Reginald PurdellFilmography

A Man About the House

Actors: Margaret Johnston, Dulcie Gray, Guy Middleton, Felix Aylmer

Synopsis: A novel by Francis Brett Young and its theatrical adaptation by John Perry were the sources for the even-keeled melodrama A Man About the House. Handsome Italian laborer Kieron Moore works as caretaker of the Neopolitan villa inherited by plain-Jane Englishwomen Margaret Johnston and Dulcie Gray. 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

Holiday Camp

Actors: John Blythe, Esma Cannon, Hazel Court, Jimmy Hanley, Dennis Harkin

Synopsis: Holiday Camp was a British comedy that served the same purpose as Hollywood's The Egg and I--to act as the launching pad for a successful B-movie series. The film takes place at a British summer resort, where various character types interact. A murderer on the loose invades the camp, but the Read More

Brighton Rock

Actors: Richard Attenborough, Hermione Baddeley, William Hartnell, Carol Marsh, Harcourt Williams

Synopsis: This unsparing, brutal look at the British criminal underbelly stars Richard Attenborough as Pinkie Brown, a pock-marked gang leader. While leading his men in a racetrack robbery, Pinkie kills a man. He convinces pretty waitress Rose (Carol Marsh) to provide him with an alibi, promising to marry Read More

The Root of All Evil

Actors: Phyllis Calvert, John McCallum, Michael Rennie, Brefni O'Rourke, Arthur Young

Synopsis: Based on a novel by J. S. Fletcher, The Root of All Evil casts Phyllis Calvert as a grimly ambitious woman scorned. Jilted by wealthy Albert Grice (Hubert Gregg), farmer's daughter Jeckie Farnish (Calvert) vows to accumulate enough money so as to never again be dependent on any man's attentions. Read More

London Town

Actors: Sid Field, Greta Gynt, Petula Clark, Kay Kendall, Sonnie Hale

Synopsis: London Town was painstakingly planned as a huge box-office smash--even unto hiring several Hollywood leading lights to work on the film, including producer/director/writer Wesley Ruggles, Technicolor cinematographer Ernest Hiller, costume designer Orry-Kelly and songsmiths Jimmy Van Heusen and Johnny Burke Read More

Variety Jubilee

Synopsis: This domestic melodrama chronicles three generations of a family of music-hall owners. The place was founded by two stage stars in the early 1900s and soon became a success until WW I erupted and one of the partner's sons is killed in a dog fight. Following the war, the popularity of music halls Read More

Here Comes the Sun

Crew: Screen Story

Synopsis: In this musical comedy, two idealistic bit players decide to rewrite a movie script in order to make it suit their values. At the same time, another a conniving pressman, sneakily re-writes his late partner's will so he can get part of the deceased's newspaper company. To cover himself, he frames Read More

2,000 Women

Actors: Phyllis Calvert, Flora Robson, Patricia Roc, Renee Houston, Reginald Purdell

Synopsis: The "2000 Women" of the film's title are the female inmates in a WW II German concentration camp in France. Though many of the women don't get along, they are united in their hatred for their Nazi captors. The story takes a truly melodramatic turn when three English airmen parachute into the camp Read More

Candles at Nine

Actors: Jessie Matthews, John Stuart, Beatrix Lehmann, Winifred Shotter, Reginald Purdell

Synopsis: British stage star Jessie Matthews, who lit up the silver screen in England during the '30s, returned to the screen for her first starring vehicle in five years in Candles at Nine. Adapted from Anthony Gilbert's novel Mouse Who Couldn't Play Ball, it's a haunted house/mystery film along lines that Read More

Dreaming

Crew: Screenwriter

Synopsis: Bud Flangan and Chesney Allen, members in good standing of Britain's Crazy Gang comedy troupe, carry the story in Dreaming. The story involves a cheeky British soldier who is knocked unconscious and begins...yes, dreaming. Our hero imagines himself at New York's Stage Door Canteen, at the Ascot Read More

Love Story

Actors: Margaret Lockwood, Stewart Granger, Patricia Roc, Tom Walls, Moira Lister, Walter Hudd, Lawrence Hanray

Synopsis: No relation to the 1970 box-office blockbuster of the same name, the 1944 British film Love Story was originally released in the US as The Lady Surrenders. Margaret Lockwood stars as one of those brilliant but troubled concert pianists, so beloved of British wartime filmgoers. Knowing that she Read More

It's in the Bag

Synopsis: The popular British music hall and radio team of Gert and Daisy (Elsie and Doris Waters) heads the cast of It's in the Bag. The whole thing starts when the cackling cockney duo sells an old dress. Turns out that there's 20,000 pounds sewn in the lining of the frock, a fact that precipitates a Read More

The Dark Tower

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Ben Lyon, Anne Crawford, David Farrar, Herbert Lom, Frederick Burtwell

Synopsis: Beneath the gay billows of the big-top seethes a veritable stewpot of illicit romance, false friends, rivalry and murder in this crime drama that contains the feature film debut of distinguished character actor Herbert Lom who plays a recently hired hypnotist who falls in love with a female Read More

We Dive at Dawn

Actors: Eric Portman, John Mills, Reginald Purdell, Louis Bradfield, Niall MacGinnis, Joan Hopkins, Jack Watling, Ronald Millar, Leslie Weston

Synopsis: After several months' heavy war duty, the crew of the British submarine Sea Tiger is enjoying a much-deserved leave, when suddenly they're called back to active duty. Sub commander John Mills has been ordered to pursue and sink the formidable German battleship Brandenburg. A series of nailbiting Read More

Bell-Bottom George

Synopsis: Toothy, ukelele-plucking British music hall favorite George Formby is at it again in Bell-Bottom George. From the title, you'd think that Formby has joined the Royal Navy. Well, sort of: when he's declared 4F (or the British equivalent of 4F), Formby poses as a Jack Tar to impress his girl friend Ann Firth Read More

Pack up Your Troubles

Crew: Screenwriter

Synopsis: In this wartime comedy, a garage owner, and his pal, a ventriloquist enlist and head for France where they are soon captured by the Nazis. Fortunately, the ventriloquist throws his voice, and they manage to escape. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Fingers

Synopsis: A London jeweler who fences stolen goods so that he too might become wealthy and therefore respectable, learns the value of true love in this drama. His first foray into l'amour leads him into the arms of a socialite. She convinces him to abandon the criminal world and start anew, but still he is Read More

Haunted Honeymoon

Actors: Robert Montgomery, Constance Cummings, Leslie Banks, Seymour Hicks, Robert Newton

Synopsis: Released in America as Haunted Honeymoon, this droll British comedy-mystery stars Hollywood's Robert Montgomery as Dorothy L. Sayers' erudite amateur sleuth Lord Peter Wimsey. Upon marrying mystery writer Harriet Vane (Constance Cummings), Lord Peter swears off crime-solving and embarks upon his Read More

Clouds over Europe

Actors: Laurence Olivier, Ralph Richardson, Valerie Hobson, George Curzon, George Merritt

Synopsis: This British spy thriller concerns the theft of valuable aircraft secrets by enemy agents. Laurence Olivier plays a firebrand test pilot who falls under suspicion when several planes disappear. Costar Ralph Richardson steals the film as a seemingly befuddled secret service operative assigned to Read More

The Middle Watch

Synopsis: In this comedy, a battleship captain has a large party to celebrate their next voyage and is dismayed to find that two glamorous women are still aboard after they set sail and cannot turn back. To protect them, and himself, he hides the unwilling stowaways in his quarters. Unfortunately, they are Read More

The Missing People

Actors: Will Fyffe, Kay Walsh, Lyn Harding, Ronald Shiner, Patricia Roc

Synopsis: Long after the company went out of business in the US, Grand National Pictures thrived in England, turning out such bread-and-butter features as The Missing People. Scottish comedian Will Fyffe once again plays Mr. Reeder, the seemingly bucolic Scotland Yard detective who's a lot shrewder than he Read More

His Brother's Keeper

Synopsis: In this melodrama, a performing crack-shot and a blues singer fall in love. When he abandons her, his brother, the target in their act, is there to woo her, even though she is after a wealthy man. The lovesick brother is heartbroken; during a performance he makes a wrong move and is accidently Read More

Anything to Declare?

Crew: Screenwriter

Synopsis: Director Roy William Neill, best known for his work on Universal's Sherlock Holmes series of the 1940s, occasionally made side trips to England during the 1930s. Neill's Anything to Declare? stars Claude Hulbert as an eccentric inventor named Claude Fishlock. Our hero has just developed a new Read More

Many Tanks Mr. Atkins

Crew: Screenwriter

Synopsis: In this British farce, a soldier invents a tank supercharger that he is most eager to try. When the Germans hear about the invention, they send out spies to steal it. The soldier and his partner are both klutzes and almost bumble the plans into the spies' waiting hands, but Fate intervenes and Read More

Quiet Please

Crew: Screenwriter

Synopsis: In this British comedy, two street performers find themselves involved with a woman arrested for being a jewel thief. To help her get out of jail, the two dress up as a patient and butler. They then catch the real thief and turn him in. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Simply Terrific

Synopsis: In this British comedy, a wealthy young man desperately wants to impress his girl friend's powerful father and so convinces the gentleman to invest in a promising new product, "Socko." The only problem is that there is no product, only a catchy name. The young man's problem is solved when he Read More

The Viper

Crew: Screenwriter

Synopsis: In this crime drama, a clever detective and his trusty assistant look into the case of a woman accused of stealing. The woman is the investigator's own niece, a dancer, who is also being pursued by a fugitive from Devil's Island who seeks the diamond that he hid within the heel of her shoe. Read More

It's in the Blood

Crew: Screenwriter

Synopsis: In this comedy, a meek, mild-mannered movie lover travels to Boulogne and ends up entangled in a great adventure that begins when he is mugged by a gang of British robbers. He then must return home aboard an onion boat. Later he and his gal try to catch the gang. They then discover that they are Read More

The Dark Stairway

Synopsis: In this British crime drama an argument over a new anaesthetic results in the murder of a hospital doctor. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

The Vulture

Crew: Screenwriter

Synopsis: In this comedy, a private detective earns his license via a correspondence course and then sets off to pursue a ring of jewel thieves lead by the villainous "Vulture." He ends up following them to Chinatown, where the gumshoe masquerades as a Chinese and ends up bringing the crooks to justice. Read More

Patricia Gets Her Man

Crew: Director

Synopsis: In this comedy, a plucky woman visiting the south of France attempts to catch herself a movie star. To help her, she cons a womanizing count to woo her and make her boyfriend jealous. Unfortunately, it backfires and the count falls for her. She then hatches a new scheme in which the count and the Read More

Don't Get Me Wrong

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Synopsis: A gasoline substitute in tablet form is produced by a deranged scientist and advocated by a fairground barker. ~ All Movie Guide Read More

Side Street Angel

Synopsis: In this comedy, a wealthy heir is shamed by his fiancee at a fancy party and ends up taking off to the bad side of town. There he encounters an ex-con who mistakes the distraught fellow for a high-class thief. The ex-con takes the millionaire into a house for reformed criminals. It is managed by a Read More

The Compulsory Wife

Crew: Screenwriter

Synopsis: This comedy chronicles a long night in which a young couple staying in an isolated cottage find that all their clothing has been stolen by a burglar. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Hail and Farewell

Crew: Screenwriter

Synopsis: The port of Southampton provides the locale for a series of escapades of British sailors on a 6 hour leave. ~ All Movie Guide Read More

Crown Vs Stevens

Synopsis: Having a great deal in common with the plots of later film noir classics, Crown Vs. Stevens was one of five films that Michael Powell directed for producer Irving Asher. Ex-dancer and femme fatale Doris Stevens, in need of money to pay off a loan shark, has married wealthy Arthur Stevens only to Read More

Where's Sally?

Synopsis: In this comedy, a philandering playboy tires of the fast lane and decides to marry his current girl friend. At the reception, his best friend begins regaling the girl with stories of her new husband's romantic exploits. The bride becomes terribly upset, causing her groom to whisk her out and begin Read More

Debt of Honor

Synopsis: A robbery committed by gambler Fitzgerald is claimed by his friend Banks while the two are stationed at an African outpost. ~ All Movie Guide Read More

The Old Curiosity Shop

Actors: Ben Webster, Elaine Benson, Hay Petrie, Beatrix Thomson, Gibb McLaughlin

Synopsis: Hay Petrie ingests the scenery as the demonic, hunchbacked Mr. Quilp in this 1935 British adaptation of Dickens' The Old Curiosity Shop. Quilp is the wicked landlord who dominates and later ruins the lives of shopkeeper Trent (Ben Webster) and his resourceful granddaughter Little Nell (Elaine Read More

The Runaway Queen

Synopsis: In this musical, set in the mythical country of Ruritania, a princess finds herself exiled by revolutionaries before she can ascend her rightful throne. She returns and takes over as soon as the revolution fails; soon she and the former leader fall in love, marry, and form a democratic monarchy. Read More

Key to Harmony

Get off My Foot

Radio Follies

Crew: Screen Story

Actors: Will Hay, Clifford Mollison, Helen Chandler

Synopsis: Will Hay heads a cast of nearly 40 popular British variety artists in Radio Parade of 1935. The magnificent supercilious Mr. Hay is cast as William Garland, a radio-station manager whose operation is in big financial trouble. Our hero is baled out by Jimmie Clare (Clifford Mollison), head of the Read More

Regal Cavalcade

Synopsis: His Hollywood career a thing of the past, director Herbert Brenon returned to his native England in 1934, where he continued making films until his retirement in 1940. Brenon's first project upon his arrival in London was the feature-length documentary Royal Cavalcade. Covering a 25-year period Read More

On the Air

Actors: Davy Burnaby, Reginald Purdell, Betty Astell

Synopsis: Little more than a glorified "quota quickie," On the Air showcases the talents of 14 popular radio and music-hall acts. The virtually nonexistent plotline concerns the efforts of a village vicar to stage a charity benefit. Somehow or other, our clerical hero manages to talk several major Read More

The Luck of a Sailor

Synopsis: In this romantic comedy, the king of Ruritania marries an impoverished commoner after he is exiled. Trouble shows up when the king must return to his country and marry an heiress. Fortunately, his first bride has fallen for an army officer and is happy to have her royal marriage annulled. ~ Sandra Read More

Strictly in Confidence

Crime on the Hill

Synopsis: In this murder mystery, Vicar Casson looks into the poisoning of a wealthy man. He soon finds that the man they convicted, the fiance of the rich man's niece, was innocent. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

My Lucky Star

Synopsis: In this romantic comedy, a shop clerk meets an artist and falls in love with him. She poses as a movie star to get him to fall for her, only to learn that he himself is actually a railroad porter. ~ Steve Huey, All Movie Guide Read More

Three Men in a Boat

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: William Austin, Edmund Breon, Billy Milton, Davy Burnaby, Iris March

Synopsis: In this comedy, three Englishmen have many zany adventures while floating down the Thames in a boat. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Up to the Neck

Actors: Ralph Lynn, Winifred Shotter, Francis Lister

Synopsis: In this comedy, a quiet bank clerk inherits a fortune, quits his job, and tries to become a major theatrical producer. He then falls in love with a chorine and spends most of his money on a lavish production designed to make her a star. Unfortunately, the show is a bomb. To save the performance of Read More

Love on the Spot

Crew: Screenwriter

Synopsis: In this musical romance, father and daughter con-artists prepare to go their separate ways when she learns that daddy tried to scam her newest beau. She soon discovers that he as is big a grifter as they. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Night in Montmartre

Actors: Horace Hodges, Heather Angel, Franklin Dyall, Hugh Williams, Kay Hammond

Synopsis: In this drama, a restaurant owner moonlights as a blackmailer to beef up his earnings. The trouble begins when he is found stabbed to death and an innocent man is charged with the crime. Fortunately, the accused's aged father is a former detective who begins working to clear his name. ~ Sandra Read More

Der Kongress Tanzt

Actors: Lilian Harvey, Willy Fritsch, Henri Garat, Otto Wallburg, Conrad Veidt, Armand Bernard, Lil Dagover, Gibb McLaughlin, Carl-Heinz Schroth

Synopsis: During the 1814 Congress in Vienna, the crowned heads of Europe gather together to decide the shape (and fate) of the continent (which would hold -- with some serious cracks -- for exactly 100 years) and devise a strategy for dealing with Napoleon. The ordinary Austrians chafe at the cost of Read More

The Middle Watch

Actors: Owen Nares, Jacqueline Logan, Jack Raine, Dodo Watts, Fred Volpe

Synopsis: A literal adaptation of the popular stage play by Ian Hay and Stephen King-Hall, specialists both in maritime comedies, The Middle Watch stars Owen Nares as Captain Maitland, skipper of a battleship bound for the high seas. Not only is Maitland a by-the-book disciplinarian, but he's also an avowed Read More