Screen Icons: Richard Attenborough

Five classic films featuring the legendary British actor and director, Richard Attenborough.

In 'Brighton Rock' (1947), 16-year-old gangster Pinkie Brown (Attenborough) uses young waitress Rose Brown (Carol Marsh) as an alibi after committing a murder at the race track.

Worried that she will give him away, Pinkie marries Rose.

However, his subsequent attempts to drive her to the point of suicide do not go according to plan.

In 'The Ship That Died of Shame' (1955), the crew of the Royal Navy's much-decorated Motor Gub Boat 1087 find the going much tougher following the end of the Second World War.

Now unemployed, the men buy their old ship back from a scrapyard and use her to smuggle black market goods across the English Channel.

As the crew's fortunes prosper they become more daring, but when they start carrying money and guns for London's criminal gangs, the old 1087 herself seems to be protesting against their activities.

The mood on board becomes blacker still when a convicted child murderer is given refuge on ship, setting off a disastrous chain of events.

In 'The Angry Silence' (1960), factory worker Tom Arnold (Attenborough) does not share the same feelings as his fellow workers in a developing industrial dispute and refuses to go on strike with them.

This results in him being 'sent to Coventry' by all concerned, including his best friend Joe Wallace (Michael Craig).

The newspapers soon hear about this and the story becomes a matter of national concern, with many different parties trying to use Tom's stance to their own ends. 'The Man Upstairs' (1958) tells the story of a mild-mannered lodger who suddenly becomes violent and, as a result, injures a policeman before barricading himself in his room.

In 'Dunkirk' (1958), a British corporal (John Mills) finds himself responsible for getting his men back to Britain from the Dunkirk beaches after their officer is killed and they are separated from the main allied forces.

Meanwhile, a civilian reporter (Bernard Lee) follows the build-up to the eventual evacuation of British and French troops from the beaches of Dunkirk.

In 'Private's Progress' (1956), upper-class twit Windrush (Ian Carmichael) causes military mayhem when he joins up in the army.

An inept soldier, he unwittingly becomes involved in his high-ranking uncle's (Dennis Price) scam to appropriate some rather valuable spoils of war - a haul of German jewels.

Finally, in 'Brothers in Law' (1957), Roger Thursby (Carmichael) is an overly keen, newly-qualified barrister who rubs his fellow barristers up the wrong way.

When he is thrown in at the deep-end, with a particularly hot-tempered judge (Miles Malleson) and a tricky case, Thursby learns how to prove himself not only to the judge and fellow barristers but also to the public gallery.