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Films From The 50s And 60s?

G

guilbert53

master brummie
I was searching on Sky today to find a certain film and I found it on a TV channel called Talking Pictures which I had never heard of.

Took me a while to find it on the Sky planner but in the end found it in the Movie section, right at the end, on Chanel 343. Not sure if it is on any other TV platforms (Freeview, Virgin etc.)

It is a strange channel and seems to be run by "film buffs" who rescue old TV shows and films and sell them on DVD, and there are quite a few interesting old films and TV shows on there.

They have a web site here: https://www.renownfilms.co.uk/

On the TV channel there is an amazing "hotch potch" of films and TV shows. ranging from the 1920s through all the decades (30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s even 90s).

They seem to specialize on rescuing British films from the 50s and 60s (or later) so a great history of British films on there.

There are films and TV shows on there that I have never heard of, some of them featuring actors who probably forgot they ever made them.

There are some very dated films from the 20s and 30s on there, but if you hunt through you can find some interesting stuff.

I have set about 30 things to record (honestly) over the next week or so, from TV shows to films, and some other obscure things (documentaries and so on).

While I accept it won't interest everyone, for someone who wants to see film from the 1950s or 1960s they have not seen for years it may be a gold mine.
 
We watched "Old Mother Riley" the other day! It's worth a look, they are having an interesting mix!
rosie.
 
My son had quite a few Laurel & Hardy films he was about to sell at a car boot fair, so i asked him if i could make copies to put on my laptop. I think i copied about 20 films, mostly b&w, & as i shall be holidaying in Wales shortly (where it tends to rain a lot ) so i`ll have plenty of time to watch them (unless it`s sunny of course)
 
Thank you Carolina!
I forgot the other one was with "Gert and Daisy", I don't remember them but my husband enjoyed them! (He's older than me!!)
rosie.
 
rosie said:
Thank you Carolina!
I forgot the other one was with "Gert and Daisy", I don't remember them but my husband enjoyed them! (He's older than me!!)
rosie.
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"Gert & Daisy" were real life sisters, Elsie & Doris Walters. Their brother was comedian Jack "Mind my bike" Warner, and later George Dixon of Dock Green. Eddie
 
I'd not heard of Talking Pictures as a separate channel, it used to be a show on Sky Arts (which ran on Virgin). Renown Films seems to have a lot of old movies but although they list 273 items on their site, most are listed 2 or 3 times and some are BFI and other labels. Then again, some have more than one film to a disk. They also have colorized versions which some people don't like.
If you're transferring things for use on a laptop, you might want to look at https://archive.org/details/moviesandfilms which has a lot of old movies for free download although the transfer speed isn't that good. These are old and out of copyright (at least in the USA) and do include quite a few British films. I remember seeing "Oh Mr Porter", "The Ghost Train" and at least one Bulldog Drummond.

I don't know if it will be re-run in the near future but https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01kq0wh was a reasonable radio play version of the life of Elsie & Doris Waters (Gert & Daisy).
 
I find most of these old films can be seen on 'youtube', although they may be difficult to download. I can still be amused by the likes of Laurel and Hardy, Charlie Chaplin, Will Hay, Alastair Sim etc... although for reasons unknown I have never liked Old Mother Riley or Gert and Daisie !! Eric
 
Have just watched a "cowboy" film involving lots of horses, chasing & shooting with horse & riders taking a tumble. Made me wonder how many horses & actors were killed making those films, films that wouldn`t be made today ( health & safety ) Also kinda funny seeing those cowboys saloon fighting & their hats never seemed to fall off (early superglue ) :D
 
Smudger said:
Have just watched a "cowboy" film involving lots of horses, chasing & shooting with horse & riders taking a tumble. Made me wonder how many horses & actors were killed making those films, films that wouldn`t be made today ( health & safety ) Also kinda funny seeing those cowboys saloon fighting & their hats never seemed to fall off (early superglue ) :D
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. . . . and did you ever notice that the Baddie always wore a black hat and had a pencil moustache ?
 
Smudger said:
Have just watched a "cowboy" film involving lots of horses, chasing & shooting with horse & riders taking a tumble. Made me wonder how many horses & actors were killed making those films, films that wouldn`t be made today ( health & safety ) Also kinda funny seeing those cowboys saloon fighting & their hats never seemed to fall off (early superglue ) :D
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and they put a bandage on a little hole were a 45 cal went in and out. and off they ride:): unamused:
 
Ah! but they were enjoyable and fun, few dissected the ins and outs of things in those days. Additionally a large percentage of the films of that era were ones that were family viewing.
 
In those old cowboy films you always see a person ride in to town on a horse, ride up to the saloon or sheriffs office, very loosely tie their horse up to a railing, and go in to the nearby building.

But this was the lawless Wild West, so surely any horse left unguarded outside a building was ripe for the stealing.

I wonder if cowboys really did just tie their horses up like that?
 
guilbert53 said:
In those old cowboy films you always see a person ride in to town on a horse, ride up to the saloon or sheriffs office, very loosely tie their horse up to a railing, and go in to the nearby building.

But this was the lawless Wild West, so surely any horse left unguarded outside a building was ripe for the stealing.

I wonder if cowboys really did just tie their horses up like that?
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I'm given to understand that in the Wild West, the casualty rate for horse thieves was quite high !
 
The 'Wild West' was an area as large as most of Western Europe. Actually the American 'west' became 'the west' at different places at different periods of time, from the Appalachians > Missouri River > The Rockies (Great Divide) > etc.
Apart from the American Indian tribes there were few whites except on the western seaboards. Expansion was slow, covered wagons 1810 - 1860 after which time railways were beginning too cris-cross the country and with it a population expansion.
 
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Ray T said:
Ah, the good old days. Back then, PC Dixon could walk into a warehouse to find a gang of armed thugs gathered round a safe and he'd say, "All right, you lot, you're nicked!" And the bruiser of a leader would say, "It's a fair cop, officer. We'll come quietly." How times have changed.
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........ yer there is always a :)bruiser
 
mw0njm. said:
........ yer there is always a :)bruiser
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Surprising that people watched reruns of Dixon of Dock Green but no-one seemed to notice the re-run of The Blue Lamp in the last few weeks. Back then PC Dixon could walk down the street, singing, talk to some dodgy character who looked like Dirk Bogarde in a doorway and get shot dead in the first 20 minutes.
 
wam said:
Surprising that people watched reruns of Dixon of Dock Green but no-one seemed to notice the re-run of The Blue Lamp in the last few weeks. Back then PC Dixon could walk down the street, singing, talk to some dodgy character who looked like Dirk Bogarde in a doorway and get shot dead in the first 20 minutes.
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I watched it last week it was dirk bogart. sad: :sob:
 
wam said:
Surprising that people watched reruns of Dixon of Dock Green but no-one seemed to notice the re-run of The Blue Lamp in the last few weeks. Back then PC Dixon could walk down the street, singing, talk to some dodgy character who looked like Dirk Bogarde in a doorway and get shot dead in the first 20 minutes.
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Great film. The first time I saw it was at school where we had a film society run by a couple of film buff masters who hired all sorts of films and showed them in the lecture room either at lunchtimes or after school.
 
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