Michael Pennington

Michael Pennington

Born: June 7, 1943
in Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, England, UK
Michael Vivian Fyfe Pennington is a British director and actor who, together with director Michael Bogdanov, founded the English Shakespeare Company. Although primarily a stage actor, he is best known to wider audiences for his role as Moff Jerjerrod, commanding officer of the Death Star in the film Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi and as Michael Foot in The Iron Lady, opposite Meryl Streep.

Movies for Michael Pennington...

Manik da: The Mystique of Pather Panchali
Title: Manik da: The Mystique of Pather Panchali
Character: Narrator (voice)
Released: March 9, 2021
Type: Movie
A biographical documentary film about the legendary Indian filmmaker Satyajit Ray, to commemorate Ray's centenary year. The film covers Ray's life and early works, focusing on the making of his first film Pather Panchali.
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Title: Raised by Wolves
Character: The Trust Voice (voice)
Released: September 3, 2020
Type: TV
After Earth is ravaged by a great religious war, an atheistic android architect sends two of his creations, Mother and Father, to start a peaceful, godless colony on the planet Kepler-22b. Their treacherous task is jeopardized by the arrival of the Mithraic, a deeply devout religious order of surviving humans.
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1945: The Savage Peace
Title: 1945: The Savage Peace
Character: Narrator (voice)
Released: May 24, 2015
Type: Movie
How, in 1945, after the end of World War II and the fall of the Nazi regime, the defeated were atrociously mistreated, especially those ethnic Germans who had lived peacefully for centuries in Germany's neighboring countries, such as Czechoslovakia and Poland. A heartbreaking story of revenge against innocent civilians, the story of acts as cruel as the Nazi occupation during the war years.
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Secrets of the Universe: Great Scientists in Their Own Words
Title: Secrets of the Universe: Great Scientists in Their Own Words
Character: Narrator (Voice)
Released: November 4, 2014
Type: Movie
The story of the greatest physicists of the 20th century and the discoveries they made.
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Royal Shakespeare Company - Richard II
Title: Royal Shakespeare Company - Richard II
Character: John of Gaunt
Released: November 13, 2013
Type: Movie
A monarch ordained by God to lead his people. But he is also a man of very human weakness. A man whose vanity threatens to divide the great houses of England and drag his people into a dynastic civil war that will last 100 years.
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Title: The Escape Artist
Character: Judge
Released: October 29, 2013
Type: TV
A chilling and bloody legal thriller that explores the line between law and justice. Will Burton, a talented junior barrister of peerless intellect and winning charm, specialises in spiriting people out of tight legal corners. He is in high demand as he has never lost a case. But when his talents acquit the notorious prime suspect in an horrific murder trial, that brilliance comes back to bite him with unexpected and chilling results, not to mention a shocking twist.
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Title: Endeavour
Character: Professor Donald Bagley
Released: April 14, 2013
Type: TV
The early days of a young Endeavour Morse, whose experiences as a detective constable with the Oxford City Police will ultimately shape his future.
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Title: Father Brown
Character: Bishop Reynard
Released: January 14, 2013
Type: TV
Father Brown is based on G. K. Chesterton's detective stories about a Catholic priest who doubles as an amateur detective in order to try and solve mysteries.
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The Iron Lady
Title: The Iron Lady
Character: Michael Foot
Released: December 26, 2011
Type: Movie
A look at the life of Margaret Thatcher, the former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, with a focus on the price she paid for power.
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Title: The Lost World of Communism
Released: March 14, 2009
Type: TV
The Lost World of Communism is a three-part British documentary series which examines the legacy of Communism twenty years on from the fall of the Berlin Wall. Produced by Peter Molloy and Lucy Hetherington, the series takes a retrospective look at life behind the Iron Curtain between 1945 and 1989, focusing on three countries in the Eastern Bloc - East Germany, Czechoslovakia and Romania. Through film and television footage and the personal recollections of those who lived in these countries, the series offers a glimpse of what daily life was like during the years of Communist rule. The Lost World of Communism debuted on BBC Two on Saturday 14 March 2009 at 9:00pm. There is also a book which accompanies the series.
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Airborne: The RAF at 90
Title: Airborne: The RAF at 90
Character: Narrator - (Voice)
Released: December 11, 2008
Type: Movie
The RAF sprang to life during the First World War. It took off into a dangerous adulthood during the Battle of Britain and the bombing of Germany, and achieved maturity as a delivery platform for the hydrogen bomb. Now, at the lively old age of 90, the RAF fights the Taliban in the War on Terror.
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Florence Nightingale
Title: Florence Nightingale
Character: Wen
Released: June 1, 2008
Type: Movie
Reflective drama of pioneering nurse, writer and noted statistician Florence Nightingale
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Title: Lewis
Character: Dr. Melville
Released: February 18, 2007
Type: TV
Inspector Robert Lewis and Sergeant James Hathaway solve the tough cases that the learned inhabitants of Oxford throw at them.
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Fragile
Title: Fragile
Character: Marcus
Released: October 14, 2005
Type: Movie
Haunted by memories of a patient's death, a nurse takes a job at an antiquated hospital for children. Soon she learns that the kids fear a ghost that prowls the floors and will not allow anyone to leave. Amy tries to protect them and convince the other staffers of the evil that lurks there.
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Title: Empire Warriors
Character: Narrator
Released: November 19, 2004
Type: TV
Four-part documentary series about four 'wars on terror' during the final phase of the British Empire. As the Union Jack finally descended on former colonies all over the world after the Second World War, Communist, Nationalist and religious guerrilla forces saw their chance. The British Empire was leaving a dangerous power vacuum in its place. The war to succeed the British had begun.
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Colosseum - Rome's Arena of Death
Title: Colosseum - Rome's Arena of Death
Character: Narrator (UK version) (voice)
Released: October 12, 2003
Type: Movie
Colosseum: Rome's Arena of Death aka Colosseum: A Gladiator's Story is a 2003 BBC Television docudrama which tells the true story of Verus a gladiator who fought at the Colosseum in Rome.
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Title: State of Play
Released: May 18, 2003
Type: TV
The murder of Sonia Baker, a young political researcher, leads journalist Cal McCaffrey to uncover complex links between government and big business.
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The Dinosaur Hunters
Title: The Dinosaur Hunters
Character: William Buckland
Released: December 30, 2002
Type: Movie
One man who kept asking questions was Gideon Mantell, the amateur paleontologist who, in the early 19th century, fought to get the British scientific establishment to accept Britain had been inhabited by dinosaurs. As this dramatised documentary shows, Mantell had an uphill battle in a time when the biblical account of creation was considered literal truth and authorities such as the Reverend William Buckland were determined that science remain "the handmaid of religion".
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Pyramid
Title: Pyramid
Character: Narrator (voice)
Released: October 28, 2002
Type: Movie
Of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, the Pyramid is the only one to survive. Many believe that even with our 21st-century technology, we could not build anything like it today. Based on the most up-to-date research and the latest archaeological discoveries, here is how the Pyramid came to be.
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Title: Waking the Dead
Character: Prof Alan Macintosh
Released: June 18, 2001
Type: TV
A detective team apply new techniques to old crimes as they solve cold cases.
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Title: Trial & Retribution
Released: October 19, 1997
Type: TV
Trial & Retribution is a feature-length ITV police procedural television drama series that began in 1997. It was devised and written by Lynda La Plante as a follow-on from her successful television series Prime Suspect. Each episode of the Trial & Retribution series is broadcast over two nights. The 2008 series 10 had 10 episodes, the longest run of the drama so far. The latest series was number 12 which aired in February 2009.
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Title: Dalziel & Pascoe
Released: March 16, 1996
Type: TV
British crime drama based on the "Dalziel and Pascoe" series of books by Reginald Hill, set in the fictional Yorkshire town of Wetherton. The unlikely duo of politically incorrect elephant-in-a-china-shop-copper Detective Superintendent Andrew Dalziel (pronounced Dee-ell) and his more sensitive and university educated sidekick Detective Sargent, later Detective Inspector, Peter Pascoe is always on hand to solve the classic murder mystery, while maintaining a down to earth wit and humour.
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Title: Silent Witness
Character: Dennis Morgan
Released: February 21, 1996
Type: TV
Silent Witness is a British crime thriller series focusing on a team of forensic pathology experts and their investigations into various crimes.
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Title: Cracker
Character: Cdr Gordon Ellison
Released: September 27, 1993
Type: TV
The wise-cracking Fitz is a brilliant but flawed criminal psychologist with a remarkable insight into the criminal mind.
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The Last Bolshevik
Title: The Last Bolshevik
Character: Voice
Released: March 25, 1993
Type: Movie
A documentary on Soviet filmmaker Aleksandr Medvedkin, examining his tumultuous career, the rediscovery of his masterpiece Happiness, and Russia's struggles over the course of the 20th Century.
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Title: Between the Lines
Released: September 4, 1992
Type: TV
Detective Superintendent Tony Clark is an ambitious member of the Complaints Investigation Bureau, an internal organisation that investigates claims of corruption inside the police in England and Wales. Along the way Clark overcomes strong influence from his superiors and problems in his private life, most notably the break-up of his marriage following an affair with WPC Jenny Dean.
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Henry VI: House of Lancaster
Title: Henry VI: House of Lancaster
Character: Earl of Suffolk
Released: March 29, 1991
Type: Movie
First part of an adapted version of Henry VI as performed by the English Shakespeare Company as part of the complete Historical Octology.
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Henry VI: House of York
Title: Henry VI: House of York
Character: Jack Cade
Released: March 29, 1991
Type: Movie
Second part of an adapted version of Henry VI as performed by the English Shakespeare Company as part of the complete Historical Octology.
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Richard III
Title: Richard III
Character: Duke of Buckingham
Released: March 29, 1991
Type: Movie
Shakespeare's Richard III, performed by the English Shakespeare Company as part of the complete Historical Octology.
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Henry V
Title: Henry V
Character: King Henry V
Released: March 29, 1991
Type: Movie
Shakespeare's Henry V, performed by the English Shakespeare Company as part of the complete Historical Octology.
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Richard II
Title: Richard II
Character: Richard II
Released: March 29, 1991
Type: Movie
Shakespeare's Richard II recorded live at the Grand Theatre in Swansea, performed by the English Shakespeare Company as part of the complete Historical Octology.
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Henry IV: Part 2
Title: Henry IV: Part 2
Character: Henry Prince of Wales
Released: March 29, 1991
Type: Movie
Shakespeare's Henry IV, Part 2 performed by the English Shakespeare Company as part of the complete Historical Octology.
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Henry IV: Part 1
Title: Henry IV: Part 1
Character: Prince Henry of Wales
Released: March 29, 1991
Type: Movie
Shakespeare's Henry IV, Part 1 recorded live at the Grand Theatre in Swansea, performed by the English Shakespeare Company as part of the complete Historical Octology.
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Title: Summer's Lease
Character: Hugh Pargeter
Released: November 1, 1989
Type: TV
Molly Pargeter is a forty-something wife and mother of three girls, who leads a stable but dull life in 1980s West London. She feels overweight and there is no passion in her relationship with her husband Hugh, who is secretly seeing another woman. For most of her life she has found escape in detective novels and books on art, especially about the fifteenth century Italian fresco painter Piero Della Francesca. Then in a newspaper's small ads Molly sees the details of a villa in Tuscany, Italy to let and after travelling to Italy to view the villa "La Felicita" she decides to take it for the family's August holiday.
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The Return of Sherlock Holmes
Title: The Return of Sherlock Holmes
Character: Sherlock Holmes
Released: January 10, 1987
Type: Movie
Sherlock Holmes is brought back to life by Watson's female descendant after being cryogenically frozen for eighty years.
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Theban Plays: Oedipus the King
Title: Theban Plays: Oedipus the King
Character: Oedipus Rex
Released: September 16, 1986
Type: Movie
Plagues are ravaging Thebes, and the blind fortune-teller Tieresias tells Oedipus, the King, that the gods are unhappy. The murder of the former king has gone unavenged, and Oedipus sets out to find the killer.
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The Marlowe Inquest
Title: The Marlowe Inquest
Character: Thomas Kyd
Released: September 3, 1986
Type: Movie
In an unscripted inquest, three practicing barristers interrogate actors portraying relevant figures of the 16th century in order to determine what really happened to the playwright and poet, Christopher Marlowe.
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Forbidden Passion: The Oscar Wilde Movie
Title: Forbidden Passion: The Oscar Wilde Movie
Released: March 26, 1985
Type: Movie
As in earlier Oscar Wilde biopics, this version preoccupies itself with the homosexuality scandal involving Lord Alfred Douglas and his lordship's political powerful father, the Marquis of Queensbury. Arrested for corrupting Lord Douglas' morals, Wilde spends a debilitating five years in Reading Gaol, emerging a shattered shell of his former self
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The Mayor of Montemilone
Title: The Mayor of Montemilone
Character: Narrator
Released: October 26, 1984
Type: Movie
Dino Labriola runs the small town of Montemilone in the deep south. He was elected the first Communist mayor. Now he faces the problems of a town dying on its feet. There are no jobs, the young emigrate, the old have given up hope and government aid often goes astray. While Dino is determined to fight for his town, his wife Angela sometimes feels that the struggle is not worth it. A massive dam is being built just outside Montemilone. It's a new threat to the town and to Dino's position as mayor.
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Title: Freud
Character: Carl Jung
Released: September 14, 1984
Type: TV
The life and times of Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis.
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Title: Playing Shakespeare
Released: July 29, 1984
Type: TV
John Barton holds a master class in how to play Shakespeare, using members of the RSC doing scenes, sonnets, and commentary as prime examples.
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Return of the Jedi
Title: Return of the Jedi
Character: Moff Jerjerrod
Released: May 25, 1983
Type: Movie
Luke Skywalker leads a mission to rescue his friend Han Solo from the clutches of Jabba the Hutt, while the Emperor seeks to destroy the Rebellion once and for all with a second dreaded Death Star.
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Cymbeline
Title: Cymbeline
Character: Posthumus
Released: December 20, 1982
Type: Movie
Cymbeline, the King of Britain, is angry that his daughter Imogen has chosen a poor (but worthy) man for her husband. So he banishes Posthumus, who goes to fight for Rome. Imogen (dressed as a boy) goes in search of her husband, who meanwhile has boasted to his pal Iachimo that Imogen would never betray him. And Iachimo's determined to prove him wrong.
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Outside Edge
Title: Outside Edge
Character: Bob
Released: December 19, 1982
Type: Movie
The local social cricket team are up to bat and sometimes it seems they are one batsman short of of an eleven. There are good secrets and not so good secrets that come to light during the course of the day. Roger is the ultimate captain rallying his troops whilst ignoring his greatest strength, Miriam, who makes the 'fantastic' teas with or without the 'non-compulsory' help. The days builds to a climax where it seems that everything must change forever. But will it?
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A Last Visitor for Mr. Hugh Peter
Title: A Last Visitor for Mr. Hugh Peter
Character: John Lilburne
Released: January 30, 1981
Type: Movie
In prison the night before his execution, republican preacher Hugh Peter prepares to be hanged, drawn and quartered for treason
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Title: BBC Television Shakespeare
Released: December 3, 1978
Type: TV
The BBC Television Shakespeare is a series of British television adaptations of the plays of William Shakespeare, created by Cedric Messina and produced by BBC Television. It was transmitted in the UK from 3 December 1978 to 27 April 1985 and spanned seven series. Development of the series began in 1975 when Messina saw that Glamis Castle would make a perfect location for an adaptation of Shakespeare's play As You Like It. On returning to London, he envisioned an entire series devoted exclusively to the dramatic works of Shakespeare. After encountering numerous problems trying to produce the series, Messina eventually pitched the idea to the BBC’s departmental heads and the series was greenlighted. The series as a whole received generally negative reviews from critics.
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Danton's Death
Title: Danton's Death
Character: Saint-Just
Released: April 23, 1978
Type: Movie
Danton's Death is arguably the most dramatic and penetrating study of revolution ever written. Georg Büchner concentrates on that moment in 1794 when the Reign of Terror, already well established, spills over into a total blood-bath. The play, adapted by director Alan Clarke and Stuart Griffiths, both highly imaginative and closely documentary, shows how the great hero of the early phase of the Revolution, Danton, sickened by the excesses of the guillotine, which he helped to create, wants to call a halt. But Robespierre and Saint-Just, leaders of the Jacobins, with a ferocious puritanical zeal, spur on 'the wild horses of the Revolution'.
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It's Only Rock 'n' Roll
Title: It's Only Rock 'n' Roll
Character: Don Harris
Released: June 28, 1977
Type: Movie
A rock star is kidnapped at the end of a concert.The record company ask the question is he worth more dead than alive?
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The Witches of Pendle
Title: The Witches of Pendle
Character: Minister
Released: June 19, 1976
Type: Movie
A BBC dramatization of the Pendle witch trials of Lancashire, England that occurred in 1616.
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The Dolly Scene
Title: The Dolly Scene
Character: Tom
Released: November 3, 1970
Type: Movie
Anna can't seem to help ending up with the wrong partner in a line of disastrous affairs. Her hope now lies with a young man from the pop music scene.
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Mad Jack
Title: Mad Jack
Released: February 4, 1970
Type: Movie
Play dealing with the life of British Army lieutenant Siegfried Sassoon, and his protests against the inhumanity of the First World War
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Hamlet
Title: Hamlet
Character: Laertes
Released: December 21, 1969
Type: Movie
Tony Richardson's Hamlet is based on his own stage production. Filmed entirely within the Roundhouse in London (a disused train shed), it is shot almost entirely in close up, focusing the attention on faces and language rather than action.
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The Tycoon
Title: The Tycoon
Character: Peter Bell
Released: December 30, 1968
Type: Movie
When millionaire businessman Guy Taylor takes up with the beautiful Rachel Bell, two years married to a struggling sculptor, he starts to question what he really wants. TV play. Third part of writer Kenneth Jupp's "Chelsea Trilogy"; see also The PHOTOGRAPHER (tx 29/1/1968) and The EXPLORER/ PLAYHOUSE (tx 14/10/1968).
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Title: Callan
Released: July 8, 1967
Type: TV
Callan is the title of a British television series set in the murky world of espionage. Originally produced by ABC Weekend Television and later Thames Television, it was aired on the ITV network over four seasons spread out between 1967 and 1972. The series starred Edward Woodward as David Callan, a reluctant professional killer for a shadowy branch of the British Government's intelligence services known as 'the Section'.
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Title: BBC Play of the Month
Character: Alexei Turbin
Released: October 19, 1965
Type: TV
Play of the Month is a BBC television anthology series featuring productions of classic and contemporary stage plays which were usually broadcast on BBC1. Each production featured a different work, often using prominent British stage actors in the leading roles. The series was transmitted from October 1965 to September 1983; the producer most associated with the Play of the Month was Cedric Messina. Some of the 121 episodes are missing from the archives, having been junked in the 1960s and 1970s. Unless stated otherwise, the indication that the play is "lost" is taken from the lostshows.com website page as of 25 May 2013.
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Title: Public Eye
Character: John Sheldon
Released: January 23, 1965
Type: TV
Public Eye is a British television series that ran from 1965 to 1975. It was produced by ABC Television for three series, and Thames Television for a further four series. The series depicted the investigations and cases handled by the unglamorous enquiry agent Frank Marker, an unmarried loner who is in his early forties when the series begins. In the words of an ABC trailer for the third series: "Marker isn't a glamorous detective and he doesn't get glamorous cases—he doesn't even get glamorous girls. What he does get is people who are in trouble—the sort of trouble you can't go to the police about, even if you are innocent."
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Title: No Hiding Place
Released: September 16, 1959
Type: TV
No Hiding Place is a British television series that was produced at Wembley Studios by Associated-Rediffusion for the ITV network between 16 September 1959 and 22 June 1967. It was the sequel to the series Murder Bag and Crime Sheet, all starring Raymond Francis as Detective Superintendent, later Detective Chief Superintendent Tom Lockhart.
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Degas and Pissario Fall Out
Title: Degas and Pissario Fall Out
Character: Degas
Released: December 31, 1969
Type: Movie
A forgotten gem made for the British arts anthology series Without Walls, this half-hour drama imagines the two 19th century impressionist painters on a modern-day talk show–-exploring their friendship and historic conflict over the Dreyfus Affair. Resembling Patrick Watson’s Witness to History in its dramatization of the past, filmmaker Paul Morrison goes one step further by creating a behind-the-scenes world around the show; and in doing so, he offers up a clever satire, as timely as ever, on the medium’s exploitation of two men who are united through art, but divided over politics. For this short piece, Morrison assembled a wonderful cast, featuring Henry Goodman (this year’s Love Gets a Room), Michael Pennington, Louise Jameson (Doctor Who) and Alison Steadman (Life is Sweet).