British Actors Smörgåsbord

203 thoughts on “British Actors Smörgåsbord”

1. Donald Pleasence has an enormous 234 acting credits to his name on IMDB, largely I’m sure generated via supporting roles, and yet:

   1/IMDB lists only 1 acting award for him and just 5 nominations.

   2/The only lead roles that I can off hand remember him performing are Halloween’s “Van Helsing” and Dr Crippen.

   3/He has never earned any Master or Work Horse love.

   However I enjoyed him immensely as the guest villain in a 1973 TV episode of Columbo called Any Old Port in a Storm. [I will always remember that episode in particular because in it Donald’s character’s would-be lover Julie Harris confessed to being a fan of Laddie!]

   Also at the time of his death in 1995 Donald had a net worth of almost 17 million in today’s dollars, a fine sum for a Brit supporting actor from Donald’s era.

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   1. Best POSTERS entries 40-21 (1) Halloween 5 (2) Tales that Witness Madness (3) Alone in the Dark (4) Raw Meat (5) Death Line (6) 1st one for Black Windmill (7) both for Prince of Darkness (8) foreign language one for Telefon (9) Phenomena and (10) very raunchy one for The Shakedown. Some fine Brit B movie industry thespians of the old school in that one – Terence Morgan, Hazel Court, Robert Beatty [a Canuck] and Harry H Corbett of television’s Steptoe and Son fame Excellent nostalgic find by you in my book.

      My pick of the POSTERS 1-20 (1) Creepers (2) Soldier Blue (3) foreign language one Flesh and Fiends (4) from Beyond the Grave (5) no love for Joel (6) Henry 8th (7) 1st one for Night to the Generals (8) Escape from New York (9) presumably an iconic cut-out from a larger You only Live Twice poster. Whatever-it is truly eye-catching (10) 1st one for Will Penny (11) foreign language one for Fantastic Voyage and (12) both for Outback

      STILLS that most pleased me -all entries (1) with cat (2) lobby card of Donald with Sir Maurice in Black Windmill (3) Donald with Larry (4) (5)with Jamie Lee in H 2 (5) Hell is a City (6) Night of the Generals (7) lobby card for 1984 (8) Chuck’s Will Penny (9) with Arthur Kennedy and other in Fantastic Voyage (10) Donald with gun – pointed presumably at Michael Myers and (11) The Great Escape ensemble.

      Overall a very entertain photoplay and well worth a 98% rating. Please have a good weekend.

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      1. Hi Bob, thanks for the review, generous rating, comments and info, much appreciated. Glad you liked the posters, stills and lobby cards.

         One of my favorite character actors. I’d like to check out that Columbo episode some day.

         Pleasence completes my Fantastic Voyage trio this week. He was memorable as the evil preacher in Will Penny, it’s been ages since I last watched that film. And was sympathetic as the near blind ‘forger’ in The Great Escape.

         He was also of course an iconic Bond villain – Ernst Stavro Blofeld – stroking his white cat in You Only Live Twice. One critic of the film wrote that the actors head “looks like an egg that had cracked on the boil.”

         Four films scored 10 out of 10 from my sources – Halloween, Wake in Fright aka Outback, You Only Live Twice and The Great Escape.

         According to Wikipedia ‘Wake in Fright’ was a legendary lost film from Australia, the original negatives were lost for a time and were recently discovered, the film was restored for blu-ray release. I’d like to see it.

         The Original Donald on horror films – “I don’t like horror films. I’m interested in them, but if there were three kinds of film playing across the road at my local cinema, the horror film would not be the one I would go to see. I like to work, and horror films definitely keep me working.”

         “John Carpenter is the best director I ever worked with. One of the main reasons is his bravery in the way he’s cast me in his films. By casting me as the president in Escape from New York and as the essentially good Dr. Loomis in the original Halloween (1978), he gave me the opportunities that might have been missed had I stayed a stereotypical madman.”

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         1. HI STEVE Thanks for the usual attentive feedback to my own posts and for the interesting quotes from Donald.

            Thespians tend to stay from acting with animals on the screen as they are notorious scene-stealers. For example Ms Loy was never able to compete with little Asta and I often thought that the 1941 movie Shadow of the Thin Man should really have been re-titled Overshadow of the Thin Woman. Only debonaire, suave Bill Powell was able to hold his own with that cute little guy.

            Donald though used the cat to his advantage – as did The Great Mumbler in the opening scenes in Godpop. Indeed one film historian raved about how ole Mumbles was able to induced the cat to purr in tune with Don Corelone issuing soft-spoken instructions to his subordinates and I have often wondered if The Mighty Marlon got the cat scene idea from watching Donald in Bondage.

            For The Great Orator though the downside was that guys like you at the time of Godpop’s release quipped that the cat’s purring was more distinct than the Don’s diction!

            You SHOULD try to catch that Columbo episode with Donald as the guest villain. Indeed it is worth a viewing just to hear Julie Harris idolising Laddie. However I have lost faith in you guys telling me you will watch productions I recommend. Two years ago The Work Horse assured me he would watch Chuck’s Naked Jungle and it would appear that WH has until now at least broken that promise. So nowadays I have more faith in Theresa May’s assurances!

            Anyway I look forward to more good stuff from you next week.

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2. HI STEVE

   I just KNEW that I had seen Lady Godiva of Coventry in one of your videos and in fact it was that sighting that first informed me that it had the aka of Bikini Baby. I prefer the Brit title as Bikini Baby sounds like an Annette Funicello beach party movie.

   Godiva is of course famous for being a noblewoman who legend claims rode through Coventry naked in 13th century England to protest about taxation of the peasants by her own husband.

   The legend goes on to say that one of the onlookers who couldn’t take his eyes off her as she rode was called Thomas and he was struck blind as a punishment. It is thus asserted that the term Peeping Tom derives from the actions of the lecherous Thomas of Coventry!

   Fred Chopin of course ran through the jungle naked as potential prey and he was so breathless that he couldn’t sing for us a song to remember. In fact without having seen it I am giving your video [if I have guessed right] an advance 100% rating right now as it is bound to be the greatest show on earth.

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3. When MM hit the big time in the States other studies wanted their own Marilyn and Fox created Monroe clones to either keep her in line –some hope! – or ultimately replace her. So we had the likes of Sheree North, Mamie Van Doreen and probably the most successful of them all Jayne Mansfield.

   Not to be left behind the Brits gave us Dors, who for a time was enormously famous and was popular in movies and entered the British top 10 Box Office Stars in 1955. She had already been marking time in supporting roles and/or B movies since 1947 and when the Brit movie industry saw in Diana the “Monroe potential” the build-up began and some posters from her pre-star era were changed and even today continue to flatter her billing and status at the time the movies concerned were made.

   Diana was a big part of my youth in the 50s, not only for her films but because she had a column in my weekly, and Britain’s top, film magazine Photoplay in which she not only gave us “insider” gossip lowdown straight from the film industry but titillated us with juicy stories about for example who was sleeping with whom among the celebs.

   She regularly washed in her column the dirty linen of her own husband’s cheating activities. I’ve mentioned before that HE was a guy called Dennis Hamilton Gittins and she claimed that on one occasion she returned home to find a woman in the house with him in a compromised situation and a string of others lined up in the back garden for their turn to be romanced by Dennis. He died young in 1959 of syphilis – small wonder!

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   1. Although she appeared in some long-forgotten American films [for example The Unholy Wife with Steiger and I Married a Woman with George Gobels] Diana could perhaps have “gone Hollywood” in a meaningful way but remained in largely British films because hubby Dennis Hamilton Gittins, who apparently exercised great control of her career, turned down without telling her the role of Burt Lancaster’s leading lady in 1954’s His Majesty O’Keefe. As it was her career as a top British star faded along with the 1950s

      Best of the long string of eye-popping POSTERS in the Dors video for me are (1) both for my Joan’s Berserk (2) Nothing but the Night (3) foreign language one for Love Specialist (4) 2nd for I married a Woman (5) 1st for An Alligator Named Daisy (6) Diamond City (7) Man Bait (8) 1st one for Weak and Wicked (9) final one for Passport to Shame (10) foreign language one for Tread Softly Stranger (11) 1st one for Kid for 2 Farthings (12) From beyond the Grave (11) Theatre of Blood and (12) The long Haul with Mature – Vic came over to the UK to make that British film. I was just 16 when I saw it but walked 3 miles to the cinema where it was showing.

      Best STILLS for my money are (1) Diana with gun (2) Diana on couch (3) two from Unholy Wife of Diana with first Steiger and 2nd Tom Tryon (4) Diana behind bars (5) her curvaceous in a deck chair (6) with Big Victor (7) in Blonde Sinner and (8) closing one of Diana

      I am well pleased with your profile of Britain’s “own blonde bombshell” and for its fine artistic qualities combined with the great nostalgia it holds for me I feel it’s well worth 98% rating. Super stuff! Have a good weekend.

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      1. Hi Bob, thanks for the review, comments, generous rating, info and trivia, much appreciated. Happy you liked the posters, stills and lobby cards.

         Yep ‘the’ British blonde bombshell, a household name in England at the time, she put on weight when her star started to fade and ended up regularly on TV in the 1970s before cancer took her aged 52.

         Her highest rated film was David Lean’s Oliver Twist in which she had a small role. I included it as a contrast to the other films on the list.

         I found a photo of her with Hitchcock, she had appeared in an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents in 1962. Here’s the link –

         https://thejar.hitchcock.zone/files/gallery/org/8092.jpg

         And a photo of her with Rock Hudson

         https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/british-film-actress-diana-dors-seems-to-have-hypnotized-rock-hudson-picture-id515019782

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         1. HI STEVE

            Thanks for the counter chit-chat and the interesting links. The Hitchcock photo isn’t surprising as Hitch never could resist some association with blondes! Diana in her desire to break into American would have seen it as good publicity to be photographed with him and Rock who one journalist said “was so popular that even dogs followed him about!”

            By the way Diana met Dennis Hamilton when she was making 1951’s Lady Godiva Rides Again [Bikini Baby in the US] which you have not included starring Stanley Holloway, Sid James and Kay Kendall.

            That piece of trivia has actually a wider historical significance because cast in the movie in uncredited roles were the young Joan Collins in her film debut and more significantly Ruth Ellis.

            Ruth was pregnant at the time and was subsequently the last woman in the United Kingdom to be hanged before capital punishment in the UK was abolished. She had been found guilty of murdering her lover.

            Actually all kinds of people seem to have been even obliquely connected with that long-forgotten Godiva movie. For example Trevor Howard had an uncredited cameo in it in a ”blink and you’ll miss him” scene.

            Take care.

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            1. Bob, I came close to including Lady Godiva Rides Again but her role was so tiny, a walk on from what I’ve read but they did use Diana on one of the posters with the alternative title, here’s a link –

               https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BZmVjZjEzMWEtZTAwOC00MTQxLTk0NmYtY2ExODljMzZkNWVmXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMTA3NzE5MzE@._V1_.jpg

               Lady Godiva was included on one of my previous videos, it must have been the Joan Collins video.

               Frederic Chopin will be on monday’s video, he said cryptically.

4. Hey Bob and Steve or Steve and Bob. Good comments and thoughts on Peggy Cummins. I just added one of her movies to the database this morning….as she and Rex Harrison made a movie together…and King Rex is our latest UMR page. Keep up the great work!

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