Frederick Piper
Featured Characters
Roles you can spot in Whatthemovie snapshots
Burke & Hare
Two men go into business supplying medical colleges with cadavers by robbing graves.
Catacombs
An astute businesswoman is completely devoted to her faithless husband, who must kill her to carry on with her pretty young niece. It turns out that the dead don't die so easily.
Becket
Thomas Becket, Henry II's longtime advisor, finds his friendship with the debauched king corroding when he is unwillingly appointed as Archbishop of Canterbury in an attempt to gain absolute loyalty from the Church.
Ricochet
Solicitor Alan Phipps plans to blackmail wife Yvonne, frame her lover John Brodie as the blackmailer, and manipulate Yvonne into killing Brodie, seeking revenge on both for their affair.
Only Two Can Play
John Lewis is bored of his job and his wife. Then Liz, wife of a local councillor, sets her sights on him. But this is risky stuff in a Welsh valleys town - if he and Liz ever manage to consummate their affair, that is.
What a Carve Up!
Ernie's Uncle Gabriel has just died but to claim his inheritance he must spend the night in the ancestral family home with the rest of his rather eccentric relatives. Ernie's imagination has been affected by his constant immersion in cheap horror novels, but his wildest fears turn out to be justified when the guests begin to drop dead.
Very Important Person
Sir Ernest Pease is a self-important scientist sent undercover on a bombing mission to monitor the effectiveness of his latest invention, a new-fangled radar. When the plane is attacked, he parachutes to safety — only to be sent to a POW camp, where he takes on the alias of Lieutenant Farrow.
The Monster of Highgate Ponds
A group of children befriend a monster.
The Frightened City
A small time thief is recruited by a mobster to help with the racketeering. He doesn't like the job, but with the mob on his back, a femme fatale in his bed and a sick friend to care for, he will have to keep all his wits about him.
Dead Lucky
Mike Billings decides to give gambling a go and it happens he's good at it. His instant fortune attracts quite a number of characters including a con artist, a hired killer, and the requisite attractive woman.
The Passionate Stranger
A chauffeur gets the wrong idea after he reads his lady boss's erotic novel.
The Birthday Present
A top salesman with a U.K. toy firm foolishly brings an expensive watch back from a German trip for his wife's birthday. This is illegal in 1950's Britain and after Customs discover the watch, he is charged and, unusually, given a prison sentence.
Second Fiddle
Career demands, and a seductive secretary, threaten marital bliss for newlywed ad-agency employees.
Doctor at Large
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.
Barnacle Bill
A seasick sea captain commands an amusement pier despite local opposition. Released in the U.S. as 'All at Sea'
Doctor at Sea
Bachelor Dr. Simon Sparrow (Dirk Bogarde) goes to sea to escape his mentor's amorous daughter, but ends up in more trouble wrangling the captain, crew, and Brigitte Bardot.
The Rainbow Jacket
A champion jockey is banned from racing so spends his time helping a young lad to become the next champion.
Lease of Life
The parson of a small rural community knows he is dying and this makes him reconsider his life so far and what he can still do to help the community.
Deadly Nightshade
Escapee switches identities but finds the new one quite a handful.
Cosh Boy
Roy Walsh is a brash and enterprising thug who bullies his friends into subservience. He and his gang assault and rob people on the street, but things get increasingly dangerous when their behavior escalates to larger crimes.
Hunted
A violent fugitive and a mistreated small boy team up to flee from authority.
Home at Seven
David Preston, a banker, has a 24-hour memory lapse. Accused of robbery and murder, he can't account for his lost time. With no alibi, police press him to explain the missing hours, jeopardizing his freedom.
The Blue Lamp
P.C. George Dixon is a long-serving traditional copper who is due to retire shortly. He takes a new recruit under his aegis and introduces him to the easy-going night beat. Dixon is a classic ordinary hero but also anachronistic, unprepared and unable to answer the violence of the 1950s.
Vote for Huggett
A firm of solicitors do battle with the head of the local council over a parcel of river front land, owned by the Huggett family, in order to build a lido/community center.
Passport to Pimlico
When an unexploded WWII bomb is accidentally detonated in Pimlico, it reveals a treasure trove and documents proving that the region is in fact part of Burgundy, France and thus foreign territory. The British government attempts to regain control by setting up border controls and cutting off services to the area.
Penny and the Pownall Case
A glamour model helps Scotland Yard to catch a criminal gang.
My Brother's Keeper
War hero George Martin escapes prison handcuffed to crook Willie Stannard. They obtain railway tickets. Pursued by police and press, George aims to break free from Willie and escape.
Escape
A convict sentenced to three years for killing a detective escapes and goes on the lam, aided by a local girl.
The October Man
Jim Ackland, who suffers from a head injury sustained in a bus crash, is the chief suspect in a murder hunt, when a girl that he has just met is found dead on the local common, and he has no alibi for the time she was killed.
The Loves of Joanna Godden
On Romney Marsh at the turn of the century, a woman farmer has three suitors.
It Always Rains on Sunday
Robert Hamer's bleak portrait of life in London's East End.
Hue and Cry
A gang of street boys foil a master crook who sends commands for robberies by cunningly altering a comic strip's wording each week, unknown to writer and printer. The first of the Ealing comedies.
Pink String and Sealing Wax
Melodrama set in Victorian Brighton. Scheming pub landlady uses the timorous son of a domineering pharmacist to assist in the poisoning of her drunkard husband. (The title is from the way pharmacists used to wrap parcels containing poison).
Champagne Charlie
Ealing Comedy about rivalry between 19th Century music hall performers.
The Big Blockade
Wartime propaganda piece reporting on the success of the economic blockade of Germany in the early years of the war.
In Which We Serve
This "story of a ship", the British destroyer H.M.S. Torrin, is told in flashbacks by survivors as they cling to a life raft.
49th Parallel
In the early days of World War II, a German U-boat is sunk in Canada's Hudson Bay. Hoping to evade capture, a small band of German soldiers led by commanding officer Lieutenant Hirth attempts to cross the border into the United States, which has not yet entered the war and is officially neutral.
The Four Just Men
The four men of the title are British WWI veterans who decide to work secretly against enemies of the country. They aren't above a bit of murder or sabotage to serve their ends, but they consider themselves to be true patriots.
Jamaica Inn
In Cornwall, around 1800, a young woman discovers that she's living near a gang of criminals who arrange shipwrecks for profit.
They Drive by Night
“Shorty” Matthews having recently been released from prison visits his girlfriend in London only to discover her murdered. Fearing he will be wrongly accused of being the culprit he disappears amongst the long-distance lorry driving community.
Feather Your Nest
An employee of a record manufacturing company comes up with a hit song.
Farewell Again
Given a six-hour pass after a tour of duty in India, several British Tommies try to unravel their domestic tribulations before having to ship out again.
Where There's a Will
Will Hay plays the pennyless, bungling solicitor Benjamin Stubbins, who arrives at his office to find his insolent office boy (Graham Moffatt) with his feet up on the desk, reading a wild west magazine, which Hay confiscates so that he can read it later.
The 39 Steps
The 39 Steps is one of Alfred Hitchcock’s masterpieces. A romantic thriller that revolves around a Canadian tourist visiting London who gets caught in the middle of a murder plot that has police and the secret service after him. A classic Hitchcock of romance mixed with adventure and picturesque scenes.
The Man Who Knew Too Much
A man and his wife receive a clue to an imminent assassination attempt, only to learn that their daughter has been kidnapped to keep them quiet.
Red Ensign
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.