Adaptation of John Gay's 18th century opera, featuring Laurence Olivier as MacHeath and Hugh Griffith as the Beggar.
08-24-1953
1h 34m
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Main Cast
Movie Details
Production Info
Director:
Peter Brook
Writers:
Christopher Fry, Denis Cannan
Production:
Herbert Wilcox Productions, British Lion Films
Key Crew
Director of Photography:
Guy Green
Producer:
Laurence Olivier
Producer:
Herbert Wilcox
Production Design:
William C. Andrews
Production Design:
Georges Wakhévitch
Locations and Languages
Country:
US; GB
Filming:
GB
Languages:
en
Main Cast
Laurence Olivier
Laurence Kerr Olivier, Baron Olivier, OM (22 May 1907 – 11 July 1989) was an English actor and director who, along with his contemporaries Ralph Richardson, Peggy Ashcroft and John Gielgud, dominated the British stage of the mid-20th century. He also worked in films throughout his career, playing more than fifty cinema roles. Late in his career, he had considerable success in television roles.
His family had no theatrical connections, but Olivier's father, a clergyman, decided that his son should become an actor. After attending a drama school in London, Olivier learned his craft in a succession of acting jobs during the late 1920s. In 1930 he had his first important West End success in Noël Coward's Private Lives, and he appeared in his first film. In 1935 he played in a celebrated production of Romeo and Juliet alongside Gielgud and Ashcroft, and by the end of the decade he was an established star. In the 1940s, together with Richardson and John Burrell, Olivier was the co-director of the Old Vic, building it into a highly respected company. There his most celebrated roles included Shakespeare's Richard III and Sophocles's Oedipus. In the 1950s Olivier was an independent actor-manager, but his stage career was in the doldrums until he joined the avant garde English Stage Company in 1957 to play the title role in The Entertainer, a part he later played on film. From 1963 to 1973 he was the founding director of Britain's National Theatre, running a resident company that fostered many future stars. His own parts there included the title role in Othello (1965) and Shylock in The Merchant of Venice (1970).
Among Olivier's films are Wuthering Heights (1939), Rebecca (1940), and a trilogy of Shakespeare films as actor-director: Henry V (1944), Hamlet (1948), and Richard III (1955). His later films included The Shoes of the Fisherman (1968), Sleuth (1972), Marathon Man (1976), and The Boys from Brazil (1978). His television appearances included an adaptation of The Moon and Sixpence (1960), Long Day's Journey into Night (1973), Love Among the Ruins (1975), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1976), Brideshead Revisited (1981) and King Lear (1983).
Olivier's honours included a knighthood (1947), a life peerage (1970) and the Order of Merit (1981). For his on-screen work he received four Academy Awards, two British Academy Film Awards, five Emmy Awards and three Golden Globe Awards. The National Theatre's largest auditorium is named in his honour, and he is commemorated in the Laurence Olivier Awards, given annually by the Society of London Theatre. He was married three times, to the actresses Jill Esmond from 1930 to 1940, Vivien Leigh from 1940 to 1960, and Joan Plowright from 1961 until his death.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Laurence Olivier, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
George Rose (19 February 1920 - 5 May 1988) was an English actor in theatre and film.
Born in Bicester, Oxfordshire the son of a butcher, Rose studied at the Central School of Speech and Drama. After graduation he briefly was a farmer and secretary. After wartime service and studies at Oxford, he made his Old Vic stage debut in 1946.
Description above from the Wikipedia article George Rose, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia
Dame Dorothy Tutin, DBE (8 April 1930 – 6 August 2001) was an English actress of stage, film and television. For her work in the theatre, she won two Olivier Awards and two Evening Standard Awards for Best Actress. She was made a CBE in 1967 and a Dame (DBE) in 2000.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Mary Clare (17 July 1892 – 29 August 1970) was a British actress of stage, film and television. In films, she was mainly a character actress, in later life often portraying mature ladies who had strength of character or were autocratic. She appeared in two of the British-made Alfred Hitchcock films, Young and Innocent (1937) and The Lady Vanishes (1938).
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Athene Seyler, CBE (31 May 1889 – 12 September 1990) was an English actress.
Although better known as a stage actress - she first appeared on the stage in 1909 - she made her film debut in 1921, and became known for playing slightly dotty old ladies in many British films from the 1930s to the 1960s.
Her most memorable stage credits included Mrs. Malaprop in The Rivals, Lady Bracknell in The Importance of Being Earnest, and a double-act, with her good friend Dame Sybil Thorndike, as the murderous spinster sisters in Arsenic and Old Lace.
Her film and television career lasted into the 1960s, and included roles in The Citadel (1938), Night of the Demon (1957), and The Avengers (1964, 1965). She was also a regular cast member in screen adaptations of Charles Dickens' novels.
She virtually retired from acting after 1970, but continued making public appearances until well into the 1980s. In 1990, at the age of 101, she appeared at the National Theatre, talking about her long life and career.
Athene Seyler was President of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) from 1950, and a member of the Theatrical Ladies' Guild. She also wrote The Craft of Comedy.
She was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1959.
Stanley Augustus Holloway, OBE (1 October 1890 – 30 January 1982) was an English stage and film actor, comedian, singer, poet and monologist. He was famous for his comic and character roles on stage and screen, especially that of Alfred P. Doolittle in My Fair Lady. He was also renowned for his recordings of comic monologues and songs, which he performed throughout most of his 70-year career.
Born in London, in his early years Holloway pursued a career as a clerk. He made early stage appearances before infantry service in the First World War. After the war he joined a concert party, "The Co-Optimists", and his career began to flourish. At first he was chiefly employed as a singer, but his skills as an actor and reciter of comic monologues were soon recognised. Characters from his monologues such as Sam Small, invented by Holloway, and Albert Ramsbottom, created for him by Marriott Edgar, were absorbed into popular British culture. By the 1930s, he was in demand to star in music hall, pantomime and musical comedy.
In the 1940s and early 1950s, Holloway moved from the musical stage to acting in plays and films. He made well-received stage and film appearances in Shakespeare, and in a series of films for Ealing Studios. In 1956 he was cast as the irresponsible Alfred P. Doolittle in My Fair Lady, a role that he played on Broadway, in the West End and later on film, which brought him international fame. In his later years, Holloway appeared in television series in the U.S. and the UK, toured in revue, appeared in stage plays in Britain, Canada, Australia and the U.S., and continued to make films into his eighties.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Stanley Holloway, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Yvonne Furneaux (born Elisabeth Yvonne Scarcherd; 11 May 1926, Lille, Nord-Pas-de-Calais, France) was a French film actress.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Yvonne Furneaux, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Kenneth Williams (22 February 1926 – 15 April 1988) was an English comic actor, star of 26 Carry On films, numerous British television shows, and radio comedies with Tony Hancock and Kenneth Horne.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Kenneth Williams, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
British platinum blonde with leads in 1950s, later in supporting roles, but always with special 'presence'. Husky-voiced, "blonde bombshell" was a popular pinup early in her career. Appeared in some 35 films, many teleplays, specialized in mystery, suspense and horror titles.
Laurence Naismith (14 December 1908 – 5 June 1992) was an English actor.
Naismith appeared in films such as Diamonds Are Forever (1971), Richard III (1955), Jason and the Argonauts (1963), Sink the Bismarck! (1960), Carrington VC (1954) and as Captain Edward Smith of the RMS Titanic in A Night to Remember (1958). He appeared on Broadway in the musical Here's Love in 1963 and played the non-singing role of Merlin in the 1967 film version of the musical Camelot.
In 1965 he guest-starred as barber Gilly Bright in episode 25, "The Threat" of 12 O-Clock High (TV series). He was Judge Fulton in the TV series The Persuaders! (1971), with Tony Curtis and Roger Moore. He also starred in a children's ghost film The Amazing Mr Blunden (1972). He portrayed Emperor of Austria Franz Joseph in the BBC production Fall of Eagles (1974). Naismith played the Prince of Verona in the BBC Television Shakespeare version of Romeo & Juliet.
Outside of acting he was the landlord of the Rowbarge pub at Woolhampton, Berkshire and a keen cricket fan. Naismith married, in 1939, Vera Bocca of Horden, County Durham.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Laurence Naismith, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
