
Richard Murdoch
Actor · 1907 – 1990 · Keston, Kent, England, UK
Richard Bernard Murdoch was educated at Charterhouse School in Surrey, and Pembroke College, Cambridge University. Whilst at university he participated in the Footlights Dramatic Club's performances. Murdoch's first appearance in cinema was as an uncredited dancing extra in 1932 film Looking on the Bright Side. In 1937 he was listed among the cast of the "Television Follies", an early BBC Television programme. He received his big professional break in the British Broadcasting Corporation's comedy radio programme Band Waggon in 1938 as part of a double act with the then rising star Arthur Askey, acquiring the nickname "Stinker" in mocking reference to his superior formal education. As Askey moved from radio performing into cinema at the end of the 1930s Murdoch went with him and they appeared in a number of Askey star vehicle films together, Murdoch's tall athletic physique, good looks and upper middle class English Home Counties demeanor contrasting comedically with Askey's short stature, homely appearance, Lancashire provincial accent and working class performance persona. Their working partnership broke up during World War 2 when Murdoch joined the Armed Forces, but they briefly reprised it in the late 1950s for the television series Living It Up. Murdoch was conscripted into the Royal Air Force in 1941, serving as a junior intelligence officer with Bomber Command, before being posted to the Department of Allied Air Force and Foreign Liaison as a Flight Lieutenant. In 1943 he joined the Directorate of Administrative Plans at the Air Ministry, where he shared an office with Wing Commander Kenneth Horne, being responsible for the supply of aircraft and air equipment to Russia. He finished the war with the rank of Squadron Leader.
Movies17
Movie5.6ComedyWhen a small British owned island in the Caribbean is invaded and the world's most dangerous terrorist kidnaps a member of the Royal family, the countdown to World War 3 begins. If anyone can prevent the oncoming apocalypse it's the American President, but her closest ally the British Prime Minister appears to have gone stark raving mad.
Whoops Apocalypse
1986 · 19 votes
Movie6.5DramaNow old, ill, poor, and largely forgotten, William Freise-Greene was once young and handsome William Green. He changed his name to include his first wife's for the photographic portrait work he excelled at. But he was also an inventor and his search for a way to project moving pictures became an obsession that ultimately changed the life of all those he loved.
The Magic Box
1952 · 25 votes
Movie7.3ComedyClassic comedy starring Arthur Askey. The perils, humiliations and humour of trying to run a second-rate theatrical company are further compounded when financial aid, given by the former famous music-hall star Lady Randall (Lily Morris), is withdrawn. Not to be defeated, the stars decide the show must go on and devise a plan to persuade her to reinvest
I Thank You
1941 · 7 votes
Movie6.1ComedyHorrorMismatched travellers are stranded overnight at a lonely rural railway station. They soon learn of local superstition about a phantom train which is said to travel these parts at dead of night, carrying ghosts from a long-ago train wreck in the area.
The Ghost Train
1941 · 36 votes
- MovieMysteryDrama
The reputation of the Academy for the Daughters of Respectable Monarchs has, of course, always been of the highest order... then suddenly Signor Doloro de Lara— a Professor of Magic—puts in an unwelcome appearance, and the enchanting little world is turned upside down.
Movie6.0CrimeDramaMurder drama set in Soho involving a police inspector, a newspaper reporter and a country girl.
It Happened in Soho
1948 · 3 votes
- Movie6.5Mystery
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 · 8 votes
Movie5.6ComedyCharley's (Big-Hearted) Aunt is a 1940 British comedy film directed by Walter Forde starring Arthur Askey and Richard Murdoch as Oxford 'scholars'. The film is one of many to be made based on the farce Charley's Aunt. Taking inspiration from a well-known Victorian play, a modern-day prankster poses as a wealthy woman in a ploy to prevent him and his friends from being expelled from college.
Charley's (Big-Hearted) Aunt
1940 · 7 votes
Movie5.7ComedyMusicA gang of spies held up in a haunted castle gives this team of celebrated British wireless comedians plenty of scope for laughs.
Band Waggon
1940 · 7 votes
Movie7.0ComedyOn a journey from Paris to London, a Briton, a Frenchman and an American bond with each other and indulge in a romantic fantasy about a girl they see.
Golden Arrow
1949 · 1 votes
Movie5.3ComedyTwo con-men just released from prison get straight back to their old tricks.
Strictly Confidential
1959 · 3 votes
Movie6.3DramaLilli Marlene, a French girl working as a bar maid in her uncle's café in Benghazi, Libya, turns out to be the girl that the popular German wartime song Lili Marleen had been written for before the war, so both the British and the Germans try to use her for propaganda purposes - especially as it turns out that she can sing as well. When the Germans kidnap her in Cairo and she starts appearing in radio broadcasts from Berlin, her British soldier friends think that she's joined the enemy. They couldn't be more wrong, because after the war it turns out that her songs over the radio contained secret messages to London from British agents in Berlin.
Lilli Marlene
1950 · 5 votes
Movie7.0ComedyGracie Fields' second film Looking on the Bright Side was a smash hit film of 1932. It contains a lot of her biggest hit songs of the period.
Looking on the Bright Side
1932 · 3 votes
- Movie8.0Comedy
The efforts of a female Customs Officer to challenge smugglers who hide illicit liquor in a steam roller.
Not a Hope in Hell
1960 · 1 votes
Movie8.0DocumentaryMusicA trip around the clubs, pubs and discotheques in London, England.
Under the Table You Must Go
1970 · 1 votes
Movie6.2ComedyMusicA young singer meets a man who is the victim of a kidnap plot, and is assumed by the gang to be his girlfriend.
One Exciting Night
1944 · 6 votes
Movie7.0MusicComedyThree friends plan to marry their sweethearts, but when the former fiancée of one of them shows up threatening breach of promise because she's after his aristocratic title, they must think on their toes and resurrect his dead uncle, leading to comedic chaos.
Over She Goes
1937 · 2 votes
Series7
TV7.6Action & AdventureCrimeThe 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 · 47 votes
TV8.0ComedyBlackadder traces the deeply cynical and self-serving lineage of various Edmund Blackadders throughout British history, from the muck of the Middle Ages to the frontline of The Great War.
Blackadder
1983 · 576 votes
TV7.1DramaComedyRumpole of the Bailey is a British television series created and written by the British writer and barrister John Mortimer. It stars Leo McKern as Horace Rumpole, an aging London barrister who defends any and all clients, and has been spun off into a series of short stories, novels, and radio programmes.
Rumpole of the Bailey
1975 · 24 votes
TV7.2DramaAction & AdventureThe New Avengers is a British secret agent fantasy adventure television series broadcast during 1976 and 1977. It is a sequel to the 1960s series The Avengers and was developed by Albert Fennell and Brian Clemens. A joint United Kingdom-France-Canada production, the show picks up the adventures of John Steed and his team of Avengers fighting evil plots and world domination. Whereas in the original series Steed had almost always been partnered with a woman, in the new series he had two partners: Mike Gambit, a top agent, crack marksman and trained martial artist, and Purdey, a former trainee with The Royal Ballet who was an amalgam of many of the best talents from Steed's previous female partners.
The New Avengers
1976 · 52 votes
TV5.2CrimeDramaHazell is a British television drama based on the novel series by Terry Venables and Gordon Williams (collectively known as P.B. Yuill), and starring Nicholas Bell as James Hazell, a 'smart parody' of Philip Marlowe and Sam Spade. The program ran for 2 series, from January 1978 to July 1979.
Hazell
1978 · 5 votes
TV6.5ComedyKidsMr Majeika is a wizard, sent to "Britland" from the planet Walpurgis because he failed his O-level sorcery exam for the seventeenth time. He drops into the sleepy village of Much Barty, finding a post at St Barty's School in sleepy UK.
Mr. Majeika
1988 · 2 votes
- TV7.0Comedy
Comedian Arthur Askey and his buddy Stinker reside in a flat on top of Associated-Rediffusion's Television House in Aldwych, getting into all sorts of comedic situations. The series was based on the BBC radio comedy Band Waggon. Produced for the ITV network by Associated-Rediffusion, all nine episodes survive in the archives.
Living It Up
1957 · 1 votes