Exploring the delights of Talking Pictures
BEVERLY WOOLFORD EXTOLS THE COMFORTING VIRTUES OF A CHANNEL DEDICATED TO BRITISH CINEMA AND TV
SO you’ve been stuck at home for a while now and you’re probably wondering how on earth you’re going to keep yourselves entertained. There are of course the obvious TV choices, BBC iPlayer, ITV Hub, Sky Movies, Netflix. But perhaps you’re looking for something a little different. Perhaps you’re all caught up with The Crown and you’ve had enough of shouty Marvel superheroes, endless Poirot reruns and documentaries that leave you thinking the world is full of nothing but murderers and fameobsessed, greedy idiots (I’m looking at you Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened, Don’t F*** With Cats and Tiger King).
If that is the case may I suggest pouring a comforting cup of tea and point you politely in the direction of Talking Pictures TV.
An independent archive film and television channel you can find Talking Pictures on Freeview as well as the usual digital platforms, and it is an absolute delight.
A 24-hour celebration of British cinema and a wonderful way to root out some amazing, and rare, hidden gems and lost treasures.
There are Ealing comedies, Hammer horrors, crime capers and brooding dramas. You’ll find schedules stuffed with household names in films you’ll know and some you may not.
Even before this virus-imposed lockdown I’d quite happily settle down to a Sunday afternoon with Margaret Rutherford, Rex Harrison, Terry Thomas and Alec Guinness. Recent highlights include Blithe Spirit, The Ghost And Mrs Muir (what I wouldn’t give for Gene Tierney’s cheekbones), Make Mine Mink and Kind Hearts and Coronets.
I’ll also be keeping an eye out for the return to the schedules of Booby Trap, a 1957 tale of an absent-minded professor who invents a pen that will explode on the sound of bells and then leaves it in a taxi.
So what do we have to look forward to in the coming months?
I don’t think you can go for a week on Talking Pictures without finding Sid James lurking on a cast list and in The Big Job (1965) he is in typical roguish form as the head of a criminal gang who reunite after 15 years only to find the loot from their last robbery is now buried beneath a police station. Showing on April 6 Sid’s co stars include Dick Emery and Joan Sims and keep an eye out for another Carry On regular, Jim Dale.
Fellow Talking Pictures staple Will Hay (you’ll also find a fair smattering of Arthur Askey, Leslie Phillips and Peter Sellers) stars in 1936’s Windbag The Sailor on March 29, where a sea captain’s tall tales are tested when he is coerced into commanding an unseaworthy ship. He also pops up in The Goose Steps Out on April 9 as a bumbling teacher who is flown to Germany to impersonate a general and obtain secret plans.
Another regular feature of the Talking Pictures schedule are those gloriously schlocky 1950s and 60s sci fi films. Hysterical alien fests steeped in Cold War paranoia and the birth of the atomic age.
Coming up are the classic 1967 mystery Quatermass And The Pit (March 27) starring James Donald and on April 5 the wonderfully titled Monster From Green Hell (1957) in which a scientific expedition in Africa investigates wasps that have been exposed to radiation and mutated into giant, killing monsters. In Gorgo (1961) undersea monsters are awakened by an earthquake. Gorgo is captured and put on display but Gorgo’s mother, of course, is not happy and goes looking for her baby. Catch it on April 11.
Talking Pictures can also be an absolute gift for horror fans. In amongst the Hammer and Amicus classics starring those three titans of the genre, Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee and Vincent Price you’ll find some more obscure tales of varying quality. Closer to the bottom of the quality scale but definitely worth a watch is Greed Of William Hart on April 6. Made in 1948 and starring Tod Slaughter this curiosity is almost a direct retelling of the story of infamous grave robbers Burke and Hare. However, the British Board of Film Censors insisted that all references to to the real-life murders had to be removed. The names Hart and Moore replace Burke and Hare in an overdub of questionable success. Once you notice it the change of pitch and accent becomes more apparent, distracting and at times hilarious, as the film goes on. The cost of this apparently also left no money for a music track.
The next few weeks also feature some great early works from some of
Hollywood’s directing heavyweights. Stanley Kubrick’s 1953 directorial debut Fear And Desire is worth looking out for on March 29 and there are three Hitchcock works coming up. Sabotage (1937) on April 5 starring Sylvia Sidney, Oskar Homolka and John Loder and Spellbound (1945) with an all-star cast of Ingrid Bergman, Gregory Peck and Michael Chekhov and featuring a dream sequence created by Salvador Dali, on April 12. Hitchcock’s 1940 adaptation of Daphne du Maurier’s Gothic novel Rebecca also gets an airing on April 8, starring Laurence Olivier and Joan Fontanie.
And if you feel the need for a little more Larry Olivier in your life keep an eye out on March 28 for Fire Over England (1937) also starring the great Vivien Leigh. In this historical drama a naval officer volunteers to go undercover in the Spanish court for Queen Elizabeth. The pair also star in Lady Hamilton on March 30, the 1941 telling the story of the romance between Lord Nelson and Lady Emma Hamilton directed by Alexander Korda.
If you didn’t make it to the cinema to see Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson in The Lighthouse try Thunder Rock on April 6 instead. A 1942 supernatural drama starring Michael Redgrave, Barbara Mullen and James Mason in which a disillusioned writer becomes a lighthouse keeper living in solitude.
And as if that wasn’t enough there are also regular episodes of Armchair Theatre, Sunday Night At The London Palladium, Rumpole Of The Bailey and Van der Valk and a wonderful array of fascinating BFI and Imperial War Museum public information films, fascinating documentaries and nostalgic glimpses of the past.
Find Talking Pictures TV on Virgin 445, Freeview 81, Sky channel 328, Freesat 306 and Youview 81. For full schedule lisitings visit talking picturestv.co.uk.