Athene Seyler
Also Known As: Афина Сейлер, Афин Сейлер
Biography: From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Athene Seyler, CBE (31 May 1889 – 12 September 1990) was an English actress. Although better known as a stage actress - she first appeared on the stage in 1909 - she made her film debut in 1921, and became known for playing slightly dotty old ladies in many British films from the 1930s to the 1960s. Her most memorable stage credits included Mrs. Malaprop in The Rivals, Lady Bracknell in The Importance of Being Earnest, and a double-act, with her good friend Dame Sybil Thorndike, as the murderous spinster sisters in Arsenic and Old Lace. Her film and television career lasted into the 1960s, and included roles in The Citadel (1938), Night of the Demon (1957), and The Avengers (1964, 1965). She was also a regular cast member in screen adaptations of Charles Dickens' novels. She virtually retired from acting after 1970, but continued making public appearances until well into the 1980s. In 1990, at the age of 101, she appeared at the National Theatre, talking about her long life and career. Athene Seyler was President of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) from 1950, and a member of the Theatrical Ladies' Guild. She also wrote The Craft of Comedy. She was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1959.
Department: Acting
Place of Birth: Hackney, London, England, UK
Birthday: May 31, 1889
Deathday: September 12, 1990
Adult: No
Gender: Female
Popularity:
Known For:
A Tale of Two Cities
Overview: British barrister Sydney Carton lives an insubstantial and unhappy life. He falls under the spell of Lucie Manette, but Lucie marries Charles Darnay. When Darnay goes to Paris to rescue an imprisoned family retainer, he becomes entangled in the snares of the brutal French Revolution and is himself jailed and condemned to the guillotine. But Sydney Carton, in love with a woman he cannot have, comes up with a daring plan to save her husband.
Genres: Drama History Romance
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1958-02-07
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Secret People
Overview: This tale of intrigue finds Valentina Cortese involved in an assassination plot. She helps the police apprehend the conspirators after an innocent bystander is accidentally killed.
Genres: Crime Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1952-02-05
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Night of the Demon
Overview: American professor John Holden arrives in London for a conference on parapsychology only to discover that the colleague he was supposed to meet was killed in a freak accident the day before. It turns out that the deceased had been investigating a cult lead by Dr. Julian Karswell. Though a skeptic, Holden is suspicious of the devil-worshiping Karswell. Following a trail of mysterious manuscripts, Holden enters a world that makes him question his faith in science.
Genres: Fantasy Horror Mystery
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1957-11-09
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Scrooge
Overview: Ebenezer Scrooge, the ultimate Victorian miser, hasn't a good word for Christmas, though his impoverished clerk Cratchit and nephew Fred are full of holiday spirit. In the night, Scrooge is visited by spirits of the past, present, and future.
Genres: Drama Fantasy Horror
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1935-11-26
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For Better, for Worse
Overview: In postwar London a young graduate and his girlfriend decide to marry. Her well-to-do parents are not convinced, but they agree once he has got a £5.10.0 job and a 30/- a week single-room flat. The newly-weds find money fearfully tight, the flat cramped, the neighbours a trial, and her parents always hovering. Can faith conquer all? Is there some way of getting rid of tea-leaves except down the sink?
Genres: Comedy Romance
Original Language: es
Release Date: 1954-06-20
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Make Mine Mink
Overview: In a mansion block in Knightsbridge, a gang of middle-aged biddies decide to brighten up "the dullness of the tea time of life" by staging a series of robberies on furriers, then donating the proceeds to charitable concerns. Terry Thomas as a retired army officer leads the gang, which includes Athene Seyler and Hattie Jacques, on a series of capers that nearly go awry when their maid, Billie Whitelaw, an ex-con and also a resident of the block, falls for a police officer.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1960-08-09
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Early to Bed
Overview: 'Manicurist Grete and nightclub waiter Carl share a bed, but not at the same time. They hate each other, even though they have never met. Their rented room is next to a cinema with its frankfurter-munching projectionist and romantic musical numbers that seem to permeate their lives. Might they meet and fall in love?' (BFI)
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1933-08-08
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The Saint in London
Overview: Suave soldier of fortune Simon Templer gets mixed up with a gang of counterfeiters who've murdered and robbed an European count of 1,000,000 pounds. He is aided reluctantly by Scotland Yard inspector Teal, who's convinced that Templar himself pulled off the heist, and less reluctantly by light-fingered Dugan and dizzy socialite Penny Parker.
Genres: Mystery Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1939-06-30
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The Citadel
Overview: Andrew Manson, a young, idealistic, newly qualified Scottish doctor arrives in Wales takes his first job in a mining town, and begins to wonder at the persistent cough many of the miners have. When his attempts to prove its cause are thwarted, he moves to London. His new practice does badly. But when a friend shows him how to make a lucrative practice from rich hypochondriacs, it will take a great shock to show him what the truth of being a doctor really is.
Genres: Drama Romance
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1938-10-29
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Campbell's Kingdom
Overview: Given only six months to live, Englishman Bruce Campbell goes to Canada to claim "Campbell's Kingdom", the land he inherited from his grandfather. In order to clear his grandfather's name and prove there is oil on the land, Campbell must face up to a ruthless contractor and work against the clock to find oil before "Campbell's Kingdom" is flooded by a new power dam.
Genres: Adventure Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1957-09-03
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The Queen of Spades
Overview: An elderly countess strikes a bargain with the devil and exchanges her soul for the ability to always win at cards. An army officer, who is also a fanatic about cards, murders her for the secret, then finds himself haunted by the woman's spirit.
Genres: Drama Fantasy Horror
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1949-03-16
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I Thank a Fool
Overview: After mercifully killing her terminally ill lover, Dr. Christine Allison loses her medical license and spends two years in prison. Once she has completed her sentence, the lawyer who prosecuted Christine, Stephen Dane, hires her to care for his emotionally unstable wife, Liane. Christine takes the job, but when Liane's allegedly dead father reappears, Christine sets out to reveal the family's dark secrets.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1962-09-14
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Francis of Assisi
Overview: In 13th century Italy, Francis Bernardone, the son of an Assisi merchant, renounces a promising army career in favor of a monastic life and starts his own religious order, sanctioned by the Pope.
Genres: History Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1961-07-12
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It's Love Again
Overview: Elaine Bradford is a young singer and dancer, looking for her big break. Peter Carlton is a gossip columnist facing a deadline and a blank page. So, Peter invents "Mrs. Smythe-Smythe", a mysterious Englishwoman who spends her days hunting tigers in India, jumping out of airplanes, and generally driving men mad with her beauty. Since no one in London has ever seen Mrs. Smythe-Smythe, Elaine decides to impersonate the lady, in hopes that the publicity will land her the big break she's been looking for.
Genres: Music Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1936-05-06
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Made in Heaven
Overview: Residents of the small English village of Dunmow react in comical ways when the Topham family hires a beautiful and young Hungarian maid.
Genres: Comedy Romance
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1952-11-01
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The Weak and the Wicked
Overview: Jean Raymond an upper class woman with a gambling addiction, is given a twelve-month prison sentence resulting from her inability to pay her debts. At first she is overwhelmingly depressed by life in the women's prison; gradually, however, her misery is relieved by the many close friends she makes there. This sympathetic drama traces the contrasting lives and often faltering progress of the inmates of a women's prison.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1954-02-02
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Satan Never Sleeps
Overview: A priest arrives at a mission-post in China accompanied by a young native girl who has joined him along the way. His job is to relieve the existing priest, who is now too old and weak to continue with the upkeep of the church. However, Communist soldiers arrive at the mission and seize it as a command post. Their leader rapes the native girl and impregnates her, only later to realize that Communism is no good for him. In the end, the foursome flee to the border, but are pursued by Communist forces along the way.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1962-02-22
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How to Murder a Rich Uncle
Overview: A broke British nobleman targets his Canadian uncle, but other relatives get in the way.
Genres: Comedy Crime
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1957-06-01
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Jane Steps Out
Overview: Wallflower Jane Wilton has always lived in the shadow of her beautiful and popular sister Beatrice. Making things worse, Beatrice is spiteful and cruel, directing all manner of nastiness towards the submissive and uncomplaining Jane. But when Beatrice sets her cap for Jane's erstwhile boy friend Basil Gilbert, she goes a shade too far. For once, the worm turns, and Jane fights tooth and nail to win her man back. A retelling of the Cinderella story.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1938-05-16
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Moscow Nights
Overview: During the First World War, Russian officer Ignatoff, wounded, falls in love with his nurse, Natasha. But she is subject to an upcoming marriage of family convenience to Brioukow, a wealthy industrialist of peasant stock. Brioukow is unjustifiably jealous, since Natasha has not betrayed him. He forces Ignatoff into his debt as a means of humiliating him. When Ignatoff's new friend, Madame Sabline, offers to pay his debt, preventing his ruin, Ignatoff comes quickly to realize that Madame Sabline has an ulterior motive, one that could prove dangerous to more lives than just Ignatoff's.
Genres: Romance War Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1935-11-05
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Visa to Canton
Overview: A former World War II pilot, now the owner of a travel agency in Hong Kong, gets involved in espionage trying to help a Chinese woman locate her son.
Genres: Action Adventure Thriller
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1960-12-26
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Sailing Along
Overview: A barge-owner's adopted daughter falls in love with his son, and gives up her chances of stardom to be with him.
Genres: Music Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1938-04-15
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Quiet Wedding
Overview: A young couple become engaged, but enjoy a number of comedic aventures before their wedding day.
Genres: Comedy Romance
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1941-04-19
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Young Wives' Tale
Overview: A post-war housing crisis leaves a shy woman to share a house with two couples. Comic situations arise as the new roomer becomes infatuated with one of the husbands.
Genres: Comedy Romance
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1951-11-01
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Drake of England
Overview: Imposing Canadian-born stage actor and playwright Matherson Lang was one of the twentieth century's great Shakespearean players, and became Britain's foremost screen actor during the 1920s; in Drake of England, one of his final films, he takes the title role in Arthur Woods' portrayal of the life and times of the flamboyant piratical adventurer who founded Britain's sea fortunes. From clandestine romance at the court of Elizabeth I to conquests in the newly discovered lands of South America and spectacular victory over the Armada, Drake of England offers a panoramic overview of Drake's life.
Genres: Action Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1935-05-16
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Blossom Time
Overview: World-renowned tenor Richard Tauber features in a dramatisation of the life of Schubert, focusing on the composer's unrequited love for a dance master's daughter.
Genres: Romance Music
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1934-01-01
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Happy Is the Bride
Overview: In a quiet summer corner of Wiltshire that is forever England, David and Janet decide to tie the knot. Unfortunately this is the cue for everyone else to take over proceedings, to the dismay of the couple and the increasing despair of Janet's father.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1958-03-04
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The Inn of the Sixth Happiness
Overview: All her life, Englishwoman Gladys Aylward knew that China was the place where she belonged. Not qualified to be sent there as a missionary, Gladys works as a domestic to earn the money to send herself to a poor, remote village. There she eventually lives a full and happy life: running the inn, acting as "foot inspector", advising the local Mandarin, and even winning the heart of mixed race Captain Lin Nan. But Gladys discovers her real destiny when the country is invaded by Japan and the Chinese children need her to save their lives. Based on a true story.
Genres: War Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1958-12-11
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The Ware Case
Overview: An aristocrat won't economize, then his rich brother in law is found murdered in the grounds of the aristocrat's house
Genres: Mystery Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1938-12-02
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The Mill on the Floss
Overview: Romeo and Juliet in 1930s England. The owner of the mill and the local lord are in conflict over water rights. The lord wins threatening the mill owner with financial ruin.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1937-01-09
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Letter from Home
Overview: Two evacuee children living in the United States receive a letter from their mother, Mrs Taylor, telling them of her life in Blitz-era London. Glimpses of the events of Mrs Taylor's typical day, including ration shopping and fire warden training, belie the letter's innocuous statements.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1941-12-01
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The Franchise Affair
Overview: An English country lawyer weighs the case of a schoolgirl who claims she was kidnapped by two women.
Genres: Mystery Crime Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1951-02-19
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As Long as They're Happy
Overview: The suburban peace of the Bentley household is shattered when John Bentley is informed by his wife Stella that their two married daughters, Pat and Corrine are in trouble and need funds to come home and bring their husbands, Peter, a penniless Parisian artist and Barnaby, a Texas cowboy, with them. And the youngest daughter, Gwen, has tricked an American singer, Bobby Denver, into visiting them on the pretext that it is the home of a noted British film magnate. When all the women in the household --- including the maid --- fall for the singer's charms, Bentley consults a crackpot psychiatrist, Dr. Schneider, who almost succeeds in ousting, not the singer, but Bentley's wife, with his advice to Bentley to make her jealous by living it up with Pearl, a showgirl recruited for the purpose.
Genres: Music Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1955-03-15
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The First Gentleman
Overview: The story of a romance between the daughter of the Prince Regent and Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg.
Genres: History
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1948-03-15
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The Invasion
Overview: Inhabitants in a remote village laughs off and dismiss a couple of schoolboys' claims that they are being invaded by aliens.
Genres: No genres available
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1963-03-31
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Don't Utter a Note
Overview: Two well meaning spinsters' plans in reforming an old jailbird, receive a set back, when unexpectedly into their possession comes a substantial amount of money, which was not made by the Royal Mint.
Genres: No genres available
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1966-04-09
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The Sky’s the Limit
Overview: Romance of an absent minded designer of planes and a famous singer to whom he tries to sell his friends' songs.
Genres: Music
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1937-01-01
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Doctor at Large
Overview: Losing out to Dr. Bingham (Michael Medwin) in a competition for house surgeon when he offends a member of the board, young Dr. Simon Sparrow (Dirk Bogarde) finds himself going from post to post, filling in for other physicians. At one distant country post, he is taken aback when he works with a patient whose husband died after Simon treated the man years before. In another hospital, Simon examines a surprisingly mature teen and also tries courting devoted nurse Nan McPherson (Shirley Eaton).
Genres: Comedy Romance
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1957-03-26
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The Beggar's Opera
Overview: Adaptation of John Gay's 18th century opera, featuring Laurence Olivier as MacHeath and Hugh Griffith as the Beggar.
Genres: History Crime Music
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1953-08-24
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Sensation
Overview: Pat Heaton may be the best crime reporter in town but his fiancée Claire, despairing of the more tawdry aspects of his profession, makes him promise to give the job up. When a pretty waitress is found murdered, however, Pat falls in line with the rest of the 'Murder Gang' the pack of reporters who gather to glean stories by fair means or foul!
Genres: Drama Crime
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1936-12-16
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A French Mistress
Overview: The boys of Melbury Primary School are plunged into turmoil when the new French Master turns out to be a Mistress! Madelin Leforge's (the French Mistress) effect on the boys is swift and amazing. Suddenly everyone wants extra French Lessons just to glimpse the teacher in revealing shorts and bikinis. As discipline crumbles, a scandal explodes when the Head discovers the mademoiselle's mother was an old flame. Madeline must be dismissed to save further embarrassments.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1960-08-25
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The Adventures of Mr. Pickwick
Overview: A club man's country jaunt with friends leads to a breach of promise suit by a landlady.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1921-11-01
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Dear Octopus
Overview: Three generations of a family gather together to celebrate a golden wedding anniversary, while the family secretary has the unenviable task of smoothing out all the deep-set hostilities and jealousies.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1943-09-20
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The Perfect Lady
Overview: 'Girl poses as maid of French actress who stole her fiancé.' (British Film Catalogue)
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1931-11-12
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Tell Me Tonight
Overview: An Italian operatic tenor is dominated by his female business manager.
Genres: Comedy Music Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1932-10-31
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Treasure Hunt
Overview: Short of money the owners of Ballyroden Hall must attempt to run it as a guest house, but not everyone is happy about the plan.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1952-06-01
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Yield to the Night
Overview: Locked in her cell, a murderer reflects on the events that have led her to death row.
Genres: Drama Crime
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1956-06-19
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The Lilac Domino
Overview: In this musical, an enigmatic masked woman catches the roving eye of a wily playboy gambler at a masquerade ball. If he knew that she was using her wiles as bait and was planning to reform him of his gambling womanizing ways after catching him, he may have head for different waters.
Genres: Music Romance
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1937-03-31
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The Private Life of Don Juan
Overview: What do women want? Don Juan is aging. He's arrived secretly in Seville after a 20 year absence. His wife Dolores, whom he hasn't lived with in five years, still loves him. He refuses to see her; he fears the life of a husband. She has bought his debts and will remand him to jail for two years if he won't come to her. Meanwhile, an impostor is climbing the balconies of Seville claiming to be Don Juan.
Genres: Romance Drama Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1934-01-01
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Nurse on Wheels
Overview: Quietly competent young Joanna moves with her scatterbrain mother to a country village to take up her first job as District Nurse. She soon overcomes the suspicion of her patients used to someone rather older, while becoming romantically involved with a local farmer - at least until he tries to evict a newly-arrived expectant couple who park their caravan on his land.
Genres: Comedy Romance
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1963-01-03
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The Girl on the Boat
Overview: Norman Wisdom does to P.G. Wodehouse in Girl on the Boat what Jerry Lewis did to Gore Vidal in Visit to a Small Planet. The zany Wisdom, put in charge of his aunt's cottage during an English summer in the roaring twenties, decides to invite several of his friends to his posh new digs. Among the invitees is the title character, played by the delightful comedienne Millicent Martin. All sorts of slapstick chaos ensues, but Wisdom manages to save the day before things get hopelessly out of hand. Like Jerry Lewis, Norman Wisdom is an acquired taste, but he's worth sampling at least once. ...The Girl on the Boat
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1962-08-05
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The Pickwick Papers
Overview: The Pickwick Club sends Mr. Pickwick and a group of friends to travel across England and to report back on the interesting things they find...
Genres: Comedy Adventure
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1952-11-14
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Non-Stop New York
Overview: A young woman finds herself as the intended victim of a murder plot on a transatlantic flight from London to New York.
Genres: Drama Crime Thriller Romance
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1937-09-13
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Two and Two Make Six
Overview: An US airman stationed in the UK strikes down his commanding officer. Believing he killed him, the airman goes on the run with a girl. They run into a couple that looks like them and a mix up happens.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1962-05-01
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Young Man's Fancy
Overview: An aristocrat falls in love with a human cannonball
Genres: No genres available
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1939-07-31
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The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby
Overview: A fatherless boy tries to make his fortune despite interference from his rich uncle.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1947-03-12
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Southern Roses
Overview: A musical comedy of false identities.
Genres: Comedy Music
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1936-09-30
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Jassy
Overview: In 19th century England, Jassy is a young Gypsy girl blessed with the gift of second sight. Pursued by superstitious villagers, she is rescued by the son of the owner of Mordelaine, a vast stately home. Unfortunately, his father's drinking and gambling threaten the very ownership of the house. Despite her humble origins as a servant girl, Jassy must try to use her talents to climb the social ladder and save Mordelaine for the man whom she loves.
Genres: Adventure Drama Romance
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1947-08-13
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