smudge

A couple of old boys I always like are Ronald Squire and Brefni O' Rourke. Squire used to play lots of 'jolly uncle' types, benificent and all that. O'Rouke was excellent as the near bankrupt Lord of the Manor in DON'T TAKE IT TO HEART.

But my ULTIMATE old 'un is the character actor, Charles Victor, for whom the word lugubrious must have been invented :)

Dunno if all these chaps lived to the ripe old ages of A.E. Matthews and the like, but I think they were all excellent !

SMUDGE

Welcome to my house. Enter freely, and of your own will...

paulsroom

I don't think that Finlay Currie could be classed a sweet old boy, but his presence in any film he made was very powerful. Whatever the quality of the film or the actors, you could always remember Finlay Currie's performance. And he added to any film - especially when it was failing in places.

deckard

Although some of Finlay Currie's characters were quite fearsome , he was regarded by his fellow actors as a sweet old boy.....John Mills et al were quite astounded how well he coped with the water scenes in "Great Expectations"(1948)he recalled them being very strenuous and very cold but Mr Currie soldiered on without complaint, bearing in mind he was coming up for his 70's at the time! Slightly ironic don't you think , when Sir John is now knocking on the door of 100!!!Regards, Decks.

"and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock"

Gibbie

Finlay Currie was the quintessential character actor. You never thought about him as a celebrity, etc. He embodied the character on film. I cannot read Great Expectations without thinking of Currie as Magwitch.

It would be good to see John Mills in film again, even at 90+.

Jim

I remember seeing Great Expectations on the pictures when it was new and the graveyard scene with Magwitch scared the crap out of me at my young and innocent age! He was agood old boy!
:)

Good morning boys.

paulsroom

I agree! The opening scene of the Great Expectations is better than any blood and gore horror film that they make today. It was so atmospheric and Finlay Currie's gruff and dominating presence just filled the screen, and sent shivers down your spine. With due respect to today's actors, I cannot see anyone who really compares favourably against his acting stature. He was the character actor par excellence. It was worth going to see the film just for the part he had - however small.

Guybrush Threepwood

One of the problems the BBC would have in re-running many of these episodes is that after his death it became public knowledge that Jimmy was a highly predatory homosexual...and while most of us couldn't give a fig about his private life one way or the other, his catchphrases would be seen in a very different light.

As for sweet old boys..how about Robertson Hare from " All Gas and Gaters? "


Threep

DAVID RAYNER

Jimmy Edwards a homosexual, Guybrush? That's something I haven't heard of before, so it's new to me.

However, Jim's canings in the series were all in good fun and I recall one scene in the cinema spin-off Bottoms Up! where he had to cane about twelve boys at once, so he had them line up and bend over, while he got out this seemingly thirty feet long cane so he could administer the thwack to all the boys at the same time. More hilarious than sado-masochistic, so I'm not sure that would be Politically Incorrect enough for the modern day BBC to take offence at it.

In light of what you said though about his homosexuality, I see your point about him asking boys to bend over. Although we shouldn't confuse homosexuals, who are only attracted to adults of their own gender, with paedophiles or BoyLovers who are only attracted to young adolescent or pre-pubescent boys.

Guybrush Threepwood

Sorry for any confusion ....I wasn't particularly thinking about this in the context of a Boys School...I was merely pointing out the headache that the BBC have...

However...you make a good point about the publics' perception ( or lack of it ) on these matters...BUT do you think that nowadays they would make a TV series set in a boys school with Julian Cleary called "Bottoms Up?"....for all our enlightened outlooks I suspect that would be a bit too far for the Beeb....and it would be pointless trying to point out what "gay" meant and how most convicted child molesters seem to be married etc...etc....they just wouldn't/couldn't listen..

Who was it that said "the lie is half-way round the world before the truth has got it's boots on"?

The BBC don't seem to have the time to explain..they just don't like showing any old clips of "Wacko" because they seem to think that the public wouldn't understand, and that makes them feel uncomfortable.

The beeb think we're all idiots..look how after the balls have emerged in the National Lottery the BBC then put them in ascending order...they obviously feel that their audience can't work out that 17 is lower than 49....so they give us a hand.

Back on topic....sweet old boys?...J.R.Hartley

paulsroom

It seems to me that we have developed an obsession for rooting out any homosexual context in anything and everything now. I thought that society was going forwards instead of backwards. I think that the Donald McGill (I think that's the right name) seaside postcards were just fun, but my American brother-in-law felt that they were extremely rude!!! He wouldn't have understood the humour of the Carry-On films with their risqué and outright outrageous double-entendres. And all the obvious and known homosexual characters and actors appearing in them. While acknowledging that we should be more careful today about how we deal with sexual situations - both privately and publicly - I can't see why we have to review films now, from the sexual inclinations of some of the actors. Sometimes I read a review about a film I've enjoyed and an actor who I admire, only to find further down that the storyline had a hidden homosexual context and that one of the actors was homosexual. So what? Does this make the film a no-no?

It's good that things have 'come of the woodwork' now. The type of things that cases are brought to law against, have been happening throughout centuries; but moral disbeliefs and powerful figures have always prevented it from being revealed. But let's not 'throw the baby out with the bathwater', when we examine people and storylines from homosexual viewpoints. It takes all types to make up a world, and provided each person's individual rights and privacy are respected, we can all live in reasonable harmony.

And who invented this dumb word 'gay' for homosexual? I have to re-adjust my immediate reaction now when watching a past film where a character says 'gay' and actually means happy!!!

DAVID RAYNER

I once asked someone about the origin of the word “Gay” in relation to describing homosexuals and he told me it wasn’t actually a word, but three letters that stood for “Good As You.”

But I think that these days, the BBC would be more concerned with the corporal punishment aspect of Whacko! or Bottoms Up! than with any homosexual connotations.

There is a tendency in the media today to try to deny that this kind of thing ever took place, while in reality, corporal punishment was rife in all schools at the time Whacko! was being transmitted. So audiences of the time, especially young audiences, would have identified with it only too well.

As far as I know, caning on the bottom was largely confined to public schools, while in the state schools and certainly at the Secondary Modern I attended between 1958 and 1962, boys (and girls) were given six of the best across the outstretched palm of the hand they didn’t write with, usually with such brutal force that I remember seeing seemingly tough boys coming out of the headmaster’s study clutching their reddened and swollen hand and whimpering with pain. For contemporary examples of this in British feature films, see Spare the Rod, made in 1961 and Kes, made in 1968.

paulsroom

Thanks for the explanation of the use of "Gay" for homosexuals. I see now how the word is used. It's just a bit unfortunate that someone should have come up with such an acronym, that presents such confusion.

As for the corporal punishment...part of my schooling was at a convent abroad, in the same period as you quote. The religious fathers (ordained, not biological), and one in particular, used to hit recalcitrant boys across the knuckles with the thin edge of the ruler, in front of the class. I can't remember which hand, but many of the boys subject to this punishment were visibly in pain - some returned to their desks in tears. It seems that convent discipline could be very strict. On my return to England, the cane was still in use, but rarely used. Instead humiliation was the most frequent punishment, which I think is just as bad.

I suppose if you show punishment in films as humourous, however much it stays in the past by the age of the film, it could still be miscontrued. You can only go so far with censoring aspects of society shown in films. Films that show outright support in keeping with the beliefs of their time, should, perhaps be consigned to social studies only. But films have to be honest when they're telling a story, however unpleasant some things were. Sanitised history is counter-productive.

deckard

Agreed Paulsroom, Susan Sarandon was was heard to say about the "remake" of "Alfie" that things had to be changed because the way Alfie treated his women would be poltically incorrect these days! Yep maybe so, so why bother making the film in the first place and then calling it Alfie when it can bear little resemblance to the original?

Sanitising history is most certainly counter productive i.e. what of the holocaust? How can an World-wide catastophic event such as that be watered down? It makes a travisty of the memory of those poor souls. Lest we forget. Regards, Decks.

"and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock"

paulsroom

Yes, I think that there are lots of stories, both fictional and real-life, that could make good films. I can't see why some film-makers remake films that were not only successful in the first place, but were of their time as well. The original films have a charm and interest of the period in which they were made, that doesn't need a re-arrangement of the story in time or place. If it's based on a good story but has a different interpretation, then that's fine; but there isn't any real point in keeping the original title in an apparent attempt to attract audiences to go and see the film.