John Horsley

Freelance journalist David Dunhill stumbles onto the biggest story of his career - but his personal eccentricities seem likely to thwart him.

George and Linda Harper's 17 year marriage has gone stale, but George doesn't seem to be aware of it. When confronted with the problem, he gets a vasectomy, which solves nothing, so he moves out. Linda rearranges her life by enrolling in self improvement courses. Trying for an amicable divorce, they agree to use one lawyer and hire their closest friend. When this backfires, George attempts reconciliation by trying to seduce Linda on their living room couch. George botches the seduction due to the pressure of trying to perform well and due to the unexpected return of their son from a date. But it does result in their realizing they still care about each other...and that marriages need working at, need to be renewed and renegotiated from time to time and that their's is certainly worth a second chance. Based on the hit West End play.

In 1936, Edward VIII abdicated in order to marry the woman he loved, Wallis Simpson, a twice divorced American. These events caused a scandal around the world and Wallis has since been demonised as the woman who stole the King of England.

Led by Kim Philby, Plan Aurora is a plan that breaches the top-secret Fourth Protocol and turns the fears that shaped it into a living nightmare. A crack Soviet agent, placed under cover in a quiet English country town, begins to assemble a nuclear bomb, whilst an MI5 agent attempts to prevent it's detonation.

A tradition-bound gentlemen's club is thrown into chaos when women are allowed in during "ladies' night." One member resents the intrusion of women so much, he resorts to murder.

Eustace and Dorrie Edgehill have decided to leave Samola, a British protectorate in the Pacific. After the failure of his latest harebrained scheme, no one is likely to give Eustace a job now. Or are they?

In Victorian England, two grave robbers supply a wealthy doctor with bodies to research anatomy on, but greed causes them to look for a more simple way to get the job done.

Twin sisters trade places with unexpected results.

An enjoyable story of a 13-year-old girl, Louise, who lives alone with her widowed mother. Louise is sent off to a boarding school, but not before she discovers some secret documents kept hidden by her father. A curious look reveals that her father was a member of the secret order of Freemasons. When she finally gets to school, she tries to explain to her friends what the Freemasons are. Later, Louise's mother discovers a box of condoms in her daughter's room and wrongly presumes that the girl is sexually active.

"That order to scatter was as good as a death sentence to those merchant ships. And there isn't one officer or rating who doesn't agree with me." A British Allied convoy designated for the Soviet Union comes under attack from German forces during World War II.

A play from 1976

A comedy about the law - seen from the inside. All formality and procedure on the surface but not quite so convincing when you see the works.

Glen, a complete stranger, appears at the door of Elizabeth Carter, a middle-aged woman, and claims to be the illegitimate son she gave away at birth.

A junk dealer is caught in the middle of a tug-of-war between a woman, her husband and his mistress when they sell a piece of their furniture.

A school story with a noticeable difference - the adults regress to children.

The Limbo Line tells a story of Cold War double-crossing with British secret agent Manston trying to break up a group of Russian agents who return defectors to Moscow for brainwashing. When a Russian ballerina defects to Germany, Manston goes after the head of The Limbo Line in an effort to stop the group from kidnapping the defectors. Acting against the orders of his boss, Manston is faced with killing the communist leader of the movement in Germany or allowing the dancer to be turned over for interrogation and reprisals for her political beliefs. Matters are further complicated when Manston finds himself falling for the ballerina…

A middle-aged stock actor goes to London to try the big time. After much frustration, he lands a job doing TV commercials, gaining wealth and recognition. He eventually gives it all up to return to stage work and keep his pride.

An avaricious, ambitious fellow, desiring to hold the reins for a major auto company, must frame someone for murder before he can get what he wants. He chooses a reformed embezzler who works for the company.

A woman is found murdered in a house along the coast from Brighton. Local detectives Fellows and Wilks lead an investigation methodically following up leads and clues mostly in Brighton and Hove but also further afield.

Scotland Yard investigate when a woman, apparently the estranged wife of a London painter, is murdered with a shotgun in rural Surrey at the same time as the artist's striking model with her long black hair disappears.

Vienna, 1956. After Soviet tanks crush the Hungarian uprising, soldier-of-fortune Michael Reynolds is hired to help a threatened Hungarian scientist escape from Budapest.

Alan Dobie plays a convict who is bequeathed a set of seven keys by a fellow prisoner. After discovering that the deceased was an embezzler who stole £20,000 that was never recovered; he sets out to find the cash after finishing the last three months of his sentence. However he must first solve the mystery of which locks the keys fit, and run the gauntlet of the police and a number of gangsters who are after him and the money.

The story of the breakout of the German battleship Bismarck—accompanied by the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen—during the early days of World War II. The Bismarck and her sister ship, Tirpitz, were the most powerful battleships in the European theater of World War II. The British Navy must find and destroy Bismarck before it can escape into the convoy lanes to inflict severe damage on the cargo shipping which was the lifeblood of the British Isles. With eight 15 inch guns, it was capable of destroying every ship in a convoy while remaining beyond the range of all Royal Navy warships.

After falling in love with an American woman, Virginia Killain, who is engaged to another man, British Naval Commander Max Easton, hatches a plan that will get him enough money to support Virginia in the lifestyle she is accustomed to. Easton's plan is to disappear for a time making it seem that he has defected to the Soviets taking important Naval secrets from his job at the Admiralty and to return and sue the newspapers for slander. Not everything goes as planned for Commander Easton.

In 25 AD,Judah Ben-Hur, a Jew in ancient Judea, opposes the occupying Roman empire. Falsely accused by a Roman childhood friend-turned-overlord of trying to kill the Roman governor, he is put into slavery and his mother and sister are taken away as prisoners. Three years later and freed by a grateful Roman galley commander whom he has rescued from drowning, he becomes an expert charioteer for Rome, all the while plotting to return to Judea, find and rescue his family, and avenge himself on his former friend. All the while, the form and work of Jesus move in the background of his life...

Because she dials the wrong number, an old lady hears information which enables the police to solve a robbery and murder.

When Germany invades Holland in 1940, a British intelligence officer and two Dutch diamond merchants go to Amsterdam to persuade the Dutch diamond merchants to evacuate their diamond supplies to England.

After murdering his lover, cross-channel swimmer Joy Webster, Derek Bond attempts to do same to her other boyfriend, Sheldon Lawrence. John Ireland plays an Interpol detective who stems Bond's homicidal hijinks. Black Tide was produced by Monty Berman in his pre-Saint days.

A British Corporal in France finds himself responsible for the lives of his men when their officer is killed. He has to get them back to Britain somehow. Meanwhile, British civilians are being dragged into the war with Operation Dynamo, the scheme to get the French and British forces back from the Dunkirk beaches. Some come forward to help, others were less willing.

The wife of a condemned man tries to save him in England by finding the real killer.

An ex-con trying to go clean ends up working for a crooked trucking company swindling money.

A vacationing journalist investigates the mysterious death of a composer and debunks the theory that it was suicide.

A group of circus children and their friends band together to save the show from financial disaster.

A boy accidentally shoots a friend with a gun he found in the rubble of a destroyed building. The gun turns out to be a clue in a ten-year-old murder case.

When Johnny Matlock whisks away a cold war secret from under the noses of Berlin's top secret agents, his every move is followed when he returns to England. His girlfriend Paula is kidnapped but her handbag is discovered at the scene of the crime by the aristocratic private eye, Duke Martin. Inside it he discovers the secret formula that the agents are searching for and tracks down her sister Paula. As Johnny grows frantic for the safe return of his girlfriend, Duke Martin plays a deadly game of double bluff with the enemy agents.

An escaped killer hides out by forcing a travelling family to take him with them.

Story of a group of children's successful efforts to bring to book a gang of oil men intent on stealing valuable invention.

A man and a woman are poisoned. The woman dies, but the man survives. The finger of blame begins to point at the man. A policeman and a newspaper journalist pursue the truth.

A murderer hopes to escape his death sentence by identifying the leaders of a spy ring.

Special investigator Duke Martin is in London to investigate the authenticity of a rare postage stamp called the Barbados Overplate. Someone is willing to commit murder to get his or her hands on the stamp, which puts a crimp in Duke's efforts to romance every beautiful woman he meets.

Several murders of nuclear scientists, that baffles Scotland Yard, occur in London about the same time that Bill Locklin, a special officer from the United States State Department, arrives to oversee the transfer of Professor Leon Dushenko, a Russian scientist who as fled the U.S.S.R. An attempt is made on Dushenko's life with a monkey's paw-print found at the scene.

In World War II, the greatest threat to the British navy is the German battleship Tirpitz. While anchored in a Norwegian fjord, it is impossible to attack by conventional means, so a plan is hatched for a special commando unit to attack it, using midget submarines to plant underwater explosives.

Flirtatious mermaid Miranda swaps places with a schoolteacher who has gone on holiday. All is well until she falls in love with a human.

Robert Ayres plays a moody author with a suicide complex. Ayres' melancholia plays right into the hands of a gang of thieves. For a lofty fee, they convince the author to confess to their crimes and then kill himself. Yes, you're way ahead of us: Ayres has a change of heart and decides that he loves life. Delayed Action was produced by Robert Baker and Monty Berman, the men behind the popular 1960s TV adventure series The Saint.

Works of art are disappearing, stolen by a master thief, a master of disguise. Father Brown has two goals: to catch the thief and to save his soul.

Kenyon is a narcotics agent who, with the aid of a titled bird-watcher attempts to trap a brother and sister drug smuggling team.

A US intelligence officer, stationed in Germany, is caught in a political dilemma when the Russians kidnap a young Army private, the son of prominent American businessman. In exchange for the soldier's return, the Russians attempt to barter a trade for an elderly German couple who they want for treason.

A chance photograph may reveal a murderer's identity - and someone's after the photographer!

Celebrated crime writer Colin Knowles finds himself at the centre of a baffling real-life mystery when his estranged wife Louie asks for his help. Her new boss has gone missing at his grand country home -- and when his body is found, the hunt is on for a devious and twisted murderer. Sinister letters from London refer to a 'double crime'. Who will be the killer's next victim?

An American realtor living in England is dissatisfied with what he believes to be his humdrum life. One weekend while his wife is out of town, he gives a ride to a woman he sees stranded on the road. One thing leads to another, and he soon finds himself enmeshed in a plot involving a diamond robbery, gangsters and murder.

A British girl disappears for three days after a frank talk with the wife of a Latin teacher she loves.

When heavy fog prevents any flights from leaving London Airport, a group of passengers are put on a bus driven by Percy Lamb to drive to another airport. The fog is that heavy Percy doesn't know where he is going or that he is carrying stolen gold bullion that the robbers and police are relentlessly pursuing.

A jeweller is killed in a gang robbery leaving the daughter as the only witness. When the police can't build a case against him she decides to go undercover to infiltrate the home of the killer's brother. Slowly she is drawn into the world of the rival gangs.

Two brothers work in their invalid father's repair garage. Johnny is the quiet, reliable one while Ted is younger and wilder. The brothers feud over Lucky, a beautiful band singer. Then their life is complicated: first by a police search for the unknown killer of a man in a dance hall fight, and then by a bookie pressuring Ted to pay his gambling debts.

A British naval officer has a brief affair with a woman in England and never knows that she bears him a son. 20 years later the boy is on a ship under his command when he is tracking a German Raider. When the boy is captured after his ship is sunk, he finds a way to slow the German's progress while a lethal hunt for him goes on.

Escapee switches identities but finds the new one quite a handful.

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.

An ex-GI wakes up with blood on his clothes in a strange hotel room. He can't remember the night before but he later finds out that a man he got into a fight with earlier in the night was murdered.

Kicked out of Oxford, a junk dealer's son (Dermot Walsh) joins a gang of thieves fenced by his father (Charles Victor).

At the outbreak of WWII the British realise they can't prevent the invasion of the Channel Islands. However, someone realises that a prize cow is on the islands and the Nazis mustn't get hold of her. This is the intrepid story of the cow-napping from under the noses of the Nazis.

Encore is a 1951 anthology film composed of adaptations of three short stories by W. Somerset Maugham: "The Ant and the Grasshopper", directed by Pat Jackson and adapted by T. E. B. Clarke; "Winter Cruise", helmed by Anthony Pelissier, screenplay by Arthur Macrae; "Gigolo and Gigolette", directed by Harold French, written by Eric Ambler. It is the last film in a Maugham trilogy, preceded by Quartet and Trio.

The former wife of a criminal moves to a coastal town and takes over the running of a bar known as The Quiet Woman. She becomes outraged when she discovers the previous owner had allowed local smugglers to use it as a base. She soon has become romantically involved with one of the smugglers, which causes enormous problems when a customs officer turns up, followed closely by her former husband.

A US newsman and a British entomologist spy on germ-warfare research in a mythical country.