films of the week

THE BIG MOVIE

FILM STARS DON’T DIE IN LIVERPOOL

(2017) 15 ◆

Saturday, 9pm, BBC2 ★★★★ This fact-based drama brings humour, poignancy and a big heart to the unlikely true romance between a Hollywood star and her Liverpudlian lover. It is based on the memoirs of Peter Turner, an aspiring young actor who met Gloria Grahame in London in 1979. Grahame reached her peak in the 1950s, winning an Oscar for The Bad And The Beautiful in 1953. By the late 1970s, her screen career is in a slump and, while working on stage in London, she and Turner meet and start dating. Annette Bening is magical as Grahame, in the twilight of her life but still full of joy and optimism, while Jamie Bell (as Turner, above, with Bening) and Julie Walters (as his mum) give this remarkable story added verve.

CLASSIC FILM CHOICE

THE LADY VANISHES

(1938) U ● Sunday, 3.40pm, BBC2 ★★★★ The film that effectively enabled director Alfred Hitchcock to pursue a career in Hollywood – he needed to make the picture in order to fulfil a contractual obligation before he could up sticks to America – this British thriller would become one of the most highly regarded of his long career. It would also propel its young leads, Margaret Lockwood and Michael Redgrave, to stardom. It’s a twisty tale of an elderly female train passenger who disappears – but no one will admit she was ever on board. Redgrave and Lockwood play Gilbert and

Iris, the inquisitive young couple who decide to find out what has happened to the missing Miss

Froy (May Whitty, above, with Lockwood). It follows an edition of Talking Pictures dedicated to Hitchcock, at 3pm.