Film choice

The Lavender Hill Mob (1951, b/w)

BBC FOUR 10.00PM ★★★

 A very young Audrey Hepburn appears briefly in the opening scenes of Charles Crichton’s classic crime spoof, which remains one of Ealing Studios’ most successful films. Alec Guinness stars as a meek bank manager who hatches an unlikely plan to smuggle gold bullion across the English Channel disguised as models of the Eiffel Tower. Stanley Holloway and Sid James are on hand to help as his thieving buddies.

The Servant (1963, b/w)

TALKING PICTURES TV, 10.00PM ★★★

 This psychological drama was the first of three collaborations between writer Harold Pinter and director Joseph Losey. The film was highly unusual in British cinema at the time, breaking away from the familyfriendly fare that was the norm by exploring social taboos, such as class tensions and underlying homosexual attraction. James Fox stars as a wealthy Londoner who hires a manservant (Dirk Bogarde).

Last of the Mohicans (1992)

5SPIKE, 11PM ★★★★

 Michael Mann’s rip-roaring period epic, set in 18th-century North America and adapted from James Fenimore Cooper’s 1826 novel, was a then-35-year-old Daniel Day-lewis’s first Hollywood film. He plays Hawkeye, a white European adopted by Chingachgook (Russell Means), a member of the Mohican tribe. The pair find themselves battling to save a British party from massacre at the hands of the bloodthirsty Hurons.