samkydd

I have it on DVD, I read the book at school, I've seen TV adaptations, I've seen the film musical, but I grew up watching the original film at Christmas time as a child on telly and it was broadcast on Film 4 this evening, and is still IMHO the best British film ever made.

The cast includes Robert Newton, Alec Guiness, Kay Walsh, Anthony Newley, Peter Bull, Diana Dors, Hattie Jacques, Michael Ripper, John Howard-Davies, Maurice Denham, Francis Sullivan and even Arthur Mullard and Erik Chitty (Please Sir) were in it. It features some of the most striking backdrops of Victorian London ever created, sinister characters, gin soaked squalor and you can almost smell the stench of the river and the rot in the streets.

Yes of course it's David Lean's 1948 masterpiece Oliver Twist. The Dickens' story most of us have heard over and over again throughout our lives, but this version is pure gold (the only let down being Alec Guiness' false Fagin nose which looks like the old Guiness adverts with the macaw) . If you haven't seen the film then do so!

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

Wolfgang

Moor Larkin

My most perfect film has to be the 1976 Assault on Precinct 13. I know it's not the greatest film ever made - it's just that, for what it sets out to achieve, it is the nearest to perfection I have found.

Of course, it's not British... so.... It would have to be ZULU. If Patrick McGoohan had played the Jack Hawkins role, it might just have stayed my one greatest, but it wasn't to be.

I'm sensing a pattern..... but it's just out of my reach....

DB7

It's something of a dead heat between A Matter of Life and Death and Dead of Night; both gained extra significance when I went for a very risky operation a few years. The operation procedure made the elevator scene from Amolad spring to mind but on the way to Birmingham I got caught up behind a black hearse and suddenly thought of Anthony Baird not climbing onboard Miles Malleson's doomed bus. I was genuinely spooked and considered heading home. Both great films driven by strong storytelling.

Wolfgang

Did you see tunnel of light? Do you think that is just your brain shutting down or do think it really could be heaven?

DB7

As I went under I saw the spectre of Steve Crook with a Battle of the River Plate DVD.... yes I was going to hell!

penfold

The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp. The best writing, the best casting (though practically by mistake), the best acting, the best camerawork, the best direction.... it helps that it is at least partly about Englishness, a subject I'm endlessly fascinated with, and that it was made under unbelievable circumstances - in a country at war, with harsh rationing, and with the active opposition of the government of the day, makes it an amazing achievement.
By 1943 Powell and Pressburger had assembled a technical dream team...the credits read like a list of the all time greats...Art Design? Alfred Junge. The greatest. Mattes... W. Percy Day, the man who invented them. Cinematography? Not just Georges Perinal, but Jack Cardiff and Geoffrey Unsworth too.... 2hr43mins, every shot composed and lit like a masterpiece, every line finely crafted and delivered with an understated emotion that just builds...there are several sequences that get me blinking away though I practically know it by heart. Every minor role is a 3D character, there are no ciphers, they all have their own lives continuing when we aren't watching. I wouldn't change one character actor, one extra, from those assembled for the film. Many actors, not just the leads, give career-best performances here.
It's such a shame that as a result of Churchill's blocking tactics, butchering by distributors to bring it into line with normal features, whole generations of film writers didn't see it as it was made. We are more fortunate, and its critical stock is rising...and about time too.....

Bit of a Bay Window, what??

mel walton

saw 'col blimp' in england during the war. Yes, it was great, fine acting by Livesey and Kerr. My vote for best picture; 'On the Avenue', very well done musical. There were so many great ones, it's hard to pick just one. Guess, instead of saying best picture I should say the one I liked best; I keep watching it over and over,

Carmel

It has to be the Carry Ons who the whole world wide never heard of them

WiseFilms

Since this is Brit Forum, I'll first give a deep bow to:
, - (Night of the Demon) , and then say... for all times, it will have to be:
- (La Vie est un Roman), my favorite Alain Resnais film, the one that brings me the most continual joy. I must add, that I think Muriel is better directed, Je'Taime Je T'Aime is more haunting, Last Year at Marienbad is more intriguing, and Providence is more wickedly funny. But there's something to this Life Is a Bed of Roses film, that catches me like no other.

Steve Crook

Well as I may have mentioned before once or twice, for me it's got to be A Matter of Life and Death (1946) [AKA Stairway to Heaven]. I've seen it countless times, on TV and many, many times on the big screen. I know a heck of a lot about it, but it still has the power to move me to tears every time I see it.



It just hits all the right buttons for me. It's wonderfully romantic, but it also covers philosophy, history, religion and many other areas of great interest to me.

Made by The Archers who were not just Powell and Pressburger but also Jack Cardiff, Alfred Junge, Hein Heckroth and many others in a team. Most of whom had been working together for some years and were at the top of their game at this period.

It's got some stunning special effects that are still hard to match in these days of CGI. But they don't make the effects stand out. No big, flame filled explosions here. Some of the best special effects are so naturalistic they're almost unnoticable.

If I was to pick just one aspect of it that makes it stand out from other films, I'd probably pick just the sheer audacity in making a film about life and death so soon after a war where millions had died.

And there's so much depth to it that even someone who has studied everything ever written about it and just about every frame of it can still find more in it. And some of the detail must have taken them weeks to research and put together, yet like the special effects, they're not obvious. They just go to make it all the more realistic - which is odd for a film that is usually classified as a fantasy.

And despite all of that complexity, it is still easily accessible. It leaves a wonderful impression on first viewing. It's often when people realise that it was made so long ago, back in 1945/6 that they express the most surprise.

Steve

djdave

Sergio Leone's The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.

His direction - and Ennio Morricone's music - in the two set piece at the end is movie making of the highest order.

batman

International - On The Waterfront ... marvellous script, superb acting, wonderful music, fantastic locations and photography .... simply a great piece of film making

British - Brighton Rock ... for all the same reasons

Having pain is the worst thing in the whole world!

Ljelja

The Life & Death of Colonel Blimp! Thanx for reminding us, Penfold, great summary.

Torquemada

Does it have to be British? Because if so it's:



But if not it's: