smiffy

Just ordered It Bats It Is now in the sale at £9.99

I May be getting older ,but I refuse to grow up

dremble wedge

I'm afraid I'm with Susan Shaw on the matter of kites...

I have the other two to come

Alas, poor Linden, the thrill is in the chase, never the capture.

Joe Fraguela

Last night I watched the atmospheric 1948 film Daughter of Darkness directed by Lance Comfort and starring Anne Crawford, Siobahn McKenna, Maxwell Reed, Barry Morse, Honor Blackman, Liam Redmond, Norman Shelley, Grant Tyler, George Thorpe, George Merritt, Cyril Smith, David Greene, Denis Gordon, Norman Shelley, Arthur Hambling and Iris Vandeleur.

Siobahn McKenna plays Emily Beaudine a young temptress who seems to mesmerise the various men who enter into her life not realising that she is actually a serial killer.

Following on was Flannelfoot, a british crime b-movie from 1953 starring Ronald Howard, Mary Germaine, Jack Watling, Ronald Adam, Gene Anderson, Adrienne Fancey, Stuart Lindsell, Edwin Richfield, Vanda Godsell and Ronald Leigh-Hunt.

Ronald Howard plays a Police Sergeant on the hunt for the mysterious jewel thief turned murderer known as Flannelfoot.

dremble wedge

I'm Not There - Todd Haynes' musing on Bob Dylan with the likes of Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, Richard Gere, Cate Blanchett, Marcus Carl Franklin and Pingu from Nathan Barley playing different facets of the great man.

I really enjoyed it but it's unlikely to mean anything to anyone who isn't a Dylan fan.

batman

The Case of the Bountiful Beauty - a 1964 Perry Mason episode which featured Ryan O'Neal and a certain Maxwell Reed. Very entertaining.

Also ...

Silver Blaze - a 1970s Holmes short with Chrstopher Plummer in his first outing as our hero. An entertaining and faithful adaptation of Doyle's story.

Jingle bells Batman smells ... I heard that at school Daddy.

BAT QUIZ 16 HAS JUST BEEN POSTED IN THE COMPETITION THREAD - 06/01/09

David Brent

The History Boys (2006) - The film adaption of the play of the same name written by Alan Bennett. The film also stars the very same cast who appeared on stage.
Very fine acting it is too.

A small class of intellectually gifted students are striving to be chosen for Cambridge or Oxford. Their teachers, including one who likes to grope his male students, try to help them achieve this.

One odd point - the school is set in Yorkshire, yet non of the students featured appear to have the proper northern accents.

An enjoyable and entertaining film yet at the finish I couldn't help feeling empty and that there should have been more substance to the story.

Dave.

Harleybloke

It's odd watching a film in sepia............... Takes some getting used to. The slo-mo action scenes don't work, frequent sword thrusts removing legs and heads.......................

I'd always understood that the Spartan leader died early on and the point was the remaining Spartans chose death rather than surrender his body to the Persians................................ Wasn't that the moral of the story?

Instead we got the 'epic', Spartan king dies last, looking like a giant pin cushion.

Mind you, how had I always missed Lena Headly? Must put that right over at 'Sexiest actressess'.

Anyway, I wouldn't bother with this one folks apart from Lena.

.....You couldn't hear it, if they were shooting at me with howitzers!

Steve Crook

Have you seen The 300 Spartans (1962) which tells the same story?
That one has David Farrar as Xerxes, the leader of the Persians.
It was while he was trying his luck in Hollywoodland but he could only get roles as "friend of hero" or as the baddie. Never the leading man role he thought he deserved. So after this one, he retired.

Steve

batman

The 300 Spartans was the first film I saw at the cinema ... pretty good it is too.

Jingle bells Batman smells ... I heard that at school Daddy.

BAT QUIZ 16 HAS JUST BEEN POSTED IN THE COMPETITION THREAD - 06/01/09

MovieLover12

I watched Ninotchka starring Greta Garbo.

CaptainWaggett

I just wish Bennett had set in the 1950s as it was full of innaccuracies about the 1980s (at least the stage version was - can't remember if it was tidied up for the film).

One for the Improbable Ages thread - the lead boy Dominic Cooper, is older than Stephen Campbell Moore who played the young teacher.

Harbottle

Must catch up with some Ye Olde films, but I have been enjoying these this week:

Armchair Theatre: The Omega Mystery (1961). John Gregson and Donald Churchill investigate at a top secret project. Enjoyable with a cast of well known faces including Frank Gatliff and Patrick McAlinney.

Armchair Theatre: The Trial of Dr. Fancy (1964) Superb satire written by Clive Exton and starring Barry Jones, Nigel Stock, Peter Sallis, Norman Bird and Kynaston Reeves. Dr Fancy (John Lee) is accused of performing unnecessary surgery in the form of double leg amputations. Meanwhile Sallis is the owner of a chain of clothing stores specialising in serving customers of diminutive stature.

Two more Armchair Theatre's, really enjoying these I must say. Last night it was Sharp at Four (1964) starring Rosemary Leach and Derek Godfrey, an old fashioned rather warm and amusing story. Tonight The Cupboard (1960) starring wonderful Donald Pleasence doing sinister again to perfection.

lupinpooter

Whereabouts can one get hold of Armchair Theatre productions on DVD please Harbottle? I'd love to see some of these. I have "Scent of Fear" on VHS, but I'm doing a project on the single TV play at the moment, so I'd love to get hold of some more, preferably pre-1963 (i.e. while Sydney Newman was still at the helm).

CaptainWaggett

There's a whole bunch available at UKnova if that helps.

Steve Crook

The Knowledge

See earlier thread about it.

Still a superb piece of television drama after all these years. Wonderful writing from Jack Rosenthall. Superb performances from all, Nigel Hawthorne, Mick Ford, Kim Taylforth (Gillian's sister), Jonathan Lynn, David Ryall, Michael Elphick, Maureen Lipman, Lesley Joseph, and everyone else involved.

The subject matter and the difficulties they go through are as true and relevant today as they were in 1979 when it was first broadcast.


For those from outside our fair city...

The Knowledge
The London taxicab driver is required to be able to decide routes immediately in response to a passenger's request or traffic conditions, rather than stopping to look at a map or ask a controller by radio. Consequently, the Knowledge is the in-depth study of London street routes and places of interest that taxicab-drivers in that city must complete to obtain a licence to operate a black cab. It was initiated in 1865, and has changed little since.

It is the world's most demanding training course for taxicab-drivers; and applicants will usually need at least 12 'Appearances' (attempts at the final test), after preparation averaging 34 months, to pass the examination. Made especially difficult because London wasn't planned, it evolved. It's not laid out on a neat grid system but is a complex mish-mash of roads, streets, lanes, passages and alleyways. Most of them were built with a horse and cart in mind, certainly not the weight of traffic that they have to put up with nowadays. There are one-way systems, road works, temporary diversions due to parades, demonstrations and other things. The best way to drive etween two points often depends on the time of day, the weather, and many other things - even when you know the way.

Course details
The 320 main (standard) routes, or 'runs', through central London of the Knowledge are contained within the 'Blue Book' (officially known as the 'Guide to Learning the Knowledge of London'), produced by the Public Carriage Office which regulates licensed taxis in London. In all some 25,000 streets within a six mile radius of Charing Cross are covered along with the major arterial routes through the rest of London.

A taxicab-driver must learn these, as well as the 'points of interest' along those routes including streets, squares, clubs, hospitals, hotels, theatres, government and public buildings, railway stations, police stations, courts, diplomatic buildings, important places of worship, cemeteries, crematoria, parks and open spaces, sports and leisure centres, places of learning, restaurants and historic buildings.

The Knowledge includes such details as the order of theatres on Shaftesbury Avenue, or the names and order of the side streets and traffic signals passed on a route.

There are separate shorter courses, for suburban London, with 30 to 50 'runs' depending on the sector.

"Knowledge boys"
During training would-be cabbies, known as Knowledge boys (or girls), usually follow these routes around London on a motor scooter, and can be identified by the clipboard fixed to the handlebars and showing details of the streets to be learned that day. In order to pass the Knowledge, applicants must have a clean driving licence and no criminal record, then first pass a written test, which qualifies them to make an 'appearance'. At appearances, Knowledge boys must, without looking at a map, identify the quickest and most sensible route between any two points in metropolitan London that their examiner chooses. For each route, the applicants must recite the names of the roads used, when they cross junctions, use roundabouts, make turns, and what is 'alongside' them at each point.


So next time you get in a black cab (although some are actually red, silver or other colours), and everyone should, at least once in their life, have some sympathy for the driver. He (or she) has been through a very tough course to get into that seat

Steve