carpathian Mountain, two couples stumble across the remains of Count Dracula's castle. The Count's trusted servant kills one of the men, suspending the body over the Count's ashes so that the blood drips from the corpse and saturates the blackened remains. The ritual is completed, the Count revived and his attentions focus on the dead man's wife who is to become his partner; devoted to an existence of depravity and evil.
Inspector Holloway is investigating a series of brutal murders in which a doll of each victim is found at the scene. The dolls, as it turns out,were purchased by the crippled Mrs. Von Sturm, whose home is overcrowded with a doll collection. Her pale, wide-eyed, neurotic son is the prime suspect and the daughter of one of the victims discovers the shocking truth.
While posters urge austerity and vigilance in wartime Britain, 'Joey Boy' Thompson has never had it better. In a cellar beneath his East London fish shop, a gambling club thrives – and austerity provides a nice black-market sideline. But the dolce vita crumbles when police arrive in a lightning raid, and offer Joey and his fellow reprobates a stark choice: sign up for active service, or face another stint inside. Thus the lads find themselves heading off to Italy, determined to make the best of it...
Rogues Jelly Knight, Scapa Flood, and Lennie the Dip leave prison expecting boss The Duke to have their stash ready to share out. Instead, Duke's girl Sara gives them the news Duke is dead and the money gone on nursing care. They soon discover that Duke is actually running Hope Springs Nature Clinic with the help of most of the local villains. Very strange - and the nearby army camp and Sara's encouragement of Lieutenant Vine would seem to be no coincidence either. Written by Jeremy Perkins
The film is based on the actual events of the Portland Spy Ring trial in the U.K. A disgruntled Navy Clerk is transferred to a secret research establishment and is subsequently black-mailed/paid by Czech intelligence to procure secrets for them. He seduces the secretary who controls the most secret documents, and they enjoy the fruits of their treachery until the British authorities begin to close in on them.
A crack space pilot returns to earth to find the planet has been devastated by some unknown forces. There are a few survivors, so he organizes them in a plan to ward off control by a group of killer robots.
A naive but caring prison chaplain, who happens to have the same last name as an upper class cleric, is by mistake appointed as vicar to a small and prosperous country town. His belief in charity and forgiveness sets him at odds with the conservative and narrow-minded locals, and he soon creates social ructions by appointing a black dustman as his churchwarden, taking in a gypsy family, and persuading the local landowner to provide free food for the church to distribute free to the people of the town. When the congregation leaders realise the mistake and call for the Church of England to remove him, this turns out to be a very, very difficult issue - until one clergyman realises that a British project to send a man into space is in need of an astronaut...
Sherlock Holmes and Watson do battle with their nemesis, Professor Moriarity, over an ancient necklace attributed to Cleopatra.
The corrupt Lord Ambrose D'Arcy steals the life's work of the poor musical Professor Petry. In an attempt to stop the printing of music with D'Arcy's name on it, Petry breaks into the printing office and accidentally starts a fire, leaving him severely disfigured. Years later, Petry returns to terrorize a London opera house that is about to perform one of his stolen operas.
Undistinguished British farce (in Technicolor and CinemaScope). Stoker Charlie (the diminutive Drake) helps 150 Wrens under Superintendent Maxine Audley, who've hijacked a frigate, HMS 'Huntress', to prove they're the equal of their male counterparts. Hardly a feminist masterpiece, but fans will relish the nightmare court-martial in which Drake plays all the parts
This British men-on-a-mission spoof set during World War II finds intrepid officer Bill Travers leading three colorful compatriots into Nazi-occupied France to destroy an obnoxiously large, loud, and destructive enemy gun. See if this fearless foursome can stomp their Fascist foes and get back to their game of cricket! Spike Milligan, Gregoire Aslan, and Thorley Walters co-star.
Miss Marple believes she's seen a murder in a passing-by train, yet when the police find no evidence she decides to investigate it on her own.
A dubious child psychiatrist is put in charge of the St. Trinian's school after it burns down. The sixth form are sent to Arabia to become harem girls. The Ministry of Education, Police and army go to rescue them, but it is the notorious St. Trinian's forth form who are going to make the real difference.
During World War II, four British soldiers are commissioned to set up an observation post on a seemingly deserted island in the Mediterranean. However, while surveying the island, the Brits come across four German soldiers holed up in a monastery. The Brits and the Germans agree to a truce, sharing the monastery together until either the British or German troops arrive. But when a shipwrecked Slavic girl ends up on the island, a battle over her erupts amongst the men.
Great Britain has had an international agreement for the last 50 years with a small pacific island. It has been ignored until the death of their king brings it to the attention of the Foreign Office in Whitehall. They decide to send Cadogan de Vere Carlton-Browne to re-establish friendly relations.
In a quiet summer corner of Wiltshire that is forever England, David and Janet decide to tie the knot. Unfortunately this is the cue for everyone else to take over proceedings, to the dismay of the couple and the increasing despair of Janet's father.
Esther and her sister Jennifer have just taken a remote country cottage. But there is strange gossip about the previous occupants.
St. Trinian's contrives to win a competition which has a European trip as the prize, in order for the Girls of the Flash Harry St Trinian's Marriage Bureau to meet a rich Roman royal.
Baffled and at a loss to understand the mentality of Diana, his wife, Anthony makes a frantic visit to the home of her parents to discover that she is staying with them.
Judith Wynter is a happily married novelist whose romantic works are eagerly devoured by scores of female readers. When Carlo, a handsome young Italian chauffeur, arrives to work for Judith and her husband, a professor currently recovering from an attack of paralysis, he causes quite a flutter; when he then reads the manuscript of Judith's latest novel, he jumps to a rather unfortunate conclusion... and life in the Wynter household becomes very complicated indeed!
Deborah and Charles, young executives at the thriving Pontifex Advertising Agency, are very much in love. Deborah is recognised by her employers as the most brilliant TV executive in the country, while Charles is regarded as 'thoroughly reliable'. But there is one hard-and-fast rule at the agency: the board of directors will not allow any married women on their staff; as soon as a girl marries, she must resign!
Returning from a business trip, toy salesman Simon Scott is caught attempting to smuggle a wristwatch bought for his wife's birthday through Customs. He is arrested and, due to a bungled defence by his solicitor, obliged to serve a three-month prison sentence. It is only the beginning of his woes; his employer, Colonel Wilson, is understanding, but he is ultimately forced to sack Simon, who discovers that finding another job under such circumstances is extremely difficult. But Colonel Wilson is determined to help his former employee find a solution.
This movie debut for saucy British TV comic Benny Hill has Benny leaving his job as a sweeper after winning some money. He becomes a private detective and investigates a plot to assassinate British scientists.
Novelist Peter Darwin is engaged to heiress Kay March. When he accidentally kills Claire, his former mistress, during a quarrel, he persuades a reluctant Kay to help him bury the body in a wood. When the body is found and with the truth close to being uncovered, Darwin resorts to desperate actions to cover his crime.
Stanley Windrush has to interrupt his university education when he is called up towards the end of the war. He quickly proves himself not to be officer material, but befriends wily Private Percival Cox who knows exactly how all the scams work in the confused world of the British Army. And Stanley's brigadier War Office uncle seems to be up to something more than a bit shady too - and they are both soon working for him, behind the enemy lines.
Based on real events, this historical drama is set in 19th-century Ireland, when poverty-stricken tenants dispossessed by greedy landowner Capt. Boycott (Cecil Parker) band together to assert their rights. Patriotic farmer Hugh Davin (Stewart Granger) leads the rebels. Choosing nonviolent resistance, the villagers ostracize their nemesis, who squanders his fortune to repair his ruined reputation and wagers what's left on a horse race.
Waltz Time is a 1945 British musical film directed by Paul L. Stein and starring Carol Raye, Peter Graves and Patricia Medina. In Imperial Vienna a young Grand Duchess is prevented from marrying the man she loves.
A retired general helps out by sheltering some evacuees during WWII.
When a wealthy, lonely university music student is beaten and has his apartment trashed by a fellow dorm resident-bully and his gang, he goes mad, lures the bully into his room on pretense of forgiveness, slips him a paralyzing agent in a drink, throws him in a trunk and locks him in, and taunts the bully with the promise that he will be buried alive in the trunk. Only, once he gets his trunk and his prey to his country estate, the vengeful victim finds things keep going wrong...
The Life of St. Paul, including reenactment of the Book of Acts, and St. Paul's Epistles.
When a small English town is dragged out into space by the force of a 'dead star' passing Earth, the populace try to organise a local government based on equal rights for all, but conflicts arise between the local aristocracy and the villagers.
Christmas is coming to Ten Acre Field and Worzel Gummidge (Jon Pertwee) is determined to enjoy it in style. He goes searching for Aunt Sally (Una Stubbs), hoping to invite her to the Scarecrow Ball, but before he can find her he runs into his old friend Saucy Nancy (Barbara Windsor), herself heading for a spell in panto. Then, before he gets much further, our multi-headed hero gets sidetracked again when he runs into angry Scots scarecrow Bogle McNeep (Billy Connolly) and his anti-Christmas brigade. Will Worzel ever get to enjoy the season with his beloved?
