David Brent

A trip to the cinema to watch The Bank Job.

Excellent British drama based on a true story.

Highly recommended.

Dave.

Harleybloke

Don't!

I enjoyed the others but this was far too much CGI and too little acting.

Save ya dosh!

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

Joe Fraguela

Last night's viewing consisted of:-

When The Bough Breaks from 1947 starring Patricia Roc, Rosamund John, Leslie Dwyer, Bill Owen, Brenda Bruce, Patrick Holt, Cavan Malone, Catherine Lacey, Edith Sharpe, Sonia Holm, Muriel George, Joan Haythorne, Torin Thatcher and Jane Hylton.

Patricia Roc plays Lily Bates who finds out in Hospital whilst having given birth to a baby boy that her husband is a bigamist. Unable to cope she hands over her baby to foster parents Frances and Robert Norman played by Rosamund John and Patrick Holt, however, no formal adoption papers were ever signed. Later in life, Lily marries Bill Collins played by Bill Owen, Lily is unable to forget her Son and seeks to get him back.

An extremely well made film which gives a sympathetic view of the difficulties for both the Mother the Child and the foster parents. Very good acting especially from Patricia Roc and Rosamund John. Well recommended.

Following on was Madness of the Heart from 1949 starring Margaret Lockwood, Maxwell Reed, Paul Dupuis, Kathleen Byron, Raymond Lovell, Thora Hird, Maurice Denham, Marie Burke, David Hutcheson, Cathleen Nesbitt, Peter Illing and Pamela Stirling.

Margaret Lockwood plays Lydia Garth who meets debonair Paul de Vandiere, a French nobleman, played by Paul Dupuis. Their begin a whirlwind romance, but unfortunately, Lydia starts getting spells of blurred vision which results in her going blind. Nevertheless, Paul asks Lydia to marry him and he takes her to live at his Parent's Chateau in France. Whilst there, Lydia begins to sense that someone there wants her out of the way permanently. Who can it be and why?

Another very good and enjoyable film starring the lovely Margaret Lockwood.

Lord Brett

Agreed. Also, at what point did McClaine actually become indestructible? The bit with the jump jet killed it for me.

CaptainWaggett

The Young Mr Pitt, thanks to a kind forum member. It's a fine film (though in real life, I believe Pitt wasn't much for the ladies. Or the gentlemen) but did audiences really come out of the cinema thinking 'Hmm...a bold PM trying to rally the people against a dangerous upstart across the Channel. What does that make me think of? I know...I'll join the Home Guard'?

samkydd

I finally got around to watching a DVD I bought ages ago and only half watched at the time, One of Our Aircraft is Missing. I was enthralled by the opening parts and the bombing raid on the Mercedes factory at Stuttgart, but it all went a bit strange after they met up with the Dutch after bailing out.

The amount of food consumed, the numerous costume changes into perfectly tailored "civvies", and the whole atmosphere seemed to get a bit daft and it lost some of the behind enemy lines feel to it.

Perhaps it was made for the feel-good factor at the time.

It was nice to see a boyish Peter Ustinov as the priest and a very young looking Alec Clunes on the church organ though.


I saw this recently for the second time and it reminded me of the TV series 24 but without the hero being computer literate. It was a good adventure but the original Die Hard was almost perfect.

"...the chairman of Littlewoods stores made a Keynote speech!"

Steve Crook

"It all went a bit strange" is a description often applied to P&P films

It was made in 1942 when a lot of aircraft (and crews) were going missing over occupied Europe. There certainly was an element of trying to make the families of the missing airmen feel that they would be well looked after.

But Hugh Williams dressing as a Dutch woman wouldn't have fooled anyone

What about the great performances from Pamela Brown and Googie Withers as the ladies that help the airmen?

And did you notice that there is no soundtrack music? You only hear "natural" sounds and that only includes music when the people in the film would hear music like the church organ or when they're playing records

Steve

batman

I agree .... definitely the worst of the series.

I watch the B-thriller Little Red Monkey. OK, but nothing special, with imported star Richard Conte looking as if he wished he was a million miles away.

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

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

Juniors Farm

Revolution (1985)
This gets a terrible reputation,but i really enjoyed it.

Dave Cigs

'The Curse of Frankenstein' and tonight it will be 'The Revenge of Frankenstein'. I have a full Hammer binge every 3 Summer's or so. Marvellous stuff, thankyou Mr Terence Fisher!!

Steve Crook

The Thirties in Colour

The last part of a 4 part series. Fascinating stuff. The early part of the hour long documentary included quite a few extracts from the World Window series that was made for F.W. Keller. Keller apparently just walked into Technicolor's UK headquarters and asked for a camera and crew that he could take around the world and film his trip at such a standard that it could be shown in cinemas. The lucky cinematographer chosen for this job was the young Jack Cardiff and his operator was the even younger Chris Challis. Jack has told us (& I think it's in his autobiography) of how they lugged the heavy Technicolor camera up Vesuvius and filmed the molten lava. They showed some of that in this documentary and Chris (interviewed) said that as they had no long lenses they had to get so close that it scorched the tripod!

They also filmed and stayed with some Bedouin people in North Africa and visited an Arabian bazaar. They were just one reel travelogues but they must have seemed amazingly exotic to the people who saw them back in depressed and rainy Britain. Even more amazing for Jack & Chris.

This documentary also brought in our friendly expert, Prof Ian Christie, to talk about these travelogues. But I notice that they didn't interview Jack himself.

The rest of the documentary showed lots of other "home movies" in colour (usually Dufay Colour) as people travelled the world, especially in Europe, in the years just before the war. Although they're not the main focus of the film maker's attention you often see people in uniform and lots of Nazi banners in Germany.

One was made by a Jewish American family visiting their relatives in Poland. The relatives didn't survive for a year after the Americans left. The Nazis invaded and the Polish relatives were taken into Auschwitz.

Another one was a man who discovered some old home movies made by his uncle. This uncle turns out to have been a lawyer working for a Jewish organisation in New York who sent him to Germany to get as many Jewish families as possible to leave. He organised passage to South America for quite a few thousand. They had a tough time there, but at least they survived.

They also had some "home movie" footage in colour by various people of the Berlin Olympics in 1936 and they also included some colour "home movies" made by a German girl who filmed her boyfriend and his pals in the Bavarian mountains. Her name was Eva Braun.

Steve

dpgmel

Watches Terence Young's "Corridor of Mirrors" starring Eric Portman. An incredibly atmospheric film, don't want to post any spoilers as I know someone else on here will be watching it soon!.

Very poetic and hard to beleive that Terence Young whp directed it, years later in the 60's would direct the very stodgy "Mayerling "

Well worth catching if you haven't seen it.

Joe Fraguela

Last night's viewing consisted of a 1947 double bill, starting off with The Master of Bankdam starring Anne Crawford, Dennis Price, Tom Walls, Stephen Murray, Linden Travers, Jimmy Hanley, David Tomlinson, Nancy Price, Patrick Holt, Frederick Piper, Beatrice Varley, Avis Scott, Raymond Rollett and a very young Nicholas Parsons.

The film tells the life and times of a Yorkshire mill owner Simeon Crowther played by Tom Walls who has two Sons, Joshua played by Dennis Price, and Zebediah played by Stephen Murray who are constantly clashing over the business of the Mill.

Following on was the Gainsborough melodrama Jassy filmed in glorious Technicolour and starring Margaret Lockwood, Patricia Roc, Dennis Price, Basil Sydney, Dermot Walsh, Linden Travers, Nora Swinburne, Ernest Thesiger, Jean Cadell, John Laurie, Esma Cannon, Beatrice Varley, Eliot Makeham, Jane Hylton, Maurice Denham, Joan Haythorne, Torin Thatcher, Alan Wheatley, Clive Morton, Grey Blake and Susan Shaw.

The delightful Margaret Lockwood is cast as Jassy a gypsy girl with the gift of second sight who is initially shunned as a witch but uses her talent to raise her social standing by marrying the wealthy Nick Helmar played by Basil Sydney.

A very enjoyable film, one of the last Gainsborough melodrama films.

Keechelus

" One of Our Aircraft is Missing. I was enthralled by the opening parts and the bombing raid on the Mercedes factory at Stuttgart, but it all went a bit strange after they met up with the Dutch after bailing out. "

Uh huh. Since WW2 was pretty serious, Powell and Pressburger did the damndest thing: they actually showed us the suspicion between people in occupied countries and uniformed strangers.

The "safety pin" code was a start, followed by the inquisition in the town, and a bloody great argument about how much risk Hollanders would take to rescue the RAF men.

If ONE OF OUR AIRCRAFT is still believable, it is because P&P dared to show how dangerous it was for civilians to support foreign warriors. Later propaganda movies, mostly from USA, glossed over the terror that people were subject to - but this movie dared to show there were cowards amongst our gallant allies. Which made the courage of true heroes more impressive.

CaptainWaggett

This is worth seeing for Dennis Price doing his best impression of Eric Portman in bluff Yorkshire mode. Did he attempt a regional accent again? The disaster movie finale is quite impressive too.