Black Memory | |
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![]() Trade ad poster | |
Directed by | Oswald Mitchell |
Written by | John Gilling |
Produced by | Gilbert Church |
Starring |
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Cinematography | S.D. Onions |
Edited by | John F. House |
Music by | Peter Russell |
Production company | |
Distributed by | Ambassador Film Productions |
Release date | July 1947 |
Running time | 73 mins |
Country | United Kingdom |
Language | English |
Black Memory is a 1947 British crime film directed by Oswald Mitchell and starring Michael Atkinson, Myra O'Connell and Michael Medwin. [1] It featured the first screen appearance of Sid James, known for the Carry On films. Also making her film acting debut in Black Memory was the Welsh-born actor, playwright, screenwriter and film director Jane Arden. [2]
When his father is wrongly convicted and hanged for murder, son Danny poses as a juvenile delinquent, and ten years later manages to clear his father's name.
TV Guide wrote: "Weak story, poor dialog; everyone's just kiddin' around"; [3] while Mystery File wrote: "it’s only in bits and pieces and occasional places that the plot rises above the purely pedestrian. If I were Leonard Maltin, the best I could give this movie would be 1½ stars out of five and I still think I’d be just a little bit generous if I did. Nonetheless, its historical significance is high, so I was glad to have had the opportunity to have seen it, and you may too." [4]
Miss Robin Hood is a 1952 British comedy film directed by John Guillermin, and starring Margaret Rutherford and Richard Hearne. Other actors involved include Dora Bryan, James Robertson Justice, Peter Jones, Sid James, Reg Varney, Kenneth Connor and Michael Medwin. The film features a variety of unusual camera work such as unexpected extreme close-ups and fast motion sequences.
Billie Honor Whitelaw was an English actress. She worked in close collaboration with Irish playwright Samuel Beckett for 25 years and was regarded as one of the foremost interpreters of his works. She was also known for her portrayal of Mrs. Baylock, the demonic nanny in the 1976 horror film The Omen.
Scott Hastings Beckett was an American actor. He began his career as a child actor in the Our Gang shorts and later costarred on Rocky Jones, Space Ranger.
Michael Hugh Medwin, OBE was an English actor and film producer.
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The Wistful Widow of Wagon Gap is a 1947 black-and-white comedy Western film directed by Charles Barton and starring the comedy team of Abbott and Costello. It was released on October 8 and distributed by Universal-International.
Janet Blair was an American big-band singer who later became a popular film and television actress.
Jane Arden was a British film director, actress, singer/songwriter and poet, who gained note in the 1950s. Born in Pontypool, Monmouthshire, she studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. She started acting in the late 1940s and writing for stage and television in the 1950s. In the 1960s, she joined movements for feminism and anti-psychiatry. She wrote a screenplay for the film Separation (1967). In the late 1960s and 1970s, she wrote for experimental theatre, adapting one work as a self-directed film, The Other Side of the Underneath (1972). In 1978 she published a poetry book. Arden committed suicide in 1982. In 2009, her feature films Separation (1967), The Other Side of the Underneath (1972) and Anti-Clock (1979) were restored by the British Film Institute and released on DVD and Blu-ray. Her literary works are out of print.
Just William's Luck is a 1947 British comedy film directed by Val Guest and starring William Graham, Garry Marsh and Jane Welsh. The film was based on the Just William series of books by Richmal Crompton. Crompton was impressed with the film and wrote a novel Just William's Luck based on the events of the film. The following year a second film William Comes to Town was made.
The Courtneys of Curzon Street is a 1947 British drama film starring Anna Neagle and Michael Wilding. It is a study of class division and snobbery in Britain in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
William Comes to Town is a 1948 British comedy film directed by Val Guest and starring William Graham and Garry Marsh. It was based on the Just William series of novels by Richmal Crompton. It served as a loose sequel to 1947 film Just William's Luck. It is also known by its U.S. alternative title William Goes to the Circus.
The Lady Craved Excitement is a 1950 British comedy film directed by Francis Searle and written by John Gilling. It featured Hy Hazell, Michael Medwin and Sid James. An early Hammer film, it is significant as one of five films shot at Oakley Court and the first to feature its famous exterior, located next door to Bray Studios.
No Orchids for Miss Blandish is a 1948 British gangster film adapted and directed by St. John Legh Clowes from the 1939 novel of the same name by James Hadley Chase. It stars Jack La Rue, Hugh McDermott, and Linden Travers, with unbilled early appearances from Sid James, as a barman, and Walter Gotell, as a nightclub doorman. Due to the film's strong violence and sexual content for its time, amongst other reasons, several critics have called it one of the worst films ever made.
Good-Time Girl is a 1948 British film noir-crime drama film directed by David MacDonald. A homeless girl is asked to explain her bad behaviour in the juvenile court, and says she’s run away from home because she’s unhappy there. They explain in detail what happened to the last girl who thought she could cope on her own, and this becomes the main plot.
Cowboy from Brooklyn is a 1938 American Western musical romantic comedy film directed by Lloyd Bacon and written by Earl Baldwin. It stars Dick Powell, Pat O'Brien and Priscilla Lane. The film was based on the 1937 Broadway play Howdy Stranger by Robert Sloane and Louis Pelletier.
Doctor at Large is a 1957 British comedy film directed by Ralph Thomas, the third of the seven films in the Doctor series. It stars Dirk Bogarde, Muriel Pavlow, Donald Sinden and James Robertson Justice. It is based on the 1955 novel of the same title by Richard Gordon.
Filmography of the South African, British-based actor and comedian Sid James.
Night Beat is a 1947 British Brit-noir, crime thriller drama film directed by Harold Huth and starring Anne Crawford, Maxwell Reed, Ronald Howard, Hector Ross, Christine Norden and Sid James. Following the Second World War, two comrades go their separate ways; one joins the Metropolitan Police while the other begins a police career but becomes a racketeer in post-war London.Sky Movies described the film as a "British thriller that examines a challenging issue of its times: the problems encountered by servicemen when trying to adjust to civilian life."
A Child Is Born is a 1939 American drama film directed by Lloyd Bacon and written by Robert Rossen. The film stars Geraldine Fitzgerald, Jeffrey Lynn, Gladys George, Gale Page, Spring Byington, and Johnnie Davis. The film was released by Warner Bros. on December 17, 1939. It was a remake of the 1932 film Life Begins starring Loretta Young. A further remake Love Story was made in Italy in 1942.