John Singer

Erich Kästner’s beloved novel has been adapted for film or television six times since its publication in 1929; this 1935 British version was the first in English. Believed lost for decades, it was recently rediscovered by the BFI and has now been restored. The film moves the action from Berlin to London, where Emil goes to stay with his grandmother and cousin. Thereafter, the tale of Emil’s adventures with a gang of streetwise London children faithfully follows the original plot.

Moving family drama of the life of a working-class Hackney couple over 40 years, inspired by the famous music hall song This moving family drama - with time for some laughs - portrays the life and hardships of a working class Hackney couple over a span of 40 years. Our intrepid couple (wonderfully played by Betty Balfour and Michael Hogan) have to face everything life throws at them with fortitude, from the Great War (a son in the RAF and zeppelin raids) to a raging oil fire during the Great Strike. The inimitable Gordon Harker provides sterling support. The film the couple watch at the cinema is the 1915 version of My Old Dutch, starring Albert Chevalier (writer of the original music hall song) and Florence Turner. As the complete silent film is now believed to be lost, this 1934 version contains the only surviving footage.

Steven Sims is a diamond merchant who bullies his kindly hard-working clerk and disappoints his expectations when he takes into partnership an aristocratic ne'er-do-well.

It is England in the 1830s. London's dockside is teeming with ships and sailors who have made their fortune in foreign lands. Sweeney Todd, a Fleet Street barber, awaits the arrival of men whose first port of call is for a good, close shave. For most it will be the last time they are seen alive. Using a specially designed barber's chair, Sweeney Todd despatches his victims to the cellar below, where he robs them of their new found fortunes and chops their remains into small pieces. Meanwhile, Mrs Lovett is enjoying a roaring trade for her popular penny meat pies.

An evil prison administrator cruelly abuses the inmates at his prison, until one day the tables are turned.

A Cornish fishing village is struck by tragedy.

Unemployed car salesman Peter is encouraged by his girlfriend Cynthia to approach the head of a petrol company with his plan for making petrol stations more attractive to customers. When the man rejects the idea Peter joins a rival company and becomes a great success.

Made in commemoration and celebration of the Jubilee of King George V, this is the story of the first twenty-five years of his reign, told through the many travels of a penny that was minted in the year of his accession: 1910. Through a series of individual stories, Royal Cavalcade covers a period of striking change in every area of life – from the suffragette movement to the trenches of World War One, the effects of the Depression to single events such as the first ever Royal Command Performance, featuring Anna Pavlova and George Robey.

A former boxing champion, now an innkeeper, is accused of stealing a watch from a party of guests at his inn, who happen to be members of English royalty. The old man is arrested and thrown in prison. His son, knowing that his father didn't steal the watch and suspecting a frame-up, follows the royal party to London, where he poses as a wealthy "gentleman" and insinuates himself into the English court in an effort to find out who framed his father and why.

With a title like Jack's the Boy, is it any surprise that the star of this breezy quota quickie is British music-hall favorite Jack Hulbert? The star plays the son of a celebrated Scotland Yard detective, who joins the force in hopes of following his father's footsteps. Unfortunately, Jack is something of a screw-up, and before long he has become the laughing stock of the force.

The tragic story of Lady Jane Grey, the young queen who reigned in England for nine days before she was executed.

A joyful medley of farce, romance, song and slapstick starring Stanley Lupino as an impressionable youth whose pursuit of an opera singer’s niece lands him in trouble!

In England, an eccentric police inspector, an earnest test pilot and a spunky female reporter team up to solve the mystery of a series of test aircraft which have disappeared without a trace while over the ocean on their maiden flights; unaware, as they are, that a spy ring has been shooting the planes down with a ray machine hidden aboard a salvage vessel which is on hand to haul the downed aircraft aboard, crews and all.

The year is 1940 and tension is growing between the empires of United Europe and the Atlantic States. A bloody border incident puts both sides on high alert.

This lively comedy of 1933 provided an early film role for Leslie Fuller, and sees the wildly popular, rubber-faced actor and entertainer – once touted as Elstree's own Clark Gable – playing identical twins with very different ambitions: one is a policeman who longs to join a circus, the other a farm hand who wants to be a policeman!

It is love at first sight between Juliet and Allan as they catch sight of each other on passing trains. Allan has his song-writing friend Bill to write a song of the incident and he has it broadcast. Juliet, through the hints provided in the song, responds and comes to Allan's home, where he is working on a safety-match invention.

Two teenage gang members are forced to be page boys at a hotel where a criminal gang are operating.

Comedy of an incompetent photographer and scoutmaster who achieves his wife's ambition for him of office with the local council more by luck than judgement.

At the start of World War II, Cmdr. Ericson is assigned to convoy escort HMS Compass Rose with inexperienced officers and men just out of training. The winter seas make life miserable enough, but the men must also harden themselves to rescuing survivors of U-Boat attacks, while seldom able to strike back. Traumatic events afloat and ashore create a warm bond between the skipper and his first officer

The story of the HMS Torrin, from its construction to its sinking in the Mediterranean during action in World War II. The ship's first and only commanding officer is Captain E.V. Kinross, who trains his men not only to be loyal to him and the country, but—most importantly—to themselves.

Army buddies help Private Trevor court the daughter of their commanding officer. All efforts fail - until a hero is revealed and the sergeant masquerades as a housekeeper!

Wee Georgie Wood and his gang have their sights set on a notorious villain.

Director Charles Saunders' low-key domestic comedy, adapted from A.P. Dearsley's play, centers on a middle-aged London couple who react in different ways as their four children grow up, fall in love and make career choices.

Two criminals are reformed when they meet and fall in love.

Lucy and her brother are struggling to make a go of their Soho pet shop, until Lucy meets Tom, a street singer.

Don't Get Me Wrong is a 1937 British comedy film co-directed by Arthur B. Woods and Reginald Purdell and starring Max Miller and George E. Stone. It was made at Teddington Studios with sets designed by Peter Proud. Unlike several of Miller's Teddington films which are now lost, this still survives. Miller plays a fairground performer who meets a professor who claims to have invented a cheap substitute for petrol. They team up and persuade a millionaire to finance them to develop and market the product, while unsavoury elements are keen to steal the formula and try all means to get their hands on it, involving slapstick chases and double-crosses. It then turns out that the miracle fluid is diluted coconut oil, and the genius professor is an escaped lunatic. The millionaire finds himself taking the brunt of the disappointment.

Gracie 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.

A French sleeping-car attending with an eye for the ladies hooks up with a wealthy widow and they get married. What he doesn't know is that she married him because she wants to stay in France. Complications ensue.

Johann Strauss Jr. is forced by his father to forget music and to work in a bakery, where he falls in love with Resi, the baker's daughter. The girl gets jealous when a contessa asks Strauss Jr. to write a waltz for her.

Kenyon is a narcotics agent who, with the aid of a titled bird-watcher attempts to trap a brother and sister drug smuggling team.

The Very Reverend Richard Jedd has a problem: the church spire, now in a parlous state of repair, will cost nearly £1,000 to fix. When various money-raising schemes go awry, he is persuaded to waive his principles and bet what’s left of his savings on Dandy Dick, a 10-1 odds-on at the local races. A simple tonic to enhance the nag’s performance seems a good idea… but when the butler decides to intervene, the respectable clergyman finds himself in the middle of a doping scandal – and worse!

There's pandemonium in a country house when various relatives come to stay.

Part of BFI collection "Police and Thieves."

Musical comedy. An opera singer falls for a stowaway on the way to Monte Carlo

While working at a top hotel, the head porter falls in love with a wealthy female guest.

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