Tag Archives: 50s
Oh Boy! Why certain Radio 1 DJs are missing believed wiped
If you sat down to watch a night of lost pop music TV shows from the 1950s, 60s and 70s, what would you expect to find? Fun, nostalgia, eye popping colour and experimentation, some great music. What I didn’t expect … Continue reading
Posted in Culture, History, Media, Music, TV, Uncategorized
Tagged 50s, 60s, 70s, BBC, culture, david hamilton, debbie harry, Hot Gossip, jack good, jimmy savile, media, music, oh boy!, pete murray, top of the pops, totp, tv
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Johnny Guitar? You probably think this film is about you.
This is the text of an introduction I gave at a re-release screening of Johnny Guitar at the British Film Institute on May 6th 2016 I saw Johnny Guitar for first time here at the BFI to whom I”ll always … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged 50s, bfi, Bigger Than Life, cinema, feminism, film, Hollywood, James Mason, Joan Crawford, Johnny Guitar, mercedes mccambridge, Natalie Wood, Nicholas Ray, Rebel Without A Cause, westerns
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How The West Was Fun: When Britain loved cowboys
The Unforgiven (1961) – The Searchers in reverse This is about the back ground to the April 6th documentary I made for Radio 4 about the Western in British culture. You can listen again here: Archive on Four documentary Riding … Continue reading
Poor Cows and Angry Young Men: 50 years of Kitchen Sink Drama
The director Ken Loach and the theatre critic Michael Billington remember the dawn of the 60s well. “The 50s weren’t bleak and depressing,” spluttered Loach, listening to art critic Rachel Campbell-Johnston explain the grim postwar era that spawned the new … Continue reading
Posted in Culture, Film, Theatre, TV, Uncategorized
Tagged 50s, 60s, British social realism, cinema, culture, elitism, feminism, film, FTW, Ken Loach, kitchen sink drama, music, Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, tv
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Mocha in the Family Latte: Race on American screens
“He should not be here, ” said the fish in the pot. ” he should not be here when your mother is not.” – The Cat In the Hat Dr Seuss (1957) It is a conundrum worthy of the massive … Continue reading
Martin Landau and the Art of Darkness
I was lucky enough to interview Martin Landau when he was in London for the Film Festival premiere of Frankenweenie. Like a lot of 70s kids I first discovered him as Space:1999′s haunted looking Commander Koenig. When discussing his career … Continue reading
Posted in Film, Radio, Science, TV, Uncategorized
Tagged 50s, cinema, Crimes and Misdemeanours, Dracula, film, Francis Ford Coppola, Frankenweenie, FTW, Hollywood, James Dean, Martin Landau, Mission impossible, Mr Spock, Space 1999, Star Trek, The Strand, Tim Burton, Tucker, tv, Woody Allen, zombies
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Anglos, Diphthongs & Perfect Snogging: Saving the German A-level
This piece was written for The Guardian in August 2012, after A-level results showed the number of UK students taking German had declined to below 5,000 for the first time. There were also significant drops in French and other modern … Continue reading
Posted in Comedy, Culture, Education, Film, Germany, Uncategorized
Tagged 50s, A-levels, Bachelor of Hearts, Cambridge, cinema, culture, film, Hardy Kruger, Schools, Sylvia Syms, universities
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Aliens, abortion and baby machines: HG Wells & John Wyndham
Woman’s Hour ran a fascinating interview today with novelist Kishwar Desai, about India’s burgeoning surrogate baby industry. Her exploration of this massive business (an estimated 20,000 babies produced each year) seems to differ from Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale only … Continue reading
Posted in Books, Children, Culture, Film, Politics, Science, Uncategorized
Tagged 50s, 60s, abortion, aliens, books, cinema, culture, film, HG Wells, John Wyndham, literature, Martians, science fiction, zombies
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Can we laugh about this? Race on film
I spent an hour with the Film Club charity in Battersea Park School in South London today,(I’m a trustee) discussing the treatment of race and racism on film. It was Anti-Racism Day, apparently. I chose clips from a sample of … Continue reading
Posted in Children, Comedy, Education, Film, Media, TV, Uncategorized
Tagged 50s, 60s, 70s, cinema, culture, Douglas Sirk, India, indians, Peter Sellers, sitcoms, Susan Kohner, terrorism, tv
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New York Fever: Strutting with Travolta
This is a talk I gave at the British Film Institute last night at the launch of a new book series on World Film Locations in major cities. The books pick 1 key scene and its locations from each film … Continue reading
