Donald Sinden Collection - 11-DVD Box Set ( A Day to Remember / You Know What Sailors Are / The Beachcomber / Mad About Men / Above Us the Waves / An Alligator Named Daisy / Tiger in the Smoke / Eyewitness / The Black Tent / Rockets Galore! / Mix Me a Person ) ( Mad Little Island )

Donald Sinden Collection - 11-DVD Box Set (DVD) (*)

$68.99

Original Title: A Day to Remember / You Know What Sailors Are / The Beachcomber / Mad About Men / Above Us the Waves / An Alligator Named Daisy / Tiger in the Smoke / Eyewitness / The Black Tent / Rockets Galore! / Mix Me a Person
Alternate Title: Mad Little Island
Language Selections:
English ( Dolby Digital 2.0 )
English ( Subtitles )

Product Origin/Format:
United Kingdom ( PAL/Region 2 )

Running Time:
955 min

Aspect Ratio:
Fullscreen

Special Features:
Box Set
Interactive Menu
Multi-DVD Set
Scene Access

Movie filmed in 1953 - 1962 and produced in:
United Kingdom ( Great Britain, Ireland )

Directed By:
Ralph Thomas
Ken Annakin
Muriel Box
J. Lee Thompson
Roy Ward Baker
Brian Desmond Hurst
Michael Relph
Leslie Norman

Written By:
Robin Estridge
Jerrard Tickell
Edward Hyams
Peter Rogers
Sydney Box
W. Somerset Maugham
Peter Blackmore
Charles Esme Thornton Warren
James D. Benson
Jack Davies
Charles Terrot
Margery Allingham
Anthony Pelissier
Janet Green
Bryan Forbes
Robin Maugham
Monja Danischewsky
Compton MacKenzie
Ian Dalrymple
Jack Trevor Story

Actors:
Stanley Holloway ..... Charley Porter
Donald Sinden ..... Jim Carver
Joan Rice ..... Vera Mitchell
Odile Versois ..... Martine Berthier
James Hayter ..... Fred Collins
Harry Fowler ..... Stan Harvey
Edward Chapman ..... Mr. Robinson
Peter Jones ..... Percy Goodall
Bill Owen ..... Shorty Sharpe
Meredith Edwards ..... Bert Tripp
George Coulouris ..... Foreign Legion Captain.
Vernon Gray ..... Marvin
Thora Hird ..... Mrs. Trott
Theodore Bikel ..... Henri Dubot
Brenda De Banzie ..... Mrs. Collins
Akim Tamiroff ..... President of Agraria
Donald Sinden ..... Lt. Sylvester Green
Sarah Lawson ..... Betty
Naunton Wayne ..... Captain Owbridge
Bill Kerr ..... Lt. Smart
Dora Bryan ..... Gladys
Martin Miller ..... Prof. Hyman Pfumbaum
Michael Shepley ..... Admiral
Michael Hordern ..... Captain Hamilton
Ferdy Mayne ..... Stanislaus Voritz of Smorznigov
Bryan Coleman ..... Lt. Comdr. Voles
Cyril Chamberlain ..... Stores Officer
Hal Osmond ..... Stores Petty Officer
Peter Arne ..... Ahmed
Shirley Lorimer ..... Jasmin
Glynis Johns ..... Martha Jones
Robert Newton ..... Edward 'Honorable Ted' Wilson
Donald Sinden ..... Ewart Gray
Paul Rogers ..... Owen Jones
Donald Pleasence ..... Tromp
Walter Crisham ..... Vederala
Michael Hordern ..... The Headman
Auric Lorand ..... Alfred, Major Domo
Tony Quinn ..... Ship Captain
Ah Chong Choy ..... Wang the Barkeep
Ronald Lewis ..... Headman's Son
Jean Rollins ..... Amao
Lizabeth Rollins ..... Girl at Maputiti
Michael Mellinger ..... Medical Orderly
Glynis Johns ..... Caroline Trewella /
Miranda Trewella ..... Jeff Saunders
Donald Sinden ..... Barbara Davenport
Anne Crawford ..... Nurse Carey
Margaret Rutherford ..... Berengaria
Dora Bryan ..... Col. Barclay Sutton
Nicholas Phipps ..... Ronald Baker
Peter Martyn ..... Percy
Noel Purcell ..... Mrs. Forster
Joan Hickson ..... Viola
Judith Furse ..... Mme. Blanche
Irene Handl ..... Signor Mantalini
David Hurst ..... Dr. Fergus
Martin Miller ..... Editor
Deryck Guyler ..... Pawnbroker
Anthony Oliver
John Mills ..... Cmdr. Fraser
John Gregson ..... Lt Alec Duffy
Donald Sinden ..... Lt Tom Corbett
James Robertson Justice ..... Adm. Ryder
Michael Medwin ..... Smart
James Kenney ..... Abercrombie
O.E. Hasse ..... Captain of the Tirpitz
Lee Patterson ..... Cox
William Russell ..... Ramsey
Theodore Bikel ..... German Officer
Harry Towb ..... McCleery
Cyril Chamberlain ..... CPO Chubb
Tony Wager ..... George
Leslie Weston ..... Winley
Lyndon Brook ..... Diver Navigator, X2
Donald Sinden ..... Peter Weston
Jeannie Carson ..... Moira O'Shannon
James Robertson Justice ..... Sir James Colebrook
Diana Dors ..... Vanessa Colebrook
Roland Culver ..... Colonel Geoffrey Weston
Stanley Holloway ..... The General
Avice Landone ..... Mrs. Weston
Richard Wattis ..... Hoskins
Stephen Boyd ..... Albert O'Shannon
Ernest Thesiger ..... Notcher
Henry Kendall ..... Valet
Michael Shepley ..... The Judge
Wilfrid Lawson ..... Irishman
Charles Victor ..... Sergeant
George Moon ..... Al
Donald Sinden ..... Geoffrey Leavitt
Muriel Pavlow ..... Meg Elgin
Tony Wright ..... Jack Havoc (aka Johnny Cash)
Bernard Miles ..... Doll (Gang Leader)
Laurence Naismith ..... Canon
Christopher Rhodes ..... Chief Inspector Luke
Charles Victor ..... Will
Thomas Heathcote ..... Rolly Gripper
Sam Kydd ..... Tom Gripper
Kenneth Griffith ..... Gang Member
Gerald Harper ..... Duds Morrison
Wensley Pithey ..... Detective Sergeant Pickett
Stanley Rose ..... Uncle
Stratford Johns ..... Police Constable
Brian Wilde ..... Trumps
Donald Sinden ..... Wade
Muriel Pavlow ..... Lucy
Belinda Lee ..... Penny
Michael Craig ..... Jay
Nigel Stock ..... Barney
Susan Beaumont ..... Probationary Nurse
David Knight ..... Mike
Ada Reeve ..... Mrs. Hudson
Avice Landone ..... Night Sister
Richard Wattis ..... Anesthetist
George Woodbridge ..... Patrolman
Gillian Harrison ..... Molly
Nicholas Parsons ..... House Surgeon
Leslie Dwyer ..... Henry Cammon
Anna Turner ..... Mrs. Hays
Donald Sinden ..... Col. Sir Charles Holland
Anthony Steel ..... Capt. David Holland
Anna-Maria Sandri ..... Mabrouka ben Yussef
André Morell ..... Sheik Salem ben Yussef
Terence Sharkey ..... Daoud Holland
Donald Pleasence ..... Ali
Ralph Truman ..... Major Croft
Anthony Bushell ..... Ambassador Baring
Michael Craig ..... Sheik Faris
Paul Homer ..... Khalil ben Yussef
Anton Diffring ..... Senior Nazi Officer
Frederick Jaeger ..... Koch, junior Nazi officer
Derek Sydney ..... Interpreter
Rest of cast listed alphabetically: ..... Dying Soldier (scenes deleted)
Bryan Forbes
Jeannie Carson ..... Janet Macleod
Donald Sinden ..... Hugh Mander
Roland Culver ..... Captain Waggett
Catherine Lacey ..... Mrs. Waggett
Noel Purcell ..... Father James
Ian Hunter ..... Air Commodore Watchorn
Duncan Macrae ..... Duncan Ban
Jean Cadell ..... Mrs. Campbell
Gordon Jackson ..... George Campbell
Alex Mackenzie ..... Joseph Macleod
Carl Jaffe ..... Dr. Hamburger
Nicholas Phipps ..... Andrew Wishart
Jameson Clark ..... Constable Macrae
Ronnie Corbett ..... Drooby
James Copeland ..... Kenny McLeod
Anne Baxter ..... Dr. Anne Dyson
Donald Sinden ..... Philip Bellamy, QC
Adam Faith ..... Harry Jukes
David Kernan ..... Socko
Frank Jarvis ..... Nobby
Peter Kriss ..... Dirty Neck
Carole Ann Ford ..... Jenny
Anthony Booth ..... Gravy
Topsy Jane ..... Mona
Jack MacGowran ..... Terence
Walter Brown ..... Max Taplow
Glyn Houston ..... Sam
Dilys Hamlett ..... Doris
Meredith Edwards ..... Johnson
Alfred Burke ..... Lumley

Synopsis:

Donald Sinden is a national treasure and with his cosy familiar voice, a flagship for all things English. A stalwart of the Royal Shakespeare Company he first acted at the Brighton Little Theatre (of which he later became President) in 1941 and broke into professional acting after appearing in revues for the armed forces during the Second World War. He subsequently appeared in many British films of the 1950s, some of which are showcased in this collection.

Set Comprises:
A Day To Remember (1953)
You Know What Sailors Are (1954)
The Beachcomber (1954)
Mad About Men (1954)
Above Us The Waves (1955)
An Alligator Named Daisy (1955)
Tiger In The Smoke (1956)
Eyewitness (1956)
The Black Tent (1956)
Rockets Galore (1957)
Mix Me a Person (1962)

A Day to Remember (1953)
Based on The Hand and the Flower, a novel by Jerrard Tickell, A Day to Remember stars Stanley Holloway as Charley Porter, captain of London darts team. When the team travels to the French town of Boulogne for the annual darts tournament, a good time is had by all--and more besides. Jim Carver (Donald Sinden), one of the team's members, is reunited with a little French girl he'd befriended during the war, who has now developed into a beautiful young woman (Odelle Versois). And Fred Collins (James Hayter) makes a poignant journey to the hotel where he'd honeymooned with his late wife (Brenda DeBanzie). The film works best as a low-key comedy-drama; it is least successful when it ventures into O. Henry territory and strains for "surprise" story twists.

You Know What Sailors Are (1954)
While off on a drunken toot, three British naval officers attach an old baby carriage and a pawnbroker's sign to the stern of a foreign naval vessel. The next morning, a zealous officer spots the curious appendage and comes to the conclusion that the "pram" and sign are actually part of a sophisticated, top-secret radar device. Instantly, the British navy brass demands that their ships be outfitted with the same device -- and so it goes, with one bureaucratic misunderstanding after another snowballing into a major "international incident." You Know What Sailors Are top-bills Akim Tamiroff as the president of a mythical Foreign country, but the film belongs to Donald Sinden as the well-meaning young officer who precipitates the whole affair.

The Beachcomber (1954)
This second film version of Somerset Maugham's Vessel of Wrath lacks the casual charm of the first (which starred Charles Laughton and Elsa Lanchester), but is otherwise quite entertaining. Robert Newton stars as Honorable Ted, a slovenly, bibulous South Sea Island beachcomber. The black sheep of a prominent British family, Ted is paid an annual salary to stay as far away from England as possible. Prim-and-proper missionary Martha (Glynis Johns), the sister of heathen-hating Welsh minister Owen (Paul Rogers), takes it upon herself to reform the intractable Ted. The script then goes off on a tangent not found in the Maugham original. Due to illness, Owen is unable to travel to a native village in an attempt to halt a cholera outbreak. So he sends Martha, with a reluctant Ted along as interpreter, to the village in his stead in an attempt to cure the tribal headman's daughter. After they fail, they and an intern are sentenced to a horrible death by the angry villagers. Despite the radicial differences in their separate acting styles, Robert Newton and Glynis Johns make a copacetic screen team.

Mad About Men (1954)
Mad About Men is the delightful sequel to the saucy British comedy-fantasy Miranda. Glynis Johns returns in the dual role of amorous mermaid Miranda and her somewhat more reserved "human" lookalike Caroline. Having inherited a house in Cornwall, Caroline goes on an extended holiday, whereupon Miranda takes her place as mistress of the estate. The dialogue is rather silly and obvious, but there's much fun to be had as Miranda casts out her net for every eligible male in the vicinity. Though not a big hit in the US, Mad About Men became a "Late Show" mainstay on TV, especially when color television came into common usage.

Above Us the Waves (1955)
Judging by the number of times it has shown up on TV, Above Us the Waves may be American viewers' favorite British war film. Most of the film is set in a British midget submarine, commandeered by John Mills. The sub's mission (together with its "fellow" vessels) is to sink the German battleship Tirpitz. This will be accomplished by the midget sub fleet sneaking into Norwegian waters, floating beneath the Tirpitz, then planting explosives. Only Mills' sub manages to complete the mission. Based on a true-life 1943 incident, Above Us the Waves takes a revisionist approach by showing the German officers and seamen to be human beings rather than faceless minions of Hitler.

An Alligator Named Daisy (1955)
You gets what you pays for in An Alligator Named Daisy. Donald Sinden stars as a young songwriter who accidentally picks up someone else's alligator suitcase. Somehow this leads to the luckless Sinden being saddled with a baby alligator, who prefers to sleep within his piano. Glamour girl Diana Dors is the leading lady, revealing an unexpected flair for wacky comedy. Based on a novel by Charles Terrot, An Alligator Named Daisy seemed to show up every other day on TV in the early 1960s, possibly due to its pleasant Technicolor photography.

Tiger in the Smoke (1956)
A gang of war veterans masquerading as street musicians are searching the London underworld for Jack Havoc, their former sergeant, who, during a wartime commando raid on a French Chateau, deprived them of some hidden loot. After many adventures the gang and Havoc are taken into custody by the police.

Eyewitness (1956)
When she has a fight, with her husband, Lucy runs out of the house, and into a night of terror. She heads for the local cinema, and in doing so, becomes the only eyewitness to a couple of crooks, who are robbing the cinema's safe. In her haste to escape the thieves, she is knocked down by a passing bus, and is taken to the local hospital. The two crooks follow, and wait for a chance to finish her off, and thus eliminate the only person who can tie them to the robbery.

The Black Tent (1956)
Anthony Steel stars in this fanciful wartime drama. Stationed in Libya, British soldier Steel is wounded, then nursed back to health by a band of Nomads. He manages to marry the tribal chieftan's daughter (Anna Maria Sandri) before getting down to the serious business of fending off the Nazis. Ten years afterwards, Steel's brother returns to the tribe, there to take his late father's place.

Mad Little Island (1957)
The small but resourceful Scots island of Todday, introduced in the 1949 Ealing comedy Whisky Galore!, made a return visit to movie screens in 1958's Rockets Galore--released in the U.S. as Mad Little Island. In the first film, the good people of Todday faced up to the appalling dilemma of a whisky shortage. Now we're in the space age, and Todday has been targeted as the location for a rocket-launching site. Banding together as before, the islanders do their best to sabotage the project under the unsuspecting noses of the blinkered British military. Mad Little Island was better received in America than it was in England, where it was perceived as an uninspired rewarming of yesterday's haggis.

Mix Me a Person (1962)
In this confusing drama, the IRA, intrigue, psychiatric analysis, and a young man framed for murder are thrown together in a series of events that were perhaps originally intended to highlight the psychological aspects of the case under study. One night, eighteen-year-old Harry Jukes (British rock 'n roller Adam Faith in his first dramatic role) is driving down a deserted country road when he gets a flat tire. A policeman stops to help him out when a truck drives by, and the next thing Harry knows, the policeman is lying dead on the road and Harry is literally holding a smoking gun in his hand. From there to his arrest and trial is a brief hop, skip, and then a jump into prison to await his execution. His lawyer thinks he did it, but his psychiatrist (Anne Baxter) disagrees -- and sets out to prove she is right.

Features the Donald Sinden films A DAY TO REMEMBER, YOU KNOW WHAT SAILORS ARE, THE BEACHCOMBER, MAD ABOUT MEN, ABOVE US THE WAVES, AN ALLIGATOR NAMED DAISY, TIGER IN THE SMOKE, EYEWITNESS, THE BLACK TENT, ROCKETS GALORE, and MIX ME A PERSON.

This product was added to our catalog on Saturday 12 February, 2011.

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