Thora HirdFilmography

Lost for Words

Synopsis: Lost for Words is a poignant autobiography of Deric Longden's relationship with his aging and eccentric mother, Annie. The opening scene depicts Annie as an opinionated, never-at-a-loss-for-words character who insists upon running the show, even going so far as choosing her own Mother's Day card Read More

The Wedding Gift

Actors: Julie Walters, Jim Broadbent, Andrew Lancel, Anastasia Mulrooney, Thora Hird, Sian Thomas

Synopsis: This British drama was originally created for British television but was later released in the U.S. It is based on a true story and chronicles the struggles of Deric and Diana Longden, a happily married couple who try to cope with Diana's inexplicable degenerative disease which causes occasional Read More

Memento Mori

Actors: Stephanie Cole, Renée Ashershon, Michael Hordern, Thora Hird, Maggie Smith, Maurice Denham, Cyril Cusack

Synopsis: Based on a novel by Muriel Spark (The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie), the British TV drama Memento Mori boasts an impressive cast of veterans, including Maurice Denham, Cyril Cusack, Sir Michael Hordern, Renee Ashershon, and Maggie Smith. The story concerns an eccentric group of senior citizens who Read More

The Tailor of Gloucester

Actors: Ian Holm

Synopsis: John Michael Phillips directs this British live-action musical, based on the children's story by Beatrix Potter. A tailor (Ian Holm) needs to finish a project before Christmas, so a group of mice help him out unexpectedly. Also starring Thora Hird, Jude Law, and students from the Royal Ballet Read More

Consuming Passions

Actors: Vanessa Redgrave, Jonathan Pryce, Tyler Butterworth, Freddie Jones, Sammi Davis

Synopsis: A British production created by Monty Python alumni, this film concerns an inept chocolate-factory executive (Tyler Butterworth) who accidentally knocks three workers into a vat. The product is an incredible hit with consumers, though one of the workers' widows (Vanessa Redgrave) is considering Read More

Hallelujah!: Series 02

Actors: Thora Hird, Patsy Rowlands

Hallelujah!: Series 01

Actors: Thora Hird, Patsy Rowlands, Rosamond Greenwood, David Daker

The Nightcomers

Actors: Marlon Brando, Stephanie Beacham, Thora Hird, Verna Harvey, Christopher Ellis

Synopsis: Marlon Brando delivers a respectably creepy performance in the Michael Winner directed The Nightcomers -- a film inspired by the characters in Henry James' The Turn of the Screw. On a British country estate, two recently-orphaned children, Miles (Christopher Ellis) and Flora (Verna Harvey), live Read More

Some Will, Some Won't

Synopsis: In this farce, four people go to extremes to inherit the giant fortune of a wealthy practical joker. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Rattle of a Simple Man

Actors: Harry H. Corbett, Diane Cilento, Thora Hird, Michael Medwin, Charles Dyer

Synopsis: This is a somewhat sensitive story of a virgin 39-year-old British soccer fan who goes to a bar with a bunch of his pals and is goaded into betting that he can sleep with the sassy waitress. What he doesn't know is that she overhears the bet and decides to call better's bluff. They take off to her Read More

Bitter Harvest

Actors: Janet Munro, John Stride, Anne Cunningham, Alan Badel, Vanda Godsell, William Lucas

Synopsis: It's Hoppity Goes To Town with sex in this 1963 British version of the old chestnut concerning an innocent country lass who travels to the big city and becomes corrupted, in this film version of Patrick Hamilton's novel The Street Has a Thousand Skies. Janet Munro runs the gamut of emotions as Read More

Term of Trial

Actors: Laurence Olivier, Simone Signoret, Roland Culver, Sarah Miles, Frank Pettingell, Terence Stamp, Thora Hird

Synopsis: Based on James Barlow's novel The Burden of Proof, this is a thoughtful drama revolving around the relationship between a schoolteacher and his students, in particular a fifteen year old girl (played by the debuting Sarah Miles, although she was in fact 21 at the time), who has become infatuated Read More

A Kind of Loving

Actors: Alan Bates, June Ritchie, Thora Hird, James Bolam, Bert Palmer, Leonard Rossiter, Gwen Nelson

Synopsis: This well-wrought romance takes place in Lancashire, England in an industrial area where Vic (Alan Bates) and Ingrid (June Ritchie) work in the same factory. He is a draftsman who wants only a physical relationship with the woman of his choice (Ingrid), and she is a typist who wants true love with Read More

Over the Odds

Actors: Marjorie Rhodes, Glenn Melvyn, Cyril Smith, Esma Cannon, Thora Hird

Synopsis: One of the many "B"-grade British comedies meant to fill the lower half of a double-billing, Over the Odds is about bookkeeper George Summers (Glenn Melvyn), who has opted to marry one more time after his first wife left him. Unfortunately, his ex-wife's harridan mother-in-law (Marjorie Rhodes) Read More

The Entertainer

Actors: Laurence Olivier, Brenda de Banzie, Joan Plowright, Roger Livesey, Alan Bates, Albert Finney

Synopsis: Laurence Olivier recreates his stage role of Archie Rice in this in-your-face film adaptation of John Osborne's play. The son of a legendary music hall comedian (Roger Livesey), Archie is strictly a third-rater, headlining a tacky music hall revue in a seedy seaside resort town. Archie can't admit Read More

Cross-Up

Actors: Larry Parks, Constance Smith, Lisa Daniely

Synopsis: In this espionage film, an American journalist goes to London. There he becomes friends with a young woman who is really a secret agent carrying an important list of enemy spies disguised as a diary. When she drops it, he picks it up and finds himself facing a gun barrel. They get involved in a Read More

Further Up the Creek!

Actors: David Tomlinson, Shirley Eaton, Thora Hird, Lionel Jeffries

Synopsis: This hastily assembled sequel to the popular British service farce Up the Creek finds David Tomlinson returning in the role of Lt. Fairweather, skipper of the not-so-good ship Aristotle. This time, however, Fairweather's enterprisingly larcenous bos'un is played not by Peter Sellers but by Read More

The Good Companions

Actors: Eric Portman, Celia Johnson, Hugh Griffith, Janette Scott, John Fraser

Synopsis: 1957's The Good Companions was the second film version of the well-known J. B. Priestly play. The story revolves around the Dinky Doos, a provincial musical troupe living from hand to mouth. Eric Portman, Celia Johnson and John Fraser are three Britons from various classes and walks of life who Read More

Dangerous Youth

Actors: George Baker, Thora Hird, Eddie Byrne, Frankie Vaughan, Carole Lesley, Kenneth Cope, Robert Desmond, Jackie Lane, Katherine Kath, Ray Jackson

Synopsis: This British drama chronicles the exploits of a brutal Liverpudlian gang leader/would-be rock star who finds himself inducted into the army. The troubled youth undergoes basic training and emerges a man. Later his best friend from boot camp is killed by the camp bully. Courageously, he stands up Read More

Panic in the Parlour

Actors: Michael Caine, Peggy Mount, Cyril Smith, Shirley Eaton, Ronald Lewis, Esma Cannon

Synopsis: Sailor Beware was originally released in England as Panic in the Parlour. The panic begins when a sailor named Albert (Ronald Lewis) plans to get married to a gal named Shirley (Shirley Eaton). On the day of the ceremony, Albert gets cold feet when he discovers that Shirley's gorgonlike mother Read More

Home and Away

Synopsis: In this comedy, the lives of two families get turned topsy-turvy when their respective young sons win a large football pool. The two share the winning ticket and the trouble begins when their parents get greedy and begin trying to devise way to get the hefty pot all to themselves. ~ Sandra Read More

Blonde Bait

Actors: Beverly Michaels, Jim Davis, Joan Rice, Richard Travis, Paul Cavanagh

Synopsis: Tired of the humdrum routine at a staid British woman's prison, brassy American chorine Angela Booth (Beverly Michaels) busts out. Scotland Yard decides to allow Angela to roam free, hoping that she'll lead them to her partner in crime, who unbeknownst to her is a notorious traitor and killer. Read More

One Good Turn

Actors: Norman Wisdom, Joan Rice, Shirley Abicair, Thora Hird, William Russell

Synopsis: Beloved British comedian Norman Wisdom made his second film appearance in One Good Turn. This time, nebbishy Norman plays a jack-of-all-trades, employed by an orphanage. After a steady series of slapstick setpieces, our hero sets about to save the orphanage from the hands of its creditors. Those Read More

Tiger by the Tail

Tears for Simon

Actors: David Farrar, David Knight, Julia Arnall, Anthony Oliver

Synopsis: An 18-month-old baby disappears in London. The parents, US embassy worker David Knight and his wife Julia Arnall, are panic-stricken. Detective David Farrar tries to locate the child, but clues are scarce. At the last possible moment, Farrar rescues the infant from a grueling fate and collars the Read More

Simon and Laura

Actors: Peter Finch, Kay Kendall, Muriel Pavlow, Ian Carmichael, Maurice Denham

Synopsis: Love, marriage and show business provide the basis of this lively comedy that centers on a husband and wife, who are chosen by television producers to embody the perfect married couple on an upcoming television series. The show is to be filmed and broadcast live from the home of Simon and Laura Read More

The Quatermass Xperiment

Actors: Brian Donlevy, Jack Warner, Margia Dean, Richard Wordsworth, David King-Wood, Gordon Jackson

Synopsis: A rocket crash-lands in England after a flight of more than 57 hours into deep space. The design of Professor Bernard Quatermass (Brian Donlevy), a forceful, misanthropic American scientist, the Q-1 had three astronauts aboard when it left Earth, but only one of them, engineer Victor Caroon Read More

The Love Match

Synopsis: In this comedy, two rabid football fans begin an unstoppable train of events when they physically harass a referee. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

The Crowded Day

Synopsis: In the tradition of Derby Day and The Extra Day came another multiplotted British comedy/drama, The Crowded Day. A huge and mobile cast play the various persons connected with a department store sale during the Christmas season. Special attention is given five members of the store's sales staff Read More

Don't Blame the Stork

Synopsis: Veronica Hurst is the star of the 1954 British frivolity Don't Blame the Stork. Hurst plays an actress who will do anything for publicity. When an infant is abandoned on the doorstep of celebrated actor Ian Hunter, Hurst steps forth to claim that the baby is hers. Ever so many embarrassing Read More

For Better for Worse

Actors: Dirk Bogarde, Susan Stephen, Cecil Parker, Eileen Herlie, Athene Seyler

Synopsis: Arthur Watkyn's droll theatrical piece For Better, For Worse was expertly adapted for the big screen in 1954. Popular young star Dirk Bogarde and strangely forgotten newcomer Susan Stephen star as a young married couple who struggle to make things run smoothly in their first year together. The Read More

A Day to Remember

Actors: Stanley Holloway, Donald Sinden, Joan Rice, Odile Versois, James Hayter

Synopsis: Based on The Hand and the Flower, a novel by Jerrard Tickell, A Day to Remember stars Stanley Holloway as Charley Porter, captain of London darts team. When the team travels to the French town of Boulogne for the annual darts tournament, a good time is had by all--and more besides. Jim Carver (Donald Sinden Read More

Both Sides of the Law

Synopsis: The philosophies and practices of London policewomen provide the basis of this exciting and interesting docu-drama that centers on three such women. The film is also known as Street Corner. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Personal Affair

Actors: Gene Tierney, Leo Genn, Glynis Johns, Pamela Brown, Walter Fitzgerald

Synopsis: The star power of leading lady Gene Tierney enabled the British Personal Affair to get good bookings in the U.S. The story is set in motion by impulsive schoolgirl Barbara Vining (Glynis Johns), who develops a crush on teacher Stephen Barlow (Leo Genn). Barlow's wife Kay (Tierney) confronts Read More

The Long Memory

Actors: John Mills, John McCallum, Elizabeth Sellars, Geoffrey Keen

Synopsis: John Mills followed his successful Gentle Gunman with the tensioned-filled meller The Long Memory. Convicted for a murder he did not commit, Davidson (Mills) spends 12 long years in prison. Upon his release, he vows to get even with the three witnesses who perjured themselves and clenched his Read More

The Great Game

Synopsis: James Hayter plays the chairman of a British football club. Hayter's fondness for gambling results in his involvement with the criminal element. As a result, he becomes mixed up in a few underhanded business deals. The presence of the luscious Diana Dors is perhaps the primary reason that the Read More

Time Gentlemen Please?

Actors: Eddie Byrne, Hermione Baddeley, Raymond Lovell, Dora Bryan, Jane Barrett

Synopsis: Time Gentlemen Please is a phrase that is all too familiar to British pub patrons; it means that it's closing time, and everyone is invited to go home. Actually, the film has less to do with elbow-bending than with the vagaries of British traditions. A tiny English village is thrown into a panic Read More

Turn the Key Softly

Actors: Yvonne Mitchell, Terence Morgan, Joan Collins, Kathleen Harrison, Thora Hird

Synopsis: Based on a novel by John Brophy, Turn the Key Softly takes place within a single day. The film follows the exploits of three newly released female convicts. Monica (Yvonne Mitchell) is full of hatred for the man who led her into a life of crime. Stella (Joan Collins) is an impulsive streetwalker Read More

Background

Actors: Valerie Hobson, Rick Hart, Phillip Friend, Norman Wooland, Janette Scott, Mandy Miller

Synopsis: Background is a tearful flashback drama centering around a dysfunctional family. Valerie Hobson and Philip Friend play a long-married couple on the verge of divorce. As they ponder the question of who will receive custody of their children (Janette Scott, Mandy Miller and Jeremy Spencer), the Read More

The Big Frame

Actors: Mark Stevens, Jean Kent, Garry Marsh, John Bentley, Dianne Foster

Synopsis: The Anglo-American melodrama The Big Frame was released in Britain as Count the Hours. Mark Stevens stars as a Texas-born test pilot who heads to England to marry his wartime sweetheart Jean Kent. At a reunion party with his air force chums, Stevens gets into a boozy brawl with one of the Read More

The Frightened Man

Synopsis: In this crime drama, a junk dealer's son breaks his father's heart when his poor grades get him tossed out of Oxford. The boy then involves himself with the very jewel thieves that use his father, unknown to the boy, as a fence. The father tries to subtly keep his boy from becoming too involved Read More

Hundred Hour Hunt

Actors: Jack Warner, Anthony Steel, Joy Shelton, Sidney James, Freddie Mills

Synopsis: The Hundred Hour Hunt was originally released in Britain as Emergency, then as Emergency Call. A woman lies in a hospital near death. She needs a transfusion, but her blood type is extremely rare. It's up to Inspector Lane (Jack Warner) to track down the three potential donors. The rest of the Read More

Once a Sinner

Actors: Patricia Kirkwood, Jack Watling, Joy Shelton, Sydney Tafler, Thora Hird

Synopsis: Impoverished British bank clerk John Ross (Jack Watling) is hopelessly in love with drop-dead gorgeous Irene James (Pat Kirkwood). Ross will do anything to win Irene's affections -- including embezzlement. She ends up marrying him, but she can't give up her true love, slimy counterfeiter Jimmy Read More

Maniacs on Wheels

Actors: Dirk Bogarde, Bonar Colleano, Renée Ashershon, Bill Owen, Cyril Cusack

Synopsis: In this actioner, a young British factory worker living in the 1930s chucks his job in favor of motorcycle racing. He is quite successful, becomes an egomaniac, loses his wife, and learns his lesson. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

The Galloping Major

Actors: Basil Radford, Jimmy Hanley, Janette Scott, A.E. Matthews, Renee Ray

Synopsis: Basil Radford is cast superbly to type as The Galloping Major. The story concerns the efforts by retired Major Arthur Hill (Radford) to purchase a valuable race horse. He manages to attain financial backing from 300 fellow racing enthusiasts--and then messes things up for all concerned by buying Read More

The Magic Box

Actors: Robert Donat, Margaret Johnston, Maria Schell, Robert Beatty, John Charlesworth, James Kenney

Synopsis: The Magic Box was the English film industry's contribution to the 1951 Festival of Britain. Its all-star cast generously forsook their usual salaries for the privilege of paying tribute to that unsung pioneer of cinema, William Friese-Greene, here played by Robert Donat. Adapted by Eric Ambler Read More

The Cure for Love

Actors: Robert Donat, Renée Ashershon, Marjorie Rhodes, Charles Victor, Thora Hird

Synopsis: British actor Robert Donat's one-and-only film directorial effort was Cure for Love. Adapted from a popular stage play by Walter Greenwood, the film stars Donat as Jack, an army sergeant who returns home on leave. Having falling in love, Jack hopes that his hometown girl friend has forgotten his Read More

The Magnet

Actors: Stephen Murray, Kay Walsh, Meredith Edwards, Gladys Henson

Synopsis: This gentle Ealing Studios comedy features young William Fox as a mischievous English lad. A goodly portion of the film shows Fox and his companions at play, aimlessly but enjoyably wandering about their neighborhood in search of adventure. Eventually the boy finds a discarded magnet, believing it Read More

Conspirator

Actors: Robert Taylor, Elizabeth Taylor, Robert Flemyng, Harold Warrender, Honor Blackman, Thora Hird

Synopsis: Elizabeth Taylor played her first grown-up romantic lead in the Anglo-American melodrama Conspirator. Taylor portrays Melinda Greyton, the new bride of highly respected Major Michael Curraugh (Robert Taylor). It comes as quite a jolt when Melinda learns that her husband is actually a spy for the Read More

A Boy, a Girl and A Bike

Actors: John McCallum, Honor Blackman, Patrick Holt, Maurice Denham

Synopsis: The boy is Sam Walters (Patrick Holt). The girl is Susie Bates (future Avengers star Honor Blackman). The bike is one of several used by a British cycling club. Boy and girl have fun peddling about the countryside until the girl's pretty head is turned by David Howarth (John McCallum), a wealthy Read More

Maytime in Mayfair

Actors: Anna Neagle, Michael Wilding, Sr., Peter Graves, Nicholas Phipps, Thora Hird

Synopsis: Maytime in Mayfair is concerned with England's high-fashion set, especially those creatures whose designs set the tone for London's upper crust. Two of the leading emporia are located directly across the street from each other, one run by the lovely Eileen Grahame (Anna Neagle) and the other by Read More

Boys in Brown

Synopsis: Brown is the color of the uniforms worn by the residents of a British borstal (boy's reformatory). Jack Warner plays the governor (warden) of the institution, struggling to maintain an even keel with his tempestuous charges. The film aims for a veneer of reality by using an optical camera device Read More

My Brother Jonathan

Actors: Hilda Bayley, Beatrice Campbell, Mary Clare, Finlay Currie

Synopsis: In this drama, a young Englishman wants to become a surgeon, but after medical school, his father dies, leaving him the responsibility of supporting his mother and paying for his brother's education. He becomes a partner in a small practice and watches the woman he wanted to marry go off with his Read More

Fools Rush In

Actors: Sally Ann Howes, Guy Rolfe, Nora Swinburne, Nigel Buchanan, Raymond Lovell

Synopsis: Rising British star Sally Ann Howes was given a worthwhile screen vehicle with Fools Rush In. Howes plays Pamela Dickson, an impulsive young bride-to-be, while Guy Rolfe portrays her long-lost father Paul. Ostensibly a cad and bounder, Paul turns out to be just the opposite when he arrives for Read More

Madness of the Heart

Actors: Margaret Lockwood, Paul Dupuis, Kathleen Byron, Maxwell Reed, Thora Hird

Synopsis: In this melodrama, a London girl falls happily in love with a Frenchman and immediately goes blind. Convinced her affliction is a Divine punishment for her sins, she joins a convent. The good sisters know she does not belong there and gently convince her to leave. Shortly after returning to Read More

Portrait from Life

Actors: Mai Zetterling, Guy Rolfe, Patrick Holt, Herbert Lom, Robert Beatty

Synopsis: Portrait from Life is an over-orchestrated "guilty pleasure" from the glory days of British romance pictures. A German professor sees a portrait in an art gallery which looks exactly like his daughter, who is assumed to have died in the war. The girl (Mai Zetterling) has been living as an amnesiac Read More

Corridor of Mirrors

Actors: Eric Portman, Edana Romney, Barbara Mullen, Hugh Sinclair, Hugh Latimer

Synopsis: Based on a novel by Chris Massie, Corridor of Mirrors is a British attempt to match the poetry and lyricism of the French cinema of the late 1940s. Eric Portman plays a contemporary artist who tends to live in the past. He surrounds himself with Renaissance artwork, obsessed with the notion that Read More

The Weaker Sex

Actors: Ursula Jeans, Cecil Parker, Joan Hopkins, Derek Bond, Lana Morris

Synopsis: In this ironically titled British WW II drama, a widowed housewife provides housing for two navy men while her daughters serve as Wrens and her son serves in the military. The woman and one of the daughters end up falling for the sailors and marrying them. Following D-Day and the end of the war Read More

Once a Jolly Swagman

Actors: Dirk Bogarde, Bonar Colleano, Bill Owen, Renée Ashershon, Thora Hird

Synopsis: Once a Jolly Swagman is the story of Bill Fox (Dirk Bogarde), a factory worker who dreams of fame and fortune as motorbike racer. After the standard romantic complications with "right" and "wrong" girl, the film arrives at its central crisis: Fox's attempts to organize a driver's union, and the Read More

The Courtney Affair

Actors: Anna Neagle, Michael Wilding, Sr., Gladys Young, Coral Browne

Synopsis: Originally released in England as The Courtneys of Curzon Street, The Courtney Affair entertainingly covers the first 45 years of the 20th century. Anna Neagle plays an Irish maid who upsets the class-distinction equilibrium by marrying aristocrat Michael Wilding. Shunned by "proper" society, Neagle Read More

The Weaker Sex

Synopsis: In this British WW II drama, a British housewife proves herself to be as patriotic and courageous as any soldier. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide 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

Next of Kin

Actors: Basil Sydney, Frederick Leister, Reginald Tate, Jack Hawkins, David Hutcheson

Synopsis: The phrase "Loose Lips Sink Ships" takes on a new and special meaning in the cautionary British war drama Next of Kin. In grade-school-primer fashion, the film shows how careless talk can have a devastating and tragic effect in times of war, sometimes boomeranging on the "talker" in the form of Read More

The Foreman Went to France

Actors: Tommy Trinder, Constance Cummings, Clifford Evans, Robert Morley, Gordon Jackson

Synopsis: Set near the beginning of WW II, this exciting war drama follows a courageous British factory foreman as he makes a dangerous foray into occupied France to recover three machine parts that will be vital to the Allies. He is accompanied by a pair of tough British soldiers and an American girl. Read More

Went the Day Well?

Actors: Leslie Banks, Basil Sydney, Frank Lawton, Elizabeth Allan, Valerie Taylor

Synopsis: Released in the US as Forty-Eight Hours, Went the Day Well? is a solidly constructed wartime melodrama. Actually, the film covers 72 hours in the life of the small British village of Bramley Green, which serves as the focal point for an attempted German invasion. Immediately upon parachuting in Read More

The Black Sheep of Whitehall

Actors: Will Hay, John Mills, Basil Sydney, Henry Hewitt, Felix Aylmer

Synopsis: In this WW II comedy, a professor teaching a correspondence school gets in hot water when he entangles himself with the Nazis who are trying to prevent the signing of an important trade agreement between South American countries and England. When the professor learns that a Nazi agent has breached Read More