
Birthday:
01-01-1911
Deathday:
03-23-1971 (60 years)
Birthplace:
Westcliff-on-Sea, Essex, England
Biography
Basil Dearden (born Basil Clive Dear; 1 January 1911 – 23 March 1971) was an English film director.
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Their works
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The Ealing Comedies
Act like Self
event1970
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The story of the men and women who produced a series of film comedies that were so original and funny that they put Ealing on the map.
Masquerade
Director
event1965 star_border 5
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The British send an American and a war hero to kidnap and hide an oil-country prince.
The Man Who Haunted Himself
Director
event1970 star_border 6.1
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Executive Harold Pelham suffers a serious accident after which he faces the shadow of death. When, against all odds, he miraculously recovers, he discovers that his life does not belong to him anymore.
Woman of Straw
Director
event1964 star_border 6.1
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Anthony Richmond schemes to get the fortune of his tyrannical, wheelchair-using tycoon uncle Charles Richmond by persuading Maria, a nurse he employs, to marry him.
Penny Paradise
Assistant Director
event1938 star_border 6.7
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A Liverpool tug boat captain finds he's won a fortune on the penny pools and it changes his life. However, after giving up his job and throwing a large expensive party, he discovers that he may not really have won after all.
Dead of Night
Director
event1945 star_border 7.2
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Architect Walter Craig, seeking the possibility of some work at a country farmhouse, soon finds himself once again stuck in his recurring nightmare. Dreading the end of the dream that he knows is coming, he must first listen to all the assembled guests' own bizarre tales.
The Smallest Show on Earth
Director
event1957 star_border 6.6
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Jean and Bill are a married couple trying to scrape a living. Out of the blue they receive a telegram informing them Bill's long-lost uncle has died and left them his business—a cinema in the town of Sloughborough. Unfortunately they can't sell it for the fortune they hoped as they discover it is falling down and almost worthless.
Pool of London
Director
event1951 star_border 6.4
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Jewel thieves, murder, and a manhunt swirl around a sailor off a cargo ship in post-war London.
Khartoum
Director
event1966 star_border 6.3
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English General Charles George Gordon is appointed military governor of Anglo-Egyptian Sudan by the Prime Minister. Ordered to evacuate Egyptians from the Sudan, Gordon stays on to protect the people of Khartoum, who are under threat of being conquered by a Muslim army.
Victim
Director
event1961 star_border 7.4
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A web of blackmail and murder attracts the attention of a barrister with a seemingly idyllic life, threatening to derail his career on the path of success.
All Night Long
Director
event1962 star_border 6.6
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Over the course of one eventful evening, the anniversary celebration of the musical and romantic partners Aurelius Rex and Delia Lane, a jealous, ambitious drummer, Johnny Cousin, attempts to tear the interracial couple apart.
The Persuaders!
Director
event1973 star_border 8.7
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Two episodes of the TV series "The Persuaders" joined into a movie. Two playboys, Brett Sinclair (Roger Moore) and Danny Wilde (Tony Curtis), investigate crimes along the French Riviera.
The Last Appointment!
Director
event1977
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Two jet-setting playboys, Brett Sinclair and Danny Wilde, investigate crimes. Two episodes of the TV series "The Persuaders" joined into a movie.
Mission: Monte Carlo
Director
event1974 star_border 6.7
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Two episodes of the TV series "The Persuaders" joined into a movie. Two playboys investigate crimes along the French Riviera.
The League of Gentlemen
Director
event1960 star_border 7
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Involuntarily-retired Colonel Hyde recruits seven other dissatisfied ex-servicemen for a special project. Each of the men has a skeleton in the cupboard, is short of money, and is a service-trained expert in his field. The job is a bank robbery, and military discipline and planning are imposed by Hyde and second-in-command Race on the team, although civilian irritations do start getting in the way.
Who Done It?
Director
event1956 star_border 5.2
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This movie debut for saucy British TV comic Benny Hill has Benny leaving his job as a sweeper after winning some money. He becomes a private detective and investigates a plot to assassinate British scientists.
Sapphire
Director
event1959 star_border 7
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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.
Saraband for Dead Lovers
Director
event1948 star_border 6
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Sophie Dorothea is a young woman forced into a loveless marriage with Prince George Louis of Hanover. George Louis is later crowned King George I of England. Despairing of ever experiencing true love, the depressed queen finds life at court no solace. Sophie then falls for a dashing Swedish soldier of fortune, Count Konigsmark.
Only When I Larf
Director
event1968 star_border 6.4
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A master conman leads a pair of British accomplices on an international adventure of highly profitable dirty tricks.
The Assassination Bureau
Director
event1969 star_border 6.4
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In 1908 London, a women's rights campaigner discovers the Assassination Bureau Limited, an organization that kills for justice. When its motives are called into question, she commissions the assassination of its chairman. Knowing that his colleagues have recently become more motivated by greed than morality, he turns the situation into a challenge for his board members: kill him or be killed.
The Blue Lamp
Director
event1950 star_border 6.6
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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.
The Gentle Gunman
Director
event1952 star_border 6.2
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The relationship between brothers Terry and Matt, both active in the IRA, comes under strain when Terry begins to question the use of violence.
The Mind Benders
Director
event1963 star_border 6.4
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A British scientist is discovered to have been passing information to the Communists, then kills himself. Another scientist decides that they might have brainwashed him by a sensory deprivation technique, but he doesn’t know if someone really can be convinced to act against their strongest feelings. So he agrees to be the subject in an experiment in which others will try to make him stop loving his wife.
Man in the Moon
Director
event1960 star_border 6.4
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William is an unsuccessful guinea pig for a medical group interested in researching the common cold. He is soon fired and offered a job by the nearby National Atomic Research Center where they figure anyone who could fail at being a guinea pig is just what they need. They con William into thinking he will continue his guinea pig career by testing out some equipment for them before they send a group of astronauts to the moon.
The Captive Heart
Director
event1946 star_border 6.3
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A series of stories about the lives and loves of men in a Prisoner of War camp over five years. The main story is of Hasek (Redgrave) a Czech soldier who needs to keep his identity a secret from the Nazis. To do this, he poses as a dead English Officer and corresponds with the man's wife. Other inmates’ stories are also revealed. Location shooting in the British occupied part of Germany adds believability.
Frieda
Director
event1947 star_border 5.3
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An RAF pilot who was shot down during WWII returns home to his English village with his new bride. The trouble is that she is the German lady who helped him escape.
The Ship That Died of Shame
Director
event1955 star_border 6.9
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After World War II the crew of a motor gunboat join together to buy their old vessel and go into business for themselves. This may sound like a laudable scheme, but the business they choose to go into is smuggling.
The Square Ring
Director
event1953 star_border 6.6
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Boxing drama following the lives of 5 different fighters and their reasons for becoming boxers.
Violent Playground
Director
event1958 star_border 7
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A Liverpool juvenile liaison officer struggles with a young and dangerous pyromaniac.
The Rainbow Jacket
Director
event1954 star_border 6.9
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A champion jockey is banned from racing so spends his time helping a young lad to become the next champion.
The Secret Partner
Director
event1961 star_border 5.8
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A shipping tycoon with a record becomes a suspect when money goes missing from the company vault.
The Halfway House
Director
event1944 star_border 6.4
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A group of travellers, each with a personal problem that they want to hide, arrive at a mysterious Welsh country inn. There is a certain strangeness in the air as they are greeted by the innkeeper and his daughter. Why are all the newspapers a year old? And why doesn't Gwyneth seem to cast a shadow?
My Learned Friend
Director
event1943 star_border 6
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An insane murderer is on the loose, and gunning for the men who put him away. Will Hay is on the list, and co-opts Claude Hulbert to try and stop him from meeting a grisly end.
Cage of Gold
Director
event1950 star_border 6.6
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The love that Judy, a young painter, feels for Alan, a promising doctor to whom she is engaged, falters when Bill, an old friend, suddenly appears.
The Black Sheep of Whitehall
Director
event1942 star_border 7.2
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A professor teaching at a correspondence school discovers that a Nazi agent is trying to prevent a trade treaty being signed between England and South America.
The Goose Steps Out
Director
event1942 star_border 6.4
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Schoolteacher William Potts is the double of a captured German spy, so he is sent to Germany by British Intelligence to obtain the plans of a new secret weapon, causing chaos in a Hitler Youth school in the process.
A Place to Go
Director
event1963 star_border 6.2
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Set in contemporary Bethnal Green in east London, A Place to Go charts the dramatic changes that were happening in the lives of the British working-class at the time.
Davy
Producer
event1958 star_border 5
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The Mad Morgans are a family song and dance act touring the British Music Halls. Young Davy is the star of the act but should he stay with his family or strike out on his own ? The last comedy to be produced at Ealing Studios.
Spare a Copper
Writer
event1940 star_border 7
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George is an inept reserve policeman working in wartime Liverpool, who is chosen by a gang of Nazi saboteurs as the stooge for their planned destruction of the British battleship HMS Hercules. Framed by the villains and forced to go on the run, George sets out to clear his name with the aid of new girlfriend, Jane.
Life for Ruth
Director
event1962 star_border 6.5
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John Harris finds himself ostracized and placed on trial for allowing his daughter Ruth to die. His religious beliefs forbade him to give consent for a blood transfusion that would have saved her life. Doctor Brown is determined to seek justice for what he sees as the needless death of a young girl.
I Believe in You
Screenplay
event1952 star_border 6.1
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A drama about parole officers to follow the successful Ealing police story of "The Blue Lamp"(1950) . Various sub-plots follow the parole officers and their charges.
Out of the Clouds
Director
event1955 star_border 6
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A day following workers at an airport
They Came to a City
Director
event1944 star_border 6
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People from different walks of life mysteriously find themselves at the gate of an unknown city
The Bells Go Down
Director
event1943 star_border 6.8
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Comedian Tommy Trinder plays it straight in this tribute to the wartime AFS (Auxiliary Fire Service). The dedicated band who kept the fires of London under control during the blitz and fire bombings of WWII.
This Man Is News
Writer
event1938 star_border 4.7
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A newspaper reporter keeps beating the police to clues in a current murder case. This makes the police think he may be involved in the crime.
Desert Mice
Producer
event1959 star_border 6
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A World War II farce that follows the antics of an ENSA (Entertainment National Service Association) group. Fresh from the music halls, they bumble their way from army camp to camp.
Turned Out Nice Again
Associate Producer
event1941 star_border 6.5
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George Pearson, an employee at an underwear factory, is caught between his modern wife and his meddling mother. After buying a special yarn and getting his wife to promote it, he has an argument with his boss, Mr Dawson who insults Pearson's wife and refuses to apologise. Pearson then resigns. After finding out that the yarn is actually worth a fair amount, Mr Dawson tries to buy it from Pearson but he has some competition.
Train of Events
Screenplay
event1949 star_border 6.2
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A train disaster is told in four short stories to give character studies of the people involved, how it will affect them and how they deal with it.
Did You Ever See a Dream Talking
Director
event1943 star_border 10
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Propaganda comedy promoting the benefits of saving for the war effort.
The Ghost of St. Michael's
Associate Producer
event1941 star_border 6.6
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Will Hay, back in his role as a hapless teacher, is hired by a grim school in remotest Scotland. The school soon starts to be haunted by a legendary ghost, whose spectral bagpipes signal the death of one of the staff. Hay, assisted by Claude Hulbert and Charles Hawtrey, has to unravel the mystery before he becomes the next victim.
The Green Man
Director
event1956 star_border 7
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Unknown to everyone but his shady Middle Eastern bosses, watchmaker Hawkins is actually a professional hired assassin with a predilection for killing his targets with bombs. After disposing of a dictator and millionaire, Hawkins is assigned to kill a politician who is heading to a remote hotel, The Green Man, for a secret tryst with his secretary. There, however, Hawkins' plot is discovered by vacuum salesman William Blake, who determines to stop him.
Let George Do It!
Screenplay
event1940 star_border 5.8
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Shortly after the start of World War II, a ukelele player (George) takes the wrong boat and finds himself in (still uninvaded) Norway. He is mistaken for a fellow British intelligence agent by a woman (Mary), and becomes involved in trying to defeat Nazi agents.
Now You're Talking
Script
event1940
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Commissioned by the Ministry of Information and specifically target working class audiences; ‘Now you’re talking’ follows a plant worker, who lets slip vital information about some overnight research on a captured enemy aircraft. This inevitably leads to this most important of secrets falling into the lap of the enemy.
Rockets Galore
Producer
event1958 star_border 6
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The inhabitants of Todday are content to live their lives in peace and quiet, until, that is, the government decides their little corner of the world would be the perfect place for a rocket launch site.
The Persuaders!
Director (3 ep.)
event1971 star_border 7.6
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An English aristocrat and an American millionaire come together to tackle crime.
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