
Acting
George Murcell
Born — Died
1925-10-30 — 1998-12-03
Place of birth
Naples, Campania, Italy
Known for
Acting
Credits
68 titles
Arthur George Murcell (30 October 1925 – 3 December 1998) was a British character actor. Born in Italy, he made his film debut in Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's The Battle of the River Plate (1956), Murcell went on to develop a career playing snarling villains in both film and television. These could either be stupid, brutish henchmen, as in Hell Drivers and Campbell's Kingdom (both 1957), or sophisticated rogues, such as Needle in "You Have Just Been Murdered", an episode of The Avengers. He specialised in playing foreign characters, including Germans, Russians and South Americans. A number of these roles were in ITC adventure TV series of the 1960s and 1970s, such as Danger Man, …
Known for
7.8A quirky spy show of the adventures of eccentrically suave British Agent John Steed and his predominantly female partners. Jonathan Steed - an urbane, proper gentleman spy - teams with various assistants throughout the series' run, including Dr. David Keel, Cathy Gale, Emma Peel and Tara King, to repeatedly save the world from diabolical schemes plotted by equally diabolical evil-doers (among them robots and man-eating monsters).
The Avengers
1961
7.4Simon Templar is The Saint, a handsome, sophisticated, debonair, modern-day Robin Hood who recovers ill-gotten wealth and redistributes it to those in need.
The Saint
1962
7.6The lives of Bodie and Doyle, top agents for Britain's CI5 (Criminal Intelligence 5), and their controller, George Cowley. The mandate of CI5 was to fight terrorism and similar high-profile crimes. Cowley, a hard ex-MI5 operative, hand-picked each of his men. Bodie is a cynical ex-SAS paratrooper and mercenary whose nature ran to controlled violence, while his partner, Doyle, comes to CI5 from the regular police force, and is more of an open minded liberal. Their relationship is often contentious, but they are the top men in their field, and the ones to whom Cowley always assigned to the toughest cases.
The Professionals
1977
7.2Theatre 625 is a British television drama anthology series, produced by the BBC and transmitted on BBC2 from 1964 to 1968. It was one of the first regular programmes in the line-up of the channel, and the title referred to its production and transmission being in the higher-definition 625-line format, which only BBC2 used at the time.
Theatre 625
1964
4.2An anthology of short plays shown on BBC Television between 1965 and 1973, used in part at least as a training ground for new writers, on account of its short length, and which therefore attracted many writers who later became well known.
Thirty-Minute Theatre
1965
4.8No Hiding Place is a British television series that was produced at Wembley Studios by Associated-Rediffusion for the ITV network between 16 September 1959 and 22 June 1967. It was the sequel to the series Murder Bag and Crime Sheet, all starring Raymond Francis as Detective Superintendent, later Detective Chief Superintendent Tom Lockhart.
No Hiding Place
1959
Film credits
1990s · 3 titles
5.8Morgan Adams and her slave, William Shaw, are on a quest to recover the three portions of a treasure map. Unfortunately, the final portion is held by her murderous uncle, Dawg. Her crew is skeptical of her leadership abilities, so she must complete her quest before they mutiny against her. This is made yet more difficult by the efforts of the British crown to end her pirate raids.
Cutthroat Island
1995
4.9American novelist David Raybourne accidentally becomes entangled in the Red Brigade's terrorist plan to kidnap Italian Premier Aldo Moro during a research trip to Rome. As the terrorists attempt to kill David, he and his photojournalist friend must struggle to stay alive.
Year of the Gun
1991
5.8This is another variation of the Cinderella story: the bright and beautiful Ella lives in the household of a lord since her mother died. She's unhappy because the lord's daughters treat her like their servant. The country is in problems, because the prince is a dreamer and doesn't realize that his chancellor abuses his power. When the day nears the prince is forced by law to find a wife, a celebration on a frozen lake is arranged. Ella manages to skate on the lake for him too, hiding her identity. The prince falls in love with her, so he tries to find her. His chancellor attempts to hinder them, since he knows about Ella's critical thoughts.
The Ice Princess
1996
1970s · 7 titles
6.3In Afghanistan, the ruthless sport of buzkashi is a game of great pride. When Uraz breaks his leg and loses a spirited match, he brings shame to his village, especially his father. After losing his leg below the knee, Uraz, to regain his honor, must learn to ride again and win with a special, one-of-a-kind horse.
The Horsemen
1971
NRA successful Paris magazine proprietor embarks on a destructive voyage of self-discovery after his wife shoots dead her own sister, with whom he has had an affair for several years.
The Prison
1974
6.0While investigating a murder case, a detective stumbles upon a rare-stamp swindle involving the victim's twin sister.
Penny Gold
1973
7.5A two-part program that examines the life of Samuel Coleridge from his orphaned childhood to how his friendship with William and Dorothy Wordsworth inspired him to write The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. Part 2 consists of a visualization of Coleridge’s epic poem.
Rime of the Ancient Mariner
1975
5.2Cliff works as a narcotics investigator for the police and infiltrate a mafia gang. Soon it turns out that Cliff has bigger plans than just to bust bad guys.
Mafia Junction
1973
2.5A society lady lives mainly from selling forged paintings by old masters. To keep the business flourishing, she invites art experts to orgies.
Penelope Pulls It Off
1975
While hitchhiking towards the coast, two young men find themselves trapped at an inn by its strange landlord and his beautiful wife.
A Sound from the Sea
1970
1960s · 16 titles
6.6A mysterious spacecraft captures Russian and American space capsules and brings the two superpowers to the brink of war. James Bond investigates the case in Japan and comes face to face with his archenemy Blofeld.
You Only Live Twice
1967
6.9Set in German-occupied Norway, resistance fighter Knut Straud enlists the reluctant physicist Rolf Pedersen in an effort to destroy the German heavy water production plant in rural Telemark.
The Heroes of Telemark
1965
6.5In the year 180 A.D. Germanic tribes are about to invade the Roman empire from the north. In the midst of this crisis ailing emperor Marcus Aurelius has to make a decision about his successor between his son Commodus, who is obsessed by power, and the loyal general Gaius Livius.
The Fall of the Roman Empire
1964
6.5Two teenagers, Mary (Hayley Mills) and Robert (Keith Hamshere) are lead by Professor Paganel (Maurice Chevalier) on a search expedition for the children's shipwrecked sea captain father. This Disney film was based upon Jules Verne's 1868 adventure novel Captain Grant's Children.
In Search of the Castaways
1962
5.3Barney Lincoln is a rambling gambling man who scores sensational wins at poker and chemin de fer because he has succeeded in marking the original plates for the backs of all the playing cards manufactured in a plant in Geneva and used in all the gambling joints in Europe. In his gambling depredation, Barney is spotted by Angel McGinnis, the daughter of a Scotland Yard Inspector 'Manny' McGinnis on the lookout for a man to do a job. The inspector enlists Barney's help in playing poker with a shady London character whom Scotland Yard wants to force to financial ruin.
Kaleidoscope
1966
6.9Double-agent Alexander Eberlin is assigned by the British to hunt out a Russian spy, known to them as Krasnevin. Only Eberlin knows that Krasnevin is none other than himself! Accompanying him on his mission is a ruthless partner, who gradually discovers his secret as Eberlin tries to maneuver himself out of a desperate situation.
A Dandy in Aspic
1968
6.7In 1908 London, a women's rights campaigner discovers the Assassination Bureau Limited, an organization that kills for justice. When its motives are called into question, she commissions the assassination of its chairman. Knowing that his colleagues have recently become more motivated by greed than morality, he turns the situation into a challenge for his board members: kill him or be killed.
The Assassination Bureau
1969
7.2When the union in his factory walks out on strike, a family man refuses to participate, risking the wrath — and retaliation — of his fellow workers.
The Angry Silence
1960
5.2Influenced by concerns about overpopulation, the counterculture of the 1960s and the societal effects of television, the play depicts a world of the future where a small elite control the media, keeping the lower classes docile by serving them an endless diet of lowest common denominator programmes and pornography. The play concentrates on an idea the programme controllers have for a new programme which will follow the trials and tribulations of a group of people left to fend for themselves on a remote island. In this respect, the play is often cited as having anticipated the craze for reality television.
The Year of the Sex Olympics
1968
5.9During France’s Hundred Years’ War, a Parisian student seeks refuge by the sea and falls in love with an aristocrat. As they find shelter in a monastery, their romance is overshadowed by the ongoing conflict between peasants and noblemen.
A Walk with Love and Death
1969
8.0Madame Ranevsky and her daughter Anya return home from Paris to find that their beloved family estate and cherry orchard are to be auctioned off to pay debts. Lopahin, a former serf on the estate who is now a wealthy landowner, proposes razing the home and cherry orchard and dividing the estate into plots that could be leased at great profit. The family, however, continues to hold out hope that their beloved home can somehow be saved from destruction.
The Cherry Orchard
1962
6.6When a law-abiding demolition expert is duped by a gang of criminals into helping them he is caught and jailed. When he is released he goes straight and then notices a leading citizen in his town is cheating his neighbours.
There Was a Crooked Man
1960
6.1Sam Laker is an American industrialist, working in Britain, who has just been awarded an international award for industrial design. He is planning to travel to East Germany to attend a trade show and show off his invention, taking his 10 year old son with him for a holiday. Meanwhile a British Intelligence officer who served with Laker in the Second World War decides to use the opportunity of Laker's trip and his lack of an intelligence profile to coerce him into carrying out an assassination.
The Naked Runner
1967
6.7Crossroads to Crime is about the investigations of a police constable (Anthony Oliver) who, working undercover without support from his colleagues, confronts and brings down a gang of vehicle hi-jackers.
Crossroads to Crime
1960
5.6A group of former concentration camp prisoners has formed an underground network to hunt Nazi leaders, who are still on the loose. At a secret meeting in Paris they discuss what to do with the former Auschwitz commandant Karl Brochmann, who since 12 years lives in London under the false identity of Karl Luther. They decide to take the law in their own hands, and send their member David to London. He starts his commission by scaring Luther, to see his reactions. Luther is already nervous, because the newspapers are writing about the capture of Eichmann. When he finds out that somebody has broken into his apartment and painted a swastika on his mirror, he gets terrified. He empties his bank account, packs a bag with all his cash and runs away, followed by David.
The Pursuers
1961
9.0Adaptation of Dostoevsky's novel about liberal discussion versus revolutionary action in a provincial Russian town in the mid-nineteenth century.
The Possessed
1969
1950s · 8 titles
6.4In the early years of the World War II, the Royal Navy is fighting a desperate battle to keep the Atlantic convoy routes open to supply the British Isles, facing the great danger posed by the many German warships, such as the Admiral Graf Spee, which are scouring the ocean for cargo ships to sink.
The Battle of the River Plate
1956
6.7An ex-con trying to go clean ends up working for a crooked trucking company owner who encourages competion amongst his drivers.
Hell Drivers
1957
5.8A man and wife are terrorized by Mad Scientist Dr. Callistratus who was executed but has returned to life with a heart transplant. Along with his crippled assistant Carl, the 'anemic' Mad Scientist, believed to be a vampire, conducts blood deficiency research on the inmates of a prison hospital for the criminally insane to sustain his return to life.
Blood of the Vampire
1958
6.5A small British army team is sent deep behind enemy lines to destroy a German petrol dump as part of the preparation for a major attack in the North African campaign. Sea of Sand was distributed in the US in a shortened version, Desert Patrol.
Sea of Sand
1958
5.2During World War II, four British soldiers are commissioned to set up an observation post on a seemingly deserted island in the Mediterranean. However, while surveying the island, the Brits come across four German soldiers holed up in a monastery. The Brits and the Germans agree to a truce, sharing the monastery together until either the British or German troops arrive. But when a shipwrecked Slavic girl ends up on the island, a battle over her erupts amongst the men.
Don't Panic Chaps
1959
6.0Given 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.
Campbell's Kingdom
1957
6.1The captain of a tugboat harboured off a Spanish village is lured into a romantic involvement with a young girl at the behest of her father, in the hope of getting his hands on the vessel. Meanwhile, a handsome English sailor, signs on to the boat and before long he and the girl fall for one another. Meanwhile a sinking freighter carrying explosive cargo has to be salvaged....
Sea Fury
1958
Musical adaptation of A Christmas Carol.
The Merry Christmas
1955
Series credits
7.8A quirky spy show of the adventures of eccentrically suave British Agent John Steed and his predominantly female partners. Jonathan Steed - an urbane, proper gentleman spy - teams with various assistants throughout the series' run, including Dr. David Keel, Cathy Gale, Emma Peel and Tara King, to repeatedly save the world from diabolical schemes plotted by equally diabolical evil-doers (among them robots and man-eating monsters).
The Avengers
1961
7.4Simon Templar is The Saint, a handsome, sophisticated, debonair, modern-day Robin Hood who recovers ill-gotten wealth and redistributes it to those in need.
The Saint
1962
7.4Simon Templar is The Saint, a handsome, sophisticated, debonair, modern-day Robin Hood who recovers ill-gotten wealth and redistributes it to those in need.
The Saint
1962
7.6The lives of Bodie and Doyle, top agents for Britain's CI5 (Criminal Intelligence 5), and their controller, George Cowley. The mandate of CI5 was to fight terrorism and similar high-profile crimes. Cowley, a hard ex-MI5 operative, hand-picked each of his men. Bodie is a cynical ex-SAS paratrooper and mercenary whose nature ran to controlled violence, while his partner, Doyle, comes to CI5 from the regular police force, and is more of an open minded liberal. Their relationship is often contentious, but they are the top men in their field, and the ones to whom Cowley always assigned to the toughest cases.
The Professionals
1977
7.2Theatre 625 is a British television drama anthology series, produced by the BBC and transmitted on BBC2 from 1964 to 1968. It was one of the first regular programmes in the line-up of the channel, and the title referred to its production and transmission being in the higher-definition 625-line format, which only BBC2 used at the time.
Theatre 625
1964
7.2Theatre 625 is a British television drama anthology series, produced by the BBC and transmitted on BBC2 from 1964 to 1968. It was one of the first regular programmes in the line-up of the channel, and the title referred to its production and transmission being in the higher-definition 625-line format, which only BBC2 used at the time.
Theatre 625
1964
7.2Theatre 625 is a British television drama anthology series, produced by the BBC and transmitted on BBC2 from 1964 to 1968. It was one of the first regular programmes in the line-up of the channel, and the title referred to its production and transmission being in the higher-definition 625-line format, which only BBC2 used at the time.
Theatre 625
1964
4.2An anthology of short plays shown on BBC Television between 1965 and 1973, used in part at least as a training ground for new writers, on account of its short length, and which therefore attracted many writers who later became well known.
Thirty-Minute Theatre
1965
4.8No Hiding Place is a British television series that was produced at Wembley Studios by Associated-Rediffusion for the ITV network between 16 September 1959 and 22 June 1967. It was the sequel to the series Murder Bag and Crime Sheet, all starring Raymond Francis as Detective Superintendent, later Detective Chief Superintendent Tom Lockhart.
No Hiding Place
1959
3.5Sunday Night Theatre was a long-running series of televised live television plays screened by BBC Television from early 1950 until 1959. The productions for the first five years or so of the run were re-staged live the following Thursday, partly because of technical limitations in this era, and the theatrical basis of early television drama. Some of the earliest collaborations between Rudolph Cartier and Nigel Neale were produced for this series, including Arrow to the Heart and Nineteen Eighty-Four. The Sunday night drama slot was subsequently renamed The Sunday-Night Play which ran for four seasons between 1960 and 1963. ITV transmitted its own unrelated run of Sunday Night Theatre between 1971 and 1974.
Sunday Night Theatre
1950
3.5Sunday Night Theatre was a long-running series of televised live television plays screened by BBC Television from early 1950 until 1959. The productions for the first five years or so of the run were re-staged live the following Thursday, partly because of technical limitations in this era, and the theatrical basis of early television drama. Some of the earliest collaborations between Rudolph Cartier and Nigel Neale were produced for this series, including Arrow to the Heart and Nineteen Eighty-Four. The Sunday night drama slot was subsequently renamed The Sunday-Night Play which ran for four seasons between 1960 and 1963. ITV transmitted its own unrelated run of Sunday Night Theatre between 1971 and 1974.
Sunday Night Theatre
1950
6.4The legendary character Robin Hood and his band of merry men in Sherwood Forest and the surrounding vicinity. While some episodes dramatised the traditional Robin Hood tales, most episodes were original dramas created by the show's writers and producers.
The Adventures of Robin Hood
1955
6.5After a plane carrying three Agents crashes in the Himalayas, they are rescued by an advanced civilisation secretly living in Tibet who grant them enhanced versions of the ordinary five senses, and intellectual and physical abilities.
The Champions
1968
6.5After a plane carrying three Agents crashes in the Himalayas, they are rescued by an advanced civilisation secretly living in Tibet who grant them enhanced versions of the ordinary five senses, and intellectual and physical abilities.
The Champions
1968
7.7An English aristocrat and an American millionaire come together to tackle crime.
The Persuaders!
1971
7.3Danger Man is a British television series which was broadcast between 1960 and 1962, and again between 1964 and 1968. The series featured Patrick McGoohan as secret agent John Drake. Ralph Smart created the programme and wrote many of the scripts. Danger Man was financed by Lew Grade's ITC Entertainment.
Danger Man
1960
BBC anthology drama series that ran over four seasons and replaced the previous BBC Sunday Night Theatre series.
Sunday-Night Play
1960
7.5An anthology series produced by Thames Television, comprised of short mystery, suspense or crime adaptations featuring, as the title suggests, detectives who were literary contemporaries of Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes.
The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes
1971
7.0Gideon's Way is a British television crime series made by ITC Entertainment in 1964/65, based on the novels by John Creasey. The series was made at Elstree in twin production with The Saint TV series. It starred Liverpudlian John Gregson in the title role as Commander George Gideon of Scotland Yard, with Alexander Davion as his assistant, Detective Chief Inspector David Keen, Reginald Jessup as Det. Superintendent LeMaitre, Ian Rossiter as Detective Chief Superintendent Joe Bell and Basil Dignam as Commissioner Scott-Marle. The show did not acknowledge any help from Scotland Yard, any other police force or advisor. Daphne Anderson starred as his wife, Kate with Giles Watling as young son, Malcolm, Richard James as older son, Matthew who seemed to have a lot of new girlfriends and Andrea Allan as daughter, Pru. Unusually for police stories, Gideon was shown as a family man at home though urgent phone calls from his bosses tend to disrupt family plans too often. However, he did admit in "State Visit" that his wife had walked out on him for a while years ago when he put the job first and her second. They live in an expensive detached house in Chelsea.
Gideon's Way
1965
7.8Jason King - a suavely sophisticated former secret agent turned novelist - travels the world searching for material to fill his books, encountering an endless parade of glamorous women, exotic locales, menacing villains and daring intrigue! Before Austin Powers swung into action, Jason King set the standard for the hip crime-fighting international playboy!
Jason King
1971
7.0The Adventures of Sir Lancelot is a British television series first broadcast in 1956, produced by Sapphire Films for ITC Entertainment and screened on the ITV network. The series starred William Russell as the eponymous Sir Lancelot, a Knight of the Round Table in the time of King Arthur at Camelot.
The Adventures of Sir Lancelot
1956
6.8Manhunt is a World War II drama series consisting of 26 episodes, produced by London Weekend Television in 1969 and broadcast nationwide.
Manhunt
1970
NRThe Informer is a British crime drama series broadcast on ITV from August 1966 to December 1967. Created by John Whitney and Geoffrey Bellman, it stars Ian Hendry as former barrister Alex Lambert, disgraced and disbarred, who has to rebuild his life. He utilises his former contacts on both sides of the law to become a paid informer. Living well from the rewards paid by insurance companies, Lambert still has to hide his activities from both his wife and others behind a new persona in the guise as a business consultant. Two seasons were produced, totalling 21 episodes. Only two episodes are known to exist, the remainder presumably wiped.
The Informer
1966
7.1Follows the adventures of Mike Mercury and the test crew at Black Rock Laboratory in the Nevada Desert in 1962, as they test out Supercar, a prototype vehicle capable of traveling on land, can dive underwater, and can fly through the air.
Supercar
1961
7.9Peter the Great is a 1986 NBC television mini-series starring Maximilian Schell as Russian emperor Peter the Great, and based on the biography by Robert K. Massie. It won three Primetime Emmy Awards, including the award for Outstanding Miniseries.
Peter the Great
1986
7.5Set during the Napoleonic wars of the early 1800s, Oliver Tobias stars as Jack Vincent, a swashbuckling ex-British naval captain turned smuggler. A strong-willed, independent man who lives by both his wits and the sword, Vincent is ably assisted by Sarah and petty thief Honesty Evans in his struggle to stay one step ahead of the Excise Men...
Smuggler
1981
6.5The series is set in a dystopian future in which Britain is under the grip of the Home Office's Department of Public Control (PCD), a tyrannically oppressive bureaucracy riding roughshod over the population's civil liberties. Edward Woodward plays Jim Kyle, a journalist on the last independent newspaper called The Star, who turns renegade and begins to fight the PCD covertly. The officials of the PCD, in turn, try to provide proof of Kyle's subversive activities.
1990
1977
7.0A dramatization of the life of Albert Speer, Hitler’s young architect and onetime confidant, and his meteoric rise into the Nazi hierarchy. Based upon Speer’s own monograph of the same title.
Inside the Third Reich
1982
NRPrior to Stingray, Gerry Anderson produced three series in black and white - their only colour representation being a small number of on-set stills taken during production. Using these as a basis, key episodes of Four Feather Falls, Supercar and Fireball XL5 have been colourised from High Definition remasters using state-of-the-art software, enabling fans to see their favourite shows in a whole new way!
Presented in Supercolorisation
2022
NRPrior to Stingray, Gerry Anderson produced three series in black and white - their only colour representation being a small number of on-set stills taken during production. Using these as a basis, key episodes of Four Feather Falls, Supercar and Fireball XL5 have been colourised from High Definition remasters using state-of-the-art software, enabling fans to see their favourite shows in a whole new way!
Presented in Supercolorisation
2022
6.0Armchair Theatre is a British television drama anthology series of single plays that ran on the ITV network from 1956 to 1974. It was originally produced by Associated British Corporation, and later by Thames Television from mid-1968.
Armchair Theatre
1956
7.0British television drama anthology series of single plays.
Armchair Cinema
1974
Rogues' Gallery was a British television series which first aired on ITV between 1968 and 1969. It was set around London's Newgate Prison in the 18th century.
Rogues' Gallery
1968

