
Alastair Sim
Actor · 1900 – 1976 · Edinburgh, Scotland, UK
Alastair George Bell Sim, CBE (9 October 1900 – 19 August 1976) was a Scottish character actor who appeared in a string of classic British films. He is best remembered in the role of Ebenezer Scrooge in the 1951 film Scrooge, and for his portrayal of Miss Fritton, the headmistress in two St. Trinian's films. He was famously described by comedian Ronnie Corbett as a "sad-faced actor, with the voice of a fastidious ghoul", in Corbett's autobiography High Hopes. Description above from the Wikipedia article Alastair Sim, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Movies24
Movie6.8ThrillerA struggling actress tries to help a friend prove his innocence when he's accused of murdering the husband of a high-society entertainer.
Stage Fright
1950 · 378 votes
Movie7.4FantasyDramaEbenezer Scrooge malcontentedly shuffles through life as a cruel, miserly businessman, until he is visited by three spirits on Christmas Eve who show him how his unhappy childhood and adult behavior has left him a selfish, lonely old man.
Scrooge
1951 · 382 votes
Movie6.4ComedyDramaWhen the Earl of Gurney dies in a cross-dressing accident, his schizophrenic son, Jack, inherits the Gurney estate. Jack is not the average nobleman; he sings and dances across the estate and thinks he is Jesus reincarnated. Believing that Jack is mentally unfit to own the estate, the Gurney family plots to steal Jack's inheritance. As their outrageous schemes fail, the family strives to cure Jack of his bizarre behavior, with disastrous results.
The Ruling Class
1972 · 102 votes
Movie7.0ComedyCrimeUnknown to everyone but his shady Middle Eastern bosses, watchmaker Hawkins is actually a professional hired assassin with a predilection for killing his targets with bombs. After disposing of a dictator and millionaire, Hawkins is assigned to kill a politician who is heading to a remote hotel, The Green Man, for a secret tryst with his secretary. There, however, Hawkins' plot is discovered by vacuum salesman William Blake, who determines to stop him.
The Green Man
1956 · 39 votes
Movie5.3ComedyRomanceWhen her father dies, Epifania Parerga, an Italian in London, becomes the world's richest woman. She feels incomplete without a husband and falls in love with a humble, Indian physician, Ahmed el Kabir, much loved by his indigent English patients.
The Millionairess
1960 · 42 votes
Movie6.5DramaWarIn 1939, Sir Robert Thorndyke takes aim at Adolf Hitler with a high powered rifle, but the shot misses its mark. Captured and tortured by the Gestapo and left for dead, Sir Robert makes his way back to England where he discovers the Gestapo has followed him. Knowing that his government would turn him over to German authorities, Sir Robert goes underground in his battle with his pursuers.
Rogue Male
1976 · 23 votes
Movie6.5DramaComedyFour doctors face a serious dilemma when the beautiful wife of a TB-stricken artist begs one of them to cure her brilliant, but amoral, husband.
The Doctor's Dilemma
1959 · 9 votes
Movie5.9ComedyMarjory Clark wins a competition in her Midland town and finds herself in a Festival of Britain procession as Lady Godiva - though not in the buff. This leads by way of a suspect beauty competition to the show-business world of London. But it could be a slippery slope for simple home-town Marge.
Lady Godiva Rides Again
1951 · 10 votes
Movie6.7MysteryCrimeIn the midst of Nazi air raids, a postman dies on the operating table at a rural hospital. But was the death accidental?
Green for Danger
1946 · 104 votes
Movie5.9AdventureComedyCowardly rogue Harry Flashman's (Malcolm McDowell) schemes to gain entry to the royal circles of 19th-century Europe go nowhere until he meets a pair of devious nobles with their own agenda. At their urging, Flashman agrees to re-create himself as a bogus Prussian nobleman to woo a beautiful duchess. But the half-baked plan quickly comes unraveled, and he's soon on the run from several new enemies who are all calling for the rapscallion's head.
Royal Flash
1975 · 31 votes
Movie6.8ComedyWith their headmistress under lock and key in her majesty's prison, the St Trinian's girls find themselves under the protection of the army. However, when the sixth form take a fancy to winning a trip to Italy through means fair or foul, the army discover this is one battle they can't win. Let loose in Europe, it is not long before St Trinian's have succeeded in endangering European relations.
Blue Murder at St. Trinian's
1957 · 31 votes
Movie7.0DramaClassic British drama about the residents of a large terrace house in London between Christmas 1938 and September 1939. Percy Boon lives with his mother in a shared rented house with an assortment of characters in central London. Although well intentioned, he becomes mixed up with gangsters and murder. The story focuses on the effects this has on Percy and the other residents.
London Belongs to Me
1948 · 15 votes
Movie5.6ComedyDramaAn English pacifist's (John Mills) sons run away from school and hijack a plane to Vienna to petition for peace.
Escapade
1955 · 9 votes
Movie6.7ComedyA newly-arrived army chaplain is put in charge of camp entertainment and has the idea of putting on a Brains Trust with local notables. Unfortunately for him, it emerges from a question on the rights and wrongs of marriage that there is more going on between three of the panelists than he wants to know about - though the audience obviously thinks differently.
Folly to Be Wise
1952 · 11 votes
Movie6.4ComedyThe unruly schoolgirls of St Trinian's are more interested in men and mischief than homework and hockey. But greater trouble than ever beckons when the arrival at the school of Princess Fatima of Makyad coincides with the return of recently expelled Arabella Fritton, who has the kidnap of a prize racehorse on her mind.
The Belles of St Trinian's
1954 · 62 votes
Movie7.2CrimeDramaAn upper-crust family dinner is interrupted by a police inspector who brings news that a girl known to everyone present has died in suspicious circumstances. It seems that any or all of them could have had a hand in her death. But who is the mysterious Inspector and what can he want of them?
An Inspector Calls
1954 · 112 votes
Movie5.2ComedyRomantic comedy about a group of Britons flying to Paris for the weekend.
Innocents in Paris
1953 · 17 votes
Movie7.2AnimationDramaMiser Ebenezer Scrooge is awakened on Christmas Eve by spirits who reveal to him his own miserable existence, what opportunities he wasted in his youth, his current cruelties, and the dire fate that awaits him if he does not change his ways. Scrooge is faced with his own story of growing bitterness and meanness, and must decide what his own future will hold: death or redemption.
A Christmas Carol
1971 · 59 votes
Movie7.2DramaHistoryIn 19th-century Ireland, when poverty-stricken tenants dispossessed by greedy landowner Captain Charles Boycott band together to assert their rights, patriotic farmer Hugh Davin leads the rebels. Choosing nonviolent resistance, the villagers ostracise their nemesis, who squanders his fortune to repair his ruined reputation and wagers what's left on a horse race.
Captain Boycott
1947 · 10 votes
Movie6.9ComedyHapless Henry Palfrey is patronised by his self-important chief clerk at work, ignored by restaurant waiters, conned by shady second-hand car salesmen, and, worst of all, endlessly wrong-footed by unspeakably rotten cad Raymond Delauney who has set his cap at April, new love of Palfrey's life. In desperation Henry enrolls at the College of Lifemanship to learn how to best such bounders and win the girl.
School for Scoundrels
1960 · 73 votes
Movie6.9FamilyDramaWhen the owner of a Yorkshire coal-mine decides to mechanize to increase profits, the mine's pit ponies are scheduled to be destroyed. So, three children plan to steal them to keep them safe. But when they're caught, it's up to the mine owners and the miners themselves to decide what's right.
The Littlest Horse Thieves
1976 · 13 votes
Movie6.1ComedyRomanceAt the Earndale by-election natural history expert and TV personality Bob Wilcot for the Conservatives finds himself up against Billingsgate girl Stella Stoker for the socialists. Amateur politician against committed activist. But could it become boy-who-fancies-girl against girl-who-fancies-boy? The party agents are soon colluding against such a disaster.
Left Right and Centre
1959 · 14 votes
Movie6.7ThrillerMysteryAllied 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 · 23 votes
Movie6.7ComedyNutbourne College, an old established, all-boys, boarding school is told that another school is to be billeted with due to wartime restrictions. The shock is that it's an all-girls school that has been sent. The two head teachers are soon battling for the upper hand with each other and the Ministry. But a crisis (or two) forces them to work together.
The Happiest Days of Your Life
1950 · 43 votes
Series4
TV6.6DramaPlay for Today is a British television anthology drama series, produced by the BBC and transmitted on BBC1 from 1970 to 1984. During the run, more than three hundred programmes, featuring original television plays, and adaptations of stage plays and novels, were transmitted. The individual episodes were between fifty and a hundred minutes in duration.
Play for Today
1970 · 10 votes
- TV5.1
The BBC's flagship cinema review TV program featuring reviews of new releases, news items and interviews. The title of the program changes each year to incorporate the year of broadcast.
Film '72
1971 · 8 votes
- TV7.0Comedy
A court that is frequently presided over by the increasingly amused Mr Justice Swallow and Mr Haddock's long-suffering adversary Sir Joshua Hoot QC.
Misleading Cases
1967 · 2 votes
TV8.0Adaptation of Stella Gibbons's comic novel of the same name. Following the death of her parents, 20-year-old Flora Poste (Sarah Badel) finds herself alone with insubstantial means in 1930s London. Fascinated by the little she knows of her distant relatives the Starkadders of Cold Comfort Farm in Sussex, she goes to stay with her aunt Judith Starkadder (Rosalie Crutchley) and a colourful array of cousins. There she finds a variety of earthy, passionate relations, dominated by Great Aunt Ada Doom (Fay Compton) who long ago saw "something nasty in the woodshed" and now holds the rest of the household in thrall. Flora decides to put to rights the lives of all of them.
Cold Comfort Farm
1968 · 2 votes