Brian Pettifer

Brian Pettifer

Birth : 1953-01-01, Durban, Natal, South Africa

Profile

Brian Pettifer

Movies

The Last Bus
Billy
Widower Tom, on the recent passing of his wife Mary, uses his free bus pass to travel the length of Britain from John O'Groats in Scotland to Land's End in Cornwall, their shared birthplace, using only local buses. It's an incident-fuelled nostalgia trip and his encounters with local people make him a media phenomenon. Tom is totally unaware and to his surprise on arrival at Land’s End he’s greeted as a celebrity.
Memories of Lindsay Anderson
Himself
Chris Wade's documentary film is a personal, intimate and affectionate look at the life and work of Lindsay Anderson, the legendary film and theatre director behind if. - and O Lucky Man. With new recollections from director Stephen Frears, if - star David Wood, plus actor and friend Brian Pettifer, Memories of Lindsay Anderson paints a portrait of a stubborn, self assured artist, an anti establishment non conformist who refused to play the game, and a private man who, though on the surface seemed confident, held his emotional cards close to his chest. This is an in depth study of one of our most brilliant yet undervalued filmmakers.
Get Duked!
PC Dougie
An anarchic, hip-hop inspired comedy that follows four city boys on a wilderness trek as they try to escape a mysterious huntsman.
The Flu That Killed 50 Million
Victor Vaughan
It is 1918 and the end of WWI. Millions have died, and the world is exhausted by war. But soon a new horror is sweeping the world, a terrifying virus that will kill more than fifty million people - the Spanish flu. Using dramatic reconstruction and eyewitness testimony from doctors, soldiers, civilians and politicians, this one-off special brings to life the onslaught of the disease, the horrors of those who lived through it and the efforts of the pioneering scientists desperately looking for the cure. Narrated by Christopher Eccleston, the film also asks whether, a century later, the lessons learnt in 1918 might help us fight a future global flu pandemic.
Darkest Hour
Lord Kingsley Wood
A thrilling and inspiring true story begins on the eve of World War II as, within days of becoming Prime Minister of Great Britain, Winston Churchill must face one of his most turbulent and defining trials: exploring a negotiated peace treaty with Nazi Germany, or standing firm to fight for the ideals, liberty and freedom of a nation. As the unstoppable Nazi forces roll across Western Europe and the threat of invasion is imminent, and with an unprepared public, a skeptical King, and his own party plotting against him, Churchill must withstand his darkest hour, rally a nation, and attempt to change the course of world history.
Whisky Galore
Angus
The story of the inhabitants of the isolated Scottish island of Todday, in the Outer Hebrides, where gloom sets in as their wartime rationing of whisky runs out. When cargo ship the SS Cabinet Minister runs aground the shrewd islanders run rings around the buffoonish English Home Guard commander Captain Waggett and conspire to hide away cases of the precious amber nectar.
The Legend of Barney Thomson
Charlie
Barney Thomson, awkward, diffident, Glasgow barber, lives a life of desperate mediocrity and his uninteresting life is about to go from 0 to 60 in five seconds, as he enters the grotesque and comically absurd world of the serial killer.
Hattie
Ron
Reveals how the home life of the larger-than-life Carry On actress Hattie Jacque was blown apart by a secret sexual liaison with her handsome young driver while she was married to Dad's Army star John Le Mesurier.
Donkeys
Brian Colburn
Alfred is 64. He's lost touch with his family and a threat to his health makes him realise he wants to make amends. The more he tries to do right, the more he does wrong, and as his past comes back to haunt him, he is forced to face up to what his life means to him. Rounding Up Donkeys is the second film in Sigma and Zentropa's three feature film concept 'Advance Party'.
Terror! Robespierre and the French Revolution
Couthon
In 1794, French revolutionary Maximilien Robespierre produced the world's first defense of "state terror" - claiming that the road to virtue lay through political violence. This film combines drama, archive and documentary interviews to examine Robespierre's year in charge of the Committee Of Public Safety - the powerful state machine at the heart of Revolutionary France. Contesting Robespierre's legacy is Slavoj Zizek, who argues that terror in the cause of virtue is justifiable, and Simon Schama, who believes the road from Robespierre ran straight to the gulag and the 20th-century concentration camp. The drama, based on original sources, follows the life-and-death politics of the Committee during "Year Two" of the new Republic.
A Risk Worth Taking
Maxwell Borthwick
A wife nursing her terminally ill husband finds herself falling for his friend.
Lassie
O'Donnell
A family in financial crisis is forced to sell Lassie, their beloved dog. Hundreds of miles away from her true family, Lassie escapes and sets out on a journey home.
The Strange Case of Sherlock Holmes & Arthur Conan Doyle
Harry How
What led Arthur Conan Doyle to create, and then destroy the world famous detective, Sherlock Holmes? This compelling drama explores the dark secrets that surround the author and his creation.
One Last Chance
Macgregor
A group of slackers think they have found gold in the Highlands.
Lindsay Anderson: Lucky Man?
Interviewee
A documentary about film director Lindsay Anderson, made for BBC Scotland television series "Artworks Scotland."
The Key
The story of three generations told against the backdrop of the 20th century. The drama focuses on the life of Mary Corrigan, from her days as a rebellious mill worker in 1915 and her doomed love affair for a man who must fight for his country, through to her final days in the run up to the British General Election of 1997.
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Poole
Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde is Robert Louis Stevenson's classic tale of horror, the duality of mankind and the darker side of late Victorian society. Dr Henry Jekyll (John Hannah), a great scientist, handsome, and renowned throughout the scientific community, is developing a formula that will revolutionise human nature by isolating criminal elements. He experiments on himself and intoxicated by the drug he undergoes a monstrous transformation. He is released from conventions of the social order and his own moral code into euphoric, remorseless wickedness - the villainous Mr Hyde. What follows is the gripping and terrifying stuggle of two opposing personalities battling for the soul of one man...
Conspiracy
Dr. Alfred Meyer
The historical recreation of the 1942 Wannsee Conference, in which Nazi and SS leaders gathered in a Berlin suburb to discuss the "Final Solution to the Jewish Question". Led by SS-General Reinhard Heydrich, this group of high ranking German officials came to the historic and far reaching decision that the Jews of Europe were to be exterminated in what would come to be known as the Holocaust.
The House of Mirth
Mr. Bry
A woman risks losing her chance of happiness with the only man she has ever loved.
Vigo
Fatman
Based on the life of a classic french cineast Jean Vigo, the story follows his daily struggle with sanity, normal life and uncompromising filmmaking. Story also focuses on his relationship with his supporting wife whom he met in sanatorium.
The James Gang
Spanner
After an audacious jewellery robbery the whole James family heads for home on the run with the obsessive detective Julia Armstrong in hot pursuit.
Loch Ness
Repairman
Dr. Dempsey is an American scientist who has become a skeptic. He isn't enthusiastic to be sent by his employer to Scotland to (dis)prove the existence of the Loch Ness monster. He finds the locals stubborn, 'primitive' and all but hospitable, not in the least because the Nessie legend is the only tourist attraction. He still gets romantically attracted by his independent inn-keeper Laura, and both her kid and his local assistant end up making him face a small family of Nessie-dinosaurs, but is this to be made public?
In the Bleak Midwinter
Ventriloquist
Out of work actor Joe volunteers to help try and save his sister's local church for the community by putting on a Christmas production of Hamlet, somewhat against the advice of his agent Margaretta. As the cast he assembles are still available even at Christmas and are prepared to do it on a 'profit sharing' basis (that is, they may not get paid anything) he cannot expect - and does not get - the cream of the cream. But although they all bring their own problems and foibles along, something bigger starts to emerge in the perhaps aptly named village of Hope.
Eleven Men Against Eleven
Cliff Tutley
A curtain raiser for the 1995-6 football season and a state of the Premiership comedy drama about the corrupt world of football. Sir Bob is a football club chairman and megalomaniac. As the season draws to a climax his club are staring into the abyss of relegation. Can new manager Ted save City from the drop?
Is That All There Is?
Self
Award winning director Lindsay Anderson subverts the mockumentary genre and presents to the audience a detailed and humored account of what truly means to be Lindsay Anderson.
Lucky Sunil
Cyril
Young, handsome and alone in London at the start of a great career. But will Sunil's luck hold out against the seductions of pretty girls, the wiles of con-men and a hundred temptations of the great city?
Little Dorrit
Clarence Barnacle
A drama based on the novel by Charles Dickens which tells the story of Arthur Clennam who is thrown into a debtor's prison. There he meets a young seamstress whose father has been imprisoned for twenty-five years. A film in originally released in two parts.
Heavenly Pursuits
Father Cobb
Vic Mathews teaches a remedial class at the Blessed Edith Semple School in Scotland. Some at the school are trying to discover the two more miracles that would promote the late Edith Semple to sainthood; Mathews, a non-believer, wishes the school would concentrate on teaching the children. He becomes confused, however, when he is involved in possibly miraculous events himself! Written by George S. Davis
Gulag
Vlasov
Mickey Almon is a sports star turned reporter covering the athletics in Moscow. Framed by the KGB and forced to confess that he was spying for America, he is sentenced to detention in a Gulag, a barbaric prison camp in the wilds of Siberia. Unable to prove his innocence, Mickey must either put up with the inhuman conditions or engineer an escape.
A Christmas Carol
Ben
A bitter old miser who makes excuses for his uncaring nature learns real compassion when three ghosts visit him on Christmas Eve.
Amadeus
Hospital Attendant (uncredited)
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is a remarkably talented young Viennese composer who unwittingly finds a fierce rival in the disciplined and determined Antonio Salieri. Resenting Mozart for both his hedonistic lifestyle and his undeniable talent, the highly religious Salieri is gradually consumed by his jealousy and becomes obsessed with Mozart's downfall, leading to a devious scheme that has dire consequences for both men.
Britannia Hospital
Biles
Britannia Hospital, an esteemed English institution, is marking its gala anniversary with a visit by the Queen Mother herself. But when investigative reporter Mick Travis arrives to cover the celebration, he finds the hospital under siege by striking workers, ruthless unions, violent demonstrators, racist aristocrats, an African cannibal dictator, and sinister human experiments.
Just Your Luck
Youth at Wedding
When Alison unexpectedly falls pregnant after a brief encounter with Alex (David Hayman's first TV role) they decide to marry. The joining of two seemingly different families opens into a witty and audacious tale, which caused uproar after its first broadcast in 1972. An early triumph for Peter McDougall, when it was proclaimed the most exciting writing debut since John Osborne's Look Back in Anger.
The Right Prospectus
Boy in Grounds
A school story with a noticeable difference - the adults regress to children.
if....
Biles
In an English boys' boarding school, social hierarchy reigns supreme and power remains in the hands of distanced and ineffectual teachers and callously vicious prefects in the Upper Sixth. But three Lower Sixth students, leader Mick Travis, Wallace and Johnny decide on a shocking course of action to redress the balance of privilege once and for all.