Acting
Ben Williams
Born — Died
1892-01-01 — 1960-12-01
Place of birth
Glamorganshire, Wales, UK
Known for
Acting
Credits
61 titles
Known for
8.0The second collection of short stories written by Baroness Orczy about the gallant English hero, the Scarlet Pimpernel and his League.
The Adventures of the Scarlet Pimpernel
1955
7.1When 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
7.2Czechoslovakia, March 1939, on the eve of World War II. As the German invaders occupy Prague, inventor Axel Bomasch manages to flee and reach England; but those who need to put his knowledge at the service of the Nazi war machine, in order to carry out their evil plans of destruction, will stop at nothing to capture him.
Night Train to Munich
1940
6.3In 1885, while his regiment is sent to the Sudan to battle the rebellious Dervish tribes, British Lieutenant Harry Faversham resigns his officer's commission in order to remain with his fiancée Mary Burroughs in England. His friends and fellow officers John Durrance, Peter Burroughs and Tom Willoughby brand him a coward and present him with the white feathers of cowardice. His fiancée, Mary, adds a fourth feather and breaks off their engagement. However, former Lieutenant Faversham decides to regain his honor by fighting in the Sudan incognito.
Storm Over the Nile
1955
6.9In the final days of World War II, in a MASH unit in Burma, a severely wounded corporal watches in dismay as fellow soldiers pack-up to return home but a caring nurse and five remaining soldiers bring him solace.
The Hasty Heart
1949
7.1Eccentric Cambridge archaeologist Horatio Smith takes a group of British and American archaeology students to pre-war Nazi Germany to help in his excavations. His research is supported by the Nazis, since he professes to be looking for evidence of the Aryan origins of German civilisation. However, he has a secret agenda: to free inmates of the concentration camps.
"Pimpernel" Smith
1941
Film credits
1990s · 1 titles
1950s · 18 titles
6.3In 1885, while his regiment is sent to the Sudan to battle the rebellious Dervish tribes, British Lieutenant Harry Faversham resigns his officer's commission in order to remain with his fiancée Mary Burroughs in England. His friends and fellow officers John Durrance, Peter Burroughs and Tom Willoughby brand him a coward and present him with the white feathers of cowardice. His fiancée, Mary, adds a fourth feather and breaks off their engagement. However, former Lieutenant Faversham decides to regain his honor by fighting in the Sudan incognito.
Storm Over the Nile
1955
6.2In this contemporary update of Frank H. Spearman's Western hero, Whispering Smith is now a sleuth who arrives in London on holiday, but is soon called in to solve the case of a suicide which the father of the deceased woman thinks was murder.
Whispering Smith vs. Scotland Yard
1952
4.9A middle-aged garage owner's life is turned upside down when his new mechanics gets it on with his sexy younger wife.
Roadhouse Girl
1953
6.8An insurance man discovers his ex-girlfriend and her husband's art-forgery/arson scam.
Fortune Is a Woman
1957
5.4During a holiday to the beach Jenny meets Alan and agrees to spend the week with him. Wanting to keep this a secret from her parents Jenny gets help from her friend Mary to pretend her whereabouts but disaster strikes during a boating accident. It is soon discovered Jenny was not with Mary. When the parents find out the truth they pressure the couple to get married, but Jenny thinks otherwise.
Hindle Wakes
1952
6.0A man hides the fact that he lost his job from his wife by apparently going off to work each day as normal but runs into trouble when he is tailed by a reporter.
Something in the City
1950
5.3Crime drama in which a couple get involved in a web of intrigue surrounding the husband's employer.
You Pay Your Money
1957
9.0A husband-and-wife detective team look into the murder of one of her friends, whose father--a prominent scientist--has been kidnapped. They find themselves up against a sinister crime organization headed by a mysterious figure known only as "Z".
Paul Temple's Triumph
1950
6.1A fiction writer begins working on a biography of a pilot who went down during the test flight of a new plane and finds himself soon involved in a series of murders.
The Teckman Mystery
1954
5.5When a wealthy business man is found dead reporter Philip Trent is sent to investigate. Against the police conclusions, he suspects the assumed suicide is really a murder, and becomes highly interested in the young widow and the dead man's private secretary.
Trent's Last Case
1952
6.5When ship's fireman Peter McCabe walks out on his long-suffering wife, he leaves her impoverished, with two young daughters and a boy born soon after his departure. After an absence of fourteen years McCabe returns, sacked and humiliated, trailing trouble in his wake.
Waterfront
1950
4.9The adventures of two children who runaway to London to see the coronation of Queen Elizabeth.
John and Julie
1955
6.0When a nightclub singer is arrested for murder, his pregnant girlfriend moves into a boarding house for women, but the mother-to-be soon discovers that her new lodgings harbors a horrific secret.
Women of Twilight
1953
6.1A serial killer terrorizes London. Each victim is found with a telegram signed "The Marquis." There seems to be no other common thread between the victims, and Scotland Yard is baffled. Novelist and amateur sleuth, Paul Temple, is warned to stay away from the case, but he and his glamorous wife Steve can never refuse a good mystery.
Paul Temple Returns
1952
6.5An American comes to Britain to investigate the murky circumstances of his brother's death that occurred during a WW2 commando raid.
Circle of Danger
1951
7.1Boxing drama following the lives of 5 different fighters and their reasons for becoming boxers.
The Square Ring
1953
7.0Long after being deserted by her husband, Linda Harrison will soon be free to marry her lover, Michael Carteret. But when her husband suddenly reappears, he attempts to blackmail the couple with a threat of ruining Michael's career. When her husband is murdered, Michael appears to be the only obvious suspect - but will the circumstantial evidence be enough to sentence him to death?
Circumstantial Evidence
1952
6.7Legendary England cricketer Sam Palmer (Jack Warner) is due to bat in his final test match against Australia. He is desperate for his son Reggie (Ray Jackson) to see his final innings. But Reggie prefers poetry to cricket and when he is offered the opportunity to read his poetry to England's greatest playwright Alexander Whitehead (Robert Morley) on the last day of the test, the relationship between father and son is tested to the limit. As Sam prepares for his final knock, the conflict with his son weighs heavily on his mind, but he is also upset over England's young batsman and ladies-man, Syd Thompson (George Relph), dating the woman whom he hopes to marry.
The Final Test
1953
1940s · 29 titles
7.1When 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
7.2Czechoslovakia, March 1939, on the eve of World War II. As the German invaders occupy Prague, inventor Axel Bomasch manages to flee and reach England; but those who need to put his knowledge at the service of the Nazi war machine, in order to carry out their evil plans of destruction, will stop at nothing to capture him.
Night Train to Munich
1940
6.9In the final days of World War II, in a MASH unit in Burma, a severely wounded corporal watches in dismay as fellow soldiers pack-up to return home but a caring nurse and five remaining soldiers bring him solace.
The Hasty Heart
1949
7.1Eccentric Cambridge archaeologist Horatio Smith takes a group of British and American archaeology students to pre-war Nazi Germany to help in his excavations. His research is supported by the Nazis, since he professes to be looking for evidence of the Aryan origins of German civilisation. However, he has a secret agenda: to free inmates of the concentration camps.
"Pimpernel" Smith
1941
5.8A tribute to the important work of female nurses during World War II.
The Lamp Still Burns
1943
6.3A gripping tale of WWII naval warfare in the Baltics, starring John Mills as Lt. Freddie Taylor, a British submarine Captain. The crew of the Sea Tiger are summoned from leave on shore with their families, and sent on a secret mission to intercept the Nazi battleship Brandenburg. In the ensuing battle the British submarine is damaged by a German destroyer. The submarine is leaking fuel so badly that the crew won't be able to make it back to Britain before running out somewhere along the Danish coast. When it seems that their only option may be to blow up the submarine and try to escape to Denmark, seaman James Hobson hatches a plan...
We Dive at Dawn
1943
6.5Davey Fenwick leaves his mining village on a university scholarship intent on returning to better support the miners against the owners. But he falls in love with Jenny who gets him to marry her and return home as local schoolteacher before finishing his degree.
The Stars Look Down
1940
6.2Shortly after the start of World War II, a ukelele player (George) takes the wrong boat and finds himself in (still uninvaded) Norway. He is mistaken for a fellow British intelligence agent by a woman (Mary), and becomes involved in trying to defeat Nazi agents.
Let George Do It!
1940
6.3In a Welsh coal mining valley, a young man with a beautiful singing voice is called upon to make the ultimate sacrifice when a pit disaster threatens.
The Proud Valley
1940
5.9Depressing and realistic family drama about the struggles of unemployment and poverty in 1930s Lancashire. The 20-year-old Kerr gives an emotionally charged performance as Hardcastle, one of the cotton workers trying to make life better. Interlaced with humour that brings a ray of sunshine to the pervasive bleakness, this remains a powerful social study of life between the wars, and was a rare problem picture to come out of Britain at the time.
Love on the Dole
1941
7.1During early World War II, a Danish sea captain, delayed in a British port, tangles with German spies.
Contraband
1940
7.1A politician rises rapidly to fame and fortune and discovers that power corrupts and ultimately becomes the very type of politician he had set out to displace.
Fame Is the Spur
1947
6.1Occupied 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
6.8Will 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.
The Ghost of St. Michael's
1941
6.5A 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.
The Way Ahead
1944
6.7Tom Masterick, a dock worker, is wrongfully convicted of a murder charge. His death sentence is commuted to a long prison term. When released as an old man, he vows to find the real killer.
Murder in Reverse
1945
6.7Allied 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.
Cottage to Let
1941
6.8The 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
7.2Comedian Tommy Trinder plays it straight in this tribute to the wartime AFS (Auxiliary Fire Service). The dedicated band who kept the fires of London under control during the blitz and fire bombings of WWII.
The Bells Go Down
1943
6.6Ivan 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.
The Demi-Paradise
1943
9.0During the Nazi occupation of Belgium during World War II, a Belgian resistance group revives the newspaper "La Libre Belgique" to expose and counter Nazi propaganda efforts to deceive the people. They are so effective that the Nazis offer a reward for the capture of the paper's staff, although they don't know their identities. One of them is a well-known entertainer, and when his jealous partner hears of the reward, he turns him in. The paper's publishers escape capture, but their staff doesn't. The paper's founders must find not only a way to keep from getting captured by the Nazis but keep their newspaper going and get their staff released.
Uncensored
1942
6.8On the death of his father, an eighteen-year old leaves school to take over the family firm in the City of London. Realising the other directors want to keep him in the dark he starts asking questions, and is soon undercover as a down-and-out in a hostel which will disappear if a company building project goes ahead.
The Common Touch
1941
6.9An eccentric woman detective investigates the murders of several people who visited the same medium.
Mrs Pym of Scotland Yard
1940
6.0During WW2 a former railway employee who had been drafted, goes AWOL to hunt down the spiv and draft dodger who is having an affair with his wife.
Waterloo Road
1945
6.5A simple handyman, who also is an amateur artist, gets into trouble when the head and shoulders portraits of some prominent local females are sold without his knowledge to an advertising agency and are published with nude bodies added to them.
Much Too Shy
1942
6.6Old Bill has grumbled his way through the trenches of the First World War. Now it is the Second and, envious of his son, Young Bill, he decides to enlist. He finally enters the Pioneer Corps, which is based near his son. When Young Bill goes missing during a raid, Old Bill shows that there's still life in the old dog yet!
Old Bill and Son
1941
6.7Hi Gang! is a 1941 British comedy film directed by Marcel Varnel and starring Bebe Daniels, Ben Lyon and Vic Oliver. It was a spin-off from the popular radio series Hi Gang!.
Hi Gang!
1941
An account of the technique of reading the tabloid press in an intelligent manor via differing editorial techniques that leads to three styles of newspapers giving varying accounts of a strip-tease act.
Read All About It
1945
Mother Riley takes over a circus on the point of closing down, and makes it a success.
Old Mother Riley's Circus
1941
1930s · 12 titles
4.4Sir Percy is forced to return to France one last time, to rescue his wife from the clutches of the sinister Robespierre. It's clearly a trap, but nothing will keep the good Pimpernel from carrying out his mission.
Return of the Scarlet Pimpernel
1937
6.3Ann Harding plays a lovely but somewhat naive young woman who goes on a European vacation after winning a lottery. Swept off her feet by charming Basil Rathbone, Harding finds herself married before she is fully able to grasp the situation. Slowly but surely, Rathbone's loving veneer crumbles; when he casually asks Harding to sign a document turning her entire fortune over to him, she deduces that her days are numbered.
Love from a Stranger
1937
6.4Young, idealistic, newly qualified Scottish doctor Andrew Manson arrives in Wales and takes his first job in a mining town, and begins to wonder at the persistent cough many of the miners have. When his attempts to prove its cause are thwarted, he moves to London. His new practice does poorly, but when a friend shows him how to make a lucrative practice from rich hypochondriacs, it will take a great shock to show him what the truth of being a doctor really is.
The Citadel
1938
6.3London's jewel thieves are under the thumb of a mysterious fence, who ruthlessly exposes any thief who crosses him. Desperate, Scotland Yard re-hires ex-Inspector Barrabal who, as a known drunkard, is ideally suited to go undercover with a faked criminal record (which may spoil his chances with lovely Carol Stedman).
The Squeaker
1937
5.7It is England in the 1830s. London's dockside is teeming with ships and sailors who have made their fortune in foreign lands. Sweeney Todd, a Fleet Street barber, awaits the arrival of men whose first port of call is for a good, close shave. For most it will be the last time they are seen alive. Using a specially designed barber's chair, Sweeney Todd despatches his victims to the cellar below, where he robs them of their new found fortunes and chops their remains into small pieces. Meanwhile, Mrs Lovett is enjoying a roaring trade for her popular penny meat pies.
Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street
1936
6.5George Bright is a props man in an ice ballet company, and a keen amateur photographer who accidentally snaps crooks at work. Comic complications ensue....
I See Ice
1938
5.8Suave soldier of fortune Simon Templer gets mixed up with a gang of counterfeiters who've murdered and robbed an European count of 1,000,000 pounds. He is aided reluctantly by Scotland Yard inspector Teal, who's convinced that Templar himself pulled off the heist, and less reluctantly by light-fingered Dugan and dizzy socialite Penny Parker.
The Saint in London
1939
6.3Drummond goes up against foreign agents who are trying to steal plans for a top-secret aircraft.
Bulldog Drummond at Bay
1937
6.9A remarkable story of love lost and found, as a young couple are separated by circumstance, and plunged into emotional turmoil by a reunion...
Brief Ecstasy
1937
For ten years, The Terror has laughed at both police and public. And for ten years, two of his erstwhile associates, Joe Conner and 'Soapy' Marks, have plotted revenge on the mastermind whose double-crossing sent them to Dartmoor prison without their share of the bullion stolen in a daring raid.
The Terror
1938
5.4A barber gives in to temptation and steals some money, leading to blackmail and murder.
On the Night of the Fire
1939
5.4An impoverished team of composer and songwriter try to secure financial backing for their new musical, with the assistance of a struggling actress working as a housemaid.
Cheer Up
1936

