William Hartnell Trailers
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William Henry Hartnell (8 January 1908 – 23 April 1975), also known as Billy Hartnell or Bill Hartnell, was an English actor. Hartnell played the first incarnation of the Doctor in Doctor Who, from 1963 to 1966. He was also known for his roles as Sergeant Grimshaw, the title character of the first Carry On film, Carry On Sergeant in 1958, and Company Sergeant Major Percy Bullimore in the sitcom The Army Game from 1957 until 1958, and again in 1960.
Hartnell entered the theatre in 1925 working under Frank Benson as a general stagehand. He appeared in numerous Shakespearian plays, including The Merchant of Venice (1926), Julius Caesar (1926), As You Like It (1926), Hamlet (1926), The Tempest (1926) and Macbeth (1926). He also appeared in She Stoops to Conquer (1926), School for Scandal (1926) and Good Morning, Bill (1927), before performing in Miss Elizabeth's Prisoner (1928). This play was written by Robert Neilson Stephens and E. Lyall Swete. It featured the actress Heather McIntyre, whom he married during the following year. His first of more than sixty film appearances was in Say It With Music (1932).
Hartnell continued to play comic characters until he was cast in the robust role of Sergeant Ned Fletcher in The Way Ahead (1944). From then on his career was defined by playing mainly policemen, soldiers, and thugs.
Hartnell's performance in This Sporting Life was noted by Verity Lambert, the producer who was setting up a new science-fiction television series for the BBC entitled Doctor Who; and, mainly on the strength of that performance, Lambert offered him the title role.
Most Popular William Hartnell Trailers
Total trailers found: 125
04 February 1941
Hitler's doctor is gradually realising that the Nazi regime isn't as good as it pretends to be when his friends start to "disappear" into the camps.
29 July 1957
Culver is a psychiatrist who uses hypnotism to treat his patients. When Carpenter, a test pilot, comes to see him complaining of blackouts that make his job difficult, Culver tries to mesmerise him into killing his wife.
25 August 1953
A trip to the theatre changes a meek bank clerk's life, as he undergoes hypnosis and leaves without being woken up.
16 November 1943
A crime reporter begins to investigate the disappearance of his bosses wife who had witnessed a murder.
24 May 1949
A prison governor deals with a variety of different prisoners, including a charming murderer.
27 February 1947
The story of a harbor signalman who retrieves a suitcase full of money after witnessing a murder, fails to report it to the police, and finds himself the object of murderous and mercenary interest.
05 January 1937
Farewell Again is a multiplotted British comedy/drama about soldiers on leave and the people they've left.
24 November 1952
An underhand solicitor receives threatening notes, and the police are called in to protect him.
11 January 1943
Frantic farce involving a neglected wife, a stolen diamond and four identical briefcases.
22 August 1949
Set in a German theatre after the Second World War, two British soldiers are holding a disparate and hostile band of refugees in this theatre, prior to returning them to their homelands.
01 December 1959
Two reporters are held hostage in old castle, by thief, looking for jewels, that he had buried, after robbing a local house.
09 April 1956
An apartment handyman is unusually attached to a pair of boilers he names "Mavis" and "Ethel."
20 May 1963
A clerical error leads to the appointment of a left-leaning small-town priest to a rich village, where he immediately horrifies his snobby parishioners by appointing a dustman and a black man as vicar's wardens and throwing open the vicarage to the sprawling, disreputable Smith family, who have just been evicted from their caravan site.
03 March 2008
A look at the subtle (and not so subtle!) links to the show's past and future contained within the story of The Five Doctors.
25 December 2015
It’s Christmas Day on a remote human colony and the Doctor is hiding from Christmas Carols and Comedy Antlers.
24 January 1945
The Agitator is a 1945 British drama film directed by John Harlow and starring William Hartnell, Mary Morris and John Laurie.
23 January 2012
The tricks of putting together a television drama show 'as live' are discussed by vision mixer Clive Doig.
01 February 1960
Dickie Dreadnought is the boxing-mad nephew of pious clergyman Reverend Sydney Mullet. To mollify his disapproving uncle, Dickie embarks on an elaborate plan to keep his budding boxing career a secret, with he and his tough-talking promoter Wally Burton both pretending to be devout 'men of the cloth'.
01 January 1958
A car salesman and suspected safecracker Miles saves his fiancee Sue from those who would kidnap her.
03 December 1952
An English clergyman's neglect of his grown children, in his zeal to tend to his parishioners, comes to the surface at a Christmas family gathering.
05 September 1960
A playboy tries to recruit a gang, who include an American who needs cash to satisfy his wife's expensive tastes, and an old time expert cracksman, to rob a foreign embassy's safe, but trouble starts when the plan begins to go wrong.
23 June 1963
A British policeman (John Gregson) tries to find a rich man's (Alec Clunes) son before a kidnapper's (Robert Shaw) time bomb blows.
22 January 1951
A killer called 'The Dark Man' commits double murder. This is witnessed by the young aspiring actress Molly Lester.
29 June 1942
The story of flyer Amy Johnson the girl from Yorkshire who won the hearts of the British public in the 1930s with her record-breaking solo flights around the world.
25 December 2008
The Doctor arrives in Victorian London. It's Christmas, but snow isn't the only thing descending on the tranquil and jubilant civilization, as familiar silver giants from an alternate reality are amassing in numbers.
21 September 2009
Designer Raymond Cusick recalls his work on The Keys of Marinus, and discusses the challenges that this story held, with its weekly changes of location and inventive set-pieces.
17 July 1959
The Duchy of Grand Fenwick decides that the only way to get out of their economic woes is to declare war on the United States, lose and accept foreign aid.
01 October 1935
The Guv'nor (released in the U.S. as Mr. Hobo) is a 1935 British comedy film starring George Arliss as a tramp who rides a series of misunderstandings and becomes the president of a bank.
23 November 2013
In 2013, something terrible is awakening in London's National Gallery; in 1562, a murderous plot is afoot in Elizabethan England; and somewhere in space an ancient battle reaches its devastating conclusion.
23 November 2023
The very first crew of the TARDIS land in a petrified forest on an alien planet. Determined to explore, the Doctor leads his companions into the metal city, where they discover danger at every corner and what will become his deadliest enemy.
05 November 1966
Following the Doctor's regeneration into a new, younger body, the TARDIS lands at an Earth colony on the planet Vulcan in the far future.
17 February 2009
A look at the making of 'The Rescue' featuring members of the original cast and crew. Featured on th"
01 March 1948
A convict sentenced to three years for killing a detective escapes and goes on the lam, aided by a local girl.
01 January 1936
Mendoza, who had an affair with the star of the original production of La Vie parisienne in 1900, returns in 1935 with his son and granddaughter.
30 January 2006
Documentary on the sound effects of Doctor Who in the 1960s.
09 June 1944
A mismatched collection of conscripted civilians find training tough under Lieutenant Jim Perry and Sergeant Ned Fletcher when they are called up to replace an infantry battalion that had suffered casualties at Dunkirk.
24 March 2025
The Doctor, Steven and Dodo land on an alien world in this animated reconstruction of a lost 1966 Doctor Who adventure.
16 March 1982
The Doctor and his companions must prevent the Cybermen from bombing the Earth in the 26th century. It is a battle not everyone will survive.
23 July 1957
An ex-con trying to go clean ends up working for a crooked trucking company swindling money.
07 February 1963
In Northern England in the early 1960s, Frank Machin is mean, tough and ambitious enough to become an immediate star in the rugby league team run by local employer Weaver.
31 January 2006
The cast and crew's memories of the creation of the Daleks and the making of The Daleks.
24 January 1976
Mad scientist Mehendri Solon is building a body from spare parts to house the disembodied brain of the evil Time Lord Morbius.
09 January 1948
Centring on the activities of a gang of assorted criminals and, in particular, their leader – a vicious young hoodlum known as "Pinkie" – the film's main thematic concern is the criminal underbelly evident in inter-war Brighton.
31 December 1944
Farmer Chris Lowe meets and falls in love with Molly , a chorus-girl. Despite the fact that she is a city girl through and through, she accepts his proposal of marriage and after the wedding goes to live on the farm.
28 January 2012
Don't Lose Your Head is a documentary about the making of Doctor Who story The Reign of Terror.
09 November 1955
The trouble with Josephine is that her ever-loving and over-sympathetic nature leads her to switch from needful men to even more needful men.
22 January 1972
Guerillas time-jump back from the 22nd century to assassinate Sir Reginald Styles - a diplomat working for World Peace, The Doctor discovers they are from a future where the Daleks have invaded the Earth (Following wars precipitated by Styles's destruction at the peace conference).
01 December 1938
“Shorty” Matthews having recently been released from prison visits his girlfriend in London only to discover her murdered.
30 January 1947
Belfast police conduct a door-to-door manhunt for an IRA gunman wounded in a daring robbery.
01 January 1952
Now old, ill, poor, and largely forgotten, William Freise-Greene was once very different. As young and handsome William Green he changed his name to include his first wife's so that it sounded more impressive for the photographic portrait work he was so good at.
30 January 2006
A feature on Doctor Who: The Beginning box set which tells the stories of the Doctor's time machine - the TARDIS.
01 January 1960
Back in London after serving time, an ex-convict learns that his wife is not willing to return to him.
01 July 1963
A young woman is harassed by a man and seeks help from the police. The officer who visits her falls in love with her, but shortly after she is murdered.
31 August 1958
Sergeant Grimshawe wants to retire in the flush of success by winning the Star Squad prize with his very last platoon of newly called-up National Servicemen.
21 November 2013
Actor William Hartnell felt trapped by a succession of hard-man roles while wannabe producer Verity Lambert was frustrated by the TV industry's glass ceiling.
02 April 1957
While sailing lawfully up the Yangste in 1949, the British warship Amethyst found its return to the open sea blocked by Communist Chinese shore batteries that unexpectedly opened fire.
09 February 1983
A warp ellipse draws the TARDIS off course. The Fifth Doctor's companions are separated from him not in space, but in time, and he has to deal with a treacherous schoolboy named Turlough.
25 November 1983
Many incarnations of the Doctors and their old companions are taken out of time and deposited in the Death Zone on Gallifrey.
24 December 2024
Doctor Who fan favourite Catherine Tate presents a concert of music, monsters and mayhem featuring soundtracks from the iconic series, a specially shot feature for the Fifteenth Doctor and a host of scary aliens as they thrill a packed audience at London's Royal Albert Hall.
29 December 1998
Documentary commemorating the 40th anniversary of the 'Carry On' comedy film series. Archive clips and out-takes are mixed with interviews with the cast.
