Leslie Banks

Actor, writer, director and activist Ossie Davis narrates this look at the history of race films, those produced from the 1920s-50s catered to a primarily Black audience.

Madeleine's middle-class family cannot understand why she puts off marrying a respectable young man, as they know nothing about her long-term affair with a Frenchman.

Adam Hayward is a successful New York City defense lawyer. One day he receives a cable that the British war buddy who saved his life at Anzio Beach is now in trouble with the law in England. Taking the advice of his secretary to go to England rather than wire money, Adam arrives in his friend's village to find him about to stand trial for the murder of the hired stable-hand, Lawrence.

In 1415, in the midst of the Hundred Years' War, the young King Henry V of England embarks on the conquest of France.

As the Germans drop explosive booby-traps on 1943 Britain, the embittered expert who'll have to disarm them fights a private battle with alcohol.

The quiet village of Bramley End is taken over by German troops posing as Royal Engineers. Their task is to disrupt England's radar network in preparation for a full scale German invasion. Once the villagers discover the true identity of the troops, they do whatever they can to thwart the Nazis plans.

After Larry Darrent accidentally kills his lover's blackmailing husband, someone else is arrested for the crime. When he is found guilty, Larry and Wanda have just three weeks together before he must give himself up— or let an innocent man go to the gallows.

A documentary account of the allied invasion of Europe during World War II compiled from the footage shot by nearly 1400 cameramen. It opens as the assembled allied forces plan and train for the D-Day invasion at bases in Great Britain and covers all the major events of the war in Europe from the Normandy landings to the fall of Berlin.

A wealthy lord dies and is entombed with a valuable deposit of jewels. Seven keys are required to unlock the tomb and get hold of the treasure. A mad doctor uses an iron maiden to systematically eliminate the heirs to the fortune.

Allied spies and Nazi Agents insinuate themselves at a Scottish cottage (converted to a wartime hospital) with interests on an inventor's nearly perfected bomb sight.

When Lord Peter Wimsey marries Harriet Vane, a crime author, they both promise to give up crime for good. As a wedding present, Peter purchases the old house where Harriet grew up, but when they try to move in the previous owner is nowhere to be found, until they start to clean the house and find his body in the cellar...

Before the war, a Fleet Air Arm pilot is dismissed for causing the death of a colleague. Working for a small Greek airline when the Germans invade Greece, he gets a chance to redeem himself and rejoin his old unit on a British carrier. This is regarded the last of the conventional, rather stiff 1930's style Ealing war films, to be succeeded by much more realism and better storytelling.

An amnesia victim is a well liked and respected member of his community--until one day someone from his past shows up with evidence that in "the old days" he had been a notorious criminal, and threatens to expose him unless he pays off.

Wartime propaganda piece reporting on the success of the economic blockade of Germany in the early years of the war.

The tangled affairs of George, Prince of Wales, leading to his illegal marriage to commoner Mrs. Fitzherbert. Also portrayed is the conflict between the future George IV and his father George III.

A British merchant ship is torpedoed by a German U-Boat and takes shelter in a neutral port. The Captain then strikes back at the German enemy.

In early 19th-century Cornwall, young Mary Yellan travels to live with her aunt and uncle at the remote Jamaica Inn, where she discovers the inn is a front for a violent gang of wreckers who lure ships to their doom along the coast. As she becomes entangled in their crimes, Mary must fight to survive and uncover the truth behind the terror that haunts the moors.

While vacationing in St. Moritz, a British couple receive a clue to an imminent assassination attempt, only to learn that their daughter has been kidnapped to keep them quiet.

When legendary hunter Bob Rainsford is shipwrecked on the perilous reefs surrounding a mysterious island, he finds himself the guest of the reclusive and eccentric Count Zaroff. While he is very gracious at first, Zaroff eventually forces Rainsford and two other shipwreck survivors, brother and sister Eve and Martin Towbridge, to participate in a sadistic game of cat and mouse in which they are the prey and he is the hunter.

In 1588, relations between Spain and England are at the breaking point. With the support of Queen Elizabeth I, British sea raiders such as Sir Francis Drake regularly capture Spanish merchantmen, bringing gold from the New World.

The head of Dartmouth Training College has been murdered, and his successor, Captain Hyde, suspects that he himself may have been the intended target. He enlists the help of his own son Philip, a reluctant cadet at the college, to help him confirm his suspicions about planned enemy action... but meanwhile, there is a Secret Service agent staying at the college observatory, the foreign-born professor of astronomy is behaving strangely, and Naval Intelligence disclaim any knowledge of what is going on...

A British District Officer in Nigeria in the 1930s rules his area strictly but justly. He struggles with gun-runners and slavers with the aid of a loyal native chief.

A beautiful Gypsy girl falls in love with a horse trainer.

Jim Bronton is an insurance investigator, but he's unhappy with his work and gets involved with a gang of arsonists. His conscience is troubling him ...

During a charity football match between Arsenal and touring amateur side Trojans, the Trojan's new star player collapses and dies. Inspector Slade of Scotland Yard is called in and declares it was murder. It takes all his ingenuity and another death before the motive is discovered and the killer revealed.

David Barr is the manager and chief designer of a British shipyard in decline. The shipyard is in financial trouble but Barr has a design for a new ship that will save them all. Can he get the ship built in spite of the opposition from his own bankers as well as the rival shipbuilders and their infiltrated militants.

A major newspaper publisher dies in suspicious circumstances during a parlour game at a dinner party. The publishers secretary is the obvious suspect, but the inspector isn't so sure ...

A dancer falls in love with a puppeteer, much to the consternation of her manipulative manager. The puppeteer himself seems more interested in his puppets than in romance with her. Can she find true love?

A Colonel's daughter steals from the regimental mess funds to pay off her gambling debts. One of the officers, who is love with her, takes the blame, and is sent to Africa.

An engineer leads the building of a trans-Atlantic tunnel linking Britain and the United States.

The Three Maxims are trapeze artists Pat (Anna Neagle), Toni (Tuilio Carminati) and Mac (Leslie Banks). After spending most of their careers in the small time, the threesome finally get their big chance in Paris, at which point Mac realizes he's in love with Pat.

Farewell Again is a multiplotted British comedy/drama about soldiers on leave and the people they've left. Given a six-hour pass after a tour of duty in India, several British Tommies (among them Robert Newton, Sebastian Shaw and Anthony Bushell) try to unravel their domestic tribulations before having to ship out again. American expatriate Tim Whelan was the directorial hand who kept the various plot threads from entangling, while another Hollywood vet, James Wong Howe, manned the cameras. The film became instantly dated with the advent of World War II, but in its own time Farewell Again was a box-office smash. The film was issued in the US as Troopship.

Inspired by Edmond Rostand's 1897 play, this 1938 BBC Television studio production retells the comic and heroic drama of the 17th-century Gascon swordsman, poet, and philosopher, Cyrano de Bergerac (1990). Secretly and passionately in love with beautiful Roxane, Cyrano, who is embarrassed by his elongated nose, is shocked to find out that she has fallen head-over-heels in love with the handsome but superficial recruit to the Cadets de Gascogne, Christian de Neuvillette. As a result, convinced that he stands no chance against the handsome but tongue-tied suitor, Cyrano steps aside and becomes Christian's tutor in the delicate matters of love, composing poems and ardent letters to help him woo Roxane.

Youth meets Ambition and leaves Love, his mother, and his small-town roots for the big city. There, in his search for Experience, he meets Pleasure and hangs out at the Primrose Path with the likes of Temptation and Intoxication. Back home, Youth's mother dies, and Love tries unsuccessfully to reach him. When Youth's money runs out his newfound friends all leave him and he sinks into a life of drug addiction, aided by Habit.