filmlover
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Posts posted by filmlover
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Mon., Oct. 2nd, 1939
Sorry, edge torn on this one.
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*And, finally, the British film industry from 2000 to Present*
And...
While many of the new tites I have listed here, as a necessary part of the film history, may not be of interest to classic film fans here, it shows how far the British film industry has come from the silent days of
One might think that the UK film producers have abandoned England's own special identity in order to capture a worldwide market, but if you look at the film that won the Best Picture Oscar this year (and winning the Academy Awards for Best Actor, Best Director, and Best Original Screenplay), it was a look back at the heart of the English people...
Nice. : )
I'm going out now to get some fish and chips.
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It had nothing to do with criticism of TCM. It was because you keep creating thread after thread about the same thing. I know because I am the one who reported it. People answer you to the best of their ability about why Hot Spell probably isn't shown, and you know it, but you just won't stay on one thread about Hot Spell. You will do a new thread almost every other day.
You act like a spoiled child in a store crying at the top of his lungs until his parents buy him the toy he wants.
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*I am listing several posts today covering the remaining years of this history from 1970 to the present day, with a decade for each post, highlighting popular films from each.*
As we get closer to today, films would cost so much that occasionally it is a joint US/UK venture or something similar. So the ones below are either 100% UK or a combo with another country.
*The 1970s:*
(David Lean tok the criticism of Ryan's Daugther so badly, he didn't direct a film again for over a decade.)
An unusual poster from Japan of A Bridge Too Far
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Sunday, October 1, 1939
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This is a great Republic serial, one of the best they ever made. And this wa the best of the Zorrio serials, as it features tghe real Zorro, not a son of grandson of.
I hope everyone catches chapter one on right now and not come in next Saturday with chapter two showing and wondering, "Hey's where's Chapter One?"
This serial has some terrific stuntwork. Yak Canutt and other Republic stuntmen.
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Saturday, Sept. 30th, 1939
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Did you try calling them? I ended up calling DISH at one point because I didn't have it on my schedule, just the SD, and they said something like, "Oh, here it is, we forgot to add it into your schedule."
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I can't let the day go by without having two of Deborah Kerr's UK releases that are part of TCM's tribute today on what would have been her 90th birthday.
Kathleen Byron: "Oh, yes, mister, tell me again about your pile driving equipment and how it pounds and pounds and never stops!"
Spooky moment from The Innocents.
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The Taylor-Burton Cleopatra is heading to Blu on Jan. 30th in the UK with a release to the US also likely.
Extras:
Cleopatra Through The Ages: A Cultural History
Cleopatra's Missing Footage
Fox Movie Channel presents Fox Legacy with Tom Rothman
Commentary with Chris Mankiewicz, Tom Mankiewicz, Martin Landau and Jack Brodsky
The Cleopatra Papers: A Private Correspondence
Cleopatra: The Film That Changed Hollywood
The Fourth Star of Cleopatra
Archival Footage of the New York Premiere
Archival Footage of the Hollywood Premiere
Theatrical Trailers
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To those who have been wondering about the *Ben-Hur Blu-ray Ultimate Collector's Edition* (it also came out on DVD) that came out on Tuesday, I got my set yesterday and I have started to watch the first half of the film and it looks magnificent. I have a home projector and on a large screen it holds together and is stunning. I haven't gotten to the second and third discs (the third has the extras, including the silent version of Ben-Hur in standard definition), but it will be a treat, I am sure of that. The photo book that comes with this is a treat and Charlton Heston's diary on the set looks like fascinating read.
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Fri., Sept. 29th, 1939
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"So for the first challenge, we want you to schedule at least THREE films in a row that tell us more about you." "...your dream job, your religion, what your home life is like, or anything else."
Gee, if only I had been born in a manger, this would be so easy. But since I wasn't, this will be tough for me. But I will try.
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Well, what I hate is when I am out when TCM staffers come to my door to personally update my copy of Now Playing.
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"Gentlemen, you can't fight in here. This is the War Room."
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I am splitting yesterday's post into two sections because it looks like the loading of the 51 posters is taking time for some and may dissuade them from waiting to see what comes up.
Biggest post yet (51 posters pictured)!!!
The 1960s - The British Invasion
As mentioned, in the last installment, some angry young men would continue disliking their lot in life into the 1960s. So let's shove them out of the way, so we can move on to the fun of enjoying London in the Swinging Sixties!
Okay, done.
Now, let's get happening...
"England swings like a pendulum do
Bobbies on bicycles, two by two
Westminster Abbey, the tower of Big Ben
The rosy red cheeks of the little children"
(Hey, did you know that was written and sung by Roger Miller, an American country singer?)
Of all the times I have seen London in movies, I've always felt like the 1960s were the first time I really saw the city. That might very well have been because there was a lot more on-location street filming. Oddly enough, though, I never had a sense that we got that many glimpses into real people's lives. I think that during WWII, the films that came out of Great Britain showed us more of the humanity that existed in their people. That might very well have been because in a war, people are people everywhere. We felt the same loves and the same losses.
Perhaps symbolic of the Sixties, one of the first people we encountered was a charming but reserved spy.
Did the Bond saga come just at a time when England's film products truly went international, much more so than at any other time prior, or was it the cause? Probably a little bit of both. The marketability of Bond was helped enormously by President Kennedy saying he enjoyed the Fleming novels.
As each new Bond film came out, it did seemed each got a bit more silly because of the gadgets. Even the figure of Connery as Bond in the You Only Live Twice poster with the famous crossed-arms Bond stance seems to be saying to us, "This is bloody ridiculous. I don't even have to be here; just have your special effects." (Of course, who am I to talk? My favorite Bond is Thunderball in which he was more hampered down by gimmicks than ever.)
Spy films began flooding the film market, many as spoofs because they realized as a serious adventure they could never out-Bond Bond. But out of the spy flicks, a few do stand out for story and performances.
The early Sixties also had its share of lusty young men and lecherous old ones.
As a matter of fact, James Mason, once a star that all women wanted, was now making a specialty of playing dirty old men in films like Lolita and Georgy Girl . (A turn a decade later in The Last of Sheila would have him playing someone even lower). In Georgy Girl, he kept making advances to a much-younger and much-repulsed woman played wonderfully by Lynn Redgrave.
Georgy Girl was one of those smaller films that succeeded very well on both continents, and a great part of that success came from the film's theme song.
LOL, as a matter of fact, a film wasn't anything in the Swinging Sixties unless the main character had a hit tune written for them. Witness:
Okay, sure, each was a great film unto itself without the song, but how many of those films can you think of without the song tied therein?
Speaking of songs working with a film's popularity, take a look at another British-made film:
It?s nearly impossible to think of it without having the song pop into your head (though, heaven knows, you may wish to forget it altogether, LOL).
Of course, there were a few pictures you went to because of the music...
CONTINUES RIGHT BELOW
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Part 2 of the 1960s
The trend of Epics continued on from the 1950s.
However, the Elizabeth Taylor-Richard Burton version of Cleopatra was the epic that almost brought down Twentieth Century-Fox.
A satire of it, made on the same sets and using the same costumes, was much more entertaining and cost a LOT less.
(Note the similarity in posters. This was deliberate, but the production company fearing some confusion might take place with the customers in what they were going in to see, and had the Carry On poster pulled.)
The public even seemed to like more of the mini-"epics" than the full-blown ones.
And if you could throw in some humor to go with it, so much the better:
War movies, a staple of every decade, got a good workout in the 1960s.
The sounds of bombs bursting in the sky or in the fields or on the seas of England must have startled many a peaceful Britisher in the 1960s.
While men were busy raising flags, women were having their day in UK films.
Already mentioned were Lynn Redgrave in Georgy Girl, and Maggie Smith gave a performance for the ages in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, but other actresses' performances must be remembered and treasured.
Hayley Mills at the start of the decade in Whistle Down the Wind...
...and at the end of the decade in The Family Way.
Rita Tushingham
Julie Christie
Vanessa Redgrave
Vivien Leigh
and Margaret Rutherford
One of the most unusual, and thought-provoking, films to come out of the London scene of the Sixties was Blow-Up.
It may not have answered the question of whether a man was murdered in the park, but it was fascinating to see how the story played out.
Three costume films produced in England in the Sixties are among the best films ever made anywhere:
Each had performances among the best ever seen on screen. Oh, that reminds me...
The following has Laurence Olivier and Maggie Smith in a Shakespearean movie that will leave you gasping for air during the "Put out the light" scene.
The 1960s were an amazing ten years for UK films. Four times out of those ten years, Best Picture Oscars were handed to UK productions: Lawrence of Arabia, Tom Jones, A Man for All Seasons, and...
Speaking of Oscars, while Stanley Kubrick had an excellent decade in England making Lolita, Dr. Strangelove...
...and 2001: A Space Odyssey...
...he never took home an Oscar for Best Director for any of them.
Maybe that is what drove his future star Malcolm McDowell a little violent in "If..."
Oh, sigh, I just realized we began AND ended the Sixties with angry young men. Will there be anything ahead in the 1970s to appease them? (Don't count on it...A Clockwork Orange is coming).
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While I am working on the installment for 1970s to present day, I thought you might enjoy seeing a 1936 campaign book I recently got of a British film caalled Moscow Nights, one of Laurence Olivier's very first movies. This is the U.S. re-title, I Stand Condemned.
(A note: I was scanning on an 11x17 scanner, but even that wasn't large enough to completely capture the page size. They sometimes made these things very big.)
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Camelot was from the U.S. Funny, isn't it?
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No, I haven't but it is supposed to be excellent.
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Split post and placed it in two parts today due to number of posters.
Edited by: filmlover on Sep 29, 2011 3:15 PM
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Or just priced a heck of a lot less for the combo.
Rule Britannia! An illustrated history of British cinema
in Your Favorites
Posted
Not quite done yet, Ugaarte...
I've been saving some of the best art for this, *my selection of...*
*"25 Must-See British Films."*
One word of explanation, I focused these 25 on British-made films made about England or the English people. For this reason, I left off some of my favorite films, such as The Thief of Bagdad, The Third Man, Black Narcissus, Hamlet, The Mouse That Roared, and others.
In alphabetical order
*Alfie*
Come on, can you tell me you can resist a movie where the main character introduces himself to you and then says if you expect to see the opening credits now, you're mistraken? Michael Caine is a cad throughout the movie, but just as the ladies love him for being what he is, so do we. And, naturally, there is also the theme song. A superstar-making film.
*The Boyfriend* (aka The Boy Friend)
Ken Russell directed this backstage musical that's part British music hall and part Hollywood extravaganza. English model Twiggy stars in this spoof, and, surprisingly, she is quite good. Of course, it helps she is playing someone who has no acting experience, an assistant director that is forced to go on when the star injures her foot. (The impact of seeing who that star is comes later on for us, the audience. When the film was first released, the audience was abuzz because she is uncredited; now, many here won't recall her at all, but I won't spoil it. You'll have to see the film.) It's a very enjoyable picture, a love letter to the Hollywood Busby Berkely musicals of the early 1930s, but with its own heart.
*The Bridge on the River Kwai*
Seldom has there been a film that shows the strenth of the British spirit AND the foolishness of military behaviour. Alec Guinness captures both of these perfectly. There is also a fine-tuned performance from former silent film star Sessue Hayakawa as the Japanese camp commandment.
*Brief Encounter*
A film of a man and a woman who meet at a railroad station and end up falling in love. Unfortunately, she is already married. It is a quiet affair, if affair you can call it, but it is of true love that happens when you meet the person you should be with, and the inner gigantic pain that comes of realizing that wanting is not the same as what is allowed. Both Trevor Howard and Celia Johnson are perfect in this film, but Johnson is the one whose heartbreak we share. Beautifully written by Noel Coward and directed by David Lean.
*The Four Feathers*
What do you do when your best friends and your fiancée accuse you of cowardice because you won't go to war? What Harry Faversham did to make them take back their feathers is a tale of incredible bravery. An early Technicolor film.
*Goodbye Mr. Chips*
Robert Donat deservedly won the Best Actor Oscar for this film (yes, even in beating out Clark Gable's performance in Gone With the Wnd). He ages from a young school teacher to an elderly master during the course of the film, and matures from an unliked chap to a much-loved-and-respected man. Greer Garson is lovely, but it truly is Donat's film all the way. When he is an old man, you never feel that is a young man behind the makeup. They say a true performance is in the eyes. Donat's eyes reflect everything good or sad that happen to him.
*Great Expectations*
If you should watch this film after Goodbye Mr Chips, you will be in a for a cultural shock. Chips' strict private school is a joy compared to the graveyard and rundown estate of Great Expectation. And Pip, a young man, loses his heart to the cold, tortuous Jean Simmons, who is being trained by a bitter old woman in the fine art of man-destroying. Moody, terrifying, everything you expect from a story by Charles Dickens.
*A Hard Day's NIght*
Ah, some fun and adventure at last, ha ha! The Beatles star as...the Beatles. Four great lads on a lark through the city on a day of a TV concert. No muckin' about,now! A film that is pure delight from start to finish.
*Henry V*
A patriotic Shakespearean film from World War II. Olivier at his most stagey and showy, but also what you want from a grand play by the Bard at Stratford-On-Avon. The film alternates between actors upon the stage and that of "actors" upon the world. With more films like this, Olivier could have won the second world war all by himself.
*Hobson's Choice*
Charles Laughton's name may have top billing and his huge form may fill the posters, but it is John Mills, every meek man's hero, who is the center of the film, with a growing independence and strength in not only opposing his superior, but in gaining the love of Hobson's ambitious daughter. Though John Mills may not have the flamboyance of a James Mason or Stewart Granger, or the pomposity of an Olivier, he certainly was more grounded in the way the general moviegoing public saw themselves. You will likely find him in more films in this list than any other star.
*In Which We Serve*
And this is one of those John Mills films. The only WWII film you ever need to see. A small group of British survivors of their ship being sunk cling desperately to a liferaft. While doing so, memories of their home life fills their minds. This was a masterpiece of the average, everyday man, which is all the more surprising since it was written, directed, and produced by sophisticate Noel Coward. And he starred in it, too. Once you have seen this motion picture, you will be recommending it to others.
*Kind Hearts and Coronets*
You know how there are certain movies that you just need to hear the title of to make you laugh at the rememberance. KH&C is such a film, and all my smiles are due to Alec Guinness in this. He plays various members of a family being disposed of in imaginitive ways. (I just realized what I said earlier about John Mills being in more films on my list isn't correct. Guinness takes that honor.)
*The King's Speech*
The most recent film on the list is not the least in my heart. Colin Forth is an actor whose work I have appreciated in the TV production of Pride and Prejudice (there is no better Mr. Darcy to my way of thinking), as well as the films Love Actually and Bridget Jones's Diary. But he tops all performances with this. You truly feel for him every moment as he battles his stuttering problem. I was surprised Geoffrey Rush was not also nominated in the Best Actor Oscar category, but I am pleased Firth won. Winner of Best Picture.
*The Ladykillers*
Alec Guinness creepy? Heck, yes. In this film when that door opens and the little old lady sees this sleazy-looking man, one feels that here is a charcter that takes evil pills for lunch. Thiose eyes would frighten any one, but she not lets him in, she allows him to board there. Then you have his fellow crooks...er, sorry, "musicians"...as disfunctioning a group of bad guys as you will ever come across. The result? Plenty of laughs.
*The Lavender Hill Mob*
This time, Alec Guinness is a sly employee who gets it into his head to rob his employer of a load of gold bars. And the scheme is further developed when he comes across a person (Stanley Holloway) with a bit of larceny to his character, too. The trouble is they need to have professional help..real crooks, that is. That's where the real fun begins. Watch for Audrey Hepburn in one of her earliest moments on screen.
*The Lion in Winter*
Talk about performances you will remember all your life! If ever there was a case of irrestible force meeting an immovable object, here they are, Peter O'Toole and Katherine Hepburn, respectively. This had to be why large movie screens were invented, because TV is too small to adequately exhibit the power of these two actors when they get going at each other. Two years earlier, Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor played fueding spouses, but their arguments were ugly and much too real to what we might here from a neighbor's home. With O'Toole and Hepburn, however, you fed off the incredible wit and elation of their power struggle.
*A Man For All Seasons*
Robert Shaw was often over the top in his performances, but what a joy to watch. Here as King Henry VIII, he blusters and bellows and struts. What he wants, he must have. Unfortunately, for him the much calmer and moral Sir Thomas More, portrayed by the wonderfully reserved Paul Scofield, disagrees with what the King wants, a separation from the church so he can divorce and get married again. Therein would be conflict enough to create a magnificent story, but this also has basis in historical fact, making the politics of 16th century England all the more fascinating. Winner of 6 Oscars, including Best Picture, Actor (Scofield), and director (Fred Zinneman). Also nominated was Wendy Hiller as Thomas More's wife.
*A Matter of Life and Death* (aka Stairway to Paradise)
"One is starved for Technicolor up there," sighs the guide who has come to Earth to take back crashed English flier David Niven to his final resting place. However, because he came later than the incident took place, the flier has now had time to fall in love with an American girl (Kim Hunter) and she with him. He is put on trial to see if he can stay, but the prosecuting attorney is the spirit of a British-hating Colonial (a wonderfully venomous Raymond Massey). Brilliant film from Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger which makes full use of Technicolor in the Earth sequences.
*A Night to Remember*
Though James Cameron created a more visual representatiion of the Titanic, for facts I would rather watch A Night to Remember. It is only fitting that England produced this film, as the Captain and the crew were English, and the greatest look at how the British could keep a stiff upper lip when duty required it. (One interesting thing, if you can view the 1943 Nazi-propaganda version of the disaster called Titanic, you may spot something familar after seeing A Night To Remember. The ANTR film has taken footage from the 1943 film, only flipping the film so where something went in one direction, now it is going in the other.)
*Notting Hill*
My favorite comedy of all time, no matter the continent. Superbly written and directed, and with a supporting cast that is second to none. Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant are wonderful, and give touching performances, though the romance is a trifle unbelievable. But the mastery of the actors who support them has each of them bringing their character to life. You truly care about them and cheer them by film's end. They really do give eaning to the word "ensemble". But, above all, the script by Richard Curtis, is the film's true masterpiece.
*Oliver!*
LOL, okay, I admit it, Oliver! is an endurance test. The bad: Mark Lester and his singing (though there are rumors it was dubbed by a girl) and Oliver Reed (sorry, I've never liked him). But the good far outweighs the bad: Ron Moody as Fagin, Shani Wallis as Nancy, several excellent songs, and a couple of all-out production numbers, "Consider Yourself" and "Who Will Buy?" Enjoyable, but not anywhere close to being worthy of the Best Picture Oscar it won over A Lion in Winter and Funny Girl.
*Pygmalion*
"I'm a good girl, I am!" To me, Audrey Hepburn was glamour personified, and I could accept her very well as society Eliza, but I always have trouble with her as flower girl Eliza. But I can believe flower girl Wendy Hiller, "that squashed cabbage leaf" as Henry Higgins puts it. And Leslie Howard could play charming very well, but he played droll oh so much better, and never better than here as Higgins.
*Richard III*
A full-bodied performance by Laurence Olivier as the evil Richard makes this a film worth watching, it is something to have you glued to the screen. It saddens me to think how much poor we would be if we had never had Olivier's performances as Shakespearean heroes and villians committed to film. Though I highly disagree with the term "world's greatest actor" being applied to Olivier (in many film roles, I feel Olivier is over-acting, not natural, to the point one doesn't take him seriously) but he is my willing teacher to the best one can see with regards to Hamlet, Othello, Henry, and Richard.
*The 39 Steps*
This is my favorite Hitchcock film, bar one. Hero on the run, accused of a crime he didn't commit, while still trying to stop important secrets from being taken out of the country. Sure, North by Northwest did it in color and with Cary Grant, but The 39 Steps did it first, and didn't take so long getting there. Also Robert Donat is so very enjoyable to watch while being handcuffed to the lovely but troublesome Madeleine Carroll, particluarly in the room where they are spending the night. The way he spins off a humorous yarn of how his whole family was no good charms even her. Plus, the final scene at the music hall where Donat calls out, "What are the 39 Steps?" is among my favorite Hitchcock moments, with the entertainer on stage either going into a sort of glazed-over automatic telling of facts per his occupation, or a professional pride in getting all questions answered correctly.
*To Sir, With Love*
Could you get any more British than the kids and the street people here? I highly doubt it. But best of all was the casting of Sidney Poitier, the teacher we all wish we could have had, the fish out of water at this lower-class English school. Sure, it's almost a reworking of The Blackboard Jungle, which also had Sidney Poitier in the cast, but I prefer TSWL. Judy Geeson is marvelous as the student he is able to make a breakthrough with, and Christian Roberts as the tough guy shows he can grow.