Entertainment For Lively Minds
Come on George ! and other Saturday afternoon black and white films on BBC2
Yesterday afternoon I sat down and opened the George Formby Collection boxset from Studio Canal which has sat on the shelf for a few months.
Anyway I decided to watch the film "Come on George!" where our hero is the only jockey capable of taming and riding the horse "Maneater".
To cut a long story short (what an apt saying for my predicament) with five minutes to go of the movie (whereby George is rushing to the racecourse to ride Maneater)just after he drives the out of control car into a wall it suddenly and unexplicably jumps back to the menu of the disc.
After a bit of googling I understand there was a fault with all copies of this dvd but I can't find out how the film ends. Can anybody help me ?
Sad I know but watching these type of films does give me a comfort feeling of being back at my nan's on a Saturday afternoon in the Seventies and early Eighties watching a black and white film on BBC2 which seemed to always be Nelson Eddy and Jeanette MacDonald (well it was either that or Eddie Waring commentating on Hull Kingston Rovers v St Helens on Grandstand on BBC1).
I do seem to remember Let It Be being showed on a Saturday afternoon on BBC2 once though.
ps Is it me or does the main man psychopath in "No Country For Old Men" look a bit like Charlie Watts in about 1968/69 ? OK I'll get me coat.
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*Spoiler Alert!*
Bannerman's henchmen kidnap George, but George overcomes them and after a hair-raising car journey, arrives at the course in time to ride in the race.
Overcoming various obstacles, George and Maneater win the race. Afterwards, Maneater, lurching forward, throws George from the saddle on to the top of a horsebox, where Ann sits waving. George and Ann fall through the roof of the horsebox. Sitting in the straw, they kiss. Maneater, poking his head through a curtain behind them, snorts his approval.
2003-08 © BFI Screenonline
No need to get your coat...
...Marsonator, but I think he looks more like the b'stard child of Momma from "Throw Momma From The Train" and Gene Clark.
That's a brilliant scene
And if I remember correctly, George signs off with "turned out nice again! heh heeyy! "
Deanna Durbin Day
After a rubbishy couple of weeks, and next week off work to Get Stuff Done, I decided that yesterday I was not going to leave the flat (save a quick trip to the grocers and Budgens), talk to no-one and re-create childhood afternoons.
So I watched two Deanna Durbin films with the aid of a big tub if vanilla ice cream. It rather felt like my Grandad (who used to sit on the settee and watch old films with me when I were a girl) was there, and I had a right good time. I suspect they are not for the Word Massive, but I loved her when I was little, and still have a big soft spot now.
Choirboy Kaiser Chief Sang At Eddie Waring's Funeral
Basil Rathbone Sherlock Holmes films were a Saturday afternoon/school holiday favourite. Sorry to go off topic a little, but Marsonator mentioned Eddie Waring. I recently read his biography (Being Eddie Waring by Tony Hannan) and apparently Kaiser Chief Ricky Wilson sang Pie Jesu at Eddie's funeral. He was a member of Leeds Grammar School Choir and Eddie was his godfather.
Eddie & Ricky
Eeeaaarly bath for moi, alas.
Since the first edition of Being Eddie Waring was published, it has come to light that the Ricky Wilson/Eddie Waring story is only a half-truth. It seems that - contrary to Waring family memory - it was actually Ricky's brother who was Eddie's godson and sang Pie Jesu at the funeral.
Ricky was there at the service, though, and so, technically speaking, will have sung something, or maybe just picked his nose...since he was nowt but a nipper at the time. His parents were BBC producers who worked with Eddie on 'It's A Knockout', among other programmes.
The connection has left me convinced that the 'Oh My God' lyrics are actually about Eddie and rugby league, though....then again, I could be wrong about that an' all!
I remember many films in
I remember many films in that slot, for some reason this one
Maybe its just me but I remember particular films/types of films from particular timeslots
Monday 2125 - Coogans Bluff or Thunderbolt & Lightfoot or other 'adult' crime
Saturday 1900 - Naked Jungle (Charlton Heston & ants) or other adventure
Wednesday 2000 - Fu Manchu or Battle Beneath the Earth or The Time Machine
Sunday 1400 - Dark Victory or any other 1940's/1930's classic
I adore...
Boy with Green Hair. Dean Stockwell: one of the few child stars who managed to make the transition.
er
Lady Don't Fall Backwards?
Invasion
I vividly remember stumbling across this one Saturday afternoon as I sought refuge in BBC2 from the sports coverage on all other channels. Edward Judd stars as a doctor in a cottage hospital which is sealed off from the outside world.Alien "police" are responsible as part of their attempts to recover a criminal from their world, who is being held in the hospital after being knocked down as he staggered from his crashed "saucer". It's much better than it sounds in my description and contains a startling scene in which a car is smashed into the invisible force field surrounding the hospital.Quite short and low budget but very effective.Haven't seen it for years.
Mark Gatiss
...is currently doing a short piece on Radio 4's Film programme every week about British films that may not have the credit they deserve/been forgotten about (one for every decade from the thirties). As he has said, he saw all of them on rainy afternoons as a child.
Incredible how some stick in one's mind so strongly. I remember seeing Smashing Time with Lynne Redgrave and Rita Tushingham, which was a parody of the swinging London stuff one rainy afternoon on Channel 4 during the school holidays. It was on at the BFI a year or so back, and I was gobsmacked that I could remember the opening scene almost frame for frame, and recalled lots of it, despite only seeing it once 20 odd years ago. It's no classic either, but I love it for the very reason that it takes me back to my teenage house, with Mum at work slumped on the chair with my sister on the settee.
We're going widely off-subject...
...but one of the great unsung British Films of that era is "Scream & Scream Again". A preposterous story line, but a brilliantly ornate narrative structure which predated Nicholas Roeg, Quentin Tarentino and Christopher Nolan by decades.
Imitation Of Life
The bit where the maid's daughter sobs over her mother's coffin quite shocked me.
The Nun's Story - those scary mental patients screaming in tin-covered steaming hot baths.
The Ghost and Mrs Muir - on at least once a week
An Inspector Calls
Anything with Alastair Sim.