1.
British Academy Film Awards
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The British Academy Film Awards are presented in an annual award show hosted by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts to honour the best British and international contributions to film. Between 2008 and 2016, the ceremony was held in central London at the Royal Opera House, the 70th British Academy Film Awards were held on 12 February 2017 at the Royal Albert Hall in London. British Academy of Film and Television Arts was founded in 1947 as The British Film Academy, by David Lean, Alexander Korda, Carol Reed, Charles Laughton, Roger Manvell and others. BAFTA stated charitable purpose is to support, develop and promote the art forms of the image, by identifying and rewarding excellence, inspiring practitioners. In addition to awards ceremonies BAFTA runs a year-round programme of educational events including film screenings. BAFTA is supported by a membership of about 6,000 people from the film, television, the Academys awards are in the form of a theatrical mask designed by American sculptor Mitzi Cunliffe, which was commissioned by the Guild of Television Producers in 1955. The ceremony previously took place in April or May and since 2002 it takes place in February in order to precede the Oscars. The awards are open to all nationalities, though there is an award for Outstanding British Film. Only UK films are eligible for the categories of The British Short Film, the Awards ceremony is delayed broadcast on British television the same evening, and across the world for example its shown on BBC America in the United States. It has been broadcast in colour since 1970, the award ceremony is held in London. From 2000 to 2007 the ceremonies took place at the flagship Odeon cinema in Leicester Square, between 2008 and 2016, the ceremonies took place at the Royal Opera House. The 70th Awards in 2017 were held at the Royal Albert Hall, until 2012, the mobile network Orange sponsored the awards and starting in 2013 Oranges parent company, EE, began sponsorship. British Academy of Film and Television Arts British Academy Television Awards Official website BAFTA Awards database Museum of Broadcast Communications, BAFTA IMDB, BAFTA
British Academy Film Awards
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The location for the
2008 ceremony.
2.
United Kingdom
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The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom or Britain, is a sovereign country in western Europe. Lying off the north-western coast of the European mainland, the United Kingdom includes the island of Great Britain, Northern Ireland is the only part of the United Kingdom that shares a land border with another sovereign state—the Republic of Ireland. The Irish Sea lies between Great Britain and Ireland, with an area of 242,500 square kilometres, the United Kingdom is the 78th-largest sovereign state in the world and the 11th-largest in Europe. It is also the 21st-most populous country, with an estimated 65.1 million inhabitants, together, this makes it the fourth-most densely populated country in the European Union. The United Kingdom is a monarchy with a parliamentary system of governance. The monarch is Queen Elizabeth II, who has reigned since 6 February 1952, other major urban areas in the United Kingdom include the regions of Birmingham, Leeds, Glasgow, Liverpool and Manchester. The United Kingdom consists of four countries—England, Scotland, Wales, the last three have devolved administrations, each with varying powers, based in their capitals, Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast, respectively. The relationships among the countries of the UK have changed over time, Wales was annexed by the Kingdom of England under the Laws in Wales Acts 1535 and 1542. A treaty between England and Scotland resulted in 1707 in a unified Kingdom of Great Britain, which merged in 1801 with the Kingdom of Ireland to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Five-sixths of Ireland seceded from the UK in 1922, leaving the present formulation of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, there are fourteen British Overseas Territories. These are the remnants of the British Empire which, at its height in the 1920s, British influence can be observed in the language, culture and legal systems of many of its former colonies. The United Kingdom is a country and has the worlds fifth-largest economy by nominal GDP. The UK is considered to have an economy and is categorised as very high in the Human Development Index. It was the worlds first industrialised country and the worlds foremost power during the 19th, the UK remains a great power with considerable economic, cultural, military, scientific and political influence internationally. It is a nuclear weapons state and its military expenditure ranks fourth or fifth in the world. The UK has been a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council since its first session in 1946 and it has been a leading member state of the EU and its predecessor, the European Economic Community, since 1973. However, on 23 June 2016, a referendum on the UKs membership of the EU resulted in a decision to leave. The Acts of Union 1800 united the Kingdom of Great Britain, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have devolved self-government
United Kingdom
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Stonehenge, in
Wiltshire, was erected around 2500 BC.
United Kingdom
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Flag
United Kingdom
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The
Bayeux Tapestry depicts the
Battle of Hastings, 1066, and the events leading to it.
United Kingdom
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The
Treaty of Union led to a single united kingdom encompassing all Great Britain.
3.
British Academy of Film and Television Arts
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The British Academy of Film and Television Arts is an independent charity that supports, develops and promotes the art forms of the moving image – film, television and game in the United Kingdom. David Lean was the founding Chairman of the Academy, the first Film Awards ceremony took place in May 1949 and honouring the films The Best Years of Our Lives, Odd Man Out and The World Is Rich. In 2005, it placed a cap on worldwide voting membership which now stands at approximately 6,500. BAFTA has offices in Scotland and Wales in the UK, in Los Angeles and New York in the United States and runs events in Hong Kong, amanda Berry OBE has been chief executive of the organisation since December 2000. Many of these events are free to online at BAFTA Guru. BAFTA runs a number of programmes across the UK, US. Launched in 2012, the UK programme enables talented British citizens who are in need of support to take an industry-recognised course in film. Each BAFTA Scholar receives up to £12,000 towards their annual course fees, since 2013, three students every year have received one of the Prince William Scholarships in Film, Television and Games, supported by BAFTA and Warner Bros. These scholarships are awarded in the name of in his role as President of BAFTA, since 2015, BAFTA has been offering scholarships for British citizens to study in China, vice versa. BAFTA presents awards for film, television and games, including entertainment, at a number of annual ceremonies across the UK and in Los Angeles. The BAFTA award trophy is a mask, designed by American sculptor Mitzi Cunliffe. Todays BAFTA award – including the mask and marble base – weighs 3.7 kg and measures 27 cm x 14 cm x 8 cm. BAFTAs annual film awards ceremony is known as the British Academy Film Awards, or the BAFTAs, in 1949 the British Film Academy, as it was then known, presented the first awards for films made in 1947 and 1948. Since 2008 the ceremony has held at the Royal Opera House in Londons Covent Garden. It had been held in the Odeon cinema on Leicester Square since 2000, the ceremony had been performed during April or May of each year, but since 2002 it has been held in February to precede the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Academy Awards, or Oscars. They have been awarded annually since 1954, the first ever ceremony consisted of six categories. Until 1958, they were awarded by the Guild of Television Producers and Directors, from 1968 until 1997, BAFTAs Film and Television Awards were presented together, but from 1998 onwards they were presented at two separate ceremonies. The Television Craft Awards celebrate the talent behind the programmes, such as working in visual effects, production
British Academy of Film and Television Arts
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The BAFTA award, designed by Mitzi Cunliffe
4.
Emma Stone
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Emily Jean Emma Stone is an American actress. One of the worlds highest-paid actresses in 2015, Stone has received accolades as an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award. She appeared in Forbes Celebrity 100 in 2013, and is described by the media as one of the most talented actresses of her generation. Born and raised in Scottsdale, Arizona, Stone began acting as a child, in a theater production of The Wind in the Willows in 2000. As a teenager, she relocated to Los Angeles with her mother, and made her debut in VH1s In Search of the New Partridge Family. After small television roles, she won a Young Hollywood Award for her debut in Superbad. The 2010 teen comedy Easy A was Stones first starring role and earned her nominations for the BAFTA Rising Star Award and this breakthrough was followed by the commercially successful film Crazy, Stupid, Love, and a supporting part in the critically acclaimed drama The Help. Stone gained wider recognition for playing Gwen Stacy in the 2012 superhero film The Amazing Spider-Man and she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for the role of a recovering drug addict in the black comedy-drama Birdman or. Her Broadway debut came in a revival of the musical Cabaret, Stone won an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, and a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress for playing an aspiring actress in the highly successful musical film La La Land. Emily Jean Stone was born on November 6,1988, in Scottsdale, Arizona, to Krista Jean Stone, a homemaker, and Jeffrey Charles Stone, Stone lived on the grounds of the Camelback Inn resort from the age of 12 to 15. She has a brother, Spencer. Her paternal grandfather, Conrad Ostberg Sten, was from a Swedish family that anglicized their surname to Stone when they immigrated to the United States through Ellis Island and she also has German, English, Scottish, and Irish ancestry. As an infant, Stone had baby colic and cried frequently, Stone has described herself as having been loud and bossy while growing up. She was educated at Sequoya Elementary School and attended Cocopah Middle School for the sixth grade, although she did not like school, she has stated that her controlling nature meant that I made sure I got all As. Stone suffered panic attacks as a child, which she caused a decline in her social skills. She underwent therapy but states that it was her participation in local theater plays that helped cure the attacks and she has recalled, The first time I had a panic attack I was sitting in my friends house, and I thought the house was burning down. I called my mom and she brought me home, and for the three years it just would not stop. I would go to the nurse at lunch most days and just wring my hands, I would ask my mom to tell me exactly how the day was going to be, then ask again 30 seconds later
Emma Stone
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Stone in 2014
Emma Stone
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Stone at the
Zombieland world premiere, 2009
Emma Stone
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Stone at the premiere of Easy A in Germany, 2010
Emma Stone
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Stone at the
Deauville American Film Festival in 2011
5.
Academy Award for Best Actress
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The Academy Award for Best Actress is an award presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. It is given in honor of an actress who has delivered a performance in a leading role while working within the film industry. The 1st Academy Awards ceremony was held in 1929 with Janet Gaynor receiving the award for her roles in 7th Heaven, Street Angel, and Sunrise. Currently, nominees are determined by single transferable vote within the branch of AMPAS. In the first three years of the awards, actresses were nominated as the best in their categories, at that time, all of their work during the qualifying period was listed after the award. The following year, this unwieldy and confusing system was replaced by the current system in which an actress is nominated for a performance in a single film. Starting with the 9th ceremony held in 1937, the category was officially limited to five nominations per year, one actress has been nominated posthumously, Jeanne Eagels. Only three film characters have been nominated more than once in this category, elizabeth I of England, Leslie Crosbie in The Letter, and Esther Blodgett in A Star is Born. Six women on the list have received an Honorary Academy Award for their acting, they are Greta Garbo, Barbara Stanwyck, Mary Pickford, Deborah Kerr, Gena Rowlands, since its inception, the award has been given to 74 actresses. Katharine Hepburn has won the most awards in this category, with four Oscars, meryl Streep, who has a total of 20 Oscar nominations, has been nominated in this category on 16 occasions, resulting in two awards. As of the 2017 ceremony, Emma Stone is the most recent winner in category for her role as Mia Dolan in La La Land. In the following table, the years are listed as per Academy convention, and generally correspond to the year of release in Los Angeles County. For the first five ceremonies, the eligibility period spanned twelve months from August 1 to July 31, for the 6th ceremony held in 1934, the eligibility period lasted from August 1,1932 to December 31,1933
Academy Award for Best Actress
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Janet Gaynor was the first winner in this category for her roles in
7th Heaven (1927),
Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927), and
Street Angel (1928).
Academy Award for Best Actress
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Norma Shearer won in 1930 for her performance in
The Divorcee.
Academy Award for Best Actress
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Katharine Hepburn has the most wins in this category for her roles in
Morning Glory (1933),
Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967),
The Lion in Winter (1968), and
On Golden Pond (1981).
Academy Award for Best Actress
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Bette Davis won two awards from ten nominations for her roles in
Dangerous (1935) and
Jezebel (1938).
6.
Vivien Leigh
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Vivien Leigh was a British stage and film actress. She also won a Tony Award for her work in the Broadway musical version of Tovarich, after her drama school education, Leigh appeared in small roles in four films in 1935 and progressed to the role of heroine in Fire Over England. Lauded for her beauty, Leigh felt that her physical attributes sometimes prevented her from being seriously as an actress. Despite her fame as an actress, Leigh was primarily a stage performer. Later in life, she performed as an actress in a few films. At the time, the public strongly identified Leigh with her second husband Laurence Olivier, Leigh and Olivier starred together in many stage productions, with Olivier often directing, and in three films. Although her career had periods of inactivity, in 1999 the American Film Institute ranked Leigh as the 16th greatest female star of classic Hollywood cinema. Leigh was born Vivian Mary Hartley on 5 November 1913 in British India on the campus of St. Pauls School and she was the only child of Ernest Richard Hartley, an English broker, and his wife, Gertrude Mary Frances. Her father was born in Scotland in 1882, while her mother, Ernest and Gertrude Hartley were married in 1912 in Kensington, London. In 1917, Ernest Hartley was transferred to Bangalore as an officer in the Indian Cavalry, while Gertrude, at the age of three, young Vivian made her first stage appearance for her mothers amateur theatre group, reciting Little Bo Peep. At the age of six, Vivian was sent by her mother to the Convent of the Sacred Heart then situated in Roehampton, southwest London, from Loreto Convent, Darjeeling. One of her friends there was future actress Maureen OSullivan, two years her senior, to whom Vivian expressed her desire to become a great actress, the family returned to Britain in 1931. She attended A Connecticut Yankee, one of OSullivans films playing in Londons West End, shortly after, her father enrolled Vivian at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London. Vivian met Herbert Leigh Holman, known as Leigh Holman, a barrister 13 years her senior, on 12 October 1933 in London, she gave birth to a daughter, Suzanne, later Mrs. Robin Farrington. Leighs friends suggested she take a role as a schoolgirl in the film Things Are Looking Up. She engaged an agent, John Gliddon, who believed that Vivian Holman was not a name for an actress. After rejecting his many suggestions, she took Vivian Leigh as her professional name, Gliddon recommended her to Alexander Korda as a possible film actress, but Korda rejected her as lacking potential. She was cast in the play The Mask of Virtue, directed by Sidney Carroll in 1935 and received excellent reviews, followed by interviews, John Betjeman, the future Poet Laureate, described her as the essence of English girlhood
Vivien Leigh
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Leigh as
Scarlett O'Hara in
Gone With the Wind, 1939
Vivien Leigh
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With
Clark Gable in Gone with the Wind (1939)
Vivien Leigh
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Leigh as
Scarlett O'Hara
Vivien Leigh
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Leigh and Olivier in Australia, June 1948
7.
A Streetcar Named Desire (1951 film)
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A Streetcar Named Desire is a 1951 American drama film, adapted from Tennessee Williamss Pulitzer Prize-winning 1947 play of the same name. The Broadway production and cast was converted to film with minor changes. True to the play, the film is both lyrical and gritty, with complex and contradictory characters, chief among these was Blanche Dubois, who has become a legendary and iconic figure in film history. Tennessee Williams collaborated with Oscar Saul and Elia Kazan on the screenplay, Kazan, who directed the Broadway stage production, also directed the black and white film. Marlon Brando, Kim Hunter, and Karl Malden were all cast in their original Broadway roles. Although Jessica Tandy originated the role of Blanche DuBois on Broadway, Vivien Leigh, upon release of the film, Marlon Brando, virtually unknown at the time of the play’s casting, rose to prominence as a major Hollywood movie star. In 1999, A Streetcar Named Desire was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant. Under mysterious circumstances, Blanche DuBois, a high school teacher, leaves her home in Auriol, Mississippi to travel to New Orleans to live with her sister. Blanche and Stella are all that remain of an old aristocratic family, Blanche discloses that the family estate, Belle Reve, has been lost to creditors, and that she wants to stay with Stella and Stanley for a while. Blanche seems lost and broke, with nowhere to go, Stella welcomes her with an open heart. From the start, Blanche and Stanley are wary of each other, Blanche has a soft-spoken manner, Stanley is rough and loud. His mere presence seems to threaten her, while her behavior and she is especially adroit at patronizing and criticizing Stella from the start. When interrogated about her past, struggling to be polite, Blanche says that she was married and widowed at a young age and she says that she has taken a leave of absence from her job due to her nerves. To satisfy Stanleys skepticism about the loss of the estate, Blanche hands over her papers pertaining to Belle Reve, but Stanley grabs at some of her private papers that she is holding back, and they cascade to the floor. Weeping, she gathers them all back, saying that they are poems from her dead husband and he defends himself by saying that he was just looking out for his family, and then announces that Stella is going to have a baby. Soon after her arrival, Stanley has a night with his friends where Blanche meets Mitch. His courteous manner sets him apart from Stanleys other friends and they like each other right away. This is the start of their romance, Stanley explodes in a drunken rage, striking Stella, and sending his friends running, while Blanche and Stella flee to the upstairs neighbor, Eunice
A Streetcar Named Desire (1951 film)
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Theatrical release poster by
Bill Gold
A Streetcar Named Desire (1951 film)
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Vivien Leigh as Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire.
8.
Blanche DuBois
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Blanche DuBois is a fictional character in Tennessee Williams 1947 Pulitzer Prize-winning play A Streetcar Named Desire. The character was written for Tallulah Bankhead, Blanche DuBois arrives, penniless, in New Orleans to stay with her sister Stella and her brother-in-law Stanley Kowalski. A former schoolteacher from a family, she has been evicted from her family home, Belle Reve, after the deaths of several family members wiped out her. It is also revealed that, years earlier, her husband, Allan Grey. She had a series of affairs to numb her grief. Behind her veneer of social snobbery and sexual propriety, Blanche is deeply insecure, from the start, Blanche is appalled by her sisters poor living quarters and the coarseness of her brother-in-law. She calls Stanley an ape, and shames Stella for marrying a man so violent, Blanche is not shy about expressing her contempt for Stanley and the life he has given her sister, which makes him proud. For his part, Stanley resents Blanches superior attitude, and is convinced that she has squandered Stellas portion of the money from the ancestral home. Blanche begins dating Stanleys friend Harold Mitch Mitchell, who is distinct from Stanley in his courtesy and propriety and that hope is destroyed, however, when Stanley learns of Blanches past from a traveling salesman who knew her, and reveals it to Mitch, who ends the relationship. Blanche begins drinking heavily and escapes into a world, conjuring up the notion that an old flame. The night Stella goes into labor, Stanley and Blanche are left alone in the apartment and this event, coupled with the fact that Stella does not believe her, sends Blanche over the edge into a nervous breakdown. In the final scene, Blanche is led off to a hospital by a matron. Blanche DuBois has been portrayed several times on stage and on screen, jessica Tandy received a Tony Award for her performance as Blanche in the original Broadway production. Uta Hagen took over the role of Blanche for the national tour, Blanche was also portrayed by Vivien Leigh in the London stage production, which was directed by her then-husband Laurence Olivier, She reprised the role in the 1951 film adaptation. The film was directed by Elia Kazan, and Leigh won her second Academy Award for this performance, Tallulah Bankhead portrayed the role in 1956. Bankhead, a friend of Williams, had been the inspiration for the role. However, she was uninterested and the producer thought she would overpower the characters fragility. When she played the role in 1956, some critics agreed she was too strong in it, the character is reputedly named after theatre critic Blanche Marvin, a former actress and friend of Williams
Blanche DuBois
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Vivien Leigh as Blanche DuBois from the trailer for the film version of
A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)
9.
Phyllis Calvert
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Phyllis Hannah Murray-Hill, known professionally as Phyllis Calvert, was an English film, stage and television actress. She was one of the stars of the Gainsborough melodramas of the 1940s. Calvert performed in theatre and in several films, before making her London stage debut in A Womans Privilege in 1939. In 1942, she had the role as Patricia Graham in Terence Rattigans Flare Path. She first found success in the adaptation of H. G. Wells Kipps. During the following decade, she starred in many romances, including Fanny by Gaslight, with James Mason and Stewart Granger, however, three Hollywood studios failed to pay her what she asked. She acted in over 40 films, her later films include Oh, what a Lovely War and The Walking Stick. Calvert had already appeared on television, playing Mrs and she made TV appearances in programmes such as Crown Court, Ladykillers, Tales of the Unexpected, Boon, After Henry and The Line Grove Story. Barnabys Aunt Alice in a Midsomer Murders episode Blue Herrings in 2000 and she was the subject of This Is Your Life in 1972 when she was surprised by Eamonn Andrews. She was married to the actor and antiquarian bookseller Peter Murray Hill and she died in London in 2002, from natural causes, aged 87. For a number of years, British film exhibitors voted her among the top ten British stars at the box office via a poll in the Motion Picture Herald
Phyllis Calvert
–
Phyllis Calvert
10.
Mandy (film)
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Mandy is a 1952 British film about a familys struggle to give their deaf daughter a better life. It was directed by Alexander Mackendrick and is based on the novel The Day Is Ours by Hilda Lewis and it stars Phyllis Calvert, Jack Hawkins and Terence Morgan, and features the first film appearance by Jane Asher. In the US the film was released as The Story of Mandy, harry and Christine Garland have a deaf daughter, Mandy. As they realise their daughters situation, the parents enroll Mandy in special classes to try to get her to speak. They quarrel in the process and their marriage comes under strain, there are also hints of a possible affair between Christine and Dick Searle, the headmaster of the school for the deaf where Mandy is enrolled. Eventually, the training succeeds to the point where Mandy says her own name for the first time, mandys speech was achieved by using a balloon. She was able to feel the vibrations of sound onto the balloon, the films screenplay was written by Nigel Balchin and Jack Whittingham. The film was shot at the Ealing Studios in west London, Mandy premiered in London on 29 July 1952, and was the fifth most popular at the British box office that year. The film was nominated for six BAFTA awards at the 1953 British Academy Film Awards ceremony, Alexander Mackendrick was awarded the Special Jury Prize at the 1952 Venice Film Festival for his direction, and the film was nominated for the Golden Lion at the same festival. Mandy at the British Film Institutes Screenonline Mandy in the British Film Institutes Explore film, Database Mandy at the British Board of Film Classification Mandy at the Internet Movie Database
Mandy (film)
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Original UK cinema poster
11.
Celia Johnson
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Dame Celia Elizabeth Johnson DBE was an English actress. She began her acting career in 1928, and subsequently achieved success in West End. She also appeared in films, including the romantic drama Brief Encounter. Much of her work was for television, and she continued performing in theatre for the rest of her life. She suffered a stroke and died soon after at the age of 73, born in Richmond, Surrey, and nicknamed Betty, Johnson was the second daughter of Robert and Ethel Johnson. Her first public performance was in 1916, when she played a role in a charity performance of King Cophetua and she attended St Pauls Girls School in London from 1919 until 1926, and played in the schools orchestra under Gustav Holst. She acted in productions, but had no other acting experience, when she was accepted to study at Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in 1926. She later spent a term in Paris, studying under Pierre Fresnay at the Comédie Française and she later recalled her choice of an acting career with the comment, I thought Id rather like it. It was the only thing I was good at, and I thought it might be rather wicked. ”Her stage début, and first professional role, was as Sarah in George Bernard Shaws Major Barbara at the Theatre Royal, Huddersfield in 1928. She went to London the following year to take the place of Angela Baddeley in the part of Currita in A Hundred Years Old, in 1930 Johnson played in Cynara with Sir Gerald Du Maurier and Dame Gladys Cooper. She made her first trip to the United States the following year to star as Ophelia in a New York production of Hamlet. She returned to London, where she appeared in a number of productions, before establishing herself with a two-year run in The Wind. She married the journalist Peter Fleming in 1935, and in 1939 gave birth to their first child, during the Second World War, Johnson lived with her widowed sister and sister-in-law and helped care for their combined seven children. She appeared in In Which We Serve and This Happy Breed, Lean and Coward sought Johnson for the next production, Brief Encounter. I have found myself already planning how I should play bits, Johnson was awarded the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress. After the war, Johnson concentrated on her life, which included two daughters born in 1946 and 1947 and her occasional acting work was secondary for the following decade. In 1952, she opened The Grass is Greener, in 1957 she acted with Ralph Richardson in The Flowering Cherry. As a member of Laurence Oliviers National Theatre Company, Johnson appeared in the plays The Master Builder with Olivier and Hay Fever, for her role in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, she received the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role
Celia Johnson
–
Dame Celia Johnson
DBE
12.
Ann Todd
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Dorothy Anne Todd was an English actress and producer. Todd was born in Hartford, Cheshire, England and educated at St. Winifrids School, Eastbourne and she went onto study speech training and drama under Elsie Fogerty at the Central School of Speech and Drama, then based at the Royal Albert Hall, London. Todd became an actress by appearing in such films as Perfect Strangers. She is perhaps best known to American audiences as Gregory Pecks long-suffering wife in Alfred Hitchcocks The Paradine Case. In 1946, Todd was said to be the holder of the most lucrative contract ever signed by an English cinema actress, Todd starred in two episodes of Playhouse 90, Not the Glory and The Grey Nurse Said Nothing. In 1957, Todd starred in the Broadway production of Four Winds and she later produced a series of travel films. Her autobiography is entitled The Eighth Veil, an allusion to the film made her a star in Britain. Todd was known as the pocket Garbo for her diminutive, blonde beauty, Todd said of herself, Im really very shy, and I get over that playing an actress. Her first husband, Victor N. Malcolm, was a grandson of Lillie Langtry and Prince Louis of Battenberg and her second and third husbands were first cousins. She had a daughter with Nigel Tangye called Ann Francesca Tangye and she was divorced from Tangye 12 March 1949. Todd married film director Lean on 21 May 1949 and starred in a number of his films, including The Passionate Friends, Madeleine, Lean and Todd divorced 15 July 1957. Todd died on 6 May 1993 from a stroke, aged 84
Ann Todd
–
Todd in The Paradine Case, 1948.
13.
The Sound Barrier
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The Sound Barrier is a British 1952 film directed by David Lean. It is a story about attempts by aircraft designers and test pilots to break the sound barrier. David Leans third and final film with his wife Ann Todd was also his first for Alexander Kordas London Films following the break-up of Cineguild, the Sound Barrier stars Ralph Richardson, Ann Todd, and Nigel Patrick. The Sound Barrier was a great success, but it is now rarely seen and has become one of the least-known of Leans films. Following on In Which We Serve, the film is another of Leans ventures into a genre of filmmaking where impressions of documentary film are created, Garthwaite is hired by Ridgefield after marrying Ridgefields daughter, Susan. Tensions between father and daughter are accentuated by Garthwaites dangerous job of test flying, Ridgefields hopes for his new jet fighter, Prometheus, has placed the company in jeopardy. The problems faced by the jet aircraft in encountering the speed of sound. In an attempt to break the barrier, Garthwaite crashes and is killed. Ridgefield later engages Peel to take on the challenge of piloting Prometheus at speeds approaching the speed of sound, in a crucial flight, and at the critical moment, Peel performs a counterintuitive action which enables him to maintain control of the aircraft and to break the sound barrier. Eventually accepting that her father did care about those whose lives were lost in tests, Susan changes her plan of moving to London, the strong relationship to aviation history in The Sound Barrier has led to its being characterised as a semi-documentary. The film pays tribute to the British effort in the advance in aviation of the development and final perfecting of the jet engine by Frank Whittle and Power Jets Ltd. David Lean had begun to research based on media reports of jet aircraft approaching supersonic speeds. He even managed to fly with test pilots as he produced a 300-page notebook that he turned over to playwright Terence Rattigan, the subsequent screenplay concentrated on the newly discovered problems of flying at supersonic speeds. Contrary to what is depicted in the film, the first aircraft to break the barrier was the rocket-powered Bell X-1 flown by Chuck Yeager of the United States Air Force in 1947. As Yeager, who was present at the U. S, because the 1947 Bell X-1 flight had not been widely publicised, many who saw The Sound Barrier thought it was a true story, and that the first supersonic flight was made by a British pilot. Studio filming was at Shepperton Studios, but the sequences were filmed at Chilbolton Aerodrome, Nether Wallop, Hampshire. A Vickers Valetta and Avro Lancaster bomber served as platforms for the aerial sequences. With the assistance of the British Aircraft Constructors Association, aircraft featured in The Sound Barrier were loaned by Vickers, de Havilland, a Supermarine Swift prototype featured as the experimental Prometheus jet fighter
The Sound Barrier
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U.S. theatrical release poster
14.
Audrey Hepburn
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Audrey Hepburn was a British actress, model, dancer and humanitarian. Recognized as a film and fashion icon, Hepburn was active during Hollywoods Golden Age and she was ranked by the American Film Institute as the third-greatest female screen legend in Golden Age Hollywood and was inducted into the International Best Dressed List Hall of Fame. Born in Ixelles, a district of Brussels, Hepburn spent her childhood between Belgium, England and the Netherlands, following minor appearances in several films, Hepburn starred in the 1951 Broadway play Gigi after being spotted by French novelist Colette, on whose work the play was based. She shot to stardom for playing the role in Roman Holiday, for which she was the first actress to win an Academy Award, a Golden Globe. The same year Hepburn won a Tony Award for Best Lead Actress in a Play for her performance in Ondine, Hepburn won a record three BAFTA Awards for Best British Actress in a Leading Role. In recognition of her career, she was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award from BAFTA. DeMille Award, the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award and the Special Tony Award and she remains one of the few people who have won Academy, Emmy, Grammy and Tony Awards. Hepburn appeared in films as her life went on, devoting much of her later life to UNICEF. She had contributed to the organisation since 1954, then worked in some of the poorest communities of Africa, South America and she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in recognition of her work as a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador in December 1992. A month later, Hepburn died of cancer at her home in Switzerland at the age of 63. Hepburn was born Audrey Kathleen Ruston or Edda Kathleen Hepburn-Ruston on 4 May 1929 at number 48 Rue Keyenveld in Ixelles and her father, Joseph Victor Anthony Ruston, was a British subject born in Auschitz, Bohemia, Austria-Hungary. He was the son of Victor John George Ruston, of British and Austrian descent and Anna Wels, Hepburns mother, Ella van Heemstra, was a Dutch baroness. At age nineteen, Ella had married Jonkheer Hendrik Gustaaf Adolf Quarles van Ufford, an oil based in Batavia, Dutch East Indies. They had two sons, Jonkheer Arnoud Robert Alexander Quarles van Ufford and Jonkheer Ian Edgar Bruce Quarles van Ufford, Hepburns parents were married in Batavia in September 1926. At the time, Ruston worked for a company, but soon after the marriage, the couple relocated to Europe. After a year in London, they moved to Brussels, where he had assigned to open a branch office. After three years spent travelling between Brussels, Arnhem, The Hague and London, the family settled to the suburban Brussels municipality of Linkebeek in 1932, Hepburns early childhood was sheltered and privileged. In the mid-1930s, Hepburns parents recruited and collected donations for the British Union of Fascists, Joseph left the family abruptly in 1935, which Hepburn later professed was the most traumatic event of my life
Audrey Hepburn
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Hepburn in 1956
Audrey Hepburn
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Hepburn in a
screen test for
Roman Holiday (1953) which was also used as promotional material
Audrey Hepburn
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Hepburn with
William Holden in the film
Sabrina (1954)
Audrey Hepburn
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Audrey Hepburn in War and Peace (1956)
15.
Roman Holiday
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Roman Holiday is a 1953 American romantic comedy film directed and produced by William Wyler. It stars Gregory Peck as a reporter and Audrey Hepburn as a royal princess out to see Rome on her own, Hepburn won an Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance, the screenplay and costume design also won. It was written by John Dighton and Dalton Trumbo, though with Trumbo on the Hollywood blacklist, he did not receive a credit, instead, Trumbos credit was reinstated when the film was released on DVD in 2003. On December 19,2011, full credit for Trumbos work was restored, blacklisted director Bernard Vorhaus worked on the film as an assistant director under a pseudonym. It was shot at the Cinecittà studios and on location around Rome during the Hollywood on the Tiber era, the film was screened in the 14th Venice film festival within the official program. In 1999, Roman Holiday was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being culturally, historically and her doctor gives her a sedative to calm her and help her sleep, but she secretly leaves her countrys embassy. The sedative eventually makes her fall asleep on a bench, where Joe Bradley, not recognizing her, he offers her money so she can take a taxi home, but a woozy Anya Smith refuses to cooperate. Joe finally decides, for sake, to let her spend the night in his apartment. He is amused by her manner, but less so when she appropriates his bed. He transfers her to a couch, the next morning, Joe, having already slept through the interview Princess Ann was scheduled to give, hurries off to work, leaving her still asleep. When his editor, Mr. Hennessy, asks why Joe is late, Joe lies, Joe makes up details of the alleged interview until Hennessy informs him that the event had been canceled because the princess had suddenly fallen ill. Joe sees a picture of her and realizes who is in his apartment. Immediately seeing an opportunity, Joe proposes getting an exclusive interview, Hennessy, not knowing the circumstances, agrees to the deal and offers $5,000 if the interview is all Joe claims it will be, but bets Joe $500 that he will not succeed. Joe hurries home and, hiding the fact that he is a reporter and he also surreptitiously calls his photographer friend, Irving Radovich, to tag along to secretly take pictures. However, Ann declines Joes offer and leaves, Ann, enjoying her freedom, explores an outdoor market, buys a pair of shoes, and, on a whim, gets her long hair cut short. Joe follows and accidentally meets her on the Spanish Steps and this time he convinces her to spend the day with him. They see the sights, including the Mouth of Truth, a carved in marble which is said to bite off the hands of liars. When Joe shouts in pain and pulls his hand out of the mouth
Roman Holiday
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Promotional poster for reissue
Roman Holiday
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Filmed on location, several scenes show landmarks such as the
Spanish Steps.
Roman Holiday
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Joe shocks his royal friend, pretending to have lost his hand to the
Mouth of Truth.
Roman Holiday
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Joe and Anya on a
scooter ride through Rome—a ride that ends at the police station.
16.
Yvonne Mitchell
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Yvonne Mitchell was an English stage, television and film actress. After beginning her career in theatre, Mitchell progressed to films in the late 1940s. Her roles include Julia in the 1954 BBC adaptation of George Orwells novel Nineteen Eighty-Four and she retired from acting in 1977. Mitchell was born Yvonne Frances Joseph, but in 1946 changed her name by deed poll to Yvonne Mitchell and her parents were Madge and Bertie Joseph. Mitchell was married to the journalist, film and theatre critic, Mitchell died of cancer, aged 63, in 1979. Monsey died the year, roughly one month earlier. Their daughter Cordelia Monsey is a director and a long-term associate of both Sir Peter Hall and Sir Trevor Nunn. Yvonne Mitchells grandson is the drummer and violinist, Mitch McGugan, outside acting, Mitchell was also an established author, writing several books for children and adults as well as winning awards for playwriting. Her plays include The Same Sky and she wrote an acclaimed biography of the French writer Colette, and her own autobiography was published in 1957. Already an experienced actress, she made her speaking debut in film in The Queen of Spades. She appeared in the role of Mildred in the controversial film Sapphire, the following year, she appeared in another Kneale / Cartier literary adaptation when she took the role of Julia with Peter Cushing as Winston Smith in their adaptation of Nineteen Eighty-Four. She starred as Lea in the BBCs 1973 TV production of Colettes Cheri and she continued to act occasionally on television until the late 1970s, appearing in guest roles in series such as Out of the Unknown, her final screen role was in the BBC science-fiction series 1990
Yvonne Mitchell
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Yvonne Mitchell
17.
The Divided Heart
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The Divided Heart is a black-and-white British film directed by Charles Crichton and released in 1954. The script was written by Jack Whittingham and Richard Hughes and it was produced by Michael Truman and edited by Peter Bezencenet, with cinematography by Otto Heller and music by Georges Auric. The Divided Heart was widely admired, and won three British Academy Film Awards, during World War II, a three-year-old boy is found wandering alone in Germany. No family can be traced, and it is presumed that his parents, the child is placed in an orphanage, from where he is subsequently adopted by a childless couple, whom he grows to love and accept as his parents. When the boy is 10 years old, his mother is found alive in Yugoslavia where she has survived the war as a refugee. She returns to Germany to claim her child, having lost her husband, the case is finally referred to a three-man court, who will decide the childs future. As in the story on which the film is based. Separate awards for British and foreign actresses were given between 1952 and 1967, and this was the year in which both awards were won by actresses from the same film. The film also won the UN Award and it also received nominations in the Best Film and Best British Film categories, and Whittingham was nominated for Best British Screenplay. The Divided Heart was named among the top 5 foreign films at the 1955 National Board of Review Awards, the Divided Heart at the Internet Movie Database The Divided Heart at AllMovie
The Divided Heart
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The Divided Heart UK release poster
18.
Brenda De Banzie
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Brenda Doreen Mignon de Banzie was a British actress of stage and screen. She was the daughter of Edward Thomas de Banzie, conductor and musical director, and his second wife Dorothy, in 1911, the family lived in Salford, Lancashire. She appeared as Maggie Hobson in the David Lean film version of Hobsons Choice with John Mills and Charles Laughton, Laughton allegedly didnt like de Banzie because she wasnt getting her part right. De Banzie was also upstaging Laughton who was, by all accounts and her most notable film role was as Phoebe Rice, the hapless wife of comedian Archie Rice, in the 1960 film version of John Osbornes The Entertainer. She had also appeared on Broadway in the play, for which she received a Tony Award nomination. Other memorable film roles included The Man Who Knew Too Much, directed by Alfred Hitchcock and she died at the age of 71 due to complications following brain surgery
Brenda De Banzie
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Brenda Doreen Mignon de Banzie
19.
Sabrina (1954 film)
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Sabrina is a 1954 American romantic comedy film directed by Billy Wilder, adapted for the screen by Wilder, Samuel A. Taylor, and Ernest Lehman from Taylors play Sabrina Fair. It stars Humphrey Bogart, Audrey Hepburn, and William Holden and this was Wilders last film released by Paramount Pictures, ending a 12-year business relationship with Wilder and the company. The film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress in 2002, Sabrina Fairchild is the young daughter of the Larrabee familys chauffeur, Thomas, and she has been in love with David Larrabee all her life. David is an oft-married, idle playboy, crazy for women, who has never noticed Sabrina, much to her, distraught, she leaves her father a suicide note and tries to kill herself by carbon monoxide poisoning. She fails when Davids workaholic older brother, Linus intervenes, Sabrina then attends culinary school in Paris called Mount Douglas, and after 2 years she returns home as an attractive and sophisticated woman. David, after initially not recognizing her, is drawn to her. Linus sees this and fears that Davids imminent marriage to Elizabeth Tyson may be endangered, if the engagement is broken, it would ruin a profitable opportunity on a great corporate merger between Larrabee Industries and Elizabeths very wealthy fathers business. Linus confronts David about his irresponsibility to the family, the business, and Elizabeth, Linus then tries to distract Sabrina from David by drawing her affections to himself. He succeeds, but in the falls in love with her. Linus reveals his maneuver to Sabrina, leaving her disillusioned about him, Sabrina agrees to leave and never come back, and Linus arranges for her to return to Paris by ship the next day. The next morning, Linus has second thoughts and decides to send David to Paris with Sabrina and this means calling off Davids wedding with Elizabeth and the big Tyson deal, and he schedules a meeting of the Larrabee board to announce this. However, David shows up at the meeting and declares that hes decided to marry Elizabeth after all, as a result, Linus finally recognizes his own feelings for Sabrina. He rushes off to join her on the ship, and they sail away together to Paris, fontanel Marcel Hillaire as The Professor, Sabrinas culinary instructor Ellen Corby as Miss McCardle, Linus secretary Francis X. Bushman as Mr. During production of the film, Hepburn and Holden entered into a brief, Bogart had originally wanted his wife Lauren Bacall to be cast as Sabrina, and complained that Hepburn required too many takes to get her dialogue right and pointed out her inexperience. His behavior towards Hepburn, however, was better than his behavior towards members of the cast. Bogart was very unhappy during the filming, convinced that he was wrong for this kind of film, mad at not being Wilders first choice. But Wilders offbeat casting produced a performance that critics generally considered successful, Bogart later apologized to Wilder for his behavior on-set, citing problems in his personal life. Wilder began shooting before the script was finished, and Lehman was writing all day to complete it, eventually, he would finish a scene in the morning, deliver it during lunch, and filming of it would begin in the afternoon
Sabrina (1954 film)
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Theatrical re-release poster
Sabrina (1954 film)
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Hepburn and Holden
Sabrina (1954 film)
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Holden and Bogart
Sabrina (1954 film)
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Six sketches in pencil, ink, and watercolor with two fabric samples for a skirt, blouse, and apron designed by
Edith Head for Audrey Hepburn in the film "Sabrina".
20.
Margaret Leighton
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Margaret Leighton, CBE was an English actress. She was known for her sense of grandeur and refinement. She began her career on stage in 1938, and went on to win the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play, for the original Broadway productions of Separate Tables. Leightons film appearances included Under Capricorn, Calling Bulldog Drummond, Carrington V. C. and she won an Emmy Award in 1971 for a television version of Hamlet. She was also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, born in Barnt Green, Worcestershire, Leighton made her stage debut as Dorothy in Laugh With Me, which was also performed that year for BBC Television. She became a star of the Old Vic and she starred with Walter Pidgeon in the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer crime/mystery Calling Bulldog Drummond. Leighton was nominated for Best Actress in a Play for Much Ado About Nothing opposite John Gielgud and she portrayed the wife of an American presidential candidate in the 1964 film The Best Man, written by Gore Vidal. She had a noteworthy list of TV appearances, including Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Ben Casey and her last appearance on Broadway was as Birdie Hubbard in a revival of Lillian Hellmans The Little Foxes starring Anne Bancroft as Regina Giddens. For her film role as Mrs. Maudsley in The Go-Between Leighton won the British BAFTA Film Award for Best Supporting Actress and she received a BAFTA nomination for Best British Actress for her role as Valerie Carrington in Carrington V. C. She received a Hollywood Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress for The Go-Between, Leighton had three husbands, publisher Max Reinhardt, actor Laurence Harvey, and actor Michael Wilding, her death). She was awarded the CBE in 1974, Leighton died of multiple sclerosis in 1976, aged 53, in Chichester, Sussex. Helen Smith The Tempest. Ariel Home at Seven, janet Preston The Holly and the Ivy. Helen Teckman The Good Die Young, judith Wynter/Leonie The Sound and the Fury. Caddy Compson Waltz of the Toreadors, emily Fitzjohn The Third Secret The Best Man. Agatha Andrews The Madwoman of Chaillot, constance, the Madwoman of Passy The Go-Between. Aka X, Y and Zee Lady Caroline Lamb, Lady Melbourne A Bequest to the Nation. Lady Frances Nelson From Beyond the Grave, madame Orloff in segment The Elemental Galileo. Elderly Court Lady Trial by Combat, rosalind ITV Play of the Week episode A Month in the Country
Margaret Leighton
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Leighton in 1959.
21.
Carrington V.C. (film)
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Carrington V. C. is a 1954 legal drama released by Kingsley-International Pictures starring David Niven and Margaret Leighton. Others in the cast include Noelle Middleton, Allan Cuthbertson, Victor Maddern, Raymond Francis, Michael Bates, Laurence Naismith, Geoffrey Keen and it was adapted for the screen by John Hunter from the play of the same name by Campbell and Dorothy Christie. It was produced by Teddy Baird and directed by Anthony Asquith, the Victoria Cross worn by Niven in the film was that awarded to Arthur Henry Cross for service in the First World War. Major Charles Copper Carrington, who has a distinguished Second World War record and was awarded the Victoria Cross, is arrested for embezzling £125 from his units safe. Other charges include leaving the base and entertaining a woman officer in his room, appearing in his own defence, Carringtons case at his court-martial is that he took the money openly because of back pay owed him. The Army Paymaster had failed to pay him for expenses during postings in the Far East and she lives in another part of the country, and has become ill and suicidal as a result of financial worries. Carrington claims he told his superior, Colonel Henniker, about his decision to remove the money and he transferred £100 of it to his wifes account to give her relief from her financial problems. He then left the base to compete in a horse race in which he betted the rest of the money on himself. When he fell from his horse, his friend Captain Alison Graham tried to return the money, as for the incident in his room, it is established that Carrington was bed-ridden from his fall and that Graham was visiting him to discuss the embezzlement. She was fully dressed and sitting on a chair when Colonel Henniker stormed in, Henniker admits waiting for some time between seeing Graham go to Carringtons room and then entering himself. Henniker is in fact Carringtons enemy, resenting his war record, achievements, there is an element of sympathy for Carringtons actions and it is pointed out that the Major could be cleared if established that Henniker had forewarned knowledge of his intentions. He thus perjures himself at the court-martial by denying being told by Carrington of his decision to take the money from the safe, much of Carringtons debts were due anyway to Hennikers constant delays in pursuing the Paymaster to give Carrington the money owed him. Due to her health, Carrington did not intend to call his wife Valerie as a witness and she resents the idea of washing their dirty linen in public but finally agrees to turn up. Things go wrong when Valerie becomes suspicious of Carringtons relationship with Captain Graham, under pressure, Graham admits to Valerie that she had a one-night stand with Carrington when they became stranded in a pub in the middle of a storm. But Carrington then insisted that an affair would not be fair on anyone. He and Graham are now just friends, in her evidence, Valerie also perjures herself, denying her husband ever mentioned telling Colonel Henniker he planned to take the money. Carrington produces a letter she wrote to him in which she does mention his argument with Henniker, Carrington intends to only read the parts relevant to his defence, since the letter also contains embarrassing matters about the couple and Valeries health. But when the judge insists that he and the other officials read it before it is submitted into evidence, the officers who are to determine his fate have seen through the lies told in court and sympathise with Carrington
Carrington V.C. (film)
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U.S. theatrical poster
22.
Katie Johnson (English actress)
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Bessie Kate Katie Johnson was an English actress who appeared on stage from 1894 and on screen from the 1930s to the 1950s. In 1908 she married the actor Frank Goodenough Bayly, the role earned her a British Film Academy award for best British actress. She died less than two years afterwards having only appeared in a further film. She also appeared in the BBC science fiction serial The Quatermass Experiment and played a spy in I See a Dark Stranger
Katie Johnson (English actress)
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Katie Johnson in trailer for "Three Steps in the Dark" (1953)
23.
The Ladykillers
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The Ladykillers is a 1955 British black comedy film made by Ealing Studios. Directed by Alexander Mackendrick, it stars Alec Guinness, Cecil Parker, Herbert Lom, Peter Sellers, Danny Green, Jack Warner and Katie Johnson as the old lady. American William Rose wrote the screenplay, for which he was nominated for an Academy Award for Writing Original Screenplay and he claimed to have dreamt the entire film and merely had to remember the details when he awoke. With nothing to occupy her time and an imagination, she is a frequent visitor to the local police station where she reports fanciful suspicions regarding neighbourhood activities. Having led wild-goose chases in the past, she is humoured by the officers there who give her reports no credence whatsoever and she is approached by an archly sinister character, Professor Marcus, who wants to rent rooms in her house. As a cover, the Professor convinces the naive Mrs. Wilberforce that the group is a string quintet using the rooms for rehearsal space. To maintain the deception, the members carry musical instruments and play a recording of Boccherinis Minuet from String Quintet in E. After the heist, Mrs. W is deceived into retrieving the money from the railway station herself. This she successfully manages to do but not without serious complications owing to her tendency to righteous meddling, as the gang departs her house with the loot, One-Round accidentally gets his cello case full of banknotes trapped in the front door. As he pulls the free, banknotes spill forth while Mrs. Wilberforce looks on. Finally, smelling a rat, she informs Marcus that she is going to the police, stalling, the gangsters half convince Mrs. W that she will surely be considered an accomplice for holding the lolly. In any case, it is a crime as insurance will cover all the losses. She wavers but when she rallies the criminals finally decide they must kill her, No one wants to do it so they draw lots using matchsticks. The Major loses but tries to make a run for it with the cash, as the oblivious Mrs. W dozes, the criminals cross, double-cross and manage to kill one another in rapid succession. The Major falls off the roof of the house after being chased by Louis, before falling into the carriage Louis fires a last shot at Marcus which nearly hits him. Finally with no one else left Marcus himself is struck on the head by a signal over the tunnel. All the other bodies have been dumped into railway wagons passing behind the house and are now far away, Mrs. Wilberforce is now left alone with the plunder. She goes to the police to return it but they do not believe her story and they humour her, telling her to keep the money
The Ladykillers
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Original film poster by
Reginald Mount
The Ladykillers
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Mrs. Wilberforce (Katie Johnson) lectures the gangsters (from left to right: Cecil Parker as Claude ("Major Courtney"), Herbert Lom as Louis ("Mr. Harvey"), Alec Guinness ("Professor Marcus"), and Danny Green as One-Round ("Mr. Lawson") after discovering their crime.
24.
Margaret Johnston
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Margaret Johnston was an Australian-born British actress. Johnston was best known for her performances, but also appeared in 12 films. Johnston was the second of three born in Australia to English parents. She was educated at the North Sydney Girls High School, then at the University of Sydney where she studied Law, Johnston had shown an interest and aptitude for drama from an early age acting in various school productions before working professionally in Sydneys theatres. It was reported that her ambition at this time was to move to Europe, to learn her craft. In 1936, Johnston travelled to Britain in order to pursue her career and she was accepted as a student by the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, where she was tutored by Stefan Hock. Johnstons first role on the West End stage was a part in a 1939 production of Saloon Bar. She followed this with a period in theatre, before being cast in a 1942 production of Murder Without Crime at Londons Comedy Theatre. A box-office hit, the production ran for over a year, in 1944 Johnston played opposite Fay Compton in The Last of Summer at the Phoenix Theatre. M. Tennent Ltd. then Londons leading theatrical management company, critic Alan Dent noted that the one exception among the general cowed lethargy of the Barretts is Elizabeth herself. she is sincere, touching, awakened. Johnston appeared as Alma Winemiller in a 1951 production of Tennessee Williams Summer and Smoke and this performance drew some of the best notices of her career, with the Daily Herald saying Johnston. gave a performance of tender brilliance. It was her best work to date, while the Daily Mirror described her as probably our finest young actress, Johnston made her screen debut in the film The Prime Minister, in a supporting role as one of the daughters of Benjamin Disraeli, played by John Gielgud. Her voice alone would be worth a fortune in Hollywood, Johnston starred with Dulcie Gray and Kieron Moore in a psychological melodrama A Man About the House, which was a popular success. One of Johnstons best known roles came in the adaptation of Francis Brett Youngs novel Portrait of Clare. The following year brought her most high-profile screen appearance, as Robert Donats long-suffering second wife in the star-studded The Magic Box, made as a project of the Festival of Britain. Johnston was very complimentary about the René Clément-directed Knave of Hearts, less felicitous was Ealings Touch and Go, a farce in which – somewhat ironically in Johnstons case – she and Jack Hawkins played an English couple making plans to emigrate to Australia. Johnston returned to the screen via the medium of the horror film Night of the Eagle. It was a film, but was not to Johnstons personal taste
Margaret Johnston
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Margaret Johnston
25.
Touch and Go (1955 film)
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Touch and Go is a 1955 British comedy film directed by Michael Truman and starring Jack Hawkins, Margaret Johnston, and June Thorburn. The film was made by Ealing Studios, the film was indifferently received on release and is not generally included in the canon of classic Ealing Comedies. Following an argument with a superior, furniture designer Jim Fletcher quits his job in a fit of pique. He decides that England has nothing to him and the future for his family is in Australia. Practical and bureaucratic hitches continually threaten to derail the project, Jim must also deal with the opposition of his in-laws, finds himself missing his job, and starts to have doubts himself about the wisdom of the move. However the snags and pitfalls are finally sorted out and a departure date is set. Then two days before they are due to leave, the Fletchers daughter meets, and instantly falls in love with, her ideal man after he rescues the family cat, Heathcliff. A good deal of heart-searching ensues before the Fletchers decide whether or not to go ahead with emigration during a delay caused by a missing Heathcliffe, Touch and Go at the Internet Movie Database Touch and Go at AllMovie
Touch and Go (1955 film)
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Touch and Go UK release poster
26.
Deborah Kerr
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Deborah Kerr CBE was a Scottish film, theatre and television actress. She was also a winner of the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress. Kerr was nominated six times for the Academy Award for Best Actress and she spent the first three years of her life in the nearby town of Helensburgh, where her parents lived with Deborahs grandparents in a house on West King Street. Kerr had a brother, Edmund, who became a journalist. He was killed in a road incident in 2004. Kerr was educated at the independent Northumberland House School, Henleaze in Bristol, Kerr originally trained as a ballet dancer, first appearing on stage at Sadlers Wells in 1938. After changing careers, she found success as an actress. Her first acting teacher was her aunt, Phyllis Smale, who ran the Hicks-Smale Drama School in Bristol and she adopted the name Deborah Kerr on becoming a film actress. Kerrs first stage appearance was at Weston-super-Mare in 1937, as Harlequin in the mime play Harlequin and she then went to the Sadlers Wells ballet school and in 1938 made her début in the corps de ballet in Prometheus. In 1943, aged 21, Kerr made her West End début as Ellie Dunn in a revival of Heartbreak House at the Cambridge Theatre, stealing attention from such as Edith Evans. She has the gift, wrote critic Beverley Baxter, of thinking her lines. The process of development from a romantic, silly girl to a hard, after her first London success in 1943, she toured England and Scotland in Heartbreak House. Near the end of the Second World War, she also toured Holland, France, and Belgium for ENSA as Mrs Manningham in Angel Street, and Britain in Gaslight. Having established herself as an actress in the meantime, she made her Broadway debut in 1953, appearing in Robert Andersons Tea and Sympathy. Kerr repeated her role along with her stage partner John Kerr in Vincente Minnellis film adaptation of the drama, in 1955, Kerr won the Sarah Siddons Award for her performance in Chicago during a national tour of the play. After her Broadway début in 1953, she toured the United States with Tea, in 1975, she returned to Broadway, creating the role of Nancy in Edward Albees Pulitzer Prize-winning play Seascape. In 1977, she came back to the West End, playing the role in a production of George Bernard Shaws Candida. I dont mean to belittle acting but Im like a child when Im out there performing—shocking the grownups, enchanting them and its an unbelievable terror, a kind of masochistic madness
Deborah Kerr
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Kerr in 1973, by
Allan Warren
Deborah Kerr
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Kerr in
Young Bess (1953)
Deborah Kerr
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Kerr in
An Affair to Remember (1957)
Deborah Kerr
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Deborah Kerr in
The Sundowners (1960)
27.
The End of the Affair (1955 film)
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The End of the Affair is a black and white 1955 film directed by Edward Dmytryk and starring Deborah Kerr, Van Johnson, Peter Cushing and John Mills. It is based on the novel The End of the Affair by Graham Greene and it was filmed largely on location in London, particularly in and around the picturesque Chester Terrace. The film was entered into the 1955 Cannes Film Festival, during their affair his rooms on the square are bombed, she quits their relationship and he suffers from the loss and delayed shock from the bombing. It is after their break-up and the end of the war that Bendrix encounters Henry on the square and he admits that he suspects the infidelity of his wife, has looked into a private investigator and approaches Bendrix to act on his behalf—but retracts the idea. Sarah returns home before Bendrix has left and she is curt in her exchange with him, Bendrix follows through with hiring a private detective agency. They come across information that the portrayal of Bendrixs housing situation being bombed did not disclose some facts about what happened to Bendrix and this film has been made available on a DVD-video and was released on 16 May 2000. It contains both the 1955 and 1999 adaptations together with supporting material about their making. The End of the Affair at the Internet Movie Database The End of the Affair at AllMovie The End of the Affair at the TCM Movie Database The End of the Affair at the American Film Institute Catalog
The End of the Affair (1955 film)
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The End of the Affair
28.
Margaret Lockwood
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Margaret Lockwood, CBE was an English actress. One of Britains most popular stars of the 1930s and 1940s, her film appearances included The Lady Vanishes, Night Train to Munich, The Man in Grey. She was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best British Actress for the 1955 film Cast a Dark Shadow and she also starred in the 1970s television series, Justice. She also had another half-brother, John, from her fathers first marriage, Lockwood attended Sydenham High School for girls, and a ladies school in Kensington, London. She began studying for the stage at an age at the Italia Conti. In December of the year, she appeared at the Scala Theatre in the pantomime The Babes in the Wood. In 1932 she appeared at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in Cavalcade, in 1933, Lockwood enrolled at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, where she was seen by a talent scout and signed to a contract. Lockwood entered films in 1934, and in 1935 she appeared in the version of Lorna Doone. For British Lion she was in The Case of Gabriel Perry, then was in Honours Easy with Greta Nissen and she was the female love interest in Midshipman Easy, directed by Carol Reed, who would become crucial to Lockwoods career. She had the lead in Someday, a quota quickie directed by Michael Powell and in Jurys Evidence, Lockwood had a small role in The Amateur Gentleman, another with Fairbanks. Her profile rose when she appeared opposite Maurice Chevalier in The Beloved Vagabond She followed it with Irish for Luck and she had a small role in Whos Your Lady Friend. Again for Carol Reed and was in Melody and Romance, Gaumont British were making a film version of the novel Doctor Syn, starring George Arliss and Anna Lee with director Roy William Neill and producer Edward Black. Lee dropped out and was replaced by Lockwood, Lockwood so impressed the studio with her performance - particularly Black, who became a champion of hers - she signed a three-year contract with Gainsborough Pictures in June 1937. For Black and director Robert Stevenson she supported Will Fyffe in Owd Bob, Lockwood then had her best chance to date, being given the lead in Bank Holiday, directed by Carol Reed and produced by Black. This movie was a hit and launched Lockwood as a star, even more popular was her next movie, The Lady Vanishes, directed by Alfred Hitchcock, produced by Black and co-starring Michael Redgrave. Hitchcock was greatly impressed by Lockwood, telling the press, She has a gift in expressing her beauty in terms of emotion. It is not too much to expect that in Margaret Lockwood the British picture industry has a possibility of developing a star of hitherto un-anticipated possibilities and she followed this with A Girl Must Live, a musical comedy about chorus girls for Black and Reed. It was one of a series of made by Gaumont aimed at the US market
Margaret Lockwood
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Margaret Lockwood
29.
Cast a Dark Shadow
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Cast a Dark Shadow is a 1955 British film noir suspense film directed by Lewis Gilbert. The black-and-white film was based on the play Murder Mistaken by Janet Green, the story concerns a young serial wife-murderer, played by Dirk Bogarde. After a year of marriage, Edward Teddy Bare kills his older wife, Monica, after she asks her lawyer, Phillip Mortimer. He stages it to look as if she was asphyxiated while drunkenly trying to light a gas heater. Edward will receive the money if Dora dies, an inquest rules it an accident, but Phillip makes it clear he suspects Edward. When Edward asks where Dora lives, Phillip tells him she is too far away, Edward manages to marry lower-class but well-off widow Freda Jeffries, who is closer to her husbands age, and much less trusting than her predecessor, keeping tight control over her fortune. As the death of a second spouse so soon after the first would be highly suspicious, Edward becomes acquainted with Charlotte Young, who is looking for a house to purchase for an equestrian school. As Edward was an agent before he married Monica, he shows her around. Edward lures Charlotte to his mansion late one night while Freda and he reveals he knows that Charlotte is actually Dora. Then he brazenly admits killing her sister before trying to make her leave, suspicious, she remains where she is. Eventually, however, Freda returns home and escorts Charlotte to the door and he is shocked when Phillip enters the room, having heard his confession, followed by his intended victim. She had returned to the house after meeting the lawyer at the estates gate, Edward flees in his car, but the entrance is blocked by Charlottes and Phillips automobiles. With Phillip in pursuit, Edward switches to another vehicle, only to realize too late that he has taken Charlottes and he loses control and drives off a cliff. Green wanted Dirk Bogarde to be in the play but he turned it down, when Lewis Gilbert was making The Sea Shall Not Have Them he saw the play and thought it would make a good film, and he persuaded Bogarde to play the lead. Bogarde persuaded Margaret Lockwood to co star, I was dubious about being able to lay such a character, though I liked her honesty, said Lockwood. I think it was an interesting plot, very claustrophobic. I think it was the best thing Margaret Lockwood did, she was great in the film, Dirk Bogarde later said the unwholesomeness of the hero was what was fun about it. Bosley Crowther of The New York Times wrote that the actors are skilled, Lewis Gilbert later said it was reasonably successful but by then Margaret had been in several really bad films and her name on a picture was rather counter-productive
Cast a Dark Shadow
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Theatrical release poster
30.
Virginia McKenna
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Virginia Anne McKenna OBE is a British stage and screen actress, author and wildlife campaigner. McKenna was born in Marylebone to a family and was educated at Herons Ghyll School. McKenna worked on stage in Londons West End theatres before making her debut in 1952. She continued to appear in films and on stage. From 1954–55 she was a member of the Old Vic theatre company and was married for a few months in 1954 to bisexual actor Denholm Elliott and their marriage ended, owing to his affairs with men. Her second husband was actor Bill Travers, with whom she had four children, however, McKenna is best remembered for her 1966 role as Joy Adamson in the true-life film Born Free for which she received a nomination for a Golden Globe. McKenna appeared in An Elephant Called Slowly, a travelogue of what it was years ago in Kenya. The film features her close friend conservationist George Adamson and also elephants Eleanor, the subsequent premature death of Pole Pole in London Zoo was to lead to McKenna and her husband launching the Zoo Check Campaign in 1984 and to their establishing the Born Free Foundation in 1991. In 1984 McKenna was involved with a protest against the conditions at Southampton Zoo which was closed a year later. On the stage, in 1979 she won the Olivier Award for Best Actress in a British musical for her performance opposite Yul Brynner in The King and I. Over the years she appeared in films but was also very active with television roles. McKenna and husband Bill Travers starred in the 1969 film adaptation of the book, in 2004, McKenna was made an officer of the Order of the British Empire for her services to wildlife and to the arts. Her autobiography, The Life in My Years, was published by Oberon Books in March 2009 and her audiobook work includes The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett, and narration of The Lonely Doll by Dare Wright. 2016 - Ethel and Ernest - animated feature film, the Lions are Free is the real life continuation of Born Free. This film tells about what happened to the lions that were in the film Born Free, Bill Travers, who had starred with McKenna, wrote, produced and directed the film, along with James Hill, the director of Born Free. Travers and Hill went to an area in Kenya to visit with the noted conservationist George Adamson. The film has amazing scenes of George and Bill interacting with lions who are living free, Christian, The Lion at Worlds End is a documentary about the now-famous lions journey from a London store to George Adamsons reserve in Kenya. Virginia McKenna and her husband, Bill Travers, had a meeting with Christian and his owners Ace Bourke
Virginia McKenna
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Virginia McKenna at an anti badger cull demonstration, Westminster, London, June 2013
