Last weekend was a sad one for film lovers. The black actor Earl Cameron passed away, one month short of his 103rd birthday. He was a true pioneer popular with, and respected by, his peers. Key films he made include Sapphire (1959), Flame in the Streets (1961), Thunderball (1965) and Inception (2010). He also worked extensively in television (Doctor Who, Danger Man and Kavanagh QC, to name but three). The legendary film composer Ennio Morricone also passed away. A strong claim could be made that he was the best in his field, with films such as The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, Once Upon a Time in the West (and in America) and Cinema Paradiso. His TV work included a superb score for The Life and Times of David Lloyd George.

DEVIL GIRL FROM MARS (1954) Saturday 11 July 11.00am-12.55pm Talking Pictures (Channel 81)
This, one of the worst films ever made, is for those members who give the likes of Shoplifters one star! The titular heroine spends time at the Bonnie Prince Charlie Inn looking for a mate - as you would, of course. “While we’re still alive, we might as well have a cup of tea.” Priceless!
THE 39 STEPS (1935) Saturday 11 July 1.15-2.40pm BBC 2
This is as good now as it was on the day of release, with Robert Donat as Richard Hannay, Hitchcock at the helm and Madeleine Carroll as the ice blonde par excellence.
TITANIC (1953) Sunday 12 July 4.50-6.55pm Channel 40
It’s less well known than, and not as good as, A Night to Remember (1958), or the 1997 blockbuster (probably!), but you might like to check it out. Barbara Stanwyck heads the cast.
CHURCHILL (2016) Sunday 12 July 9.00-11.00pm Channel 54
Gary Oldman and Finest Hour had all the awards and audience attention, but Brian Cox, with a decided lack of prosthetic make-up, is very good. The focus is narrower, but effective nonetheless.
NO ROOM AT THE INN (1948) Sunday 12 July 10.00-11.40pm Talking Pictures (Channel 81)
Freda Jackson is excellent as the cruel alcoholic who is put in charge of evacuee children; transferred from a successful play. Dylan Thomas co-wrote the screenplay.
THE BODY SNATCHER (1945) Monday 13 July 9.30-11.05am Channel 40
This mini-masterpiece from Val Lewton’s B-picture unit at RKO, with Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi, is directed by Robert Wise much more imaginatively than The Sound of Music 20 years later!
JOAN OF ARC (1948) Monday 13 July 2.55-5.15pm BBC 2
A splendid failure, I suppose. Victor Fleming had directed GWTW, Ingrid Bergman stars, the colour cinematography is good; it just wasn’t anywhere near the best film of 1948.
MACBETH (2015) Monday 13 July 11.10pm-1.25am Film Four
This is a much better historical drama than Joan of Arc, although we didn’t quite programme it ourselves. Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard make a very good partnership.
CROSSFIRE (1947) Tuesday 14 July 7.40-9.20am Channel 40
Roberts Young, Mitchum and Ryan head the cast in this still topical story of a murdered Jewish GI. RKO did some brilliant A-pictures as well, in amongst the misfires!
THE MAN WHO FINALLY DIED (1962) Tuesday 14 July 7.00-9.00pm Talking Pictures (Ch 81)
This is an OK cold war thriller in which Stanley Baker travels to Bavaria to find out about his father. The stalwart cast includes Peter Cushing and Mai Zetterling.
BOUND (1996) Tuesday 14 July 10.50pm-12.55am Channel 70
Bound is a provocative thriller, with a strong critical reputation, in which two lesbian lovers plot to steal money from the Mob. It is powerful stuff – and certificate 18.
GALLIPOLI (1981) Wednesday 15 July 4.20-6.35pm Film Four
Director Peter Weir (Picnic at Hanging Rock) does an excellent job with this moving drama about the terrible waste of young lives lost in war. Mel Gibson features prominently in an early role.
HOME OF THE BRAVE (1949) Wednesday 15 July 10.05-11.50pm Talking Pictures (Channel 81)
Producer Stanley Kramer switched the play’s theme of anti-Semitism to one of a black GI fighting both prejudice and the Japanese. This is a very rare showing and well worth a look.
COMANCHE STATION (1960) Thursday 16 July 2.55-4.30pm Film Four
Randolph Scott’s penultimate western, nicely filmed in Cinemascope, in which he rescues a woman captive, but has others wanting the reward. It ties with Ride Lonesome in the Boetticher canon!
SALOON BAR (1940) Thursday 16 July 4.35-6.20pm Talking Pictures (Channel 81)
Ealing didn’t just make classic comedies. This is a nice little whodunit, made on a low budget, with Gordon Harker as a bookie turned detective.
THE OUTLAW JOSEY WALES (1976) Friday 17 July 9.00-11.35pm ITV 4 Channel 24
An ex-Confederate guerrilla leads a disparate group into the wilderness. Clint’s second-best (American) western after Unforgiven. The difference: this is classic Clint; Unforgiven is a classic.
20TH CENTURY WOMEN (2016) Friday 17 July 11.20pm-1.10am BBC 2
Mike Mills, the director of Beginners (2012-13 season), made this as a tribute to the women he had known, or who had raised him, and it’s a very enjoyable comedy drama.
 
RANDOM WORDS AND RANDOM MEMORIES
So, everyone is on the move again! We can put behind us (just) the self-isolation of Robinson Crusoe, the first episode of The Twilight Zone, ‘Where is Everybody?’ (in which a pilot – Earl Holliman – finds himself in a town without people), and Bruce Dern’s space cruiser in Silent Running (1971). But, we still have social distancing, of course. Leaving aside Leslie Nielsen’s hysterically funny take on the use of barrier contraception in The Naked Gun (1988), the example we all ought to follow is in The Quiet Man (1952). Matchmaker Michaeleen Flynn has obtained ‘Red’ Will’s permission for Sean Thornton to court his sister. Off they go in the pony and trap, seated back to back, for, as the little man instructed: “no patty fingers and proprieties to be observed at all times.” Clearly, the film was 70 years ahead of its time!

Well, the Wimbledon retrospectives are now in full swing in addition to the football. There is still a decent choice of films, but it’s getting a little harder to find them; in part because some are repeats that have been highlighted in earlier listings. We have noted before how, in recent years, good television has become almost the equal of good cinema; to the extent that some of the film industry’s top talents will readily sign up to a project. This week sees the start of a new nine-part series Mrs America on BBC2 (Wednesday at 9.00pm). It’s the story of stay-at-home Republican housewife Phyllis Schlafly (Cate Blanchett) who scuppered the Equal Rights Amendment to the American constitution in the early 1970s.
4 – 10 JULY 2020
THE STRAIGHT STORY (1999) Saturday 4 July 11.00am-1.15pm Film Four
Very much a change of pace for director David Lynch, Richard Farnsworth is superb as the elderly farmer who travels by lawnmower to visit his sick brother. (2000-01 season, 89%.)
STARMAN (1984) Saturday 4 July 6.20-8.30pm Channel 70
A sci-fi parable that plays out as a romantic comedy and road movie – surely not? Yes, and it deserved its many glowing reviews, particularly an Oscar-nominated Jeff Bridges as the visiting alien.
MAD MAX 2 (1981) Saturday 4 July 10.15-112.15am ITV 4 (Channel 24)
Considered to be just an iconic notch below its progenitor; even so, this is an adrenalin-fuelled, blistering action film with some of the best stunts ever put on screen.
THEY RODE WEST (1954) Sunday 5 July 10.15am-12 noon Channel 40
A week after The Bamboo Prison we have another Robert Francis film; in this one, he’s a doctor determined to help the Kiowa. Again, the cast and director try really hard to be a little different.
THE TRUMAN SHOW (1998) Sunday 5 July 2.30-4.35pm Channel 32
I’m far from being a Jim Carrey fan, but this Big Brother-style satire is brilliantly done and it remains, arguably, his best performance to date.
LOCAL HERO (1983) Sunday 5 July 2.35-4.45pm Film Four
Bill Forsyth’s follow up to Gregory’s Girl is a warm, gentle, funny story about a businessman (Burt Lancaster) trying to buy a Scottish village. The gorgeous landscape is a real bonus.
BROKEN ARROW (1950) Sunday 5 July 4.50-6.55pm Channel 40
This, the second ground-breaking James Stewart western of 1950, is usually cited as changing opinions towards Native Americans. He plays the historical character Tom Jeffords, Debra Paget is Sonseeahray and Jeff Chandler earned excellent reviews as Cochise (and played him twice more).
THE OCTOBER MAN (1947) Monday 6 July 3.00-5.00pm Talking Pictures (Channel 81)
Roy Ward Baker directs an Eric Ambler script; an excellent John Mills tries to prove that he isn’t a murderer (whilst proving, yet again, that he is the most versatile actor Britain has produced).
HELL IS FOR HEROES (1962) Monday 6 July 4.45-6.35pm Film Four
Director Don Siegel and Steve McQueen make an effective partnership for this tense study of a combat unit dealing with a German pillbox, before moving on to even greater acclaim.
CUSTODY (2017) Monday 6 July 11.20pm-1.10am Film Four
Film Four gives a première to our nail-biting French thriller from two seasons ago (2018-19, 82%); Thomas Gioria is amazing as the little boy, you may remember.
WHISTLE DOWN THE WIND (1961) Tuesday 7 July 11.10am-1.10pm Talking Pictures (Channel 81)
This has to be one of the most fondly remembered films of the 1960s. Hayley Mills is wonderful as the child who believes that escaped murderer Alan Bates is Jesus.
FORBIDDEN (1949) Tuesday 7 July 10.00-11.45pm Talking Pictures (Channel 81)
Several films had this title over the years; this British example is the most obscure. Set in Blackpool (but using a lot of stock footage), an ex-serviceman tries to leave his faithless wife.
TIME WITHOUT PITY (1957) Wednesday 8 July 1.25-3.10pm Talking Pictures (Channel 81)
Director Joseph Losey set up in England after being blacklisted – and it was our gain. Michael Redgrave is the father trying to save his son from the hangman’s noose.
ALL THE KING’S MEN (2005) Wednesday 8 July 6.25-9.00pm Channel 32
Sean Penn’s corrupt politician (based on Huey Long) is inferior to Broderick Crawford’s 1949 original, but Jude Law, Kate Winslet and Anthony Hopkins compensate.
OH . . . ROSALINDA!! (1955) Thursday 9 July 11.15am-1.20pm Talking Pictures (Channel 81)
Unlike in the US, large-scale British musicals were comparatively few in number in the 1950s. This is a very clever update of Die Fledermaus from the team of Powell & Pressburger.
DRACULA (1958) Thursday 9 July 11.10pm-12.50am Channel 70
On balance this has to be Hammer’s best film and is certainly Christopher Lee’s definitive portrayal of the count. Hoping it’s the restored print with glorious colour and the fullest ending!
GROUNDHOG DAY (1952) Friday 10 July 6.55-9.00pm Channel 32
Bill Murray is the weatherman who seems to be trapped in the same day over and over again, in this very fine romantic comedy. It was also one of our early successes (1993-94 season, 80%).
THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW (1975) Friday 10 July 10.00pm-12 midnight Channel 81
One of the all-time cult classics that enjoyed a retrospective showing at the Regent a few years ago; you might remember dressing up for the occasion . . . .
 
RANDOM WORDS AND RANDOM MEMORIES
Last week, I referenced the film Giant (1956) and it made me think about stars who were keen to make a film that took them away from their studio-nurtured image and fanbase. (One of the stars was Rock Hudson and he was very good – as he was in Seconds ten years later.) It’s a little different now – studio contracts are not prevalent and the star/actor boundaries are blurred, so it’s not surprising to see Charlize Theron in Monster (2003) and Nicole Kidman in Destroyer (2018).
However, if we go back a generation or two, it was a little riskier and not always successful (Dirk Bogarde as a Mexican bandit in The Singer Not the Song (1960) and John Wayne as Genghis Khan in The Conqueror (1956) come to mind). These I would recommend heartily, though: Farrah Fawcett as a battered housewife in The Burning Bed (1984) and - a little dated now - Elizabeth Taylor as the prostitute in Butterfield 8 (1960); Tony Curtis, superb as The Boston Strangler (1968) with the director, Richard Fleischer, doing another fine job, this time with Richard Attenborough, in 10 Rillington Place (1970). Charles Bronson did Yes, Virginia, There is a Santa Claus (1991) amidst much on-screen mayhem. Robert Mitchum was phenomenal as the psychotic preacher in The Night of the Hunter and Frank Sinatra played a drug addict in The Man with a Golden Arm (1955 was clearly a good year). Sean Connery was impressive in The Hill (1965) during his tenure as James Bond; Olivia de Havilland took on a controversial role in The Snake Pit (1948) and Ray Milland won an Oscar as an alcoholic in The Lost Weekend (1945).  Finally, I must save pride of place for Tyrone Power who fought hard to play a ‘can’t-sink-any-lower’ carnival barker in Nightmare Alley (1947). Guillermo del Toro is currently filming a remake and that doubles its ‘street cred’ at a stroke! I can hardly wait!

 I do try hard (honestly!) not to include too many westerns each week, but they are a staple of daytime scheduling. And two of this week’s choices are recognised as classics; for me, Fort Apache gives more pleasure with each viewing (and it must be around twenty, now). This week’s pickings are quite slim (mental note: an article on character actors, sometime) and so there are three that have a POW theme. I’m sure, though, you will find something worthy of your time!

FORT APACHE (1948) Saturday 27 June 7.30-10.05am Channel 40
Superb western (the first of John Ford’s loose cavalry trilogy) starring John Wayne and Henry Fonda as the martinet colonel who is out-thought by Cochise, strikingly portrayed by Miguel Inclan.
JIGSAW (1962) Saturday 27 June 7.00-9.05pm Talking Pictures (Channel 81)
This is a very decent murder mystery, with good performances from Jack Warner and Ronald Lewis as the detectives and a very atmospheric use of the Brighton locations.
COME BACK TO THE 5 & DIME JIMMY DEAN, JIMMY DEAN (2014) Saturday 27 June 9.05-11.20pm Talking Pictures (Channel 81)
Some 20 years after the filming of Giant, a group of fan club friends (including Sandy Dennis, Cher and Karen Black) reconvenes to commemorate the death of their idol, James Dean. 
HARD TIMES (1975) Saturday 27 June 11.20pm-1.10am Talking Pictures (Channel 81)
I first saw this under its UK title The Streetfighter. Charles Bronson, in one of his best roles, is the bare-knuckle fighter and James Coburn his manager, trying to scrape a living during the Depression.
WENT THE DAY WELL? (1942) Sunday 28 June 12.10-2.10pm Channel 54
We showed this at the Regent for the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee. The story – Nazi soldiers seize an English village – is still powerful, tense and believable.
OLIVER TWIST (1948) Sunday 28 June 6.10-8.30pm Talking Pictures (Channel 81)
Another David Lean master class, from the workhouse opening to the rooftop chase of Robert Newton’s Bill Sykes; the only controversy was over Alec Guinness’s interpretation of Fagin.
NIGHT OF THE DEMON (1957) Sunday 28 June 11.55pm-1.55am Talking Pictures (Channel 81)
This splendid adaptation of MR James’s ‘Casting of the Runes’ is a favourite of mine. The atmosphere builds unnervingly as scientist Dana Andrews seeks to debunk Niall MacGinnis’s ‘fake’ sorcery.
THE ENEMY BELOW (1957) Monday 29 June 4.40pm-6.40pm Film Four
This is an almost perfect example of how to squeeze maximum suspense out of a war setting, without huge set pieces. Robert Mitchum is the destroyer captain hunting Curt Jurgens’s U-boat.
 MAD MAX (1979) Monday 29 June 10.00-11.55pm ITV 4 (Channel 24)
I first saw this on a double bill with Easy Rider (those were the days!). We have a bleak, violent, dystopian future and one heroic cop in black leather; a new star (Mel Gibson) and a new visual style that is still influential today.
THE CAMP ON BLOOD ISLAND (1958) Monday 29 June 11.00pm-12.40am Talking Pictures (Ch 81)
This experimental departure for Hammer (British POWs fear a massacre as World War II ends) was hugely controversial on initial release.
FAIR WIND TO JAVA (1953) Tuesday 30 June 11.00-12.50am Film Four
We’re coming up short today, me hearties! Republic brought in Fred MacMurray to hunt for treasure, but we are still lumbered with Vera Ralston (wife of the studio head) and in-house director Joe Kane. Best watched whilst ironing, is my recommendation!
KING RAT (1965) Tuesday 30 June 4.25-7.15pm Channel 40
Adapted from James Clavell’s novel, George Segal heads a fine, mostly British, cast as the chief finagler in a Japanese POW camp. It makes an interesting companion piece to Blood Island.
THE DAY OF THE TRIFFIDS (1963) Wednesday 1 July 4.00-6.00pm Channel 70
I’ve always found this an enjoyable watch; it’s just a shame that it isn’t a better film. Even so, Howard Keel and Janette Scott are fine, the story grips and there are some very strong moments.
THE MOUNTAIN BETWEEN US (2017) Wednesday 1 July 9.00-11.15pm Channel 47
Kate Winslet and Idris Elba charter a plane only to then crash in some very inhospitable terrain. Again, it isn’t a great film but passes the time amiably enough.
WINCHESTER ‘73 (1950) Thursday 2 July 5.05-6.55pm Film Four
James Stewart and Stephen McNally fight over the ‘one in a thousand’ of the title. This was a landmark production for Stewart, director Anthony Mann and the western.
QUATERMASS AND THE PIT (1967) Thursday 2 July 11.05pm-1.05am Talking Pictures (Channel 81)
Workers unearth a Martian spaceship in a London Tube station. This is the most astutely balanced of the trilogy: good design work and effects, good performances and dialogue, and quite scary.
THE LAWLESS BREED (1952) Friday 3 July 12.25-2.10pm Channel 31
It was only a co-feature that played fast and loose with the real John Wesley Hardin, but if you’d like to catch the film that made Rock Hudson a star . . . .
THE BAMBOO PRISON (1954) Friday 3 July 5.25-7.05pm Channel 40.
I watched this modest production (who’s the informer in a North Korean POW camp?) for the first time in April. It stars Robert Francis, who works really hard to give his character some shading – as he did in the other three films he made, before his death in a plane crash aged 25.
 
RANDOM WORDS AND RANDOM MEMORIES
As I mentioned last week, Saturday 27 June is Global Pride Day. The film terrain is quite different now, of course. Many festivals such as Flare here in the UK are well established and popular and films with gay themes can be made openly in most countries – although, sadly, not in all of them. But could anything be done (or made) back in the day? Well, yes, there were film makers who did what they could and, in 1995, there was an excellent documentary on the subject, The Celluloid Closet. So, some random memories from me, thinking back over several decades of watching films: the gay subtext in Ben-Hur (1959) – interestingly, Rock Hudson had been one of the actors connected to the project – and the famous bathing scene in Spartacus (1960) with Tony Curtis and Laurence Olivier. Mädchen in Uniform (1931) was a ground-breaking German film – remade in 1958 – and, the year before Marlene Dietrich had created a sensation, dressed as a man, in Morocco. The Lillian Hellman play The Children’s Hour was filmed as These Three in 1936 (directed by William Wyler) and then filmed again in 1961, with Audrey Hepburn, under its original title. The same year saw the release of Victim which had a brilliant performance from Dirk Bogarde. Much has been made of the performance of Rita Hayworth in Gilda (1946) but it might be argued that the truly fascinating aspect of the love triangle is the relationship between Glenn Ford and George Macready. 1953 saw the release of Ed Wood, Jr.’s Glen or Glenda (not a good film!) and two key works of the 1960s were The Fox (1967) and The Killing of Sister George (1968). Also, I have rather fond memories of a gentle film, Desert Hearts, released in 1985. The importance of film comedians should not be underestimated, too. Roscoe ‘Fatty’ Arbuckle was very graceful and carried out some outrageous flirtations when dressed as a woman and there is an intriguing (and provocative) book on Laurel and Hardy by Jonathan Sanders, entitled ‘Another Fine Dress.’ 

It’s comforting that the country’s situation has improved these last few days. Quite when cinemas will re-open is an unknown, of course, and it is alarming to hear that 40% of China’s cinemas might not. So, we’ll continue with our weekly list – and hope that you weren’t put off by some of last week’s unusual suggestions! Incidentally, we don’t know HOW the films will be shown – that is to say, in the correct aspect ratio or not. For example, The Alamo (1960) is likely to be transmitted full frame this weekend, whereas it was filmed in Todd-AO and should be letterboxed.

13 – 19 JUNE 2020
TUNES OF GLORY (1960) Saturday 13 June 11.10am-1.25pm Paramount (Ch 31)
Alec Guinness and John Mills spar superbly as two dyed-in-the-wool army officers (although it was Mills who won Best Actor at Venice). It reminds one a little of Olivier and Michael Caine in Sleuth.
NORTH WEST FRONTIER (1959) Saturday 13 June 6.25-9.00pm Talking Pictures (Channel 81)
In 1959, British cinema still had the confidence – and money – to team Kenneth More and Lauren Bacall and film in colour and widescreen. He’s a soldier tasked with protecting a young prince.
COP LAND (1997) Saturday 13 June 11.55pm-2.00am ITV 4 (Channel 24)
With de Niro, Keitel and Ray Liotta also appearing, Sylvester Stallone had to up his game as an out-of-shape New Jersey cop fighting corruption. He succeeded and gave his best performance to date.
DEAD END (1937) Sunday 14 June 12.15-2.05pm Channel 54
This is classic, golden age WB: Joel McCrea sets the good example, Humphrey Bogart the bad, to the kids trapped in tenement hell. Both the sets and the direction by William Wyler are superb.
THE BIG COUNTRY (1958) Sunday 14 June 1.40-4.25pm BBC 2
This saga of two feuding ranchers is as much a majestic soap opera (somewhere between Giant and the TV series Dallas) as a western. Wyler (next up: Ben-Hur) had a great cast to work with (Peck, Jean Simmons, Carroll Baker and Heston) and Jerome Moross composed a truly memorable score.
SUDDEN FEAR (1952) Sunday 14 June 6.00-8.10pm Talking Pictures (Channel 81)
Playwright Joan Crawford is in quite a fix – her husband is planning to kill her. Well, if you marry Jack Palance . . . .
TWO DAYS, ONE NIGHT (2014) Monday 15 June 12.35am-2.05am BBC 2
This well-made French drama from the Dardenne brothers stars Marion Cotillard as a factory worker fighting to save her job with little support from her colleagues.
ANGEL AND THE BADMAN (1947) Monday 15 June 1.45-4.00pm Paramount (Channel 31)
By 1946, John Wayne had enough clout at Republic to become a producer and this is an unusual, noble first effort. He’s the badman and Gail Russell the Quaker who reforms him.
 A KIND OF LOVING (1962) Monday 15 June 11.00pm-1.15am Talking Pictures (Channel 81)
An essential, quite brilliant, kitchen-sink drama with Alan Bates and June Ritchie portraying the young couple whose ‘mistake’ forces them to marry. Thora Hird is equally memorable as the mother.
THE MIRACLE OF MORGAN’S CREEK (1943) Tuesday 16 June 12.40-2.45pm Film Four
This priceless comedy is one of the best of the 1940s. Pregnant Betty Hutton tries to figure out which GI is the father; the real miracle is how Preston Sturges circumvented the censors!
THE KILLING (1956) Tuesday 16 June 2.45-4.25pm Film Four
For most people, Kubrick means Dr Strangelove and The Shining, but it is this film that announced a striking new talent. The planning of a racetrack robbery is meticulous – what can possible go wrong?
A FAREWELL TO ARMS (1932) Wednesday 17 June 7.10-9.00am Talking Pictures (Channel 81)
This version of the Hemingway classic is a little creaky in places, but Gary Cooper and Helen Hayes are very moving, the cinematography is excellent and there’s an outstanding montage sequence.  
THE STARS LOOK DOWN (1939) Wednesday 17 June 3.00-5.00pm Talking Pictures (Channel 81)
Still one of the best British films – Michael Redgrave is the miner looking to get on; Margaret Lockwood the woman he marries. It is rich in detail, evocative and deeply satisfying.
THE FALLEN IDOL (1948) Thursday 18 June 2.45-5.00pm Talking Pictures (Channel 81)
Carol Reed directs again (see previous entry) and Graham Greene contributes to the script, from his original story. A young boy idolises a servant suspected of murder.
THE WINSLOW BOY (1948) Thursday 18 June 5.30-8.00pm Talking Pictures (Channel 81)
The late 1940s was an excellent time for British cinema. Here, an immaculate Robert Donat is the barrister who defends a naval cadet charged with theft.
ST. VINCENT (2014) Thursday 18 June 11.45pm-1.50am Film Four
Bill Murray is on fine comedic form as the rude, cantankerous neighbour of single mum Melissa McCarthy and her son. Incidentally, the film clip on his TV is from Abbott & Costello’s Africa Screams.
THE TIN STAR (1957) Friday 19 June 2.50-4.40pm Film Four
This Anthony Mann western gets better with each viewing. Bounty hunter Henry Fonda reluctantly helps inexperienced young sheriff Anthony Perkins. It is up there with the best of the genre.
NIGHT MAIL (1936) Friday 19 June 4.35-5.00pm Talking Pictures (Channel 81)
Showing here is the legendary documentary short about the Euston to Glasgow Travelling Post Office, set to Britten’s music and the verse of W H Auden.
THE AFRICAN QUEEN (1951) Friday 19 June 5.00-7.10pm Channel 40
This is still as good as prime Hollywood films get. Oscar-winner Humphrey Bogart’s old soak takes missionary Katharine Hepburn down river to take on a German gunboat.
SELMA (2014) Friday 19 June 11.20pm-1.20am
This is a timely showing for a very good recreation of the 1965 marches to advance civil rights. If Martin Luther King’s speeches are not entirely as you remember them, some changes were necessary for reasons of copyright.

​RANDOM WORDS AND RANDOM MEMORIES FROM WEEK 9

THE HILLS ARE ALIVE . . . .
I hope that someone out there enjoyed the majestic Alpine scenery in The Trollenberg Terror (well, okay, it was studio sets and library footage in this instance). Films set in such locations have long been popular, if not prolific. Broadly speaking, they fall into two categories: where the environment is an integral part of the drama, and where the scenery is more of an exploitative backdrop. Almost 100 years ago, in 1924, the famous cycle of German “mountain films” was under way with Mountains of Destiny, soon to be followed by The Holy Mountain (1926) and the stunning The White Hell of Pitz Palü (1929). Leni Riefenstahl, who had appeared in it, went on to make The Blue Light in 1932 and it was this film that brought her to the attention of Adolf Hitler. (She had a photo of herself, from this film, hanging on her bedroom wall until she died.) Fast forward to 2014 and Force Majeure was garnering an equivalent amount of critical praise. In between, Robert Newton searched for Nazi gold in Snowbound (1948), Glenn Ford climbed The White Tower (1950) and Spencer Tracy The Mountain (1956), and Clint Eastwood made The Eiger Sanction (1975). In the exploitative corner, we have The Snow Creature (1956) in which the Yeti is stuck in customs (an early form of quarantine to safeguard one’s borders, I suppose), Hammer’s The Abominable Snowman (1957, ‘set’ in the Himalayas, with Peter Cushing and Forrest Tucker) and Roger Corman’s Ski Troop Attack (1960). The TVM Snowbeast (1977) had Clint Walker, but little else of interest; whereas A Cold Night’s Death (1973) was rather good. However, since it is set in an Arctic research station, I cannot really make a case for it here!

This week’s collection is a little different. I have not selected one or two user friendly titles such as Groundhog Day even though it did very well for us (1993-94 season, 80%). Although Shane had to be there (“mother wants you . . . Shane, come back” – ultimately, this was why he couldn’t stay, of course. Such viewing pleasure over the years!) Anyway, it’s perhaps best to think of this week’s list as having been curated by Quentin Tarantino after a Q & A at Cannes. But, even if some of the titles are not normally your cup of tea they do have a lot to commend them. You can always tell me off when we meet again (especially for From Dusk to Dawn). Stay well and healthy.

6 – 12 JUNE 2020
WALK A TIGHTROPE (1964) Saturday 6 June 8.25-10.00am Talking Pictures (Ch 81)
Here is a long-forgotten British crime drama with American Dan Duryea (he of the nasal whine) as an unstable gun-for-hire who is asked to kill a husband.
THE LONGEST DAY (1962) Saturday 6 June 2.00-5.45pm Film Four
It had to be on today, of course. It remains a brilliant reconstruction of the D-Day landings – more so if you have visited the key sites – with an international cast of some 50 stars.
THE TROLLENBERG TERROR (1958) Sunday 7 June 8.20pm-10.00am Talking Pictures (Channel 81)
Ah, the days when a piece of cotton wool was a special effect! Like Quatermass, this was a BBC/low budget crossover with an American import (here it’s Forrest Tucker) fighting an alien presence.
THE TALL T (1957) Sunday 7 June 5.20pm-7.05pm Channel 40
This week, by coincidence, we can catch the BEST Randolph-Budd Boetticher western! It is literate, beautifully framed, wastes not a second and Richard Boone makes a fantastic heavy.
FROM DUSK TO DAWN (1995) Sunday 7 June 11.20pm-1.20am & Weds 10.50 Paramount (Ch 31)
Okay, this is a comedy/horror/heist hybrid in which two vicious robbers take a family hostage and head for Mexico – but the hideout is full of vampires. It’s off the wall, outrageous and very violent!
49th PARALLEL (1941) Monday 8 June 4.35-7.10pm Film Four
This fine Powell-Pressburger wartime drama concerns a U-Boat crew trying to escape across the Canadian wilderness. Leslie Howard, Laurence Olivier and Eric Portman head the cast.
ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK (1981) Monday 8 June 11.20pm-1.25am Paramount (Ch 31)
Futuristic drama (set in 1997!) in which one-eyed convict Kurt Russell agrees to rescue the US president, whose plane has crashed in the prison of Manhattan. Would he do it in 2020?
THE SOUTHERNER (1945) Tuesday 9 June 6.00-8.00am Talking Pictures (Channel 81)
Rare top billing for Zachary Scott and he is superb, as the cotton farmer struggling to support his family. Jean Renoir directs his only American film and it is a quiet masterpiece. 
VERA CRUZ (1954) Tuesday 9 June 2.00-4.00pm Paramount (Channel 31)
There is much interest in the coach full of gold heading for Mexico in this entertaining adventure. Gary Cooper and Burt Lancaster (both so true to their iconic images here) head a great cast of character actors and future stars.
SHANE (1953) Wednesday 10 June 3.25-5.55pm Film Four
Justifiably a cinema legend (and my no. 3 western): Alan Ladd’s finest hour, a great Victor Young score – and colour – and meticulously directed by George Stevens. The novel is a classic, too.
THE SQUARE (2017) Wednesday 10 June 9.00pm-12.05am Film Four
A true ‘Marmite’ film that was too long – and too risky, we felt – to programme. It is a satirical drama, set mostly in a Stockholm art museum that won the Palme d’Or at Cannes.
THE GIRL WITH A PISTOL (1968) Thursday 11 June 8.00-10.00pm Talking Pictures (Channel 81)
A very rare showing on British TV for an Oscar-nominated comedy that isn’t included in most guides. Angry Monica Vitti comes here looking for her seducer and encounters some typical British males.
SEANCE ON A WET AFTERNOON (1964) Thursday 11 June 11.45pm-2.00am Talking Pictures (Ch 81)
Bryan Forbes directs Richard Attenborough and Kim Stanley (Oscar nominated) in the gripping, unusual tale of a celebrity-seeking medium who involves her timid husband in a kidnapping.
WARLOCK (1959) Friday 12 June 12.55-3.20pm Film Four
Character-driven psychological western in which Henry Fonda is asked to clean up the town. Richard Widmark, Anthony Quinn and Dorothy Malone also do great work. As critic Leonard Maltin says “forgotten, but worthy of rediscovery.”
THE BESPOKE OVERCOAT (1955) Friday 12 June 2.30-3.15pm Talking Pictures (Channel 81)
Shorts are often overlooked – and this is a really good one, with Alfie Bass and David Kossoff, that won many awards. Jack Clayton went on to direct the classic thriller The Innocents (1961).
THE L-SHAPED ROOM (1962) Friday 12 June 10.00pm-12.30am Talking Pictures (Ch 81)
Excellent work again by Bryan Forbes, this time with Leslie Caron. She is excellent as Jane, an unmarried, pregnant young woman who comes to London to hide her shame in a tenement bedsit.
​
RANDOM WORDS AND RANDOM MEMORIES FROM WEEK 8
IT’S ALL IN A NAME!
Literally thousands of actors have changed their names completely: Bernard Schwartz became Tony Curtis and Lucille Le Sueur became Joan Crawford; some just shorten them (Thomas Cruise Mapother IV); others took an extra name to consolidate both their images and audience expectations (George ‘Gabby’ Hayes and Al ‘Fuzzy’ St John). What are much rarer, are instances where an actor’s name is misspelt on screen. I was reminded of this watching Man on the Run last Saturday (and I was so pleased I did – it was very good). Kenneth More had a small role in this 1949 drama – and his name was spelt Moore in the opening credits and More in the closing ones! Claude Akins was billed as Akin in The Sea Chase (1955) and, stretching my memory to breaking point, Chief Yowlachie’s name was spelt Yolatchie in the end credits of ‘War Horse’ (an early episode of The Lone Ranger TV series, not the Steven Spielberg film). A mistake in the title of a film is almost unheard of, although when Gail Television bought the rights to the 1931 Buck Jones western Range Feud and changed the graphics, it came out Fued!