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Classic British Cinema Has Become An Elusive Delight [The England We Knew-Only in Old Films?]
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/simonheffer/6890656/Classic-British-cinema-has-become-an-elusive-delight.html ^ | 26 December 2009

Posted on 12/27/2009 6:46:32 PM PST by Steelfish

Classic British Cinema Has Become An Elusive Delight The England I love is in the old films of Ealing, Elstree and Shepperton - and they're becoming harder to see.

Simon Heffer 26 Dec 2009

We all have a cultural comfort zone. It is the place where we go when we need to feel entirely at one with the world and have the ultimate relaxation. For years – actually, decades – I thought that, for me, it was music. Then, not so long ago, I realised that was not the case. Most of my favourite music is loud, agitated, violent stuff – there is nothing comforting about Vaughan Williams's 6th, the last act of Götterdämmerung or Britten's Sinfonia da Requiem, for example.

And such as is not noisy is so laden with nostalgia that it evokes too much the lost-forever past, which in itself is not necessarily a comfort. I then realised what the land of lost content truly was: it is old films.

To be more specific, in my case, it is old British films. I like old American films too, but a little of them goes a long way; and old French films are even better, but they represent an exoticism that goes beyond mere comfort. However, put me in front of a television with a black-and-white British film made at any point between about 1935 and 1960, and I am in heaven.

The England I love is not the England I live in; the England I love is in old films. I am sure it was an era of bad food, lower life expectancy, the reek of tobacco and what we would now call illiberalism, but I love it. I feel instinctively at home there. I understand the tones of voice. I understand the understatement.

(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...


TOPICS: TV/Movies
KEYWORDS: cinema; ealing; elstree; elstreeshepperton; englishfilm; film; movies; shepperton
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1 posted on 12/27/2009 6:46:33 PM PST by Steelfish
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To: Steelfish

BTTT


2 posted on 12/27/2009 6:54:39 PM PST by 6323cd (I Am Jim Thompson)
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To: Steelfish
While not a film power these days, the Brits are far superior in the production of television.

Examples:

Space:1999

Inspector Morse

Monty Python's Flying Circus

Fawlty Towers

Life On Mars

Danger UXB

Spooks (Known as MI-5 in the US)

That's merely scratching the surface.

3 posted on 12/27/2009 6:58:01 PM PST by buccaneer81 (ECOMCON)
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To: Steelfish

I imagine there were Romans who had the same nostalgic feeling reading Tacitus and Juvenal as the Visigoths were burning down the city.


4 posted on 12/27/2009 6:58:07 PM PST by denydenydeny (The Left sees taxpayers the way Dr Frankenstein saw the local cemetery; raw material for experiments)
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To: denydenydeny

It was the same way for my father, and I assume his father too. What I would like to see is a classic movie and TV broadcaster in HD...Ever since I went HD at home, I cannot watch the old American movies, the picture quality is poor, and of course since AMC went commercial, they have been unwatchable.


5 posted on 12/27/2009 7:07:44 PM PST by runninglips (All that is necessary for evil to triumph is Republicans to act like Liberals)
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To: Steelfish

My wife and I have the “Upstairs Downstairs” series, and we have watched it so many times that it has become trite. But it is still comforting. There was once such a time before our industrial strength relativism dissolved all values.


6 posted on 12/27/2009 7:24:07 PM PST by Malesherbes (Sauve qui peut)
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To: Steelfish

That picture from “Kind Hearts and Coronets” (”In that case, I’ll have a small glass of developer.”) was a keeper. I loved that movie. Good article. I share the authors love for those old British films, and for the Britain that lives in them.


7 posted on 12/27/2009 7:25:48 PM PST by VR-21
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To: Steelfish

The article reads like a Ray Davies/Kinks LP. The longing for the lost England is the theme of Village Green Preservation Society and Arthur.


8 posted on 12/27/2009 7:25:52 PM PST by bleach (Sarah, Wake me in 2012)
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To: Malesherbes

I never miss “Keeping Up Appearances”


9 posted on 12/27/2009 7:26:06 PM PST by Steelfish
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To: VR-21

I so associated Alec Guiness with those great comedies of the fifties that when
“The Bridge on the River Kwai” came out I couldn’t imagine him in a dramtic role.


10 posted on 12/27/2009 7:31:09 PM PST by Mears
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To: 6323cd

I love that era of GB too. Just read James Herriot and all the Miss Reads.

Back when the British had backbone and class.


11 posted on 12/27/2009 7:44:42 PM PST by Chickensoup (We have the government we deserve.)
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To: buccaneer81
While not a film power these days, the Brits are far superior in the production of television.

Examples: Space:1999 Er yeah. Get the bad news out first? It took me three episodes to realize it wasn;t in SuperMarionation.

And most of your examples are so last millennium.

That's merely scratching the surface.

Just current crime shows alone

the 40s Foyle's War will they call the new season Foyle's PostWar?

the 60s George Gently

the 80s Ashes to Ashes Is Gene Hunt an imaginary character or not? (OK yes I am aware of the concept of fiction... but you know what I mean)

the 00s Midsomer Murders Pretty countryside, strange people, and a lot of death (It's not called Midsomer Murder), with One Sane Man trying to understand it.

New Tricks The only "cold case" show I watch: It's characters, not plot, which make a TV series - here the four leads have about 160 years acting experience between them.

12 posted on 12/27/2009 8:03:09 PM PST by Oztrich Boy (Life is a tragedy for those who feel, but a comedy to those who think. - Horace Walpole)
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To: bleach

Put on your slippers and sit by the fire
You’ve reached your top and you just can’t get any higher
You’re in your place and you know where you are
In your Shangri-la
Sit back in your old rocking chair
You need not worry, you need not care
You can’t go anywhere
Shangri-la, Shangri-la, Shangri-la


13 posted on 12/27/2009 8:07:26 PM PST by TheVitaminPress (as goes the Second Amendment . . . so goes the Constitution.)
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To: TheVitaminPress

That and Waterloo Sunset are two of my favorites by the Kinks and I have many. Just fired up the CD.

thx!


14 posted on 12/27/2009 8:17:07 PM PST by bleach (Sarah, Wake me in 2012)
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To: Oztrich Boy

LOL! Ouch! At least tell me about your impression of Inspector Morse... ;-)


15 posted on 12/27/2009 8:20:11 PM PST by buccaneer81 (ECOMCON)
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To: Oztrich Boy
Space:1999 Er yeah.

No respect for Nick Tate? ;-)

16 posted on 12/27/2009 8:22:17 PM PST by buccaneer81 (ECOMCON)
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To: Mears
“The Bridge on the River Kwai” came out I couldn’t imagine him in a dramtic role.

I'm inclined to agree. This thread prompted me to plug in my recording of Kind Hearts which I'm watching as I type this. I love the characters of the Descoyne family members he played, particularly the idiot clergyman Lord Henry Descoyne ("...It has all the exuberance of Chaucer, without, happily, any of the concomitant crudities"). Great stuff!

17 posted on 12/27/2009 8:35:39 PM PST by VR-21
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To: Steelfish

A few faves:

Things to Come (1936)

Dead of Night (1945)

Whisky Galore (aka Tight Little Island - 1949)

A Christmas Carol (1951 - Alastair Sim)

The Belles of St. Trinian’s (1954)

A Tale of Two Cities (1958 - Dirk Bogarde)

I’m All Right, Jack (1959)

The Mouse That Roared (1959)

Tunes of Glory (1960) - an amazing portrayal by Alec Guinness, completely unlike his usual roles

Tom Jones (1963)


18 posted on 12/27/2009 9:10:30 PM PST by LibFreeOrDie (Obama promised a gold mine, but will give us the shaft.)
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To: LibFreeOrDie

Great stuff.


19 posted on 12/27/2009 9:14:44 PM PST by Steelfish
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To: LibFreeOrDie

Let’s not forget BRIEF ENCOUNTER


20 posted on 12/28/2009 1:38:44 AM PST by sushiman
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