Michael Balcon

Production

Michael Balcon

Born — Died

1896-05-19 — 1977-10-17

Place of birth

Birmingham, England, UK

Known for

Production

Credits

43 titles

Sir Michael Elias Balcon (19 May 1896 – 17 October 1977) was an English film producer, known for his work with Ealing Studios. Balcon had earlier worked for Gainsborough Pictures, Gaumont British and MGM-British.

Known for

The 39 Steps poster
7.3

Richard Hanney has a rude awakening when a glamorous female spy falls into his bed - with a knife in her back. Having a bit of trouble explaining it all to Scotland Yard, he heads for the hills of Scotland to try to clear his name by locating the spy ring known as The 39 Steps.

The 39 Steps

1935

Kind Hearts and Coronets poster
7.6

When his mother eloped with an Italian opera singer, Louis Mazzini was cut off from her aristocratic family. After the family refuses to let her be buried in the family mausoleum, Louis avenges his mother's death by attempting to murder every family member who stands between himself and the family fortune. But when he finds himself torn between his longtime love and the widow of one of his victims, his plans go awry.

Kind Hearts and Coronets

1949

The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog poster
7.2

London. A mysterious serial killer brutally murders young blond women by stalking them in the night fog. One foggy, sinister night, a young man who claims his name is Jonathan Drew arrives at the guest house run by the Bunting family and rents a room.

The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog

1927

Dead of Night poster
7.2

An architect, visiting an English country house, realizes the other guests are familiar from his recurring nightmare. When they share their tales of the supernatural, he is filled with a growing dread.

Dead of Night

1945

The Ladykillers poster
7.3

Five oddball criminals planning a bank robbery rent rooms on a cul-de-sac from an octogenarian widow under the pretext that they are classical musicians.

The Ladykillers

1955

The Scapegoat poster
6.8

An Englishman in France unwittingly is placed into the identity, and steps into the vacated life, of a look-alike French nobleman.

The Scapegoat

1959

Film credits

Behind the camera

The 39 Steps poster
7.3

Richard Hanney has a rude awakening when a glamorous female spy falls into his bed - with a knife in her back. Having a bit of trouble explaining it all to Scotland Yard, he heads for the hills of Scotland to try to clear his name by locating the spy ring known as The 39 Steps.

The 39 Steps

1935

Kind Hearts and Coronets poster
7.6

When his mother eloped with an Italian opera singer, Louis Mazzini was cut off from her aristocratic family. After the family refuses to let her be buried in the family mausoleum, Louis avenges his mother's death by attempting to murder every family member who stands between himself and the family fortune. But when he finds himself torn between his longtime love and the widow of one of his victims, his plans go awry.

Kind Hearts and Coronets

1949

The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog poster
7.2

London. A mysterious serial killer brutally murders young blond women by stalking them in the night fog. One foggy, sinister night, a young man who claims his name is Jonathan Drew arrives at the guest house run by the Bunting family and rents a room.

The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog

1927

Dead of Night poster
7.2

An architect, visiting an English country house, realizes the other guests are familiar from his recurring nightmare. When they share their tales of the supernatural, he is filled with a growing dread.

Dead of Night

1945

The Ladykillers poster
7.3

Five oddball criminals planning a bank robbery rent rooms on a cul-de-sac from an octogenarian widow under the pretext that they are classical musicians.

The Ladykillers

1955

The Scapegoat poster
6.8

An Englishman in France unwittingly is placed into the identity, and steps into the vacated life, of a look-alike French nobleman.

The Scapegoat

1959

The Man Who Knew Too Much poster
6.5

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.

The Man Who Knew Too Much

1934

The Man in the White Suit poster
6.9

The unassuming, nebbishy inventor Sidney Stratton creates a miraculous fabric that will never be dirty or worn out. Clearly he can make a fortune selling clothes made of the material, but may cause a crisis in the process. After all, once someone buys one of his suits they won't ever have to fix them or buy another one, and the clothing industry will collapse overnight. Nevertheless, Sidney is determined to put his invention on the market, forcing the clothing factory bigwigs to resort to more desperate measures...

The Man in the White Suit

1951

Dunkirk poster
6.9

A British Corporal in France finds himself responsible for the lives of his men when their officer is killed. He has to get them back to Britain somehow. Meanwhile, British civilians are being dragged into the war with Operation Dynamo, the scheme to get the French and British forces back from the Dunkirk beaches. Some come forward to help, others were less willing.

Dunkirk

1958

Pool of London poster
6.6

Jewel thieves, murder, and a manhunt swirl around a sailor off a cargo ship in post-war London.

Pool of London

1951

Sabotage poster
6.7

Karl Anton Verloc and his wife own a small cinema in a quiet London suburb where they live seemingly happily. But Mrs. Verloc does not know that her husband has a secret that will affect their relationship and threaten her teenage brother's life.

Sabotage

1936

Bitter Springs poster
6.8

A family buy land set around a water hole in a remote location, that is occupied by native Australians. The two groups clash.

Bitter Springs

1950

The Blue Lamp poster
6.6

P.C. George Dixon is a long-serving traditional copper who is due to retire shortly. He takes a new recruit under his aegis and introduces him to the easy-going night beat. Dixon is a classic ordinary hero but also anachronistic, unprepared and unable to answer the violence of the 1950s.

The Blue Lamp

1950

The Lavender Hill Mob poster
7.2

A meek bank clerk who oversees the shipments of bullion joins with an eccentric neighbor to steal gold bars and smuggle them out of the country.

The Lavender Hill Mob

1951

Convoy poster
5.6

A tale of life on board a Royal Navy cruiser assigned to protect the vital convoys between America and England during WWII.

Convoy

1940

Undercover poster
6.1

Occupied Yugoslavia. With organised resistance shattered by the Nazi onslaught it is only the activity of small guerrilla bands that bring fresh hope to the people. But quislings and infiltrators are everywhere – and trusting the wrong person could easily get you killed...

Undercover

1943

Train of Events poster
6.3

A train disaster is told in four short stories to give character studies of the people involved, how it will affect them and how they deal with it.

Train of Events

1949

The Clairvoyant poster
6.0

A fake psychic suddenly turns into the real thing when he meets a young beauty. (TCM)

The Clairvoyant

1935

Easy Virtue poster
5.3

Unjustly accused of adultery in a scandalous divorce, Larita Filton flees to the French Riviera. She soon falls in love with a young Englishman, John Whittaker, and begins anew under an assumed name. But when John brings her home to his disapproving family, Larita’s past begins to resurface.

Easy Virtue

1928

Scott of the Antarctic poster
7.2

The true story of the British explorer Robert Falcon Scott and his ill-fated expedition to try to be the first man to discover the South Pole - only to find that the murderously cold weather and a rival team of Norwegian explorers conspire against him

Scott of the Antarctic

1948

It Always Rains on Sunday poster
6.6

During a rainy Sunday afternoon, an escaped prisoner tries to hide out at the home of his ex-fiance.

It Always Rains on Sunday

1947

Secret Agent poster
6.1

During World War I, a novelist declared dead is recruited by British intelligence and sent to Switzerland under a new identity to assassinate a German spy. Teamed with a fellow agent posing as his wife and an eccentric assassin known as “the General,” the trio close in on their target — until two of them grow ambivalent when their duty to the mission clashes with their consciences.

Secret Agent

1936

Hindle Wakes poster
10.0

A Lancashire mill girl has an illicit adventure with the owner's son while on holiday. Based on the once notorious Houghton play.

Hindle Wakes

1931

Downhill poster
5.7

When school captain Roddy Berwick takes the blame for his friend’s scandal, he is expelled and disowned by his family. Cast out of his privileged world, Roddy drifts through a series of humiliations—from waiter to penniless actor to gigolo—descending ever further into ruin and self-disgust.

Downhill

1927

The Calendar poster
8.0

Racehorse owner Anson is swindled by a woman named Wenda and goes up in front of the Jockey Club where he is disqualified on race fixing allegations. He decides to get his own back with the help of Hillcott, an ex-burglar. Jill is the love interest

The Calendar

1931

Went the Day Well? poster
7.1

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.

Went the Day Well?

1942

The Man Who Changed His Mind poster
6.1

Dr. Laurence, a once-respectable scientist, begins to research the origin of the mind and the soul. The science community rejects him, and he risks losing everything for which he has worked. He begins to use his discoveries to save his research and further his own causes, thereby becoming ... a mad scientist, almost unstoppable.

The Man Who Changed His Mind

1936

Passport to Pimlico poster
6.9

When an unexploded WWII bomb is accidentally detonated in Pimlico, it reveals a treasure trove and documents proving that the region is in fact part of Burgundy, France and thus foreign territory. The British government attempts to regain control by setting up border controls and cutting off services to the area.

Passport to Pimlico

1949

The Man in the Sky poster
7.5

The efforts of test pilot John Mitchell to make a better life for his wife Mary and their two children seem doomed to failure and he blames himself. At the Conway Aero-Manufacturing Company of Wolverhampton, Mitchell is to take the company's new rocket-propulsion transport plane up for tests, fully loaded and carrying two important passengers - Ministry official Crabtree and buyer's representative Ashmore. Mitchell learns from his boss, Reg Conway, that if Ashmore does not recommend the plane, the company will be out of business and Mitchell out of a job, since the plane is not even insured as the firm's entire capital is tied up in the plane. Aloft, an engine catches fire and the passengers and other crew bail out, but Mitchell refuses to obey orders to jettison the plane in the Irish Sea.

The Man in the Sky

1957

Mandy poster
7.1

London, the early 1950s. Born deaf, Mandy is mute for most of her childhood. As she reaches school age her family itself is in danger of breaking up. Christine, Mandy's mother, has heard of a residential school for the oral education of the deaf.

Mandy

1952

The Long and the Short and the Tall poster
6.7

Based on a play by Willis Hall. A troop of British soldiers are out in the jungle to record jungle noises and troop noises in the jungle so that the recordings can be played back by other troops to divert the enemy to their whereabouts. As they progress to what they think is closer to the base camp they find themselves farther and farther from radio range until the only channel they can get clearly is that of a Japanese broadcast. They now realize they are probably only 10 to 15 miles from a Japanese camp! The tension is added to by rowdy and openly admitted "non-hero" Private Bamforth who has nothing good to say about anyone and especially Corporal Johnstone (who holds an equal dislike for Bamforth). When a Japanese soldier is taken as their prisoner, the true colours of each man comes to the surface

The Long and the Short and the Tall

1961

A Night in Montmartre poster
6.0

A young couple live under a café in Paris that, unknown to them, is owned by a brutal blackmailer. When he is murdered, they fall under suspicion. However, the husband's father, an amateur detective, believes in their innocence and sets out to find who really killed the blackmailer.

A Night in Montmartre

1931

My Song for You poster
4.8

In this opera-oriented musical, Riccardo Gatti, an Italian young tenor in Venice, meets a young woman who sneaks into the opera house to try and get her fiancé hired as the orchestra's pianist.

My Song for You

1934

Whisky Galore! poster
6.8

Scottish islanders try to plunder 50,000 cases of whisky from a stranded ship.

Whisky Galore!

1949

Sailors Three poster
7.6

Three sailors get drunk while on shore leave and end up on the wrong ship. When they realise their mistake they scramble off it and onto their warship, HMS Ferocious. However, they soon realise that the vessel they have boarded is not the Ferocious but a German battleship.

Sailors Three

1940

The Pleasure Garden poster
5.3

Two chorus girls at the Pleasure Garden Theatre follow different paths in love and fortune.

The Pleasure Garden

1925

Saraband for Dead Lovers poster
6.6

Sophie Dorothea is a young woman forced into a loveless marriage with Prince George Louis of Hanover. George Louis is later crowned King George I of England. Despairing of ever experiencing true love, the depressed queen finds life at court no solace. Sophie then falls for a dashing Swedish soldier of fortune, Count Konigsmark.

Saraband for Dead Lovers

1948

Painted Boats poster
7.0

In this modest drama, set during World War II, two rival boat families battle it out for supremacy.

Painted Boats

1945

A Run for Your Money poster
6.2

Two Welsh coal-mining brothers win a trip to London to claim a monetary prize. They are supposed to meet a newspaper reporter who will be their escort. Instead, the brothers are launched into an adventure with some London riff-raff. It is up to the reporter to look out for the brothers, and what a job it turns out to be!

A Run for Your Money

1949

Barnacle Bill poster
6.6

A seasick sea captain commands an amusement pier despite local opposition. Released in the U.S. as 'All at Sea'

Barnacle Bill

1957