Sir Reginald Carey "Rex" Harrison was an English actor. Harrison began his career on the stage in 1924. He made his West End debut in 1936 appearing in the Terence Rattigan play French Without Tears, in what was his breakthrough role. He won his first Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play for his performance as Henry VIII in the Broadway play Anne of the Thousand Days in 1949. He returned to Broadway portraying Professor Henry Higgins in My Fair Lady (1956) where he won the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical.
Justine Kay Kendall McCarthy was an English actress and comedienne. She began her film career in the musical film London Town (1946), a financial failure. Kendall worked regularly until her appearance in the comedy film Genevieve (1953) brought her widespread recognition. Prolific in British films, Kendall also achieved some popularity with American audiences, and won a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy for her role in the musical-comedy film Les Girls (1957).
Sidney Gilliat was an English film director, producer and writer.
The Pure Hell of St Trinian's is a 1960 British comedy film directed by Frank Launder and starring Cecil Parker, George Cole, Joyce Grenfell and Eric Barker. It was written by Launder and Sidney Gilliat and set in the fictional St Trinian's School. It was the third in a series of four films.
The Great St. Trinian's Train Robbery is a British comedy film, directed by Frank Launder and Sidney Gilliat, written by Sidney and Leslie Gilliat, and released on 4 April 1966. It is the last of the original series of films based on the St Trinian's School set of images and comics, and the only one to be produced in colour. The film stars a selection of actors from previous films in the series, including George Cole, Richard Wattis, Eric Barker, Michael Ripper, and Raymond Huntley, alongside Frankie Howerd, Reg Varney, Dora Bryan, and the voice of Stratford Johns.
London Films Productions is a British film and television production company founded in 1932 by Alexander Korda and from 1936 based at Denham Film Studios in Buckinghamshire, near London. The company's productions included The Private Life of Henry VIII (1933), Things to Come (1936), Rembrandt (1936), and The Four Feathers (1939). The facility at Denham was taken over in 1939 by Rank and merged with Pinewood to form D & P Studios. The outbreak of war necessitated that The Thief of Bagdad (1940) be completed in California, although Korda's handful of American-made films still displayed Big Ben as their opening corporate logo.
Night Train to Munich is a 1940 British thriller film directed by Carol Reed and starring Margaret Lockwood and Rex Harrison. Written by Sidney Gilliat and Frank Launder, based on the 1939 short story Report on a Fugitive by Gordon Wellesley, the film is about an inventor and his daughter who are kidnapped by the Gestapo after the Nazis march into Prague in the prelude to the Second World War. A British secret service agent follows them, disguised as a senior German army officer pretending to woo the daughter over to the Nazi cause.
The Happiest Days of Your Life is a 1950 British comedy film directed by Frank Launder, based on the 1947 play of the same name by John Dighton. The two men also wrote the screenplay. It is one of a stable of classic British film comedies produced by Frank Launder and Sidney Gilliat for British Lion Film Corporation. The film was made on location in Liss and at Riverside Studios, London. In several respects, including some common casting, it was a precursor of the St. Trinian's films of the 1950s and 1960s.
A Kid For Two Farthings is a 1955 British comedy-drama film directed by Carol Reed. The screenplay was adapted by Wolf Mankowitz from his 1953 novel of the same name. The title is a reference to the traditional Passover song, "Chad Gadya", which begins "One little goat which my father bought for two zuzim". At the end of the film, Mr. Kandinsky softly sings fragments of an English translation of the song.
Geordie is a 1955 British film directed and co-produced by Frank Launder, with Bill Travers in the title role as a Scotsman who becomes an athlete and competes at the 1956 Summer Olympics in Melbourne.
The Rake's Progress is a 1945 British comedy-drama film. In the United States, the title was changed to Notorious Gentleman. The film caused controversy with U.S. censors of the time, who trimmed scenes for what was considered graphic amoral and sexual content.
Only Two Can Play is a 1962 British comedy film directed by Sidney Gilliat starring Peter Sellers, Mai Zetterling and Virginia Maskell. The screenplay was by Bryan Forbes, based on the 1955 novel That Uncertain Feeling by Kingsley Amis.
British Lion Films is a film production and distribution company active under several forms since 1919. Originally known as British Lion Film Corporation Ltd, it entered receivership on 1 June 1954. From 29 January 1955 to 1976, the company was known as British Lion Films Ltd, and was a pure distribution company.
The Reluctant Debutante is a 1958 American comedy film directed by Vincente Minnelli and produced by Pandro S. Berman from a screenplay by William Douglas-Home based on Douglas-Home's play of the same name. The music score is by Eddie Warner and the cinematography by Joseph Ruttenberg.
The Gainsborough melodramas were a sequence of films produced by the British film studio Gainsborough Pictures between 1943 and 1947 that conformed to a melodramatic style. The melodramas were not a film series but an unrelated sequence of films that had similar themes that were usually developed by the same film crew and frequently recurring actors who played similar characters in each. They were mostly based on popular books by female novelists and they encompassed costume dramas, such as The Man in Grey (1943) and The Wicked Lady (1945), and modern-dress dramas, such as Love Story (1944) and They Were Sisters (1945). The popularity of the films with audiences peaked mid-1940s when cinema audiences consisted primarily of women. The influence of the films led to other British producers releasing similarly themed works, such as The Seventh Veil (1945), Pink String and Sealing Wax (1945), Hungry Hill (1947), The White Unicorn (1947), Idol of Paris (1948), and The Reluctant Widow (1950) and often with the talent that made Gainsborough melodramas successful.
Left Right and Centre is a 1959 British satirical comedy film directed by Sidney Gilliat and starring Ian Carmichael, Patricia Bredin, Richard Wattis, Eric Barker and Alastair Sim. It was produced by Frank Launder. A political comedy, it follows the events of a by-election in a small English town.
The Bridal Path is a 1959 British comedy film directed by Frank Launder and starring Bill Travers, George Cole and Bernadette O'Farrell. It is based on the 1952 novel of the same name by Nigel Tranter. The film was an unsuccessful attempt to repeat the success of Launder and Gilliat's earlier Geordie (1955).
The Teckman Mystery is a 1954 British mystery film directed by Wendy Toye and starring Margaret Leighton, John Justin, Roland Culver and Michael Medwin. It was shot at Shepperton Studios with sets designed by the art director William Kellner. Location shooting took place around London including in Kensington, Belgravia, Northolt Aerodrome and Tower Bridge. It was distributed by British Lion.
I Am a Camera is a 1955 British comedy-drama film based on the 1945 book The Berlin Stories by Christopher Isherwood and the 1951 eponymous play by John Van Druten. The film is a fictionalized account of Isherwood's time living in Berlin between the World Wars. Directed by Henry Cornelius, from a script by John Collier, I Am a Camera stars Laurence Harvey as Isherwood and Julie Harris recreating her Tony Award-winning performance as Sally Bowles.
School for Husbands is a 1937 British comedy film directed by Andrew Marton and starring Rex Harrison, Diana Churchill and June Clyde.
