
Dora Bryan
Actor · 1923 – 2014 · Parbold, Lancashire, England, UK
Dora May Bryan OBE was an English actress of stage, film and television. Born Dora May Broadbent, her career began in pantomime as a child actor. In World War II she joined the ENSA in Italy to entertain British troops. After having established herself as a versatile stage actress, covering everything from drama and comedy to musicals, she started to appear in film in the late 1940s, and in 1968 she even had her own TV series, "According to Dora". At one point in her career she was Britain's highest-paid star. She was active on stage until the mid 1990s and continued to work in film and television until 2005, when she finally had to give up the acting profession as she could no longer remember her lines. Her autobiography According To Dora was published in 1987. In 1996, she was awarded an OBE in recognition of her services to acting and the same year she was also awarded the Laurence Olivier Award for her role in the West End production of the Harold Pinter play "The Birthday Party". She was married to British cricket player Bill Lawton from 1954 to his death in 2008. She lived in a nursing home in Hove, outside Brighton, until her death in 2014.
Movies23
Movie6.4FantasyIn a fantasy world of opposing kingdoms, a 15-year old girl must find the fabled MirrorMask in order to save the kingdom and get home.
MirrorMask
2005 · 377 votes
Movie7.3CrimeDramaBelfast police conduct a door-to-door manhunt for an IRA gunman wounded in a daring robbery.
Odd Man Out
1947 · 233 votes
Movie6.7ThrillerDramaIn a rundown area of Buenos Aires, at the dawn of the 1980s, Adrian LeDuc owns both a struggling movie theater and a shabby apartment building filled with eccentric, squabbling tenants. To make ends meet, Adrian takes in a roommate, Jack Carney, but soon begins to suspect that the quiet American is responsible for a series of political assassinations that are rocking the city.
Apartment Zero
1989 · 63 votes
Movie6.2HorrorThrillerA series of murders occur that mirror those committed by the Whitechapel Ripper. Through his experiments with psychoanalysis Dr Pritchard discovers a deadly violence in one of his young female patients. As he delves into the recesses of her mind he uncovers that Anna is possessed by her dead father's spirit, willing her to commit acts of gruesome savagery over which she has no control. But the most chilling revelation of all is the identity of her father: Jack the Ripper himself.
Hands of the Ripper
1971 · 81 votes
Movie7.1DramaWhile out to avoid spending time with her narcissistic and promiscuous mother, sixteen-year-old Jo has a brief affair that leaves her pregnant and abandoned. When her mother remarries, Jo's only support becomes her friend Geoffrey, a homosexual.
A Taste of Honey
1961 · 118 votes
Movie7.0DramaThrillerJames Stewart plays aeronautical engineer Theodore Honey, the quintessential absent-minded professor: eccentric, forgetful, but brilliant. His studies show that the aircraft being manufactured by his employer has a subtle but deadly design flaw that manifests itself only after the aircraft has flown a certain number of hours. En route to a crash site to prove his theory, Honey discovers that he is aboard a plane rapidly approaching his predicted deadline.
No Highway in the Sky
1951 · 66 votes
- Movie7.0Documentary
Hello London is a 1958 documentary film starring Sonja Henie and Michael Wilding.
Hello London
1960 · 2 votes
Movie7.2DramaThrillerPhillipe, the son of an ambassador in London, hero-worships his father's butler Baines. His perception of the man changes when he accidentally discovers the secret that Baines keeps and witnesses the consequences that adults' lies can cause.
The Fallen Idol
1948 · 200 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
Movie6.4ComedyWarSergeant Grimshawe wants to retire in the flush of success by winning the Star Squad prize with his very last platoon of newly called-up National Servicemen. But a motley bunch they turn out to be, and it's up to Grimshawe to put the no-hopers through their paces.
Carry On Sergeant
1958 · 76 votes
Movie5.2DramaTale of Cambridge college exploits of two smash-and-grab thieves on the run.
Scarlet Thread
1951 · 8 votes
Movie6.3CrimeDramaAmerican scientist Dr. Frank Smith is brought to Britain to help the C.I.A. There is a defecting East block scientist they want him to debrief. The commies are less than amused and set Dr. Smith up for a murder.
The Man Who Wouldn't Talk
1958 · 9 votes
Movie6.2ComedyCrimeThe all-girl school foil an attempt by train robbers to recover £2.5 million hidden in their school.
The Great St Trinian's Train Robbery
1966 · 27 votes
Movie6.5ComedyA man with a sandwich-board (advert) wanders around London meeting many strange characters.
The Sandwich Man
1966 · 8 votes
Movie6.2CrimeMysteryIn 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.
Movie6.6CrimeThrillerP.C. George Dixon is a long-serving traditional copper who is due to retire shortly. He takes a new recruit under his aegis and introduces him to the easy-going night beat. Dixon is a classic ordinary hero but also anachronistic, unprepared and unable to answer the violence of the 1950s.
The Blue Lamp
1950 · 64 votes
Movie7.6CrimeWarWhen Ex Colonel Merton discovers a burglar ransacking his home, he is shocked to find out that the thief is a former soldier from his tank regiment. When the thief escapes, Merton tries to contact former members of the regiment, in order to find out what set the thief on the road to crime.
The Intruder
1953 · 7 votes
Movie6.6AdventureWarCompton Bennett's war drama The Gift Horse follows the fortunes of ageing destroyer The Ballantrae and her crew from the time they come together in 1940 until the climactic raid on occupied St Nazaire in 1942. Trevor Howard plays Lt Cmdr Hugh Alginon Fraser, the newly appointed captain, back in service after having left the navy following a court martial.
Gift Horse
1952 · 23 votes
Movie5.9WarDuring WW2, German ships are "safely" docked upriver at Bordeaux, but the British send a team of kayakers to attack them.
The Cockleshell Heroes
1955 · 34 votes
Movie7.0RomanceComedyA handsome gambler unwittingly becomes guardian of an orphaned, teenaged girl.
Adam and Evelyne
1949 · 8 votes
Movie7.5MusicComedyThe suburban peace of the Bentley household is shattered when John Bentley is informed by his wife Stella that their two married daughters, Pat and Corrine, are in trouble and need funds to come home and bring their husbands, Peter, a penniless Parisian artist, and Barnaby, a Texas cowboy, with them. And the youngest daughter, Gwen, has tricked an American singer, Bobby Denver, into visiting them on the pretext that it is the home of a noted British film magnate. When all the women in the household – including the maid – fall for the singer's charms, Bentley consults a crackpot psychiatrist, Dr. Schneider, who almost succeeds in ousting not the singer but Bentley's wife, with his advice to Bentley to make her jealous by living it up with Pearl, a showgirl recruited for the purpose.
As Long as They're Happy
1955 · 4 votes
Movie7.0FantasyDramaSurreal drama about seven old people living in the same bed, by Jim Cartwright.
Bed
1995 · 1 votes
Movie6.5FantasyComedyFlirtatious mermaid Miranda swaps places with a schoolteacher who has gone on holiday. All is well until she falls in love with a human.
Mad About Men
1954 · 21 votes
Series17
TV6.2DramaSoapDrama series about the staff and patients at Holby City Hospital's emergency department, charting the ups and downs in their personal and professional lives.
Casualty
1986 · 88 votes
TV4.8SoapDramaSet in the fictional Midlands town of Letherbridge, defined as being close to the city of Birmingham, this soap opera follows the staff and families of a doctor's surgery.
Doctors
2000 · 46 votes
TV7.2ComedyUnencumbered by wives, jobs or any other responsibilities, three senior citizens who've never really grown up explore their world in the Yorkshire Dales. They spend their days speculating about their fellow townsfolk and thinking up adventures not usually favored by the elderly. Last of the Summer Wine premiered as an episode of Comedy Playhouse in 1973. The show ran for 295 episodes until 2010. It is the longest running comedy Britain has produced and the longest running sitcom in the world.
Last of the Summer Wine
1973 · 41 votes
TV7.2CrimeDramaSet during the 1960s in the fictional North Yorkshire village of Aidensfield, this enduringly popular series interweaves crime and medical storylines.
Heartbeat
1992 · 33 votes
TV5.3Talk ShowAn Audience with... is a British entertainment television show produced by London Weekend Television, in which a host, usually a singer or comedian, performs for an invited audience of celebrity guests, interspersed with questions from the audience, in a light hearted revue/tribute style.
An Audience with...
1978 · 3 votes
TV6.3DramaAn anthology series of various plays and dramatic performances.
Performance
1991 · 2 votes
TV6.4ComedyKidsThe Sooty Show is a British children's Puppet series which aired on the BBC from 1955 to 1967 and ITV from 1968 to 1992. It follows the adventures and comedic day to day life of puppets Sooty, Sweep and Soo with their owner Harry Corbett, and in later years, his son Matthew.
The Sooty Show
1955 · 9 votes
TV7.6ComedySet in the world of fashion and PR, immature fun-loving mother Edina Monsoon and her best friend Patsy drive Eddie's sensible daughter, Saffron, up the wall with their constant drug abuse and outrageous selfishness. Numerous in-jokes and heavy doses of cruel humour have made this series a cult hit in the UK and abroad.
Absolutely Fabulous
1992 · 195 votes
TV7.0NewsDocumentaryWorld in Action was Granada Television’s flagship ITV current affairs series, running from 7 Jan 1963 to 7 Dec 1998, and built a reputation for film-led investigative reporting and a forceful editorial stance. Its journalism produced major public and political repercussions—including investigations associated with miscarriages of justice such as the Birmingham Six—and it also served as a platform for landmark documentary projects, including the first broadcast of “Seven Up!” as part of the strand in 1964.
World in Action
1963 · 2 votes
TV7.5ComedyFrank Stubbs (Timothy Spall) is a down-at-heel ticket tout with grand ideas. He has an ambition to become a 'high class' promoter of famous and talented performers. In reality, his ambitions tend to outstrip his capabilities.
Frank Stubbs Promotes
1993 · 2 votes
TV7.5ComedyDinnerladies is a BBC sitcom written by and starring Victoria Wood that chronicles the antics of a group of workers in a canteen in the north of England. Bren tries to maintain a semblance of order in amongst the chaos, while dealing with the canteen supervisor, slightly sex-obsessed cancer sufferer Tony. Dolly and Jean are the bickering menopausal older women, always at odds but best friends beneath it all. Then there's thick-as-two-short-planks Anita, and the terminally uninterested Twinkle, more concerned with having a good time than anything else. Making up the motley crew are military man handyman Stan, all rules and regulations, and ditzy Philippa, who never seems to get anything right.
dinnerladies
1998 · 37 votes
TV7.4ComedyHippies is a 1999 BBC Two comedy miniseries created by Graham Linehan and Arthur Mathews, and written by Mathews. The six-episode series stars Simon Pegg, Julian Rhind-Tutt, Sally Phillips, and Darren Boyd as four wannabe hippies in 1969 swinging London, who run a counterculture magazine and strive to be as trendy as society will allow... even if they fail at every turn.
Hippies
1999 · 14 votes
TVDramaA BBC television series of forty-five-minute excerpts from stage plays running in London.
Theatre Night
1957
TV6.8ComedyOn the Up is a British sitcom written by Bob Larbey about a self-made millionaire and his staff of domestic helpers who he treats like family, much to the annoyance of his upper class wife. The show ran for three series, from 1990 to 1992.
On the Up
1990 · 6 votes
TV7.0MysteryComedyEccentric psychology professor Dr John Cornelius solves technologically-charged crimes with his partner Samantha Valentine, police contact Inspector Cadogan, and his HOD Professor Owen Griffiths.
Virtual Murder
1992 · 3 votes
- TV8.0Comedy
Both Ends Meet
1972 · 1 votes
- TV7.0Comedy
Leslie Flitcroft runs a small health food store ambiguously called 'Nurse Nature'. He plans to run away with his lady friend, Wendy Watson but is continually thwarted by his domineering mother Kitty. Leslie is constantly at loggerheads with his mother.
Mother's Ruin
1994 · 2 votes