John Edward Boulting and Roy Alfred Clarence Boulting, known collectively as the Boulting brothers, were English filmmakers and identical twins who became known for their series of satirical comedies in the 1950s and 1960s. They produced many of their films through their own production company, Charter Film Productions, which they founded in 1937.
Electra, also spelt Elektra, is one of the most popular mythological characters in tragedies. She is the main character in two Greek tragedies, Electra by Sophocles and Electra by Euripides. She is also the central figure in plays by Aeschylus, Alfieri, Voltaire, Hofmannsthal, and Eugene O'Neill. She is a vengeful soul in The Libation Bearers, the second play of Aeschylus' Oresteia trilogy. She plans out an attack with her brother to kill their mother, Clytemnestra.
Ian Gillett Carmichael, was an English actor who worked prolifically on stage, screen and radio in a career that spanned seventy years. Born in Kingston upon Hull, in the East Riding of Yorkshire, he trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, but his studies—and the early stages of his career—were curtailed by the Second World War. After his demobilisation he returned to acting and found success, initially in revue and sketch productions.
National Velvet is a novel by Enid Bagnold (1889–1981), first published in 1935. It was illustrated by Laurian Jones, Bagnold's daughter, who was born in 1921. The novel tells the story of a teenaged girl who wins a horse racing competition. It was a best-seller, and adapted into a highly successful 1944 film and a 1960-62 television series.
Ian Edmund Bannen was a Scottish actor with a long career in film, on stage, and on television. He was nominated for an Academy Award for his performance in The Flight of the Phoenix (1965), the first Scottish actor to receive the honour, as well as two BAFTA Film Awards for his performances in Sidney Lumet's The Offence (1973) and John Boorman's Hope and Glory (1987).
Thorley Swinstead Walters was an English character actor. He is probably best remembered for his comedy film roles such as in Two-Way Stretch and Carlton-Browne of the FO.
A recurring theme in the literary, theatrical, and film tradition of comedy is the use of stock characters representing authority figures, designed to poke fun at officialdom by showing that its members are not immune to entanglement in the ridiculous. This is an old tradition, well illustrated in works such as Chaucer's Canterbury Tales and Voltaire's Candide. This practice arises in part from the desire of those subject to the power of those in authority to use any available means of limiting this power by demonstrating that the authority figure is just as subject to mockery as those lacking power. This represents "the attempt to use aggression to protect oneself from engulfment, impingement or humiliation by diminishing the perceived power and threat of the other", an effort which often takes the form of caricature of those in authority.
Mutz Greenbaum, sometimes credited as Max Greene or Max Greenbaum, was a German film cinematographer.
Luciana Paluzzi is an Italian actress. She is perhaps best known for playing SPECTRE assassin Fiona Volpe in the fourth James Bond film, Thunderball, but she had important roles in notable films of the 1960s and 1970s in both the Italian film industry and Hollywood, including Chuka, The Green Slime, 99 Women, Black Gunn, The Klansman and The Sensuous Nurse.
Hercules is a 1958 Italian sword-and-sandal film based upon the Hercules and the Quest for the Golden Fleece myths. The film stars Steve Reeves as the titular hero and Sylva Koscina as his love interest Princess Iole. Hercules was directed by Pietro Francisci and produced by Federico Teti. The film spawned a 1959 sequel, Hercules Unchained, that also starred Reeves and Koscina.
British Lion Films is a film production and distribution company active under several forms since 1919. Originally known as British Lion Film Corporation Ltd, it entered receivership on 1 June 1954. From 29 January 1955 to 1976, the company was known as British Lion Films Ltd, and was a pure distribution company.
Anthony Harvey was an English filmmaker who began his career as a teenage actor, was a film editor in the 1950s and moved into directing in the mid-1960s. Harvey had fifteen film credits as an editor, and he directed thirteen films. The second film that Harvey directed, The Lion in Winter (1968), earned him a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Director. Harvey's career is also notable for his recurring work with a number of leading actors and directors including Terry-Thomas, Peter Sellers, Katharine Hepburn, Peter O'Toole, Richard Attenborough, Liv Ullman, Sam Waterston, Nick Nolte, the Boulting Brothers, Anthony Asquith, Bryan Forbes and Stanley Kubrick. He died in November 2017 at the age of 87.
Run for the Sun is a 1956 American Technicolor thriller adventure film released by United Artists, the third film to officially be based on Richard Connell's classic 1924 suspense story, "The Most Dangerous Game", after both RKO's The Most Dangerous Game (1932), and their remake, A Game of Death (1945). This version stars Richard Widmark, Trevor Howard, and Jane Greer, and was directed by Ray Boulting from a script written by Boulting and Dudley Nichols. Connell was credited for his short story.
Barbie as the Island Princess is a 2007 animated musical film and the eleventh installment in the film series based on Mattel's Barbie toyline. The only entry animated by Mainframe Studios as Rainmaker Animation, the film stars the voice of Kelly Sheridan.
Margaret Brackenbury Lacey was a British character actress and ballet teacher. She appeared in over 30 films between 1957 and 1985, usually playing a sweet old lady or motherly figure in minor roles.
Michael Ward was an English character actor who appeared in nearly eighty films between 1947 and 1978.
Thunder Rock is a 1942 British drama film directed by Roy Boulting and starring Michael Redgrave and Barbara Mullen, with James Mason and Lilli Palmer in supporting roles. It was based on Robert Ardrey's 1939 play Thunder Rock.
The Snake Woman is a low budget black-and-white 1961 British horror film directed by Sidney J. Furie and starring Susan Travers and John McCarthy. It was produced by George Fowler. The film is set in a small English village at the turn of the 20th century. It tells the story of Atheris, a young woman who has the power to transform from human to cobra, and the Scotland Yard detective sent to investigate a series of deaths, unusual because all the victims died after being bitten by snakes that are not native to the UK.
John Edward Flowers "Jeffrey" Dell was a British writer, screenwriter, and film director. He is also remembered for his 1939 novel Nobody Ordered Wolves, a satire on the British film industry. His other novels include News for Heaven (1944) and The Hoffmann Episode (1954). He co-wrote the 1937 play Blondie White, later adapted into a Hollywood film. Dell was the son of John Edward Dell (1875–1936) and Gertrude Dell.
John Glyn-Jones was a British stage, radio, television and film actor.
