Eliot Makeham

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.

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.

Burt Lancaster plays a pirate with a taste for intrigue and acrobatics who involves himself in the goings on of a revolution in the Caribbean in the late 1700s. A light hearted adventure involving prison breaks, an oddball scientist, sailing ships, naval fights and tons of swordplay.

Ebenezer Scrooge malcontentedly shuffles through life as a cruel, miserly businessman, until he is visited by three spirits on Christmas Eve who show him how his unhappy childhood and adult behavior has left him a selfish, lonely old man.

Czechoslovakia, March 1939, on the eve of World War II. As the German invaders occupy Prague, inventor Axel Bomasch manages to flee and reach England; but those who need to put his knowledge at the service of the Nazi war machine, in order to carry out their evil plans of destruction, will stop at nothing to capture him.

Three modern-day pilgrims investigate a bizarre crime in a small town while on their way to Canterbury.

Young, idealistic, newly qualified Scottish doctor Andrew Manson arrives in Wales and takes his first job in a mining town, and begins to wonder at the persistent cough many of the miners have. When his attempts to prove its cause are thwarted, he moves to London. His new practice does poorly, but when a friend shows him how to make a lucrative practice from rich hypochondriacs, it will take a great shock to show him what the truth of being a doctor really is.

The first of the seven "Doctor" films, based on Richard Gordon's novels and released between 1954 and 1970. Simon Sparrow is a newly arrived medical student at St Swithin's hospital in London. Falling in with three longer-serving hopefuls he is soon immersed in the wooing, imbibing and fast sports-car driving that constitute 1950s medical training. There is, however, always the looming and formidable figure of chief surgeon Sir Lancelot Spratt to remind them of their real purpose.

British double agent Madeleine Goddard meets and falls in love with German spy Baron Karl Von Marwitz during World War I.

In the late 19th century, on board a ship sailing from Jamaica to England, Olivia Harwood, a recent widow, takes on the task of caring for several malaria patients, including Mark Bellis, a mysterious and tormented painter.

Set on Blackpool’s Golden Mile, Jim (Douglass Montgomery), a once promising scientist, sets up in business as a patent medicine man selling hair tonic at the fair with his ex-army colleague Dan (Ronald Shiner). Following a fight with local hoods over pitch spaces, Jim falls for Jane (Hazel Court), the girl on a nearby candy floss stall. The two begin dating but Jim fails to mention he is already married.

In Britain, a man with a shady past uses his antiquities shop as a front for smuggled diamonds but his young shop-assistant starts blackmailing him, leading to murder and to a police investigation.

Tale of Cambridge college exploits of two smash-and-grab thieves on the run.

A group of children are evacuated during world war two into the care of an alcoholic woman.

After World War II service changes them, a married couple dread their postwar reunion.

An RAF pilot who was shot down during WWII returns home to his English village with his new bride. The trouble is that she is the German lady who helped him escape.

W. Somerset Maugham introduces three more of his stories about human foibles.

A fatherless boy tries to make his fortune despite interference from his rich uncle.

Italian poet Boccaccio (Louis Jourdan) hides in the court of Fiammetta (Joan Fontaine) and tells three tales of love and lust.

A local politician in Scotland tries to break the reporter who wrote a negative story about him, and who is also in love with his daughter.

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.

George Brown is rejected as an Air Raid Warden and in doing so sees his potential to join the Royal Air Force. His dreams could soon come true as he realises that in fact his friend has left behind some very important papers, he dons a his Royal Air Force uniform and delivers the papers when he is mistaken for a dispatch driver from HQ. He soon becomes the butt of jokes from his sergeant which ends him staying indefinitely at the air base. George soon falls in love with the Sergeant Major's daughter and when he discovers his real identity he threatens to report him. On the day of an annual inspection George attempts to escape the base and ends up in a plane, while the inspecting officer watches on, George's plane display is mesmerizing and the inspecting officer insists he should be commended, in order to save their skins George manages to land the plane and is accepted as a flyer by the RAF.

The Four Men of the title are British WWI veterans who decide to work secretly against enemies of the country. They aren't above a bit of murder or sabotage to serve their ends, but they consider themselves to be true patriots.

A champion jockey is banned from racing so spends his time helping a young lad to become the next champion.

In the early part of this century, Maddelena a teenage Italian girl, is attacked whilst walking in the woods. The attack leaves her mentally scarred and our story flashes forward to the 1940s where Maddelena is still troubled. She disappears one day and her daughter vows to find her.

A TV set given as a retirement present is sold on to different households causing misery each time.

A group of travellers, each with a personal problem that they want to hide, arrive at a mysterious Welsh country inn. There is a certain strangeness in the air as they are greeted by the innkeeper and his daughter. Why are all the newspapers a year old? And why doesn't Gwyneth seem to cast a shadow?

In turn-of-the-century London a young music publisher fights both competitors and piracy in a time where author's royalties were still unprotected.

Biography of the famous Italian violinist Nicola Paganini which focuses as much on the musician's romances as it does on his craft. Phyllis Calvert plays Jeanne de Vermond, the aristocratic French woman who captures Paganini's heart, and real-life violin virtuoso Yehudi Menuhin supplies the breathtaking Paganini solos.

Ginger Ted, AKA Edward Claude Wilson, a drunkard and womanizer, and Miss Jones, a missionary, live in the Alas Islands. During a cholera epidemic, Ginger Ted and Miss Jones are sent to an outlying part of the islands to run a hospital; on their return, their motorboat breaks down, and they are marooned overnight on a small island.

On the death of his father, an eighteen-year old 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.

Romeo and Juliet in 1930s England. The owner of the mill and the local lord are in conflict over water rights. The lord wins threatening the mill owner with financial ruin.

During the Nazi occupation of Belgium during World War II, a Belgian resistance group revives the newspaper "La Libre Belgique" to expose and counter Nazi propaganda efforts to deceive the people. They are so effective that the Nazis offer a reward for the capture of the paper's staff, although they don't know their identities. One of them is a well-known entertainer, and when his jealous partner hears of the reward, he turns him in. The paper's publishers escape capture, but their staff doesn't. The paper's founders must find not only a way to keep from getting captured by the Nazis but keep their newspaper going and get their staff released.

Publisher John Gillespie faces a financial crisis after his business partner skips town with all the firm's assets. Facing ruin, he reluctantly approaches a wealthy aunt for assistance but is met with a stony-faced refusal.

Set just after the end of WWII (but filmed in the middle of it) in a time of general euphoria at having won the war, with full employment and general happiness for all (or nearly all). Peter, the young wastrel son of a hard working hotel owner doesn't like the idea of having to work for a living. He discovers a society of "White Elephants" who are quite willing to be poor as long as they don't have to work. They are protected and guided by Nina (Margaret Lockwood) and her precocious sister Heidi (Jean Simmons).

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.

In 1940 Sally Maitland is forced to leave England, ostracised as a Nazi sympathiser by everyone including her well-to-do family. On the ship to Halifax, Canada, she is courted by Polish aristocrat Jan Orloch and by awkward British navel intelligence officer Jimmy Garrick. She shows herself somewhat more amenable to Orloch's advances, and agrees to meet his mother in Halifax. Once there however, it becomes clear no-one is really who they say they are.

A man witnesses a murder that isn't a murder, only to get involved with the magician and his wife who created the illusion. The insanely jealous magician husband eventually kills his wife, making for complications in life of unhappily married man who is now involved more than he ever thought he would be.

Old Mr. Cohen (Paul Graetz) simply walks away from his London department store, leaving his sons to run it.

In London a young lady meets a homeless and apparently penniless Russian prince. She introduces him to her middle-class Fulham family and he moves in. It turns out he still has a number of diamonds given him by the last czar, and he is persuaded to start selling them. The resulting money, and his princely notoriety, soon cause changes in everyone's lives.

A man watching a musical show at the Windmill theatre is shot apparently from the stage. The cast continues the performance so that the detective can solve the murder.

Jean Raymond an upper class woman with a gambling addiction, is given a twelve-month prison sentence resulting from her inability to pay her debts. At first she is overwhelmingly depressed by life in the women's prison; gradually, however, her misery is relieved by the many close friends she makes there. This sympathetic drama traces the contrasting lives and often faltering progress of the inmates of a women's prison.

A bookmaker with a fancy for detective work attempts to prevent the execution of a potentially innocent man.

Farewell Again is a multiplotted British comedy/drama about soldiers on leave and the people they've left. Given a six-hour pass after a tour of duty in India, several British Tommies (among them Robert Newton, Sebastian Shaw and Anthony Bushell) try to unravel their domestic tribulations before having to ship out again. American expatriate Tim Whelan was the directorial hand who kept the various plot threads from entangling, while another Hollywood vet, James Wong Howe, manned the cameras. The film became instantly dated with the advent of World War II, but in its own time Farewell Again was a box-office smash. The film was issued in the US as Troopship.

A Scottish woman tries to take her brother-in-law's wild living children in hand.

Efforts to move Britain into the modern age don't sit well with the people of the small village of Anderia Marsh, who have claimed a right (going back to Henry III) to evade government-imposed import duties and taxes. And when the government decides to curb this right, the whole village quietly rises up in a comical rebellion. After their vessel runs aground during a storm and is impounded by the British authorities, local smugglers must find a way of disposing of their contraband brandy cargo before it's discovered by the Customs Officers.

The village of Altdorf has to come to terms with Chancellor Hitler and the arrival of a platoon of Stormtroopers. The Stormtroopers go about teaching and enforcing "The New Order", but Pastor Hall, a kind and gentle man, won't be cowed. Some villagers join the Nazi party avidly, and some just go along with things, hoping for a quiet life, but Pastor Hall takes his convictions to the pulpit.

A young boy is blackmailed by a crook who saw him unwittingly cause his friend's death.

In this comedy, a talented singer is hired to dub the voice of a star who has lost his own. During the film's premiere, news that he sang the songs slips out and suddenly he finds that he himself has become a star. Unfortunately he soon encounters unanticipated problems. He is especially concerned about his girl friend who dumped him in favor of the voiceless star.

Financier Sir Charles Hendra, on the brink of ruin, contemplates ending his own life. After pondering the difficult decision, Charles decides to invite twelve similarly desperate individuals to dinner so they can all discuss their problems. Will his generosity change the course of their lives?

a biopic of eighteenth-century Irish actress Peg Woffington. It was based on the play Masks and Faces.

Bob Holt's last journey as a Railway engine driver before his retirement, a journey disturbed by his distress at leaving the Railway, and his suspicions of the relationship between his wife and his fireman. Aboard the train are a pair of pickpockets, a honeymoon couple, a drunk, a temperance pamphleteer and a host of familiar types, all more-or-less bizarre in characteristically English ways. Bob takes an unexpected course of action, and the characters start interacting in varied and unexpected ways. When, at last, the train stops, all has been resolved, but not as might have been expected at the beginning of the journey.

When Lord Peter Wimsey marries Harriet Vane, a crime author, they both promise to give up crime for good. As a wedding present, Peter purchases the old house where Harriet grew up, but when they try to move in the previous owner is nowhere to be found, until they start to clean the house and find his body in the cellar...

A firm of solicitors do battle with the head of the local council over a parcel of river front land, owned by the Huggett family, in order to build a lido/community center.

During World War I, a British farmer is abducted by the Germans to take the place of a spy about to be executed whom he closely resembles.

Battle-axe Emma Hornett dominates her hen-pecked husband Henry, his meek sister Edie and daughter Shirley. Shirley is to marry young sailor Albert,raised in an orphanage,and he and best man Carnoustie stay with the Hornetts on the eve of the wedding.

In 19th century England, Jassy is a young Gypsy girl blessed with the gift of second sight. Pursued by superstitious villagers, she is rescued by the son of the owner of Mordelaine, a vast stately home. Unfortunately, his father's drinking and gambling threaten the very ownership of the house. Despite her humble origins as a servant girl, Jassy must try to use her talents to climb the social ladder and save Mordelaine for the man whom she loves.

An out-of-work comedian persuades a drunken nobleman to join a protest against the closing of a village hall.

A cleaner salesman finds himself campaigning for both sides in an election.

A mysterious barber hides a secret identity that eventually leads to tragedy.

George is an inept reserve policeman working in wartime Liverpool, who is chosen by a gang of Nazi saboteurs as the stooge for their planned destruction of the British battleship HMS Hercules. Framed by the villains and forced to go on the run, George sets out to clear his name with the aid of new girlfriend, Jane.

The story of three women working as waitresses in post-World War II Britain.

The theft of a famous painting leads to murder and many suspects on a plush train speeding from Paris to Rome.

Someone is stealing priceless paintings from the great museums of the world and replacing them with nearly flawless forgeries. Leonardo da Vinci's "Madonna and Child" is being shipped to London's Tate Gallery for a special exhibition, and Paul Mitchell is assigned to protect it. Upon the painting's arrival, Paul realizes it has been switched. Eager to collect the museum's $50,000 reward, he teams up with Mary Mason, a Tate employee, to recover the original.

John Loder and Elliot Makeham star in Redd Davis’s British topical crime thriller. Professor Grayson is working on an anti-gas experiment and Dr. Klee, whose quiet advertising covers other welfares, means to find it.

'Musician kills count in duel for wife, and later falls in love with daughter.' (British Film Catalogue)

Robert Maine is torn between returning to the glamour of Hollywood and working with a small theatre company in England.

George is an unwilling civilian during the war. When an enlisted friend switches clothes with him in order to go to a party, George finds himself mistakenly pressed into the navy, where he gets involved with pretty Ann Firth and caught up in a subplot involving German spies.

Desperate to prove his father innocent of treason, a secretary arranges a clandestine assignation with his employer's wife in order to get the proof he needs. But the plan goes awry when he becomes implicated in her sudden death.

A man from the countryside becomes London’s newest music hall sensation, and competes with a rival music hall performer for the audience’s attention.

Calling the Tune offers a fascinating look at the fledgeling gramophone industry as it tries to solve the problems of reliable recording and production methods. 'I predict that the gramophone will be the democratic entertainment of the future' states unscrupulous record label boss Mr Gordon (Sam Livesey), who finally gets his comeuppance after one dirty trick too far against his rivals. If the film's love story is perfunctory, the real interest comes with watching performers of the day, from Henry Wood and his orchestra to George Robey and Charles 'the laughing policeman' Penrose laying down their recordings direct to record. And something very like a prototype laser disc makes a crucial appearance too.

From a series of films made to raise awareness of the risks of idle gossip providing vital information to enemy spies and collaborators. This Ealing Studios production features well-known 1940s actor John Mills, playing a sailor who then divulges his sailing details to his girlfriend aloud.. The consequences prove disastrous when his boat next leaves to cross the English Channel.

A rich but miserly old man taunts his relatives about who will get his money when he dies, and is soon mysteriously murdered. It turns out that he has left his estate to a beautiful young actress whom the other relatives didn't know was related to him. Several attempts on her life are thwarted by a detective, who sets out to discover who's behind the scheme to kill her.

When a landlady finds one of her tenants murdered, Inspector Hornleigh is sent to investigate. Inspector Hornleigh's assistant, Sergeant Bingham, soon finds an attaché case that had been stolen from the murdered man. When Hornleigh examines the case, inside it he finds a bag that was used to carry important government documents. The documents have been taken, and to make things even more confusing, a duplicate of the stolen bag soon turns up.

High drama, set in the English moorland of the 1600s. John Ridd wants revenge on the criminal Doone family, but falls in love with the daughter of the family, Lorna.

'Strange Stories' consists of two stories, 'The Strange Mr Bartleby' and 'The Strange Journey'. The stories were sometimes shown individually on television.

Inspector Darrow investigates the death of a wealthy man.

Betty driver vehicle

Composer Franz Schubert--broke, struggling and unhappy--gets a break when a wealthy friend wangles him an invitation to a command performance in front of a princess of the royal family. Schubert performs a version of his new work, "Symphony in B Minor", for the princess, but a misunderstanding results in Schubert storming out of the concert in a rage. Complications ensue. English-language version of "Leise flehen meine Lieder."

After a $50,000 heist in New York, two of the suspected robbers walk free from the courtroom and they waste no time in heading to London in search of the missing loot. This means bad news for their former accomplice Jim Raynor, who has the money hidden away not least because they're not the only ones on his tail; Scotland Yard is also on the case...

Legendary British musical-comedy favorite Jessie Matthews chalks up another winner with Head Over Heels in Love. The ever-charming Matthews plays Jeanne, a Parisian entertainer who manages to get herself in hot water with the French version of Actors' Equity and is forced to take a series of jobs under a series of assumed names. Meanwhile, a romantic triangle involving American film star Norma (Helen Whitney Bourne) and gangsters Pierre (Robert Flemyng) and Marcel (Louis Borrell) spells big trouble for all concerned -- including the plucky Jeanne. Highlighted by six sprightly song numbers, Head Over Heels in Love is our girl Jessie's vehicle all the way, and never mind the "main" plot. The film was directed by Sonnie Hale, who just so happened to be the star's husband.