[2] Some of England's best-known actors worked at Southall Studios: Richard Attenborough, Dirk Bogarde,[3] Joan Collins,[4] and horror legend Boris Karloff.

[13] In November 1940, the Minister of Aircraft Production, Lord Beaverbrook, requisitioned the site,[18] turning it over to Fairey Aviation, an aeroplane manufacturer with a factory in nearby Hayes.

[13] The Luftwaffe fired on the site during wartime,[2] but the rebuilt studio survived intact and, de-requisitioned after the war ended, the film-making facility entered into a busy post-war period.

Examples include: British film noir Dancing with Crime (1947) with Richard Attenborough, Dirk Bogarde and Diana Dors;[3] drama Judgment Deferred (1952) starring Joan Collins;[4] semi-documentary disaster film The Brave Don't Cry (1952) with John Gregson;[19] and "all very British" comedies,[20] such as Miss Robin Hood (1952)[21] and The Runaway Bus (1954)[22] starring Margaret Rutherford,[23] and The Oracle (1953)[24] featuring the enigmatic Gilbert Harding.

[27] The president of the BBFC apologised to the Home Secretary of the day, James Chuter Ede, for having "failed to protect the public" from No Orchids For Miss Blandish.

Notoriety contributed to the film's commercial success on initial release, but it was rarely shown again until 2006, by which time it was felt to deserve a modest PG certificate, for "mild violence and threat".

[32]) Grierson used his documentary/realist approach to critical and commercial success as executive producer on The Brave Don't Cry (1952),[33] a semi-documentary feature about the 1950 Knockshinnoch mining disaster.

The highest-profile television programme produced at Southall at this time was Colonel March of Scotland Yard, starring Frankenstein legend Boris Karloff as the fictional detective of the title.

[39] First produced at Southall as a television series in 1956-1957,[40] the full-length feature (re-titled The Crawling Eye in the USA) would go on to achieve cult classic status.

[2] More than twenty years later, acclaimed director John Carpenter acknowledged The Trollenberg Terror as an influence on his 1980 supernatural horror film The Fog.

Several regulars of the much-loved Carry On films[52][53] worked individually at Southall Studios: Sid James,[21][54][55][56] Charles Hawtrey,[57][58] Joan Sims,[59] Kenneth Connor,[60] Peter Butterworth,[61] and Esma Cannon.