Barbara Steele
Also Known As: 芭芭拉·斯蒂尔, Барбара Стіл, Barbara Steel
Biography: Barbara Steele (born December 29, 1937, Birkenhead, Merseyside, England) is an English film actress. She is best known for starring in Italian gothic horror films of the 1960s. Her breakthrough role came in Italian director Mario Bava's Black Sunday (1960), now hailed as a classic. Steele starred in a string of horror films, including The Horrible Dr. Hichcock (1962); The Ghost, directed by Riccardo Freda and Roger Corman's 1961 adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe's short story The Pit and the Pendulum. She guested on various British television shows including the spy drama Danger Man starring Patrick McGoohan. In 2010, she was a guest star in the Dark Shadows audio drama The Night Whispers. In 2010, actor-writer Mark Gatiss interviewed Steele about her role in Black Sunday (1960) for his BBC documentary series A History of Horror. Description above from the Wikipedia article Barbara Steele, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Department: Acting
Place of Birth: Birkenhead, Cheshire, England, UK
Adult: No
Popularity:
Known For:
8½
Overview: Guido Anselmi, a film director, finds himself creatively barren at the peak of his career. Urged by his doctors to rest, Anselmi heads for a luxurious resort, but a sorry group gathers—his producer, staff, actors, wife, mistress, and relatives—each one begging him to get on with the show. In retreat from their dependency, he fantasizes about past women and dreams of his childhood.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: it
Release Date: 1963-02-14
Popularity:
Hollywood Rated 'R'
Overview: A roller-coaster ride through the history of American exploitation films, ranging from Roger Corman's sci-fi and horror monster movies, 1960s beach movies, H.G. Lewis' gore-fests, William Castle's schlocky theatrical gimmicks, to 1970s blaxploitation, pre-"Deep Throat" sex tease films, Russ Meyer's bosom-heavy masterpieces, etc, etc. Over 25 interviews of the greatest purveyors of weird films of all kind from 1940 to 1975. Illustrated with dozens of films clips, trailers, extra footage, etc. This documentary as a shorter companion piece focusing on exploitation king David F. Friedman.
Genres: Documentary Horror Science Fiction
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1997-06-19
Popularity:
Piranha
Overview: When flesh-eating piranhas are accidently released into a summer resort's rivers, the guests become their next meal.
Genres: Horror Science Fiction
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1978-08-03
Popularity:
The 39 Steps
Overview: In London, a diplomat accidentally becomes involved in the death of a British agent who's after a spy ring that covets British military secrets.
Genres: Thriller Mystery
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1959-03-13
Popularity:
Pretty Baby
Overview: Hattie, a New Orleans prostitute, meets a photographer named Bellocq at her brothel one night and, after he photographs her, he befriends her 12-year-old daughter, Violet. When Violet is brought on as a working girl by her mother's madam and Hattie skips town to get married, Violet quickly loses her innocence and focuses on reuniting with Bellocq. But a life with Bellocq is compromised for Violet after her mother returns to town.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1978-04-05
Popularity:
Black Sunday
Overview: A vengeful witch, Asa Vajda, and her fiendish servant, Igor Jauvitch, return from the grave and begin a bloody campaign to possess the body of the witch's beautiful look-alike descendant: Katia. Only a handsome doctor with the help of family members stand in her way.
Genres: Horror
Original Language: it
Release Date: 1960-08-11
Popularity:
Shivers
Overview: When the residents of a luxury apartment complex outside Montreal are infiltrated by parasites and transformed into violent, sex-crazed maniacs, it's up to Dr. Roger St. Luc to contain the outbreak from spreading to the city.
Genres: Horror Science Fiction
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1975-05-16
Popularity:
Curse of the Crimson Altar
Overview: When his brother disappears, Robert Manning pays a visit to the remote country house he was last heard from. While his host is outwardly welcoming, and his niece more demonstrably so, Manning detects a feeling of menace in the air with the legend of Lavinia Morley, Black Witch of Greymarsh, hanging over everything.
Genres: Horror Mystery
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1968-12-01
Popularity:
Silent Scream
Overview: Scotty moves into Mrs. Engels' seaside mansion where three other college students are boarding. Mrs. Engels prefers to stay in her room in the attic, but her son Mason helps the students get settled. Soon one of the students is killed. The policemen on the case begin uncovering the Engels family secret as the remaining students become endangered
Genres: Horror Thriller
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1979-11-23
Popularity:
The Capitol Conspiracy
Overview: Martial arts star Don "The Dragon" Wilson stars in this action/suspense story. A child is recruited to take part in a secret government experiment which results in him being able to see into the future. Years later, the child is an adult and is working for the government; his latest assignment is to find the other people who were part of the same project. Before long, he discovers the other test subjects usually pop up murdered shortly before he can talk to them, and he realizes he may well be the next target.
Genres: Action Science Fiction
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1998-03-01
Popularity:
Castle of Blood
Overview: When a cynical journalist accepts a wager that he won't survive the night in a haunted castle, it unlocks an odyssey of sexual torment, undead vengeance, and a dark seductress who surrenders the gravest of pleasures.
Genres: Horror
Original Language: it
Release Date: 1964-02-27
Popularity:
The Ghost
Overview: A woman and her lover murder her husband, a doctor. Soon, however, strange things start happening, and they wonder if they really killed him, or if he is coming back from the dead to haunt them.
Genres: Horror Thriller
Original Language: it
Release Date: 1963-03-30
Popularity:
The Horrible Dr. Hichcock
Overview: In late 19th century London, a woman weds a necrophiliac doctor whose first wife died under mysterious circumstances - and who might be returning from the grave to torment her successor.
Genres: Horror
Original Language: it
Release Date: 1962-08-01
Popularity:
Terror-Creatures from the Grave
Overview: An attorney arrives at a castle to settle the estate of its recently deceased owner. The owner's wife and daughter reveal that he was someone who was able to summon the souls of ancient plague victims and, in fact, his spirit was roaming the castle at that very moment. Soon occupants of the castle begin to die off in gruesome, violent ways.
Genres: Horror Mystery
Original Language: it
Release Date: 1965-06-23
Popularity:
Sapphire
Overview: Two Scotland Yard detectives investigate the murder of a young woman of mixed race who had been passing for white. As they interview a spate of suspects -- including the girl's white boyfriend and his disapproving parents -- the detectives wade through a stubbornly entrenched sludge of racism and bigotry.
Genres: Mystery Crime Thriller
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1959-11-02
Popularity:
Young Törless
Overview: At an Austrian boys' boarding school in the early 1900s, shy, intelligent Törless observes the sadistic behavior of his fellow students, doing nothing to help a victimized classmate—until the torture goes too far. Adapted from Robert Musil's acclaimed novel, Young Törless launched the New German Cinema movement and garnered the 1966 Cannes Film Festival International Critics' Prize for first-time director Volker Schlöndorff.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: de
Release Date: 1966-05-20
Popularity:
Caged Heat
Overview: A young woman is convicted on drug offenses and sent to a women's penitentiary run by a repressed and oppressive female warden. When the prison's sadistic doctor begins conducting illegal "therapeutic" experiments on the inmates, the ladies plot their revenge.
Genres: Action Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1974-04-19
Popularity:
The Key Is in the Door
Overview: Marie (Annie Girardot) teaches high school and has a 16-year-old daughter in her class. Divorced some years previously, she has some vague egalitarian notions about friendship with her students and leaves her door open to them. One of her protégés is found beaten up just outside her door, and an emergency physician comes by to treat her. When her daughter starts seeing someone she doesn't much like, and she begins having a brief affair (her first since the divorce) with the ER doctor, she begins to reconsider her policy.
Genres: Drama Comedy
Original Language: fr
Release Date: 1978-12-13
Popularity:
The Monocle's Sour Laugh
Overview: A French agent goes after a gang of Asian terrorists who plan to blow up an American nuclear aircraft carrier.
Genres: Comedy Thriller
Original Language: fr
Release Date: 1964-09-16
Popularity:
The Long Hair of Death
Overview: In a 15th century village, a woman is accused of witchcraft and put to death. Her beautiful older daughter knows the real reason for the execution lies in the lord's sexual desire for her mother.
Genres: Horror
Original Language: it
Release Date: 1964-12-30
Popularity:
The American Nightmare
Overview: An examination into the nature of 1960's-70's horror films, the involved artists, and how they reflected contemporary society.
Genres: Documentary Horror
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2000-09-11
Popularity:
The Butterfly Room
Overview: A reclusive and butterfly-obsessed elderly lady suffering from bipolar disorder develops a disturbing relationship with a mysterious but seemingly innocent youngster.
Genres: Horror Thriller
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2012-08-04
Popularity:
The She Beast
Overview: A young woman is driving alongside a lake. She has an accident and the car plunges into the water. Her body is then possessed by the spirit of an 18th-century witch who was killed by local villagers, and is bent on avenging herself on them.
Genres: Thriller Horror Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1966-05-02
Popularity:
Houseboat
Overview: An Italian socialite on the run signs on as housekeeper for a widower with three children.
Genres: Comedy Romance
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1958-11-19
Popularity:
Lost Soul: The Doomed Journey of Richard Stanley's Island of Dr. Moreau
Overview: The story of the insane scandals related to the remake of “Island of Dr. Moreau” —originally a novel by H. G. Wells—, which was brought to the big screen in 1996. How director Richard Stanley spent four years developing the project just to find an abrupt end to his work while leading actor Marlon Brando pulled the strings in the shadows. Now for the first time, the living key players recount what really happened and why it all went so spectacularly wrong.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2014-08-24
Popularity:
Bachelor of Hearts
Overview: A German scholar has girl troubles while studying at Cambridge.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1958-12-12
Popularity:
Upstairs and Downstairs
Overview: On marrying the boss's daughter, Richard takes his father-in-law's advice to hire a live-in domestic. He soon finds good help is hard to come by. Run-ins follow with dipsomaniacs, bank robbers, a Welsh lass who takes one look at London and runs, and an Italian charmer who turns the place into a bawdy house. Then when Ingrid arrives from Sweden things actually start to get complicated.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1959-11-02
Popularity:
A Sentimental Attempt
Overview: Carla and Dino, both in a matrimonail crisis, fall in love. But life will not help this love story.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: it
Release Date: 1963-10-04
Popularity:
Honeymoon with a Stranger
Overview: While on honeymoon with her husband in Spain, a woman wakes up one morning to find he has disappeared. After reporting it to the police, a man shows up claiming to be her husband. But he's not the man she married and no one will believe her.
Genres: Thriller Mystery TV Movie
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1969-12-23
Popularity:
The Hours of Love
Overview: In "The Hours of Love," Gianni and Marietta's spark ignites as passionate lovers, yet dims in their marriage. Seeking rekindling, they dare to step outside their vows, exploring love's complexities and the heart's yearning against societal expectations.
Genres: Romance Comedy
Original Language: it
Release Date: 1963-03-01
Popularity:
Behind the Swinging Blade
Overview: Filmed exclusively for Arrow Video in 2013, this documentary looks at the making of The Pit and the Pendulum and features producer and director Roger Corman, star Barbara Steele, Vincent Price's daughter Victoria Price and more.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2014-05-19
Popularity:
Fellinopolis
Overview: Ferruccio Castronuovo was the only authorized eye, between 1976 and 1986, to film the brilliant Italian filmmaker Federico Fellini (1920-1993) in his personal and creative intimacy, to capture the gears of his great circus, his fantastic lies and his crazy inventions.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: it
Release Date: 2021-06-10
Popularity:
The Heart of a Man
Overview: Sailor Frankie Martin is offered a thousand pounds by a millionaire in disguise if he can earn a hundred pounds in a week by honest means. Frankie tries his hand as a boxer, a bouncer and a commissionaire, and finally finds success as a singer. He also falls for the charms of night club chanteuse Julie, and this leads to further success when he wins a recording contract.
Genres: No genres available
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1959-08-06
Popularity:
Mary Woronov: Cult Queen
Overview: The documentary explores the enigma of actress and artist Mary Woronov and chronicles her colorful career trajectory as a ground breaking female performer starting from her work with Andy Warhol to Roger Corman, that sealed her reputation as a "Cult Queen".
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date:
Popularity:
Be Pretty and Shut Up!
Overview: The film is a series of interviews with various well-known film actresses, including Jenny Agutter, Maria Schneider, and Jane Fonda. The title, which is borrowed from a 1958 film with the same name by Marc Allegret, refers to the sense the actresses have of what is expected of them by the film industry.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: fr
Release Date: 1981-03-04
Popularity:
White Voices
Overview: In 17th-century Rome, a young man in a choir of castrati falls for the beautiful wife of a powerful aristocrat.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: it
Release Date: 1964-08-12
Popularity:
Easy Love
Overview: Five episodes: A professor decides to murder her husband to win a woman. A hotelier seduces a boarder. A man convinces a friend to marry his lover, so as not to arouse his wife's suspicions. A man borrows money from a loan shark to pay for the services of his wife. Two couples try in vain to take a trip to the seaside.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: it
Release Date: 1964-10-03
Popularity:
The Shutterbug Man
Overview: The Shutterbug Man tells the tale of a very twisted man, whose only passion in life is taking pictures. This passion takes him to terrible and wicked places.
Genres: Animation Horror
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2014-12-17
Popularity:
The Mill at Calder's End
Overview: In the remote village of Calder's End stands an old windmill, a repository of dark secrets. Nicholas Grimshaw has returned to this haunted place, his childhood home, intent on breaking a generations old family curse. Grimshaw's journey takes him deep below the decaying mill,into mysterious, forgotten catacombs, where upon he confronts the very source of the evil that has corrupted his family. The Mill at Calder's End is a gothic tale inspired by the tales of Edgar Allan Poe, H.P. Lovecraft, and M.R. James and is told with the use of 36 inch tall bunraku rod puppets operated by puppeteers dressed in black.
Genres: Horror Animation Fantasy Adventure
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2015-03-22
Popularity:
Lost River
Overview: Billy, a single mother of two, is led into a macabre underworld while her teenage son, Bones, discovers a secret road leading to an underwater town. Both Billy and Bones must dive deep into the mystery if their family is to survive.
Genres: Drama Fantasy Thriller
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2015-04-08
Popularity:
Your Money or Your Wife
Overview: Newly wed couple Gay and Pel Butterworth are forced to take in some strange paying guests when their inheritance proves troublesome, but all is not as straight forward as it seems, when they discover they may have to divorce to get their hands on half the money...
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1960-03-01
Popularity:
Les baisers
Overview: A portmanteau film in which the producer, instead of as usual using already well known directors with a commercial draw, allowed five new young directors to each have a crack at an episode about romance.
Genres: Comedy Romance
Original Language: fr
Release Date: 1964-05-14
Popularity:
The Space-Watch Murders
Overview: A spaceship lands safely on a distant planet but all on-board have been slain except for one female crew member.
Genres: Science Fiction
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1978-01-04
Popularity:
Ulalume - A Ballad
Overview: Dreamlike animation brings Poe’s unforgettable poem to life, with desolate, macabre, and volcanic imagery.
Genres: Animation
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2023-01-20
Popularity:
Stop the World... I Want to Get Off!
Overview: Young protesters live together in a commune in Milano. One has a ventriloquist ability and is signed by national TV becoming a superstar in commercials aimed for kids. One by one his commune friends leave the protest to enter the business world except for one.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: it
Release Date: 1970-10-08
Popularity:
Minutes Past Midnight
Overview: As midnight falls, all manner of terror invades the Earth. Demons, cannibals, killers, ghosts and monsters swarm the world in these tales of the supernatural, the fantastic, and the just plain horrific. Featuring nine stories of horror.
Genres: Horror Thriller
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2016-10-18
Popularity:
The Iron Captain
Overview: After his village is burned down, Captain Furio sets out for revenge.
Genres: Adventure
Original Language: it
Release Date: 1962-10-26
Popularity:
Fear in the Dark
Overview: A short documentary on the history of the horror film narrated by Christopher Lee.
Genres: Documentary TV Movie
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1991-10-29
Popularity:
Money
Overview: On the theme "money is the driving force that drives man to commit follies to conquer them", this film presents a series of episodes.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: it
Release Date: 1965-11-25
Popularity:
Deep Above
Overview: In the 16th century, young men put themselves in great danger to look for mysterious crystals in a tunnel in the Styrian Erzberg. Some of them never returned from searching for this symbol of perfect love. In the 20th century, the student Barbara tries to pursue this legend of her home town.
Genres: Mystery Fantasy Horror
Original Language: de
Release Date: 1994-01-01
Popularity:
Once Upon a Tractor
Overview: Alan Bates and Diane Cilento play an odd couple fleeing across fictitious European countries with NYC and the UN as their destination. A short film directed by Leopoldo Torre Nilsson.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1965-09-09
Popularity:
Barbara and Her Furs
Overview: Short film for the french TV program "Dim Dam Dom". A love letter to Barbara Steele and Sacher-Masoch's Venus in Furs.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: fr
Release Date: 1967-01-01
Popularity:
Three for a Robbery
Overview: Gerhard is a young technical in Düsseldorf who works in a factory of security devices for banks. In agreement with Nicola, Mario and Hans, they prepare and carry out a robbery which, however, will have consequences for all of them.
Genres: Crime Drama
Original Language: it
Release Date: 1964-08-01
Popularity:
Parasite Memories: The Making of 'Shivers'
Overview: "Parasite Memories" is a brand new retrospective piece on the film produced by High Rising Productions with lively contribution from effects artist Joe Blasco, actresses Lynn Lowry and Barbara Steele, actor Allan Kolman, and Canadian critic Kier La-Janisse.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2014-10-13
Popularity:
The Pit and the Pendulum
Overview: In the sixteenth century, Francis Barnard travels to Spain to clarify the strange circumstances of his sister's death after she had married the son of a cruel Spanish Inquisitor.
Genres: Horror Mystery Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1961-08-23
Popularity:
For Love and Gold
Overview: A group of rogues steal a scroll granting its bearer the property of the land of Aurocastro in Apulia, a province in the south of Italy. They elect a shaggy knight, Brancaleone from Norcia, as their leader, and decide to get possession of this supposedly wealthy land. Many adventures will occurr during the journey.
Genres: Comedy Adventure
Original Language: it
Release Date: 1966-04-07
Popularity:
Master of Dark Shadows
Overview: Revealing the fascinating impact of the ground-breaking Gothic drama Dark Shadows with a compelling blend of rare footage and behind-the-scenes stories exploring the diverse talents of creator-producer-director Dan Curtis.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2019-04-16
Popularity:
Barbara Steele in Conversation
Overview: A documentary revolving around an extended interview with Barbara Steele, in which she recounts the many facets of her career.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2009-05-19
Popularity:
House of Wax: Unlike Anything You've Seen Before!
Overview: Documentary on the making and impact of "House of Wax".
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2013-10-01
Popularity:
Nightmare Castle
Overview: A sadistic count tortures and murders his unfaithful wife and her lover, then removes their hearts from their bodies. Years later, the count remarries and the new wife experiences nightmares and hauntings.
Genres: Horror
Original Language: it
Release Date: 1965-08-20
Popularity:
An Angel for Satan
Overview: At the end of the 19th century, in a little Italian village by a lake an old statue is recovered. Soon a series of crimes start and the superstitious people of the village believe that the statue carries an ancient malediction.
Genres: Horror
Original Language: it
Release Date: 1966-05-04
Popularity:
The Boneyard Collection
Overview: A quirky anthology, consisting of four separate short films connected by host segments. The first one, BOOGIE WITH THE UNDEAD, has an all girl rock band booked to play a gig in a town overrun by flesh-eating zombies. In the second one, THE DEVIL'S DUE AT MIDNIGHT, a coven of beautiful witches conjure up Brad Dourif as The Devil, and endures the inept attacks of witch killer Ken Foree. In the first long segment, HER MORBID DESIRES, an actress gets the lead role in a vampire movie, only to discover that starlets are being murdered on the set. The other long segment, CRY OF THE MUMMY, has the reincarnated mummy, formerly the last Pharaoh of the 4th Dynasty, looking to sue the movie studios because he can't get work as a mummy. His new lawyer offers to represent him as an agent, but the mummy will only work in film if he can direct.
Genres: Horror Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2008-01-01
Popularity:
The Maniacs
Overview: An anthology of brief comic sketches based on manias, mainly sexual, featuring several figures of Italian society.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: it
Release Date: 1964-03-28
Popularity:
Ciao, Federico!
Overview: A behind-the-scenes documentary about the filming of the Federico Fellini film, "Satyricon."
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1970-10-28
Popularity:
The Phantom
Overview: An enigmatic stranger, a couple who no longer exist, danger in the shadows and the key to it all - The new Ford Edge. Mads Mikkelsen and screen legend Barbara Steele star alongside the new Ford Edge in LE FANTÔME.
Genres: Action
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2016-10-14
Popularity:
Italian Kings Of B
Overview: Documentary on Italian genre cinema.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: it
Release Date: 2003-01-01
Popularity:
Mario Bava: Operazione paura
Overview: Mario Bava Operazione Paura", hosted by Joe Dante, is an hommage of the Master of the Terror, the italian director Mario Bava
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2004-04-30
Popularity:
Boia, maschere e segreti: l’horror italiano degli anni sessanta
Overview:
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: it
Release Date: 2019-09-05
Popularity: