--- name: "Anthony Bushell" canonical: "https://film.one/person/anthony-bushell" roles: ["Actor"] born: "19 May 1904" died: "2 April 1997" reviewed_on_fi1m: 2 average_fi1m_score: 69 average_as: "actor" average_over: 2 updated: "2026-09-19T21:46:58.538063+00:00" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Anthony Bushell Actor. Born 19 May 1904 in Westerham, Kent, England, UK. Died 2 April 1997. ## Details - **Work:** Actor - **Born:** 19 May 1904, Westerham, Kent, England, UK - **Died:** 2 April 1997 - **Active:** 1929–1931 - **Also known as:** Anthony Arnatt Bushell - **Average Fi1m score:** 69, as actor, over 2 titles - **Fi1m score by decade:** 1920s 68 (1), 1930s 70 (1) - **Elsewhere:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Bushell, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q2852823, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0124236/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/96758 ## Streaming the US now - **Tubi:** [*Disraeli*](https://film.one/film/disraeli.md) (68) For United States; add `?region=XX` for another country. ## Fi1m on Anthony Bushell > Anthony Bushell was cast for his bearing before he was cast for anything else, and Hollywood spent it on juvenile lovers. Once someone put him in a uniform and gave him a decision to make, the stillness started to earn its keep. In *Disraeli* (1929), Anthony Bushell's Lord Charles Deeford is told by the Prime Minister to make himself useful, and he goes away and does it somewhere we cannot see. That is the shape of his first Hollywood years. He was tall, well spoken and good in a collar, and the studios took one look and gave him young men whose job was to want a girl and wait for her. It is the least interesting thing you can do with a man who stands like that. His talkies began with *Disraeli*, on George Arliss's recommendation, and the parts that followed had more spine in the writing than in the acting. In *Journey's End* (1930) he was Second Lieutenant Hibbert, the officer in the dugout who cannot face going up the line, and the uniform stuck. By *Five Star Final* (1931) he is Phillip Weeks in a newspaper picture we like a good deal, and our own review does not mention him, which is a kind of note in itself: he does the job and stays out of Edward G. Robinson's way. He went back to Britain in 1932, played Sir Andrew Ffoulkes in *The Scarlet Pimpernel* (1934), and then spent the war in the Welsh Guards, which is the point at which the officer stopped being a costume. What works, after that, is authority. Post-war casting reached for him whenever a scene needed a man to receive bad news standing up, and the parts people still remember him for, Captain Rostron in *A Night to Remember* (1958) and Colonel Breen in the BBC's *Quatermass and the Pit* (1958), are men defined by their rank. He never seems to be performing steadiness; he has it, and the camera reads it off his posture and his vowels. What does not work is anything that asks him to be lit from inside. Watching *Disraeli* we were bored by his scenes with Joan Bennett, and then faintly irritated that a 90-minute film had found room for them, because the man plainly had something and the picture had no use for it. The second half of his career is the odder one. From *Hamlet* (1948), in which he also took an uncredited bit part, he worked beside Laurence Olivier as associate producer and associate director, and from 1950 he directed features of his own and later television, *Danger Man* and *The Saint* among them. His first feature, *The Angel with the Trumpet* (1950), was thought slow at the time. He retired in 1964. If you want to see what he was for, begin with him in uniform and in middle age. Leave *Disraeli* until last, and watch the young lovers as a lesson in what Hollywood did with Englishmen of good posture before anyone had worked out what else they could do. ## Biography Anthony Bushell (also credited as Anthony Arnatt Bushell) was an English actor and director. Born in Westerham, Kent, he was educated at Magdalen College School and Hertford College, Oxford, before training at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. He made his stage debut in 1924 in Diplomacy at the Adelphi Theatre. Bushell appeared in 56 films between 1929 and 1961, beginning with the role of Lord Charles Deeford in *Disraeli* (1929). His other screen credits include *Five Star Final* (1931), *The Scarlet Pimpernel* (1934), *A Night to Remember* (1958) as Captain Arthur Rostron, and *The Battle of the River Plate* (1956). He also directed films such as *The Angel with the Trumpet* (1950) and episodes of television series including *Danger Man* and *The Saint*. During the Second World War he served as a tank squadron commander in the Welsh Guards, reaching the rank of major. He retired from acting in 1964 and died in Oxford in 1997. *Sources: en.wikipedia.org, catalog.afi.com, independent.co.uk.* ## On Fi1m (2) - *Five Star Final* (1931), Fi1m 70, as Phillip Weeks — [page](https://film.one/film/five-star-final.md) - *Disraeli* (1929), Fi1m 68, as Lord Charles Deeford — [page](https://film.one/film/disraeli.md) ## Complete filmography (65) Every credit, newest first. Titles without a page can be requested for review on the HTML page. - *The Sentimental Agent* (1963), series, as Major Nelson - *The Saint* (1962), series, Director - *Man of the World* (1962), series, Director - *The Scales of Justice* (1962), series, Director - *Sir Francis Drake* (1961), series, as Tom Doughty · Director - *The Queen's Guards* (1961), Actor - *Drama 61-67* (1961), series, as Lt. Gen. Priest - *The Terror of the Tongs* (1961), Director - *Danger Man* (1960), series, as Lotsbeyer · Director - *Desert Mice* (1959), as Plunkett - *Quatermass and the Pit* (1958), series, as Colonel James Breen - *A Night to Remember* (1958), as Capt. Arthur Rostron - *The Wind Cannot Read* (1958), as Brigadier - *Bitter Victory* (1957), as General Paterson - *The Prince and the Showgirl* (1957), Assistant Director - *The Battle of the River Plate* (1956), as Sir Millington Drake, British Minister, Montevideo - *The Black Tent* (1956), as Ambassador Baring - *Richard III* (1955), Co-Director - *The Purple Plain* (1954), as Aldridge - *The Black Knight* (1954), as King Arthur - *The Red Beret* (1953), as General Whiting - *Who Goes There!* (1952), as Major Guy Ashley - *The Road to Canterbury* (1952), as Commentator (voice) - *High Treason* (1951), as Maj. Elliott - *The Long Dark Hall* (1951), as Clive Bedford · Director, Producer - *The Miniver Story* (1950), as Dr. Kaneslaey - *Bridge of Time* (1950), Actor - *The Angel with the Trumpet* (1950), as Baron Hugo Traun · Director - *The Small Back Room* (1949), as Col. Strang · Associate Producer - *Hamlet* (1948), as Bit Part (uncredited) · Producer's Assistant - *For Those in Peril* (1944), as (uncredited) - *The Lion Has Wings* (1939), as Pilot - *The Arsenal Stadium Mystery* (1939), as John Doyce - *The Rebel Son* (1938), as Andrei Bulba - *Return of the Scarlet Pimpernel* (1937), as Sir Andrew Foulkes - *Dark Journey* (1937), as Bob Carter - *Farewell Again* (1937), as Roddy Hammond - *Dusty Ermine* (1936), as Det. Insp. Forsythe - *Admirals All* (1935), as Flag Lt. Steve Langham - *The Scarlet Pimpernel* (1934), as Sir Andrew Ffoulkes - *Forbidden Territory* (1934), as Rex Farringdon - *Love at Second Sight* (1934), Actor - *Crime on the Hill* (1933), as Tony Fields - *Red Wagon* (1933), as Toby Griffiths - *Channel Crossing* (1933), as Peter Bradley - *I Was a Spy* (1933), as Otto - *The Ghoul* (1933), as Ralph Morlant - *Soldiers of the King* (1933), as Lt. Ronald Jamieson - *The Midshipmaid* (1932), as Lt. Valentine - *Sally Bishop* (1932), as Bart - *The Silver Greyhound* (1932), as Gerald Varrick - *Escapade* (1932), as Philip Whitney - *Shop Angel* (1932), as Larry Pemberton - *Vanity Fair* (1932), as Dobbin - *A Woman Commands* (1932), as Lt. Iwan Petrovitch - *Expensive Women* (1931), as Arthur Raymond - *Five Star Final* (1931), as Phillip Weeks — Fi1m 70, [page](https://film.one/film/five-star-final.md) - *Chances* (1931), as Tom Ingleside - *Born to Love* (1931), as Leslie Darrow - *The Royal Bed* (1931), as Freddie Granton - *Three Faces East* (1930), as Capt. Arthur Chamberlain - *The Flirting Widow* (1930), as Bobby - *Journey's End* (1930), as Hibbert - *Lovin' the Ladies* (1930), as Brooks - the Butler - *Disraeli* (1929), as Lord Charles Deeford — Fi1m 68, [page](https://film.one/film/disraeli.md) ## Gallery - ![Anthony Bushell](https://film.one/media/person/1224826/gallery-ef475384bf1c.jpg) Anthony Bushell — RKO Pictures, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/10/Anthony_Bushell_in_The_Royal_Bed_%281931%29.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled) - ![Anthony Bushell and Mary Astor in the 1931 American film The Royal Bed.](https://film.one/media/person/1224826/gallery-e6033cc1eefd.jpg) Anthony Bushell and Mary Astor in the 1931 American film The Royal Bed. — RKO Pictures, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/23/Anthony_Bushell_and_Mary_Astor_in_The_Royal_Bed_%281931%29.jpg/1280px-Anthony_Bushell_and_Mary_Astor_in_The_Royal_Bed_%281931%29.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail) - ![Anthony Bushell](https://film.one/media/person/1224826/gallery-6c9764e5369b.jpg) Anthony Bushell — Image via TMDB --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/person/anthony-bushell