Vanda Godsell

Acting

Vanda Godsell

Born — Died

1922-11-17 — 1990-04-02

Place of birth

Bognor Regis, West Sussex, England, UK

Known for

Acting

Credits

46 titles

Vanda Godsell was born on November 17, 1922 in Portsmouth, Hampshire, England as Nancy Evelyn Godsell. She was an actress, known for The Pink Panther Strikes Again (1976), A Shot in the Dark (1964) and The Earth Dies Screaming (1964). She was married to Alan J Orchard and George Selway. She died on April 2, 1990 in London, England

Known for

Film credits

1960s · 22 titles

A Shot in the Dark poster
7.2

Inspector Jacques Clouseau, smitten with the accused maid Maria Gambrelli, unwittingly turns a straightforward murder investigation into a comedic series of mishaps, testing the patience of his irritable boss Charles Dreyfus as casualties mount.

A Shot in the Dark

1964

Hell Is a City poster
6.6

Set in Manchester, heartland of England's industrial north, Don Starling escapes from jail becoming England's most wanted man. Ruthless villain Starling together with his cronies engineered a robbery that resulted in the violent death of a young girl. Detective Inspector Martineau has been assigned to hunt him down and bring him in. From seedy barrooms, through gambling dens the trail leads to an explosive climax high on the rooftops of the city.

Hell Is a City

1960

Term of Trial poster
6.1

A schoolteacher plagued by alcoholism and his refusal to serve in World War II, Graham Weir inspires contempt in almost everyone around him, including his bitter wife, Anna. When the lovely young Shirley Taylor, one of Weir's students, falls for her unfortunate instructor, he is tempted and flattered but turns down her advances. Taylor's subsequent actions make Weir's life even more complicated.

Term of Trial

1962

Sword of Sherwood Forest poster
6.1

Robin of Loxley and his men stumble on a plot to overthrow Hubert Walter, King's Chancellor and Archbishop of Canterbury. The plotters, the Sheriff of Nottingham and the Earl of Newark, have set an ambush for Walter and Lady Marian Fitzwater. Will Robin get to them before it is too late?

Sword of Sherwood Forest

1960

This Sporting Life poster
7.0

In early 1960s Northern England, Frank Machin is mean, tough and ambitious enough to become an immediate star in the rugby league team run by local employer Weaver.

This Sporting Life

1963

The Wrong Arm of the Law poster
6.7

The crooks in London know how it works. No one carries guns and no one resists the police. Then a new gang appears that go one better. They dress as police and steal from the crooks. This upsets the natural order of the police/criminal relationship and the police and the crooks join forces to catch the IPOs (Impersonating Police Officers), including an armoured car robbery in which the police must help the gangs to set a trap.

The Wrong Arm of the Law

1963

The Shadow of the Cat poster
6.7

Tabitha, once the placid, gentle and devoted pet, adopts all the characteristics of a ferocious, wild animal following the murder of her mistress. The three guilty people are all trapped by the cat's power and each will come to untimely deaths of horrific proportions without anyone being able to solve the mystery that surrounds their brutal death.

The Shadow of the Cat

1961

The Earth Dies Screaming poster
6.2

A crack test pilot lands to find the planet has been devastated by unknown forces. There are a few survivors, so he organizes them in a plan to ward off control by a group of killer robots.

The Earth Dies Screaming

1964

The Man Who Was Nobody poster
7.0

A slick young man buys a jewel with a cheque that bounces. He then disappears and both the police and a lawyer try to find him. The lawyer hires a female detective to track down the missing man, but when his body is found in the Thames the case is by no means over.

The Man Who Was Nobody

1960

The Wrong Box poster
6.4

In Victorian England, a fortune now depends on which of two brothers outlives the other—or can be made to have seemed to do so.

The Wrong Box

1966

Payroll poster
6.8

A vicious gang of crooks plan to steal the wages of a local factory, but their carefully laid plans go wrong, when the factory employs an armoured van to carry the cash. The gang still go ahead with the robbery, but when the driver of the armoured van is killed in the raid, his wife plans revenge, and with the police closing in, the gang start to turn on each other.

Payroll

1961

Konga poster
4.4

Dr. Decker returns from Africa after a year, presumed dead. In that year, he discovered a way of growing plants and animals to an enormous size. He brings back a baby chimpanzee to test out his theory. As he has many enemies at home, he decides to use his chimp, 'Konga', to 'get rid of them'. Then Konga grows to gigantic proportions and wreaks havoc all over London!

Konga

1961

The Frightened City poster
6.6

A small time thief is recruited by a mobster to help with the racketeering. He doesn't like the job, but with the mob on his back, a femme fatale in his bed and a sick friend to care for, he will have to keep all his wits about him.

The Frightened City

1961

Waltz of the Toreadors poster
5.0

At the end of a successful military career, womanising Leo Fitzjohn retires to his countryside manor with his unbearable family. When his platonic French mistress Ghislaine arrives at the door, Fitzjohn is prepared to take the relationship to the next level. However, Fitzjohn must compete for Ghislaine's affections against his own aide.

Waltz of the Toreadors

1962

Who Killed the Cat? poster
8.0

A scheming widow tries to persecute three old ladies, but fate takes its revenge on her.

Who Killed the Cat?

1966

80,000 Suspects poster
7.2

A doctor's already-shaky marriage is tested to an even greater extent when he has to contend with a smallpox epidemic.

80,000 Suspects

1963

80,000 Suspects poster
7.2

A doctor's already-shaky marriage is tested to an even greater extent when he has to contend with a smallpox epidemic.

80,000 Suspects

1963

Clash by Night poster
7.2

A gangster is caught and arrested by police. When he's being transported by bus -- filled with innocent civilians -- it's hi-jacked by his gang in attempt to free their boss. They hide out. As the authorities close in they threaten to torch the barn the escapee and his men are hiding in -- with their hostage inside.

Clash by Night

1964

Dateline Diamonds poster
6.5

In this swinging romp through 1960s London, the frenzied manager of mod-rockers the Small Faces (made up of Steve Marriott, Kenney Jones, Ian McLagan and Ronnie Lane) gets into trouble when he agrees to use the band to smuggle diamonds out of the country. Songs include the Small Faces' "I've Got Mine," "It's Too Late," "Come On Children" and "Don't Stop What You're Doing" and The Chantelles' "I Think of You" and "Please Don't Kiss Me."

Dateline Diamonds

1965

Candidate for Murder poster
NR

Professional killer Kersten arrives in England and is hired by Donald Edwards to murder his wife Helene. But Helene's lover Robert Vaughan discovers the plot and he trails Kersten and Edwards to a country cottage.

Candidate for Murder

1962

Bitter Harvest poster
6.2

A pretty young woman will do anything to escape her deadly dull existence in the backlots of Wales. But when she reaches the bright lights of London is the price too high?

Bitter Harvest

1963

No artwork available
10.0

A woman and her injured son are detained by one crook, whilst the other takes the safe keys to rob a factory. They fall out, and the boy is rescued while they fight.

Night Without Pity

1961

1950s · 8 titles

Horrors of the Black Museum poster
5.9

A writer of murder mysteries finds himself caught up in a string of murders in London.

Horrors of the Black Museum

1959

Upstairs and Downstairs poster
5.8

On marrying the boss's daughter, Richard takes his father-in-law's advice to hire a live-in domestic. He soon finds good help is hard to come by. Run-ins follow with dipsomaniacs, bank robbers, a Welsh lass who takes one look at London and runs, and an Italian charmer who turns the place into a bawdy house. Then when Ingrid arrives from Sweden things actually start to get complicated.

Upstairs and Downstairs

1959

Johnny-on-the-Spot poster
5.5

An ex-convict, who was framed, struggles to clear his name.

Johnny-on-the-Spot

1954

Innocent Sinners poster
7.5

A neglected girl in post-World War II London befriends street urchins who help her build a tiny garden in a bombed-out church.

Innocent Sinners

1958

The Brain Machine poster
5.7

A British psychiatrist reads an amnesiac's (Maxwell Reed) brain waves and sees the mind of a killer.

The Brain Machine

1955

In the Wake of a Stranger poster
10.0

An unfortunate sailor gets implicated in a murder he never committed. After a bookie is murdered, the sailor is caught in an ever-tightening vice that would trap him as the killer unless he can clear himself. Along the way to struggling free and tracking down the real culprits, several unsavory characters cross his path as well as a rather interesting woman who sets romantic sparks flying.

In the Wake of a Stranger

1959

No artwork available
NR

The 30 minute play, specially written for television by Scottish writer, Duncan Ross, takes place in a pub in Yorkshire. Marius plays Lester Hockley, a man blind from birth. Lester has been secretary to a deceased artist, Paul Stanton, whose character and work are being discussed by the regulars in the pub that night.

Many Mansions

1957

The Large Rope poster
6.0

After being framed for a murder he didn't commit, Tom Penney (Donald Houston) serves his time and returns to his rural English home to establish a quiet life. When another victim is found, however, Tom is blamed for the crime and flees rather than returnng to prison. Hoping to find the real killer -- or killers -- Tom investigates while keeping a low profile to elude his pursuers, and a vital clue leads him on the path to possible redemption.

The Large Rope

1953

Series credits

The Saint poster
7.4

Simon Templar is The Saint, a handsome, sophisticated, debonair, modern-day Robin Hood who recovers ill-gotten wealth and redistributes it to those in need.

The Saint

1962

Minder poster
7.2

Roguish comedy drama following the misadventures of small-time crook Arthur Daley.

Minder

1979

ITV Saturday Night Theatre poster
7.0

Anthology series of dramatic works.

ITV Saturday Night Theatre

1969

The Third Man poster
7.2

No synopsis available yet.

The Third Man

1959

Sergeant Cork poster
7.2

Sergeant Cork is a British detective television series which first aired between 1963 and 1968 on ITV. It was a police procedural show that followed the efforts of two police officers and their battle against crime in Victorian London. In all 66 hour-long episodes were aired during the five-year run, although the last episode was not broadcast until January 1968, 16 months after the others. Journalist Tom Sutcliffe has credited it as a first example of the use of the Victorian-era policeman in a television crime series. A 1969 review in The Age opined that rather than suspense, the strengths of the series were its "excellent period settings and wonderfully thick pea-soupers" which "add up to splendid evocative stuff", as well as the performance of star John Barrie. At no time during the whole series is Sergeant Cork's first name given.

Sergeant Cork

1963

Gideon's Way poster
7.0

Gideon's Way is a British television crime series made by ITC Entertainment in 1964/65, based on the novels by John Creasey. The series was made at Elstree in twin production with The Saint TV series. It starred Liverpudlian John Gregson in the title role as Commander George Gideon of Scotland Yard, with Alexander Davion as his assistant, Detective Chief Inspector David Keen, Reginald Jessup as Det. Superintendent LeMaitre, Ian Rossiter as Detective Chief Superintendent Joe Bell and Basil Dignam as Commissioner Scott-Marle. The show did not acknowledge any help from Scotland Yard, any other police force or advisor. Daphne Anderson starred as his wife, Kate with Giles Watling as young son, Malcolm, Richard James as older son, Matthew who seemed to have a lot of new girlfriends and Andrea Allan as daughter, Pru. Unusually for police stories, Gideon was shown as a family man at home though urgent phone calls from his bosses tend to disrupt family plans too often. However, he did admit in "State Visit" that his wife had walked out on him for a while years ago when he put the job first and her second. They live in an expensive detached house in Chelsea.

Gideon's Way

1965

Bless This House poster
7.5

On Howard Road, travelling stationery salesman Sid Abbott and his wife Jean constantly battle to comprehend the permissive ways of their teenage children Mike and Sally.

Bless This House

1971

No artwork available
8.0

An anthology of single plays offering up adaptations of either of prominent stage plays or novels.

Festival

1963

Reilly: Ace of Spies poster
7.0

Reilly, Ace of Spies is a 1983 television miniseries dramatising the life of Sidney Reilly, a Russian Jew who became one of the greatest spies ever to work for the British. Among his exploits, in the early 20th-century, were the infiltration of the German General Staff in 1917 and a near-overthrow of the Bolsheviks in 1918. His reputation with women was as legendary as his genius for espionage.

Reilly: Ace of Spies

1983

I Didn't Know You Cared poster
7.1

I Didn't Know You Cared is a British comedy series set in a working class household in South Yorkshire in the 1970s, written by Peter Tinniswood loosely based upon his books A Touch Of Daniel, I Didn't Know You Cared and Except You're A Bird. It was broadcast by the BBC in four series from 1975 to 1979. The main characters are Carter Brandon; his Uncle Mort; his mother, Annie; his father, Les; his girlfriend, Pat Partington; and Uncle Staveley. Auntie Lil appears in the first two series. Other recurring characters, mostly from Carter's workplace, are Linda Preston; Mrs Partington; Sid Skelhorn

I Didn't Know You Cared

1975

The Scales of Justice poster
6.7

The Scales of Justice is a series of thirteen British cinema featurettes produced from 1962 to 1967 for Anglo-Amalgamated at Merton Park Studios in London. The first nine were made in black and white, and the last four in colour. The finale, Payment in Kind, was Merton Park's final production. Episodes were based on criminal cases, and each film was introduced by criminologist Edgar Lustgarten. The series derives its title from the symbolic scales held by the statue of Justice, situated above the dome of London's Central Criminal Court, The Old Bailey. The opening narration describes her as having "in her right hand, the Sword of Power and Retribution, and in her left – The Scales of Justice".

The Scales of Justice

1962

No artwork available
NR

A series of short plays, all originally published as short stories in the 1920s.

Ten from the Twenties

1975

No artwork available
NR

A quartet of Saturday night plays following the life of indomitable working-class Cockney woman Rosie Carr from the Edwardian era to 1960.

The Four Seasons of Rosie Carr

1964