The media has recently reported the passing of two industry personnel, the names of whom should be familiar to members. British director Terence Davies - by all accounts a gentle, if tortured, soul -  gave a lyricism to working-class life, particularly in Distant Voices Still Lives (1988), which few of his colleagues have matched. It is a great shame that his films didn’t enjoy a wider acceptance by the public. And, alas, this is reflected by the voting on the films we have shown: The Deep Blue Sea (65%) and A Quiet Passion (57%). In the case of actor Piper Laurie, she is best known for her roles in Carrie (1976), Children of a Lesser God (1986) and her Emmy-nominated performance in the TV series Twin Peaks. She began her career as a ‘contract starlet’ at Universal-International at the same time as Lori Nelson, Tony Curtis and Rock Hudson. In fact she co-starred with Tony Curtis in at least four movies, starting with The Prince Who Was a Thief (1951). According to Mr Curtis, their teaming in this was so popular the studio offered him $30,000 to marry her. However, his dislike of Ms Laurie proved too strong – and he was soon to marry Janet Leigh.   
DREAM HORSE (2020) Saturday 21 October 9.25-11.40pm Channel 4    P              
Based on actual events, Dream Horse stars Toni Collette and Owen Teale as a wife and husband with little money, who put together a syndicate to raise and own a race horse. You don’t even have to like the ‘sport of kings’ to be thoroughly entertained!  
THE GRAVEDIGGER’S WIFE (2021) Sunday 22 October 1.45-3.10am Channel 4    P       
We wanted to programme this drama, for members, in February 2024, but the computer-file format was a risk for us. Set in Somalia (and a boost for film-making there), the gravedigger of the title returns to his home village to raise money for his wife’s operation. It is a worthy addition to Channel 4’s Black and Proud season. You will need to set your recorder Saturday evening, though – or watch it later on their streaming platform!
JULIUS CAESAR (1953) Sunday 22 October 12noon-2pm BBC 2           
Julius Caesar is regarded widely as one of the best screen adaptations of Shakespeare’s plays. The key factor is that it was made at MGM and their resources were second to none. Joseph L. Mankiewicz was a top director (he also adapted the screenplay), the set design won an Oscar and the cast includes Marlon Brando, James Mason (as Brutus), Greer Garson, Deborah Kerr and John Gielgud. There is a repeat 9pm Thursday evening.
THE GANG’S ALL HERE (1939) Thursday 26 October 3.10-4.50pm TP (Channel 82)            
This is not the 1943 Busby Berkeley musical starring Alice Faye, but a rarer UK offering starring Jack Buchanan, a Scottish actor/singer/dancer who was very popular in the 1920s and 1930s. He co-produced this private-eye drama (a follow-up to 1937’s Smash and Grab) that was re-titled The Amazing Mr Forrest for the American market. He and Googie Withers make a good team. 

Last week I referred to the actress Glynis Johns who, although born in Pretoria, was very much a star of British stage and screen (her father, actor Mervyn Johns, was born in Pembroke). Whilst British actors have always been popular on American television particularly as guest stars (Jean Simmons in Star Trek – the Next Generation, for example), having their own show was a much rarer phenomenon. Ms Johns did (Glynis, in which she played a mystery writer, ran for 13 episodes in 1963) and David Niven had also had his own short-lived show in 1959. (The opening episode starred Cameron Mitchell as a compulsive gambler and was excellent.) The doyenne of fictional mystery writers was, of course, Angela Lansbury in Murder She Wrote (1984-1996, 264 episodes). Much less well known, although it was televised in Britain in the early 1970s, is the 1970-71 series Nanny and the Professor; this starred Juliet Mills (and Richard Long) and lasted for 54 episodes. The great Boris Karloff also had his own anthology show from 1960 to 1962 – it was described as the scariest TV show ever for its DVD release, so I will seek it out, at some point! You didn’t have to be an actor of course - Alfred Hitchcock Presents was on air from 1955 to 1962 (268 episodes) and then The Alfred Hitchcock Hour ran from 1962 to 1965.
RICHARD III (1955) Sunday 15 October 12noon-2.35pm BBC 2              
This is Laurence Olivier’s celebrated portrayal of the hunchback king. The superb cast includes John Gielgud, Ralph Richardson, Claire Booth and Stanley Baker. There is a repeat showing on BBC 4, Thursday evening. 
US (2019) Sunday 15 October 9.00-10.50pm BBC 2    P       
Director Jordan Peele received rave reviews for his debut horror feature Get Out; if this ambitious follow-up doesn’t quite match it, it isn’t for want of trying. A middle-class family on holiday is menaced by their doppelgangers; the actors double up in their roles with considerable aplomb. The splendid 1976 horror film The Omen follows at 10.50 and there are several more classics of the genre (including The Shining) on during the week. 
SUMMER OF SOUL (2021) Monday 16 October 10.00PM-12.20am Channel 4    P           
I love it when a lost film (or footage) is recovered and then given a re-release. Here we have a music documentary that showcases performances at the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival. It was a ground-breaking event and the film really does it justice. 
TRADE WINDS (1939) Thursday 19 October 3.10-5.00pm TP (Channel 82)            
Trade Winds is a relatively rare oddity that members might like to compare to such films as Knives Out. A detective (Frederic March) pursues a murder suspect (Joan Bennett) around the world. It is clear from the stock footage that the director (or cinematographer) had indeed travelled far although the cast remained firmly in the studio. A typical review of the time called it “a breezy little comedy” (Dorothy Parker was one of the writers) and it opened at the venerable Radio City Music Hall in January 1939. The independent producer was Walter Wanger and he backed this venture about the same time as Stagecoach . . . 

Members are familiar with my love of ‘the beautiful game’ and, as I write, we have just won our first game of the season. Even though I lived in Wales for four years, and it has a huge support base here in the south-west, I have never been able to extend that love to rugby. Those of you that have might like to catch Made of Steel: Wheelchair Rugby’s Fiercest Rivalry which is the latest Storyville presentation Tuesday 10 October. Finally, I must say ‘Happy Birthday’ to Glynis Johns who is 100 on 5 October. She made her film debut aged just 15, so is one of our last links to cinema’s Golden Age.
LICORICE PIZZA (2021) Sunday 8 October 10.30pm-12.35am BBC 2    P          
This engaging comedy drama received very good reviews on release. It’s about a teenager who persuades an older friend to go out with him. Cooper Hoffman and Alana Haim perform very well and director Paul Thomas Anderson adds some distinctive touches. 
LAND (2021) Wednesday 11 October 9.00-10.45pm Film Four    P       
The two performances in this quiet drama are possibly even better. Robin Wright (who also directs) leaves her urban lifestyle behind, but needs the help of a woodsman and hunter (Demián Bichir) to adjust to the outdoors. The locations are superb and it is a film worthy of your time. 
DON’T LOOK NOW (1973) Thursday 12 October 10.10-12midnight BBC 4           
Based on a Daphne du Maurier story, and directed superbly by Nicholas Roeg, this remains one of the great supernatural thrillers. Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie make a great pairing as the traumatised parents and the film’s texture is detailed and rich – a shame that it was the one sex scene that seemed to attract a lot of the publicity. It is followed by a Scene by Scene interview with Donald Sutherland. 
THE BATTLE OF THE RAILS (1946) Friday 13 October 6.30-8.10pm TP (Channel 82)            
Wow – René Clément’s directorial debut is shown rarely on British television. Using actual personnel, it was made to introduce audiences to the sacrifices made by railway workers and the French Resistance. The subtitled dialogue is in French and German, but Hollywood star Charles Boyer was an uncredited narrator for the international release. It will be very interesting to compare it to John Frankenheimer’s large-scale The Train (1964) which starred Burt Lancaster and Paul Scofield.

When we showed Hell Drivers (1957) last season, David McCallum was the last of the principle cast still with us. Sadly, he passed away earlier this week, aged 90. He had good roles in features, including The Great Escape and 633 Squadron, but his best work was in television in particular The Man from Uncle, Colditz and the long-running NCIS. When I saw the title in Friday’s listing, I rather hoped that The Comeback Trail was the 1971 film with Buster Crabbe – it wasn’t released until 1982 and is quite rare. Alas, it was the 2020 comedy with Robert De Niro and Tommy Lee Jones!  So, this week’s focus is on films that are new to Freeview. 
BOILING POINT (2021) Saturday 30 September 9.00-10.55pm Film Four    P          
Last Monday, the BBC showed the original 2019 short (very tasty); tomorrow evening, BBC 1 begins the 4-part series. In this feature, Stephen Graham plays a chef whose Friday evening is about to become the stuff of nightmares. Like Russian Ark, it is filmed in a single take; there is lots of swearing, but it can be wickedly funny and entertaining. 
ALI & AVA (2021) Sunday 1 October 10.30pm-midnight BBC 2    P       
The Radio Times gives it 4 stars, but not many of our members did last season! If you would like confirmation as to whether the music track really was that loud, tune in this evening. It is more likely, I suppose, that you haven’t given it much thought since 16 October 2022 . . .
MARI (2018) Sunday 1 October 12 midnight-1.30am BBC 2    P       
You might also like to stay up for a double bill. As you know, we have long championed new directors and Georgina Parris does well with her first feature. A dancer discovers that she is pregnant and goes to spend time with her family, as her grandmother is dying. I believe that some of the locations used are in Dorset, but various checks have – so far – failed to reveal which ones.
THE REAL CHARLIE CHAPLIN (2021) Tuesday 3 October 10.50pm-1.05am Film Four    P            
This is an absorbing, quite brilliant, documentary that makes excellent use of audio clips and archive footage to tell Chaplin’s story. Over a hundred years after his heyday, Chaplin remains, arguably, cinema’s greatest and most influential figure. In 1924, First National – who had been releasing his films from 1918 to 1923 – bought the rights to Papini’s Life of Christ and Charlie was keen to star in the proposed film. It was never made, but it would have been quite something to be sure!

One of the many film books I have in my library is called Private Screenings. In 1995, to celebrate 100 years of cinema, the AFI asked 80 industry personnel, from Debbie Allen to Robert Zemeckis, to select a moment that had a special meaning for them. How on earth do we choose just one, though? And would it be a funny moment or a dramatic one? In my case, it is likely to be something I connected with on an emotional level. For Martin Brest (who directed Scent of a Woman), it occurs in City Lights (1931) when the Flower Girl, no longer blind, realises it was the Little Tramp (Chaplin) who had paid for her operation. The celebrated critic James Agee called it “the highest moment in movies” and, even today, it is hard to disagree. 
RIDE THE HIGH COUNTRY (1962) Saturday 23 September 2.05-4.10pm 5 Action (Ch 33)         
Sam Peckinpah’s second film is a superb western (fittingly, it was Randolph Scott’s last) that has two old timers protecting a gold shipment, and rescuing Mariette Hartley from an unsavoury set of brothers. MEMORABLE MOMENT: Joel McCrea’s sublime response that sums up all the taciturn cowboy heroes – “all I want is to enter my house justified”.
PSYCHO (1960) Sunday 24 September 11.30pm-1.15am BBC 2        
Also Thursday BBC 4 9.00-10.45pm; this showing is followed by a repeat of the Scene by Scene interview with Janet Leigh. Psycho remains a classic of terror and audience manipulation. It was a gamble by Hitchcock and cinemagoers were required to take their seats before the film started and asked not to divulge the ending. It all worked to perfection, of course. MEMORABLE MOMENT: it has to be the shower scene – brilliantly constructed and edited, hugely influential and, more recently, analysed in depth for its technical dexterity. 
THE KILLERS (1964) Tuesday 26 September 9.00-10.55pm Legend (Ch 41)        
Just a notch below Burt Lancaster’s 1946 debut classic, Don Siegel’s version was considered too violent for television, after JFK’s assassination, and so was released in cinemas (unusually, it still carries an 18 certificate). Two relentless hitmen are seeking out their next target; Lee Marvin is an immense presence and Ronald Reagan is on the wrong side of the law. MEMORABLE MOMENT: the opening sequence, as they go about their nasty business, sets the film’s unremitting tone so well that the director doesn’t need to show the sort of overt violence that is now commonplace. 
WILDFIRE (2020) Thursday 28 September 11.50pm-1.35am Film Four    P            
Members like Irish dramas, so it is a shame about the late start time. Two sisters try to re-engage after the death of their mother, but there relationship is a feisty one! If you cannot catch this one, then you still have The Quiet Girl to look forward to in October! 

Best Film polls and All-Time Great lists are always fascinating, even if we are bound to disagree with some of the choices. A year ago, Sight & Sound magazine was getting ready to announce the results of its decennial survey; in August of this year, Stephanie Zacharek, Time magazine’s film critic, gave us her selection. As Time is celebrating 100 years of journalism in 2023, she opted for 10 films per decade – and deliberately ignored some big hitters (Citizen Kane) for a lesser work from the same director (The Magnificent Ambersons). Anyway, LRFS has shown 11 films that are on her list, over the years. And what are they? In order of release, they are: TOP HAT (1935); STAGECOACH (1939); BLACK NARCISSUS (1947); SOME LIKE IT HOT (1959); THE NIGHT OF SAN LORENZO (1982); ALL ABOUT MY MOTHER (1999); IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE (2000); FAR FROM HEAVEN (2002); PAN’S LABYRINTH (2006); UNDER THE SKIN (2013) and the German film PHOENIX (2014). I really need to watch Jim Jarmusch’s Dead Man (1995) again. It makes her list – and I would struggle to include it in my Top 1000 Westerns! Clearly, I missed something . . . . 
GOLD RUN (2022) Saturday 16 September 9.00-10.55pm BBC 4    P         
If, increasingly, subtitled films are not going to have a decent UK cinema release, we can hope that the likes of BBC 4 will continue to show them and at a decent time. Loosely based on actual events, resistance fighters try to hide Norway’s gold reserves as Nazi troops prepare to invade.  
MY MAN GODFREY (1936) Sunday 17 September 3.10-5.00pm TP (Channel 82)        
Here we have another interesting choice from Stephanie Zacharek’s Top 100. Apparent down-and-out William Powell is employed by Carole Lombard as the family butler. The fact that the actors had divorced recently didn’t mar their chemistry, or timing, and the comedy is brilliant. Whether this classic is better than Ms Lombard’s Twentieth Century (1934) or Nothing Sacred (1937) is one for earnest discussion. 
MADEMOISELLE (1966) Monday 18 September 10.05pm-12.10am TP (Channel 82)        
TP are picking up again with rare showings of films that are not well known and that might be described as ‘unusual’ fare. This is a French-British co-production that stars Jeanne Moreau as a teacher whose sexual frustration causes her to behave very oddly. It doesn’t work entirely; by 1966, and after a brilliant run of films, director Tony Richardson seemed to be losing the plot, as it were. Three years later, the same fate was to befall director Bryan Forbes with The Madwoman of Chaillot.
MINARI (2020) Tuesday 19 September 11.10pm-1.25am Film Four    P            
New to Freeview is the third film from our shortened 2021-2022 season; it had a rating of 80% from members. 
THE FAREWELL (2019) Wednesday 20 September 9.00-10.55pm Film Four    P
Film Four are making it a good week for interesting premieres. Relatives (including a granddaughter from New York) fly to China to spend time with their grandmother. They meet under pretext of attending a wedding, as she has cancer and the family don’t want her to know. The Farewell isn’t a sombre drama by any means. It is engaging, has a light touch and is often funny. Without a pandemic, it is one we might well have shown.