Steptoe And Son: Stripper Zita settles for any old iron when rag-and-bone man Harold Steptoe marries her after a wild stag night. Joining the newlyweds on honeymoon in Spain rusty Albert tries putting his son's well-laid plans on the scrap heap. It seems he's succeeded when Harold deserts his bride but before he can utter good riddance to bad rubbish Harold learns she's pregnant and he's the proud father of the litter! (Dir. Cliff Owen 1972) Steptoe And Son Ride Again: Rag-and-bone man Harold Steptoe is conned into putting his father's life-savings into a dodgy greyhound who needs contact lenses to see the hare! When the dog loses the race Harold must pay off his debts; that's when the fun starts... (Dir. Peter Sykes 1973)
In 1962 comedy writers Alan Simpson and Ray Galton wrote a new comedy pilot for the BBC's Comedy Playhouse. Set in a house and a yard full of junk it featured rag and bone men Albert Steptoe and his son Harold....
Witchfinder General is one of those cult British films that, like The Wicker Man, seemed to herald a renaissance in the fortunes of the British film industry in the late 1960s and early 70s. With only his third film, director Michael Reeves displayed an assured grasp of technique and a confident ability to mix and match genres that marked him out as a homegrown wunderkind to rival the Spielbergs and Coppolas who were just graduating from film school across the Atlantic. Sadly, this promise remained unfulfilled as Reeves died suddenly, soon after completing the film, from a lethal cocktail of prescription drugs; Witchfinder General remains his only significant work Veteran Vincent Price is wonderfully cast as the titular witchfinder, Matthew Hopkins, whose bloody and usually sexually motivated persecutions across civil war-torn East Anglia are carried out with much relish, graphic fake blood and lots of screaming. Ian Ogilvy, an old school pal of the director's, is the upright new model soldier who swears vengeance against Hopkins for the rape of his betrothed (Hilary Dwyer, who in true Hammer Horror fashion gets to take her top off and scream a lot). Lascivious depictions of burning witches and gratuitous sex aside, what draws the viewer into the film is the setting as Reeves' camera roams lovingly across the East Anglian countryside. The opening-hanging scene, for example, depends strongly on location for its effect, and Ogilvy's quest for revenge takes on a John Ford-style Western aura in the director's hands. Perhaps not quite the masterpiece some seem to think it is, Witchfinder General remains a sturdy piece of distinctively British filmmaking. On the DVD: This disc allows the viewer to select the slightly extended "Export cut" of the movie, which has a little more graphic blood than the censored UK release, although the restored sequences are of markedly inferior quality. The anamorphic picture and mono sound are decent, even if too many murky nighttime scenes and badly dubbed actors' voices betray the film's restrictively low budget. The major extra is a documentary about the life and short career of Michael Reeves, while other fill-ups include text notes from critic Kim Newman, a music video, trailer, filmographies and stills. All in all, it's a welcome restoration of a genre classic. --Mark Walker
The Very Best of Steptoe and Son is wonderful collection of "Steptoe" moments...but not entirely what it claims to be. This selection, is in fact a collection of five episodes from the two surviving series of the four shot in colour in the 1970s--the four black and white series shot in the 1960s are neglected entirely. However by the 1970s, Wilfred Brambell and Harry H Corbett had been playing Albert and Harold Steptoe for almost a decade and the parts of the greedy needy old man and his witty feeble son were second nature to them. One of the best episodes on show here is "The Desperate Hours", which sets the father and son duo off against a similar couple--Leonard Rossiter's escaped bank robber and the old lag who taught him everything he knows--both couples come to understand the shared dynamic of their relationships. The 1970s episodes included more external shots and opened the show out from its original two-hander format--"Oh What a Beautiful Mourning", for example, introduces us to a large selection of the Steptoe clan, played by a variety of well known character actors. On the DVD: The DVD is presented in a standard television 4:3 aspect ratio and adds the luxury of Dolby Sound to the show's original mono; the Ron Grainger signature tune has never sounded so good. There are no subtitles, but the DVD includes a short account of the two stars' careers and an extended interview in which Galton and Simpson, the scriptwriters, talk about the history of the show from its origin as a one-off Comedy Playhouse episode through to the eventual decision that after the eighth series it was time to call it a day. --Roz Kaveny
A 1963 British crime film directed by Ken Hughes and starring Anthony Newley, Julia Foster and Robert Stephens. THE SMALL WORLD OF SAMMY LEE is just around any corner in Soho. Peopled by the pimps, the punters, the brasses and the bookies, and with boils on its face like the sleazy Peepshow club where Sammy (Anthony Newley) comperes the strip-tease. Sammy Lee is worried. When you owe £300 to a bookie like Conner you're entitled to be worried. Particularly when his muscle men (Kenneth J. Warren and Clive Colin Bowler) are coming in a few hours' time to collect the cash. Refused help from brother Lou (Warren Mitchell) by Lou's wife (Miriam Karlin) who won't pour the profits of their delicatessen into bookies' pockets, Sammy is desperately setting up shady deals to raise the money. EXTRAS: New Interview with Julia Foster New Locations Featurette with Film Historian Richard Dacre New Interview with Mike Hodges
The exciting tale of two children who with the help of an eccentric professor set out in search of their shipwrecked father...
Wilfrid Brambell and Harry H Corbett play Albert and Harold rag-and-bone merchants in this comedy classic. Father and son are always arguing but the wily old man always comes out on top. In a house filled from top to bottom with junk the gruesome twosome get up to the most indescribable antics! This release features all 7 classic episodes from Series 2. Episodes comprise: 1. The Bath 2. Wallah-Wallah Catsmeat 3. The Stepmother 4. Sixty-Five Today 5. A Musical Evening 6. F
A 1963 British crime film directed by Ken Hughes and starring Anthony Newley, Julia Foster and Robert Stephens. THE SMALL WORLD OF SAMMY LEE is just around any corner in Soho. Peopled by the pimps, the punters, the brasses and the bookies, and with boils on its face like the sleazy Peepshow club where Sammy (Anthony Newley) comperes the strip-tease. Sammy Lee is worried. When you owe £300 to a bookie like Conner you're entitled to be worried. Particularly when his muscle men (Kenneth J. Warren and Clive Colin Bowler) are coming in a few hours' time to collect the cash. Refused help from brother Lou (Warren Mitchell) by Lou's wife (Miriam Karlin) who won't pour the profits of their delicatessen into bookies' pockets, Sammy is desperately setting up shady deals to raise the money. EXTRAS: New Interview with Julia Foster New Locations Featurette with Film Historian Richard Dacre New Interview with Mike Hodges
Crooks In Cloisters is a 1964 British comedy starring Bernard Cribbins and Barbara Windsor. A gang of hardboiled rogues exchange their London gear for the brown robes of a religious order. Make no mistake, they are no undergoing a change of heart, just hiding out until the heat cools off a little and they can return to their criminal activities in the big smoke!
Fresh from their success with Tony Hancock, writers Ray Galton and Alan Simpson originally planned Steptoe and Son as a one-off for the BBCs Comedy Playhouse. It was quickly turned into a series, originally broadcast in 1962, and the six episodes here (including the Comedy Playhouse "pilot") contain all the classic ingredients that were to keep the show on British TV screens until 1974. Harry H. Corbett and Wilfrid Brambell are the father and son rag and bone men, constantly bickering, constantly at each others throats. Corbetts Harold harbours ridiculous bourgeois aspirations, hoping to impress the "birds" with asparagus soup or his wine cellar, which has been painstakingly collected by draining the dregs of empty bottles. But all his efforts at social improvement are in vain, thanks to the mean-spirited efforts of his father Albert, who glories in his sons contemptuous "dirty old man" tag, and who is content with life exactly as it is in the cast-off paradise of their ramshackle junk-filled boneyard. The show was groundbreaking at the time, depicting working-class people in light comedy instead of serious social drama as was the norm. It also differed significantly from Hancocks Half Hour and other sitcoms, which featured comedians effectively playing themselves: Brambell and Corbett were real actors whose marvellous chemistry helped ensure the shows longevity. In our modern throwaway culture, Steptoe and Son provides a window into a bygone era, when men with horses and carts routinely patrolled the streets recycling junk, without the need for government incentives or environmental pressure. On the DVD: Steptoe and Son, Series 1 has six episodes on one disc. The black and white picture shows its age quite badly, and the mono sound is equally fuzzy in places. There are no extras, which is a shame, as Galton and Simpson could surely have provided an illuminating commentary track. --Mark Walker
Massively popular with audiences of over 20 million Steptoe & Son was an obvious choice for the festive schedules but this classic comedy had been running for over ten years before the first of the extended Christmas Specials appeared in 1973. A year later writers Galton and Simpson had decided to bring the series to an end. The 1974 Christmas Special would be the final ever episode: a fitting end to a legendary series. The Party: (Christmas Special 1973) Albert and Harold are busy making preparations for Christmas. Albert is putting up Christmas decorations while Harold is at the travel agents booking some sunny festive fun in Majorca. He's made all the necessary arrangements however there is one last thing to do: tell Albert to pack his bags in preparation for a short stay at the local old people's home! A Perfect Christmas: (Christmas Special 1974) Fed up with staying at home every Christmas Harold plans to take his dad abroad for the holiday. But his old man isn't going to make it easy for him: he pleads to go to Bognor instead objects to every resort in the brochure and struggles to find his birth certificate for the passport. Then just when it looks like Harold's Christmas is going to be another disaster fate delivers one more twist... Originally transmitted: 24/12/73 & 26/12/74 Due to the archive nature of the footage the sound and picture quality may vary occasionally.
John, Paul, George and Ringo's first big screen adventure is re-released in cinemas; an exaggerated "Day In the Life" of the Beatlemania era Beatles.
Alice in Wonderland the haunting nightmarish 1966 BBC Television version writ-ten and directed by Jonathan Miller and starring Peter Sellers Sir John Gielgud Sir Michael Redgrave Wilfrid Brambell Peter Cook Alan Bennett John Bird Leo McKern and Anne-Marie Mallik as Alice. Shot in pinpoint ghostly black and white with a dream-like editing schematic actors dressed not in costumes but in period clothes and a jarring seductive beautiful score by Ravi Shankar this Alice in Wonderland is like no other version you'll see of the Lewis Carroll classic. Alice in Wonderland is a dark nightmarish excursion into pointless almost listlessmadness...which makes it even more off-putting and uncomfortable in its rigid diffidence. Alice in Wonderland doesn't look like anything I've ever associated with the literary source. Instead Miller gives us an Alice who sleepwalks through increasingly madden-ing scenes that although she says she's a bit confused by them on the soundtrack she doesn't appear fazed by them at all.
Carry On Camping (1969): Sid (Sid James) and his reluctant mate Bernie (Bernard Bresslaw) hit on the idea of a nudist camping holiday to spice things up with their girlfriends! The arrival of Dr Soaper (Kenneth Williams) headmaster of the Chayste Place Finishing School his matron Miss Haggard (Hattie Jacques) in charge of eleven nubile girls including star pupil Babs (Barbara Windsor) set the scene for one of the funniest frolics in the Carry On repertoire. Carry On Abroad (1972): The Carry On team take a package holiday that starts disastrously and rapidly goes downhill. The paradise island of Elsbels is not all it's cracked up to be.... The hotel isn't finished the staff are abit thin on the ground - in fact Pepe (Peter Butterworth) is the staff - and the locals are far from friendly! Carry On Follow That Camel (1967): Can fresh Foreign Legion recruits 'B.O.' West (Jim Dale) and his faithful manservant Simpson (Peter Butterworth) help defeat the ruthless Sheikh Abdul Abulbul (Bernard Bresslaw)? Find out in the hysterical historical spectacular featuring a host of harem beauties a bevy of blood thirsty Bedouins and a troupe of Legionnaires getting the hump! Carry On Girls (1973): You might think that a beauty contest would be the perfect place for the Carry On team to discover new heights of hilarity and new depths of depravity - well you'd be right! Sidney Fiddler brings a beauty contest to a quiet seaside resort. His problems start with two curvaceous Hells Angels Miss Easy Rider and Miss Dawn Brakes. There's Major Bumble Bernard Bresslaw as Britain's first drag beauty queen and last but not least Mrs Angel Prodworthy who is fighting on behalf of Women's Lib. Carry on Behind (1975): Archaelogists Professors Anna Vooshka (Elke Sommer) and Roland Crump (Kenneth Williams) are desparate to begin poking round the remains of a Roman encampment. Unfortunately the local caravan site has been built over the historic site. Holiday pals Ernie Bragg (Jack Douglas) and Fred Ramsden (Windsor Davies) have their sites set on the local beauty spots - campers Sandra (Carol Hawkins) and Carol (Sherrie Hewson)! Carry On At Your Convenience (1971): The Carry On team throw caution to the wind and present an hour and a half of good clean lavatorial humour. Kenneth Williams is WC Boggs the troubled owner of a small company trying to manufacture fine toiletware. Incompetent management and a bolshy union are just about the least of Bogg's problems as you'll soon discover in this hysterical comedy that tells you everything you always wanted to know about your home's most vital convenience.
Steptoe And Son: Stripper Zita settles for any old iron when rag-and-bone man Harold Steptoe marries her after a wild stag night. Joining the newlyweds on honeymoon in Spain rusty Albert tries putting his son's well-laid plans on the scrap heap. It seems he's succeeded when Harold deserts his bride but before he can utter good riddance to bad rubbish Harold learns she's pregnant and he's the proud father of the litter! Steptoe And Son Ride Again: Rag-and-bone man Harold Steptoe is conned into putting his father's life-savings into a dodgy greyhound who needs contact lenses to see the hare! When the dog loses the race Harold must pay off his debts; that's when the fun starts...
All 57 episodes of the classic BBC comedy series starring Wilfrid Brambell and Harry H. Corbett as the father and son running a a junkyard and scrap metal business. Includes every episode from Series 1-8, plus the two Christmas specials from 1973 and 1974.
The advent of colour television and successful comedies on ITV had pressurised the BBC to bring back its top comedy shows. So in 1970 five years after their last series Harold and Albert were back on television - like they had never been away. Although these were the first Steptoe episodes to be made in colour only black and white versions exist today available here on DVD for the first time. Wilfred Brambell and Harry H Corbett return as Albert and Harold Steptoe the bic
Considered by many to be Britain's most gifted and remarkable filmmaker Terence Davies' visually stunning intensely personal films have impressed audiences the world over and seen him acclaimed by critics as one of contemporary cinema's true poets. Packaged here together for the first time with a host of extra features are four of Davies' most evocative works: The Terence Davies Trilogy (1976-1983) Distant Voices Still Lives (1988) The Long Day Closes (1992) and Of Time and the City (2008).
Jonathan Miller's terrific adaptation of Lewis Carroll's novel originally aired on BBC1 in 1966 featuring an all star cast.
For over 30 years the Children's Film Foundation dedicated itself to producing quality entertainment for young audiences, employing the cream of British filmmaking talent. Villains, gangsters and conmen are foiled by plucky London youngsters. Helmed by such celebrated directors as John Krish and Pat Jackson, the films in London Tales feature assured performances from an array of familiar faces, including a fresh faced John Moulder Brown (playing a schoolboy in trouble) and Bernard Cribbins (as a dastardly master of disguise). Newly transferred from the best available elements held in the BFI Archive, these much loved and fondly remembered family films finally make their welcome return to the screen after many years out of distribution. Includes: The Salvage Gang (1958), Seventy Deadly Pills (1966), Operation Third Form (1966) and Night Ferry (1976)
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