Amethyst_Isle

I watched The Whistle Blower-Michael Caine and Nigel Havers on DVD.

Interesting to note that this PG rated film contained the words F**K and F*****G and spouted by Caine,I never thought this was allowed in a PG film

I would however understand if it was a 12 or 12A but this was not,very strange BBFC.

There's a lot of dignity in that, isn't there? Going out like a raspberry ripple.

ringsider

I watched for the umpteenth time an old video set of "A Man Called Intrepid", a cracking WWII spy mini-series from the late 70s. The 2 stars, David Niven and Michael York were fine, but were both acted off the stage by Barbara Hershey as the heroine of the piece, and by the chief gestapo man, who's name escapes me.

Unfortunately, my videos were recorded (very, very badly) by someone taping from a San Diego TV station. He or she omitted to cut out all of the commercial breaks and, worse, got the picture so dark that some of the action taking place at night is almost impossible to see.

Don't suppose anyone has a clean copy they want to get rid of?


Regards - Bernie

Chevyman

"28 Days Later"

Very bleak but very enjoyable

Must try and watch something "happy" tonight

"One appears to have dropped one's monocle in the soufflee"

Why not visit the Festive Fayre section?

Steve Crook

Sweeney 2 (1978)
This was shown on TV during the week and somehow I'd never seen it before.
It was better than the first Sweeney feature film, but was still obviously an extended TV show. Interesting, but far from being great.

Nice to see Georgina Hale as the sexy telephonist that Regan tries to chat up.

The villains were a bit unbelievable though. Especially with that bit at the end where they claimed they were trying to set up a new society because they thought that England was finished. Even in 1978 not many of us thought that. Why did they only take £100K from each raid and leave the rest in the getaway car? We're not told. Why did they kill any members of the gang who were wounded in the raid? We're not told.

There's a completely pointless section in the middle with a Frenchman defusing a bomb in a hotel room. Where did the bomb come from? We're not told. But it gives the Sweeney team a chance to have a few drinks in the hotel bar and slag off the other branches of law enforcement.

At the beginning Regan refuses to testify for his old guv'nor (Denhold Elliot) who's being done on corruption charges - because the charges are true. The new guv'nor (Nigel Hawthorne) doesn't have any effect on proceedings.

The road block to stop the getaway after the raid at the beginning of the film causes a lot of damage, but we only see the aftermath. We see one of the villains' getaway cars hitting a van in a later raid. The driver cuts his head and gets blood in his eyes so he crashes it spectacularly. The chief villain then takes off the petrol cap and with one shot from his trade-mark gold plated Purdey shotgun (sawn off) the car blows up. Most unrealistic.

And talking of the shotgun. When the chief villain drops one in an early raid a kid on a skateboard picks it up. But we never hear any more about it.

There are so many dead ends and unexplained things happening in the story. It's almost as if they had a team of writers, a team that didn't talk to each other

Steve

stevie boy

I was going to watch that tonight, cheers Steve

Steve Crook

Oh, it still should be seen if you like The Sweeney. But don't expect greatness

Steve

batman

Some more episodes of the fantastic The Vice with Ken Stott followed by Eisenstein's Ivan The Terrible Part One. A stunning piece of cinema with technical and creative excellence on show in all departments. Superb stuff and highly recommended.

"Boom boom a baby .... Banham Zoo .... Banana pants! Hahahaha"

Windthrop

Ashamed to say that I watched a copy The Pink Panther. Had to give up after 25 mins. I had no expectations of it but it was so feeble I couldn't bear it. Obviously I am wrong because it made enough money to warrent a sequel. Steve Martin and the word remake = good box office. I assume that the target audience (14-30) haven't seen the Sellers originals, which IMHO were not classics but at least had two memorable comic creations from Sellers and Lom. Martin's character completely unembaressed by his disasters and there is no sense of an incompetent man trying to maintain his dignity in trying circumstances.

Thats the joke that killed the Music Hall !

wadsy

Robin Hood & the Quest for the Crown DVD

Richard Greene & the cast from the TV series in a 90 minute feature. Not

brilliant but interesting in the fact that some of the actors play several

different parts. It was fun identifying them.

Chevyman

"The Spy In Black" (recorded)

Very enjoyable, good performances and excellent storyline.

Cameo roles for Esma Cannon and Bernard Miles too

"One appears to have dropped one's monocle in the soufflee"

Why not visit the Festive Fayre section?

Mark O

I agree with you there Steve, better than the first Movie, but a bit incomprehensible in places, such as how does the getaway Car get inside Wandsworth's Arndale Centre, into a Shop, then fly out of the Window?!! it was that scene that was used on Promotional posters at the time.......plus I've always been peturbed by the line "England as a nation is finished, it's course is run, etc etc;", shouldn't 'Britain' as a Nation have been said?........(and the Nation wasn't 'finished' as I recall!)

Good to see a young Diana Weston as an Air Hostess

Mark

Harbottle

Strip Tease Murder (1961) DVD-R. Captain Birds Eye working in a strip joint Well okay John Hewer in his pre-fingers days. A fairly routine thriller from the Danziger Brothers with a few "racy" strip routines thrown in for good measure, which along with the title was probably enough to boost the number of mac wearing viewers. Actually the plot is decent for the D's and quite well played with Kenneth J Warren and a novel method of dispatch.

Shaun

I watched this earlier today courtesy of a friend in the US who recorded it from their better than ours TCM Channel. I hadn´t seen this since I was a child growing up in the colder days of the cold war when it would have been more topical. Not a British film I know but many scenes were filmed in Australia so maybe it half counts. Well worth watching if you´ve never seen it and Ava Gardner is as beautiful as ever.

Shaun

batman

Father Brown - we were a bit disappointed by this to be honest. Alec Guinness is very mannered as FB and Peter Finch rather wasted as Flambaut. Their verbal sparring never really catches fire and the whole thing has a very tired feel to it. Perhaps Robert Hamer was not the best choice of director for this film, as it lacks anything like the lightness of touch needed to bring it off successfully.

"Boom boom a baby .... Banham Zoo .... Banana pants! Hahahaha"

Chevyman

"Blood and Guts"; history of transplant surgery(recorded) and "One Of Our Aircraft Is Missing".

The latter was excellent. I'm rather partial to a good WW2 escape plot

"One appears to have dropped one's monocle in the soufflee"

Why not visit the Festive Fayre section?