A Throw of Dice 1929
Two neighboring kings addicted to gambling, Ranjit and his cousin Sohat, vie for the same beautiful young woman, Sunita, daughter of the hermit Kanwa.
Two neighboring kings addicted to gambling, Ranjit and his cousin Sohat, vie for the same beautiful young woman, Sunita, daughter of the hermit Kanwa.
Documentary following an Edinburgh fishing trawler, the "Isabella Grieg".
A working-class love story set in and around the London Underground of the 1920s. Two men – gentle Bill and brash Bert – meet and are attracted to the same woman on the same day at the same Underground station. But the lady chooses Bill, and Bert isn't the type to take rejection lightly...
The film focuses on the naval warfare around the Battle of Coronel and Battle of the Falkland Islands during the First World War. It was the last in a successful series of documentary reconstructions of First World War battles by British Instructional Films made between 1921 and 1927.
A jealous barber's assistant becomes enraged by the attentions the manicurist he's obsessed with and a repeat customer pay to one another.
Young Raymond Rudford,sculptor, is on trial for slitting the throat of his uncle, who had adopted and raised him after Raymond's parent's died when he was a young boy. The prosecution allows his motive was fear of being disinherited if he married his fiancé, the fair Alicia Atherton, against his uncle's wishes, and the prosecution lays a mountain of evidence against Raymond, including his razor, dragged from an artificial lake on the estate, as the murder weapon; Raymond's bloody fingerprints and footprints found at the scene of bedroom crime, and his bloody shoes, found in his cupboard and bloody monogrammed-handkerchief found under his uncle's death bed. Raymond's only defense is that he could not have committed the crime as he goes into a paroxysm of dread at the mere sight of blood, a phobia he has had ever since childhood when his dog was run over by a lorry and the dog's blood was splattered into his face.
This is a documentary of Captain R.F. Scott's second Antarctic expedition, begun in 1910. The British, under Scott, attempted to reach the South Pole before Roald Amundsen's Norwegians. Scott's writings reveal that the British made it to the South Pole, only to find that the Norwegians had gotten there first. Scott, and the other four men who had made it to the Pole with him, died on the return trip.
Sir Douglas Rolls is a highly respected defence lawyer of many years experience. Now in rapidly failing health, he is advised to retreat from the courtroom and pursue more pleasurable activities. But it is just at this point in his life that his great lost love a woman his own strong sense of duty led him to give up twenty years ago, and whom he still loves deeply walks into his chambers to ask that he defend her adulterous husband, now to stand trial for murder. Reluctantly agreeing to take on the case, Sir Douglas soon finds there is more to the story than meets the eye.
The husband and wife acting team of Mae Feather and Julian Gordon is torn apart when he discovers she is having an affair with the screen comedian Andy Wilks.
Adapted from the book By Way of Cape Horn by A.J Villiers, Windjammer is a beautifully-filmed record of the last journey of the Grace Harwar, a full-rigged Windjammer sailing from Australia to England via Cape Horn.
A married writer's luck turns when he gets a play produced at Théâtre de Paris. He meets the femme fatale who should play the lead in his play. Passion and conflict occurs.
A patrol of twelve soldiers is lost in the desert and killed by the tribesmen, but the sergeant makes sure that one of the tribesmen dies for every one of his men.
A precursor short film to the Secrets of Nature shorts.
In 1925, with the cooperation of the War Office, British Instructional Films set out to make a dramatic, feature-length reconstruction of the five Ypres battles in which 1.7 million soldiers lost their lives. Directed by William Summers, the result is a silent classic. Unlike the famous 1916 documentary The Battle of the Somme, the Ypres footage is entirely ”faked” and the film shares some of Somme‘s propagandist approach. Regardless, the film is no less fascinating as an artistic endeavour of its time and it features some stunning images. A degree of authenticity is provided by real soldiers taking part and by the filming having taken place in the actual Ypres trenches.
Richly detailed amateur ethnographic film on the agrarian economy and society in rural Punjab.
Documentary detailing a farmer’s visit to the market in Rawalpindi.
A historical romance set in the Mughal Empire. Selima is a princess-foundling raised by a potter and loved by her brother, Shiraz. She is abducted and sold as a slave to Prince Khurram, later Emperor Shah Jehan, who falls for her, to the chagrin of the wily Dalia. When Selima is caught is Shiraz, the young man is condemned to be trampled to death by an elephant. A pendant reveals Selima's royal status and she saves her brother, marries the prince and becomes Empress Mumtaz Mahal while Dalia is banned for her machinations against Selima. When Selima dies (1629), the emperor builds her a monument to the design of the now old and blind Shiraz, the Taj Mahal.
The courtship rituals of animals and plants are compared to those of contemporary society, with educational and frequently humorous results.
A British crime film directed by Norman Lee
A prince in disguise saves a runaway princess from becoming a forger's dupe.