Takashi Miike is a Japanese film director, film producer and screenwriter. He has directed over one hundred theatrical, video, and television productions since his debut in 1991. His films run through a variety of different genres, and range from violent and bizarre to dramatic and family-friendly movies. He is a controversial figure in the contemporary Japanese cinema industry, with several of his films being criticised for their extreme graphic violence. Some of his best known films are Audition, Ichi the Killer, Visitor Q, the Dead or Alive trilogy and various remakes: Graveyard of Honor, Hara-kiri and 13 Assassins. He has directed over 100 movies and also plays as an actor in 20+ more.
Valentine Dyall was an English character actor. He worked regularly as a voice actor, and was known for many years as "The Man in Black", the narrator of the BBC Radio horror series Appointment with Fear.
Jesús Franco Manera was a Spanish filmmaker, composer, and actor, known as a prolific director of low-budget exploitation and B-movies. In a career spanning from 1954 to 2013, he wrote, directed, produced, acted in, and scored approximately 173 feature films, working both in his native Spain and in France, West Germany, Switzerland and Portugal. Additionally, during the 1960s, he made several films in Rio de Janeiro and Istanbul.
Caesar and Cleopatra is a 1945 British Technicolor film directed by Gabriel Pascal and starring Vivien Leigh and Claude Rains. Some scenes were directed by Brian Desmond Hurst, who took no formal credit. The picture was adapted from the play Caesar and Cleopatra (1901) by George Bernard Shaw, produced by Independent Producers and Pascal Film Productions and distributed by Eagle-Lion Distributors.
Mary Ruth Maxted, known professionally as Mary Millington from 1974 onwards, was an English model and pornographic actress. Her appearance in the short softcore film Sex is My Business led to her meeting magazine publisher David Sullivan, who promoted her widely as a model and featured her in the 1977 softcore comedy Come Play With Me, which ran for a record-breaking four years at the same cinema.
Antony Balch was an English film director and distributor, best known for his screen collaborations with Beat Generation author William S. Burroughs in the 1960s and for the 1970s horror film, Horror Hospital.
Female Vampire is a French-Belgian horror film written, directed, and co-edited by Jesús Franco. It was produced in 1973, but was only theatrically distributed in 1975. The film is set in Madeira and stars actress Lina Romay as Irina von Karlstein, a vampire who has sex with both male and female victims. In an unusual variation of the vampire myth, Karlstein performs oral sex on her victims until they die, draining them of their sexual fluids.
My Bloody Valentine is a 1981 Canadian slasher film directed by George Mihalka and written by John Beaird. It stars Paul Kelman, Lori Hallier, and Neil Affleck. The plot tells about a group of young adults who decide to throw a Valentine's Day party, only to incur the vengeful wrath of a maniac in mining gear who begins a killing spree.
Lust for a Vampire, also known as Love for a Vampire or To Love a Vampire, is a 1971 British Hammer Horror film directed by Jimmy Sangster, starring Ralph Bates, Barbara Jefford, Suzanna Leigh, Michael Johnson, and Yutte Stensgaard. It was given an R rating in the United States for some violence, gore, strong adult content and nudity. It is the second film in the Karnstein Trilogy, loosely based on the 1872 Sheridan Le Fanu novella Carmilla. It was preceded by The Vampire Lovers (1970) and followed by Twins of Evil (1971). The three films do not form a chronological development, but use the Karnstein family as the source of the vampiric threat and were somewhat daring for the time in explicitly depicting lesbian themes.
Picnic at Hanging Rock is a 1975 Australian mystery film directed by Peter Weir and based on the 1967 novel Picnic at Hanging Rock by Joan Lindsay. Cliff Green adapted the novel into a screenplay. The film stars Rachel Roberts, Dominic Guard, Helen Morse, Vivean Gray and Jacki Weaver. The plot involves the disappearance of several schoolgirls and their teacher during a picnic at Hanging Rock, Victoria on Valentine's Day in 1900, and the subsequent effect on the local community.
Horror Hospital is a 1973 British science-fiction comedy-horror film directed by Antony Balch and starring Robin Askwith, Michael Gough, Dennis Price and Skip Martin.
Come Play with Me is a 1977 British softcore pornographic film, starring Mary Millington and directed by George Harrison Marks. Its cast list contains many well-known British character actors who were not known for appearing in such films. The film is regarded by many as the most successful of the British sex comedies of the seventies. It ran continuously at the Moulin Cinema in Great Windmill Street, Soho, London for 201 weeks, from April 1977 to March 1981, which is listed in the Guinness Book Of World Records as the longest-running screening in Britain. A blue plaque on the former cinema's site commemorates this.
The Italian Straw Hat is a 1928 French silent film comedy written and directed by René Clair, in his feature debut, based on the 1851 play Un chapeau de paille d'Italie, by Eugène Marin Labiche and Marc-Michel.
Tower of Evil, also known by the titles Horror on Snape Island and Beyond the Fog, is a 1972 British horror film directed by Jim O'Connolly.
Paul Temple Returns is a 1952 British crime film directed by Maclean Rogers and starring John Bentley, Patricia Dainton and Peter Gawthorne. Known in the U.S. as Bombay Waterfront, it was the fourth and last in the series of Paul Temple films distributed by Butcher's Film Service: the others are Send for Paul Temple (1946), Calling Paul Temple, and Paul Temple's Triumph (1950). Aside from Bentley, the other actors were different from those in the earlier film series. It was released in the United States under the alternative title Bombay Waterfront.
Salute the Toff is a 1952 British crime film directed by Maclean Rogers and starring John Bentley and Carol Marsh. The film was based on the 1941 novel of the same name by John Creasey, the sixth in the series featuring upper-class sleuth Richard Rollinson, also known as "The Toff". This film and another Toff adaptation, Hammer the Toff, were shot back-to-back at Nettlefold Studios in the summer of 1951. They were released to cinemas in January and May 1952 respectively.
Hammer the Toff is a 1952 British second feature crime film directed by Maclean Rogers and starring John Bentley and Patricia Dainton. The film was based on the 1947 novel of the same name by John Creasey, the 17th in the series featuring upper-class sleuth Richard Rollinson, also known as "The Toff".
Oedipus the King is a 1968 British film adaptation of the Sophoclean tragedy Oedipus Rex, directed and co-written by Philip Saville. It stars Christopher Plummer as the title character, Orson Welles as Tiresias, Lilli Palmer as Jocasta, Richard Johnson as Creon and Donald Sutherland as the leading member of the Chorus, though the latter's voice was dubbed by Valentine Dyall. Saville's first theatrical film effort, the film remained highly theatrical in nature, and is known for its intensive dialogue typical of an ancient play.
The Aztec Mummy is a 1957 Mexican adventure horror film produced by Guillermo Calderon from his own story idea, scripted by Alfredo Salazar, and directed by Rafael Portillo. The plot centers on a group of scientists who uncover a secret Aztec tomb through past-life regression, only to awaken an ancient warrior who has been cursed to guard the tomb and its hidden treasures. It is the first of a trilogy featuring the titular character, all filmed back-to-back in order to increase potential profit.
The Naked World of Harrison Marks is a 1966 British pseudo-documentary about adult film director and photographer George Harrison Marks starring Marks, Valentine Dyall, Pamela Green and June Palmer.
