Launder and Gilliat, the Boultings etc.

And other British Cinema less familiar in the US. Continuing the discussion from the Peter Sellers thread. I may cut and paste from that thread to here later.
Just found this https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/handle/20.500.12657/35065/British%20cinema%20of%20the%201950s%20a%20celebration.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

And also this:
http://www.screenonline.org.uk/film/id/487654/index.html

Started thinking about this because of curiosity about I See a Dark Stranger.

Discussion started around here, with my revive: Post by Seductive Barrytown (James Redd and the Blecchs) from peter sellers: is he really so good? on ILX - peter sellers: is he really so good?

In particular this post and beyond:
Post by a ZX spectrum is haunting Europe (Daniel_Rf) from peter sellers: is he really so good?🕸

__Basically feel like I had been taught that there were The Archers, early Hitchcock, the better Kordas and Ealing comedies, steer clear of all the rest._

Some faves that fall outside those borders:

Dance Pretty Lady
Men Are Not Gods
Two Thousand Women
Green For Danger
They Made Me A Fugitive
Snowbound
Good Time Girl
Seven Days To Noon
Home At Seven
The Good Die Young
The Hell Drivers

Cutting this list off at the end of the 50's because after that you get a flurry of activity - Woodfall and the kitchen sink stuff, Hammer, all the groovy 60's films we have a thread for - that I think truly cements the old British star system as a bygone era._

peter sellers: is he really so good? on ILX - peter sellers: is he really so good?

(Converging on getting this trick to work on Zing)

(Which is to start replying in the original thread, then switch in the middle to the other thread and finish composing over there)

When there was Boulting chat in the Sellers thread I forgot to mention Brighton Rock came before they established themselves as a comedy brand - there's a lot of other stuff from that era that's interesting (I won't say compelling). Thunder Rock for instance is a fascinating oddity, splitting the difference between A Christmas Carol and Casablanca. Michael Crawford is a journalist who, disillusioned by his warnings about the rise of fascism being ignored, retreats to a remote island where he becomes obsessed with the captain's log of a ship that had capsized there in the late 19th century. Crawford starts to have actual conversations with its various passengers. It's a bit clumsy and very didactic but absolutely worth a watch imo.

This Scorcese etc list has some interesting non-canonical choices:

https://letterboxd.com/thenoisyeater/list/martin-scorseses-british-book-club-with-additions/

(xp) Michael Redgrave I think you mean!

haha yes

The list Ward posted has a cool background: Edgar Wright got into old British cinema during the pandemic and asked Scorsese if he could recommend any lesser known choices. Scorsese sent back a voice note with like fifty films for him to check out.

You can hear all about it on an episode of the Empire Movie Podcast, though content warning for Tarantino being his usual self.

Thanks

Just skimmed through the beginning of the book on 50s British Cinema I linked in the OP. Pretty good so far.

One name completely new to me is John Guillermin.

Ha, he later went on to make The Towering Inferno and King Kong in the 70s in the US.

Have also never seen or heard of I Was Monty's Double before today, but interesting to note that Bryan Forbes wrote the screenplay. He came up a lot during Peter Sellers season in various ways, one of which was his wife Nanette Newman appearing with Sellers in The Long Arm of the Law. She later of course was in Forbes's The Stepford Wives.

I Was Monty's Double I have definitely seen at least once. Bryan Forbes didn't do much acting once he'd started writing and directing but he has good scene alongside our old friend Peter Sellers in A Shot In The Dark - in the nudist colony Clouseau ends up at.

Oh yeah, forgot about that. With the guitar.

Forbes wrote the screenplay for The League of Gentlemen, an English comedy crime film on a par with The Ladykillers.

Nanette Newman unforgettable as the existentialist in The Rebel -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhXfhYbq92E

Nanette still with us at 91!

She's in "The Wrong Box", directed by Forbes, featuring a dreadfully unfunny cameo from Sellers at his worst.

Yeah, Wrong Box not that great despite having Sellers, Pete and Dud, a very tired and old looking Hancock in the cast. But I'm very fond of The Naked Truth (1957) where Sellers, Terry-Thomas, Peggy Mount and Shirley Eaton are all being blackmailed by a fantastically slimy Dennis Price. Written by Jon Pertwee's brother, Michael.

Michael Caine hideously miscast in The Wrong Box too. Co-written by Larry Gelbart!

... what a cast though!

there's a goon show (starring sellers obv) titled "i was monty's treble" -- plot: the british hatch a cunning plan to confuse the germans

yeah, goon show becomes progressively funnier the more you engage w/ the culture it was parodying

Should've been called "I was Monty's Tremble" amirite?

terrible Casino Royale joek

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ea9_ilC6Dk

Should've just saved that last one for a screenname

Do y'all know the story of Peter Sellers being obsesssed with Nannete and telling Bryan about it? If not, would it even surprise you?

No and no.

In The Wrong Arm of the Law (1962), Peter played opposite Nanette Newman, the glamorous, almond-eyed wife of Peter’s war buddy, Bryan Forbes. “I want to marry Nanette,” Peter confided to Forbes one day. Taking Forbes aside, he admitted to his old friend that he hadn’t broached the subject with Nanette herself, but his attitude on this point was one of forthright honesty. He wanted to clear it with Bryan first; it was a matter of fair play.
“The scene had taken on the characteristics of a Pinter play,” Forbes later wrote. “But I knew it would be a mistake to appear outraged or to mock him: that was not the way to handle Peter.” So Forbes simply proceeded with the conversation, adopting the same patient, solicitous tone that Peter was employing. Bryan Forbes was one of those who sympathized with Peter’s nature: “He was so patently sincere and desperate to do the right thing according to his unique code of ethics.”

FORBES: Of course there’s the children to take into account. SELLERS: You’d always be able to see them…. You’re not angry, are you?

When Nanette Newman learned of her imminent divorce and remarriage, she gently convinced Peter that any intimate relationship with him was impossible, let alone marriage. According to Forbes, “On two occasions he bought a gun and threatened suicide, and both times Nanette somehow calmed him and talked him out of it.”

^from Ed Sikov's Peter Sellers bio.

And people thought Spike Milligan was the crazy one.

otm

Kind of touching how people like Bryan Forbes and Kenneth Griffith seemed to retain some kind of loyalty to Sellers despite all the craziness.

Forbes wrote the screenplay for The League of Gentlemen, an English comedy crime film on a par with The Ladykillers.

The League of Gentlemen was basically (perhaps unintentionally) the Brit Ocean's 11, opening around the same time and sharing the same story concept (a WWII regiment reuniting to commit a big heist).

It's included in the Eclipse Basil Dearden box (also on Criterion Channel, IIRC), which is a pretty strong set overall (the other films being Sapphire, a murder mystery about the death of a beautiful teen who "passed for White"); Victim, about Homosexual blackmail; and All Night Long, a Jazz world version of Othello).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HxYLA6gEcpY

LOG based on a 1958 novel so I think the Ocean's 11 similarity is prob coincidental, at least on the Brit side; didn't know until just now that George Clayton Johnson of Logan's Run fame had a hand in the Ocean's 11 screenplay.

Basil Dearden gets a bum rap as a kind of UK Stanley Kramer due to his preference for Social Problem material - I think Charles Barr is unethusiastic about him in his Ealing book, too - but the man made tons of good movies and a few great ones imo.

Other relevant threads: why are 'british' films shit?

Formerly Relevant Listings Magazine Time Out Lists 100 Best British Films

Anyway this is exactly the kind of stuff I wanted to hear about so keep it up. Have had my eye on those Basil Dearden films on Criterion but have yet to watch one. Sapphire is on there too.

Oh, you did mention that one too, never mind.

Maybe it's thread creep but some Terence Fisher horror movies showed up on TCM for Halloween, been wondering which I should think about watching.

Criterion also has a Spotlight on British Noir collection, which includes Hell Drivers and Losey's Time Without Pity.

Apologies, I’m sure I’ve posted something similar before about Hell Drivers, but it still has the most genre compacted cast I know of - a James Bond, a Doctor Who, The Prisoner/Danger Man, a Man From UNCLE, a Professional, a Phantom of the Opera and Sid Boggle.

... and Uncle Mort from I Didn't Know You Cared.

Terence Fisher hung about for a while before Hammer horror proved to be his ticket to success, making quota quickie crime films and the like. Fisher himself apparently liked romance the best. Can't say I noticed a strong directorial voice in any of the films of his I've seen tho.

...and letterboxd informs me I've seen 14!

I think the four Eclipse-set Deardens are way more fun than they're given credit for (ok calling Victim "fun" is probably weird, but I don't think they have a Kramer-esque treacly preachy quality). I only finally got around to All Night Long the other day, and while it's the least of the four imo, it was still worth seeing for the musicians, the milieu, and McGoohan's twitchy, cretinous Iago. Kicking myself for missing Pool of London when it was on Criterion.

Hammer has it's own thread, although some useful-seeming bfi links are broken: Hammer horror - classic or dud?

Ugh. Its not it's

Having a look at Dearden's filmography and it is indeed impressive, lots of stuff that falls outside his Important Films reputation, too.

One Dearden feature that is in fact very preachy but which I cannot imagine any of my fellow leftist dirtbags not enjoying is They Came To A City, a stagey allegory about Britain's post war future that claims with confidence that there will be no space for capitalist exploiters nor (this is said somewhat more regretfully) old aristocrats in our new society. Very prescient, can't believe he nailed the socialist utopia that we all know the United Kingdom to now be.

also he was just around for so long - from shooting Will Hay comedies to a post-Bond Roger Moore!

Those Will Hay comedies were at Ealing!

Which studio is apparently still up and running.

Since 1902

Wired for sound in 1931.

Yes, like Hammer Ealing has a long history outside of the thing they're known for. They Came To A City also Ealing!

In Mirror for England Durgnat says of Fisher's Hammer films, "...the blend of Technicolor elegance and cold savagery gives something at once frozen and libidinous" which is almost exactly right imho. Fisher was simply the best, most consistent, orchestrator of Hammer's top-end talent - actors, screenwriters, set designers, composers and especially cinematographers, all very skilled at getting the most out of relatively meagre resources. He'd started out as an editor and worked at Gainsborough Studios, so there's that slightly saucy bodice ripping - libidinous - male desire to his colour Gothics, but also a careful, unflashy, rather slow mise-en-scene that speaks of English 'professionalism' and repression - frozen. It seems impossible to recapture, as a viewer, the outrage these films initially provoked - but just occasionally there's a flash of red colour, a snarl of desire, a transgression of middle class good taste that still resonates, fascinates.

Thanks. Think I will at least try to watch The Curse of Frankenstein, (Horror of) Dracula and The Mummy.

Might also be interesting to compare with the RKO approach to horror and/or British folk horror.

Actually I am not sure if people consider Hammer part of folk horror or adjacent to it.

Wouldn't classify much of Hammer as folk horror no, they are hyper Gothic.

Highly recommend The Damned (Losey at Hammer! Oliver Reed as the leader of a scary biker gang! A film that goes wiiiild places and I will say no more) and Cash On Demand (Peter Cushing and Andre Morell, locked room crime film, also a xmas film). Also, not Hammer, but Village Of The Damned is a stone cold classic.

Yeah, seen that last one.

The Damned is also known as These Are the Damned. Shirley Ann Field seems to be in it too.

Shirley Anne Field

Just remarked that Ealing was sold to the BBC in 1955, which seems to have been what prompted Alexander Mackendrick to go to the US and make The Sweet Smell of Success.

The Damned screened at the Quad Cinema back in 2018, so perhaps it will come this way again. I remember it as quirky.

Just remarked that Ealing was sold to the BBC in 1955, which seems to have been what prompted Alexander Mackendrick to go to the US and make The Sweet Smell of Success.

Some (shortish) Ealing threads:
Ealing Comedies- S/D
Ealing Comedies Poll

Just saw a 1957 horror film which I suppose qualifies as British despite an American star and a French American director.

After all, the first person to appear onscreen was none other than Maurice Denham, last seen by me alongside Peter Sellers in After the Fox and Two Way Stretch.

Alexander Mackendrick wrote a book on directing!

Returned library copy of A Mirror for England since it was put on hold by another patron, perhaps I will splurge for my own copy.

Which I did. And now a copy of Charles Barr's Ealing Studios has just arrived.

I watched Heavens Above recently, if ever there was film that the filmmakers didn't have a clue how to end.

I liked the ending but yeah

What is Seance on a Wet Afternoon?

I've had Seance in my Criterion queue for ages but still haven't watched it.

I did just watch I See a Dark Stranger, which was mentioned at the start of the thread and then never again. It's not masterpiece, but I thought it was delightful! It's ultimately pretty light, but at times it seems like it could get much darker, giving Deborah Kerr the opportunity to act a range of emotions but in a much different mode than her Archers work. Should be at least as well known as Night Train to Munich — I suspect the oddly irrelevant title might be part of the problem.

The opening made me wonder what was the first example of 1) intriguing opening scene followed by 2) jump back to the start of the timeline.

Only saw it once years ago but I recall Seance on a Wet Afternoon as v.good, a kidnap drama with a sad, melancholy edge

Seance on a Wet Afternoon is great. I don't know they gave Dickie Attenborough that nose though - brilliant performance from him nonetheless.

i was going to say that Seance was on every other week on Talking Pictures back in the day. and there is was in today's 'upcoming' show.

i hadn't seen it before seeing it on tptv a year or two ago.

Mr. Forbush and the Penguins is on my agenda (for the penguins)
from what i’ve read about it the titular character reminds me a lil of Kevin Ayers so like, what if Kev went to Antarctica instead of Mallorca is the high concept i’ve pointlessly invented for it

I am on record here as being somewhat tough on the Indicator Noir boxes, which to me have a pretty bad average of featuring films that are a) actually noir and b) any good. The Columbia Noir: Made In Britain box is no exception, but does feature two films good for this thread:

The Long Haul - Victor Mature is a GI who married a local and now, at the end of his military service, wants to bring wife and kid back to the States - but the wife wants to stay in Liverpool. So Mature gets a job as a trucker, soon ending caught up in illegal dealings and an attraction to a young cabaret singer played by Diana Dors. Mature is surprisingly great in this, really sells the world weary character in a role originally meant for Robert Mitchum. There's an amazing scene of them trying to drag a lorry across the Scottish countryside. The family stuff is also very complex and well done.

Fortune Is A Woman - Directed by Gilliat! Jack Hawkins plays an insurance man invited to a stately home by sick aristo Dennis Price, only to find...a woman he had met years earlier in Hong Kong (Arlene Dahl). There follows a twisty crime mystery that ends up being quite special in its way of combining a sense of the Gothic (lots of Rebecca vibes) with all this lived in detail of London white collar life. Always struck by how easy going the corporate life seems to be in films from that era, employees able to schedule out-of-country vacations at the drop of a dime for instance. I guess trust was easier when it was even more of an old boy's club and everyone knew each other from school.