H. Fowler Mear

Popular comedian Claude Dampier is seen at his best here, as he disrupts the sedate peace of Victorian England in his attempt to help a village blacksmith win both a bicycle race and the girl. Can the blacksmith's new bicycle design triumph over his rival's trusty penny farthing?

Two hard up Brits stowaway aboard a ship to South America where they are washed up on the shore of a banana republic.

An evil doctor and the greedy wife of a rich man plot to poison him so they can get their hands on his money.

A British comedy film directed by Henry Edwards

A young married couple try to impress a rich relation by posing as maid and butler of the household.

Ebenezer Scrooge, the ultimate Victorian miser, hasn't a good word for Christmas, though his impoverished clerk Cratchit and nephew Fred are full of holiday spirit. In the night, Scrooge is visited by spirits of the past, present, and future.

The heir to a London department store must learn the business, but he must start off by working his way through the various menial jobs incognito first. However, a crooked manager has arranged, for a cracksman, just out of gaol, to join the staff. Each is mistaken for the other.

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 varied and unexpected ways. When, at last, the train stops, all has been resolved, but not as might have been expected at the beginning of the journey.

Major John Peel returns to England, following Napoleon's Waterloo defeat, and renews his acquaintance with Lucy Merrall, but she tells him she is engaged to be married. He later learns that, Cravens, the man she is to marry already has a wife. He also learns that Craven cleaned out Lucy's father in a crooked gambling game, and Lucy is paying the price to hold the family home together.

The members of the Popinot family of French champagne tycoons suspect that the widowed head of the family Charles Popinot is keeping a mistress in Rome and generally living a wild life. Unbeknownst to them he has happily re-married and had a son with a much younger woman. She believes he is twenty years younger than he really is and is shocked when his relatives including his mother, grown-up sons and granddaughter arrive in Italy.

A pair of friends robs from a jewelry shop, and buries their loot in a field out in the country before they get caught. They spend ten years in prison, and when they're let out they go back to the burial ground, only to find out that it's no longer a bucolic pasture but the site of a large department store. Despite that setback, they're still determined to dig up their stash.

A pair of friends robs from a jewelry shop, and buries their loot in a field out in the country before they get caught. They spend ten years in prison, and when they're let out they go back to the burial ground, only to find out that it's no longer a bucolic pasture but the site of a large department store. Despite that setback, they're still determined to dig up their stash.

Holmes, retired to Sussex, is drawn into a last case when his arch enemy Moriarty arranges with an American gang to kill one John Douglas, a country gentleman with a mysterious past. Holmes' methods baffle Watson and Lestrade, but his results astonish them. In a long flashback, the victim's wife tells the story of the sinister Vermissa Valley.

At a firm of contractors, a partner is accused of murdering his brother following a takeover bid.

A confirmed bachelor takes pity on a young woman and takes her to London.

A framed captain breaks jail and saves his ex-fiancée from blackmail.

That old theatrical war-horse Bella Donna (previously filmed in America by Alla Nazimova) was resurrected by Britain's Twickenham Studios in 1934. Conrad Veidt stars as sinister Egyptian Mahmoud Baroundi, who even before the film gets under way has left a long trail of ruined women behind him. His latest victim is American girl Mona Chepstow (Mary Ellis), whom Baroundi treats like dirt and makes her like it. The plot centers around a murder by poison, as evidenced by the film's deliberately exotic title. Critics in 1934 praised newcomer Mary Ellis for underplaying her role, but many film fans preferred Nazimova's arm-waving histrionics in the earlier version.

A composer goes to Devil's Island for killing his wife's lover, then writes an opera about it.

Set on the Thames estuary, romance blossoms for a young couple.

Set on the Thames estuary, romance blossoms for a young couple.

'Old-time minstrel sinks to poverty and rises to fresh stardom.' (British Film Catalogue)

One of John Mills' earliest roles as a wastrel playboy.

When his father commits suicide a gentleman sets out to avenge the death on those who swindled him out of a fortune.

British crime film directed by George A. Cooper.

A talented American actress enlists the help of the famed Belgian detective, Hercule Poirot, to negotiate a divorce from her husband, Lord Edgware, only to find him the next day stabbed to death in his library. Who would want him dead?

A rare film put out by Twickenham Film Studios which includes many original music hall acts.

Warm-hearted Cockneys stage a show to help a sick flower-seller.

A young woman begins to suspect that her wealthy, respectable husband may be an escaped Canadian murderer.

A young woman begins to suspect that her wealthy, respectable husband may be an escaped Canadian murderer.

A retired Admiral steals jewels and is pursued by Spanish bandits.

Old Jerusalem: Matathias, spiteful over his lover's illness, spits on Jesus along the road to Calvary, and is cursed to live endlessly until His return. The Crusades, 1150: Matathias, now an anonymous knight, competes for glory in combat and for the wife of a soldier. Palermo, 1290: Matteos Battadios witnesses the death of his young son, leading to conflict with his wife over whether to take comfort in Christianity. Seville, 1560: Dr Matteos Battadios dedicates himself to the treatment and comfort of the poor, but his life and work are endangered by the arrival of the Spanish Inquisition.

'Butler inherits title but keeps it secret to woo employer's daughter.' (British Film Catalogue)

Grace Milroy loses her job working at a factory. However, through a strange set of circumstances, she is taken on as housekeeper at the nearby Swinford Castle the home of the eccentric Duchess of Swinford.

In London a young lady meets a homeless and apparently penniless Russian prince. She introduces him to her middle-class Fulham family and he moves in. It turns out he still has a number of diamonds given him by the last czar, and he is persuaded to start selling them. The resulting money, and his princely notoriety, soon cause changes in everyone's lives.

A murder at a country house centres around the whereabouts of a horde of stolen diamonds and the unmasking of people who are not as they at first seem.

'Musician kills count in duel for wife, and later falls in love with daughter.' (British Film Catalogue)

'Colonel thinks he has killed superior while hunting ghost.' (British Film Catalogue)

A group of people in an old dark house are terrorized by a mysterious hooded figure dressed in black who proceeds to kill them off one by one.

When a photograph is taken at the scene of a murder, the camera is tossed out of a castle window to destroy the evidence and lands in the back of a passing car belonging to chemist John Gray who becomes amateur sleuth after developing the film and goes in search of the woman captured by the photograph. When the camera is stolen from his laboratory, Gray's suspicions are further aroused.

'Escaped convict blackmails murderous doctor into helping him.' (British Film Catalogue)

A lawyer plans to murder an aristocrat and steal his inheritance.

A killer distracts his victims with a hideous face

An elderly couple's lodger, a British musician (Ivor Novello), becomes the suspect in a series of killings.

Slippery Rodney Haines runs a high-class gambling joint in Hampstead, while elsewhere in London Lamberti's Fair for the less-well-off is on its last legs. The only link between them seems to be Tommy Blyth, whose betting has put him in serious debt with Haines and who fancies Mary, the Lamberti's adopted daughter. In fact, there is a further unexpected link between the two worlds.

The story gets under way at a weekend house party where a scientist is murdered and his secret papers stolen. Putting his "little grey cells" in action, Belgian detective Hercule Poirot methodically pieces together the clues, revealing the culprit to be -- you guessed it -- the Least Likely Suspect.

A drunken man is left by his wife but she later comes back to him when she realises how desperate he is.

A Mandarin takes the blame when the wife of his friend's son steals secret papers.

An ex army officer is forced to resort to a life of crime.

An Italian musician begins to steal his brother's compositions after he is jailed for shooting a prince.

A British comedy film directed by Leslie S. Hiscott

A detective goes undercover and poses as a criminal to try to discover the reasons behind the murder of a night club owner.

Holmes goes on the trail of a Rembrandt painting, stolen by a drug-addicted artist.

A condemned man uses hypnotism on a judge. After the man's death, the judge finds himself acting like the condemned man.

To celebrate their Admiral's impending marriage, his men stage a variety performance. Meanwhile Joe Crabbs attempts to win back his girlfriend from the Navy's boxing champion.

To celebrate their Admiral's impending marriage, his men stage a variety performance. Meanwhile Joe Crabbs attempts to win back his girlfriend from the Navy's boxing champion.

A father who deserted his family some years before returns home only to find that his wife has told his children and neighbours that he died as a hero.

A murder takes place in a film studio during the shooting of a new film.

Black Coffee is a 1931 British detective film directed by Leslie S. Hiscott. Based on the 1930 play Black Coffee by Agatha Christie featuring her famous private detective Hercule Poirot, it stars Austin Trevor as Poirot with Richard Cooper playing his companion Captain Hastings. A famous but hated scientist, Sir Amory, is killed during a house party, and some of his valuable papers are missing. Poirot rapidly determines the cause of death and the motive, then narrows down the suspects to the most likely culprit.

Belgian sleuth Hercule Poirot investigates a mysterious suicide at a country house.

A mystery film directed by Arthur Maude

A newlywed couple have a fight, and in order to get even with one another, each decides to take up with a lover but without actually going through with "the deed".

Lt. Cmdr. Good is a naval officer who goes on an extensive search for his long-lost friend who mysteriously disappeared on a tropical island.

'Poor lord poses as butler to avoid framed arrest for theft.' (British Film Catalogue)

A crooked prince uses a death ray to force down airships and steal their cargo.

A songwriter is mistaken for a convict.

A Japanese merchant attempts to drive one of his rivals mad by impersonating a man he had once murdered.

A Mandarin hypnotises his partner's daughter to locate hidden bonds.