FILM LIST

The Adelphi Film Catalogue

 

Alf’s Baby (Her Three Bachelors in USA)            1953
Cast: Jerry Desmonde, Pauline Stroud, Olive Stone
Director: MacLean Rogers
Producer: John Harlow
Synopsis: Lovely light comedy romance about 3 men bringing up a baby – now a young woman – on their own. Precursor to ‘Three Men and a Baby’. An affectionate take on the ‘battle of the sexes’ The men bring up the little girl on their own and are bumbling but loving parents as they try to arrange a romance for their now grown up ward. The women – the ‘baby’ and the housekeeper – think that they organize the men for their own good, but the men win out in the end and romance blossoms.
75 minutes
Availability: Contact us
Artful Dodgers 1949                        Cast: Gillian Maude, Richard Foate

Director: Renault B Capes

Producer: Dresden Films

Synopsis: Drama documentary based on ‘Crime doesn’t pay’ series broadcast by the BBC. Interesting stories of fraud and criminals.
30 minutes
Availability: Contact us 
The Bait 1950
Cast: Diana Napier, John Bentley, John Oxford, Patricia Owens, Kenneth Hyde
Director: Frank A Richardson
Producer: Frank A Richardson
Synopsis: Whodunnit set in a country house.
57 minutes
Availability: contact us 
Bless ’em All 1948
Cast: Hal Monty, Les Ritchie, Max Bygraves.
Director: Robert Jordan HillProducers: Arthur Dent and Robert Jordan Hill
Synopsis: Fabulous slapstick army comedy. Max Bygraves’ film debut. Max sings a number of songs.
Was a great box office success on its release with huge appeal for the post WW2 generation.79 minutes
Availability: BFIplayer. (hyperlink)
https://player.bfi.org.uk/free/film/watch-bless-em-all-1948-online
Comin’ Thro’ The Rye 1947                       
Cast: Terence Alexander, Shirley Dent, Patricia Burleigh, Molly Wier
Director Walter C. Mycroft
Producer: Arthur Dent
Synopsis: Life of Robert Burns. Charming but sentimental. Lots of poetry and songs.56 minutes
Availability: BFIplayer. (hyperlink)
https://player.bfi.org.uk/free/film/watch-comin-thro-the-rye-1947-online
The Crowded Day (Shop Soiled in the USA)            1954                        Cast: John Gregson, Dora Bryan, Joan Hickson, Thora Hird, Sid James, Prunella Scales, Sidney Taffler, Rachel Roberts, Joan Rice.Dandy Nichols, Richard Wattis, Cyril Raymond (the husband in Brief Encounter) Vera Day, Freda Jackson, Kynaston Reeves, William Franklyn
Director: John Guillermin
Producer: David Dent
Synopsis: Excellent drama / comedy about department store girls living in a hostel together. Includes unwanted pregnancy as well as light romance. This film looks at the position of women in the 1950s and in particular the difficulties that they encountered – for example some employers would not employ married women and an unmarried pregnancy was a real disaster.Director: John Guillermin (‘Towering Inferno’ and Death on the Nile)
Script: Talbot Rothwell (wrote the ‘Carry Ons’)
Availability: DVD and BFIplayer
82 minutes
Death is a Number 1951                        Cast: Terence Alexander, Lesley Osmond, Denis Webb

Director: Robert Henryson

Synopsis: Gothic /occult drama about numerology.   A numerologist relates the family history of his racing driver pal, and the tragic part played in it, by the number 9, over a three-hundred-year period
50 minutes
Availability: contact us 
Dollars for Sale 1955
Cast: Bernie Winters, Robert Hartford-Davis, John Slater, Robert Ayres, Earl Cameron, Victor Platt, Magda Miller, Larry Cross Denis KavanaghDirector: Robert Hartford-DavisProducer: Ascot House Film Productions
Synopsis: Anglo American police co-operate on tracking down forgers. The story of the biggest forgery in history.35 minutes
Availability:
Contact us 
Don’t Blame the Stork 1954                        Cast: Veronica Hurst, Ian Hunter, Harry Fowler, Thora Hird, Averil Anger Akos Rathonyi

Director: Akos Rathonyi           

Producer: David Dent and Victor Katona

Synopsis: Charming romantic comedy. A young actress plants herself and her baby in the home of a famous actor to prove she is a competent actress.80 minutes
Availability: Contact us 
Father and Son (Twice Branded in USA) 1936                Cast: James Mason, Robert Rendell, Lucille Lisle
Director: Maclean Rogers
Producer: George Smith
Synopsis: Excellent crime / prison drama. A bank clerk takes the blame for a theft which he believes was committed by his ex-convict father. Stars a young James Mason in an early role. A gripping and cutting edge drama about the impact that a prison sentence has on a middle class well-to-do family.
Availability: BFIplayer 
72 minutes
Fight – Giants of the mat 1944
All in wrestling in Philadelphia, USASynopsis: All-in wrestling match at an American army camp between Iron Mike Mazurki and Wee Willie Davis in 1944. It all ends up in a free for all, made at the time when wrestling was tough and for real.
Availability: Contact us 
Documentary Fight Films

  • Don Cockell v Roland la Starza 1954 Highlights of the match at Earls Court. Eamonn Andrews and Norman Wisdom watching
  • Bronco Nagurski VS. Jim Londos 1951 European championship.
  • Turpin Story 1951
  • Randolph Turpin v Sugar Ray Robinson 10th July 1951 Earls Court London. British Turpin unexpectedly took the heavyweight title from Robinson. Robinson won it back September that year, at the Polo grounds New York
  • Women Wrestlers 1951.
  • Randolph Turpin v Carl ‘Bobo’ Olsen 1953               
  • Randolph Turpin v Don Cockell June 12th 1952 In the audience – George Raft, Freddie Mills, The Crazy Gang, the Duke of Norfolk, Lord Brababazon, Sharman Douglas and Jack Solomons Promotor.
  For Love of You 1933                Cast: Arthur Riscoe, Naunton Wayne, Frnco Forester, Diana Napier, Pearl Osgood, Valeries Hobson
Director: Carmine Gallone
Producer: Frank Richardson
Synopsis: Light romantic musical comedy
77 minutes
Availability: Contact us 
Fun at St Fanny’s 1956
Cast: Fred Emney, Cardew Robinson, Vera Day, Miriam Karlin, Ronnie Corbett, Stanley Unwin, Kynaston Reeves, Claude Hulbert, Freddie Mills, Johnny Brandon, Davy Kaye, Gerald Campion., Carol Alexander
Director: Maurice Elvey
Producer: David Dent
Synopsis: Fabulous schoolboy comedy full of lots of corny jokes, evil villains, and pretty young girls.
The boys school version of ‘St Trinians’80 minutes
Availability: DVD and BFIplayer
  The Great Game 1953
Cast: Diana Dors, Thora Hird, Glyn Houston, James Hayter, Tommy Lawton, John Laurie (Dad’s Army)
Director: Maurice Elvey
Producer: David Dent
Synopsis: Drama / Comedy. Football in the 1950s and football politics of the time including the effect of the maximum wage cap for players. Features Diana Dors as stunning young secretary and Thora Hird in a rare romantic role.77 minutes
Availability: DVD and BFIplayer
Hands of Destiny 1954        Director: Tony Young

Producer: Grosvenor Films

Synopsis: Three true stories out of the casebook of Dr Josef Ranald, the World’s master hand Analyst. Fascinating drama documentary about palmistry. Includes studies of leading Nazi’s hands.53 minutes
Availability: BFIplayer.
The Happiness of Three Women (Wishing Well in the USA 1954            Cast: Petula Clark, Donald Houston, Glyn Houston, Eynon Evans, Brenda de Benzi, Patricia Cutts
Director: Maurice Elvey
Producer: David Dent
Synopsis: Lovely romantic comedy set in Wales and stars young Petula Clark. A really charming film about a match making postman, and the effect that disability has on a young war veteran and his fiancee, Petula Clark. 78 minutes
Availability: BFIplayer
He Done her Wrong 1953                Cast: Billy Gilbert, Anita Louise Margaret Hamilton Alan Mowbray Richard Cromwell Joyce Compton Buster Keaton Diane Fisher Hugh Herbert Charles Judels

Editor: Anderson

Synopsis: A film within a film. A silent film watched by a cinema audience.
59 minutes
Availability: Contact us 
High Jinks in Society 1949                Cast: Ben Wrigley, Moore Marriott, Jean Lodge, radio revellers, the Squadronairres Robert Director: Robert Jordan Hill

Producers: Robert Jordan Hill & John Guillermin

Synopsis: Comedy about class set in Mayfair.78 minutes
Availability: Contact us 
I Was a Dancer 1952                Cast: Diana Napier, John Oxford, Igor Bartzinski

Director: Frank Richardson

Producer: Frank Richardson

Synopsis: Crime drama about a ballerina.
50 minutes
Availability: Contact us 
Intimate Relations (Disobedient in USA)        1953                Cast: Harold Warrender, Ruth Dunning, Elsie Albin, Marian Spencer, William Russell

Director: Charles Frank

Producer: David Dent

Synopsis: A fascinating drama that explores family passions with shocking incestuous undertones based on Jean Cocteau’s play ‘Les Parents Terrible’. Considered outrageous on its release in 1953, the plot is of a neurotic mother loving her son so much that she does not care for her husband, the son in love with his father’s mistress, while the mother’s sister is secretly in love with the father. Was subjected to swingeing cuts by the censor in order to be assigned an X certificate.86 minutes
Availability: Contact us 
Is Your Honeymoon Really Necessary 1953                Cast: Diana Dors, Sidney James, David Tomlinson, Bonar Colleano
Director: Maurice Elvey
Producer: David Dent
Synopsis: Fabulous romantic bedroom farce Diana Dors at her sexiest most scintillating best to get her man (David Tomlinson) supported by Sid James with an American accent. A real gem of film which   was very successful on release and remains very popular today.80 minutes
Availability: DVD and BFIplayer.
Kilties are Coming, The 1952                Cast: McDonald Hobley, Peter Sinclair, The Royal Kiltie Juniors

Director: Robert Jordan Hill
Producer: Robert Jordan Hill

Synopsis: Variety by young Scottish band. This is an unusual film that is a strange mix of song and dance and documentary style interviews with the young performers and their families. Rare footage featuring McDonald Hobley (well known radio and TV presenter), Very dated and corny by today’s standards but provides a fascinating insight into sexist attitudes of the day.52 minutes
Availability: BFIplayer.
  Lads and Lassies on Parade 1951        Cast: The Royal Kiltie Juniors

Director: Robert Jordan Hill

Producer: Robert Jordan Hill

Synopsis: Variety by young Scottish band. A short film made from unused footage from ‘The Kilties Are Coming’11 minutes
Availability: Contact us 
Law and Disorder 1940                Cast: Alistair Sim, Diana Churchill, Leo Glenn ,Edward Chapman, Barry K Barnes
Director: KC Alexander, assist dir George Pollock.
Producer: David McDonald British Consolidated Pictures
Synopsis: Excellent WW2 Espionage comedy melodrama. A young lawyer, a soldier in uniform who exasperates his senior partner Alistair Sim by acting for enemy spies and getting them cleared on technicalities. But his real   motive is to infiltrate the gang and nail the head man.
74 minutes
Availability: BFIplayer. 
Let’s Go Crazy 1951                Cast: Peter Sellers Wallis Eaton, Betty Ankers, Monty and Austin, Freddie Mirfield and his band, Pat Kaye, Tommy Manley, Florence Austin, Keith Warwick

Director: Alan Cullimore

Synopsis: Wonderful madcap comedy short written and improvised by and starring Spike Milligan and Peter Sellers. A real gem as Peter Sellers takes on a multitude of roles including the dustman’s wife on a night out. The action takes place in a night club and includes some musical variety acts.
34 minutes
Availability: DVD and BFIplayer
Melody in the Dark 1949
Cast: Ben Wrigley, Eunice Gayson; Carl Carlisle and Maisie Weldon; The Keynotes; The Stardusters
Director: Robert Jordan Hill
Producers: Robert Jordan Hill & John Guillermin, Advent Films
Synopsis: A show team lose their jobs and go to the haunted house inherited by the leading lady. They put on a show and discover the imprisoned owner and the housekeeper’s villainy
67 minutes
Availability: Contact us 
Miss Tulip Stays the night 1955
Cast: Diana Dors, Cicely Courtneidge, Jack Hulbert, Patrick Holt, A.E. Matthews
Director: John O. DouglasProducer: Bill Luckwell
Synopsis: Excellent Comedy Thriller .with the stunning Diana Dors as the amateur detective who beats the police to solve the murder in her country holiday cottage.
68 minutes
Availability: DVD and BFIplayer.
My Death is a Mockery 1952                Cast: Donald Houston, Bill Kerr, Kathleen Byron

Director: Tony Young
Producer: David Dent

Synopsis: Excellent dark drama about crime and punishment and particularly capital punishment. A Naval Officer and his wife try to make money by smuggling brandy from France. The story is told in flashback from the condemned cell while the murderer waits to be hanged. There is an interesting story connected to Derek Bentley who was the last man hanged in the UK. Christopher Craig aged 16 was convicted of murder of a policeman with Derek Bentley. Bentley did not pull the trigger but said ‘ let him have it Chris’ and Bentley was hung as Craig was under age. Craig saw this film in the cinema the afternoon of the murder and it was said at the trial the film encouraged him to violence. The film was withdrawn and has not been seen publicly since then.80 minutes
Availability: Contact us 
My Wife’s Lodger 1952                Cast: Diana Dors, Dominic Roche
Director: Maurice ElveyProducer: David Dent
Synopsis: Entertaining comedy about northern working class family. The husband returns from the war to find his children grown up and his wife too friendly with the lodger. Diana Dors tries to teach her father how to jitterbug.73 minutes
Availability: DVD and BFIplayer.
The Nitwits on Parade 1949                Cast: Max Bygraves, Sid Millward, Wally Stewart, Josephine and Payne, Men about Town, Norah Moody, Hope and Penny Calvert, Rex Ramer,

Director: Robert Jordan Hill
Producer: Arthur Dent

Synopsis: Comedy with music. Features fabulous slapstick comic band ‘The Nitwits’, led by Sid Millward which later found fame and fortune in Las Vegas. Max Bygraves second film following his debut in’ ‘Bless ‘em All’. There is another, shorter version of this film that has been intercut with scenes from Lets Go Crazy’24 minutes
Availability: Contact us 
Penny Points to Paradise 1951                Cast: Peter Sellers Spike Milligan, Alfred Marks, Harry Secombe, Bill Kerr, Freddie Frinton, Vicky Page, Paddy O’Neill
Director: Tony Young
Producer: Alan J Cullimore
Synopsis: Fabulous madcap comedy about a pools winner on holiday at the seaside, where gold digging girls, villains and fast talking salesmen try to part him from his money. Debut film for Peter Sellers and Spike Milligan. Sellers takes multiple comic parts. Released just prior to the Goon Show start on BBC radio.
77 minutes
Availability: DVD and BFIplayer
  The Phantom Shot 1947                Cast: John Stuart, Olga Lindo, Howard Marion-Crawford, Louise Lord, Ronald Adam, John Varley, Cyril Conway, Jock McKay, Leslie Armstron

Director: Mario Zampi, International Talking Pictures

Synopsis: Murder mystery. This is a unique British film which interacts with the audience to ask them to solve the murder mystery crime story. A hated country gentleman is murdered, and the inspector on the case takes the viewer through his thoughts about the possible murderer and motives as he questions everyone concerned.
49 minutes
Availability: Contact us 
A Ray of Sunshine 1950
Cast: Wilson Keppel and Betty, Ted Ray, Lucille Gaye, Janet brown, Ivy Benson and her All Girls Orchestra, Freddy Bamberger and Pam, Robert Morton Fraser’s Harmonica Gang.Director:  Horace Shepherd
Producer: Horace Shepherd
Synopsis: Rare footage of British variety artistes including Wilson Keppel and Betty, and Ivy Benson and her All Girls Band. Ted Ray comperes plus many other top variety acts. A nostalgic look at the lost days of British variety. Wonderful routines from stars of the day, including exotic fan dancer, many of whom are still well known with niche followings.56 minutes
Availability: Contact us 
Skimpy in the Navy 1949
Cast: Max Bygraves, Hal Monty, Les Ritchie, Averil AngersDirector: Maurice Elvey
Producer: David Dent
Synopsis: Navy comedy, sequel to Bless ‘Em All.
86 minutes
Availability: Contact us 
The Slappiest Days of our Lives 1953
Cast: Peter Sellers, Graham Stark( both do uncredited voice over) Laurel and Hardy, Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd, James Finlayson,Editor: Hilary Long (editor)
Script: RA Bradford
Synopsis: Extracts from Max Sennett’s silent comedies. Comic voiceover by Peter Sellers and Graham Stark (uncredited)73 minutes
Availability: DVD and BFIplayer
Song of Paris (Bachelor in Paris in USA)        1952        Cast: Dennis Price, Anne Vernon, Mischa Auer, Hermione Badeley, Brian Worth, Richard Wattis Director: John Guillermin

Producer: Roger Proudlock

Synopsis: Lovely romantic comedy. Wonderful send up of the British attitude to foreigners in the 1950s, the feckless indolent French and the dastardly Count with designs on the fair maiden saved by the upstanding and charming English Gentleman.
83 minutes
Availability: DVD and BFIplayer
Stars in Your Eyes 1956                Cast: Pat Kirkwood, Bonar Colleano, Nat Jackley, Jimmy Clitheroe, Freddie Frinton, Joan Sims, Dorothy Squires Gerald Harper,   Jack Jackson, Joan Sims, Vera Day.

Director: Maurice Elvey

Producer: David Dent

Synopsis: Fabulous blockbuster musical comedy, colour and widescreen. Fabulous cast including Dorothy Squires only appearance on the big screen. As the world of vaudeville gradually loses its attraction, more and more entertainers are losing their jobs. In hopes of fixing their financial problems, a group of entertainers band together and buy a run-down theatre to attract customers by showcasing their various talents on the grand opening night. Along the way their show is threatened by a gang of crooks but the show finishes successfully with each entertainer given a happy ending. Lovely romance is provided by Dorothy Squires and Bonar Colleano.96 minutes
Availability: Contact us 
The Tell-Tale Heart 1953                Cast: Stanley Baker (there is only one actor)

Director: JB Williams

Producers: IG Goldsmith and Fred Goldsmith

Synopsis: Based on the Edgar Allan Poe Story (NB this is not the same version as the film of the same year and the same title starring James Mason)20 minutes
Availability: Contact us 
Torment (Paper Gallows in USA)        1949                Cast: Dermot Walsh, Rona Anderson, John Bentley, Dilys Laye
Director: John Guillermin
Producer: John GuillerminScript: John Guillermin
Synopsis: A   terrific dark thriller and lots of suspense. A story of two brothers, both writers of crime novels, one a fine, upstanding gentleman and the other a moody, neurotic, psychopath. The other is determined to create a ‘faked’ version of a perfect crime he intends to commit when an ex-convict visits them. They are both in love with their shared-stenographer-secretary. directed by John Guillermin who went on to a long and successful Hollywood career with ‘Towering Inferno’, ‘Death on the Nile’ and many more.65 / 78 minutes
Availability: BFIplayer 
What Every Woman Wants 1954                Cast: Brian Rix, Prunella Scales, Joan Hickson, Brenda de Banzie, Elsie Albin, Joan Sims Patrick Doonan
Director: Maurice Elvey
Producer: David Dent
Synopsis: Drama set in a northern town at a time of industrial unrest and Trade Union action, this is about a newlywed couple with no home of their own. Forced to live with parents, the young marrieds are never permitted a moment’s privacy. Complicating matters is the arrival of returning soldier Jim Barnes, whom the husband regards as a romantic rival. There is a local labour dispute which results in several heated family arguments.86 minutes
Availability: BFIplayer 
You Lucky People 1955                Cast: Tommy Trinder, Dora Bryan, Mary Parker, Rolf Harris, Max Bygraves (uncredited)
Director: Maurice Elvey
Producer: David Dent
Synopsis: Terrific army comedy with a fabulous cast. The first widescreen film in the UK. Was a great box office success on its release with huge appeal for the post WW2 generation.79 minutes
Availability: DVD and BFIplayer
   

Stars from the fifties