Acting

Ursula Howells

Born 1922-09-17 · Hammersmith, London, England, UK

Howells was born in London, the daughter of composer Herbert Howells, and was educated at St Paul's Girls' School, where her father worked as Director of Music. She made her first stage appearance at Dundee in 1939, in John Drinkwater's Bird in Hand, then moved to Oxford in 1942 and three years later made her London debut at the Embassy Theatre, Swiss Cottage. In 1947 she appeared in the comedy Jane at the Aldwych Theatre. After several years in the West End, and a brief stint on Broadway where she appeared in Springtime for Henry in 1951, she began to appear in films. After the death of her father in 1983, Ursula Howells instigated the "Herbert Howells Society" and became a standard bearer for the promotion of his work. She financially supported the recording of his compositions and did much to encourage the publishing and promotion of church music.

Acting credits

Dr. Terror's House of Horrors poster
6.5

Five train passengers are joined by a mysterious fortuneteller who offers to read Tarot. A quintet of stories unfold: an architect returns to his ancestral home to find a vengeful werewolf; a doctor suspects his new wife is a vampire; an intelligent vine takes over a house; a jazz musician plagiarises music from a voodoo ceremony; and a pompous art critic is pursued by a disembodied hand.

Dr. Terror's House of Horrors

1965

The Long Arm poster
6.9

Scotland Yard detectives attempt to solve a spate of safe robberies across England beginning with clues found at the latest burglary in London. The film is notable for using a police procedural style made popular by Ealing in their 1950 film The Blue Lamp. It is known in the US as The Third Key.

The Long Arm

1956

Crossplot poster
5.6

A successful London ad-exec hires a beautiful Hungarian girl to pose for some modeling shots, little realising that she has overheard an assassination plot and is now being hunted by some dangerous killers.

Crossplot

1969

Number Three poster
9.0

A group of nuclear scientists face a moral dilemma when they discover that, as well as making electricity, their government also wants to make nuclear bombs with their products.

Number Three

1953

Flesh and Blood poster
7.0

Based upon the play A Sleeping Clergyman by James Bridie, it tells the story of three generations of the Scottish Cameron family, with its various conflicts and romances.

Flesh and Blood

1951

Mumsy, Nanny, Sonny & Girly poster
6.0

A wealthy, fatherless British clan kidnap bums and hippies, forcing them to participate in an elaborate role-playing game in which they are the perfect family; those who refuse or attempt escape endure ritualistic murder.

Mumsy, Nanny, Sonny & Girly

1970

Torture Garden poster
6.2

A special sideshow torture exhibit has the power, according to showman Dr Diabolo, to warn people of foreseeable evil. One by one, skeptics stand before the Fate Atropos to preview the greed and violence hiding behind their respectable façades.

Torture Garden

1967

Account Rendered poster
6.1

Police find that everyone had a motive for the murder of a wealthy woman.

Account Rendered

1957

The Tichborne Claimant poster
8.7

In the late 19th century, Lord Tichborne, the ninth richest nobleman in England, disappears after a South American shipwreck. Some years later his erudite Afro-English valet, Bogle, is sent to investigate rumors that Tichborne survived and settled in Australia. An alcoholic ruffian answer's Bogle's inquiries claiming to be the lost heir. Bogle suspects fraud, but conspires with the claimant to split the inheritance should the latter succesfully pass himself off to friends, family and the courts. As the claimant returns to England to continue his charade, enough people confirm his identity to make both the claimant and Bogle believe that he just might be the rightful heir after all.

The Tichborne Claimant

1999

They Can't Hang Me poster
6.9

A murderer hopes to escape his death sentence by identifying the leaders of a spy ring.

They Can't Hang Me

1955

Assignment K poster
6.3

Philip Scott, the boss of a toy company, is secretly also the chief of a British spy organization. Scott's cover is destroyed when enemy agents kidnap his girlfriend to force him to reveal the identities of his fellow spies.

Assignment K

1968

Gentle Folk poster
NR

An Edwardian house party given by a Fabian woman, her business-man husband and assorted guests from politics and the Arts - including a young man prone to disturbing premonitions.

Gentle Folk

1980

A Pinch of Snuff poster
NR

Receiving a tip from his dentist Jack Shorter, policeman Peter Pascoe takes a closer look at the Calliope Kinema Club, a film club notorious for showing adult entertainment movies. Shorter is convinced that one particular scene in a movie he recently saw was too realistic to have been staged with fake blood, but when Pascoe and his bluff superior Andy Dalziel starts investigating, they soon comes across the actress in question, Linda Abbott, who obviously didn't suffer from any harm and assures Pascoe that the concerns are unnecessary.

A Pinch of Snuff

1994

The Cold Room poster
4.8

A girl visiting modern day East Germany with her estranged father begins reliving the horrifying events that happened to a young girl living there during World War II.

The Cold Room

1984

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

The Constant Husband poster
6.9

Charles Hathaway wakes up in West Wales with no recollection of who he is or how he got there. With the help of a Cardiff specialist he traces his life back to his gorgeous wife and their large London house, so all seems well with the world. But more detective work starts to uncover an alarming chain of further stunning wives and a way of going on that the new Charles finds pretty unacceptable.

The Constant Husband

1955

The Weak and the Wicked poster
6.5

Jean Raymond an upper class woman with a gambling addiction, is given a twelve-month prison sentence resulting from her inability to pay her debts. At first she is overwhelmingly depressed by life in the women's prison; gradually, however, her misery is relieved by the many close friends she makes there. This sympathetic drama traces the contrasting lives and often faltering progress of the inmates of a women's prison.

The Weak and the Wicked

1954

The Sicilians poster
6.5

An aide at the American Embassy in London finds himself involved with both Scotland Yard and the French police over the kidnapping of the son of a Mafia boss who has spilled the beans back in the States.

The Sicilians

1963

A Rather English Marriage poster
5.5

A squadron leader and a retired milkman decide to bury their differences and move in together after they are both widowed on the very same night. They become a companionable if odd couple, until their unlikely friendship is threatened by the arrival of an alluring woman with a hidden agenda.

A Rather English Marriage

1998

Time After Time poster
10.0

'Oh I was naughty. And I'm still naughty so take care.' And so Leda was, all those years ago when she was the childhood friend of Jasper and his three sisters April, May and June. Now she returns to add a little spice to life in their crumbling Irish country house.

Time After Time

1986

Father Dear Father poster
5.3

After divorcing his wife, Patrick Glover decides it is time to remarry, and chooses his literary agent, only to then mistakenly propose to the cleaning lady. Part of his reason for wanting to remarry is to regain some control over his wayward daughters, but they and their lovers continue to complicate his home and his life... A farcical comedy full of hilarious confusions, this feature-length version of the popular sitcom Father, Dear Father is a real gem of British humour at its best.

Father Dear Father

1973

West of Suez poster
9.0

In this suspense movie, a Yankee mercenary is hired to blow up an Arab dignitary.

West of Suez

1957

The Oracle poster
6.0

An Irish "oracle" foretells the next day's track results to a newspaperman, resulting in a national uproar.

The Oracle

1953

I Believe in You poster
6.8

A drama about parole officers to follow the successful Ealing police story of "The Blue Lamp"(1950) . Various sub-plots follow the parole officers and their charges.

I Believe in You

1952