Leslie S. Hiscott

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.

When she learns that the Nazis have confiscated Leonardo da Vinci's masterpiece Mona Lisa, art-loving South American wanna-be spy Tamara (Jane Carr) journeys to Lisbon to snoop for the Germans in return for the iconic painting. But bumbling Nazi agents, Allied counterspies and multiple copies of the artwork soon confound her attempts at espionage.

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 card cheat is threatened with exposure into joining a criminal enterprise that Sherlock Holmes believes is controlled by Professor Moriarity.

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.

Two feuding millionaires try to destroy each other's business while their children fall in love with each other.

'Woman shelters epileptic son when he kills prostitute.' (British Film Catalogue)

Mr Pastry's social climbing daughter, president of a society for the rehabilitation for ex-convicts, hides the fact that her father is himself a prisoner. When he is released and arrives at her home, she panics and locks him in the attic until a job can be found for him, preferably abroad!

Mr Pastry's social climbing daughter, president of a society for the rehabilitation for ex-convicts, hides the fact that her father is himself a prisoner. When he is released and arrives at her home, she panics and locks him in the attic until a job can be found for him, preferably abroad!

Millionaire shipbuilder Freddie Gates decides to publicize his ships by hiring Jack Hylton and his orchestra to broadcast from his yacht.. Brian Gates, Freddie's son, has a low-approval-rating and a high dislike for jazz music and refuses board ship with the band on board. His father enters a conspiracy with singer Dorothy Drew to get him on the yacht, where the broadcasts will be made. Brian falls in love with Dorothy, but calls of the romance when he sees her dancing and singing with Hylton's band in Paris. Dorothy induces three members of the band to shanghai Brian when the yacht sails. A rival shipowner, determined to stop the broadcasts, bribes the crew to desert the ship and all hands are left stranded in mid-ocean on the yacht. The band-members manage to extricate them from their predicament and they get back to London, where Hylton is acclaimed and Brian marries Dorothy.

A killer distracts his victims with a hideous face

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.

Comedy film...

A well-known film director has a gangster double, whom he ends up killing. Taking the gangsters place, he then causes an actress to be framed.

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

Eddie Smart (George Gee) was born clumsy and is a laughing stock at work, the Sprouto Hair Tonic Company. One day a phrenologist reads his 'bumps' and pronounces him another Napoleon. Eddie becomes a changed man and issues orders to everyone. Meantime the boss believes Eddie to be the rightful owner of the company so let's him have his way. With the boss ill, Eddie invests heavily in the nutmeg market, almost bankrupting the company. By luck the research department discover that nutmeg is the secret ingredient for the new hair-restorer. The 1933 British Lion comedy feature film "Strike It Rich" starring George Gee and Gina Malo seems to be a 'lost' film on the 35mm cinema film format. However it was released (sadly savagely cut) on the UK Pathescope 9.5mm home movie film format in December 1938. One musical number was cut from the 9.5mm feature film release, but issued separately in a 9.5mm Pathe Vox Review. This print has this extra item edited back in.

Sisters are music-hall performers. One loves the other's fiancé and decides to quit the show, but the other runs into an old flame and new relations develop.

Tony Pumpford takes a job selling vacuum cleaners, and in doing so tangles with a chorus girl. He then accidentally ends up in the show whilst demonstrating the cleaner.

A woman's parents became robbers in a desperate effort to prevent her marrying an unsuitable man.

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.

Rodney Playfair is persuaded, by a promise to meet his gambling debts, to impersonate a manservant named Chapman at his fiancée's house...

'A clerk embezzles money to pay for a girl's singing lessons in Rome.' (British Film Institute)

'A clerk embezzles money to pay for a girl's singing lessons in Rome.' (British Film Institute)

British comedy film directed by Leslie S. Hiscott

A millionaire hires a man to play his double...

An apartment handyman is unusually attached to a pair of boilers he names "Mavis" and "Ethel."

An apartment handyman is unusually attached to a pair of boilers he names "Mavis" and "Ethel."

A young couple live under a café in Paris that, unknown to them, is owned by a brutal blackmailer. When he is murdered, they fall under suspicion. However, the husband's father, an amateur detective, believes in their innocence and sets out to find who really killed the blackmailer.

During the Second World War, a German spy goes on the run, carrying important news about a U-Boat campaign. The ship he is traveling aboard is hit by a torpedo. The spy winds up on a lifeboat with other survivors, one of whom is a counterintelligence agent who reveals the German spy's true identity.

Jewel thieves kill a rich widow and frame a fake medium.

In France, an inspector solves the poisoning of his rich aunt.

Based on a story by author Noel Streatfeild, the film trells the story of two sisters who are left penniless by their father's sudden death and lease their estate as an airbase to US forces in Britain to help the war effort. Both eventually fall for American servicemen.

The young Lord Sloane marries a musical comedy actress, much to his parents' disappointment. The actress's brother-in-law gets into betting difficulties so she obtains money from her husband to help him.

A young couple live under a café in Paris that, unknown to them, is owned by a brutal blackmailer. When he is murdered, they fall under suspicion. However, the husband's father, an amateur detective, believes in their innocence and sets out to find who really killed the blackmailer.

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

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

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

A British comedy film directed by Leslie S. Hiscott

A British comedy film directed by Leslie S. Hiscott

A British comedy film directed by Leslie S. Hiscott

A French sleuth in England helps the police solve a series of murders linked by the diary pages of a dead woman.

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

'Newlywed poses as burglar to scare flighty wife.' (British Film Catalogue)

'Newlywed poses as burglar to scare flighty wife.' (British Film Catalogue)

The film stars Edmund Gwenn, who plays a chemist, whose son Lawrence (played by Barry MacKay) is attacked on a train. He appears to have shot the man.

The captain of a British cargo ship shanghais a group of sabateurs, unaware that the daughter of the ship’s owner is among them.

A Scottish shop-girl gets mixed up with crooks then has to pose as the mistress of the Crown Prince of Boravia.