Pleasence made his big-screen debut with "The Beachcomber" (1954). Some notable early roles include Parsons in "1984" (1956), and minor roles opposite Alec Guinness in "Barnacle Bill" (1957) and Dirk Bogarde in "The Wind Cannot Read" (1958). In Tony Richardson's film of "Look Back in Anger" (1959), he plays a vindictive market inspector opposite Richard Burton. In the same year, Pleasence starred in the horror films "Circus of Horrors" directed by Sidney Hayers, playing the role of Vanet, the owner of a circus, and "The Flesh and the Fiends" as the real-life murderer William Hare, alongside Peter Cushing, George Rose and Billie Whitelaw.