Geoffers

Really looking forward to this. I wonder if they will include the Helen Shapiro one where she was seen recording "Walking Back To Happiness" at Abbey Road? Probably not, but I bet they'll be good anyway. There's another coming in April called Look At Life: British Cold War Jets - no idea what that's about.

Aenima

Thanks for this info. J. SWINGING LONDON looks ace.

Cheers,
A

I'll 'av 'arf

AndrewLA

Could that have been Bob Danvers-Walker? I seem to remember that he also narrated Pathe News every week.

julian_craster

From Julian

When somebody acquires the LOOK AT LIFE 'Swinging London' DVD, please could they post a
list of the films included?


We all want Helen Shapiro !!

Many thanks....

foha80

Received my copy,the shorts are:

Reprt On A River
Shopping By The Ton
Rising To High Office
Coffee Bars
In Gear
Change At The Tower
Fire Over London
Goodbye, Piccadilly
Market Place
Members Only
Top People
On The Meter
Eating High
Down London River

Terry

Stephen Pickard

When I worked for Rank Theatres between 1964 and 1968 I ran many Look At Life shorts. Also, there was a series of wonderfully photographed shorts by Harold Baim. I think they may have ran alternatively with LAL during it's final years. Can't remember for sure.

Stephen Pickard

Stephen Pickard

David Rayner wrote:
Look at Life was narrated by Tim Turner.....
Now there's a voice I miss. To me he was the voice of the Rank Organisation. In 1970/71 I had the opportunity of meeting him. He came into the post-sync theatre at Pinewood, where I was working, to record the narration on the feature of "Carry On Henry". I conjured up the courage to ask him if he was "The Invisible Man" - it wasn't widely known then - and he replied Yes. He said he wasn't on the series at the beginning.
Interesting to know that he did the voice for Todd Armstrong in "Jason and the Argonauts" and also for the trailer!
I think he moved abroad. I have been trying to find out where. Does anybody know where he is? It would have been great if he could have done a commentary for the dvd of "The Invisible Man".

Stephen Pickard

basswatson

I also appeared in a Look at Life film and would love to see it again, as would many of my colleagues in the music business! It was a film about the Junior Guardsmans Company Summer Camp on the Isle of Wight filmed in the summer of 1964. I was a member of the Junior Musicians Wing who were also featured. The film was shown before the premier of Mary Poppins in Leicester Square in December of 1964 when the Orchestra from the Musicians Wing played the draft copy of Tony Fones selection from Mary Poppins. It took me a long time to recover from the shock of looking up from the Orchestra pit and seeing a 20ft high image of myself on the screen. Any further news gratefully received. Richard

Droid

Do any of you remember seeing a 'Look At Life' programe that was filmed in Australia?
My father was filmed for one and I'm trying to find out if I could get a copy from somewhere.
I have a newspaper clipping from the time showing the cameraman and my dad with the caption "Two cameramen from England who have travelled the world filming the "Look at Life" series, yesterday arrived in Orange and filmed several sequences for three new programs."
The story says the cameramen were Mr. Albert Werry and Mr. Ron Granville.
Any info or memories would be nice to hear. Thanks.

Mike Hobart

Where I live in Australia, the newsreel cinema lasted into the 1960s. There was one just around the corner from where I lived, showing newsreels, cartoons, the occasional B-movie and short subjects. Aside from Pathe Pictorial and Look at Life we sometimes got a more upmarket offering from the National Film Board of Canada.

It's great to hear that some of these are now being released on DVD. The art of making such entertaining middle-of-the-road fare seems to have been lost.

catflap

Up here in Melbourne there were five newsreel theatres-

The Times
The Albany
The Star
The Century
The Tatler

The first three eventually became adult theatres, with the Star still operating today as The Crazyhorse, actually the longest continually running 'film' venue in the Melbourne CBD.

There was a terrific movie made in the late 70s called "Newsfront" about the rivalry between Australia's two newsreel production teams. Starring Bill Hunter and Bryan Brown, with Phillip Noyce directing, it is well worth a look for those interested in the subject matter.

NappieB

I remember the Helen Shapiro short. (circa 1961? ...maybe 1962)

That brief documentary made me a Helen Shapiro fan for life! A few weeks later I went out and bought the seven single.

orpheum

There is a very interesting Look At Life on cinemas.I saw it at an organ concert at the Odeon Leicester Square a year or two back.It is all the more nostalgic as many of the cinemas it features are now gone.The funny thing is that in the 60s the cinem,a owners seemed to think that all they needed to do to keep audiences was to "modernise"their cinemas,thus ruinning many fine cinemas in the process.Remember that awful cladding that they put on the outside of most ABCs .

Steve Wigan

Some of the Pathe Pictorials and Look At Life were released on Super 8mm by Derran, from Dudley, and I think Powell Films also released a few titles. These turn up regularly on eBay.Interesting that Harold Baim was mentioned above ..I read a great series of articles about him some years ago in a Kine Veterans magazine (Can't recall the exact title of the mag). Is he not the guy who made 'travelogues' by simply photographing postcards and adding music and commentary, or am I doing him an injustice ? As a child, I was bored rigid by Mining Review, it seemed to go on forever. A 16mm print from this series sometimes comes to light. Does anyone else have memories of 'Signs Of The Times'(?)..an advertising short intoduced by Joan Heal ? It was a bit like the early TV advertising magazine programme 'Jims Inn' featuring Jimmy Hanley.

orpheum

Just to mention that some Pathe Pictorials can be dowloaded from the British pathe website for free.

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