Since the pandemic, I have wondered if cinema as we know it (or would like it) is still viable. Two films were reviewed in my newspaper last Friday: Air, a film about a training shoe, and a Super Mario Brothers movie. Good grief! Mind you, new TV offerings are also in short supply this week – so we’ll focus on golden oldies (or not-so-golden as the case may be). 
TIGHT SPOT (1955) Saturday 15 April 9.30-11.25pm TP (Channel 82)    
This is quite a rare example of 1950’s film noir: Ginger Rogers is the girlfriend who is reluctant to testify against gangster Lorne Greene (later Ben Cartwright in Bonanza); Brian Keith is her protection and Edward G Robinson the attorney. Director Phil Karlson’s best work was with medium-budget thrillers (although he did make the 1951 Lorna Doone). His The Phenix City Story, released the same year, is a cracker, although neither could match Joseph H. Lewis’s The Big Combo. The 1955 vintage was, truly, a memorable one! 
THE SMALLEST SHOW ON EARTH (1957) Sunday 16 April 3.00-4.40pm TP (Ch 82)         
Expectations for Empire of Light have been high, but it is light years away from this British classic. Bill Travers and Virginia McKenna inherit a run-down cinema; its staff includes Peter Sellers and Margaret Rutherford. The film is a peerless, and respectful, tribute to the dedication and love of film that, for decades, were the mainstay of so many small-town cinemas. 
BILLY THE KID VS DRACULA (1966) Wednesday 19 April 3.00-4.30pm Legend (Channel 41)       
Wow – nice one and thank you, Legend! John Carradine essays the role of Dracula one more time; the famous outlaw who bars his path is played by Chuck Courtney who, if memory serves, played Dan Reid, the nephew of the Lone Ranger, in the popular TV series. (If it doesn’t serve, I’ll apologise next week!) It was the penultimate film of William ‘One Shot’ Beaudine. He started his career directing shorts in 1915, and did some good early work with Mary Pickford, W.C. Fields and our own Will Hay. However, of the 120-or-so films he made after 1938, only a couple rose above the Grade Z level (and this wasn’t one of them). Will members please join me in my prayers: ‘Legend, we implore you to show his final “masterpiece” Jesse James meets Frankenstein’s Daughter’ . . . .

As predicted last week, the Easter weekend has a very familiar look to it: Ben-Hur (1959), two full days of Carry On films on ITV 3, The Ten Commandments (1956) and the classic musicals Easter Parade and The Sound of Music. Three alternatives to these are listed below.
BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID (1969) Saturday 8 April 2.40-4.30pm BBC 2    
Apart from The Magnificent Seven (1960), this is the best western to watch if you do not care for westerns, with Paul Newman and Robert Redford making a perfect team. A clear bonus was Burt Bacharach’s score and there are tribute shows dedicated to the composer later in the evening. 
GILDA (1946) Saturday 8 April 9.30-11.45pm TP (Ch 82)         
Just think – Rita Hayworth removing a glove was one of the most sensuous scenes put on film – and it still is in 2023! Gilda is a splendid film noir set in a seedy casino somewhere in South America. The subtexts, particularly the one involving Glenn Ford and George Macready, remain equally fascinating.
ETERNAL BEAUTY (2019) Sunday 9 April 10.00-11.30pm BBC 2    P       
Members’ favourite Sally Hawkins is very good in this comedy drama. She plays a 40-something woman who has come to terms with her mental illness after being jilted at her wedding some years before. 

Pleased to report that there are more premieres again this week and the Saturday evening slot, following on from Luzzu a week ago, looks especially promising. Easter is on the horizon, of course, and it looks as though the 1961 King of Kings (Good Friday) is leading out the usual suspects . . . .
SO LONG, MY SON (2019) Saturday 1 April 9.00-11.55pm BBC 4    P
The sort of epic saga that would be a mini-series in the US: 20 years, two families, a tragic accident and a subtle dissection of China’s “one-child policy”.  
HERSELF (2020) Monday 3 April 11.15pm-12.50am BBC 2    P       
Members have always appreciated a good Irish drama – and here is another one. Clare Dunne plays a mother who flees a violent husband and sets to work building a new home on a patch of land. Perhaps surprisingly, Phyllida Lloyd (Mamma Mia! And The Iron Lady) is the director. Incidentally, Maureen O’Hara titled her memoir ‘Tis Herself. 
NOW BARABBAS WAS A ROBBER (1949) Tuesday 4 April 6.35-8.15pm TP (Ch 82)         
The rarity for this week has Richard Burton, in only his second film, as an Irish terrorist, and Richard Greene, soon to be Robin Hood for the nascent ITV channel, as a murderer, in a rather compelling prison drama. 
THE SPIRITUALIST (1948) Friday 7 April 11.05pm-12.50am TP (Channel 82)         
Also known as The Amazing Mr X, this is a B-film with some class – and rather unnerving to boot. The cast is modest – Lynn Bari as the grieving widow and character actor Turhan Bey as the psychic – but director Bernard Vorhaus was always adept at making a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. 

In terms of quality TV, this week is very good for comparing the old and the new. The much anticipated 6-part adaptation of Great Expectations begins on BBC 1 on Sunday; the classic Elizabeth R starring Glenda Jackson begins a repeat run on BBC 4 on Thursday. Ms Jackson also looks back on the series and gives a brief introduction before the first episode.
LUZZU (2021) Saturday 25 March 9.00-10.30pm BBC 4    P
Luzzu is an unusual drama, with non-professional actors, about a Maltese fisherman who has to consider breaking the law in order to make ends meet. 
REBECCA (1940) Monday 27 March 3.00-5.35pm TP (Channel 82)       
Alfred Hitchcock never won an Oscar himself, but his Hollywood debut did win the statuette for Best Picture. It remains a classic adaptation of a great novel; we showed it in the 1989-1990 season (our second) and it had an audience reaction of 81%. 
I WAKE UP SCREAMING (1941) Wednesday 29 March 11.00am-12.35pm TP (Channel 82)         
Not as fearsome as the title would suggest – just a very good whodunit with film-noir undertones. The central characters are a sports promoter (Victor Mature); a cop (Laird Cregar); a murdered waitress (Carole Landis) and her sister (Betty Grable). Fox remade it as Vicki in 1953 with Jeanne Crain, Jean Peters and Richard Boone as the cop; that was okay, too, but, to my best recollection, hasn’t been on the terrestrial channels for an awfully long time.

Oh well, I managed to lose my shirt on the Oscars this year – I suppose I will have to re-budget after the £3.00 loss. We are devoid of premieres this week, but you might care to give these a try . . . .
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SOLDIER BLUE (1970) Saturday 18 March 9.00-11.10pm Legend (Ch 41)
For sure, this is a rare showing on Freeview primarily because – assuming it is an uncensored print – it retains both its 18 certificate and its ability to shock and appal us. An account of the 1864 Sand Creek Massacre (and, indirectly, a tilt at Vietnam), I was too young to see it on initial release, but remember the vivid poster work and caption (“stained with the blood of the innocent”) to this day. If it isn’t your cup of tea, why not just catch the opening credits and Buffy Saint Marie’s evocative rendition of the title song? Also showing, at the same time, Friday the 24th.   
THE SNORKEL (1958) Sunday 19 March 7.15-9.00pm TP (Channel 82)       
Once upon a time, this clever thriller would have enjoyed a late night slot. Peter Van Eyck thinks he has committed the perfect murder; however, his stepdaughter grows suspicious. The coda is quite ingenious, too. 
OFFICIAL SECRETS (2018) Tuesday 21 March 10.40pm-12.25am BBC 1         
If you missed Keira Knightley in our most successful evening of recent seasons (audience reaction 96%), here is another opportunity to catch it!
RADIOACTIVE (2019) Wednesday 22 March 11.15pm-1.00am BBC 2       
Rosamund Pike has become an actor of stature; one of those you are happy to watch because you can guarantee she will be good; two notable showcases of her talent would be Hostiles and our recent success A Private War (92%). In Radioactive she plays Marie Curie; a further point of interest for members is that the director, Marjane Satrapi, also gave us Persepolis.

It is Oscar time again! Whilst there has been a misfire or two during the last 95 years, usually I have felt that most of the awards were deserved, give or take. My biggest concern has been the recent decision to widen the Best Film category to make sure popular (formulaic) movies would be included. This year’s top awards should be going to All Quiet on the Western Front, The Banshees of Inisherin and Tár; not Elvis, Top Gun: Maverick or Avatar; the Way of the Water, but we’ll have to wait and see . . . . 
MR JONES (2019) Sunday 12 March 10.00-11.50pm BBC 2   P
This premiere is most welcome – we were expecting to programme it for the 2020-2021 season that was cancelled due to Covid. Based on actual events, it tells the story of Welsh journalist Gareth Jones who, when on assignment in Russia, uncovered the Politburo’s role in the Ukrainian famine of 1932-33.  
THE ASPHYX (1972) Tuesday 14 March 11.05pm-12.50am Legend (Channel 41)       
For a 10-year-period, 1965-1975, the British horror film industry was particularly strong: Hammer and Amicus were rivals, some of Britain’s best actors were signing up to compendium-style films and the likes of Pete Walker (House of Whipcord) were gaining notoriety for their product. The Asphyx was one of the more unusual and intriguing offerings in which a photographer attempts to catch a soul-snatcher at the moment of death. 
THE LUSTY MEN (1952) Wednesday 15 March 1.55-4.10pm Five Action (Channel 33)         
Not, perhaps, what you are thinking: Nicholas Ray (Rebel Without a Cause) directs a rodeo drama that Phil Hardy once called ‘one of the best contemporary Westerns ever’. Susan Hayward and Arthur Kennedy are fine, but it is Robert Mitchum – for my money, one of the most underrated actors in American cinema – who dominates proceedings. 
THE PEANUT BUTTER FALCON (2019) Friday 17 March 11.40pm-1.10am BBC 1       
If you enjoyed Here We Are (and most of you did), and you missed this equally modest enterprise on an earlier showing, do take a look. The story of a young man who ‘escapes’ from his residential home to search for his wrestling hero, it is quirky, affectionate and rather moving. Another plus is a very good performance from Shia LaBeouf as the man who befriends him.