Darby and Joan is a proverbial phrase for a married couple content to share a quiet life of mutual devotion.
Dombey and Son is a novel by English author Charles Dickens. It follows the fortunes of a shipping firm owner, who is frustrated at the lack of a son to follow him in his footsteps; he initially rejects his daughter's love before eventually becoming reconciled with her before his death.
Contraband is a 1940 wartime spy film by the British director-writer team of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, which reunited stars Conrad Veidt and Valerie Hobson after their earlier appearance in The Spy in Black the previous year. On this occasion, Veidt plays a hero, something he did not do very often, and there is also an early (uncredited) performance by Leo Genn.
The Mysterious Caravan is volume 54 in the original Hardy Boys Mystery Stories published by Grosset & Dunlap.
Mystery Street is a 1950 American black-and-white film noir featuring Ricardo Montalbán, Sally Forrest, Bruce Bennett, Elsa Lanchester, and Marshall Thompson. Produced by MGM, it was directed by John Sturges with cinematography by John Alton.
Berthold Viertel was an Austrian screenwriter and film director, known for his work in Germany, the UK and the US.
Irene Lilian Brodrick, Countess of Midleton was a British stage and screen actress of the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s and also a novelist.
Sarah Ellen Allgood, known as Sara Allgood, was an Irish-American actress. She first studied drama with the Irish nationalist Daughters of Ireland and was at the opening of the Irish National Theatre Society.
Ilka Grüning was an Austrian-Hungarian actress. Born in Vienna in the old Austrian-Hungarian Empire, she was one of many Jewish actors and actresses that were forced to flee Europe when the Nazis came to power in 1933. A respected and famous actress of her time in the German-language area, she was forced to play bit parts in Hollywood.
Addison Whittaker Richards, Jr. was an American actor of film and television. Richards appeared in more than 300 films between 1933 and his death in 1964.
Frank Cellier was an English actor. Early in his career, from 1903 to 1920, he toured in Britain, Germany, the West Indies, America and South Africa. In the 1920s, he became known in the West End for Shakespearean character roles, among others, and also directed some plays in which he acted. He continued to act on stage until 1946. During the 1930s and 1940s, he also appeared in more than three dozen films.
The Passing of Mr. Quin is a 1928 British mystery film which was co-directed by Leslie S. Hiscott and Julius Hagen, starring Clifford Heatherley, Mary Brough and Ursula Jeans. The film was based on the short story The Coming of Mr. Quin, part of the collection The Mysterious Mr. Quin, which was written by Agatha Christie. It was the first British film to be made of one of Christie's works. The short story was adapted by Hiscott, who would in 1931 direct Alibi, the first film to feature Christie's more well known Belgian detective Hercule Poirot. The film was made at Twickenham Studios in London.
Ronald Ward was a British actor who, alongside his stage work, appeared in more than twenty British films between 1931 and 1956. He was born in Eastbourne in 1901 as Ronald William Ward, and made his screen debut in the 1931 film Alibi. One of his biggest roles was in the popular Vera Lynn vehicle We'll Meet Again (1943), where he was effectively the male lead, co-starring with Lynn and Patricia Roc.
Julius Hagen (1884–1940) was a German-born British film producer who produced more than a hundred films in Britain.
John Turnbull was a British stage and film actor. He was married to Eve Marchew and Beatrice Alice Scott (actress).
Barbara Everest was a British stage and film actress. She was born in Southfields, Surrey, and made her screen debut in the 1916 film The Man Without a Soul. On stage she played Queen Anne in the 1935 historical play Viceroy Sarah by Norman Ginsbury. Her most famous rôle was as Elizabeth the rather deaf servant in Gaslight (1944).
Jack Edwards Livesey was a British film actor.
The Passing of the Third Floor Back is a 1918 British/American silent allegorical film based on the 1908 play The Passing of the Third Floor Back by Jerome K. Jerome and directed by Herbert Brenon. The star of the film is Sir Johnston Forbes-Robertson, a legendary Shakespearean actor, who starred in the 1909 Broadway presentation of the play and its 1913 revival. Forbes-Robertson had been knighted by King George V in 1913 and had retired from acting in theatre that same year. In his retirement Forbes-Robertson had only dabbled in film acting making a 1913 film version of Hamlet, the most famous role he had played on the stage. Filmed in 1916, it was released in 1918.
The Imperfect Lady is a 1947 American historical drama film directed by Lewis Allen and starring Ray Milland, Teresa Wright and Cedric Hardwicke, filmed in 1945 and not released until 1947. In the late Victorian Britain an aristocratic politician falls in love with a showgirl. The film is also known by the alternative title Mrs. Loring's Secret.
Curt Courant was a German-American cinematographer whose work includes more than 100 German and international films from the silent and early sound eras. Courant worked in several European countries, collaborating with figures such as Fritz Lang, Alfred Hitchcock and Charlie Chaplin. As he was of Jewish ancestry, Courant was forced to leave Germany in 1933 and go into exile following the Nazi takeover of power.
