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No Resting Place (1951)
Character: Billy Kyle
The brilliant British documentary filmmaker Paul Rotha made his feature-film debut with 1950's No Resting Place. Filmed on location in Ireland, the film is a lightly fictionalized study of that country's itinerant workmen. Michael Gough plays tinker Alec Kyle, whose life is thrown into turmoil when he accidentally kills a man. Kyle spends the rest of the film evading Guard Mannigan (Noel Purcell), a civil servant who relies on instinct rather than scientific deduction to get his man. Without ever trying to elicit sympathy for his characters, director Rotha manages to compellingly detail the miserable living and working conditions of Ireland's nomad artisans.
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The Stable Door (1966)
Character: N/A
This is a film made as an elaborate advert for the Insurance Industry. A group of criminals conspire to rob a warehouse which has also been spotted as a vulnerable target by an insurance salesman who suggests precautions, including buying insurance. Will the works be done in time and sufficient to stop the robbers?
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Jacqueline (1956)
Character: Campbell
Jacqueline is the daughter of Belfast shipyard worker Mike McNeil. The worker's worth is compromised by his crippling fear of heights. Dismissed from his job, he finds solace in the bottle. All seems hopeless until Jacqueline breaks through her father's self-imposed gloom and helps him to regenerate. An adaptation of the novel 'A Grand Man', by Catherine Cookson.
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Beginning to End (1965)
Character: Man
A recital of passages from the works of Samuel Beckett, performed by Jack MacGowran, as a raving old man.
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Two and Two Make Six (1962)
Character: Night Porter
An American airman stationed in the United Kingdom strikes down his commanding officer. Believing he's killed him, the airman goes on the run with a woman. They encounter a lookalike couple and hijinks ensue.
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Faithful Departed (1968)
Character: narrator
This short documentary draws on the photographs of Robert French from the William Lawrence Collection held in the National Library. The photos illustrate the Dublin of 1904 which served as a backdrop to James Joyce’s Ulysses. The film traces Joyce’s childhood and adolescence, his meeting with Nora Barnacle on June 10th, 1904, and the highways and byways which Leopold Bloom wandered through on June 16th, 1904. The music in the film references some of Joyce’s favourite songs, many of which appear in Ulysses.
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Eh, Joe? (1966)
Character: Joe
The first English broadcast of Eh, Joe? aired on BBC2 on July 4th, 1966 with Jack MacGowran, for whom the play was specifically written, playing Joe and Siân Phillips as Voice. It was directed by Alan Gibson with Beckett in attendance.
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The Shadow of a Gunman (1972)
Character: Seumas Shields
Is a sensitive and mysterious poet really an IRA gunman in hiding? Set in a Dublin tenement in the 1920s, this was the first part of Sean O'Casey's celebrated "Dublin Trilogy." Equal parts comedy and tragedy, this classic play is brilliantly performed by a stellar cast.
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Silent Song (1966)
Character: Brother Michael
Life in a Trappist monastery offers a life of contemplation and hard labour.
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Rooney (1958)
Character: Joe O'Connor
The life of James Ignatius Rooney, a Dublin rubbish collector during the week and a Gaelic sportsman at the weekends.
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The Quiet Man (1952)
Character: Ignatius Feeney
An American man returns to the village of his birth in Ireland, where he finds love and conflict.
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Mix Me a Person (1962)
Character: Terence
Eighteen-year-old Harry Jukes is literally holding a smoking gun in his hand. His lawyer thinks he did it, but his psychiatrist disagrees -- and sets out to prove she is right.
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The Yin and the Yang of Mr. Go (1970)
Character: Leo Zimmerman
An American draft dodger and aspiring writer named Nero Finnigan becomes involved with the notorious Mr. Go, an organized crime mastermind. They conspire to blackmail an American weapons scientist into providing secrets to Mr. Go's organization for resale to the highest bidder. "The Dolphin" then arrives, who is an American CIA agent and James Joyce scholar, and is charged with recovering the scientist and his work by whatever means necessary.
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A Day at the Beach (1970)
Character: Collector
Bernie is a silver tongued wanderer with a fondness for drink and no clear goal in life. What was supposed to be a day of fun at the seaside turns to dust as he drinks his way through a seaside resort community, trailing his little niece Winnie.
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The Ceremony (1963)
Character: O'Brian
A man has an affair with his condemned brother's girlfriend while plotting his escape in Tangier.
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Darby O'Gill and the Little People (1959)
Character: Phadrig Oge
A wily old codger matches wits with the King of the Leprechauns and helps play matchmaker for his daughter and the strapping lad who has replaced him as caretaker.
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Cul-de-sac (1966)
Character: Albie
On the run and in search of help, two wounded gangsters find refuge in the secluded castle of a feeble man and his wife; however, under the point of a gun, nothing is what it seems.
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King Lear (1970)
Character: Fool
King Lear is a proud man who solicits praise from his three daughters in return for inheritance of the kingdom. Daughters Goneril and Regan profess their affection vehemently. Cordelia, who does not respect the process her father has chosen, does not humor him. Lear's perceived rejection from Cordelia leads to her banishment, thus splitting the kingdom between the other two. This hasty decision becomes his fatal error.
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Young Cassidy (1965)
Character: Archie
In Dublin circa 1911, John Cassidy (Rod Taylor), an impoverished idealist, whose ambitions are restricted by the demands of looking after his family, journeys through the social injustices of Dublin life, involving himself with the rowdy tramway-men strike, dawdling with prostitute Daisy Battles (Julie Christie), and seeking a better life. He falls in love with bookshop assistant Nora (Dame Maggie Smith) who encourages him toward a life of writing. Finding success at the Abbey Theatre, his unorthodox views estrange him from family, friends, and his own past.
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Tom Jones (1963)
Character: Partridge
Tom loves Sophie and Sophie loves Tom. But Tom and Sophie are of differering classes. Can they find a way through the mayhem to be true to love?
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Age of Consent (1969)
Character: Nat Kelly
An elderly artist thinks he has become too stale and is past his prime. His friend (and agent) persuades him to go to an offshore island to try once more. On the island he re-discovers his muse in the form of a young girl.
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Lord Jim (1965)
Character: Robinson
After being discredited as a coward, a 19th century seaman lives for only one purpose: to redeem himself. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in partnership with Sony Pictures Entertainment in 2000.
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Blind Date (1959)
Character: Postman
Dutch painter Jan-Van Rooyer hurries to keep a rendezvous with Jacqueline Cousteau, an elegant, sophisticated Frenchwoman, slightly his elder, whose relationship with him had turned from art student into one of love trysts. He arrives and is confronted by Detective Police Inspector Morgan who accuses him of having murdered Jacqueline. Morgan listens sceptically to the dazed denials of Van Rooyer as he tells the story of his relationship with the murdered woman. Morgan, after hearing the story, realizes that the mystery has deepened, and it becomes more complicated when the Assistant Commissioner, Sir Brian Lewis, explains that Jacqueline was not married but was being kept by Sir Howard Fenton, a high-ranking diplomat whose names must be kept out of the case.
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The Brain (1962)
Character: Furber
After the mysterious crash of a millionaire's private plane, scientists secretly harvest the dying man's brain and keep it alive in a laboratory in order to communicate via telepathy.
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The Titfield Thunderbolt (1953)
Character: Vernon Crump
When British Railways announce the closure of the Titfield to Mallingford branch line a group of local residents make a bid to run it themselves, backed by a monied member of the community who is attracted by the complete lack of licensing hours on trains. Unfortunately the local bus company starts to use methods that can hardly be seen as fair competition.
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The Titfield Thunderbolt (1953)
Character: Vernon Crump (as Jack McGowran)
When British Railways announce the closure of the Titfield to Mallingford branch line a group of local residents make a bid to run it themselves, backed by a monied member of the community who is attracted by the complete lack of licensing hours on trains. Unfortunately the local bus company starts to use methods that can hardly be seen as fair competition.
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How I Won the War (1967)
Character: Juniper
An inept British WWII commander leads his troops to a series of misadventures in North Africa and Europe.
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Start the Revolution Without Me (1970)
Character: Jacques
Two sets of identical twins are accidentally switched at birth. One pair, Phillipe and Pierre DeSisi, are aristocratic and haughty, while the other, Charles and Claude Coupé, are poor and dim-witted. On the eve of the French Revolution, both sets find themselves entangled in palace intrigue.
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The Gentle Gunman (1952)
Character: Patsy McGuire
The relationship between brothers Terry and Matt, both active in the IRA, comes under strain when Terry begins to question the use of violence.
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Manuela (1957)
Character: Tommy
James Prothero, forty-three years old and up to his ears in alcohol, is the skipper of a tramp ship due to leave South America for Britain – and he’s sick to death of carting goods back and forth across the world. Then he meets Manuela, a beautiful native girl smuggled on board by one of his crew, and comes to realise that she, too, is a lost soul. Gradually a love affair develops between them, and Prothero becomes dangerously blind to the responsibilities of his position.
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The Fearless Vampire Killers (1967)
Character: Professor Abronsius
A noted professor and his dim-witted apprentice fall prey to their inquiring vampires, while on the trail of the ominous damsel in distress.
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Captain Clegg (1962)
Character: Frightened Man
A captain and his sailors investigate the rampaging "Marsh Phantoms" terrorizing a coastal town, but their search is hindered by a local reverend and a horrifying curse.
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Time Bomb (1953)
Character: N/A
When a saboteur places an explosive device on a train full of sea mines, the authorities call for bomb expert Peter Lyncort to diffuse the situation, unaware that he has explosive problems of his own.
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Wonderwall (1969)
Character: Prof. Oscar Collins
The eccentric professor Collins lives completely secluded in his chaotic apartment. When the model Penny moves in next to him, he becomes fascinated by her. He drills holes in her walls and ceiling and peeps on her day and night. He loses himself in daydreams and delusions.
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She Didn't Say No! (1958)
Character: William Bates
Bridget Monaghan, a single mother who has had six children by different fathers, shocks the conservative inhabitants of an Irish village.
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The Inn Way Out (1967)
Character: Irish Poet
A man encounters all sorts of strange places and people when he goes out for cigarettes.
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The Exorcist (1973)
Character: Burke Dennings
When a mysterious entity possesses a young girl, her mother seeks the help of two Catholic priests to save her life.
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Doctor Zhivago (1965)
Character: Petya
The life of a Russian physician and poet who, although married to another, falls in love with a political activist's wife and experiences hardship during World War I and then the October Revolution.
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The Rising of the Moon (1957)
Character: Mickey J., The Poitín Maker (segment 'The Majesty of the Law')
Three vignettes of old Irish country life, based on a series of short stories. In "The Majesty of the Law," a police officer must arrest an old-fashioned, traditional fellow for assault. The man's principles have the policeman and the whole village, including the man he slugged, sympathizing with him. "One Minute's Wait" is about a little train station and glimpses into the lives of the passengers, with a series of comic setups. The third piece, "1921," is about a condemned Irish nationalist and his daring escape.
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Behemoth, the Sea Monster (1959)
Character: Dr. Sampson, the paleontologist
Marine atomic tests cause changes in the ocean's ecosystem resulting in dangerous blobs of radiation and the resurrection of a dormant dinosaur which threatens London.
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The Boy and the Bridge (1959)
Character: Market Porter
A very slight tale based on an original American story by Leon Ware centered on the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. This adaptation is set on the Tower Bridge in London. A little boy named Tommy watches as his father is arrested after a bad brawl. Tommy believes his father must have killed someone and rather than return home, he heads to Tower Bridge to set up housekeeping there. The atmosphere and life around the bridge are a secondary protagonist in the story, introducing several interesting characters.
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