Victim is a 1961 British neo-noir suspense film directed by Basil Dearden and starring Dirk Bogarde and Sylvia Syms. The first British film to explicitly name homosexuality and deal with it sympathetically, it premiered in the UK on 31 August 1961 and in the US the following February.
Patrick Joseph McGoohan was an Irish American actor, director, screenwriter, and producer of film, television, and theatre. Born in New York City to Irish parents, he was raised in Ireland and England, began his career in England during the 1950s and became well known for the titular role, secret agent John Drake in the ITC espionage programme Danger Man (1960–1968). He then produced and created The Prisoner (1967–1968), a surrealistic television series in which he featured as Number Six, an unnamed British intelligence agent who is abducted and imprisoned in a mysterious coastal village.
The Goose Steps Out is a British film released in 1942, starring Will Hay, who also co-directed with Basil Dearden. It is a comedy of mistaken identity, with Hay acting as a German spy and also an Englishman who is his double. It was the film debut of Peter Ustinov.
Dead of Night is a 1945 black and white British anthology supernatural horror film, made by Ealing Studios. The individual segments were directed by Alberto Cavalcanti, Charles Crichton, Basil Dearden and Robert Hamer. It stars Mervyn Johns, Googie Withers, Sally Ann Howes and Michael Redgrave. The film is best remembered for the concluding story featuring Redgrave and an insane ventriloquist's malevolent dummy.
All Night Long is a 1962 British neo noir drama film directed by Basil Dearden and starring Patrick McGoohan, Keith Michell, Betsy Blair, Paul Harris, Marti Stevens, and Richard Attenborough. The story by Nel King and Paul Jarrico is an updated version of William Shakespeare's Othello, set in the London jazz scene of the 1960s. The action takes place in a single evening, during an anniversary party. The black-and-white film features performances by several prominent British jazz musicians—among them John Dankworth and Tubby Hayes—as well as the Americans Dave Brubeck and Charles Mingus, who were in the UK in 1961 when filming took place and were recruited to participate.
Basil Dearden was an English film director.
Sapphire is a 1959 British crime drama film directed by Basil Dearden and starring Nigel Patrick, Yvonne Mitchell, Michael Craig, and Paul Massie. A progressive film for its time, it focuses on racism in London toward immigrants from the West Indies, and explores the "underlying insecurities and fears of ordinary people" about those of another race.
Michael Leighton George Relph was an English film producer, art director, screenwriter and film director. He was the son of actor George Relph.
Janet Munro was a British actress. She won a Golden Globe Award for her performance in the film Darby O'Gill and the Little People (1959) and received a BAFTA Film Award nomination for her performance in the film Life for Ruth (1962).
Woman of Straw is a 1964 British crime thriller directed by Basil Dearden and starring Gina Lollobrigida and Sean Connery. It was written by Robert Muller and Stanley Mann, adapted from the 1954 novel La Femme de paille by Catherine Arley.
The Man Who Haunted Himself is a 1970 British psychological thriller film written and directed by Basil Dearden and starring Roger Moore. It is based on the 1957 novel The Strange Case of Mr Pelham by Anthony Armstrong, and is a variation on the Jekyll and Hyde story.
Rockets Galore! is a 1957 British comedy film directed by Michael Relph and starring Jeannie Carson, Donald Sinden and Roland Culver. The sequel to Whisky Galore!, it was much less successful than its predecessor.
Spare a Copper is a 1940 British black-and-white musical comedy war film directed by John Paddy Carstairs and starring George Formby, Dorothy Hyson and Bernard Lee. It was produced by Associated Talking Pictures. It is also known as Call a Cop. The film features the songs, "I'm the Ukulele Man", "On the Beat", "I Wish I Was Back on the Farm" and "I'm Shy". Beryl Reid makes her film debut in an uncredited role, while Ronald Shiner appears similarly uncredited, in the role of the Piano Mover and Tuner.
Harry Baird was a Guyanese-born British actor who came to prominence in the 1960s, appearing in more than 36 films throughout his career. He is best remembered as the bus driver in the final scene of The Italian Job.
Out of the Clouds is a 1955 British drama film directed by Basil Dearden and starring Anthony Steel, Robert Beatty and James Robertson Justice. It was loosely based on the novel The Springboard by John Fores and was adapted by Rex Reinits, with a screenplay by Michael Relph and John Eldridge.
A Place to Go is a 1963 British crime drama film directed by Basil Dearden and starring Bernard Lee, Rita Tushingham and Michael Sarne. It was based on the 1961 novel Bethnal Green by Michael Fisher.
The Mind Benders is a 1963 British thriller film produced by Michael Relph, directed by Basil Dearden and starring Dirk Bogarde, Mary Ure, John Clements, Michael Bryant and Wendy Craig. Screenwriter James Kennaway turned his screenplay into his 1963 novel of the same name.
I Believe in You is a 1952 British drama film directed by Michael Relph and Basil Dearden, starring Celia Johnson and Cecil Parker and is based on the book Court Circular by Sewell Stokes. Inspired by the recently successful The Blue Lamp (1950), Relph and Dearden used a semi-documentary approach in telling the story of the lives of probation officers and their charges.
Allied Film Makers was a shortlived British production company, formed in November 1959, which produced several films. Producer Sydney Box came up with the idea of forming a consortium of film-makers that would distribute the films they made. Box had to drop out of the company owing to illness, but four partnerships agreed to join: Basil Dearden and Michael Relph; Jack Hawkins; Richard Attenborough and Bryan Forbes; and Hawkins's brother. Guy Green later joined the Forbes-Attenborough group. Each group put up £5,000 and the Rank Organisation guaranteed distribution.
Janet Green (1908–1993) was a British screenwriter and playwright best known for the scripts for the BAFTA nominated films Sapphire and Victim, and for the play Murder Mistaken.
