Vote for Britain

A crucial week here in the UK, with our election on Thursday and terror attacks escalating - lets return to the glory years of the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s and all those British movies we love, part of our current Lists season, and no, I may not be able to stick to 20 each - but then, my blog - my rules. Reviews of lots of these at British label.

1940s:

• Lets start with 7 David Lean, all essential: IN WHICH WE SERVE / THIS HAPPY BREED / BLITHE SPIRIT / BRIEF ENCOUNTER / GREAT EXPECTATIONS / OLIVER TWIST / THE PASSIONATE FRIENDS
  
• 4 Michael Powell, even more essential: A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH / I KNOW WHERE I’M GOING / BLACK NARCISSUS / THE RED SHOES
• 2 Carol Reed: THE FALLEN IDOL / ODD MAN OUT
• 2 Basil Dearden: SARABAND FOR DEAD LOVERS / THE BLUE LAMP
• Asquith; THE WAY TO THE STARS
• Annakin - HOLIDAY CAMP - the post war boom starts with those new holiday camps, 1947.
• Hamer – IT ALWAYS RAINS ON SUNDAY - the grim side of postwar London / KIND HEARTS & CORONETS
• Crichton – WHISKEY GALORE.

Let's throw in some Gainsborough melodramas which brightened up the war years: THE WICKED LADY, MADONNA OF THE SEVEN MOONS, CARAVAN, BLANCHE FURY, and some Anna Neagle epics: I LIVE IN PARK LANE, MAYTIME IN MAYFAIR. 

1950s:

Often seen as a bland decade for English movies, but lots of pleasure for those of us growing up then:

• Dearden – POOL OF LONDON / THE GENTLE GUNMAN  / VIOLENT PLAYGROUND
• Crichton – DANCE HALL (by Godfrey Winn - the leisure time of factory girls, as much a social document as SATURDAY NIGHT AND SUNDAY MORNING would be at the end of the decade)
• Hurst – DANGEROUS EXILE (ditto Belinda Lee in this 1957 costumer about the son of Marie Antoinette..)
• Box – CAMPBELL’S KINGDOM (Dirk and very tough guy Stanley Baker in the Canadian Rockies (actually the Dolomites in Italy), we loved it in 1957.
• Fregonese - SEVEN THUNDERS (Boyd leads a terrific cast in 1957 wartime thriller set in occupied Marseilles - one I enjoyed as a kid)
• J Lee Thompson - NO TREES IN THE STREET / TIGER BAY / NORTH WEST FRONTIER (all 1959)
• NO TIME FOR TEARS - 3 Anna Neagle classics:
• MY TEENAGE DAUGHTER 
• THE LADY IS A SQUARE
• THOSE DANGEROUS YEARS
• WONDERFUL THINGS
• SIMON AND LAURA 
• AN ALLIGATOR NAMED DAISY
• NOR THE MOON BY NIGHT
• OUT OF THE CLOUDS
• JET STORM - Stanley Baker pilots the plane, Richard Attenborough has the bomb, all star cast in 1959. Love it 
• HELL DRIVERS
• ALIVE AND KICKING
• THE WEAK AND THE WICKED. Glynis Johns is sent to prison and shares a cell with Diana Dors, in this delicious 1954 meller, from J Lee Thompson.
• TURN THE KEY SOFTLY. More ex-jailbirds with Yvonne Mitchell and young Joan Collins in 1953
• PASSPORT TO SHAME 
  
• EXPRESSO BONGO
• SERIOUS CHARGE
• ROOM AT THE TOP.

1960s:

The new boys and girls and directors hit town:

• VICTIM
• A TASTE OF HONEY
  
• A KIND OF LOVING (above right)
• THE L-SHAPED ROOM (Leslie Caron joins the seedy Notting Hill bedsit set, 1962)
• WEST 11 (Di Dors also in Notting Hill bedsit land with gay Alfred Lynch, in early Winner 1963)
• TWO LEFT FEET (Young Hemmings and Michael Crawford shine)
• SOME PEOPLE, 1962 charmer about Bristol teenagers, with Hemmings again.
• THE BOYS - fascinating 1962 time capsule
• THE LEATHER BOYS - another early gay British saga, 1964, below)
  
• BILLY LIAR
• THE SERVANT
• DARLING (above right) - Julie and gay pal eye up the waiter .... both get him.
• THE GIRL WITH GREEN EYES
• I WAS HAPPY HERE
• THE KNACK
• THE SYSTEM - perfectly 1964 as England began to swing ...
• THE WORLD TEN TIMES OVER - 1963 Soho saga
  
• A HARD DAY'S NIGHT
• HELP!
• THE PLEASURE GIRLS - 1965 Kensington girls, gays too!
• SATURDAY NIGHT OUT
• NOTHING BUT THE BEST
• REPULSION
• ACCIDENT.

SWINGING 60s:

• TOM JONES
• WHATS NEW PUSSYCAT?
• MODESTY BLAISE
• BLOW-UP
• SMASHING TIME
• HERE WE GO ROUND THE MULBERRY BUSH
• DEEP END
• PERFORMANCE.

All covered in detail at British/London labels.