Acting

Miles Malleson

Born 1888-05-24 · Croydon, Surrey, England

William Miles Malleson (25 May 1888 – 15 March 1969) was an English actor and dramatist, particularly remembered for his appearances in British comedy films of the 1930s to 1960s. Towards the end of his career he also appeared in cameo roles in several Hammer horror films, with a fairly large role in The Brides of Dracula as the hypochondriac and fee-hungry local doctor. Malleson was also a writer on many films, including some of those in which he had small parts, such as Nell Gwyn (1934) and The Thief of Bagdad (1940). He also translated and adapted several of Molière's plays (The Misanthrope, which he titled The Slave of Truth, Tartuffe and The Imaginary Invalid).

Acting credits

Peeping Tom poster
7.5

Loner Mark Lewis works at a film studio during the day and, at night, takes racy photographs of women. Also he's making a documentary on fear, which involves recording the reactions of victims as he murders them. He befriends Helen, the daughter of the family living in the apartment below his, and he tells her vaguely about the movie he is making.

Peeping Tom

1960

The Thief of Bagdad poster
7.1

When Prince Ahmad is blinded and cast out of Bagdad by the nefarious Jaffar, he joins forces with the scrappy thief Abu to win back his royal place, as well as the heart of a beautiful princess.

The Thief of Bagdad

1940

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

Dracula poster
7.3

After Jonathan Harker attacks Dracula at his castle, the vampire travels to a nearby city, where he preys on the family of Harker's fiancée. The only one who may be able to protect them is Dr. van Helsing, Harker's friend and fellow-student of vampires, who is determined to destroy Dracula, whatever the cost.

Dracula

1958

The Brides of Dracula poster
6.7

A young teacher on her way to a position in Transylvania helps a young man escape the shackles his mother has put on him. In so doing she innocently unleashes the horrors of the undead once again on the populace, including those at her school for ladies. Luckily for some, Dr. Van Helsing is already on his way.

The Brides of Dracula

1960

No artwork available
7.0

Hugo Carmody, the impoverished secretary to Lord Emsworth falls for Millicent the boss's niece, and steals his Lordship's prize pig in a scheme to raise funds to marry her.

Summer Lightning

1933

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 Phantom of the Opera poster
6.4

A London opera house is haunted by tragic events on its opening night, but when its star is kidnapped, a producer tracks down the Phantom who is intent on seeking his revenge.

The Phantom of the Opera

1962

Scrooge poster
7.4

Ebenezer Scrooge malcontentedly shuffles through life as a cruel, miserly businessman, until he is visited by three spirits on Christmas Eve who show him how his unhappy childhood and adult behavior has left him a selfish, lonely old man.

Scrooge

1951

The Hound of the Baskervilles poster
6.8

When a nobleman is threatened by a family curse on his newly inherited estate, detective Sherlock Holmes is hired to investigate.

The Hound of the Baskervilles

1959

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

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 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

Stage Fright poster
6.8

A struggling actress tries to help a friend prove his innocence when he's accused of murdering the husband of a high-society entertainer.

Stage Fright

1950

The Man Who Never Was poster
7.0

The true story of a British effort to trick the Germans into weakening Sicily's defenses before the 1943 attack. A dead soldier is dressed as a British officer and outfitted with faked papers showing that the Allies were intending to invade occupied Greece. His body is put into the sea where it will ultimately drift ashore and the papers be passed along to German Intelligence.

The Man Who Never Was

1956

Murder Ahoy poster
7.1

During an annual board of trustees meeting, one of the trustees dies. Miss Marple thinks he’s been poisoned after finding a chemical on him. She sets off to investigate at the ship where he had just come from. The fourth and final film from the Miss Marple series starring Margaret Rutherford as the quirky amateur detective.

Murder Ahoy

1964

First Men in the Moon poster
6.3

The world is delighted when a spacecraft containing a crew made up of the world's astronauts lands on the moon, but are shocked when the astronauts discover an old British flag and a document declaring that the moon is taken for Queen Victoria proving that the astronauts were not the first men on the moon.

First Men in the Moon

1964

Gideon's Day poster
6.4

Scotland Yard Inspector George Gideon starts his day off on the wrong foot when he gets a traffic-violation ticket from a young police officer. From there, his 'typical day" consists in learning that one of his most-trusted detectives has accepted bribes; hunts an escaped maniac who has murdered a girl; tracks a young girl suspected of involvement in a payroll robbery and then helps break up a bank robbery.

Gideon's Day

1958

The Admirable Crichton poster
6.9

Lord Loam has modern ideas about his household, he believes in treating his servants as his equals - at least sometimes. His butler, Crichton, still believes that members of the serving class should know their place and be happy there. But when the Loam family are shipwrecked on a desert island with the self-reliant Crichton and lady's maid Tweeny, the class system is put to the test.

The Admirable Crichton

1957

The Captain's Table poster
6.0

A captain is promoted by his company from tramp steamers to their flagship passenger liner. Although he is a thoroughly competent sailor ready to take charge of such a ship, he is less prepared for the social duties his new position involves, not least the way he in which becomes the target for all the unattached women on board.

The Captain's Table

1959

The Importance of Being Earnest poster
7.2

Two young gentlemen living in 1890s England use the same pseudonym ('Ernest') on the sly, which is fine until they both fall in love with women using that name, which leads to a comedy of mistaken identities.

The Importance of Being Earnest

1952

I'm All Right Jack poster
6.6

Naive Stanley Windrush looks for a career in a family business. Much to his dismay, he finds work at a munitions factory where he has to start from the bottom, while both the management and the labor union use him as a tool in their fight for power.

I'm All Right Jack

1959

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

Thunder Rock poster
6.2

David Charleston, once a world renowned journalist, now lives alone maintaining the Thunder Rock lighthouse in Lake Michigan. He doesn't cash his paychecks and has no contact other than the monthly inspector's visit. When alone, he imagines conversations with those who died when a 19th century packet ship with some 60 passengers sank. He imagines their lives, their problems, their fears and their hopes. In one of these conversations, he recalls his own efforts in the 1930s when he desperately tried to convince first his editors, and later the public, of the dangers of fascism and the inevitability of war. Few would listen. One of the passengers, a spinster, tells her story of seeking independence from a world dominated by men. There's also the case of a doctor who is banished for using unacceptable methods. David has given up on life, but the imaginary passengers give him hope for the future.

Thunder Rock

1942

Behind the camera

The Thief of Bagdad poster
7.1

When Prince Ahmad is blinded and cast out of Bagdad by the nefarious Jaffar, he joins forces with the scrappy thief Abu to win back his royal place, as well as the heart of a beautiful princess.

The Thief of Bagdad

1940

They Met in the Dark poster
6.3

A Royal navy Commander is tricked by a pretty girl who is working for the Nazis. She tricks him into revealing some military secrets and he is court martial. He vows to track her and her accomplices down.

They Met in the Dark

1943

No artwork available
7.0

Hugo Carmody, the impoverished secretary to Lord Emsworth falls for Millicent the boss's niece, and steals his Lordship's prize pig in a scheme to raise funds to marry her.

Summer Lightning

1933

The First of the Few poster
6.7

This 1942 fictionalized biopic chronicles the true story of how two of the most remarkable men in aviation history - visionary Spitfire designer R.J. Mitchell and his test pilot Geoffrey Crisp - designed a streamlined monoplane that led to the development of the Spitfire.

The First of the Few

1942

Victoria the Great poster
5.6

The film biography of Queen Victoria focusing initially on the early years of her reign with her marriage to Prince Albert and her subsequent rule after Albert's death in 1861.

Victoria the Great

1937

No artwork available
6.7

King Charles II first meets Nell Gwyn after seeing her do a turn at Drury Lane. They soon become close, the King preferring her feisty irreverent company to that of the aristocratic French Duchess of Portsmouth. Nell becomes his most loyal subject, while ever-ready to take the Duchess down a peg. But the actress can never hope to be fully accepted by the King's circle despite his constant attentions.

Nell Gwyn

1934

A Royal Divorce poster
9.0

The love affair between the French Emperor Napoleon and the lady Josephine leads through Napoleon's rise to power and their eventual divorce.

A Royal Divorce

1938

Yours Unfaithfully poster
NR

An “un-romantic comedy” about the price of free love, Yours Unfaithfully is an insightful, intelligent and exceptionally intimate peek behind the closed doors of an open marriage. Stephen and Anne, blissfully happy for eight years, are committed to living up to their ideals. When Stephen, a writer who isn’t writing, begins to sink into a funk of unproductive moodiness, Anne encourages him to seek out a fresh spark. Can their marriage survive uncompromising generosity, sacrifice and love? More than the story of an unconventional couple, the play is about what happens when our ideals clash with our emotions.

Yours Unfaithfully

2021

Conflict poster
NR

Conflict is a love story set against the backdrop of a hotly contested election. Miles Malleson combines his two great passions: sex and politics. The result is a provocative romance that sizzles with both wit and ideas. It’s the Roaring 20’s, London. Lady Dare Bellingdon has everything she could want, yet she craves something more. Dare’s man, Sir Major Ronald Clive, is standing for Parliament with the backing of Dare’s father. Clive is a Conservative, of course, but he’s liberal enough to be sleeping with Dare, who’s daring enough to take a lover, but too restless to marry him. Clive’s opponent, Tom Smith is passionate about social justice and understands the joy of having something to believe in. Dare is “the woman between” two candidates who both want to make a better world—until politics become personal, and mudslinging threatens to soil them all.

Conflict

2020

Yellow Canary poster
5.4

In 1940 Sally Maitland is forced to leave England, ostracised as a Nazi sympathiser by everyone including her well-to-do family. On the ship to Halifax, Canada, she is courted by Polish aristocrat Jan Orloch and by awkward British navel intelligence officer Jimmy Garrick. She shows herself somewhat more amenable to Orloch's advances, and agrees to meet his mother in Halifax. Once there however, it becomes clear no-one is really who they say they are.

Yellow Canary

1943

They Flew Alone poster
6.8

The story of flyer Amy Johnson the girl from Yorkshire who won the hearts of the British public in the 1930s with her record-breaking solo flights around the world. Her marriage to fellow aviator Jim Mallison was less noteworthy.

They Flew Alone

1942

The Two Worlds poster
9.0

No synopsis available yet.

The Two Worlds

1930

Sixty Glorious Years poster
6.3

Continuing the story of 'Victoria the Great'.

Sixty Glorious Years

1938

Tudor Rose poster
8.1

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

Tudor Rose

1936

Sally in Our Alley poster
5.0

A woman believes her boyfriend died in the First World War, but he is now looking for her

Sally in Our Alley

1931

The W Plan poster
8.0

A tense WWI spy thriller in which Colonel Duncan Grant (British star Brian Aherne, in his first talking role), parachutes into Germany to gather intelligence on the enemy’s secret ‘W Plan’ and to assist Allied POWs in digging escape tunnels.

The W Plan

1930

Land of Promise poster
8.0

Described as a 'film argument' about homes and houses, this film is in three parts showing houses as they were, houses as they are and houses as they might be.

Land of Promise

1946

City of Song poster
9.0

A tourist guide in Naples is taken on by an English woman impressed by his singing, and who regards him as her protege.

City of Song

1931

The Queen's Affair poster
10.0

Poor New York shop girl Nadina receives the unexpected news that she is next in line to be queen of an Eastern European country. On her arrival in Ruritania, a revolution is in progress, and only minutes before her coronation, Nadina is forced into exile. She flees to Paris with her nurse, and then travels on to Switzerland. There Nadina encounters the Ruritanian revolutionary leader Carl, recuperating from the trials of revolution, and the couple unexpectedly fall in love. When the revolution collapses in Ruritania, they return and marry, thus forming a constitutional monarchy supported by all the people.

The Queen's Affair

1934

Action for Slander poster
7.0

A bankrupt officer, accused of cheating at cards, defends his honour with a writ.

Action for Slander

1937

No artwork available
9.0

British comedy. It was released in the United States the following year under the alternative title Trouble Ahead.

Falling in Love

1934

Night Birds poster
2.0

Early British thriller about a master criminal named 'Flash Jack', who heads a gang of top-hatted thieves that rob the wealthy. A detective tracks the crimes to a posh night club.

Night Birds

1930

Children of Chance poster
9.0

A casual date at a high-class hotel leads Binnie, an aspiring showgirl, to be mistaken for model and actress Lia de Marita – landing her an audition for the producer of a new musical stage show. Marvelling at her good fortune, what Binnie doesn't know is that Lia is also the wife of a notorious jewel thief and that she's already fled the country in possession of a valuable, ill-gotten necklace!

Children of Chance

1930

The Water Gipsies poster
6.7

Jane Bell has lived on an old barge moored in the Thames with her feckless father and sister ever since their mother died, but she would prefer her life to be more like the movies

The Water Gipsies

1932