Esme Percy

It's back! A fourth compelling collection of SHORT SHARP SHOCKS revisits the heyday of the supporting program with a compendium of eerie and eccentric British short films presented for the first time in High Definition. Well-known names to spot include Patrick Macnee, John Le Mesurier, Gabrielle Drake and Elspeth Gray. Settle in for a strange cinematic journey through uncanny stories, twists in the tale, low-budget weirdness and oodles of atmosphere.

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An investigation of how Hollywood's fabled stories have deeply influenced how Americans feel about transgender people, and how transgender people have been taught to feel about themselves.

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George Bernard Shaw’s illustrious friends pay tribute to his talents – with anecdotes, artefacts and one-liners.

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The second collection of short stories written by Baroness Orczy about the gallant English hero, the Scarlet Pimpernel and his League.

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Shows the improved services and other benefits that oil brings to the backward territories. The financial and technical resources of foreign lands have tapped the liquid wealth hidden below the surface of the earth. In return a new prosperity and improved standard of living is being brought to the peoples of those formerly barren lands.

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A pianist aboard a train reads the palms of passengers and predicts their deaths. Soon those deaths begin to happen.

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The ghosts of two stupid 18th-century officers are doomed to haunt a Berkeley Square mansion until the unlikely event of a reigning monarch paying the house a visit. It will take more than 200 years... Based on the novel "No Nightingales" by Caryl Brahms and S.J. Simon.

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A musical cabaret singer meets a British agent and goes with him to Nazi occupied France to save an atomic scientist.

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At the height of the Roman Civil War, an aging Julius Caesar finds himself intrigued by the young Egyptian queen Cleopatra, whom he teaches how to rule Egypt.

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An architect, visiting an English country house, realizes the other guests are familiar from his recurring nightmare. When they share their tales of the supernatural, he is filled with a growing dread.

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In 1783 England, King George III appoints William Pitt only 24 years old, as PM. When members of Parliament refuse to take Pitt seriously, he calls for a general election and wins. Pitt works to reform England, focusing on rebuilding the navy while across the sea in France, Napoleon Bonaparte begins his conquest of Europe.

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Hi Gang! is a 1941 British comedy film directed by Marcel Varnel and starring Bebe Daniels, Ben Lyon and Vic Oliver. It was a spin-off from the popular radio series Hi Gang!.

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After Larry Darrent accidentally kills his lover's blackmailing husband, someone else is arrested for the crime. When he is found guilty, Larry and Wanda have just three weeks together before he must give himself up— or let an innocent man go to the gallows.

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When linguistics professor Henry Higgins boasts that he can pass off Cockney flower girl Eliza Doolittle as a princess with only six months' training, Colonel George Pickering takes him up on the bet. Eliza moves into Higgins's home and begins her rigorous training after the professor comes to a financial agreement with her dustman father, Alfred. But the plucky young woman is not the only one undergoing a transformation.

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Trouble is brewing in the banana republic of Bianco for both His Excellency, El Presidente, and the British Consul, Brant. Rebels, led by Diego De Costa, the trusted "Minister of the Marines and the Customs" and Lieutenant Enricquo, the gunnery officer of the small republic's one battleship, have taken over the battleship, and the town. Most of the British citizens have taken refuge at the Consulate or have been evacuated to the small cruiser in Bianco's port, the "H. M. S. Audacious." But there are two major issues; the Consul's daughter, Pamela, and Canadian Lieutenant Bill Armstrong have been kidnapped by the rebels and now held hostage on the battleship "El Mirante," and El Presidente was visiting the consulate when the war broke out and is now under the protective custody of the British Empire.

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In this Edgar Wallace adaptation, Sergeant Elk (a lugubrious Gordon Harker) sets out to unmask the Frog, the evil mastermind heading up a mysterious network responsible for a litany of sensational crimes. Wallace was one of the first British authors to capitalise on the potential of cinema to increase his already considerable celebrity. His luridly titled thrillers depicting shady underworlds remained popular film sources long after his death in 1932. This lavish production boasts a distinguished cast and delivers on all fronts: from romance and exotic cabaret acts, to heaps of tension and a dramatic reveal.

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A London cat burglar falls for the girlfriend of a stockbroker who used to be his partner.

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Tony and his dance partner/wife Gaby headline a Paris musical. Tony becomes the unwilling target for the attentions of performer Yvette. She is later murdered with the dagger used by Tony and his wife in their act, and Gaby is accused of the crime.

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With the police on their tail, a gang of New York criminals decided to relocate to London where they plan a major robbery on a department store.

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Believing real life is an operetta, the citizens of the European country Lucco break into song at every blink of an eye. Since everybody's singing, nobody works, there's no money to pay taxes, and the country faces bankruptcy, leading the ruling princess to declare all music illegal. Enter opera singer Richard Tauber and American journalist Jimmy Durante to save the day and lead the citizens to march on the palace in protest--and in song.

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John Zinga, a descendent of slaves, has an ancient medallion around his neck and a fragment of song passed down generations. He is an English dockworker with a magnificent voice and a yearning to learn his roots.

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An officer becomes entangled in a love affair with a woman who works as a maid.

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A former boxing champion, now an innkeeper, is accused of stealing a watch from a party of guests at his inn, who happen to be members of English royalty. The old man is arrested and thrown in prison. His son, knowing that his father didn't steal the watch and suspecting a frame-up, follows the royal party to London, where he poses as a wealthy "gentleman" and insinuates himself into the English court in an effort to find out who framed his father and why.

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A bumbling yachtsman sails to the South of Spain with a fiery seductress, only to become the pawn in her dangerous game of love.

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As the threat of Napoleonic invasion looms ever closer, a German duke and potential ally of England falls for a pretty ballerina.

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In 1908, Sultan Abdul Hamid rules the Turkish Empire, but he is faced with the threat of revolt by the Young Turk party. He allows Hilmi Pasha, the leader of the Young Turks, to return from exile and form the country's first constitutional government. With tensions still growing, chief of police Kadar Pasha assassinates Hassan Bey, the leader of the Old Turk party, and makes it look as if a Young Turk committed the crime, in order to give Abdul an excuse for arresting the Young Turk leaders. Meanwhile, Abdul becomes infatuated with a visiting Austrian singer. When she rejects his advances, she endangers both herself and her fiancé, a Turkish officer who also knows who really shot Hassan Bey.

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Paul, artistically-inclined son of an American millionaire, moves to Paris where he can find inspiration and study the masters. While there, he finds inspiration of a different sort in the form of the beautiful Jacqueline.

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Made in commemoration and celebration of the Jubilee of King George V, this is the story of the first twenty-five years of his reign, told through the many travels of a penny that was minted in the year of his accession: 1910. Through a series of individual stories, Royal Cavalcade covers a period of striking change in every area of life – from the suffragette movement to the trenches of World War One, the effects of the Depression to single events such as the first ever Royal Command Performance, featuring Anna Pavlova and George Robey.

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Composer Franz Schubert--broke, struggling and unhappy--gets a break when a wealthy friend wangles him an invitation to a command performance in front of a princess of the royal family. Schubert performs a version of his new work, "Symphony in B Minor", for the princess, but a misunderstanding results in Schubert storming out of the concert in a rage. Complications ensue. English-language version of "Leise flehen meine Lieder."

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King Charles II first meets Nell Gwyn after seeing her do a turn at Drury Lane. They soon become close, the King preferring her feisty irreverent company to that of the aristocratic French Duchess of Portsmouth. Nell becomes his most loyal subject, while ever-ready to take the Duchess down a peg. But the actress can never hope to be fully accepted by the King's circle despite his constant attentions.

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Gracie plays a London publican's daughter named after Nell Gwynn, who much like the original, becomes romantically involved with a King(John Loder).

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Greta Nissen stars as an Italian noblewoman living a dangerous double life as a spy. A remake of the celebrated German thriller Spione am Werk. Co-starring noted German actor Karl Ludwig Diehl and American matinee idol Don Alvarado. The film takes place in Vienna, 1912. When an Austrian staff officer is implicated by association with a known Italian spy he goes on the run. Three years later - as the Great War gets into full swing - he returns and begs the Austrian Secret Service to allow him to clear his name from suspicion.

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The first film adaptation, and most faithful, of Noel Coward's 1929 operetta Bitter Sweet. This tells the story of Sarah Linden's romance, the tale begins with Sarah, now older, reminiscing about her first love. As a young girl Sarah falls in love with Carl, a musician, and runs off with him to Vienna. They are happily wed and Carl earns a living conducting a small orchestra. Enter a certain Captain who sets his eye on Sarah and proceeds to shower her with his attentions, much to her dismay.

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Hugo Carmody, the impoverished secretary to Lord Emsworth falls for Millicent the boss's niece, and steals his Lordship's prize pig in a scheme to raise funds to marry her.

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A professional footballer attempts to recover a winning pools ticket.

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