Noel PurcellFilmography

Flight of the Doves

Actors: Thomas Hickey, Brendan O'Reilly, Ronnie Walsh, Ron Moody, Jack Wild, Dorothy McGuire, Stanley Holloway, William Rushton

Synopsis: Two children set out in search of freedom and a loving home in this adventure drama based on a novel by Walter Macken. Finn Dove (Jack Wild) and his sister Derval (Helen Raye), a pair of children living in England, are tired of the tyranny of their stepfather Hawk Dove (Ron Moody), and they decide Read More

The McKenzie Break

Actors: Brian Keith, Helmut Griem, Ian Hendry, Patrick O'Connell, Caroline Mortimer

Synopsis: The McKenzie Break is an unusual POW escape drama in that the would-be escapees are German prisoners, held in a Scottish camp. When a Luftwaffe pilot is murdered in the compound, British major Ian Hendrey investigates. He suspects that the killing is tied in with a complex escape plan, engineered Read More

Sinful Davey

Actors: John Hurt, Pamela Franklin, Nigel Davenport, Ronald Fraser, Robert Morley

Synopsis: Davey Haggart (John Hurt) wishes to follow his father's footsteps and become a highway robber. He also wishes to avoid his father's fate -- which was death by hanging at the tender age of 21 after a botched robbery of the Duke of Argyle (Robert Morley). Davey commits a daring robbery in broad Read More

Where's Jack?

Actors: Tommy Steele, Stanley Baker, Fiona Lewis, Alan Badel, Dudley Foster

Synopsis: Jack Sheppard (Tommy Steele) is the locksmith's apprentice who is forced into highway robbery when he is betrayed by Jonathan Wild (Stanley Baker). Jack runs for his life and takes to a life of crime. He is captured but breaks out of jail, quickly becoming the subject of lore, legend and song. The Read More

The Violent Enemy

Synopsis: In this suspenseful crime drama set in war-torn Ireland, IRA terrorists conspire to blow up a British power station. Fortunately, a British supporter escapes from captivity and is able to stop them. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Doctor in Clover

Actors: Leslie Phillips, Shirley Ann Field, John Fraser, Joan Sims

Synopsis: Doctor in Clover is the next-to-last entry in the British "Doctor" comedy film series. After losing his government job, doctor Gaston Grimsdyke (Leslie Phillips) signs up for a medical school course with his old tutor-nemesis Sir Lancelot Spratt (welcome back, James Robertson Justice). What Read More

Drop Dead, Darling

Actors: Tony Curtis, Rosanna Schiaffino, Lionel Jeffries, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Nancy Kwan

Synopsis: This uneven black comedy went into production as My Last Duchess. It then went through three title changes, representing, in the words of historian Leslie Halliwell, "a descending order of wit": Arrividerci, Baby, Drop Dead, Darling, and You Just Kill Me! Tony Curtis plays a charming contemporary Read More

Lord Jim

Actors: Peter O'Toole, James Mason, Curd Jürgens, Jack Hawkins, Eli Wallach, Daliah Lavi

Synopsis: Joseph Conrad's cerebral, philosophical novel Lord Jim is streamlined and simplified by producer/director/writer Richard Brooks for the action-and-adventure crowd. Peter O'Toole plays the first officer of a tramp steamer, who, during a hurricane, cravenly abandons ship, leaving the passengers to Read More

Avengers: A Surfeit of H2O

Actors: Diana Rigg

Synopsis: A series of unusual rainstorms have resulted in several deaths. Sent to investigate this phenomenon, Steed and Emma come across an eccentric German scientist named -- believe it or not -- Dr. Sturm (Albert Levien). Before they are able to neutralize Sturm's rainmaking machine, Steed is nearly Read More

Nurse on Wheels

Actors: Juliet Mills, Ronald Lewis, Joan Sims, Noel Purcell, Esma Cannon

Synopsis: In this British comedy, a new nurse comes to replace her predecessor, the town pump, in an English country town. Soon, she herself becomes grist for the nasty town rumor mill. Fortunately, she becomes friends with the town doctor, his son, and shop owner. As the nurse is a dreadful driver, she Read More

The Ceremony

Actors: Laurence Harvey, Sarah Miles, Robert Walker, Jr., John Ireland, Ross Martin

Synopsis: Actor Lawrence Harvey made his debut as a writer and director with this downbeat drama. Sean McKenna (Harvey) is awaiting execution in a prison in Tangiers after being convicted of murder. McKenna was trying to prevent the crime in question but was instead made the scapegoat. With his life hanging Read More

The Swingin' Maiden

The Running Man

Actors: Laurence Harvey, Lee Remick, Alan Bates, Felix Aylmer, Eleanor Summerfield

Synopsis: Based upon a novel by Shelley Smith, The Running Man opens at the memorial service for Rex Black (Laurence Harvey), the owner of a small air transport company who is believed to have drowned in a recent glider accident. It soon turns out, however, that Black is very much alive; he faked his death Read More

The List of Adrian Messenger

Actors: George C. Scott, Dana Wynter, Clive Brook, Gladys Cooper, Herbert Marshall

Synopsis: Adrian Messenger (John Merivale) asks his friend, British colonel Anthony Gethryn (George C. Scott), to check on the whereabouts of the eleven men named on a written list. Not long afterward, the plane on which Messenger is travelling is deliberately blown up. The mystery killer slipped the bomb Read More

The Iron Maiden

Actors: Michael Craig, Anne Helm, Jeff Donnell, Alan Hale, Jr., Noel Purcell

Synopsis: Not a medieval epic, The Iron Maiden is a contemporary comedy. Nor is the title object a torture device; instead, it's new sort of steam roller. The hero (Michael Craig) is an aircraft designer who neglects his work because of his fondness for machine engines. The film's climax is a steamroller Read More

Mutiny on the Bounty

Actors: Marlon Brando, Trevor Howard, Richard Harris, Hugh Griffith, Richard Haydn

Synopsis: This colorful remake of the 1935 version again concerns the crew and treatment of the HMS Bounty by a cold hearted sadistic captain. Captain Bligh (Trevor Howard) boards the ship in Portsmouth, England, to embark on a mission to bring tropical breadfruit trees to Jamaica. Fletcher Christian Read More

Johnny Nobody

Actors: Nigel Patrick, Yvonne Mitchell, Aldo Ray, William Bendix, Cyril Cusack

Synopsis: Father Carey (Nigel Patrick) is a priest who must decide whether or not an amnesia victim (Aldo Ray) is responsible for the murder of the alcoholic Irish writer Mulcahy (William Bendix) in this routine thriller. The question posed to Carey is whether or not the murderer acted on the word of God Read More

The Millionairess

Actors: Sophia Loren, Peter Sellers, Alastair Sim, Vittorio De Sica, Dennis Price

Synopsis: A beautiful and wealthy woman in the market for a husband believes she has found the right man -- only to discover he isn't especially interested, in this comedy based on a play by George Bernard Shaw. Epifania Parerga (Sophia Loren) is a woman who has inherited a vast fortune, making her the Read More

Watch Your Stern

Actors: Kenneth Connor, Eric Barker, Leslie Phillips, Joan Sims, Noel Purcell, Hattie Jacques

Synopsis: Based on the play Something About a Sailor by Earle Couttie, this film is a screwball comedy about the British navy. Kenneth Connor is Officer Blissworth, who is an inept bungler of a sailor. With an equally inadequate partner, Captain David Foster (Eric Barker), he loses the plans for modifying Read More

Double Bunk

Actors: Ian Carmichael, Janette Scott, Sidney James, Liz Fraser, Dennis Price

Synopsis: A battered houseboat on the Thames provides the setting for this romantic British comedy. Two newlyweds rent the leaky floating home. The trouble begins when the husband decides to move the scow to a better location. The rickety barge disrupts river traffic. Next the two get lost in a fog bank. Read More

Man in the Moon

Actors: Kenneth More, Shirley Ann Field, Norman Bird, Michael Hordern, John Glyn-Jones

Synopsis: Kenneth More was beginning to segue into comedy roles when he took on the character of William in this standard sci-fi parody by director Basil Dearden. William is an unsuccessful guinea pig for a medical group interested in researching the common cold when he is soon fired and offered a job by Read More

No Kidding

Actors: Geraldine McEwan, Julia Lockwood, Noel Purcell, Irene Handl

Synopsis: This is one of the rare comedies by director Gerald Thomas that does not have the words "Carry On...." in the title, and that is the first indication that the wacky, hare-brained, ribald core of the "Carry On" series is missing here. The premise is that a young couple, David and Catherine Robinson Read More

Tommy the Toreador

Actors: Tommy Steele, Janet Munro, Sidney James, Bernard Cribbins, Noel Purcell, Kenny Williams

Synopsis: In this lightweight 1960 musical comedy, rock singer Tommy Steele plays Tommy Tomkins, a British sailor. Steele was popular in England during the time this film was released, and the movie is mainly a showcase for its star's musical talents, with songs including the title tune and others such as Read More

Make Mine Mink

Actors: Terry-Thomas, Athene Seyler, Hattie Jacques, Billie Whitelaw, Elspeth Duxbury

Synopsis: Terry-Thomas plays the military-officer head of an amiable gang of amateur British thieves. He is recruited for this task by wealthy dowager Athene Seyler, who merely wants to retrieve stolen minks from genuine crooks. Any profits accrued by this undertaking are to be turned over to charity. Once Read More

Shake Hands with the Devil

Actors: James Cagney, Don Murray, Dana Wynter, Glynis Johns, Michael Redgrave

Synopsis: Filmed on location, Shake Hands With the Devil is set in Ireland during the "troubles" of 1921. James Cagney plays a brilliant medical professor who doubles as head of the Irish Republican Army. Cagney convinces one of his more pacifistic students, Don Murray, to join the underground struggle Read More

Ferry to Hong Kong

Actors: Curd Jürgens, Orson Welles, Sylvia Syms, Noel Purcell

Synopsis: This curious African Queen derivation stars Curt Jurgens as Mark Conrad, an Austrian exile and Orson Welles as blustery ferry-boat captain Cecil Hart. Banned from both Hong Kong and Macao, Conrad is forced to spend his life on Hart's ferry, shuttling endlessly between the two countries and Read More

Merry Andrew

Actors: Danny Kaye, Anna Maria Pier Angeli, Salvatore Baccaloni, Noel Purcell, Robert Coote

Synopsis: Though Merry Andrew is more subdued than earlier Danny Kaye efforts, it's still a lot of fun. Kaye is cast as Andrew Larabee, a mild-mannered but highly unorthodox archeology professor at a British boy's school. While on an expedition in Italy, Andrew allows a traveling circus to pitch camp on his Read More

Rooney

Actors: John Gregson, Muriel Pavlow, Barry Fitzgerald, June Thorburn, Liam Redmond

Synopsis: Rooney (John Gregson) is a handsome but unambitious Irish sanitation worker. Rooney's landladies would love to see him married to one of their daughters, or nieces, or whatever, but Rooney ain't buyin'. Barry Fitzgerald plays Rooney's elderly bedridden neighbor, whom the young man befriends, turns Read More

The Key

Actors: William Holden, Sophia Loren, Trevor Howard, Oscar Homolka, Kieron Moore

Synopsis: The Key was adapted by Carl Foreman from Stella, a novel by Jan De Hartog. The time is WW2: The place, Plymouth England. Canadian tug captain David Ross (William Holden) and his British counterpart Chris Ford (Trevor Howard) pay a visit to Ford's lady friend Stella (Sophia Loren). Before the men Read More

Mad Little Island

Actors: Jean Carson, Donald Sinden, Roland Culver, Catherine Lacey, Noel Purcell

Synopsis: The small but resourceful Scots island of Todday, introduced in the 1949 Ealing comedy Whisky Galore!, made a return visit to movie screens in 1958's Rockets Galore--released in the U.S. as Mad Little Island. In the first film, the good people of Todday faced up to the appalling dilemma of a Read More

Doctor at Large

Actors: Dirk Bogarde, Dandy Nichols, Muriel Pavlow, Donald Sinden, Brigitte Bardot, James Robertson Justice, Shirley Eaton

Synopsis: The third of the droll British "Doctor" series, Doctor at Large once more stars Dirk Bogarde as young Dr. Simon Sparrow. Back in his old stamping grounds at St. Swithin's Teaching Hospital, Sparrow misses his chance at becoming chief surgeon when he crosses swords with the formidable Sir Lancelot Read More

The Rising of the Moon

Actors: Noel Purcell, Cyril Cusack, Jimmy O'Dea, Denis O'Dea, Eileen Crowe

Synopsis: To make the Rising of the Moon, American filmmaker John Ford returned to his Irish roots. An obscure and highly personal film for Ford, it is comprised of three episodes--each offering insight into Irish culture and values. All are introduced by Tyrone Power. In "The Majesty of the Law," a police Read More

Jacqueline

Actors: John Gregson, Kathleen Ryan, Noel Purcell, Cyril Cusack

Synopsis: Jacqueline, played by Jacqueline Ryan, is the daughter of a Belfast shipyard worker Mike McNeil, played by John Gregson. The worker's worth is compromised by his crippling fear of heights. Dismissed from his job, he finds solace in the bottle. All seems hopeless until Jacqueline breaks through Read More

Moby Dick

Actors: Gregory Peck, Richard Basehart, Leo Genn, Harry Andrews, Seamus Kelly, Orson Welles

Synopsis: Previous film versions of Moby Dick insisted upon including such imbecilities as romantic subplots and happy endings. John Huston's 1956 Moby Dick remains admirably faithful to its source. "Call me Ishmael" declares itinerant whaler Richard Basehart as the opening credits fade. Though slightly Read More

Lust for Life

Actors: Kirk Douglas, Anthony Quinn, James Donald, Pamela Brown, Everett Sloane

Synopsis: This filmed biography of Vincent Van Gogh was adapted by Norman Corwin from the best-selling novel by Irving Stone, which was in turn inspired by the written correspondence between Van Gogh and his brother Theo. Kirk Douglas plays the tormented genius, whose obsessive devotion to his art engulfs Read More

Doctor at Sea

Actors: Dirk Bogarde, Brigitte Bardot, Brenda de Banzie, James Robertson Justice, Maurice Denham

Synopsis: This second entry in the British "Doctor" series once more stars Dirk Bogarde as young medico Simon Sparrow. Securing his first job as ship's doctor on a freighter, Simon again runs afoul of James Robertson Justice, here cast not as the irascible Sir Lancelot Sprat but as ship's captain Hogg. Read More

Svengali

Actors: Hildegarde Neff, Donald Wolfit, Terence Morgan, Derek Bond, Paul Rogers

Synopsis: In Svengali, the 1955 adaptation of George DuMaurier's classic novel Trilby, Donald Wolfit achieves the near-impossible: he out-hams John Barrymore, who'd played Svengali in the 1931 version. A last-minute replacement for the equally flamboyant Robert Newton, Wolfit pulls out all the stops as the Read More

Mad About Men

Actors: Glynis Johns, Anne Crawford, Donald Sinden, Margaret Rutherford, Dora Bryan

Synopsis: Mad About Men is the delightful sequel to the saucy British comedy-fantasy Miranda. Glynis Johns returns in the dual role of amorous mermaid Miranda and her somewhat more reserved "human" lookalike Caroline. Having inherited a house in Cornwall, Caroline goes on an extended holiday, whereupon Read More

Land of Fury

Actors: Jack Hawkins, Glynis Johns, Noel Purcell

Synopsis: Land of Fury is an austere "western" set in New Zealand during the 1820s. The epic-proportioned storyline involves a group of British pioneers seeking a new life in Down Under. Sailor Jack Hawkins and his wife Glynis Johns are the central characters, struggling to impose their British sense of Read More

Decameron Nights

Actors: Joan Fontaine, Louis Jourdan, Binnie Barnes, Joan Collins, Godfrey Tearle, Mara Lane

Synopsis: Director Hugo Fregonese and writer George Oppenheimer do the unthinkable: they manage to transform Giovanni Boccaccio's bawdy -- and downright raunchy -- medieval tales of martial discontent and infidelity into harmless white-bread treacle. Louis Jourdan plays Boccaccio in a framing story set in a Read More

Grand National Night

Actors: Nigel Patrick, Moira Lister, Beatrice Campbell, Betty Ann Davies, Michael Hordern

Synopsis: Grand National Night began life as a stage play, which was promptly adapted as a popular British radio serial. The film combines the best elements of both previous incarnations. Racehorse owner Gerald Coates (Nigel Patrick) accidentally kills his spiteful wife Babs (Moira Lister) during a quarrel. Read More

The Pickwick Papers

Actors: James Hayter, James Donald, Alexander Gauge, Nigel Patrick, Lionel Murton, Kathleen Harrison, Joyce Grenfell

Synopsis: John Hayter is Samuel Pickwick is this delightful filmization of Dickens' seriocomic novel. Mr. Pickwick is chairman of the Pickwick club, a scholarly league operating in mid-19th century London. The club's avowed purpose is to scrupulously study everyday life in England-not to improve or Read More

You Can't Beat the Irish

Actors: Jack Warner, Barbara Mullen

Synopsis: The blarney is as thick as the characters' brogues in You Can't Beat the Irish. Jack Warner stars as lazy but enterprising Irish paterfamilias Bartley Murnahan. To support his family, Bartley has hit upon a foolproof scam. By arranging a series of subtle subterfuges, he convinces his neighbors Read More

The Crimson Pirate

Actors: Burt Lancaster, Eva Bartok, Nick Cravat, Torin Thatcher, James Hayter

Synopsis: Half affectionate parody and half enthusiastic tribute to the swashbuckling pirate epics of the 1930's and 40's, The Crimson Pirate stars Burt Lancaster as Captain Vallo, the smiling leader of a pack of unscrupulous pirates. While on the high seas, Vallo and his men spy a well-stocked merchant Read More

Father's Doing Fine

Synopsis: In this comedy, an off-center widow and her eccentric daughters must deal with a series of comic mishaps while they wait for one of the daughters to have a baby. The nervous father-to-be complicates matters. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Encore

Actors: Nigel Patrick, Roland Culver, Alison Leggatt, Kay Walsh, Glynis Johns, Charles Victor, Ronald Squire

Synopsis: The producers of Quartet and Trio concluded their cycle with this omnibus film, which features three stories based, as in the previous film, on tales by W. Somerset Maugham. "The Ant and the Grasshopper" concerns Tom Ramsey (Nigel Patrick), a fiscally unstable young man who is constantly borrowing Read More

Talk of a Million

Synopsis: In this comedy, an amiable rake shows all that he is a whiz at finances after a rumor circulates that he has inherited millions. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

No Resting Place

Actors: Michael Gough, Eithne Dunne, Noel Purcell, Brian O'Higgins

Synopsis: The brilliant British documentary filmmaker Paul Rotha made his feature-film debut with 1950's No Resting Place. Filmed on location in Ireland, the film is a lightly fictionalized study of that country's itinerant workmen. Michael Gough plays tinker Alec Kyle, whose life is thrown into turmoil Read More

Appointment with Venus

Actors: David Niven, Glynis Johns, George Coulouris, Barry Jones, Kenneth More

Synopsis: Don't be misled by the title, and by the presence of Glynis Johns in the cast. The "Venus" in Appointment with Venus is a prized cow. The time is World War II: special operatives David Niven and Glynis Johns are dispatched to a Nazi-held island to rescue Venus, who for some reason or other is Read More

The Blue Lagoon

Actors: Jean Simmons, Susan Stranks, Donald Houston, Noel Purcell, Peter Jones, James Hayter, Cyril Cusack

Synopsis: Henry Devere Stacpoole's lyrical novel The Blue Lagoon was rather chastely filmed in 1921. The 1949 remake is a tad more explicit, though it's hardly as racy as the 1980 Brooke Shields version. Two British children, Emmeline (Susan Stranks) and Michael (Peter Jones), are shipwrecked on a tropical Read More

Saints and Sinners

Actors: Kieron Moore, Christine Norden, Sheila Manahan, Michael Dolan, Maire O'Neill

Synopsis: Saints and Sinners is set in a remote Irish village where "appearances" take precedence over everything else. Having served two years in prison for a crime he didn't commit, Michael Kissane (Kieron Moore) returns to his home town of Kilwarra. While many of his old friends believe in Michael's Read More

Captain Boycott

Actors: Eddie Byrne, Maureen Delaney, Maurice Denham, Ian Fleming, Liam Gaffney

Synopsis: Set in early 19th-century Ireland, this fact-based drama chronicles the peasant uprising of peasants who finally tire of the brutality of Captain Boycott, the rent collector for the Earl of Erne. The impoverished farmers conspire to banish him from the area. When Boycott learns of this, he tries Read More

Ireland's Border Line

Actors: Jimmy O'Dea, Myrette Morven, Hazel Hughes

Synopsis: In this Irish comedy, the rivalry between the free state and Ulster is chronicled. The story centers around a handyman who fixes the car of two criminals and subsequently gets involved with them after his bag gets mixed up with theirs. Theirs contains stolen jewels and the crooks are eager to Read More

Jimmy Boy

Blarney

Actors: Renée Adorée, Ralph Graves, Paulette Duval, Malcolm Waite, Margaret Seddon

Synopsis: Set sometime during the 19th century, Blarney deals with the exploits of Irish prizefighter James Carabine (Ralph Graves). Aspiring to become the greatest bare-knuckle boxer in the world, Carabine stows away on a boat bound for America. On the verge of being discovered, our hero is rescued by Read More