George Henry Sanders (3 July 1906 – 25 April 1972) was a British film and television actor, singer-songwriter, music composer, and author. His career as an actor spanned over forty years. His heavy upper-class English accent and smooth bass voice often led him to be cast as sophisticated but villainous characters. He is perhaps best known as Jack Favell in Rebecca (1940), Scott ffolliott in Foreign Correspondent (1940, a rare heroic part), The Saran of Gaza in Samson and Delilah (1949), the most popular film of the year, Addison DeWitt in All About Eve (1950, for which he won an Oscar), Sir Brian De Bois-Guilbert in Ivanhoe (1952), King Richard the Lionheart in King Richard and the Crusaders (1954), Mr. Freeze in a two-parter episode of Batman (1966), the voice of the malevolent man-hating tiger Shere Khan in Disney's The Jungle Book (1967), the suave crimefighter The Falcon during the 1940s (a role eventually bequeathed to his elder brother, Tom Conway), and Simon Templar, The Saint, in five films made in the 1930s and 1940s.
The European war was only beginning to erupt across national borders. Johnny Jones, an American crime reporter dispatched by his New York publisher to put a fresh spin on the drowsy dispatches emanating from overseas, has a nose for a good story—which promptly leads him to the crime of fascism and Nazi Germany's designs on European conquest. In attempting to learn more about a seemingly noble peace effort, Jones walks into the middle of an assassination, uncovers a spy ring and—not entirely coincidentally—falls in love.
Set in the eighteenth century, Moonfleet is about John Mohune, a young orphan who is sent to the Dorset village of Moonfleet to stay with an old friend of his mother's, Jeremy Fox. Fox is a morally ambiguous character, an elegant gentleman involved with smugglers and pirates.
A network of older spies from the West recruits a young intelligence officer with a photographic memory to accompany them on a mission inside Russia. They must recover a letter written by the CIA that promises American assistance to Russia if China gets the atomic bomb.
When notorious pirate Henry Morgan is made governor of Jamaica, he enlists the help of some of his former partners in ridding the Caribbean of Buccaneers. When one of them apparently abducts the previous governor's pretty daughter and joins up with the rebels, things are set for a fight.
The S. S. Claridon is scheduled for her five last voyages after thirty-eight years of service. After an explosion in the boiler room, Captain Robert Adams is reluctant to evacuate the steamship. While the crew fights to hold a bulkhead between the flooded boiler room and the engine room and avoid the sinking of the vessel, the passenger Cliff Henderson struggles against time trying to save his beloved wife Laurie Henderson, who is trapped under a steel beam in her cabin, with the support of the crew member Hank Lawson.
Rightful owner of the kingdom, the Duchess of Zona, is engaged in a power struggle with the evil General Gurko. Edmond, the son of Monte Cristo, dons many disguises to come to the aid of the Duchess.
South western Pennsylvania area of colonial America, 1760s. Colonial distaste and disapproval of the British government is starting to surface. Many local colonists have been killed by American Indians who are armed with rifles supplied by white traders.
A Japanese man claiming to be Mr. Moto, of the International Police, is abducted and murdered soon after disembarking from a ship at Port Said in Egypt. The real Mr. Moto is already in Port Said, investigating a conspiracy against the British and French governments.
Sir Arthur Blake has inherited title and lands from his brother. He also has his orphaned nephew Benjamin working for him as a bonded servant. While he believes the lad was born out of wedlock and so cannot claim the inheritance, he is taking no chances. Benjamin eventually rebels against his uncle and sets sail to try and make his fortune. This may enable him to return to prove his claim to being the rightful heir to the estate.