This week we have another birthday – James Bond is 90! Sean Connery was born on 25 August 1930 and the BBC is repeating Sean Connery: in His Own Words on BBC 2, 8pm Saturday. The film Entrapment follows. It’s too weak to be a fitting tribute; The Wind and the Lion, showing Friday on Channel 40, is better. On the TV front, and following in the footsteps of such popular series as A Family at War, Enemy at the Door, set in the Channel Islands, starts its run on Talking Pictures next month (Sunday 6 September at 9.00pm).

HUE AND CRY (1947) Saturday 22 August 3.50-5.30pm Talking Pictures (Channel 81)
This, the first of the Ealing comedies (with a script by T.E.B. Clarke), is well worth a look. Alastair Sim and some unruly young ‘uns take on a gang of crooks.
GRAVITY (2013) Saturday 22 August 8.35-10.00pm BBC1
It’s quite unusual, these days, for BBC 1 to show a film at peak time. Gravity, a drama about two astronauts (Sandra Bullock and George Clooney, both excellent) stranded in orbit, was one of the best of its year.
BOYZ N THE HOOD (1991) Saturday 22 August (and Weds 26th) 9.00-11.10pm Channel 32
Unquestionably one of the key films of the 1990s, Boyz is an electrifying drama about what it was (and still is) to be black in inner-city America.
FIVE CARD STUD (1968) Sunday 23 August 6.55-9.00pm Channel 31
If you ever wondered how Agatha Christie would fare out west . . . it’s good fun and entertaining. Dean Martin and Robert Mitchum head a strong cast; genre specialist Henry Hathaway is at the helm and Marguerite Roberts writes the screenplay. A year later, both were working on True Grit.
THE BOOK THIEF (2014) Sunday 23 August 10.00pm-12.30am Channel 4
The Book Thief, the story of a young girl discovering the joys of reading as the Nazis burn ‘inappropriate’ literature, was popular – and successful – both in print and on film.  
CONVICTED (1950) Monday 24 August 8.00-9.50am Channel 40
Glenn Ford was a prolific leading man, always consistent, but some of his work between 1948 and 1955 is obscure. This, in which he’s an ex-GI who pays for an incident in a nightclub, is such a film, but it doesn’t outstay its welcome and remains watchable.
MANHUNTER (1986) Monday 24 August 9.00-11.20pm ITV 4 (Channel 24)
This account of Hannibal Lecktor (Brian Cox, here) predates The Silence of the Lambs. The success of the latter was huge, so Manhunter is often forgotten – a shame, as some close followers of the character and novel think it’s the better film.
COME BACK, LITTLE SHEBA (1952) Monday 24 August 11.00pm-1.00am Talking Pictures (Ch 81)
By 1952, some of the new kids on the Hollywood block were taking the studios into new dramatic territory. Burt Lancaster was great as the failed doctor, but Shirley Booth’s debut won the Oscar.
FALSE COLORS (1943) Tuesday 25 August 7.40-9.00am Talking Pictures (Channel 81)
Yes! The range was a little more threadbare after Hopalong Cassidy left Paramount for UA, but who cares? We have a crooked banker, coveted water rights, Jimmy Rogers (son of Will) making his series debut as the young sidekick, Roy Barcroft as the sheriff (!) and William Boyd besting a young Bob Mitchum in the obligatory brawl!! The Saturday matinee is back, pardner.
NIGHT WITHOUT STARS (1951) Tuesday 25 August 5.05-6.50pm Talking Pictures (Channel 81)
I always thought that David Farrar did better in a secondary role, but he is good here as the partially-blind lawyer tangling with various villains on the Riviera. Winston Graham adapted his own novel.
THE TAKING OF PELHAM ONE TWO THREE (1974) Tuesday 25 August 10.45pm-12.50am Channel 40
The original is still the best: Robert Shaw holds the passengers on a New York subway train for ransom; Walter Matthau is brilliant as the transport cop trying to outwit him.
MARY AND THE WITCH’S FLOWER (2017) Wednesday 26 August 12.45-2.55pm Film Four
Family adventure in which a young girl is taken to a land populated by witches. The Japanese animation is imaginative and there is good voice work from Kate Winslet and Jim Broadbent.
THE BIG OPERATOR (1959) Wednesday 26 August 10.05-11.55pm Talking Pictures (Channel 81)
Not the best film of the week, but perhaps the most interesting. Mickey Rooney cuts loose as a hood on a violent rampage. Shot in Cinemascope and later retitled Anatomy of a Syndicate, it’s another rarity from Talking Pictures in the Wednesday 10pm slot. Say thank you, film fans!
THE KIDNAPPERS (1953) Thursday 27 August 9.30-11.30am Talking Pictures (Channel 81)
Here’s a great little film in which two young boys steal a baby, when their grandfather refuses to let them have a dog. The child actors Jon Whiteley and Vincent Winter were awarded special Oscars.
WONDER (2017) Thursday 27 August 2.30-4.45pm Film Four
A much more recent release that features an impressive performance from a child actor (Jacob Tremblay, also in Room). It’s the absorbing, and moving, story of a boy with a facial disfigurement.
BRIDESHEAD REVISITED (2008) Thursday 27 August 9.00-11.05pm BBC 4
Whilst it isn’t quite good enough to challenge the memories of a remarkable TV series, a strong cast still does the novel justice. A further, brilliant touch from the BBC: immediately afterwards, they are showing a 1960 Face to Face with Evelyn Waugh.
COVER GIRL KILLER (1959) Friday 28 August 8.45-10.30am Talking Pictures (Channel 81)
Terry Bishop, who had been working on several ITC adventure series, was given the chance to direct this British B-picture and he does well. Harry H. Corbett, wearing glasses that would be the envy of Cosmo Smallpiece, is the serial killer working his way through a magazine’s pin-ups.
THE WIND AND THE LION (1975) Friday 28 August 3.00-5.25pm Channel 40
Sean Connery is the Berber chieftain (don’t worry, you’ll adjust to the Scottish burr!) who kidnaps Candice Bergen and her children, much to the annoyance of US President Teddy Roosevelt.
 
RANDOM WORDS AND RANDOM MEMORIES
ON GUARD!
Staying with Maureen O’Hara, from last week, I watched The Long Gray Line (1955) and, courtesy of BBC iplayer, The Spanish Main (1945). It must be thirty years since I saw the latter, but it was pretty much as I remembered it – good Technicolor, Ms O’Hara fine but underused, too much filmed on studio sets and Paul Henreid too colourless for an action hero (and, therefore, confirming the comparisons I was making last week). Having said that, he had a good stab (sorry!) at the main duelling sequence, to my surprise. After ‘The End’ had appeared on screen, I did then turn my thoughts to some favourite swashbucklers. Douglas Fairbanks was the first to catch the eye, and films such as The Black Pirate (1926) hold up very well. He had already played Zorro in 1920 (and some say it was his best film) and Tyrone Power followed suit in 1940; this and The Black Swan (1942) certainly established his credentials. (Guy Williams also enjoyed a lot of success as TV’s Zorro in the late 1950s; some episodes were edited together and released to cinemas.) These films always seemed better with a good villain and the best was probably Basil Rathbone. This shouldn’t surprise us, as he was actually a good fencer – apparently, his enthusiasm for the sport began when he was at Repton School. However, Cornel Wilde could top that – he was a champion fencer with the US Olympic team, before switching to acting. It’s a shame, then, that he made relatively few contributions to the genre and none that are considered classics. Not that you had to be a top fencer to convince in such a role, especially if you had been practising with trainers like the great Fred Cavens. Derring-do made Tony Curtis a star and Stewart Granger’s version of Scaramouche (1952) has one of the greatest of all duelling sequences. Even so, for my money, the no. 1 swashbuckler remains Errol Flynn, with three outright classics and another half-dozen good ones over twenty years. I’ll resist the temptation to discuss the popular TV shows here, but there were several, including Roger Moore as Ivanhoe (‘shout and cheer, adventure is here’ as the song went) and Robert Shaw in The Buccaneers. What is particularly interesting about the latter is that when Robert Shaw did similar work on the big screen, Swashbuckler (1976) was considered to be one of the worst films of the decade. Perhaps things were different once there was no need to protect a fair maiden, although fans of today’s cinema would, no doubt, say that Johnny Depp is the best! And, coming full circle, it is a shame that the likes of Maureen O’Hara, Binnie Barnes (who played the pirate Anne Bonney in The Spanish Main) and Jean Peters (who plays Bonney with considerable gusto in Anne of the Indies, 1951) were rarely asked to do more of the same. When Geena Davis, a good actor, played such a role in CutThroat Island (1995), again, the film bombed.
PS. Sorry about the lack of foreign language films here, but Fanfan la Tulipe (1952) is splendid! 

 Help – are we starting a new week already? We do have some good films for you, although the selection has been getting a little tougher – it’s the height of summer, of course, and we are now seeing earlier choices repeated in the schedules. However, because several major sports events are absent from these same schedules, several channels are treating us to reruns of some TV classics. This week’s prime choice has to be Season 1 of The Bridge (the first four episodes Saturday, BBC 4), the Scandinavian series which is unquestionably one of the best of the decade.
 

I’M ALL RIGHT JACK (1959) Saturday 15 August 6.00-8.05 pm Talking Pictures (Channel 81)
Jack is one of the best by the Boulting Brothers’ team – Ian Carmichael and Terry-Thomas are both great, but the standout performance comes from Peter Sellers as shop steward Fred Kite.
YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN (1974) Sunday 16 August 12.15-2.00am BBC1
Blazing Saddles notwithstanding, this brilliant spoof of the horror genre is Mel Brooks’s best film. It’s more tightly controlled and better cast, with all the characters (monster, hunchback, bride and blind hermit) present and correct.
The FAR COUNTRY (1955) Sunday 16 August 11.25am-1.30pm ITV 4 (Channel 24)
It’s not the best of the Anthony Mann-James Stewart westerns, but is still better than most. The location shooting is excellent and Walter Brennan is faultless although he is almost upstaged by John McIntire’s colourful villain, who rules the town of Skagway.
TWELVE O’CLOCK HIGH (1949) Sunday 16 August 6.15-9.00pm Channel 40
This is a taut, absorbing account of US flyers in England and the intolerable pressures on those who command; Gregory Peck and Dean Jagger are both superb. MGM’s Command Decision (1948) was good also (and Clark Gable served in the war), but this has the edge dramatically.
THE FIGHTING LADY (1944) Monday 17 August 7.50-9.10am Channel 40
Some 60,000 feet of film were shot on board the Essex-class carrier Fighting Lady for this doc. It won an Oscar and the narrator, Lt. Robert Taylor, U.S.N., was always proud of his involvement.
THE GO-BETWEEN (1971) Monday 17 August 11.00pm-1.20am Talking Pictures (Ch 81)
Julie Christie was just about at the peak of her career, when she worked with Alan Bates in this splendid adaptation of the LP Hartley novel.
ONCE UPON A TEXAS TRAIN (1988) Tuesday 18 August 1.10-3.05pm Channel 40
Burt Kennedy was never a top director, but he did a nice line in comedy westerns. The pleasure here comes from watching a veteran cast, with over 1,000 credits between them, go through their paces.
BELLE (2013) Tuesday 18 August 6.55-9.00pm Film Four
Gugu Mbatha-Raw is excellent as Dido Belle, the first mixed-race aristocrat in Britain. Not surprisingly, it did rather well as a Silver Screen presentation at the Regent!  
THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING ERNEST (1952) Wednesday 19 August 7.05-9.00pm Channel 81
This is still regarded as the best version of Oscar Wilde’s comedy of manners; at least in part because it stars Michael Redgrave and the inimitable Edith Evans.
DISTRICT 9 (2009) Wednesday 19 August 9.00-11.20pm Channel 32
District 9 was one of the best, most intriguing sci-fi parables in a long time. Aliens have landed, only to be confined to slums on the outskirts of Johannesburg.
THE BEDFORD INCIDENT (1965) Thursday 20 August 2.55-5.05pm Channel 40
Probably one of the last major features to be made in b/w, which suits the subject matter as Sidney Poitier’s journalist watches captain Richard Widmark’s nuclear war games get out of hand.
THE LOOKING GLASS WAR (1969) Thursday 20 August 9.00-11.10pm Talking Pictures (Channel 81)
For those of you who really like John Le Carré’s novels, this is a good chance to catch an early adaptation. Christopher Jones is the refugee on a mission in East Germany.
HOUNDS OF LOVE (2016) Thursday 20 August 11.15pm-1.25am Film Four
Here we have a nerve-shredding Australian thriller in which a serial-killer couple’s latest victim turns the tables. WARNING – it’s brutal at times and is deservedly certificate 18! Freeview première.
LADY BIRD (2017) Friday 21 August 9.00-10.30pm BBC 2
There are two premières tonight; this, the story of a Californian teenager trying to leave home to study in New York, is the easier watch. (2018-19 season, 76%.)
NOCTURNAL ANIMALS (2016) Friday 21 August 10.00pm-12.20am Channel 32
This is the more difficult watch: a psycho-thriller in which a top-notch cast plays out a series of obsessions that might be fact or fiction. 
 
RANDOM WORDS AND RANDOM MEMORIES
A few evenings ago, I was thinking about which DVD to put on. Jean de Florette was in pole position, but then I had a sudden urge to watch Rio Grande again. The next day, I became aware that we were approaching the 100th anniversary of Maureen O’Hara’s birth: 17 August 1920 (just before midnight, she says in her memoir ‘Tis Herself). So, it seems timely to reflect on her career. Often referred to as the Queen of Technicolor, she was undoubtedly a star and one who could hold her own, physically, with the toughest of leading men. In her sixty or so features, she made half-a-dozen classics including The Hunchback of Notre Dame, How Green Was My Valley and The Quiet Man. And, whilst her perceived persona is one of a feisty, spit-in-your-eye Irish colleen, she could play a scene with considerable delicacy. (In Rio Grande, Ford ‘stops’ the film as she is being serenaded by the Sons of the Pioneers, so that the audience can think about what was, is and can be for her character; she carries off the moment quite beautifully.) Yet, none of her performances brought her even close to a major acting award. Why? In part, perhaps, because she was too much the all-rounder who worked too often with weaker directors (Richard Wallace or George Sherman, say, rather than William Wyler). Also, whilst she spent some time, productively, at Fox, I don’t think she was seen as being valuable enough to deserve the big build up and be given the top assignments, unlike Bette Davis and Olivia de Havilland. Whilst most of us might say these also happened to be better actors, it was easier for them to dominate a scene, in some of their most acclaimed films, when working opposite Paul Henreid, Mark Stevens or Gary Merrill than with Charles Laughton, Tyrone Power, Henry Fonda or John Wayne, as Ms. O’Hara had to.

Apologies for the late posting and shortened week – I have been working away and so couldn’t start the list until the weekend. This meant that I was unable to draw your attention, in time, to The Dark Mirror (a tribute to Olivia de Havilland), Come Back Little Sheba or the first two chapters in Young Eagles, a very rare 12-chapter serial from 1934 promoting the inventiveness of two boy scouts!

THE FLORIDA PROJECT (2017) Monday 10 August 12.35-2.35am Channel 4
This story of six-year-old Moonie and her single mother drew rave reviews (especially for Willem Dafoe), so don’t let the fact that it ‘did my head in’ put you off!
A CRY FROM THE STREETS (1957) Monday 10 August 11.05am-1.00pm Talking Pictures (Channel 81)
If you ever wondered how Max Bygraves fared as an actor, this (or possibly Spare the Rod, 1961) would be the one to check out. He assists Barbara Murray’s social worker and it’s preferable to his ‘I wanna tell you a story’ variety show persona.
THIS WEEK OF GRACE (1933) Tuesday 11 August 6.00-7.50am Talking Pictures (Channel 81)
Gracie Fields’ films are shown infrequently; this one, which isn’t on the Studio Canal 7-film box set, is even rarer. In it, our Gracie is the housekeeper to a wealthy duchess.
DISOBEDIENCE (2017) Tuesday 11 August 9.00-11.15pm Film Four
An estranged Rachel Weisz (who is very good) returns to the Orthodox Jewish community she grew up in.  It was good enough for us to programme, but didn’t quite make the final cut. Première.  
EDWARD SCISSORHANDS (1990) Wednesday 12 August 11.00am-1.05pm Film Four
This excellent comic fantasy announced the arrival of two striking new talents: director Tim Burton and star Johnny Depp. There is a good, late, role for Vincent Price, too.
NEVER LOVE A STRANGER (1958) Wednesday 12 August 10.05-11.55pm Talking Pictures (Ch 81)
The film is barely average, but if you want to see a nascent Steve McQueen’s star power beginning to glow . . . he’s a DA looking to bring an ex-childhood friend to justice.
THE HIGH AND THE MIGHTY (1954) Thursday 13 August 6.05-9.05pm Talking Pictures (Channel 81)
This was the prototype for all the disaster-in-the-skies dramas with an all-star cast (here led by John Wayne, Claire Trevor and Robert Stack). It features an Oscar-winning score by Dimitri Tiomkin.
THE DAMNED UNITED (2009) Thursday 13 August 9.00-10.30pm BBC 4
This drama about Brian Clough’s brief tenure at Leeds United didn’t do well at the Regent, of course. It is rather good though and he is now one of several personalities brought to life by Michael Sheen.
DUEL AT DIABLO (1966) Friday 14 August 1.55-4.00pm Channel 31
James Garner is the scout, and Sidney Poitier the horse trader, helping a cavalry troop out of a tricky situation. Neal Hefti wrote a great jazz-influenced score and it’s a better film than Soldier Blue.
BULLITT (1968) Friday 14 August 9.00-11.10pm ITV 4 (Channel 24)
We end the week with one of Steve McQueen’s truly iconic roles, as a detective assigned to protect a government witness. It features a superb car chase and the film, whilst fictional, takes on extra resonance if you know something of the real life events surrounding Jimmy Hoffa during the 1960s.
 
RANDOM WORDS AND RANDOM MEMORIES
SHIVAREE is an interesting word; if it’s unfamiliar to you, it refers to the hazing tradition carried out, by our American cousins, on a couple’s wedding night. I can recall two uses as a plot device, both from television: Season 3 Episode 19 of The Waltons and a 1959 episode of The Rifleman entitled ‘The Shivaree’. The latter was directed by Joseph H. Lewis and, typically for him, it packs a lot into its 30 minutes including a girl dressed as a boy and a noteworthy turn from that splendid character actor John Anderson. The director’s cult reputation remains high, particularly with regard to his films Gun Crazy, The Big Combo and Terror in a Texas Town. His camera was always mobile and, because he often found a more interesting way to shoot a scene, lesser efforts such as Seventh Cavalry (1956) remain enjoyable even on a fifth viewing. This is evident, too, in his TV work. The Big Valley was a successful series, but hardly groundbreaking. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that ‘Boots with My Father’s Name’ and ‘Night of the Wolf’ were two of the best of its 112 episodes.

First of all, I must make a second apology of the season. Last week’s film Circumstantial Evidence was not the 1945 American B-feature with Michael O’Shea. This was a shame as it is a good little film. Rather it was the 1952 British B-feature starring Rona Anderson. In my defence, I offer the fact that the 1945 version was also listed in some of the national magazines! Anyway, I promise to take extra care with this week’s titles. One good piece of news – the Sky Arts channel will be coming to Freeview sometime around September, I think.
 

GUNMAN’S WALK (1958) Saturday 1 August 10.05-12 noon Channel 40
Quentin Tarantino included this brooding western in his curated season a few months ago: there’s a bad brother (Tab Hunter), a good one (James Darren) and a sturdy Van Heflin as the father.
SUNSHINE ON LEITH (2013) Saturday 1 August 12.50-2.55pm Film Four
This made a very successful Silver Screen a few years ago, due largely to the foot-tapping songs of The Proclaimers. George McKay has since gone on to even greater things in 1917.
THE DESPERATE HOURS (1955) Saturday 1 August 6.15-8.30pm Talking Pictures (Channel 81)
I referred to this brilliant family-held-hostage thriller a while back. Bogie, Frederic March and Arthur Kennedy is a cast made in heaven!
THE FRIENDS OF EDDIE COYLE (1973) Saturday 1 August 9.00-11.05pm Talking Pictures (Ch 81)
This fine drama contains the best performance Robert Mitchum gave in his later years. He’s the informer trying to stay one step ahead of some unsavoury characters.
KUBO AND THE TWO STRINGS (2016) Sunday 2 August 10.55am-1.00pm Channel 13
This is five star, Bafta-winning animation: orphan Kubo searches for a magical suit of armour, accompanied by a snow monkey and a beetle.
THE THIEF OF BAGDAD (1940) Sunday 2 August 1.15-3.20pm Talking Pictures (Channel 81)
This masterpiece, still unrivalled, makes today a great day for fantasy drama. Sabu plays the thief and the score, art direction and Technicolor are just wonderful.
HOWARDS END (1992) Sunday 2 August 6.05-9.00pm Film Four
Two great, serious dramas are also televised today. This, one of the best-ever adaptations of a novel, with Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson, is the one to savour.
DANGEROUS LIASONS (1988) Sunday 2 August 10.30pm-12.25am BBC 1
The second of the day’s heavyweight dramas is set in France prior to the Revolution and is a heady mix of sexual intrigue and deceit.
ALL OVER THE TOWN (1949) Monday 3 August 9.30-11.15am Talking Pictures (Channel 81)
Lyme’s very own film has another run out. It is a well-acted, witty comedy drama that, barely twenty years ago, was thought to be a lost film. The producer, Ian Dalrymple, has a very interesting CV.
BILLY LIAR (1963) Monday 3 August 11.00pm-1.00am Talking Pictures (Channel 81)
For about five years (1958-63) British cinema produced, with a host of new talent, some of its best work. This satirical drama, scripted by Keith Waterhouse and Willis Hall, is one of them.
GIDEON OF SCOTLAND YARD (1958) Tuesday 4 August 11.10am-1.00pm Channel 40
Quite a curio for John Ford, and not a financial success – the US prints were even in b/w. Jack Hawkins is fine in the lead; it’s just that the London character-types are not well drawn.  
DEAD CALM (1989) Tuesday 4 August 11.00pm-1.00am Channel 30
Dead Calm was the breakthrough for both Nicole Kidman and Sam Neill. He’s the husband marooned on a sinking boat; she’s the wife, trapped on another with Billy Zane’s psychopath.
ALL THE KING’S MEN (1949) Wednesday 5 August 10.45am-1.00pm Talking Pictures (Channel 81)
Broderick Crawford seized his one moment of (film) glory (and an Oscar) with both hands, and gave a career-best performance as a corrupt senator. He beat both Kirk Douglas and John Wayne to the award; ironically, JW had refused the role because of the subject matter and his dislike of Harry Cohn, the head of Columbia Pictures.  
THE DRESSMAKER (2015) Wednesday 5 August 11.05pm-1.25am Film Four
Seamstress Kate Winslet returns to the scene of her upbringing, looking to take revenge on those who wished her ill. It did well for us (season 2016-17, 85%).
HIROSHIMA (2005) Wednesday 5 August 10.00-11.30pm BBC 4
This is something a little different – not a film as such, but a drama documentary (narrated by John Hurt) about the events leading up to the dropping of the bomb. It’s followed (11.30pm-12.40am) by Atomic: Living in Dread and Promise, a Storyville documentary, directed by Mark Cousins, that relies solely on the power of archive footage.
ON THE NIGHT OF THE FIRE (1939) Thursday 6 August 9.30-11.30am Talking Pictures (Channel 81)
Director Brian Desmond Hurst turns in a riveting, prototype film noir in which an East End barber (Ralph Richardson) strangles a blackmailer. It’s quite a revelation and seriously recommended.
I WILL FIGHT NO MORE FOR EVER (1975) Thursday 6 August 1.00-3.15pm Channel 40
This TVM tells the story of Joseph, chief of the Wallowa band of the Nez Perces who led the US cavalry a merry dance, for 1,600 miles, in 1877. It’s relatively authentic and done with sensitivity.
ATTACK! (1956) Friday 7 August 1.50-4.00pm Channel 31
Robert Aldrich’s brutal (for the time) war film has three excellent performances from Lee Marvin, Jack Palance and Eddie Albert who daringly (for the time) portrays a captain with a cowardly streak.
THE DANISH GIRL (2015) Friday 7 August 10.45pm-12.45am ITV 1
Eddie Redmayne is brilliant as Einar Wegener, the 1920s artist who yearned for a sex change; Alicia Vikander is equally striking as his sympathetic wife.
 
RANDOM WORDS AND RANDOM MEMORIES
It has been another sad week for film fans, with the death of Olivia de Havilland, aged 104, ending the last great link with Hollywood’s Golden Age. However, it is not quite The End – there are still  industry personnel who can give us an insight into what it was like all those years ago and many of them have featured somewhere in our regular listings. Fans remain well served for the 1950s onwards, with the likes of Clint Eastwood, Carroll Baker, Eve Marie Saint and Dick Van Dyke. We have Glynis Johns (who made an early appearance in this week’s On the Night of the Fire) and Leslie Phillips, and the German actor Hardy Krüger started acting during World War II. The character actors Norman Lloyd (b. 1914) and Nehemiah Persoff (b. 1919) would, I am sure, give fascinating interviews and I have always had a particular interest in actors, like Phyllis Coates and Earl Holliman, who have done both films and a lot of TV work. Before 1950, it gets harder, of course, but Angela Lansbury was making films in the 1940s and Marsha Hunt in the 1930s. Coming full circle, I’d love to interview the child actor Mickey Kuhn, who appeared in GWTW with Miss de Havilland and later played Matthew Garth (as a boy) in Red River.  

 Cinemas are tentatively re-opening, but the likes of The Empire Strikes Back and Grease are only doing very moderate business. You can, of course, go to BBC iPlayer, BFI Player and other streaming sites such as Curzon Home Cinema or Mubi. Otherwise, here we are with the recommendations for next week . . . .
 

CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE (1945) Saturday 25 July 12.30-1.40pm Talking Pictures (Channel 81)
What we have here is a modest, thoughtful time filler in which Michael O’Shea fights with, and accidentally kills, a grocer; his problem is that the eyewitnesses say that it was murder.
CHAMPION (1949) Saturday 25 July 1.40-3.40pm Talking Pictures (Channel 81)
This is one of the great boxing films and part of its greatness is the blistering performance from Kirk Douglas. He’s determined to reach the top and nothing will get in his way. The editing won an Oscar.
NORTH TO ALASKA (1060) Saturday 25 July 4.05-6.35pm Channel 40
This rollicking comedy western (northerner really) has John Wayne and Stewart Granger protecting their claim whilst squabbling over Capucine. Ernie Kovacs is very good in a supporting role.
THE POST (2017) Saturday 25 July 9.15-11.35pm Channel 4
The opening film of our 2018-19 season (90% reaction), with Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks going to press over a US government cover-up, enjoys its Freeview première this evening. 
DEEP IMPACT (1998) Sunday 26 July 4.10-6.00pm BBC 2
One of the first films I saw after hospitalisation; I enjoyed it then and still do. It’s about a comet on a collision course with Earth and is a much more intelligent, and balanced, drama than Armageddon.
THE SALESMAN (2016) Monday 27 July 12.10-2.10am BBC 2
A very clever riff on Death of a Salesman, from the Iranian director of A Separation (2012-13 season, 73%), sees a couple’s marriage become increasingly fractious.
LAURA (1944) Monday 27 July 2.15-3.45pm BBC 2
This is classic film noir and one of the best films of the 1940s, as detective Dana Andrews tries to solve the murder of Laura (Gene Tierney) without falling under the spell she still casts. David Raksin provides a sublime score.
ANIMAL FARM (1954) Tuesday 28 July 11.00am-12.35pm Film Four
This adaptation of Orwell’s allegory, by the team of Halas and Batchelor, was Britain’s first full-length animated film. It’s very good and Maurice Denham’s multiple voice-overs deserve special praise.
IDA (2013) Tuesday 28 July 10.45pm-12.25am Film Four
Ida did very well for us (2015-16 season, 82%); as well as being an intriguing story of a novice nun, in Poland, trying to find out what became of her parents, it is very strong technically.
A TOWN LIKE ALICE (1956) Wednesday 29 July 2.15-4.15pm BBC 2
Jack Lee made two decent war films in the 1950s (The Wooden Horse was the other); in this one, Virginia McKenna and Peter Finch are prisoners of the Japanese in Malaya.
COLD WAR (2018) Wednesday 29 July 9.00-10.45pm Film Four
The free-to-air debut of last season’s success (like Ida, 82%) is a moving romance (in b/w) inspired by the director’s own parents. It is a very impressive piece of work.  
SALT OF THE EARTH (1954) Thursday 30 July 2.15-4.00am Talking Pictures (Channel 81)
This is superb and essential viewing for film lovers, made independently outside the Hollywood system as several of the participants were blacklisted. It was financed by the Miners Union and was completed despite high-level interference.
DEFENCE OF THE REALM (1985) Thursday 30 July 6.50-9.00pm Talking Pictures (Channel 81)
You might have fond memories of this mid-eighties conspiracy thriller in which a veteran reporter (Denholm Elliott) uncovers some government secrets.
BECOMING JANE (2006) Thursday 30 July 9.00-10.50pm BBC 4
For those of you who love anything to do with Jane Austen; here, as her career is just starting, she falls in love with a penniless lawyer. Well, it might have happened!
WAGONMASTER (1950) Friday 31 July 8.00pm-9.40am Channel 40
Wagonmaster was one of John Ford’s small personal favourites; its cast of non-stars acquits itself well and it contains some of his most lyrical moments. Jane Darwell’s trumpet can grate, however!
SABOTAGE (1936) Friday 31 July 11.25am-1.00pm Talking Pictures (Channel 81)
This early Hitchcock stars Oskar Homolka as a cinema manager (!) plotting a terrorist outrage. It is full of tension, and a good marker from Hitch’s British period as to his career trajectory.
POLTERGEIST (1982) Friday 31 July 10.45pm-12.35am BBC 1
Tobe Hooper (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre) foregoes the gore in this mainstream entry, but there is still a frisson or two, as a young child hears a voice from inside the TV set . . . .
 
RANDOM WORDS AND RANDOM MEMORIES
Last week’s film Walking Out featured a father and son stranded in the wilderness. If we keep with the idea of two family members, more or less, what else comes to mind? Sammy Going South (1957) is shown occasionally; technically Sammy has been orphaned, but he does link up rather nicely with Edward G. Robinson’s diamond smuggler! A key work on racial divisions was 1951’s Cry the Beloved Country, with an excellent Canada Lee as the minister looking for his lost son, and the young man’s sister, in Johannesburg. A young Sidney Poitier was also in the cast; the only way he could gain entry to South Africa, was as an indentured servant to producer/director Zoltan Korda. Arguably, the best film of this type is Nicholas Roeg’s 1970 masterpiece Walkabout. Here, Jenny Agutter and her brother (played by Luc Roeg) are stranded in the Australian outback until they are saved by an Aborigine youth. A special word, too, for an episode of The High Chaparral entitled ‘Survival’. The Apache leave Big John and his son Blue in hostile terrain without water, to survive if they can. The use of make-up and close-ups are exemplary and it is a very fine example of 1960s drama. It is Season 1: episode 18 and it might turn up on Channel 67 in the next week or so, in the current run of repeats!
 
 

Welcome to a new week! The football has been going well, the cricket is under way and we have had several Wimbledon rewinds, but we can still find the time for a few films, I hope. Traditionally July and August are quiet months, so it is a pleasant surprise to find that there is a good selection of recent releases, some new to Freeview, this week. Failing that the re-appearance of TV shows from yesteryear continues apace. Since Monday 13 July CBS Justice (Channel 39) has been running The Fugitive, as well as Perry Mason continuing, and ITV 4 (Channel 24) is now showing Dempsey and Makepeace and Robin of Sherwood.
 
FIGHTING COAST GUARD (1951) Saturday 18 July 3.45-5.30pm Talking Pictures (Channel 81)
Another Republic/Joe Kane potboiler (this time with Brian Donlevy) concerns shipyard workers who join up after Pearl Harbor. Just about passes the time, with a cup of tea and slice of cake!
DARK CITY (1950) Saturday 18 July 8.00-10.00pm Talking Pictures (Channel 81)
Charlton Heston’s main feature debut isn’t shown often; probably because he’s a cynical, anti-hero, here, who is stalked by a psychopath. It’s competently done, without hitting the heights.
THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI (2017) Saturday 18 July 9.15-11.30pm Channel 4
This superb drama and character study (Mildred, you might remember, is not happy with the local police) was a big success for us (2018-19 season, 90%) and has its free-to-air première tonight.
JACKIE (2016) Saturday 18 July 11.30pm-1.20am Channel 4
Another Freeview première for this biopic of Jackie Kennedy as she comes to terms with JFK’s assassination. The performances were excellent - as were the reviews – and it was a surprise that it didn’t connect with our members (2017-18 season, 65%). Perhaps it will play better on TV?
THE TWO FACES OF JANUARY (2013) Sunday 19 July 12.45-2.40pm Film Four
This adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s novel has lots of twists and turns, as Viggo Mortensen’s conman accidentally kills a private detective whilst on the run in Greece.
HELL OR HIGH WATER (2016) Sunday 19 July 9.00-11.05pm Film Four
This thriller was reviewed very well on its release. Chris Pine and Ben Foster are the brothers who rob banks to save the ranch; Jeff Bridges is the Texas Ranger hunting them. Highly recommended.
WOMAN IN A DRESSING GOWN (1957) Monday 20 July 12.45-2.35pm Talking Pictures (Ch 81)
The film whose success ushered in a whole series of kitchen sink dramas. Yvonne Mitchell is magnificent as the wife trapped in a stultifying marriage and suffering from clinical depression.
WALKING OUT (2017) Monday 20 July 11.10pm-1.05am Film Four
Our third Freeview première is the story of a father and son stranded in the wilderness. It’s a more modest venture than the first two, but worth a look.
CHUKA (1967) Tuesday 21 July 1.50-4.00pm Channel 31
It’s not brilliant, this long-ago staple of The Saturday Western (entry no. 33 in the list I started in Sept 1975), but is a little different and has a good cast (Rod Taylor, Ernest Borgnine, John Mills).
ODD MAN OUT (1947) Tuesday 21 July 4.35-6.55pm Talking Pictures (Channel 81)
This contains probably the best performance James Mason ever gave. He’s an IRA man on the run in an eerie and unforgiving Belfast; the great Carol Reed directs.
I AM NOT A WITCH (2017) Tuesday 21 July 11.40pm-1.30am Film Four
Another of L.R.F.S.’s almost – but not quite – bookings. A young African girl is accused of witchcraft and sent away, in punishment, to a witch camp.
THE FUGITIVE (1947) Wednesday 22 July 7.30-9.30am Channel 40
The film The Fugitive – an adaptation of  Graham Greene’s The Power and the Glory – was deemed unfilmable at the time and was a financial failure for Argosy, John Ford’s company. Technically it is masterful especially Gabriel Figueroa’s cinematography.
FARGO (1995) Wednesday 22 July 11.45pm-1.50am ITV 4 (Channel 24)
We have listed this Coen brothers’ masterpiece before, but good viewing options are sparse today. And there’s no harm in watching it again – multiple viewings can be rewarding!
PURSUED (1947) Thursday 23 July 12.45-2.50pm Film Four
This is a very unusual psychological drama in a bleak western setting, as Robert Mitchum tries to unlock his childhood trauma, so as to control events rather than be led by them.
SWEET COUNTRY (2017) Thursday 23 July 9.00-11.15pm Film Four
Première no. 4: An Aboriginal farm labourer goes on the run in the Northern Territory after killing a white man in self-defence. Films such like this have done well for us over the years.
THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN (1957) Thursday 23 July 11.10pm-12.45am Channel 70
This is the film that made Hammer studios – Peter Cushing is Baron von Frankenstein, Christopher Lee the monster and a key element is the lurid colour.
PEEPING TOM (1960) Friday 24 July 10.00pm-12 midnight Talking Pictures (Channel 81)
Vilified on release, to the extent that it brought Michael Powell’s mainstream career to a premature close, it is now recognised as a key work in British cinema. Carl Boehm, in a once-in-a-lifetime role, is the photographer-killer who films his victims at their moment of death.
FOR A FEW DOLLARS MORE (1965) Friday 24 July 11.20pm-1.25am BBC2
The second in the famous trilogy (unless you are of the opinion that, chronologically, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly started it) is a fitting tribute to composer Ennio Morricone.
 
RANDOM WORDS AND RANDOM MEMORIES
Rio Lobo (1970) was shown again a couple of weeks ago. I didn’t list it as, whilst it has some great moments, it is the weakest of the five films that Howard Hawks and John Wayne made together. What it does have, is one of my favourite opening credit sequences: filmed as though from the inside of a Spanish guitar with the theme then being used through the film. A good title sequence can be a work of art in itself and add much to one’s enjoyment of the film. For example, think of Maurice Binder’s work on the Bond films, the Pink Panther films, Star Wars (1977) or the genius that was Saul Bass (Anatomy of a Murder and so many others). Some more personal favourites are a bloodied knife cutting through the screen in Duel at Diablo (1966); the reverse crawl employed in Kiss Me Deadly (1955); the revolving bust used in the Edgar Wallace B films. Some of the better quality DVD releases also enable you to enjoy the film as it was presented for roadshow engagements. Ben-Hur (1959) and How the West Was Won (1962) can be purchased with overture, intermission/entr’acte and exit music and it is a wonderful experience!