Vivien Leigh, styled as Lady Olivier after 1947, was a British actress. She won the Academy Award for Best Actress twice, for her performances as Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind (1939) and Blanche DuBois in the film version of A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), a role she had also played on stage in London's West End in 1949. She also won a Tony Award for her work in the Broadway musical version of Tovarich (1963). Although her career had periods of inactivity, in 1999 the American Film Institute ranked Leigh as the 16th-greatest female movie star of classic Hollywood cinema.
Sir Carol Reed was an English film director and producer, best known for Odd Man Out (1947), The Fallen Idol (1948), The Third Man (1949), and Oliver! (1968), for which he was awarded the Academy Award for Best Director.
Sabotage, released in the United States as The Woman Alone, is a 1936 British espionage thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock starring Sylvia Sidney, Oskar Homolka, and John Loder. It is loosely based on Joseph Conrad's 1907 novel The Secret Agent, about a woman who discovers that her husband, a London shopkeeper, is a terrorist agent.
Secret Agent is a 1936 British espionage thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, adapted from the play by Campbell Dixon, which in turn is loosely based on two stories in the 1927 collection Ashenden: Or the British Agent by W. Somerset Maugham. The film stars Madeleine Carroll, Peter Lorre, John Gielgud, and Robert Young. It also features uncredited appearances by Michael Redgrave, future star of Hitchcock's The Lady Vanishes (1938), Michel Saint-Denis as the Coachman, and Michael Rennie in his film debut.
Turn of the Tide (1935) is a British drama film directed by Norman Walker and starring John Garrick, Geraldine Fitzgerald and Wilfrid Lawson. It was the first feature film made by J. Arthur Rank. Lacking a distributor for his film, Rank set up his own distribution and production company which subsequently grew into his later empire.
John Russell Taylor is an English critic and author. He is the author of critical studies of British theatre; of critical biographies of such figures in film as Alfred Hitchcock, Alec Guinness, Orson Welles, Vivien Leigh, and Ingrid Bergman; of Strangers in Paradise: The Hollywood Emigres 1933–1950 (1983); and several books on art.
The Entertainer is a 1960 British kitchen sink drama film directed by Tony Richardson, produced by Harry Saltzman and adapted by John Osborne and Nigel Kneale from Osborne’s stage play of the same name. The film stars Laurence Olivier as Archie Rice, a failing third-rate music-hall stage performer who tries to keep his career going even as the music-hall tradition fades into history and his personal life falls apart. Olivier was nominated for an Oscar for Best Actor in a Leading Role.
Basil Herbert Dean CBE was an English actor, writer, producer and director in the theatre and in cinema. He founded the Liverpool Repertory Company in 1911 and in the First World War, after organising unofficial entertainments for his comrades in the army, he was appointed do so officially. After the war he produced and directed mostly in the West End. He staged premieres of plays by writers including J. M. Barrie, Noël Coward, John Galsworthy, Harley Granville-Barker and Somerset Maugham. He produced nearly 40 films, and directed 16, mainly in the 1930s, with stars including Gracie Fields.
Basil Wright was a documentary filmmaker, film historian, film critic and teacher.
Man on the Flying Trapeze is a 1935 American comedy film starring W. C. Fields as a henpecked husband who experiences a series of misadventures while taking a day off from work to attend a wrestling match. As with his other roles of this nature, Fields is put-upon throughout the film, but triumphs in the end.
The Song of Ceylon is a 1934 British documentary film directed by Basil Wright and produced by John Grierson for the Ceylon Tea Propaganda Board.
Dark Journey is a 1937 British spy film directed by Victor Saville and starring Conrad Veidt and Vivien Leigh. Written by Lajos Bíró and Arthur Wimperis, the film is about two secret agents on opposite sides during World War I who meet and fall in love in neutral Stockholm.
Sally in Our Alley is a 1931 British romantic comedy drama film directed by Maurice Elvey and starring Gracie Fields, Ian Hunter, and Florence Desmond. It is based on the 1923 West End play The Likes of Her by Charles McEvoy.
Looking on The Bright Side is a 1932 British musical comedy film It was directed by Graham Cutts and Basil Dean and starring Gracie Fields, Richard Dolman and Julian Rose.
Me and Marlborough is a 1935 British comedy film, directed by Victor Saville, and starring Cicely Courtneidge, Tom Walls, Barry MacKay, Peter Gawthorne, Henry Oscar and Cecil Parker.
John Henry Graham Cutts, known as Graham Cutts, was a British film director, one of the leading British directors in the 1920s. His fellow director A. V. Bramble believed that Gainsborough Pictures had been built on the back of his work.
Alfred Drayton was a British stage and film actor.
One New York Night is a 1935 American comedy film directed by Jack Conway and written by Frank Davis. The film stars Franchot Tone, Una Merkel, Conrad Nagel, Harvey Stephens, Steffi Duna and Charles Starrett. The film was released on March 3, 1935, by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. It was based on the West End play Sorry You've Been Troubled by Walter C. Hackett, which had previously been made into the 1932 British film Life Goes On.
Riders to the Sea is a British short film, shot in 1935 in Ireland. It is based on 1904 play of the same name, written by John Millington Synge. It was directed by Brian Desmond Hurst with Sara Allgood and Denis Johnston in the title roles.
Douglas Wakefield was a British music hall performer and film actor. He is often credited as Duggie Wakefield. He appeared in two films with sister-in-law Gracie Fields, playing her brother in the 1933 comedy This Week of Grace. In 1940 he starred in an espionage comedy-thriller, Spy for a Day.
