8.2

Ben-Hur

1958, USA

• Actors: Charlton Heston, Jack Hawkins, Haya Harareet, Stephen Boyd, Hugh Griffith, Martha Scott, Cathy O'Donnell, Sam Jaffe, Finlay Currie, Frank Thring, Terence Longdon, George Relph, André Morell, Les Ballets Africains, Ady Berber, Marina Berti, Hugh Billingsley, Jerry Brown, Robert Brown, Lando Buzzanca, Joe Canutt, Otello Capanna, Emile Carrer, Richard Coleman, Michael Cosmo, Alfredo Danesi, David Davies, Princess Carmen de Hohenlohe, Victor De La Fosse, Liana Del Balzo
• Genre: Action, Adventure, Drama, History, Romance
• Director(s): William Wyler
• Available languages:
  • English English.

Judah Ben-Hur lives as a rich Jewish prince and merchant in Jerusalem at the beginning of the 1st century. Together with the new governor his old friend Messala arrives as commanding officer of the Roman legions. At first they are happy to meet after a long time but their different politic views separate them. During the welcome parade a roof tile falls down from Judah's house and injures the governor. Although Messala knows they are not guilty, he sends Judah to the galleys and throws his mother and sister into prison. But Judah swears to come back and take revenge.

  6.8

Around the World in Eighty Days

1956, USA

• Actors: Cantinflas, Finlay Currie, Robert Morley, Ronald Squire, Basil Sydney, Noel Coward, John Gielgud, Trevor Howard, Harcourt Williams, David Niven, Martine Carol, Fernandel, Charles Boyer, Evelyn Keyes, José Greco, Luis Miguel Dominguín, Gilbert Roland, Cesar Romero, Alan Mowbray, Robert Newton, Cedric Hardwicke, Melville Cooper, Reginald Denny, Ronald Colman, Robert Cabal, Shirley MacLaine, Charles Coburn, Peter Lorre, George Raft, Red Skelton
• Genre: Adventure, Comedy, Family, Fantasy, Romance
• Director(s): Michael Anderson
• Available languages:
  • English English.

Phileas Fogg accepts a challenge from his fellow members at the Reform Club and sets of prove that you can travel around the world in a mind-boggling 80 days. He sets off by train to Paris with his new valet Passepartout but then is forced to continue the trip by balloon arriving next in Spain where Passepartout has an interesting encounter in the bullfighting ring. They finally make their way across the Mediterranean and through the Suez canal, arriving in Bombay two days ahead of schedule. They board the train for Calcutta where they find there is a 50 mile gap midway. The break in their journey proved eventful as they rescue an Indian princess, Aouda, who is about to be forced to commit suttee - throwing herself on her dead husband's funeral pyre. They make to Calcutta and on to Siam and the Honk Kong. Throughout the voyage, they are followed by a detective, Mr. Fix, who is convinced that Fogg is the thief responsible for the recent £55,000 theft at the bank of England. In Honk Kong, Passepartout is Shanghaied leaving Fogg and Aouda to find their own way to Yokohama where they are to catch a ship to San Francisco. The group is reunited, travels across the American West - Passepartout has an exciting encounter with the Sioux - and make it back to London. They're one day late however for Fogg to win the bet - or so he thinks.

  7.3

People Will Talk

1951, USA

• Actors: Cary Grant, Jeanne Crain, Finlay Currie, Hume Cronyn, Walter Slezak, Sidney Blackmer, Basil Ruysdael, Katherine Locke, Parley Baer, Bonnie Barlowe, Gail Bonney, William Bryant, James Carlisle, John Davidson, Julia Dean, Wally Dean, Lawrence Dobkin, Bill Dyer, Bess Flowers, Jo Gilbert, Margaret Hamilton, Sam Harris, Stuart Holmes, Billy House, Marjorie Jackson, Jack Kelly, Kay Lavelle, Paul Lees, Carl M. Leviness, Adele Longmire
• Genre: Drama, Romance
• Director(s): Joseph L. Mankiewicz
• Available languages:
  • English English.

Successful and well-liked, Dr. Noah Praetorius becomes the victim of a witch hunt at the hands of Professor Elwell, who disdains Praetorius's unorthodox medical views and also questions his relationship with the mysterious, ever-present Mr. Shunderson. Fuel is added to the fire when Praetorius befriends young Deborah Higgins, who has become suicidal at the prospect of having a baby by her ex boyfriend, a military reservist who was called up for service in the Korean War and killed in action.

  7.1

Quo Vadis

1951, USA

• Actors: Robert Taylor, Deborah Kerr, Leo Genn, Peter Ustinov, Patricia Laffan, Finlay Currie, Abraham Sofaer, Marina Berti, Buddy Baer, Felix Aylmer, Nora Swinburne, Ralph Truman, Norman Wooland, Peter Miles, Geoffrey Dunn, Nicholas Hannen, D.A. Clarke-Smith, Rosalie Crutchley, John Ruddock, Arthur Walge, Elspeth March, Strelsa Brown, Alfredo Varelli, Roberto Ottaviano, William Tubbs, Marika Aba, Adriano Ambrogi, Anna Arena, Alfred Baillou, Giacomo Barnas
• Genre: Drama, History, Romance
• Director(s): Mervyn LeRoy
• Available languages:
  • English English.

Returning to Rome after 3 years in the field, General Marcus Vinicius meets Lygia and falls in love with her. She is a Christian and doesn't want to have anything to do with a warrior. Though she grew up Roman, the adopted daughter of a retired general, Lygia is technically a hostage of Rome. Marcus gets Emperor Nero to give her to him for services rendered. Lygia resents this, but somehow falls in love with Marcus anyway. Meanwhile Nero's atrocities get more outrageous. When he burns Rome and blames the Christians, Marcus goes off to save Lygia and her family. Nero captures them and all the Christians, and throws them to the lions.

  7.4

Whisky Galore!

1949, UK

• Actors: Basil Radford, Catherine Lacey, Bruce Seton, Joan Greenwood, Wylie Watson, Gabrielle Blunt, Gordon Jackson, Jean Cadell, James Robertson Justice, Morland Graham, John Gregson, James Woodburn, James Anderson, Jameson Clark, Duncan Macrae, Mary MacNeil, Norman Macowan, Alastair Hunter, Henry Mollison, Frank Webster, Compton MacKenzie, Finlay Currie, A.E. Matthews
• Genre: Comedy
• Director(s): Alexander Mackendrick
• Available languages:
  • English English.

Based on a true story. The name of the real ship, that sunk Feb 5 1941 - during WWII - was S/S Politician. Having left Liverpool two days earlier, heading for Jamaica, it sank outside Eriskay, The Outer Hebrides, Scotland, in bad weather, containing 250,000 bottles of whisky. The locals gathered as many bottles as they could, before the proper authorities arrived, and even today, bottles are found in the sand or in the sea every other year.

  8.1

Great Expectations

1945, UK

• Actors: John Mills, Tony Wager, Valerie Hobson, Jean Simmons, Bernard Miles, Francis L. Sullivan, Finlay Currie, Martita Hunt, Alec Guinness, Ivor Barnard, Freda Jackson, Eileen Erskine, George Hayes, Hay Petrie, John Forrest, Torin Thatcher, O.B. Clarence, John Burch, Richard George, Grace Denbigh Russell, Everley Gregg, Anne Holland, Frank Atkinson, Gordon Begg, Edie Martin, Walford Hyden, Roy Arthur, Howard Lang, Ernie Pratt
• Genre: Drama
• Director(s): David Lean
• Available languages:
  • English English.

Pip, a good-natured, gullible young orphan, lives with kind blacksmith Joe Gargery and his bossy, abusive wife 'Mrs. Joe'. When the boy finds two hidden escaped galley convicts, he obeys under -probably unnecessary- threat of a horrible death to bring the criminals food he must steal at peril of more caning from the battle-ax. Just when Pip fears to get it really good while they have guests, a soldier comes for Joe who takes Pip along as assistant to work on the chains of escaped galley-convicts, who are soon caught. The better-natured one takes the blame for the stolen food. Later Pip is invited to became the playmate of Estelle, the equally arrogant adoptive daughter of gloomy, filthy rich Miss Havisham at her estate, who actually has 'permission' to break the kind kid's heart; being the only pretty girl he ever saw, she wins his heart forever, even after a mysterious benefactor pays trough a lawyer for his education and a rich allowance, so he can become a snob in London, by now 'ashamed' of simple Joe. Only after years in idle wealth, Pip learns Havisham is not his benefactor as he assumed, and both her story and those of his real sponsor and Estelle...