Leslie Banks
Also Known As: Лесли Бэнкс, Leslie James Banks
Biography: Leslie Banks, CBE (9 June 1890 – 21 April 1952) was an English theatre and cinema actor, director and producer, now best remembered playing gruff, menacing characters in black and white movies of the 1930s and 1940s. Description above from the Wikipedia article Leslie Banks, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Department: Acting
Place of Birth: West Derby, Liverpool, England, UK
Birthday: June 09, 1890
Deathday: April 21, 1952
Adult: No
Gender: Male
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Known For:
The Most Dangerous Game
Overview: When legendary hunter Bob Rainsford is shipwrecked on the perilous reefs surrounding a mysterious island, he finds himself the guest of the reclusive and eccentric Count Zaroff. While he is very gracious at first, Zaroff eventually forces Rainsford and two other shipwreck survivors, brother and sister Eve and Martin Towbridge, to participate in a sadistic game of cat and mouse in which they are the prey and he is the hunter.
Genres: Thriller Adventure Horror
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1932-09-16
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Fire Over England
Overview: The film is a historical drama set during the reign of Elizabeth I (Flora Robson), focusing on the English defeat of the Spanish Armada, whence the title. In 1588, relations between Spain and England are at the breaking point. With the support of Queen Elizabeth I, British sea raiders such as Sir Francis Drake regularly capture Spanish merchantmen bringing gold from the New World.
Genres: History Drama Romance
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1937-03-05
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Went the Day Well?
Overview: The quiet village of Bramley End is taken over by German troops posing as Royal Engineers. Their task is to disrupt England's radar network in preparation for a full scale German invasion. Once the villagers discover the true identity of the troops, they do whatever they can to thwart the Nazis plans.
Genres: War Thriller
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1942-12-07
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The Man Who Knew Too Much
Overview: While vacationing in St. Moritz, a British couple receive a clue to an imminent assassination attempt, only to learn that their daughter has been kidnapped to keep them quiet.
Genres: Thriller Mystery
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1934-12-01
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Jamaica Inn
Overview: In coastal Cornwall, England, during the early 19th Century, a young woman who's come there to visit her aunt, discovers that she's married an innkeeper who's a member of a gang of criminals who arrange shipwrecking and murder for profit.
Genres: Crime Adventure Thriller
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1939-05-11
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The Tunnel
Overview: An engineer leads the building of a trans-Atlantic tunnel linking Britain and the United States.
Genres: Science Fiction
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1935-10-27
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The Small Back Room
Overview: At the height of World War II, the Germans begin dropping a new type of booby-trapped bomb on England. Highly skilled but haunted bomb disposal officer Sammy Rice must overcome his personal demons to defeat this new threat.
Genres: Drama War Romance
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1949-02-21
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21 Days Together
Overview: After Larry Darrent accidentally kills his lover's blackmailing husband, someone else is arrested for the crime. When he is found guilty, Larry and Wanda have just three weeks together before he must give himself up or let an innocent man go to the gallows.
Genres: Drama Romance
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1940-01-07
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The Door with Seven Locks
Overview: A wealthy lord dies and is entombed with a valuable deposit of jewels. Seven keys are required to unlock the tomb and get hold of the treasure. A mad doctor uses an iron maiden to systematically eliminate the heirs to the fortune.
Genres: Horror Thriller Mystery
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1940-10-12
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Madeleine
Overview: The middle-class family of a young woman cannot understand why she delays in marrying a respectable young man. They know nothing about her long-standing affair with a Frenchman.
Genres: Drama Crime Mystery
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1950-02-16
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The Arsenal Stadium Mystery
Overview: During a charity football match between Arsenal and touring amateur side Trojans, the Trojan's new star player collapses and dies. Inspector Slade of Scotland Yard is called in and declares it was murder. It takes all his ingenuity and another death before the motive is discovered and the killer revealed.
Genres: Crime
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1939-11-01
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Cottage to Let
Overview: Allied spies and Nazi Agents insinuate themselves at a Scottish cottage (converted to a wartime hospital) with interests on an inventor's nearly perfected bomb sight.
Genres: Thriller Mystery Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1941-09-06
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Your Witness
Overview: Adam Hayward is a successful New York City defense lawyer. One day he receives a cable that the British war buddy who saved his life at Anzio Beach is now in trouble with the law in England. Taking the advice of his secretary to go to England rather than wire money, Adam arrives in his friend's village to find him about to stand trial for the murder of the hired stable-hand, Lawrence.
Genres: Drama Crime
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1950-03-06
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Cyrano de Bergerac
Overview: Inspired by Edmond Rostand's 1897 play, this 1938 BBC Television studio production retells the comic and heroic drama of the 17th-century Gascon swordsman, poet, and philosopher, Cyrano de Bergerac (1990). Secretly and passionately in love with beautiful Roxane, Cyrano, who is embarrassed by his elongated nose, is shocked to find out that she has fallen head-over-heels in love with the handsome but superficial recruit to the Cadets de Gascogne, Christian de Neuvillette. As a result, convinced that he stands no chance against the handsome but tongue-tied suitor, Cyrano steps aside and becomes Christian's tutor in the delicate matters of love, composing poems and ardent letters to help him woo Roxane.
Genres: Drama TV Movie
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1938-10-30
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Sanders of the River
Overview: A British District Officer in Nigeria in the 1930s rules his area strictly but justly. He struggles with gun-runners and slavers with the aid of a loyal native chief.
Genres: Adventure Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1935-05-10
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Red Ensign
Overview: David Barr is the manager and chief designer of a British shipyard in decline. The shipyard is in financial trouble but Barr has a design for a new ship that will save them all. Can he get the ship built in spite of the opposition from his own bankers as well as the rival shipbuilders and their infiltrated militants.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1934-06-17
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Busman's Honeymoon
Overview: When Lord Peter Wimsey marries Harriet Vane, a crime author, they both promise to give up crime for good. As a wedding present, Peter purchases the old house where Harriet grew up, but when they try to move in the previous owner is nowhere to be found, until they start to clean the house and find his body in the cellar...
Genres: Comedy Drama Mystery
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1940-07-22
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Sons of the Sea
Overview: The head of Dartmouth Training College has been murdered, and his successor, Captain Hyde, suspects that he himself may have been the intended target. He enlists the help of his own son Philip, a reluctant cadet at the college, to help him confirm his suspicions about planned enemy action... but meanwhile, there is a Secret Service agent staying at the college observatory, the foreign-born professor of astronomy is behaving strangely, and Naval Intelligence disclaim any knowledge of what is going on...
Genres: Drama War
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1939-12-23
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Wings of the Morning
Overview: A beautiful Gypsy girl falls in love with a horse trainer.
Genres: Romance Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1937-02-19
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The Big Blockade
Overview: Wartime propaganda piece reporting on the success of the economic blockade of Germany in the early years of the war.
Genres: Drama War
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1942-01-19
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Ships with Wings
Overview: Before the war, a Fleet Air Arm pilot is dismissed for causing the death of a colleague. Working for a small Greek airline when the Germans invade Greece, he gets a chance to redeem himself and rejoin his old unit on a British carrier. This is regarded the last of the conventional, rather stiff 1930's style Ealing war films, to be succeeded by much more realism and better storytelling.
Genres: War Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1941-11-10
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The Three Maxims
Overview: The Three Maxims are trapeze artists Pat (Anna Neagle), Toni (Tuilio Carminati) and Mac (Leslie Banks). After spending most of their careers in the small time, the threesome finally get their big chance in Paris, at which point Mac realizes he's in love with Pat.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1936-01-01
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I Am Suzanne!
Overview: A dancer falls in love with a puppeteer, much to the consternation of her manipulative manager. The puppeteer himself seems more interested in his puppets than in romance with her. Can she find true love?
Genres: Romance Music
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1933-12-25
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Neutral Port
Overview: A British merchant ship is torpedoed by a German U-Boat and takes shelter in a neutral port. The Captain then strikes back at the German enemy.
Genres: War Action Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1940-12-06
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The Fire Raisers
Overview: Jim Bronton is an insurance investigator, but he's unhappy with his work and gets involved with a gang of arsonists. His conscience is troubling him ...
Genres: Thriller Crime
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1934-01-22
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The Night of the Party
Overview: A major newspaper publisher dies in suspicious circumstances during a parlour game at a dinner party. The publishers secretary is the obvious suspect, but the inspector isn't so sure ...
Genres: Thriller Crime Mystery
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1934-07-16
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Farewell Again
Overview: Farewell Again is a multiplotted British comedy/drama about soldiers on leave and the people they've left. Given a six-hour pass after a tour of duty in India, several British Tommies (among them Robert Newton, Sebastian Shaw and Anthony Bushell) try to unravel their domestic tribulations before having to ship out again. American expatriate Tim Whelan was the directorial hand who kept the various plot threads from entangling, while another Hollywood vet, James Wong Howe, manned the cameras. The film became instantly dated with the advent of World War II, but in its own time Farewell Again was a box-office smash. The film was issued in the US as Troopship.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1937-01-05
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Henry V
Overview: In the midst of the Hundred Years' War, the young King Henry V of England embarks on the conquest of France in 1415.
Genres: History Drama War
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1944-11-24
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Dead Man's Shoes
Overview: An amnesia victim is a well liked and respected member of his community--until one day someone from his past shows up with evidence that in "the old days" he had been a notorious criminal, and threatens to expose him unless he pays off.
Genres: Crime Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1940-05-05
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Debt of Honour
Overview: A Colonel's daughter steals from the regimental mess funds to pay off her gambling debts. One of the officers, who is love with her, takes the blame, and is sent to Africa.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1936-11-02
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Black Shadows on a Silver Screen
Overview: Ossie Davis narrates a history of "race films," films made before 1950 which catered to a primarily black audience.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1975-04-19
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The True Glory
Overview: A documentary account of the allied invasion of Europe during World War II compiled from the footage shot by nearly 1400 cameramen. It opens as the assembled allied forces plan and train for the D-Day invasion at bases in Great Britain and covers all the major events of the war in Europe from the Normandy landings to the fall of Berlin.
Genres: Documentary War
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1945-08-27
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Mrs. Fitzherbert
Overview: The tangled affairs of George, Prince of Wales, leading to his illegal marriage to commoner Mrs. Fitzherbert. Also portrayed is the conflict between the future George IV and his father George III.
Genres: Drama History
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1947-12-03
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Experience
Overview: Youth meets Ambition and leaves Love, his mother, and his small-town roots for the big city. There, in his search for Experience, he meets Pleasure and hangs out at the Primrose Path with the likes of Temptation and Intoxication. Back home, Youth's mother dies, and Love tries unsuccessfully to reach him. When Youth's money runs out his newfound friends all leave him and he sinks into a life of drug addiction, aided by Habit.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1921-08-07
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