2 Classic Films On TV Tonight

[DaveN 1,118]

On Sony Movies Classic channel (Freeview channel 50) tonight at 7.10 there's Saturday Night And Sunday Morning followed by A Taste Of Honey at 9pm.

[Beekay 4,263]

Look out for me following AF at the opening credits.

[DJ360 6,337]

Heads up!

 

Shortly after 3:00 pm today is 'No Room at the Inn'. Saw it a few times in the 1960s on telly.  Late 40s drama which features Freda Jackson who later went on to appear in many things including Hammer Horror films.  She is said to have attended High Pavement Grammar during its co-ed phase.. though she came from Northampton.  Not sure how that works.

 

Also, on currently is 'The Architecture the Railways Built'.  (Yesterday  UKTV)  which is available on catch up and which featured the Bennerley Viaduct in Episode 1.

[Jill Sparrow 9,568]

Re the actress Freda Jackson, I knew a lady many years ago who told me that Freda Jackson lived and was possibly born in the Didcot Drive area of Nottingham, off Nuthall Road. She appears to have been born in 1907, the daughter of a railway porter (Source IMDB).

 

My informant had also been born in that area, albeit slightly later.

[benjamin1945 15,477]

Just looked her up on Wiki,,,apparently born Nottingham,, died and mostly lived Hardingstone near Northampton,,a place i knew quite well

[Jill Sparrow 9,568]

She was brilliant as Mrs Joe, the wife of Joe Gargery the blacksmith in David Lean's Great Expectations. Gargery himself was played by Bernard Miles in a performance that could have been taken straight from the pages of Dickens' book.  That film had a very strong cast. The only weak casting was John Mills as adult Pip. Totally miscast. Too old and too lightweight to play a Dickensian character. Finlay Currie was perfect as the convict. Although huge chunks of the story were excised for the film, it remains one of my all time favourites.

[annswabey 599]

I love that film too, Jill.  We read Great Expectations for English Lit  O Level, so we were all taken to see it, but I've watched it a number of times since.  I'm not a great fan of Dickens but I love that book, my favourite line being about Bentley Drummle "he was so sulky a fellow that he even took up a book as though it's writer had done him an injury"

[Jill Sparrow 9,568]

Yes, it's a classic, isn't it?  Many have tried to translate Dickens to the screen, both large and small. Mostly, they've failed miserably.

 

Another, more recent, favourite was Martin Chuzzlewit, starring Paul Scofield. Some classic Dickensian characterizations there: Pete Postlethwaite among them as Montague Tigg or Tigg Montague. John Mills doing a much better job as old Mr Chuffy.  Tom Wilkinson also brilliant as the unctuous Pecksniff. 

[DJ360 6,337]

I re-read GE a couple of years back.  All the mention of convivial dinners with Herbert Pocket.. involving jugs of melted butter etc.. seem to have been missed from the film. 

I think it's worth noting that the Alistair Sim 'Scrooge' is a very decent rendering of A Christmas Carol.

 

My late father in law had a 'bit part' in a BBC production of Domby and Son ... sometime in the 80s I think.. but I never saw it.

 

I must read more Dickens.

 

I recorded a recent GE tonight.  Can't recall whose in it as I've had a couple of beers.. I don't hold out much hope.

[Jill Sparrow 9,568]

The Lean film version of Great Expectations misses out much of the story. For instance, it doesn't explain the real relationship between Estella and the criminal element or what really happened to embitter Miss Havisham. It also misses some wonderful opportunities to show some of the more frightening moments of the book, such as Pip's exploration of the deserted Brewery at Satis House and the figure he sees hanging from the beam. Lean and his cinematographer would have grabbed at that chance to make the audience jump, I'd have thought.

 

For all that, I still love it. For my money, no adaptation since can touch it.

[Cliff Ton 9,939]

This modern version (2012) of Great Expectations was on BBC4 last night.  Very dark and gloomy.

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b039f0bs/great-expectations

[Jill Sparrow 9,568]

I did try with that one but gave up after around 10 minutes. Bonham-Carter as Miss Havisham I found shallow, bizarre and not credible.

 

Whether it is that the cast of the David Lean version all had long careers as stage actors and were therefore able to assume the personae of those they portrayed, I couldn't say but the 2012 cast lacks depth and conviction. The opening scene in the churchyard of Lean's version is obviously a forced perspective painted set but no one will ever better it.  For me, it's the Lean version or the book. No others need apply!

[DJ360 6,337]

It seems to me that film adaptations of Dickens  (and others) around say, the immediate post WW2 period... all rather glossed over the darker elements of the tales and 'sanitised' them to some extent. So the 'romantic' elements took precedence over the darker social commentary. I'd say that applies equally to GE, Scrooge and slightly less to Oliver Twist. They were different times, when public morality, censorship and no doubt a wearyness with the real darkness of WW2 all played a part in setting the 'tone'.

[DJ360 6,337]

Another 'Heads Up'.  No Room At The Inn is on again at 18:00 today on Talking Pics.

[Brew 5,007]

Freda Jackson, Mrs Vardy in the film, was a Nottingham lass