John Laurie

Profile of actress Wendy Richard's remarkable television career, featuring classic clips and contributions from colleagues.

Anthony Hope's classic tale gets a decidedly 'un-classic' treatment at the hands of Peter Sellers. Following the story somewhat, friends of the new King Rudolph of Ruritania fear for his life, and switch him with a look-a-like London cabby. Throw in two(!) lovely blondes, treachery, and a battle for life and honour, and enjoy life at its zaniest.

Escaping from China with a microfilm of the formula for the mysterious "Lotus X", Lord Southmere, a Queen's Messenger, is chased by a group of Chinese spies.

After a team of surgeons botches his beloved wife's operation, the distraught Dr. Phibes unleashes a score of Old-Testament atrocities on his enemies.

Dad's Army was a 1971 feature film based on the BBC television sitcom Dad's Army. Directed by Norman Cohen, it was filmed between series three and four and was based upon material from the early episodes of the television series. The film told the story of the Home Guard platoon's formation and their subsequent endeavours at a training exercise.

Elton John has trouble getting correct directions. Eric and Ernie move house. Ernie's play is called 'Cyrano de Bergerac' and stars Francis Matthews and Penelope Keith.

Harry and Valerie Spalding arrive in the remote Cornish village to an unwelcoming and suspicious population. Harry's brother dies suddenly, bitten by a lethal reptilian bite. They befriend a young woman Anna whose tyrannical father controls her life and, as they discover that others in the village have suffered a similar fate, their investigations lead to Anna. What they uncover is a victim of the most terrifying legacy... a destiny of mutilation and murder.

The "Ladies Who Do" are office cleaners. One of them discovers some hot stock tips and they make a fortune. They then make good use of it to save their old neighbourhoods from the wicked developer.

An Edinburgh travel agent loses his keys and his fiancé in one night. A friend finds the keys and makes loads of copies with his address attached as a joke. She gives them to him as he leaves for a holiday. He gives the keys to several women he romances across the continent. He gets engaged again by phone and arranges to meet his fiancé at his flat, but the flat isn't empty...

King Arthur learns one of his knights is plotting to take over and marry his daughter. Following the King's death, the Knight wishing to marry the princess is ordered by the great wizard Merlin to remove the sword from the scabbard and prove his right to the throne.

Kidnapped and cheated out of his inheritance, young David Balfour falls in with a Jacobite adventurer, Alan Breck Stewart. Falsely accused of murder, they must flee across the Highlands, evading the redcoats.

Julia Stafford is asked to defend a posh youth, an outsider in a conservative Scottish town, who is accused of murdering a girl.

Enchanted by the idea of locating treasure buried by Captain Flint, Squire Trelawney, Dr. Livesey and Jim Hawkins charter a sailing voyage to a Caribbean island. Unfortunately, a large number of Flint's old pirate crew are aboard the ship, including Long John Silver.

Having helped his brother King Edward IV take the throne of England, the jealous hunchback Richard, Duke of Gloucester, plots to seize power for himself. Masterfully deceiving and plotting against nearly everyone in the royal court, including his eventual wife, Lady Anne, and his brother George, Duke of Clarence, Richard orchestrates a bloody rise to power before finding all his gains jeopardized by those he betrayed.

A widower refuses to let his three daughters marry in order to avoid paying settlements, so they'll just have to outsmart him.

John, a blacksmith and swordsmith, is tutored at Camelot. As a commoner, he can't hope to win the hand of Lady Linet, daughter of the Earl of Yeoniland, so he creates a secret alternate identity as the Black Knight. In this new role, he is now able to help King Arthur when Saracens and Cornish men—disguised as Vikings -- plot to take over the country.

Pandora Reynolds is a woman who has never fallen in love – but one who men kill and die for. When she meets dashing and mysterious ship's captain Hendrik van der Zee, he pushes her to commit the ultimate act of love.

W. Somerset Maugham introduces three more of his stories about human foibles.

Eight people at a remote Scottish inn find themselves confronted by a woman from Mars, who has landed her flying saucer for repairs but intends to soon conquer the Earth and enslave its men for breeding purposes.

When their hospital ship sinks in the South Pacific during WWII, military nurse Elizabeth Smythe and Marine Michael Dugan find themselves stranded — and soon enough, falling in love — on an idyllic tropical island. But when British pilot William Peck crash-lands on their cozy little atoll, Dugan suddenly discovers he has a rival in love.

Given only six months to live, Englishman Bruce Campbell goes to Canada to claim "Campbell's Kingdom", the land he inherited from his grandfather. In order to clear his grandfather's name and prove there is oil on the land, Campbell must face up to a ruthless contractor and work against the clock to find oil before "Campbell's Kingdom" is flooded by a new power dam.

When an eccentric practical joker dies, he divides his fortune among four heirs. But before they can collect the cash they must each do something which goes completely against their nature. NB: This is the film which introduced Audrey Hepburn.

A BAFTA award nominated documentary looking at how Myron Kinley and his team extinguished an out of control oil installation fire at Naft Safidi in Iran in 1951 that had been burning for 26 days.

Encore is a 1951 anthology film composed of adaptations of three short stories by W. Somerset Maugham: "The Ant and the Grasshopper", directed by Pat Jackson and adapted by T. E. B. Clarke; "Winter Cruise", helmed by Anthony Pelissier, screenplay by Arthur Macrae; "Gigolo and Gigolette", directed by Harold French, written by Eric Ambler. It is the last film in a Maugham trilogy, preceded by Quartet and Trio.

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.

A Polish boy runs away from his unkind foster mother in Edinburgh and finds a new home in a lakeside village for orphans of all nations, after encountering trouble through his innocent implication in a robbery.

Rich bachelor B.G. Bruno, the head of a successful greeting-card company in Scotland, is essentially a kind man but respectable to the point of stodginess and extreme stuffiness. An American troupe visiting Edinburgh wants to produce a musical in town but has trouble getting financiers. Bruno meets several leading ladies; through a misunderstanding, he doesn't correct their impression that he's a newspaper reporter.

The inhabitants of Todday are content to live their lives in peace and quiet, until, that is, the government decides their little corner of the world would be the perfect place for a rocket launch site.

Story of a chorus girl who is "discovered" and finds romance during the unraveling of a mystery in a once derelict theatre.

Unassuming planning engineer David Webb finds himself on the Queen Elizabeth to New York with instructions to negotiate a high-powered loan. His lack of confidence means he is completely out of his depth, at least until he finds his personality changes every day during the hour the ship's clocks stop to make allowance for their westward passage.

A British comedy about a struggling artist and his wife living on a houseboat. To raise money she pawns him! His new family takes a liking to him particularly the daughter! The wife tries to redeem her husband but finds she has lost the pawn ticket. In a short matter of time, the whole incident becomes a national sensation.

Edward Potter, a meek clerk at Scotland Yard hunts down an escaped criminal.

Winner of four Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Actor, Sir Laurence Olivier’s Hamlet continues to be the most compelling version of Shakespeare’s beloved tragedy. Olivier is at his most inspired—both as director and as the melancholy Dane himself—as he breathes new life into the words of one of the world’s greatest dramatists.

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

At the height of the Roman Civil War, an aging Julius Caesar finds himself intrigued by the young Egyptian queen Cleopatra, whom he teaches how to rule Egypt.

General Candy, who's overseeing an English squad in 1943, is a veteran leader who doesn't have the respect of the men he's training and is considered out-of-touch with what's needed to win the war. But it wasn't always this way. Flashing back to his early career in the Boer War and World War I, we see a dashing young officer whose life has been shaped by three different women, and by a lasting friendship with a German soldier.

Plucky Englishwoman Joan Webster travels to the remote islands of the Scottish Hebrides in order to marry a wealthy industrialist. Trapped by inclement weather on the Isle of Mull and unable to continue to her destination, Joan finds herself charmed by the straightforward, no-nonsense islanders around her, and becomes increasingly attracted to naval officer Torquil MacNeil, who holds a secret that may change her life forever.

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

A tribute to the important work of female nurses during World War II.

Scotland, 1745. After decades of exile, Prince Charles Edward Stuart secretly lands with the purpose of revolting the Highland chieftains against the German House of Hanover, ruler of Great Britain.

Returning to 1870s London after finishing at boarding school, Fanny winesses the death of her father in a fight with Lord Manderstoke. She then finds that her family has for many years been running a bordello next door to their home. When her mother dies shortly after, she next discovers that her real father is in fact a well-respected politician. Meeting him and then falling in love with his young advisor Harry Somerford leads to a life of ups and downs and conflict between the classes. Periodically the scoundrel of a Lord crosses her path, always to tragic effect.

David Shields refuses to go into agriculture and opts instead for ship building

A retired general helps out by sheltering some evacuees during WWII.

Wartime tale of a group of British scientists efforts to develop the first radar system. They did it just in time for it to be used in the Battle of Britain against the might of the Nazi Luftwaffe. Without it the little island could well have been overrun.

Stefan Radetzky, a Polish pilot and famous concert pianist, is hospitalised in England from injuries sustained while in combat, and having lost his memory. As Radetzky plays the piano in a trance-like state, the story moves back in time to war-torn Warsaw. During an air-raid, Radetzky meets American journalist Carole, and there is a mutual attraction. Following the fall of Poland, Radetzky and Irish pilot, Mike, escape to Rumania and then on to America. Radetzky continues his musical career in America and meets up again with Carole.

Ivan Kouznetsoff, a Russian engineer, recounts during World War II his stay in England prior to the war working on a new propeller for ice-breaking ships. Naïve about British people and convinced by hearsay that they are shallow and hypocritical, Ivan is both bemused and amused by them. He is blunt in his opinions about Britons and at first this puts off his hosts, including the lovely Ann Tisdall, whose grandfather runs the shipbuilding firm that will make use of Ivan's propeller. The longer Ivan stays, however, the more he comes to understand the humor, warmth, strength, and conviction of the British people, and the more they come to see him as a friend rather than merely a suspicious Russian. As a romantic bond grows between Ivan and Ann, a cultural bond begins to grow as well, particularly as the war begins and Russia is attacked by Germany.

Following her father's death, a teenage heiress moves in with her guardian uncle who is broke and schemes to murder his niece for her vast inheritance.

A mismatched collection of conscripted civilians find training tough under Lieutenant Jim Perry and Sergeant Ned Fletcher when they are called up to replace an infantry battalion that had suffered casualties at Dunkirk.

Will Hay, back in his role as a hapless teacher, is hired by a grim school in remotest Scotland. The school soon starts to be haunted by a legendary ghost, whose spectral bagpipes signal the death of one of the staff. Hay, assisted by Claude Hulbert and Charles Hawtrey, has to unravel the mystery before he becomes the next victim.

A new batch of Army recruits, from diverse backgrounds and with varying degrees of commitment, is shaped into an efficient fighting unit.

Dramatised account of the achievements of Glasgow's William Thomson, Lord Kelvin.

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.

A disgraced officer risks his life to help his childhood friends in battle.

In the slums of Dublin during the Irish Civil War, the Boyle family’s fragile stability collapses after news of an unexpected inheritance lures them into a false sense of prosperity. Captain Boyle, a boastful idler, squanders their meager resources, while his wife Juno holds the household together. When the fortune proves illusory, the family faces ruin, betrayal, and tragedy.

Film version of Shakespeare's comedy of a young woman who disguises herself as a man to win the attention of the one she loves.

The story of an Eastern sultan who is inordinately proud of his son. The young man bids fair to break his father's heart by conducting an affair with the wife of a notorious criminal.

The tragic story of Lady Jane Grey, the young queen who reigned in England for nine days before she was executed.

A way of life is dying on a remote Scottish island, but some of the inhabitants resist evacuating to the mainland.

In England, an eccentric police inspector, an earnest test pilot and a spunky female reporter team up to solve the mystery of a series of test aircraft which have disappeared without a trace while over the ocean on their maiden flights; unaware, as they are, that a spy ring has been shooting the planes down with a ray machine hidden aboard a salvage vessel which is on hand to haul the downed aircraft aboard, crews and all.

An unjustly condemned corporal flees to Africa, chased by the captain blamed for his escape.