British film and cinema forum - General British film Discussion

Bird on a Wire: UK Premiere Leonard Cohen film salvaged

Arthur Askey — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 16:16:44 GMT

The Times
by Mary Bowers:

Salvaged Cohen film shows shy poet of 1972

All doomed rock legends tell a similar tale: pulled apart by fame, blinded by the limelight. In the 1960s, a reclusive poet was thrown on stage, coerced into singing like a "parrot" and bankrupted five years ago by a crooked manager.

The only footage documenting Leonard Cohen's early years was cut up, thrown into 294 rusty cans and lost for 36 years. Tonight (19 August), the British premiere of BIRD ON A WIRE, reconstructed from 3,000 tiny pieces, will make its premiere in a circus tent in the shadow of the Brecon Beacons in Wales.

Cohen was probably not expecting sylvan voyeurism when in 1972, at the age of 37, he allowed the director Tony Palmer access to his four-week European tour. Slipping from the cusp of fame after being dropped by his record company, he acquiesced.

Before the lens, the lyricist breaks down, admits defeat and is coaxed back onstage. But the artist, who feared the film made him look too "confrontational", is likely to be applauded tonight.

"We know he's had a copy," said Palmer. "I suspect he is greatly relieved that a film about an extraordinary moment in his life has survived. In other words my gut instinct is that he's embarrassed about what happened."

After an artistic fall-out, Palmer's original cut was taken from him, hacked up and poorly rearranged, before being abandoned and left in the back room of a Hollywood studio.

Three decades later, a hunt was led by Steven Machet, a son of Cohen's late manager Marty, who produced the original film. Now remastered, there are also 17 versions of his hit songs.

Cohen's ambivilence towards the public eye is present. "He says at one point, 'I write these songs as meditations from me to one other person and here I am on stage expected to sing them night after night like a parrot'."

Hauled back on stage after a reported $5million (�3.2million) bankruptcy, the artist, 75, is on tour and will not be present tonight. Amid wranglings that made Palmer give up the tapes, Cohen spent �250,000 getting them re-edited in the early 1970s.

"How he conducted his public and personal life was admirable and something he wanted to make a film about. He's a very quiet, self-contained, self-disciplined man," Palmer said.

The film has been bought by the BBC and will be shown at Christmas.

Tonight's screening, before the Green Man Festival, is intended to be authentic. "In the Seventies, people used to sit in front of the artists," said Fiona Stewart, the festival organiser. "That would never happen now."

Record breaking movie fan dies

Arthur Askey — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 16:14:14 GMT

http://www.bbc.co.uk...-wales-11066046
From BBC News........
Record breaking movie fan Gwilym Hughes dies.....28,000 films...anyone on here top that?

50 Years of Oscar Winners

Arthur Askey — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 16:10:59 GMT

Renown Pictures @ The Camden Film Fair @ the Electric ballroom Sat 25th Sept 10-4pm

renown pictures ltd — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 13:17:42 GMT

Dear Fellow B Movie Fans

Please pop along to the Camden Film Fair ON SATURDAY 25Th SEPTEMBER and see RENOWN @ The ELECTRIC BALLROOM for some AMAZING show bargains!!

Details of the fair here:
http://www.midnight-media.net/id10.html

Hope you can make it along

Best wishes

Noel, Sarah & The Renown Team

A UK Production & Worldwide Distribution Co - Now you can buy Renown titles on line! visit our online shop www.renownpicturesltd.com
The home of the British B Feature!
Strawplait Barn Studios, Croft Lane, Chipperfield, Herts WD4 9DX
Tel: +44 (0)1923 290555 www.renownpicturesltd.com

Stieg Larsson's 'The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo'

Arthur Askey — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 22:01:24 GMT

http://www.telegraph...ive-sleuth.html

'Noomi Rapace interview: the world's most seductive sleuth'
by David Gritten

First part of Stieg Larsson's Millennium trilogy:
THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO (dir. Niels Arden Oplev)
opens in the UK on 12 March

The film is to be remade for Hollywood by Steven Zaillian
who wrote SCHINDLER'S LIST.

Films and TV Programmes featuring Lighthouses

Arthur Askey — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 21:53:37 GMT

Following beeb 2's showing of the appalling, but fun TOWER OF EVIL, I was wondering about other films set entirely(or almost entirely) in lighthouses. I can come up with 2 - Powell's early comedy-mystery THE PHANTOM LIGHT 1935, starring Binnie"hot pants" Hale and the master of lugubriousness, Gordon Harker and BACK-ROOM BOY 1942, which I really like, despite Arthur Askey!

Any more?

British Film in the 1980s

Arthur Askey — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 21:51:25 GMT

British Film in the 1980s

An interesting survey from BFI Screenonline.....:

http://www.screenonl...4354/index.html

More new articles........:
http://www.screenonl...snew/index.html

Michael Redgrave as James Bond

Arthur Askey — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 21:49:58 GMT

Revealed: Money men weren't keen on Sean Connery as James Bond.. but screen kiss won him role

Aug 23 2010

By Jack Mathieson

DAILY RECORD:
http://www.dailyreco...86908-22507488/

SEAN CONNERY nearly missed out on being James Bond because industry money men thought they could "do better". Producer Albert "Cubby" Broccoli was told by New York financiers that they "did not care" for the former Edinburgh milkman. But Broccoli's wife Dana said Connery was "to die for" after watching him kiss - in a Walt Disney film about leprechauns. The revelation comes in a new biography, Sean Connery: The Measure Of A Man, by Christopher Bray.

In a previously unseen telegram sent in 1961, Broccoli told co-producer Harry Salzman: "New York did not care for Connery. Feel we can do better." In another memo, United Artists bosses told filmmakers: "Keep trying." Broccoli and Saltzman considered other actors including Michael Redgrave and Roger Moore, who assumed the 007 role in 1973. Bond author Ian Fleming thought David Niven, Richard Burton or Rex Harrison would make a better Bond. He is said to have complained about the casting of Connery, referring to him as "that f****** truck driver". Bray said: "It was only after Dana chanced to see Darby O'Gill and the Little People and told her husband that he began to wonder about using him for Bond."

Connery celebrates his 80th birthday on Wednesday.

Richard Lester donates to BFI

Britmovie — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 12:56:40 GMT

From the BBC

http://www.bbc.co.uk...t-arts-11053920

Beatles director Richard Lester donates archives to BFI

Richard Lester's archives contain many rare photographs and production shots
The draft scripts for The Beatles' films A Hard Day's Night and Help have been donated to the British Film Institute by director Richard Lester.

Simply titled The Beatles and Beatles Two, they form part of Lester's archive, which is all going to the BFI.

The treasures include correspondence from Hollywood stars Audrey Hepburn, Raquel Welch and Charlton Heston.

The archive also contains a "begging letter" from Spike Milligan, who offers to do laundry in exchange for a job.

The comic, who rose to fame on The Goon Show, wrote to Lester in 1980, saying he was bored with television and "no matter how small I would like a part, preferably the lead".

Milligan, who died in 2002, reminded the director he had previously worked as a "straight actor", adding: "Have own beard and wig, on site laundry done and secret masses said for Polish Catholics."

Sex comedy

In fact, it was Lester's association with Milligan that had launched his film career.

He was instrumental in adapting radio comedy programme The Goon Show for television, in the 1956 series The Idiot Weekly, Price 2d.

That led to further work with Milligan and fellow Goon Peter Sellers - including a short film, The Running Jumping And Standing Still Film, which caught the eye of The Beatles.

Lester's success with the Fab Four made him a mainstay of the Swinging '60s scene. Bawdy sex comedy The Knack... And How To Get It exemplified the era, and went on to win the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival.

The director later found box office success in Hollywood, directing Christopher Reeve in Superman and Oliver Reed in The Three Muskateers.

The American-born filmmaker, now 78, said he had decided to donate his archive to the BFI because of a "long association" going back "over 40 years".

"The organisation has always been very helpful to me," he said. "It is a pleasure for me to be able to offer them the detritus of my working life."

From the Guardian

http://www.guardian....ter-archive-bfi

Richard Lester archive donated to BFI full of 'riches'
Sixty boxes of notes and photographs cover 40-year career of director who worked with Beatles and on Superman films

Mark Brown, arts correspondent
The Guardian, Monday 23 August 2010
Richard Lester � the movie director who helped give the Beatles big screen success in the 1960s before finding more fame with The Three Musketeers and Superman franchises � has donated his archive to the nation.

The BFI National Archive yesterday announced that it had acquired more than 60 boxes of letters, scripts, notes, receipts and photographs covering Lester's 40 year career in the TV and movie business.

Highlights include early drafts for the film A Hard Day's Night � then simply called The Beatles � and letters from stars such as Audrey Hepburn, Charlton Heston, Raquel Welch and Spike Milligan.

Lester, now aged 78, has had a long association with the BFI, standing in for Jean-Luc Godard when he failed to turn up for the first John Player lecture in 1968. "The organisation has always been very helpful to me in different ways," he said. "It is a pleasure for me to be able to offer them the detritus of my working life."

And what detritus. One letter from Welch, on her beautifully monogrammed note paper, thanks Lester for casting her against type as the queen's disaster-prone seamstress Constance de Bonacieux in the 1973 version of The Three Musketeers.

It was "a stroke of genius" on Lester's part, she writes, because she is normally cast as "everyone's favourite sado-maso-queen" or "wind-up Barbie doll."

She added: "As a result I've been enjoying a tremendous new found success as an actress and comedienne."

The archive has much material documenting Lester's attempts over the years to adapt George MacDonald Fraser's Flashman novels to the big screen. He eventually made Royal Flash with Malcolm McDowell in the lead role in 1975.

One letter from Alastair Sim politely turns down a role in the film: "I was, still am, enormously flattered that you should want to squeeze a flicker of me into your first Flash." He goes on to say it's not "quite a spot" he'd revel in, but perhaps he might appear in sequels. As things turned out Sim did make a cameo appearance, one of his last screen roles before his death in 1976.

Lester had a long association with some of Britain's funniest performers, not least Spike Milligan with whom he worked regularly in the 1950s and 1960s � first in television with the series A Show Called Fred and later in a film that many regard as a wrongly neglected classic, The Bed-Sitting Room (1969), a surreal and savagely funny portrait of a post-apocalypse Britain often described a missing link between the Goon Show and Monty Python.

In one letter Milligan writes how he is fed up with TV and commercials and wants to make another film. "I would like to read for any character. I may remind you that I was a straight actor at one time but after a series of therapeutic massages that has all disappeared."

He goes on to say he's available for any part � "have own beard and wig, on-site laundry done and secret masses said for Polish Catholics."

Lester cast Sean Connery and Audrey Hepburn in the well-regarded 1976 romantic adventure, Robin and Marian. In the archive is a sweet letter from Hepburn in which she writes: "Dear Richard, the picture is beautiful [word underlined] and I wish you had been with us in New York. Much praise and affection would have been yours."

Lester unofficially retired from movie directing after reuniting the Musketeers cast for The Return of the Musketeers, a film overshadowed by the death of Roy Kinnear, killed when he fell off his horse. He did though return to the camera to make a film of Paul McCartney's world tour of 1989-90, called Get Back. Until recently Lester kept an office at Twickenham studios.

Nathalie Morris, the BFI's curator of special collections, said the BFI had had a long relationship with Lester. "He was obviously high on our list of collections that we'd like to bring in to the archive and, because he's moved out of his office at Twickenham, now felt like the right time.

"It is an immensely generous gift and it's great to know that people are going to be able to come in and look at it."

Most of the archive has been gone over and a catalogue for it should be available in mid-October. "60 boxes is a lot so it has been a job sorting it and getting it in to order."

Morris said there were many riches for those interested in British film history including many shooting and continuity scripts with Polaroid photos giving behind the scenes insights in to so many films.

Lester was born in the US but came to the UK in 1956 and stayed here, making his name in TV. His work with Milligan and Peter Sellers brought him to the attention of the Beatles and he made A Hard Day's Night and Help! for them.

He made more than 20 films and, in 1965, won the Grand Prix prize at Cannes for The Knack� and How to Get it with Rita Tushingham and Michael Crawford.

The following year he adapted Stephen Sondheim's A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum casting Zero Mostel, Phil Silvers and � in his last ever film role � Buster Keaton as Erronius.

Two decades on and Lester was still in demand, directing Superman II in 1980 � the one with Terence Stamp as the criminal General Zod � and the less successful Superman III in 1983 � starring Richard Pryor as the computer nerd.

The Lester archive joins some illustrious names at the BFI which also looks after the collections of Powell and Pressburger, Derek Jarman, David Lean, John Schlesinger, Dirk Bogarde and Carol Reed, to name only a few.

British horror masterpiece!!!

Britannia Rules? — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 17:08:56 GMT

Just kidding, I've done a video review of Rawhead Rex.

Britannia Rules? on blip.tv

Not a wonderful/watchable film by any stretch of the imagination. Hope you enjoy the review.

DVD Review: Centurion

Arthur Askey — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 15:40:56 GMT

Centurion is the story of an island of plucky natives defying the wrath of a massive foreign power and winning. No, I�m not talking about World War II, but the Roman invasion of Britain in about 100 AD. Described by Nuts Magazine as �the British answer to Gladiator� (a quote which is odd in itself because Ridley Scott is British), it follows the story of the Ninth Legion as they fight against the dastardly Picts, who don�t want to be ruled by the Romans and are putting up a fight.
The Romans are the good guys here (or so the film makes out; personally I support the Picts) and the protagonist is Quintus Dias, who ends up having to lead his men home with bravery, honour, and all that. None of the Romans particularly shine in their roles but they aren�t bad either. Recognisable faces among the cast include Noel Clarke (Kidulthood, Adulthood, Doctor Who) and Lee Ross (Life On Mars and Ashes To Ashes), as well as a small role from Paul Freeman (Raiders Of The Lost Ark, Hot Fuzz).
Of course (since this is a British film and you need to be able to actually understand them) you have second-century Romans speaking the Queen�s English. This is hilarious in itself as it makes them sound like Londoners about a millennium before the word was even invented. Some of the dialogue is well written and genuinely hilarious. Said dialogue is punctuated by a lot of seemingly anachronistic swearing (I don�t know how often the Romans said "fuck" and "shit" but I bet it wasn�t a lot), which adds to the unintentional hilarity.
Adding to the atmosphere of the film are the impressive sets and locations, such as the Roman forts and the mountains in Scotland. Suiting the Roman theme of the film, there are also a lot of battles and gore, with director Neill Marshall not skimping on the blood. As axes fly, blood sprays with a gush usually reserved for wounds inflicted by serial killers. I saw a man�s head basically explode by being shoved into a tree and another guy lost his head in a rather graphic fashion. Well, I say he lost his head � it actually got cleaved in half. Horizontally.
There is some good directing work in evidence here, which is most obvious in the battle scenes and the camera angles, which look like they were stolen from Lord Of The Rings and contrived to make the enemy camp look like it could be wiped out with a hand grenade. (It would�ve added to the funny banter if one of them said �A grenade�my empire for a hand grenade!�)
The DVD has the customary special features, with a commentary track from the director, as well as deleted scenes (with optional commentary), and outtakes (which are only slightly funny). The disc also contains five featurettes about the filmmaking process, such as where the idea came from and the work that goes into the special effects. (And the blood. Oh, so much blood.)
If you like more violence than you can shake a spear at (most blokes do), lots of anachronistic swearing, and if you liked 300, then this is the film for you. To paraphrase Monty Python�s Life Of Brian, �What have the Romans ever done for us?" Provided us with a blood-filled, reasonably entertaining movie, that�s what.

Vintage footage of Fenland published by British Pathe film archives

Arthur Askey — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 14:40:07 GMT

Vintage footage of Fenland published by British Pathe film archives

Story by: ANDREW PAPWORTH Monday, 16 August, 2010

Fruit Special - Fruit pickers at a farm in Wisbech, 1963
Dozens of newsreels held by the British Pathe film archive have been made available online.
Just a few clicks on the library�s website will unearth hours of footage which feature a water diviner from Chatteris, the eviction of a school teacher in Benwick and a stunning performance by the Wisbech Male Voice Choir.
But British Pathe�s general manager Alastair White called for residents� in-depth local knowledge to help with their records.
He said: �We are asking for local people who are much more knowledgeable than we are to let us know if they can add any information.�
Wisbech Male Voice Choir - The Wisbech Male Voice Choir performing in 1932
Mr White said his organisation has already been inundated with e-mails and calls from people adding important details to their bank and correcting information.
He added: �The more data we have, the more use it is to people.�
The footage was previously only available to researchers and documentary makers who paid for the privilege and were prepared to travel to London to access the films.
But now people can watch newsreels from British cinemas dating back to 1896.
Water Diviner - A 16-year-old Josie Simpson shows off her skills a water diviner in Chatteris, 1967
A quick internet search reveals a 1967 film about teenager Josie Simpson, of Chatteris, featuring her life as a water diviner nicknamed Twiggy by her friends.
Many people will also be fascinated by a 1932 performance by Wisbech Male Voice Choir, and by farmers picking fruit from a field in Wisbech in 1963.
Mr White said: �The response we have had from the general public is phenomenal. We have found people really enjoy looking at the films.�
� To view the films, visit British Pathe

A film that would be British through and through

Arthur Askey — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 14:39:07 GMT

Reid was the last of the great Communist trade union leaders Photo: Daily Record

It occurred to me while I was reading the obituaries columns this week that if there isn�t a script doing the rounds of the British film industry along the following lines, there ought to be: It�s a story with all the historical significance of Made in Dagenham (about women workers at the Ford Plant struggling to achieve equal pay). It also has the underdog triumph and the emotional uplift of films like Billy Elliot and The Full Monty.

Our hero? He�s a ruggedly handsome Scot in his late 30s - dynamic, forceful, passionate and self-taught.

He had begun on life�s lower rungs. The son of a Glasgow shipyard worker, he left school at 14, became an apprentice shipyard engineer and became fascinated by politics, reading about it avidly.
He had the gift of the gab, and when he spoke he could inspire his fellow workers to great things. His opponents attacked him for being a Communist - which he was as a younger man. But he was also a man with a moral compass, a Christian who took his religion seriously.
His reputation as a silver-tongued orator came in handy when in 1971 the Conservative government declared that shipbuilding in Glasgow was no longer sustainable and must be closed down.
Our hero decided this was unacceptable. Together with his close friend and colleague Jimmy Airlie, he hit upon a plan of retaliatory action that had nothing to do with going on strike. Instead they devised a plan for a workers� occupation of one of the city�s shipyards, and a work-in that kept them running. In a series of impassioned speeches he persuaded his fellow shipyard workers that the plan could work. It did, and there are still shipyards in Glasgow to this day.
His exploits made him a hero - and not just a working-class one. In the wake of his astonishing successes, the students of Glasgow University elected him rector for three years. And his address to them became legendary.
"From the very depth of my being,� he told them, �I challenge the right of any man or group of men, in business or in government, to tell a fellow human being that he or she is expendable.�
Here�s where our story gains favour with American cinemagoers. The New York Times printed the speech in full and in an editorial compared our hero�s gifts for oratory to those of Abraham Lincoln.
Our hero, as they say, in film land, had been on quite a journey.
The film would be British through and through. It need not be expensive.
You�d shoot it mostly in Glasgow. Most of the actors would be Scottish.
Peter Mullan might make a fine Airlie. As for our hero, you need not look further than Ewan McGregor.
The title? You could simply call it The Jimmy Reid Story.

Film Posters : UK and Polish .....Did they lose the plot?

Arthur Askey — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 13:17:07 GMT

View them here:

http://www.telegraph...t-the-plot.html

The story of postwar Polish film posters is a strange footnote in the history of Communism. In 1947, J Arthur Rank, flour magnate and film mogul, signed a treaty with Poland to distribute British films there. Polish filmgoers were eager for escapist entertainment, while the British were looking for new markets after the United States placed a ban on the import of British films.

Along with the films came the posters and with their arrival a new front was opened up in the ideological war with the West: poster design. �In the Polish film magazines there were articles about how bad Western posters were, covered in guns and naked women,� says Polish curator Ewa Reeves, co-editor of a new book that lines Polish posters up against their British equivalents. �So communist Poland decided to create something that would defeat Western posters.�

UK film council petition

Arthur Askey — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 13:06:57 GMT

I couldn`t find the origional thread about this so not sure if the petition is on it. So here it is:

http://www.gopetitio...lm-council.html