Frank Pettingell

British author John Mortimer is best known to television audiences as the creator of Rumpole of the Bailey, the British comedy-drama popular with PBS viewers and starring Leo McKern as an aging barrister fighting the good fight in court but henpecked at home. This 1962 film, Trial and Error, is also based on a Mortimer story and also deals with the decidedly unglamorous lives of people shackled to an imperfect legal system. (Amazon.com)

A union committee discuss making a film to promote their cause.

A bumbling teacher (Will Hay) conveniently turns out to be the double of a German general. In the true spirit of wartime propaganda high jinks, he is flown into Germany to impersonate the general and cause chaos and hilarity in a Hitler Youth college (populated by the likes of Peter Ustinov, Charles Hawtrey and Barry Morse). (imdb)

During the Second World War, a German spy goes on the run, carrying important news about a U-Boat campaign. The ship he is traveling aboard is hit by a torpedo. The spy winds up on a lifeboat with other survivors, one of whom is a counterintelligence agent who reveals the German spy's true identity.

Lt. Dick Stacey is dismissed from the Fleet Air Arm for poor discipline. He joins the Aircraft Carrier "HMS Ark Royal" (The Ship with Wings). When they go into battle in the Mediterranean he acts heroically and redeems himself. (imdb)

This British- National-Anglo American production reinforces the theme that whoever assails the land of Britain only succeeds in uniting and cementing the landowner, the peasantry and the working classes of the land. Using the threat of invasion (by the Nazis)this four-episode film covers (as best as it can in 8000 feet of celluloid) the Norman invasion; the Spanish armada; the Napoleonic Era; and the twentieth century.

Twenty years ago, old Mrs. Barlow was killed in her home at 12, Pimlico Square for her priceless rubies. The murderer searched the whole house without finding them, then disappeared. The house has been empty since then, but now Paul and Bella Mallen move into the apartment. Bella Mallen suffers from forgetfulness and nervousness - at least that is what her husband tells her. An elderly horse wrangler, B.G. Rough worked as a policeman twenty years ago and still remembers the unsolved case... (imdb)

Sailing Along is a 1938 British musical comedy film directed by Sonnie Hale and starring Jessie Matthews, Barry MacKay, Jack Whiting, Frank Pettingell, Noel Madison and Alastair Sim. A barge-owner's adopted daughter falls in love with his son, and gives up her chances of stardom to be with him. (imdb)

An unemployed man wins £16,000 on the football pools.

Two feuding millionaires try to destroy each other's business while their children fall in love with each other.

A wife tries to prevent her husband, a miner, from gambling away the money he receives as an inheritance.

Bob Holt's last journey as a Railway engine driver before his retirement, a journey disturbed by his distress at leaving the Railway, and his suspicions of the relationship between his wife and his fireman. Aboard the train are a pair of pickpockets, a honeymoon couple, a drunk, a temperance pamphleteer and a host of familiar types, all more-or-less bizarre in characteristically English ways. Bob takes an unexpected course of action, and the characters start interacting in unexpected ways. (imdb)

A Yorkshire mill owner retires and leaves control to his nephew, who promptly gets married. (imdb)

Moving family drama of the life of a working-class Hackney couple over 40 years, inspired by the famous music hall song This moving family drama – with time for some laughs – portrays the life and hardships of a working class Hackney couple over a span of 40 years. Our intrepid couple (played by Betty Balfour and Michael Hogan) have to face everything life throws at them with fortitude, from the Great War (a son in the RAF and zeppelin raids) to a raging oil fire during the Great Strike.

When the textile mill closes, putting her out of work, Gracie finds herself experiencing all of the amusements of Blackpool. (imdb)

Film musical taken from JB Priestley's novel about three musicians joining together to save a failing concert party, the Dinky Doos. (imdb)

A poor, unemployed woman is made housekeeper at the estate of a wealthy duchess.

Lilian has an illegitimate war-baby adopted by a wealthy spinster. (imdb)