Sylvia Syms Filmography

I'll Sleep When I'm Dead

Actors: Clive Owen, Charlotte Rampling, Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, Malcolm McDowell, Jamie Foreman

Synopsis: For I'll Sleep When I'm Dead, director Mike Hodges re-teams with Trevor Preston, the respected British television writer with whom he made a series of documentaries for ITV back in the 1960s. The film also brings the director together again with actor Clive Owen, the star of his previous film, Croupier Read More

What a Girl Wants

Actors: Amanda Bynes, Colin Firth, Kelly Preston, Jonathan Pryce, Eileen Atkins, Anna Chancellor

Synopsis: Loosely based on the 1958 comedy The Reluctant Debutante starring Sandra Dee, the family-friendly comedy What a Girl Wants features popular Nickelodeon teen star Amanda Bynes in her first feature-starring performance after her debut in Big Fat Liar. She plays teenager Daphne Reynolds, who lives in Read More

The Jury

Actors: Derek Jacobi, Antony Sher, Gerard Butler, Helen McCrory

Synopsis: First telecast in the U.K. on February 17, 2002, the five-part British miniseries The Jury probes the workings of justice from the viewpoint of the 12 men and women chosen to determine the fate of a Sikh teenager, accused of murdering a white classmate with a ceremonial sword. This racially Read More

Neville's Island

Actors: Timothy Spall, Martin Clunes, Jeff Rawle, David Bamber

Synopsis: British screen favorites Timothy Spall and Martin Clunes headline the rollicking survivalist farce Neville's Island, which combines the premises of Deliverance and Robinson Crusoe, wrapped in distinctly English humor. When four white-collared businessmen undertake a team-building exercise, little Read More

Food of Love

Actors: Richard E. Grant, Nathalie Baye, Joe McGann, Juliet Aubrey, Lorcan Cranitch

Synopsis: In this British-French co-production, assistant bank manager Alex (Richard E. Grant), a part-time theater instructor, decides to contact the original cast of a Twelfth Night production he directed years previously in a small English village. Alex plans to restage the production, and old romances Read More

Catherine Cookson's The Glass Virgin

Synopsis: The Glass Virgin is a 1995 UK television miniseries directed by Sarah Hellings, adapted from the best-selling novel by Catherine Cookson. In 19th century England, wealthy young Annabella Lagrange lives a comfortable and secluded life on her family's country estate, where her parents (Nigel Havers Read More

Staggered

Actors: Martin Clunes, Michael Praed, Anna Chancellor, Sylvia Syms, Griff Rhys Jones

Synopsis: This British romantic comedy from director and star Martin Clunes concerns Neil Price (Clunes), a meek toy demonstrator who becomes engaged to Hilary (Sarah Winman), a beautiful girl from a prosperous family. At his wild bachelor party, Neil consumes a spiked drink and passes out. When he awakens Read More

Dirty Weekend

Actors: Lia Williams, David McCallum, Ian Richardson, Rufus Sewell

Synopsis: Michael Winner directs a curious amalgam of his own Death Wish and Abel Ferrara's Ms. 45, in this intense, post-feminist serial-killer movie, based on the bestseller by Helen Zahavi. After an explosive love affair crashes and burns, Bella (Lia Williams) leaves London for Brighton, where she begins Read More

Shining Through

Actors: Michael Douglas, Melanie Griffith, Liam Neeson, Joely Richardson, John Gielgud

Synopsis: Kewpie-doll voiced Melanie Griffith does a sexed-up Nancy Drew turn in David Seltzer's adaptation of Susan Issacs' novel Shining Through. Set during World war II, Griffith plays Linda Voss, a spunky New York girl who applies for a job with international lawyer Ed Leland (Michael Douglas). Ed hires Read More

Shirley Valentine

Actors: Pauline Collins, Tom Conti, Alison Steadman, Julia McKenzie, Joanna Lumley

Synopsis: Since its London and Broadway stage debut, playwright Willy Russell's Shirley Valentine has proven an excellent showcase for any number of talented actresses (Loretta Swit won the 1989 Sarah Siddons Award for her work in the Chicago production). In the film version of Shirley Valentine, Pauline Collins Read More

A Chorus of Disapproval

Actors: Jeremy Irons, Anthony Hopkins, Prunella Scales, Jenny Seagrove, Sylvia Syms

Synopsis: Alan Ayckbourn's riotously funny play about a small-time acting troupe in the sticks is brought to the screen by director Michael Winner. Jeremy Irons plays Guy Jones, a mild-mannered flunky for an electronics firm who finds himself transferred to the British seaside town of Scarsborough. Bereft Read More

Doctor Who: Ghost Light, Episode 3

Actors: Sylvester McCoy, Sophie Aldred, Sharon Duce, Ian Hogg, Carl Forgione

Synopsis: In the conclusion of the three-part story "Ghost Light," the Doctor (Sylvester McCoy) and Ace (Sophie Aldred) have arrived at Ace's ancestral home, Gabriel Chase, in 1883. Hoping to discover the source of Ace's nightmares, the Doctor at first concludes that the house is haunted by traditional Read More

Doctor Who: Ghost Light, Episode 2

Actors: Sylvester McCoy, Sophie Aldred, Carl Forgione, Sharon Duce, Katherine Schlesinger

Synopsis: In the second episode of the three-part story "The Ghost Light," the Doctor (Sylvester McCoy) and Ace (Sophie Aldred) have arrived in Ace's home town of Perivale, in hopes of finding out the cause of the girl's horrible nightmares. Arriving in the village in the year 1883, the Doctor is plunged in Read More

Doctor Who: Ghost Light, Episode 1

Actors: Sylvester McCoy, Sophie Aldred, Sylvia Syms, Brenda Kempner, John Nettleton

Synopsis: In the first episode of the three-part Doctor Who adventure "Ghost Light," the Doctor (Sylvester McCoy) accompanies Ace (Sophie Aldred) on a visit to her home town of Perivale. Arriving during the Victorian era, the time travelers try to determine the source of a terrifying experience in Ace's Read More

Intimate Contact

Actors: Claire Bloom, Daniel Massey

Synopsis: After a brief business-trip fling, a white-collar executive (Daniel Massey) learns he has contracted AIDS, and he and his wife (Claire Bloom) are forced to come to grips with his mortality. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide Read More

A Murder Is Announced

Actors: Joan Hickson

Synopsis: Joan Hickson stars as Miss Jane Marple in this made-for-TV adaptation of one of Agatha Christie's classic murder mystery tales. An odd advertisement appears in the Chipping Cleghorne Gazette, which announces that a murder will take place on October 5 at 7 p.m. at a cottage in Little Paddocks. Read More

Absolute Beginners

Actors: Eddie O'Connell, Patsy Kensit, David Bowie, James Fox, Ray Davies

Synopsis: The rise of teen culture in 1950s Britain provides the backdrop for Julien Temple's unconventional rock musical Absolute Beginners. The film centers on Colin, an 18-year-old with a talent for photography and a fondness for the neon nightlife of British jazz clubs. He also is in love with Crepe Read More

Murders at Lynch Cross

Actors: Sylvia Syms, Barbara Jefford

Synopsis: Made for British television, this film concerns a bizarre, out-of-the-way Yorkshire hotel and its mysterious inhabitants. ~ John Bush, All Movie Guide Read More

Nancy Astor

Synopsis: The life and times of Britain's first female Member of Parliament are dramatically chronicled in this British miniseries. Lisa Harrow stars as Virginia-born Nancy Langhorne, who married into American aristocracy when she became the wife of the wealthy, influential, and chronically unfaithful Read More

There Goes the Bride

Actors: Tom Smothers, Twiggy, Martin Balsam, Sylvia Syms

Synopsis: Retrograde even at the time of its 1980 release, this filmed version of the mid-'70s play by the same title stars Tom Smothers as Timothy Westerby, the bumbling father of the bride, and his imaginary dance partner, Polly (Twiggy). Events of the chaotic wedding day are told in flashback as Westerby Read More

Give Us Tomorrow

Synopsis: When a locked vault causes problems in the robbery of a bank, the gunman hold a bank manager and his family hostage. ~ All Movie Guide Read More

The Tamarind Seed

Actors: Julie Andrews, Omar Sharif, Anthony Quayle, Dan O'Herlihy, Sylvia Syms

Synopsis: Blake Edwards's stylish direction bolsters this Cold War romance starring Julie Andrews and Omar Sharif. Andrews plays Judith Farrow, a British civil service functionary who meets dashing Russian agent Feodor Sverdlov (Omar Sharif) under the romantic skies of the Caribbean. The Caribbean breezes Read More

Asylum

Actors: Peter Cushing, Britt Ekland, Herbert Lom, Patrick Magee, Robert Powell

Synopsis: Four short stories by master of macabre Robert Bloch are related by the inmates of a mental institution. In the first story, Richard Todd murders his wife and cuts her body into little pieces -- but that doesn't stop her from seeking revenge. In the second, Peter Cushing orders crooked tailor Barry Morse Read More

Born to Win

Actors: George Segal, Karen Black, Paula Prentiss, Jay Fletcher, Hector Elizondo

Synopsis: Born to Win is the grimly ironic title of this jet-black comedy about heroin addicts. George Segal plays Jay Jay, an ex-hairdresser who struggles to support his expensive drug habit. To avoid arrest, Jay Jay turns "narc," informing on his fellow junkies. Eventually Jay Jay's sense of self-hatred Read More

Some of My Best Friends Are....

Actors: Nick Denoia, Dan Drake, David Drew, Jim Enzel, Tommy Fiorello, Uva Harden, Hector Martinez, Larry Reed

Synopsis: With a storyline evocative of the previous year's smash gay-themed The Boys in the Band, this drama centers on a varied group of homosexuals who meet in a New York bar on a Christmas Eve to talk about their lives, their travails, and relationships. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Run Wild, Run Free

Actors: John Mills, Sylvia Syms, Bernard Miles, Mark Lester, Gordon Jackson

Synopsis: Child actor Mark Lester proved that his sudden ascension to stardom in Oliver wasn't a fluke with Run Wild, Run Free. Lester plays a psychosomatically mute young Dartmoor boy, who avoids all human contact whenever possible. He is fascinated by nature, but cannot convey this love to his Read More

The Desperados

Actors: Vince Edwards, Jack Palance, George Maharis, Neville Brand, Sylvia Syms

Synopsis: This violent western finds a son leaving his father and family behind in the wake of the elder's violent guerilla warfare against society at large. David Galt (Vince Edwards) leaves his Confederate war-veteran father Josiah (Jack Palance) behind and settles in Texas. The son changes his name Read More

Danger Route

Actors: Richard Johnson, Carol Lynley, Barbara Bouchet, Sylvia Syms, Diana Dors

Synopsis: British agents drop like skeets in this convoluted espionage film. Jonas Wilde (Richard Johnson) is a successful British secret agent who wants to hang up his license to kill and retire. His superior, Canning (Harry Andrews), agrees to accept his resignation if he agrees to one last case Read More

Hostile Witness

Synopsis: In this psychological drama, the daughter of a British barrister is killed in a hit-and-run accident. Her bereaved father swears his revenge. When the man's neighbor is killed, the barrister finds himself accused of the death. He begins to wonder if he is not going stark raving mad. ~ Sandra Read More

The Fiction Makers

Synopsis: The Saint was a long-running (1963-1969) British TV series based on characters created by Leslie Charteris. Roger Moore stars as Simon Templar, a handsome soldier-of-fortune of dubious principles and morals, but a handy man to have around whenever someone truly deserving is in distress. The Read More

Operation Crossbow

Actors: Sophia Loren, George Peppard, Trevor Howard, John Mills, Tom Courtenay, Richard Todd, Sylvia Syms, Jeremy Kemp, Paul Henreid, Helmut Dantine

Synopsis: This big-budget, big-studio espionage film is set in the last years of World War II. George Peppard, Tom Courtenay and Jeremy Kemp parachute into Germany, with orders to destroy the Nazis' V-1 rocket base at Peenemunde. Given the order of billing, guess which special operative survives the Read More

The Big Job

Actors: Sidney James, Sylvia Syms, Dick Emery, Lance Percival, Joan Sims

Synopsis: Though long defunct in the United States, the tiny production firm of Pathe continued churning out British programmers into the 1960s. Pathe's The Big Job stars Sidney James, Dick Emery and Lance Percival as a trio of none-too-bright bank robbers. Released from jail after 15 years, the intrepid Read More

East of Sudan

Actors: Anthony Quayle, Sylvia Syms, Derek Fowlds, Jenny Agutter, Johnny Sekka

Synopsis: In this adventure, set in 19th-century India when the British were attempting to stop the slave trade against the Sudanese Moslems, a brave trooper and a new lieutenant must help a governess and her charge get to safety. The two soldiers despise each other. The experienced trooper has little Read More

The Punch and Judy Man

Actors: Tony Hancock, Sylvia Syms, Ronald Fraser, Barbara Murray, John Le Mesurier

Synopsis: Tony Hancock, as big a comedy star as it was possible to be in the Britain of 1963, decided to pull a "Charlie Chaplin" with The Punch and Judy Man. He plays an end-of-pier seashore entertainer who is loved by children but reviled by adults. Hancock's efforts to establish himself as a man of Read More

The World Ten Times Over

Actors: Sylvia Syms, Edward Judd, June Ritchie, William Hartnell, Sarah Lawson

Synopsis: Released in England under the title The World Ten Times Over, this dour drama is about the misfortunes of two aging single women. Billa (Sylvia Sims) and Ginnie (June Ritchie) live together in an apartment, and each works as a hostess at a night club. Billa is jaded and fed up with men, while Read More

Victim

Actors: Dirk Bogarde, Sylvia Syms, Dennis Price, Anthony Nicholls, Peter Copley, Peter McEnery

Synopsis: In its time, Victim was considered as a daring a film as had ever been made in England. Taken at face value, Janet Green and John McCormick's screenplay is nothing new: Dirk Bogarde plays a lawyer who agrees to defend an old friend (John McEnery) on a theft charge, only to be enmeshed in a Read More

The Quare Fellow

Actors: Patrick McGoohan, Sylvia Syms, Walter Macken, Harry Brogan, Dermot Kelly, Jack Cunningham

Synopsis: Brendan Behan, the quixotic, eternally sloshed Irish poet/playwright, peppered his play The Quare Fellow with plenty of "gallows humor." The film version dispenses with most the play's morbid jests, leaving us with a grim, straightforward account of a Dublin death-row prison guard (Patrick McGoohan Read More

Le Vergini di Roma

Actors: Louis Jourdan, Nicole Courcel, Sylvia Syms, Jean Chevrier

Synopsis: This French/Italian sword 'n' sandal effort is set in the Rome of 476 BC. The Eternal City is threatened with invasion from the Etruscans, with soldier-of-fortune Louis Jourdan in the vanguard. When offered a truce, Jourdan demands that the Romans offer hostages as a sign of good faith. He is Read More

Flame in the Streets

Actors: John Mills, Sylvia Syms, Brenda de Banzie, Earl Cameron, Johnny Sekka

Synopsis: Versatile director Roy Baker tackles the question of racial bias in this dated but effective drama, a working-class version of Guess Who's Coming to Dinner. Jacko Palmer (John Mills) is a dedicated, talented union leader who manages to mediate an upheaval over a black foreman at work and prevent a Read More

The World of Suzie Wong

Actors: William Holden, Nancy Kwan, Sylvia Syms, Michael Wilding, Sr., Jacqui Chan, Laurence Naismith

Synopsis: William Holden stars as an American artist who becomes involved with the sordid underworld of prostitution in Hong Kong in The World of Suzie Wong, based on Paul Osborn's Broadway adaptation of the novel by Richard Mason. Holden is American architect Robert Lomax, who travels to Hong Kong to Read More

Conspiracy of Hearts

Actors: Lilli Palmer, Sylvia Syms, Yvonne Mitchell, Ronald Lewis, Albert Lieven

Synopsis: Lilli Palmer stars as a nun in a World War 2-era Italian convent. At the risk of her own life and those of her cloistered colleagues, Palmer hides a group of Jewish orphans from the Nazis. She then attempts to shepherd the kids to the safety of foster homes. Danger looms in the form of Nazi Read More

Expresso Bongo

Actors: Laurence Harvey, Sylvia Syms, Yolande Donlan, Cliff Richard, Meier Tzelniker

Synopsis: In this witty music-business satire, Johnny Jackson (Laurence Harvey) is a talent agent down on his luck who thinks his tide may have turned when he spots a teenage rock & roll fan wailing away in a coffeehouse. Dubbing him "Bongo Herbert" (Cliff Richard, in a role the now knighted and born-again 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

Bachelor of Hearts

Actors: Hardy Kruger, Sylvia Syms, Ronald Lewis, Miles Malleson, Jeremy Burnham, Peter Myers, Eric Barker

Synopsis: Bachelor of Hearts stars Hardy Kruger as Wolf, a German exchange student attending Cambridge University. Initially arousing the distrust and disdain of his classmates (WWII was, after all, only thirteen years in the past), the affable Wolf slowly wins them over. He also finds romance in the lovely Read More

Ice Cold in Alex

Actors: John Mills, Sylvia Syms, Anthony Quayle, Harry Andrews, Diane Clare

Synopsis: The British Ice Cold in Alex was released in the US as Desert Attack. John Mills stars as Captain Anson, a grumbling alcoholic sent on a WW2 mission to Alexandria. Travelling to his destination by ambulance, Anson becomes acquainted with his fellow passengers, nurses Sister Diane Murdoch (Sylvia Read More

The Moonraker

Actors: George Baker, Sylvia Syms, Peter Arne, Marius Goring, Clive Morton

Synopsis: When the English Civil War is winding down but the Roundheads and Royalists are still at odds with each other, it is decided that the King, Raymond, should be moved from England to France for safekeeping. When the Cavalier assigned the task is thwarted by the discovery of the scheme, other Read More

No Trees in the Street

Actors: Sylvia Syms, Herbert Lom, Ronald Howard, Stanley Holloway, Joan Miller

Synopsis: In direct contrast to his later lush-budgeted international epics, director J. Lee Thompson turns his lenses towards the London slums in the sincere but saccharine No Trees in the Street. Based on the play by Ted Willis, the film is set in the years just before World War II, when England hadn't Read More

No Time for Tears

Actors: Anna Neagle, Anthony Quayle, Sylvia Syms, George Baker, Alan White

Synopsis: Anna Neagle steps down from her expensive musical extravaganzas to play a recognizable human being in No Time for Tears. She plays the dedicated director of a busy children's hospital, battling red tape, family hassles and public indifference. A large and stellar cast appears in this episodic Read More

Woman in a Dressing Gown

Actors: Yvonne Mitchell, Sylvia Syms, Anthony Quayle, Andrew Ray, Carole Lesley

Synopsis: Based on a popular British television drama, this 1957 film features a riveting performance from Yvonne Mitchell as a housewife who can't keep house. Mitchell plays Amy Preston, who after 25 years of marriage still hasn't mastered the domestic arts necessary to sustain a traditional 1950s-style Read More

The Birthday Present

Actors: Tony Britton, Sylvia Syms, Jack Watling, Walter Fitzgerald, Geoffrey Keen

Synopsis: The Birthday Present is a bitter half-hour anecdote stretched to 100 minutes. Tony Britton plays a British toy salesman who purchases a watch for his wife's birthday while visiting the Continent. Not wishing to pay the customs duties, he hides the watch upon his return to England. Britton is Read More

My Teenage Daughter

Actors: Anna Neagle, Sylvia Syms, Norman Wooland, Kenneth Haigh

Synopsis: What was the lady-like Dame Anna Neagle doing in something called Bad Girl -- or, as it was renamed in certain regions, Teenage Bad Girl? In point of fact, the film was originally and more tastefully titled My Teenage Daughter when Neagle signed on. Neagle plays Valerie Carr, the editor of a Read More

It Happens Every Thursday

Actors: Loretta Young, John Forsythe, Frank McHugh, Edgar Buchanan, Palmer Lee [Gregg Palmer]

Synopsis: Excluding a brace of 1980s TV-movie appearances, It Happens Every Thursday was the final feature film appearance of Loretta Young. As radiantly beautiful at 40 as she'd been as a teen-aged ingenue, Young plays Jane McAvoy, the pregnant wife of big-city newspaper reporter Bob McAvoy (John Read More

Night without Sleep

Actors: Linda Darnell, Gary Merrill, Hildegarde Neff, Joyce MacKenzie, June Vincent

Synopsis: Given to violent, unpredictable behavior, composer Richard Morton (Gary Merrill) is an accident waiting to happen. Attempting to drown his problems in drink, Morton awakens with a monumental hangover -- and the nagging belief that he has murdered a woman. Did this, in fact, happen? And was the Read More