Freeview Boxes : Classic or Dud?

No, but then it's just worth it for Radio 6, ocasionally.

Digital Radios is a better thread.

Dud for ropey BBC/ITV bitrates, the shopping channels (only funny the first time), the wasteland of ITV2 and the creeping menace of Top Up TV (I don't have an old OnDigital box so I can't see these extra subscription services - which are eating into channel-space, goddammit*), the plethora of EMAP-owned trash radio.

(* - OK, more to it than that, but, y'know...)

Jury's out: BBCi (I'm waiting for June...) and TMF/Hits channels (one could get sick of even "Hey Ya"), BBC3 (comedy on weeks before BBC2 - which I still can't help thinking of as a taster for its real analogue broadcast... the endless looping repeats on BBC3 don't encourage any kind of timeslot loyalty and by the time of BBC2 screening I can't remember what I have/haven't seen; the rest of its programming is without merit).

Not matter how many times I retune, I can get E4+1 perfectly but I've completely lost the reception for E4, Channel 4 and ITV etc.

ftn seems to have been replaced with virgin1 which is showing Deep Space 9 5 times a week (opposite Daily Show unfortunately).

Tivo is currently listing 50+ episodes of takeshi's castle, all of which i've seen before. i deleted the Season Pass thing only to have them all reappear due to Takeshi Kitano wishlist thing. will have to delete them all individually...

bbc radio channels seemed to rejig last week sometime - needed a channel rescan to pick them all up again. annoying - missed start of dirk gently.

I heard a couple of Radio 4 trailers saying that you'd need to rescan around October 2nd, the other week.

(note to self: remember to listen to Dirk Gently whilst in the car tonight)

Our box spazzes out and demands a rescan once every week or two. It happened again yesterday and afterwards we were missing bbc 1 and 2.

I seem to be rescanning every other week, what with C4+1 and Virgin 1 and the BBC radio stations moving about. It's quite a to-do and I worry about how the old folk cope.

Also, ITV2 never seems to provide any programme guide information anymore. Luckily, I couldn't care less.

One of our Freeview boxes started demanding a rescan every time it started up, for a couple of months, before dying completely.

What I don't understand is why you can't search for a show title on these things. The schedules are just stored as text in some database sitting right there inside the box - why not let me search for "Kath and Kim", show me the results, and then let me select "Record All"?

We recently got a new freeview box which can has about 100+ channels on it, can record programmes, and can pause TV shows (even live ones) for up to 30 minutes. It's amazing! and it only cost £50.

The schedules are just stored as text in some database sitting right there inside the box - why not let me search for "Kath and Kim", show me the results, and then let me select "Record All"

er ... you can pretty much do that with ours (some kind of two-year-old humax thing that actually rocks a lot harder than i think i realise, given that it does all the stuff CJ's new thing does and i just take it for granted). you can certainly search for programmes by name, and it's piss easy to set up a repeat-recording schedule.

Yes well that... makes sense

Everyone should have a Humax.

i want the one that can output to my computer.

I need to read the instruction book with my Sky+ box to see if it can do fancy searching stuff. It can record whole series and that, but if I don't actually see it in the TV guide, it doesn't go "yo, you're going to miss that thing you might have wanted to see". Or maybe it does and i just don't know how to work it.

Anyway, that's not freeview. Our freeview box doesn't work due to crappy aerial set-up in the house. Luckily a guy about five doors down from us has a van with "TV Aerial Repair" written on it, I just have to befriend him for some spurious reason.

I am scared to make mine rescan, since I currently appear to be getting Setanta Sports without paying Top Up.

It seems like you've got a non-spurious one already!

xpost

"hello, I've just moved in a couple of doors along from you, care to fix my aerial for nothing in a neighbourly kind of way?"

"hello, I've just moved in a couple of doors along from you. nice van. be a shame if something happened to it, eh? now, about my aerial."

Here's a "controversial" article about Freeview .. I can't say I really buy the guy's argument. I may not even grasp it in the first place.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/10/10/telebusillis_digital_tv_analysis

Our Freeview box recently broke (it won't turn on - yes, I've tried replacing the remote control batteries) and would like to know where CJ got a box that records for only £50.

yes, me too. i have seen cheap freeview boxes, less cheap recording boxes but freeview boxes that also record have, in my experience*, all been around the £200 mark. need a second digibox for the bedroom and may as well get one that records.

(* argos)

ok, they are coming down in price - a sony here for £80

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sony-SVR-S500-Digital-Recorder-Freeview/dp/B000FCQMFK

It's no Humax.

(that sony's a refurb, oops)

and humax ain't no tivo. 8)

We bought a fairly bog-standard freeview box (to replace an unreliable one which kept freezing up) from Argos about six months ago. We pay monthly for that top-up TV thing, so presumably our details exist on some top-up-tv-database somewhere .... because a couple of weeks ago we had a phone call from whoever the manufacturer of our freeview box was, offering us an upgrade to this spiffing new recordable one for just £50. My husband, being a sucker for gadgetry, said yes immediately and it arrived by parcel courier the next day. I can't remember what make it is, but I can check when I get home tonight if anyone's interested.

oh, the topup tv thing, that makes sense. they've switched to uploading content to recordable devices during the times when other channels don't broadcast and the content is then available for topuptv people the day after, like tv on demand. as far as i understand it anyway.

http://www.radioandtelly.co.uk/topuptv.html

Top-up TV is rub-a-dub, as far as I can make out.

bought a new set-top box to watch at christmas whilst parents monopolised downstairs tv. only the bedroom tv didn't have a scart-in.

tried it on parents' bedroom tv which does have scart-in. no dice - loop aerial, even one that's amplified, doesn't get a good enough signal for digital tv. i fear this will be the same for millions of sets come 2012.

anyway, got it home and tried to use it to replace the old itv digital box that keeps freezing up (sticks on bbc channels, which meant i lost about 5 hours of recordings over christmas, 5 hours of bbc7 rather than virgin1) but the tivo cannot replicate the remote control commands that it needs in order to turn over to the correct channel.

it will, i think, let me watch one channel whilst tivo is recording another, so not entirely useless. i will need to rejig wiring though as i know have more scart inputs than i have scart-in sockets.

argos are doing a wharfedale 160G pvr thing for £75 in their sale btw

http://www.argos.co.uk/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/Search?catalogId=1500000701&searchTerms=WDTR160

have no idea what it's like other than the shape and the price. 8)

I think I need to get myself one of those, but the thought of disconnecting everything and trying to work that into my existing set-up gives me nightmares.

i believe it should come first in the chain, then output to your DVD/VCR/whatever, which then outputs to your TV - i think?

My OnDigital box finally died last week, so I replaced it with the only cheap crap that Tesco had. It's bollocks. Audio keeps going out of sync, and you can only pull up now/next info for the channel you're watching!

Staggeringly, neither can the Humax PVR that is tied for "best" in all the reviews. But the Topfield TF5800PV can, as it just as good, and also has firefox-esque extensions you can download to it. So that's the one for me.

I can press "guide" on the Humax and it tells me all the channels (providing it has been on for a few minutes).

We now have a cheap crap Tesco telly that is digtal-enabled, but it is total shit, can't get a decent picture for most of the channels, whereas the Humax can get a good picture through the same (not very good) aerial setup.

Mind you, all I do is record crap and never watch it.

PS: What did you end up doing, Deano? Giving up and Watching To The Manor Born?

(Portal / Half Life 2 / babylon 5 avis on laptop)

um, Teletext Extra. meant to be a 14 day episode guide but what you end up with is (virgin broadband) adverts top and bottom and room for 5 channels worth of listings in the middle = so much paging up and down.

new set top box is sharing a scart lead and a plug socket with the dvd. bit of a faff but should be ok as i should never be using both at the same time. but unplugging set top box means having to sit through 5 minutes of setup every time i turn it on. oh um. it's 'interactive' red button indicator is also eye-searingly bright compared to the last one.

So, until last weekend I had all the 'normal' channels (bbc1,bbc2,itv1,c4,5) working tickety boo through the freeview box, suddenly itv1,4 and 5 give me "no signal' or "service unavailable" and when I re-tune they've gone altogether. What gives?

Reload your channels when it's quiet and the reception is good (i.e. not during a thunderstorm)

Somebody told me that I should "empty" the box first by unplugging it from the aerial so you that when you retune you get nothing and then turning it off for 15 seconds and then plugging it all back in to re-tune again. Do you think he was having a laugh?

I mean - how would that help?

I dunno, but there is a 'replace all' option that's best. I tried "add new ones only" once but it ended up a complete mess (BBC4 was actually ITV3 and loads of other type mixups)

Looking at to-days listings I can see that would be disastrous - sitting down to enjoy Masterpieces of Vienna and being confronted with The Two Ronnies. For shame.

You'd only know which one you were watching when the fat lady started to sing! (maybe)

Miss Elaine Paige is not fat.

She's not as thin as she was.

Rear of the Year 1984.

Weren't we all.

I'm getting really pissed off with freeview. The reception has been terrible recently and half the channels have gone including C4. Someone down my road reckons it's because they've changed transmitters or something - could that be true? If so does that mean I need a new arial or can I just get on the roof and point it in another direction. I emailed the freeview website and (quelle fckng surprise) no answr. If this is still the case when they switch of analogue I am not going to be happy.

Some of the channels are reasonable. Some go into pixel meltdown every 15 seconds or so.

What to do about it? I used to have a standalone Freeview box, now it's internal to the TV, which is a drag for reasons probably mentioned above. (quick check, nope: Basically, I can't record off the freeview channels unless TV is switched on and showing *that* channel)

Well, those channels have had a big shift-around.

The one that had grrls in not much, 'vibrating' while shaking mobile phones has gone.

And "Russia Today" has begun, a news programme that's on 2 hours each day, around 07:00

There's one called QUEST that's starting in May.

Still, I'd scrap the whole thing if it wasn't for BBC4.

Official.

http://zattoo.com/

^ Shit, that's quite neat. Never bothered to check it out before. It's also a way of catching the Gaelic sitcom my mate wrote for BBC Alba (no, really) ... assuming they show it again. (If BBC Alba is anything like BBC3, I imagine it's on a constant loop).

Obviously, I won't understand a word of it, but hey.

Mine are all working really well now. I watch BBC4, E4 and More4 and a surprising number of films on Film4. What the hell is on 5 these days?

30 Rock! or maybe it stopped again

using Zattoo more and more lately

What the hell is on 5 these days?

FUCK ALL. One of the things I occasionally have to do at work is write little extended captions for the TV page -- ie pick something and knock together four lines about it for any given night on each of the terrestrial channels. The only thing that stops it being anything other than a one-minute job is the fact there is never a fucking THING worth writing about on Five. Once you've done CSI a few times, you're on to plums.

Peppa Pig getting short shrift here

also The Shield (i still haven't seen it but i'm sure it's lovely)

Five shows a lot of Segal/Van Damme movies.

Dudes, Neighbours is on Five!

(also Highland Emergency, which no-one except my mum watches)

And also THE MENTALIST which is OK, if you like watching Cracker reimagined as glossy American drama.

Zattoo doesn't appear to have any of the additional ITV or Channel 4 channels, which is a bit crap. You're probably better off forking out £20 or so for a USB TV stick or something.

Dudes, Neighbours is on Five!

Thus my point is made. (I've always hated Neighbours. Even when I was a kid. Mind, I also hate fun.)

Don't think the 2 are connected.

Rejected Neighbour spin-offs:

Bouncer's Nightmare
Bertha Goes Bananas
The Mangles Christmas Carol

and not forgetting "Hello again, we bludgeon"

> 30 Rock! or maybe it stopped again

last 2 of season 2 are on friday night.

five.tv seems to be of the same opinion as grimly, the listings link keeps giving me:

"The system cannot find the path specified."

anyway, gadget show (increasingly terrible), NCIS (increasingly terrible) and Numb3rs (increasingly terrible) are all on 5. as are L&O:* (although despite being 4 or 5 years behind on L&O:SVU they keep showing only repeats)

five.tv is one of the worst web sites ever made, and it hasn't changed in fucking years. Just try to find information about the baseball games they show. I dare you! They show two games a week. What teams will be playing? Who knows!

apparently HD is coming to freeview on or around nov. 1! hotcha

that's BBC HD, mind you - which i believe currently has about five shows on repeat and a test card

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3166/3098983708_59d3a0f7c9_b.jpg

the "x" on the tic-tac-toe board marks the exact center of the screen, fact fans

Remember to retune your boxes if you want more TJ Hooker and Ironside repeats.

Channel 4 HD coming soon too, apparently. Course, existing freeview receivers (including lots of those built into HD tellies) won't actually be able to decode HD channels, we'll need new boxes for that. (although apparently the USB DVT jobbie I've got for my PC will be able to cope with it)

You need really good reception for the HD channels. If you have problems picking up the regular channels, you'll be out of luck.

Unless this is what the whole retuning thing is meant to solve, who knows?

Doesn't digital reception become less of an issue when analogue gets switched off? Because then they can turn the power up without worrying about disrupting the old system, or something.

Remember to retune your boxes if you want more TJ Hooker and Ironside repeats

What channel shows TJ Hooker repeats?

still not got a humax

xp the new Quest channel.

I was hoping it was 24 hour repeats of old Richard Quest shows.

Is that up and running? It's been on there for ages as "Coming Soon"

Launches tomorrow with the retuning, though it was meant to launch in May.

i was misinformed about BBC HD on freeview.. if you're in london you won't get it til 2011 or something. they figured there would be all kinds of problems rolling it out so they wanted to do london last, so they'd have gotten good at it, but apparently it's been dead easy so far so they could have done london first. oh well. i am told you won't need a new decoder..

18:00 Weird Connections Locust That Watched Star Wars, The Locusts are amazing at avoiding obstacles. Biologist Claire Rind shows a locust Star Wars and observes it neural responses to find out how.

Anybody re-tuned yet? Any difference? (I still can't get C5)

Channel 5 is surely just an urban myth yes?

I have retuned.

That was exciting!

I'm waiting for the phone call from my mum in about about a week asking me what colour buttons to press and in what order.

i am told you won't need a new decoder.

Well you were told wrong if you are refering to the HD channels. They require decoding of a completely different transmission protocol and codec. Almost every Freeview box currently out there will need to be replaced to get these channels.

If anything it now seems worse.

i rescanned only to get five and a n other channel replaced with 'five has moved, please rescan' messages. swizz.

I'm waiting for the phone call from my mum in about about a week asking me what colour buttons to press and in what order.

I was at my parents' house on monday and ended up writing them a list of instructions on how to retune. And also telling them to buy a new bloody telly.

Chewshabadoo that's sort of what i suspected :(

You can watch (fairly low-bitrate at the moment) HD on iPlayer already though.

lost ITV4 (Champions, The Saint, Space 1999, etc.), gained Quest (TJ Hooker) - bleurhg...

i updated bedroom tv which is attached to an indoor aerial and that picked up five no problems, big tv with the proper aerial still doesn't want to know.

Had Channel 5 anyway but have now lost ITV3 and 4. Not too happy with the usual shambles. An apology would have been nice but of course this is broken Britain and their attitiude is they simply do not care.

Ah, broken Britain.

I did notice that some channels are 'hiding', e.g. ITV2+1 is still giving "We have moved", but on ch33, "ITV" it says, is actually ITV2+1

Koogs, it depends if your proper aerial is pointing in the right direction, I'd guess.

^^^this is exactly the problem I have. It's driving me mad. I can get C5 sometimes on the big TV using the analogue service but now the freeview tv doesn't even acknowledge the existence of it. I had to pay 79p to watch Flashforward via "replay" on my bt vision box. It's madness I tell you.

oops , that's an xp to koogs.

Sometimes you have to re-retune.

I've done that. This whole thing makes me feel old.

You think? I still miss the Rediffusion channel!

i have re-re-retuned even since the bedroom tv has worked.

i don't have much say in where the aerial is pointing what with this being a flat and the aerial being 2 floors above me. but the signal strength is 100% (5? miles from xtal pal). during retune of bedroom tv five popped up very early along with the bbc channels. on the main tv it just says 'unknown 123812' or something. probably a function of the digibox.

(never did like that digibox. have to press button to switch between tv and radio which means no radio recordings on the tivo anymore. it also puts up nasty 'looking for updates' at 3am every morning spoiling every foreign film that film 4 has ever shown)

(You can turn that off usually, check the 'config' menu)

you'd think, but i've looked repeatedly and seen others with the same problem.

How old is the box, Koogs. Even the cheapo one you get in supermarkets nowadays are a shitload better in terms of reception etc than even mega-expensive boxes from three or four years ago.

is about a year old, a phillips DTR220. ironically i plumped for it after two of the cheaper models wouldn't work with the tivo (it changes channels in order to record freeview channels by simulating a remote control's IR codes but the database of models it can emulate was fixed 6 years ago and doesn't understand the newer, more exotic makes)

i could just buy a humax and solve two problems at once...

My sister has one of those, it's pretty nifty and the EPG and interface look like an old 8 bit computer.

Anyway, I use a Topfield PVR 5800. Why? It's a pretty solid bit of kit out of the box. But you can easily upgrade the harddive with a standard PC 3.5inch drive if you want, copy videos onto your PC, and best of all they encourage people to write their own 3rd party software for it. For example I use this EPG: http://www.toppy.org.uk/~mystuff/

The community is pretty large for this stuff: http://www.toppy.org.uk/

i did a manual rescan, which lets you pick a single frequency to scan. and it picked up five right off. so i clicked on 'save new channels' and it didn't save it, because, i guess, it wasn't a *new* channel. i did the same again and noticed there were more options than just 'save new channels' like 'replace all channels' and that worked (but because i'd only searched one frequency i only got those channels, like 6 in total, five, gay rabbit, all the faves). a full scan and a 'replace all channels' and i'm sorted.

got bitten by the 3am update again last night though. 1:25 into Bergman's Dreams on film4, 5 minutes of zx81 quality graphics...

Humax DVR here now crashing if left on the BBC channels for too long. Which is a pisser if you go on holiday and forget you left it on BBC 1 and get home to find it has recorded stuff for two days and then frozen. Bah.

So I can get ITV1, C4, C5, E1, etc in the evening but not in the daytime. What's that about then?

WTF

you should see the size of satellite some dude is putting up on the tenement next to mine; thing's like fkn hubble

can you just put up any old satellite you want if you live in a tenement? thing is p.horrid

Is it 7+ feet across? If it is, it may be an old-style C or C/Ku band dish.

it's the fucking ladbrokes round the corner! liberties

it's not quite 7feet no but it's about 4 feet across; it's pretty big

So Freeview Channel 66, only recently added, is something called movies4men, which is generally shite but throws up the occasional gem (no doubt entirely inadvertently). In the past week or so we've had "Out of the Past", "Django" (the original), "A Bullet for the General" (hadn't seen this before) and, on Saturday morning at 9am, Bunuel's "The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe"!

so?

i've seen movies4men on my brother's skybox before, i must admit i would probs watch these movies... when our freebox is reconnected I shall def check that out.

Well that contribution was worth waiting for, thanks, well done there fella (xp)

oh i do apologise my man i intended only to indicate and investigate the v interesting relative implications of your introductory so

No no the apology is mine for being a curmudgeonly twat always assuming the worst in people... it's too early in the day for me tbh.

dudes i'm moving into a place w no aerial but with a sky dish. should i go freesat??

fwiw I use one of those little indoor aerials and it works a treat even though my place has concrete walls. I think it cost about a tenner in sainsburys.

ahhh. will try.

indoor aerial FTW

:D

i have a channel 8, sat there between BBC3 and BBC4. never saw it before last night. some local london channel. lots of pearly kings and queens and people complaining about pains in the gulliver.

need a new PVR. current one (a digistream) suddenly keeps insisting on recording two copies of the same program, at the same time, tying up both tuners. it also claims to be recording when it isn't, "Recording (empty)" it says. playback has gaps in it too.

humax hdr2000t? it says 2013 on some of the listings. things have moved on since 2013.

the newer humaxs (humii?) have smart tv like features, "freeview play", which i don't really need - the fvp series. reviews of these on amazon are mediocre, citing hmi issues.

i guess i'll have a wander to richer sounds, see what they have.

so, i walked to chiswick richer sounds* and bought a "Mocha" Humax FVP 1000 or something. got it home plugged it in and it was like My First PVR, episode guide had space for 5 channels a page and 2 hours across, finding anything would take forever.

but i updated the software and it drastically improved, UI-wise. am generally happy with it. recordings list is a mess though (like windows Icons view, always sorted by most recent first) and no user-defined folders like the DigitalStream. programme info also harder to get to.

the interesting thing is that LOADS of people are having the exact same problems i was, the forum, which i only looked at today, has pages of them. apparently sony PVRs are rebadged DS boxes and they are also suffering. DigitalUK, the governing body, seems to have changed something that's caused all the recent woe - https://www.facebook.com/UKterrestrialTV/posts/1303918016299713 and oddly the incoming signal is breaking playback of old recordings.

so it wasn't the box, and i could've saved myself 180 quid.

* richer sounds is posh nowadays, catalogue is printed on proper paper, not that cheap shiny stuff. also has a lot less in it, as do the shops. a few big tvs, more high end stuff. and many fewer people than when i went there a few years ago.

(i say it's posh but it's still at the arse-end of chiswick, past all the closed down shops, empty blockbusters etc)

Channel 81, Talking Pictures, home of creaky old British movies that no-one was or is interested in, does play the occasional blinder - tonight, they have "The Passenger" followed by "Gumshoe".

Tuned over at random last night, it was Otis Redding doing "Satisfaction"

More like it.

brown t shirt again (seriously this t shirt and the prison grey one have just gone on and on - like 12 years now)

whoops wrong thread

They had 'Bedazzled' followed by 'The Red House', way more interesting than most of the stuff you get on Film 4.

That was on Wednesday night.

'Bunny Lake is Missing' is the highlight of the schedule next week, must see, bizarro pyschological noir from Otto Preminger. https://talkingpicturestv.co.uk/schedule/

Soundtrack by the zombies as well. And great titles.

Talking pictures freezes for a second or so every few seconds on my PVR but doesn't on the TV or the other PVR. It's annoying.

London Live is another source of good old films if you can get it. They are obsessed with London gangster movies though.

> Bladerunner 2049

yeah, i've noticed the sony movies channel sometimes has a decent, recent film that hasn't been on broadcast tv before at the weekend (repeated later in the week. the above was one such (and an interesting watch, but far too long)

I think that film's tremendous! And underrated - a bit like WATCHMEN (2009) in that regard: films that fan types wanted to happen, and then people predictably slated, but that I think are terrific.

GUMSHOE w/ Albert Finney and Billie Whitelaw on Talking Pictures TV tonight at 10pm

dir. Stephen Frears iirc. it's a good one

Tonight on Sony Classics: SATURDAY NIGHT & SUNDAY MORNING

Then on Talking Pictures (new channel to me but maybe I can get it): THIS SPORTING LIFE

You can get it.

Here's a list of Freeview channels from the Crystal Palace transmitter and which multiplex they're on. Basically, if you can get any channel on a "mux", you can get everything on that mux. My HD reception is crap at times (despite being so close to the CP transmitters); we don't have a rooftop aerial and delivery vans in the Sainsbury's car park seem to temporarily block out the mux the HD channels are on. I think there might be a Doug McClure film on Talking Pictures right now!

https://ukfree.tv/transmitters/tv/Crystal_Palace

Sony Classics is showing "Son of Paleface" right now, having shown "Duck Soup" earlier - two films where a character is pictured in bed with a horse. Can't complain tbh.

Tremendous post from Mike - a level of local obscurity and quirky technical knowledge that feels like the glory days of 2003.

I shall take that memory to Sainsbury's (car park).

Last night:

SATURDAY NIGHT & SUNDAY MORNING on Sunday classics - excellent. Wonder if it's actually the best of its genre.

THIS SPORTING LIFE: my first ever Talking Pictures experience. The adverts are always followed by a lengthy trailer of a forthcoming film. All these forthcoming films are oddly far off (like, two weeks away?) and, remarkably, all seem fairly obscure, bad or uninteresting. A baffling logic here.

As for THIS SPORTING LIFE: ultimately disappointing. I didn't remember it being quite like this: overlong, increasingly self-indulgent, the kind of film where a man smoulders then suddenly sweeps all the crockery off the table. The inchoate male rage becomes incredibly tiresome and unfocused. It also seems to go as far as domestic violence - he hits the woman he supposedly loves at least twice, not to mention forcing her to go to bed with him - which is never remarked on. I think that there were, partially observed, codes of conduct on such things even then - 'a bloke who raises his hand to a lass is a bad sort', etc - and it's disturbing to see this film disregard them.

That depends on whether he's supposed to be a hero. I'm sure he's not. The title is the first clue to that. That said, I watched the first hour but it was not the right mood for me last night.

All these forthcoming films are oddly far off (like, two weeks away?) and, remarkably, all seem fairly obscure, bad or uninteresting. A baffling logic here.

I always assume they just got a job of lot of (mostly bad) British movies that no-one else had any use for.

The Fast Lady was on Talking Pictures last week but, sadly, at a time when I was working. Stanley Baxter, James Robertson Justice, Julie Christie. Directed by Ken Annakin (whose Battle of the Bulge was on Sony Pictures this afternoon). Must be 40 years since I've seen that! Probably terrible. Strangest thing I've encountered recently was a 15min performance from 1949 by a pretty awful sentimental vaudeville crooner, probably a good 20 years past his peak... someone Baker?

Kenny Baker?

Found it! Ted Lewis.

It wasn’t this clip but this gives you a measure of the man.

https://youtu.be/eg7UKFGqAv4

How is that hat staying on?

ok, not strictly freeview, but we are in old films mode.

BBC matinees this week are all Ealing comedies*

M 15:15 school for scoundrels
T 15:25 man in the white suit
W 15:25 titfield thunderbolt
T 15:25 whisky galore!
F 15:30 lavender hill mob

seen them all before, would watch them all again.

* sfs not considered an ealing comedy

I missed Villain with Richard Burton on Talking Pictures TV last night (it'll be round again) - always remember Villain as being the film the BBC interrupted a late night screening of to 'go live' to the start of the first Gulf War - felt like the beginning of the end times, then, however melodramatic and distant that seems now.

Sure, 90% of the British stuff that Talking Pictures broadcasts is dull crap, but it is a fantastic resource for anyone interested in the history and content of our national cinema. The definitive account of The Huggett Family films is still to be written!

"What are you looking??!?!!" Hard to watch "Villain" without thinking of The Sweeney tbh, but it's definitely worth watching!

Also Burton kept reminding me of Bono, bizarrely enough - looks wise.

... "What are you looking??!?!!" that should be, ffs.

... "What are you looking AT??!?!!" AAAAAAAAAARGGHH!!!

"Girl with Green Eyes" on Talking Pictures. Never seen this before. Rita Tushingham is fantastic in it.

Fairly terrible British movie from 1972 on London Live right now, "All Coppers Are...", about a 'love triangle' between Ben Fogle's mum, a cheeky chappy Cockney crim and a boring posh policeman (played by Satyricon star, Martin Potter).

... sorry, keep forgetting that London Live isn't available outside London (I think), not that you're missing much.

LOL @ the filth getting a doing at a demo outside an Embassy in the most unconvincing London street Pinewood Studios had to offer - placards suggesting the demo is about torturers being harboured in the Embassy and, er, student grants.

just discovered there's a 1974 remake of brief encounter w. richard burton and sophia loren (also on london live)

it's not very compelling

When films like this occasionally turned up on the telly - before they had channels that show little else - I always used to make a jokey comment along the lines of "And people wonder why the British film industry collapsed?"

my gran (mum's mum, who ended her days in my parents' house) once walked into the room while i was watching some old B/W movie and just thought it was the funniest thing that a young person (as i then was more or less lol) was watching this format which had been ripped up and binned in her youth. i suspect the remake of BE was ordered up by ppl who thought the same way -- the idea of TV access to very old films is an 80s thing, more or less, occasional speeded-up clips of silent comedies notwithstanding

mark s 2020 stop saying more or less challenge

Post-Krays, I notice both "Villain" and "All Coppers Are" had gay gangsters. Also Robin Askwith and David Essex had blink and you'll miss them parts in the latter, David Essex had one line, something like, "'Ere, did you pull a bird last night?"

"Performance", too, tho obv that's a different thing to a point

Connections connections. We had T.P. McKenna as a London crime boss (in "Villain") one night and as a priest trying to talk sense into Rita Tushingham (in "Girl With Green Eyes") the next.

Mark's memories of the 1970s are stronger than mine, but I would say that there was a very big cultural attachment to vintage film then -- the obvious indication being Michael Parkinson's big interviews with veteran movie stars. And a great many TV sets then were still black & white anyway!

Michael Rodd's SCREEN TEST (19701-1984) is also relevant. I hope Steady Mike's reading this now.

Koogs: BBC is on Freeview, as much as any of these other channels are.

[*1970-1984]

this thread bumping reminds me to post

Talking Pictures Tv 17:50 today
Hell Drivers (1957)
which features, in no particular order, a doctor who, a james bond, a man from uncle, the prisoner, a professional, a ladykiller, and syd james.

How about SCHOOL FOR SCOUNDRELS -- are any of us watching that?

I did. It was enjoyable.

Useful tip from Koogs on these BBC films.

(I think I'll watch the next two also.)

(But first: NOTTING HILL on Five Star tonight.)

I missed the beginning but caught most of it, SfS. Modern 4th wall stuff from Sim at the end.

Yes this was good.

I plan to watch THE MAN IN THE WHITE SUIT next.

NOTTING HILL btw was worth seeing but not that convincing.

Loving Star Trek at 10 o'clock every morning, courtesy of the Horror Channel.

are they showing the 16:9 version?

(i have the dvds of TOS sat in front of the tv, i think i've finished them but can't remember. there's no real end to it - the last episode is just another episode)

Voyager on later in the day too. and Lost in Space. and Time Tunnel (the original?).

No, it's not the 16:9 version. They're started showing them from the start, and the first season is pretty consistently good.

(listen out in TMITWS forthe same bubble sound effects they used for the car in SfS)

oh, joan greenwood.

Greenwood's voice a tremendous artefact. Or do I mean instrument?

The Green of the Voice

That's good, Ward.

THE TITFIELD THUNDERBOLT arrives on platform BBC2 at 15:25 today and departs at 16:45.

Terrible Doug McClure (biceps) / Caroline Munro (boobs) movie on this morning, on Talking Pictures, which I ended up watching because of the weird electronic score - which it turns out was composed by a guy from Manfred Mann.

in response to PF's earlier comment abt the attitude to old movies in the 70s -- my feeling is we had parky and rodd and also e.g. michael bentine's golden silents instead of actually being able to view old films. the bbc was taping over many of its own archives (= why it's a big deal when eps of dad's army are found in skips etc) and the culture at large was casually and thoughtlessly non-archival, the turn to the past as a large wing of ordinary popular culture came later, when video became a household item not an expensive specialist technology (and relatedly when the huge music re-issue projects arrived alongside CDs)

almost parky's entire sheen was as loveable curator of lost things we shd pay more attention to, old films and broadway and the las vegas swing era, which only works when we realise that it really was mostly lost (since he was a p terrible curator)

Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner on channel 50 today at 14:50 (didn't you just read that PF?)

clashes with Titfield though (and i saw it only a month ago)

I did, Koogs ! Had no idea the film was coming on today.

Cripes, it's Sony Classics. I really think I should watch this.

(I didn't - and then I missed the start of the Ealing film too: so it ends up as no films today.)

more greenwood today. Whisky Galore!

(that accent's a bit off though)

next week's BBC2 matinees, btw

M The Robe
T The Long Ships
W The Vikings
T Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines
F ??? (not in EPG yet)

disappointing.

Disappointing, indeed.

Shall we all watch THE LAVENDER HILL MOB tomorrow anyway?

btw I missed TITFIELD because it started 40 minutes earlier than the last schedule I saw had announced!

Saturday we should watch LONG DISTANCE RUNNER. Not as if any footy's on.

Magnificent Men - I have a soft spot for those sprawling, international ensemble, chase-type films from the late '60s. Great Race, Monte Carlo or Bust, It's A MMMMM World, etc. Would happily watch for the cast alone for at least 30min.

The Robe - would be curious to see this as it was "the last film I saw at the pictures with your mother; y'know, with Victor Mature" - my Dad, every time anyone mentioned going to the cinema, 1975-2007.

But...work. Not seeing any daytime tv atm.

I watched Magnificent Men a couple of months ago, it's definitely comfort food

the ealing things are entertaining enough but also familiar enough to not be a distraction. but then my home office is the sofa, facing the tv.

TMMITFM was a Pointless question the other day. john the measurer was a pointless answer (in two of the three jackpot round categories, the other one being The Wrong Box, which i've never seen)

chitty chitty bang bang is the only good bond movie

Benny Hill was in both CCBB and TMMITFM (and the italian job)

exactly

Gert Froebe obv in CCBB, TMM and Goldfinger

Benny Hill in a Bond film would've been a treat

high-speed chase through the undersea lair

i can almost hear the mash-up of the John Barry theme and Yakety-Sax in my head

I wished I'd started watching this version "Dorian Gray" with Helmut Berger earlier. Dubbing is abysmal.

I have a soft spot for those sprawling, international ensemble, chase-type films from the late '60s. Great Race, Monte Carlo or Bust, It's A MMMMM World, etc. Would happily watch for the cast alone for at least 30min.

Tremendous post. When I was, what - 7, 8? I can't think what age - it's a MMMM World seemed like the most exciting film in the history of film. Well, apart from THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK if that had been released by the time I'm thinking of.

1:15 today, remember:

https://www.radiotimes.com/film/fj5j8h/the-loneliness-of-the-long-distance-runner/

Some lovely shots, him running through the puddles.

Prefab housing as well is interesting as well.

The final fuck you is great though.

one of Hull's most beloved <3

bolan's girlfriend is ben fogle's mum.

Thing from Another World last night
This Island Earth on right now.

(Chitty also on as i type)

actually, it's classic sci fi weekend on horror.

tomorrow
The Giant Claw (no idea)
Incredible Shrinking Man
20 Million Miles to Earth (Harryhausen)
Journey to the Far Side of the Sun (Gerry Anderson)

Ben Fogle's mum also on BBC2 this afternoon (Half A Sixpence; Marti Webb dubbed her songs... Bolam also a minor role).

incredible shrinking man is such a weird mixture of WHAT IT SAYS ON THE TIN and unexpected philosophical turn

Ben Fogle's mum also in the All Coppers Are mentioned recently. It's Ben Fogle's Mum season, obv.

For that authentic lockdown experience Peter Brook's Lord of the Flies is on 5Select (channel 54) at 11 o'clock this morning

"The Swimmer" on Sony Movies (Channel 50) AT 7.05pm.

^^^this is grebt

Yes one of my all time faves

Yes, one for when you think you're having a bad day.

I think THE SWIMMER is repeated next weekend and I will watch then. Never seen it yet.

I'd strongly recommend it!

likewise

INDIANA JONES - all 4 films on BBC over the weekend including RAIDERS Friday, TEMPLE Saturday and BOTH 3 & 4 today.

I watched TEMPLE on Saturday for first time in decades and it was ... even more disappointing than in 1984.

A TASTE OF HONEY is on Sony Classics AGAIN tonight for anyone who missed it.

BABY DRIVER is worth seeing once.

WOLF HALL is apparently ongoing on BBC4.

I think I will watch IJ AND THE CRYSTAL SKULL at 6:40 before UNIVERSITY CHALLENGE - a semi-final?

we watched raiders last night and it was far more old-fashioned than i’d remembered! i hadn’t actually seen it since 1982. big tin-tin energy.

the scenes where they find the real actual tomb poking out of the sand is lifted straight from cigars of the pharaoh

other overlaps: central hero never seems to be doing the job he's paid for, small puttering planes travelling immense distances, quite racist

yes my son said that. “dad this is pretty racist”

he also noticed no black people in mad max fury road which was a v good point

vaguely watching "Carry On Girls" and it's a bit sexist tbh

They'll be telling us "Mutiny on the Buses" is sexist next.

... was on Freeview the other day fwiw.

mutiny on the lost bus

Mutiny on the Buses is the feminist installment of the Buses Trilogy

The Robe's on BBC2. Richard Burton's hair is pretty funny.

Hindle Wakes on TPtv right now, probably only notable for morrissey's pun in that moors murders song.

(it was quite a famous play and an interesting look at the Wakes Weeks thing that industrial towns used to do)

are they showing the 16:9 version?

(i have the dvds of TOS sat in front of the tv, i think i've finished them but can't remember. there's no real end to it - the last episode is just another episode)

Voyager on later in the day too. and Lost in Space. and Time Tunnel (the original?).

Re: Star Trek. Yes, they are the 16:9 version, I think? Anyway, they look great, in fact Star Trek must have blown a few minds when it was first shown, some of the photographic effects (not the polystyrene rocks) are still impressive. The first season of Star Trek is so good.

(LOL McCoy wearing is so much make up in this current episode)

"so for this episode we'll be needing a LIFE FORM OF PURE ENERGY"

"WOLF HALL is apparently ongoing on BBC4."

Yeah it was EP3 by the time I saw that :-(

Fuck, missed it too.

WOLF HALL must be on iPlayer now - I think I'll watch it all again next week.

Next week: look out for THE WILD ONE and ON THE WATERFRONT on Sony Classics.

.@TalkingPicsTV gets a page-lead in tomorrow’s Mail on Sunday pic.twitter.com/HD4sjR9o2V

— Tony Paley (@tpaleyfilm) April 18, 2020

sweet

enjoyed peter vaughan in Smokescreen yesterday on talking pictures. bit of nonsense about possible insurance fraud/suicide/murder which was diverting enough. vaughan plays a miserly claims agent penny pinching whilst fiddling expenses who seems unsympathetic until the reveal of what he is using the saved money for.

also saw the tonally extremely odd That Brennan Girl. v strange melodrama.

he also noticed no black people in mad max fury road which was a v good point

discounting Zoe Kravitz for having a white grandparent on each side?

to put that in context, our inspiration for watching fury road was the “california love” video. which probably skewed his expectations on blackness a little bit.

enjoyed peter vaughan in Smokescreen yesterday on talking pictures

Yes, that's a good film!

"so for this episode we'll be needing a LIFE FORM OF PURE ENERGY"

... who is a prancing ninny, as in this morning's episode.

Saturday night: THE SWIMMER. Quite fascinating and ultimately troubling.

Sunday night: COLD MOUNTAIN. Marred by too many fake accents by non-Americans but probably underrated - in an older Western, the content of this one would be considered very interesting.

Tomorrow night:
https://www.radiotimes.com/film/k8vx9b/up-the-junction/

Not very keen on the cast, but worth seeing?

maureen lipman iirc. it's a good addition to the 60s kitchen sink thing.

Adrienne Posta too...

https://youtu.be/79nVTKeaRGs

She definitely seems strongly preferable to Maureen Lipman.

The Ladykillers followed by All That Heaven Allows, 12.50pm on Film4, a channel which generally never shows anything worth watching.

Can't watch today but thanks for the heads-up Tom D -- these reminders are useful.

Only problem I've got is that Channel 4 and Film4 don't work when it rains or is particularly overcast - come back analogue all is forgiven.

Sony Movies Classic is running through a bunch of good onld english films, mostly repeats and mentioned upthread, but icymi

09ish Loneliness of long distance runner
11ish Georgy Girl
15ish Admirable Crichton
17ish, er, Dad's Army
19ish Saturday Night & Sunday Morning
21ish Taste Of Honey
23ish The Knack and how to get it

some notable war films on film4 too
11 This Happy Breed
13 Millions Like Us
15 Two Thousand Women
17 Waterloo Road

and TPTV have been showing hammer films late on a friday, tonight's is Dracula, Prince Of Darkness

of those on film4 the first two are interesting - noel coward wrote the first, and both are very much about the families left behind during the war, and both filmed whilst the war was still happening.

Patricia Roc in Millions and Two Thousand Women as well.

RUNNER, SATURDAY NIGHT, TASTE OF HONEY were all screened on the same channel in the last month or two - I saw them then otherwise would watch.

i did say as much - "mostly repeats and mentioned upthread, but icymi"

TPTV 13:10 The Importance Of Being Earnest (1952)
BBC2 15:00 The Importance Of Being Earnest (2002)

Some films on today:

London Live
13.00 Brief Encounter
15.00 Victim

Film4
16.45 Beneath the Planet of the Apes

Talking Pictures
23.55 Shampoo

I remember to take this opportunity to report that I have been listening to music that I think features TOM D.

Specifically on vinyl the whole of Close Lobsters' 12-inch, 4-track 45: 'What Is There To Smile About?'

The lead track can be heard here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4a50KwHUAXo

Sony Movies Classic has now been rebranded Sony Movies Christmas for all your festive TV movie needs, three months early.

But that prompted me to finally watch The Swimmer before it disappeared and that was great. Nice device, the way back story is gradually revealed, but never fully. And the ending... Odd film for such a big name.

Also taped Miss Jean Brodie and American Graffiti.

Legend of Hell House was on tptv at weekend. Dvd has been on my Amazon wish list for about a decade after learning about the Delia Derbyshire soundtrack.

What do people who aren't in London get on freeview channel 8? (Ie instead of London Live)

In Glasgow, 'That's TV Scotland', which mostly seems to show fuzzy music clips from the 70s and 80s. I hear from London friends that London Live shows some interesting films from time to time - definitely not the case with That's TV Scotland.

Just recently discovered that I can now get Sky Arts on Freeview.

(I was asking because Stuart maconie was saying that he wanted to see Deep End and it was on LL yesterday. There were 6 months when it would show a new Ealing B-movie every day. Then it went onto Norman wisdom movies... And in the evenings it's all London gangster movies)

i've just watched the whole of american graffiti without recognising harrison ford...

Ah, he was so young..

'73, so only 4 years before SW.

i keep forgetting about Sky Arts (ch 11?) but over the last week we've had

KT Tunstall on Ivor Cutler (including her singing Beautiful Cosmos to Phyllis)

Trailblazers: Two Tone (Noddy Holder narrated documentary, very Specials-centric, some good contributors like, surprisingly, Pete Waterman, who was DJ at the Locarno when the Coventry Automatics played there)

The Art Of Architecture on Battersea Power Station

er, Portrait Artist Of The Year

Punk Night tomorrow by the look

I thought 'Danny Dyer on Harold Pinter' on Sky Arts was some kind of pisstake, but apparently Dyer worked with Pinter and is a big fan, so fair dos.

I watched a thing about John Belushi which was quite poor (and had an odd, stilted, machine-translated-back-and-forth voiceover), and "Rankin's 2020", which obviously fulfilled my long-held wish for EXIF data to pop up onscreen when showing pro-grade photographs, but was still unsatisfying. Still, it beats Border Patrol on ch11.

Horror Channel is showing the old Universal monster films on monday lunchtimes. I'm guessing Dracula was on first, i caught Frankenstein (1931), missed The Mummy (1932). Wolfman (1941) is on tomorrow, and Creature from the Black Lagoon is on the 8th.

so, some years ago i turned the tv on after midnight and caught the middle of a film about an american soldier's night in britain - failed visit to prostitute, picked up in a pub and rolled by the woman's compatriots, falls (mutually) for (very shy) barmaid, gets chased by the military police. curious little film.

i caught it, again by accident, about two months later, but again not all of it.

last night i taped something on spec from Talking Pictures. "A sensitive story of two airmen. One with a terrible injury and one dealing with life" and it's the film i didn't know the name of. "During One Night" it's called, barmaid is Susan Hampshire.

(said terrible injury, the bit i'd missed before now, is losing his penis (probably more). whilst still a virgin (hence prompting the other one's visit to the prostitute). kills himself over it in the end)

This Caesar and Cleopatra on Talking Pictures at the moment is kinda terrible but the colours are lovely, totally unlike the kind of colours you'd get on modern film. some are a touch too subtle, some are more vivid than you'd expect.

clip here: https://www.imdb.com/video/vi2847670553?playlistId=tt0038390&ref_=tt_pr_ov_vi

failed visit to prostitute, picked up in a pub and rolled by the woman's compatriots, falls (mutually) for (very shy) barmaid, gets chased by the military police. curious little film.

this sounds a bit like the plot of saturday night and sunday morning

It does.

I've been watching a lot of Freeview films this week! I now buy TV CHOICE to tell me about them in advance!

some are a touch too subtle, some are more vivid than you'd expect

Three-strip Technicolour! Very slow film (needed intense lighting), and complex cameras. Jack Cardiff was one of the DoPs on that (script by George Bernard Shaw from his own play).

This week:

Tuesday: BUILD MY GALLOWS HIGH better known as OUT OF THE PAST, on Sony Movies Classic

Wednesday: NOTORIOUS on Talking Pictures

Thursday: ANIMALS on Film4

and coming up Friday: IN THE LINE OF FIRE on Sony Movies

Tuesday: BUILD MY GALLOWS HIGH better known as OUT OF THE PAST, on Sony Movies Classic

This is on all the time. "They Live By Night" is on a lot too. Freeview is definitely good for film noir!

The Innocents tonight, for creepy Henry James fun
The Man Who Fell To Earth
and The Rebel all on over the weekend on TP. try and spot Nanette Newman...

I missed all those, Koogs. I did watch OUT OF THE PAST. But I have never seen THEY LIVE BY NIGHT!

NOTORIOUS and ANIMALS were both really good in different ways.

This week has presented: THE GREATEST SHOWMAN, OUR MAN IN HAVANA, TRUE ROMANCE, ALL MY SONS. I'm afraid I didn't catch any of them.

What I *did* watch on Tuesday was TIGER BAY (1959) on Film4. Tremendous! So worth watching.

Tonight on Sky Arts is a documentary on THE WHO SELL OUT.

Sunday on 5Select at noon: WENT THE DAY WELL? Tucked away but apparently a good and important film, I will try to watch.

The Mind Benders on TP. never even heard of it before. Dirk Bogarde in a sensory deprivation tank, lovely shots of him just floating there in a wetsuit whilst he goes slowly mad.

Quite a few of Martin Scorsese's 50 Overlooked British Films (like the Mind Benders and Went the Day Well) turn up regularly on Talking Pictures.

If you'd told me that was Talking Pictures schedule for the next few months I'd have believed you, in fact "The Nanny" was on Talking Pictures last Saturday, the night after "The Innocents" was on. "The Pumpkin Eater" is on all the time, but not on Talking Pictures.

there was another geat british film list on twitter around the time of the baftas, but it was an image and the source link was broken so i never found out just what it was about. it was a fascinating mix of things i like and things i'd never heard of.

found it

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EyuAFK0WYAYQt3c?format=png&name=900x900

the white bus?
the whisperers?
keep you seats please?

"The White Bus" is that Lindsay Anderson 'free cinema' thing with Arthur Lowe et al?

Keep Your Seat please is george formby, so an acquired taste.

you're right about the white bus too, also: "Writer: Shelagh Delaney". don't recognise any of the shots though.

whisperers looks good too, nanette newman...

Super Cyclone (2012) on Sony Movies. terrible. looks like one of the tv movies they normally show on Horror during the day. only the first two people on screen were detective Martinez from NYPD Blue and Dr Chen from er (and later Agents of SHIELD)

Author of list very keen on films that start with the definite article. The Innocents is so good – saw it when it was reissued in cinemas a few years ago. Never heard of The White Bus or the other two you mention either, koogs.

I've also never heard of The Reckoning, or, closer to now, Paperhouse either.

Paperhouse is the horror-ish one with the girl who draws a house that becomes real. saw it at the time (whilst at uni?) but not since.

I would like to watch THE WHITE BUS!

This week:

Monday 9pm was THE CHAIN

... on Talking Pictures. By Jack Rosenthal, with Warren Mitchell et al. Excellent.

Today: on Film4 MINISTRY OF FEAR (Lang); later on Talking Pictures is, would you believe ... TO DIE FOR !!

Thursday:
BBC4 CITIZEN KANE and a Welles doc.
Film4 has a couple of promising films with people like Ingrid Bergman
TP has ... Warren Beatty's REDS at 9pm!
Sony Movies Classic screens THE LADY FROM SHANGHAI at 5:30 - see this if you can.

Friday 9pm: Sky Arts on Suede COMING UP.

I started to think that TO DIE FOR tonight was probably the one with Tony Slattery, not Nicole Kidman.

I realise that Slattery might appeal more to readers of this thread, but according to schedules, it is indeed the Kidman film.

THE MINISTRY OF FEAR was the most Hitchcockian Lang I've ever seen.

It was, indeed, the Kidman film.

I watched REDS again about 8 years ago, it might might have been sadly missed poster Morbz who spurred me to do it. It's much better than To Die For.

anyone seen the donald pleasence film 'death line' that is new to TP next week? plot synopsis has me intrigued.

i have been watching that Interpol thing on TP (finished this week) and the last but one of those was Donald blowing up someone with a decoy duck.

One Of Our Aircraft Is Missing was on this afternoon and, like most of the Archers films, i caught 10 minutes of it and got sucked in til the end.

Journey To The Far Side Of The Sun on as well, lesser known Gerry Anderson.

just seen TP advertising that film i mentioned above, During One Night, as part of a War box set along with 7 other things i've never heard of.

https://www.renownfilms.co.uk/product/war-in-film-box-set/

Who Goes Next (1938)
Subway in the Sky (1959)
Desert Mice (1959)
The Treasure of San Teresa (1959) (AKA Hot Money Girl)
During One Night (1960)
The Hand (1960)
Beyond the Curtain (1960)
Mr Kingstreet’s War (1971)

hot money girl...

PALE RIDER (1985) is on ITV4 tonight. As usual! I must try to watch.

anyone seen the donald pleasence film 'death line' that is new to TP next week? plot synopsis has me intrigued.

Death Line is amazing, probably the best 'cannibals on the London underground' film ever made but offers so much more especially in Pleasance & Norman Rossington's turn as policemen who really can't be arsed with the Young People and just want a quiet pint or six.

Yep, Death Line is one of my absolute favourite horror films - it's amazingly grim and funny at the same time.

thank you both. will watch.

(it's on friday at 21:00)

This week.

MONDAY
BBC4 doc on cars made in Coventry
Film 4: Robert Mitchum in THE RED PONY
THE BLUE LAGOON on Sony Movies Classic

WEDNESDAY
ITV4: PASSENGER 57
Sony Movies Classic: DOUBLE INDEMNITY

THURSDAY
ITV4: THE BLUES BROTHERS
Film 4: SHANE. PARIS, TEXAS at ... 11:15.
Sony Movies Classic: THE GRADUATE

FRIDAY
Film 4: THE AFRICAN QUEEN

I'm afraid I can't see much on this thread's favourite channel Talking Pictures TV.

My Freeview box gave up the ghost 20 minutes into the FA Cup final the other day, if I don't bother replacing it I wonder if I need to still pay the license fee? Answer is almost certainly yes.

If you watch any live TV from any source, or anything on iPlayer, you need a TV license.

> I'm afraid I can't see much on this thread's favourite channel Talking Pictures TV.

Small Back Room, (minor) powell and pressburger, tonight at 22:50
Boulting Brothers double bill from 12:35 tomorrow afternoon

the thing i find with Talking Pictures is that the film names in the list aren't very promising, but the films themselves are perfectly watchable.

they've almost invariably got one or more of John Laurie, John "The Measurer" or Gordon Jackson in them

I'm afraid I can't see much on this thread's favourite channel Talking Pictures TV.

Well, my opinion's suspect, but:

THINGS I KNOW ARE GOOD

Today at 16:15 there's Home At Seven, Ralph Richardson's only directorial effort (he also stars in it). A man loses a day, having no memory whatsoever of what transpired - useful reference points would be The Twilight Zone at the popcult end of the sprectrum and Kafka at the highart end, but it's very much about the British suburbs. Richardson of course a master at playing guilty but not in the way you imagine characters, cf Hidden Idol. Later on at 22:50 there's The Small Back Room, really great Archers film about an alcoholic bomb defusing expert during wartime.

Friday at one in the morning, Rasputin The Mad Monk, one of Christopher Lee's favourite roles. Costume drama filtered through Hammer bloodlust.

NEVER SEEN BUT LOOKS INTERESTING

Blood Relatives, Tuesday at 21:00 - Claude Chabrol directs The Two Donalds (Sutherland and Pleasance) in an Ed McBain adaptation.

The Singer Not The Song, Wednesday at 14:45 - A British produced western (shot in Spain), with Dirk Bogarde and John Mills. Word on the street is that Bogarde camps it up something rotten in this as an act of protest against the film's direction. It's about an Irish priest standing up to a Mexican bandit? And why this title? So many questions. There's also The Strange Loves Of Martha Ives on late at night.

xposts

John Mills is another for the list of canonical TP actors. and the bloke who played Dixon of Dock Green. and Donald Pleasance who was in at least 3 things i watched over the weekend (Death Line, Battle Of The Sexes, er, something else)

i also usually enjoy Gideon's Way, which is a 1 hr police procedural, on daily. and Interpol Calling which is 1/2 hour and less frequent.

saturday morning they are now showing all the kinds of crap i used to hate when it would replace Swap Shop over the summer holidays. Champion The Wonder Horse, CFF films, Popeye etc

Also Fleischer Superman cartoons and Looney Tunes.

They're showing One Step Beyond on Tuesday nights but from the ep I saw it's no Outer Limits.

yeah, i caught half of one the other day but it didn't seem to go anywhere.

some freeview channel should show all the Outer Limits and Twilight Zone episodes.

The Singer Not The Song, Wednesday at 14:45 - A British produced western (shot in Spain), with Dirk Bogarde and John Mills. Word on the street is that Bogarde camps it up something rotten in this as an act of protest against the film's direction. It's about an Irish priest standing up to a Mexican bandit? And why this title? So many questions. There's also The Strange Loves Of Martha Ives on late at night

Oh man, you haven't seen this? This is like one of the campest British films of all time. I remember seeing this for the first time, with my brother, on like a boring Saturday afternoon on BBC2 and both of us not quite believing that we were watching. Dirk struts about in tight designer leather trousers and everyone in Mexico has a RADA accent. It's a pity that boring old John Mills is playing opposite Bogarde as soembody a bit more attractive - and able to actually do an Irish accent - would have pushed it entirely over the cliff of homoeroticism.

watched a George Formby and half a Norman Wisdom with the kids yesterday, they were surprisingly into the George Formby.

Sylvia Sims seems to have been in every other British movie from about 1955 to 1965. That's fine though, I like Sylvia Sims.

Today at 16:15 there's Home At Seven, Ralph Richardson's only directorial effort (he also stars in it). A man loses a day, having no memory whatsoever of what transpired - useful reference points would be The Twilight Zone at the popcult end of the sprectrum and Kafka at the highart end, but it's very much about the British suburbs.

This *does* sound good.

and Jack Hawkins is the Dixon actor i couldn't remember the name of (he's in Home At Seven)

Sky Arts showing old Landscape Artist Of The Year episodes which are relaxing tv. also the odd Portrait Artist Of The Year for those who prefer your paintings taller rather than wider.

and there are The Tube highlights on London Live.

(Jack Warner is Dixon, not Jack Hawkins)

Following the tip earlier I managed to catch most of HOME AT SEVEN (1952). Very much like a play in a provincial theatre - a few sets: the house, the doctor's surgery, the police station, the pub for a rare flashback; and a few main characters. Must have been cheap to make. I see the TWILIGHT ZONE link, at least at the start when he learns of the memory loss, but that aspect is rather overtaken by the police murder investigation.

I watched this too, I'm afraid it was far too In Every Old British Movie Ever for me.

"Lower Middleswallop, you say? Well you'll be wanting the 3.30 from platform 3 but better hurries along now, young sir, it'll be leaving in *pulls out fob watch* five minutes *winks*."
― Bees Against Racism (Tom D.), Wednesday, June 12, 2013

Excellent.

but that aspect is rather overtaken by the police murder investigation

Yes, and the eventual resolution is very weak, but I like to think that the way it's turned the main character's life upside down will have repercussions for years to come.

Very much like a play in a provincial theatre

You're probably right about budgetary concerns but also films directed by actors are likely to go easy on the Film As A Visual Medium stuff to give the acting more of a spotlight.

I liked the film, more than Tom D did. I actually liked the way that the solution lay in the City pub that he had mentioned to the doctor early on but that might since have been forgotten. And it involved an element of WWII / PTSD that gave the memory lapse theme more historical weight.

20 minute thing on TP earlier about a 3 week, 24 hour-a-day, endurance test on a 120 mile loop of belgian cobbled roads in a Hillman Minx by female drivers. 41mph average on public roads.

the football's done a number on the tv schedules...

Talking Pictures are showing Laurel and Hardy shorts on saturday afternoons, which is something i've always meant to investigate. 3 today:

Stan convinces Ollie that they should become fishermen, but making a boat seaworthy is not an easy task.

Unaware that the Great War has ended, Stan remains at his post for 20 years.

The boys are contracted to build a house in a day but run into trouble with the nearby hospital staff, due to their excessive noise.

bits i've caught in previous weeks had them playing their own estranged relatives, their own wives etc

(this is another thing to file under 'tv i hated on saturday mornings as a kid'. was more of a harold lloyd fan)

All classic.

i don't recognise the titles ('Towed in a Hole', 'Block Heads', 'The Finishing Touch') but the descriptions are familiar, especially the boat.

Yes, this all sounds excellent.

Unusually good films on TV this week. Or at least, several I've not seen.

SATURDAY

IRON MAN 3: BBC1 - I will watch
FIGHTING WITH MY FAMILY: C4

SUNDAY

ROBIN HOOD: Great Movies (formerly Sony Movies) - this is worth watching
IF .... : Great Movies classic - I would watch this again it not for clash with other things

MONDAY

IT'S A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD WORLD: BBC2
THE OLD MAN AND THE GUN: Film4
(not to mention MY DARLING CLEMENTINE on Paramount)

TUE-THU: St Trinian's films on BBC2 afternoons

TUESDAY

THE SHALLOWS: E4

WEDNESDAY

PERSONAL SHOPPER: BBC2, probably worth catching on iPlayer
GRAN TORINO: ITV4
CROUCHING TIZER, HIDDEN VIMTO, as P.J. Miller used to call it: Great Movies

THURSDAY

THE SPY WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD on Talking Pictures, though I don't need to see this again yet

FRIDAY

THE TITFIELD THUNDERBOLT: BBC2
CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER: BBC1
MEAN GIRLS: ITV2
FLAMING STAR (Elvis Presley) on Paramount but again I saw this not long ago.

A lot!

I'll try to watch:

IRON MAN 3
THE OLD MAN AND THE GUN
St Trinian's films
THE SHALLOWS
PERSONAL SHOPPER
CROUCHING TIZER, HIDDEN VIMTO
THE TITFIELD THUNDERBOLT
MEAN GIRLS

always interesting to see the pinefox's taste in fillums.

film4 on thursday has a documentary on the Alien films that i don't think i've seen before.

Hallam Foe on f4 tuesday. have i seen that? was it any good? i associate it, vaguely, possibly incorrectly, with belle and sebastian.

(i am wrong, actual soundtrack looks more interesting - Pram, Orange Juice, Hood, Ganger, Four Tet, King Creosote, Quickspace, The Pastels, Clinic Future Pilot AKA, Movietone, Psapp)

BBC4 also showing Meades' Bunkers and Brutalism thing over the course of the week as well. it's probably all on iplayer anyway. (oh, it's not, but will be after tuesday when it airs)

THE LADY VANISHES is on BBC2 today!

IRON MAN 3 was quite good btw.

Interested in HALLAM FOE

, Koogs, but unfortunately I don't like that Jamie Bell actor.

films you never knew existed (until Talking Pictures):

The Bliss Of Miss Blossom

Robert Blossom is a brassiere manufacturer and workaholic. When his wife Harriet's sewing machine breaks, he sends his bumbling employee Ambrose Tuttle to repair it. Mrs. Blossom seduces Ambrose, then hides him in the attic

(richard attenborough, shirley maclaine, also monkhouse, rushton, routledge, co-written by denis norden)

it's very swinging sixties...

(forgot to tape Hallam Foe)

just finished on TPTV, The Way We Live, "A look at Plymouth's hopes and fears just after the end of World War 2" including a cameo by young labour candidate Michael Foot... (wikipedia confirms)

London Live last night, Inseminoid, which i think i saw on video at the time but not since. oddly, for something i think of as almost video nasty it features stephanie beacham (tenko, colbys) and judy geeson (to sir with love). so far, so Alien, with a much lower budget.

i shd've mentioned Forces TV has been showing Blake's 7 for the last couple of weeks

ooh, i've just set a recording. missed the first 5 unfortunately. i'm sure they'll repeat them interminably, the way they are doing with UFO (immediately after)

in Inseminoid news, she's just tried to cut her own leg off with a hedge trimmer.

i've watched bits of a couple of episodes of B7 since they've shown it but i don't record stuff so i haven't bothered keeping it up, and tbh it's not as good as i thought it was in 1980-whenever

if it's anything like sapphire and steel it's as slow as all hell.

The first series of B7 is easily the best. The fourth might be the most fun, but that's because it's played as high camp. There are more than a few terrible episodes.

Still the most shocking thing is that in episode 1 Blake gets discredited by the Federation through a fake story he's a paedophile.

A tune for ILX poster Koogs:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCAJyVEU8MY

been watching Bergerac. banging theme tune. lots of (presumably) pre fame appearances amongst the guest actors, so far Greta Scacci, Phil Davis, Joanne Whalley pre Kilmer. forgotten how Jim's ex father in-law Charlie Hungerford is p much somehow involved in every case that comes up.

(blake's seven was rather good, i thought. not reliant on explosions or running around or unbelievable future tech (yes, future guns and teleporting but not much else) and instead you got previous beef and people using the enemies earlier tactics against them. and that eyepatch used to really creep me out)

been watching Bergerac. banging theme tune

Written by avant skronk (among other things) guitar hero, Ray Russell.

I thought it was BBC stalwart George Fenton - found an episode with the credits which says Bergerac theme by George Fenton, musical associate Ray Russell.

Maybe Russell was the Derbyshire to Fenton's Grainer.

Yep, Russell did the incidental music for individual episodes of Bergerac, not the main theme. I've yet to detect 'Stained Angel Morning' burbling in the background of any Bergerac shows, mind.

Talking Pictures, 12.10pm, "British Rock" (aka "Punk and Its Aftershocks") documentary, 1980. Mostly about mod and ska apparently.

... that's on today.

they've been showing a northern soul documentary recently, i caught the same 10 minutes of it twice

It's, like, NOW

Spizz Energi! Unfortunately there's been an overabundance of Bob Geldof so far though. I'd forgotten that he was always unbearable.

he was always available

is this the same german crew that did the punk documentary?

ha, yes, Punk In London

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0368936/?

Talking Pictures has "The Quatermass Xperiment" on in about 15 minutes, followed by Curtis Harrington/Dennis Hooper cult movie, "Night Tide".

Night Tide is worth seeing for the Majorie Cameron cameo alone

That "British Rock" was worth it for the two Pretenders songs from the practice room. Also, Spizz. And various other bits that aren't cut short.

Also, I wondered about the Kinks inclusion, but he was throwing himself around like he was JimmyPursey!

A low point was the interminable dub/improv middle section Sting and the lads insisted on inserting into "The Bed's Too Big".

I mean, they were entitled to do it but why film it and show it in its entirety, inflicting it on a new audience beyond the unfortuntates who were at the gig in the first place. "Night Tide" was great.

As I mentioned on another thread, London Live seems to have bought a job lot of Jean Rollin films, which they're slipping out late at night.

Talking Pictures has "The Quatermass Xperiment" on in about 15 minutes, followed by Curtis Harrington/Dennis Hooper cult movie, "Night Tide".

This is part of the new Cellar Club feature on Friday nights, Caroline Munro introduces three films. Lots of cool Hammer and 50's American sci-fi coming up in that spot, as well as some 80's shlock.

Barbara Rubin documentary on Sky Arts at 9pm tonight

Thanks watching it now

caught Kiss of Death on talking pictures last week. richard widmark was quite smthg in it, almost a prototype for joe pesci in goodfellas with added psychotic giggle.

Dirk Bogarde camping it up mercilessly as the most unconvincing Mexican bandit in cinematic history in "The Singer Not the Song", Talking Pictures, today 12.10pm (yes, I am off work at the moment).

This could be great if the content is there.

Big news from your favourite channel @TalkingPicsTV. ‘Talking Pictures TV is thrilled to announce that, on December 1st and just in time for Christmas, we’re launching a FREE online catch up service called TPTV Encore!’ pic.twitter.com/slQerDrry3

— Tony Paley (@tpaleyfilm) November 15, 2021

Oh, ok..

Oops just noticed that Pontecorvo's "Burn!" is on London Live (Freeview Channel 8) in about 15 minutes time.

One of the all time Morricone scores, that.

Yes, brilliant. I really liked the film too, Brando was great, if you could get past the accent, and the guy who played the leader of the slaves had amazing screen presence.

TPTV is showing The Outer Limits starting at 8 on friday (classic, more sci-fi focussed version of Twilight Zone)

Great, love Outer Limits.

my freeview pvr does this odd (but perhaps understandable) thing of putting new channels at the very bottom when you rescan. hence my Sky Arts is channel 800 rather than 11 and i always forget about it.

i think it'd all clear up if i did a full rescan but it would lose all my season passes so...

(good thing i checked sky arts - episode of celeb portrait artist i'd not seen before, josie, jupitus, lycett, moir, and trails for new landscape artist of the year on wednesday)

as well as outer limits, London Live is showing Monkey at the exact same time. even then i thought it was a bit hoaky, but am prepared to give it a go.

Also on Talking Pictures tonight, at 10.50, Orson Welles' version of "The Trial".

Monkey is terrible btw, it's like Power Rangers voiced by the goons.

is the alistair sim film 'The Green Man' any good? it's on talking pictures tonight?

Yes.

thank you. will watch.

Monkey is great btw but the dubbing actors can fuck off yes

margoyles famously(?) did the princess.

i always confuse Green Man with Green For Danger, but both worth watching.

(and Andrew Sachs and the guy who played Silver in Sapphire and Steel also did monkey voices)

Too fast too underproduced and too hard to make out, but the series is surprisingly faithful to the source and the real actors are great

taped Honey West on tptv last night on a whim and it feels like an American Cathy Gale-era Avengers if Cathy were in charge

Seven Days To Noon on TPTV at 6 this evening, boulting brothers.

TPTV changes channel next week btw, it'll move to... 82

i guess i sort of know why i have to retune the TV once a month but ffs

forces tv are showing classic doctor who, the tom baker years, genesis of daleks tonight, zygons next, robots of death, city of death. oh this is weekend catch-up, in reality there are two every morning at 8am

(it appears I've missed the pertwee daemons series, curses)

kind of wild that RT is still broadcasting the russian state point of view on my freeview box.

Forces TV also showing Watching from wednesday. i have fond memories of this, Emma Wray and Lisa Tarbuck sitcom from 87-93. will be interesting to see if it is as i remember it.

(given the rest of the dross they show in their comedy strands then probably not - Sorry, Brittas Empire, Surgical Spirit, No PLace Like Home, Dear John, Time After Time - but i live in hope)

Nice to see Lovejoy possessed by an energy-hungry ball of light on London Live last night. Do like the ultra-wide angles, lighting, incidental music and set design of that first season of Space: 1999. More comical are the moments when Barry Morse explains science to Martin Landau with the help of graphs with irregular blue blobs on.

I think there's a fair amount of Wirral location shooting in Watching, so some interest there :)

yesterday saw doctor who bring chased by the loch Ness monster and meeting shuhie macphee. LNM looked utterly unconvincing, like it was made by a child.

horror channel starts showing The Prisoner again from Thursday

Ooh, nice! Tonight Talking Pictures is showing "The Offence", in case the state of the world at large isn't brutal and depressing enough for you.

The Warriors on 5star last night as well. i missed the beginning but it's repeated next thursday night

less culty, but Drama is showing the whole 8 hours of Bleak House over the next two nights, but it doesn't say which version but i'd guess the 2005 BBC miniseries with anna maxwell martin as esther and gillian anderson, because it's illegal for gillian anderson not to be in these things.

As this seems to be the unofficial TPTV thread, disappointing to read that BAFTA turned theie membership application down.

Thank you so much. Your words mean a lot to dad and I . It’s a tough job but I’m pleased we do it. We actually applied to be members of @BAFTA and they turned us down as we “we not connected enough to film”. I also put dad forward for an award for services to tv but nothing….

— Talking Pictures TV (@TalkingPicsTV) February 26, 2022

I would recommend the very strange British 'comedy' One Way Pendulum on TPTV tonight at 9pm.

talking pictures showed 'theatre of blood' the other week, which i had never seen before. enjoyable and there was one particular line reading in it that was so bizarre that i still find myself thinking about it now and wondering whether the complete lack of affect was intentional or just an extra given a line of dialogue and having no idea what to do with it.

it's the scene where a policeman standing guard outside the apartment where one of the critics on vincent price's hitlist resides. price comes out and informs him that said critic is inside murdering his wife (diana dors) and the policeman just says "thank you" in such a flat way that price near double takes at it. so bizarre and wonderful.

(xp) Came here to post that!

Theatre of Blood is in my top 3 all time favourites.

the first 5 minutes of One Way Pendulum would make a good post on the office spaces thread (albeit one 30 years too early)

Tons of Corman coming yr way on talking pictures TV later this month - fall of house of usher, bucket of blood, tales of terror, gas s s s, man with the x ray eyes.

"One Way Pendulum" seemed to have Eric Sykes sitting fiddling with a box and not saying anything for about half the film, something of a waste of his talents.

I've just this is on in just over 10 minutes time on London Live:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_Night_Long_(1962_film)

Patrick McGoohan, Dickie Attenborough and Charlie Mingus together at last!

... I've just noticed, that is.

... the very first scene is between Dickie and Charlie!

i am watching gassss, but I'm not sure what it what's happening, maybe because i an over 25.

now the football team have turned up in dune buggies and stolen some meat and a floor cleaner

(the hippies are driving a pink '58 edsel)

also features either Laverne or Shirley

Bit disappointed to see TPTV giving work to Mike 'UKIP calypso song' Read

The Bed Sitting Room on tptv next Saturday.

‘Rita, Sue and Bob too’ on tonight.

pretty much the only thing i watch on sky arts, portrait artist of the year, they are repeating the 2013 series. they have 21 artists in this heat, rather than the more usual 9. an episode a day by the look.

i think I've seen the later episodes of this - they mention Sophie Dahl and Hillary Mantel.

Oh No It's Selwyn Froggitt! on Forces TV. An incredible parade of familiar Northern character players in one grindingly unfunny package.

the pilot episode of Oh No It's Selwyn Froggitt! (written by Roy Clarke, unlike the regular series, different cast aside from Bill Maynard) is fantastic, but none of the other episodes I've seen live up its promise. It's got more of a tragicomic, kitchen-sink mood, Froggitt comes across as less of a Frank Spencer style sitcom bungler and more as someone with a diagnosable condition

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLtbP4vKRCQ

Albeit I haven't seen Selwyn Froggitt since I was about 12 but I refuse to believe it's not still hilarious

A lot of Clarke's stuff coarsened over time tho, LotSW another example

That's TV (channel 91, me neither!) are showing monty python, season 3 episodes i don't think i've ever seen, or not for a long time anyway. (some of it's familiar, probably from best-ofs. argument sketch for instance)

every episode has a disclaimer on the front of it for the blackface and yellowface and brownface and the sexism that was ok in the 60s

I watched a few of those when I was visiting my sister. Second series, so 1970, a lot of the sketches ended up in "And Now For Something Completely Different".

every episode has a disclaimer on the front of it for the blackface and yellowface and brownface and the sexism that was ok in the 60s

This is a precautionary measure to avoid ofcom complaints. TPTV gets irate comments about it all the time, as you might imagine.

tptv showing x certificate films on a Saturday afternoon - "not for showing to anyone under 16" it said on the cert at the beginning. The Trollenberg Terror, 1958.

i guess today's kids are made of sterner stuff.

(aka The Crawling Eye!)

i guess it's been reclassified? otherwise that's obviously against ofcom rules

Ofcom rules? TPTV don't need no stinking Ofcom rules.

imdb says it was an A, so maybe the stylised X on the certificate was just decoration?

the tptv bumper said PG

nope, X, looked exactly like this one (others have other letters)

https://i386.photobucket.com/albums/oo302/lasermagnetic/Image2-45_zps96ab5124.jpg

haha i see

Reclassified as PG in 2006 according to BBFC https://www.bbfc.co.uk/release/the-trollenberg-terror-film-qxnzzxq6vlgtntyxmza4

Some good classic Hollywood auteur fare coming up on TPTV: Anthony Mann's crime drama The Great Flamarion tomorrow at 10:30 and his "French revolution noir" The Black Book on the 26th at 8:25. Sam Fuller's Korean war film Fixed Bayonets (18:10 on the 21st) and Japan set crime drama House Of Bamboo (16:05 on the 2nd of June; features some awesome footage of 1950's Tokyo). And Edgar G. Ulmer's Bluebeard, which I've heard described as a Poverty Row masterpiece, at 14:35 on the 20th.

the horror channel is going away

(from thursday it's rebranding as Legend. content seems to be the same based on thursday and friday listings, sci fi series, fantasy tvms during the day, horror films at night)

Great! Movies Classic keeps showing Girl On A Motorcycle, which gets 1 star every time (it's better than that)

That's TV currently showing Press Gang (Julia Sawalha and Dexter Fletcher at a school newspaper, written by Stephen Moffat). only it's on at 02:00

having joked that horror is going away i noticed that everything beyond 11 tomorrow morning on Forces TV just says "thanks for watching forces tv". which is a pity because that's the place that's been showing ufo, space 1999, sapphire and steel, Blake's seven, watching and a couple of decent things over the last two years or so.

House of Whipcord on TPTV tonight - "This film is dedicated to those who are disturbed by today's lax moral codes and who eagerly await the return of corporal and capital punishment".

Starring (still around at 83), voice of Mr Benn and (at one time) Croydon trams: Ray Brooks!

wow for some reason i thought Brooks had died years back

didn't he spend a bunch of time homeless? or am i thinking of someone else?

He did murder Pauline Fowler, so anything is possible

Sadly Ray does not play the character named Mark E. DeSade in House of Whipcord

the film before that is a William castle joint. I've also set the video for the one after even though i know 1943 zombies are not our zombies

loads of good stuff on That's TV these days but all seems to be taken from low quality 90s digitizations with a 0.2 second delay between audio and video, which is barely watchable imo

lots of aspect ratio errors as well, 4:3 stuff stretched to 16:9

yeah it's all done with the minimal possible care, when they get big name stuff like monty python and do this to it you really have to wonder what's going on there, did they blow their entire budget and can't hire just one person to sort this out?

This listing on the TPTV website has to be a fake right

A Tale Of The Fjords
Filmed in 1955 by the distinguished Swedish Cameraman Arne Sucksdorff, focusing on the Vestland region of Norway. A beautiful presentation of two children hunting for the Valley Of happiness

^ would watch

sky arts (ch11) starts Alfred Hitchcock Presents on Monday which i don't think I've ever seen.

they've been showing Portrait Artist Of The Year from the beginning every day, which I've enjoyed. must be nearing the end now because the episodes are COVID-safe. Landscape version once a week too.

other than that everything seems to be finishing, my days are emptier.

I noticed this morning that That's TV has been added to my Freeview. Don't know when that happened.

it moved around the same time horror got renamed (2 weeks ago?) so maybe you picked it up then. enjoy your Benny hill ..

my pvr handles renumberings for things that clash with old channels by shoving everything above ch 800, but keeping the old versions too. it's confusing but the other option is losing all my season passes

Several hours of the Kenny Everett Video Show this morning. Hasn't really aged very well, you'll not be surprised to hear.

That's TV (UK) has some corkers on tonight:

20:00 MONKEE STAR: DEATH MYSTERY
Apparently the death of Davy Jones was not as straightforward as we had been led to believe - I assume so anyway as they're spending almost an hour on it.

20:55 GEORGE BEST: TURMOIL
Does exactly what it says on the tin.

21:50 JIM MORRISON: FINAL 24 HOURS
Ditto.

22:50 VELVET UNDERGROUND: UNDER REVIEW
This I might actually watch, although it's on till half twelve. Still, sleep? Who am I kidding?

would rather watch MONKEE DEATH STAR MYSTERY

A few nights ago TPTV screened HENNESSY (1975), a sort of poor-man's DAY OF THE JACKAL, wherein Rod Steiger and Lee Remick do their best Irish accents and there's a plot to blow up the State Opening of Parliament. Worth watching for the moment (SPOILER) Stanley Lebor shoots Peter Egan - a glimpse of the Ever Decreasing Circles finale that could have been.

At least Doug Yule is in this Velvets documentary for a change, and quite a lot of Doug Yule too!

Watched Caravan (1946) on TPTV today, utter crap but also very enjoyable.

Someone e-mailed TPTV recently to ask if they'd play Abel Gance's Napoleon. Just slightly outside of their wheelhouse I think.

lol i'm not buying another two tellys for that

Is it not on the BFI player? They released the DVD/Blu-Ray of it not that long ago, after a cinema tour.

I was watching the first episode of Lynda La Plante's Widows on Talking Pictures TV and this bizarre show presented by Mike Read came on afterwards:

https://www.heritagechart.co.uk/hc-tv-shows/heritage-chart-tv-show-ep19

it's (mostly) new tracks by old bands with ultra-cheap videos, and a strange interlude where they play a popular song from 1777 while three Mike Reads float around the screen playing banjos. (mostly because there's also stuff like a 2008 song by the late Robin Gibb about Alan 'Fluff' Freeman and Everlasting Love by Love Affair from 1968, I guess because it was in the Kenneth Branagh Belfast film last year?) Here's the most recent chart to give you a feel for it

https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/600d7e223c156d341b5493e5/64d55626-cc75-4ece-b62a-415cf69b21e8/Heritage+Chart+-+Week+104+-+17+July+2022.jpg?format=1000w

I didn't know which thread to post it to, this one, Things that have to be Tim and Eric skits or The last famous person you were surprised to find out is still alive, but it's very strange. You can watch all the previous episodes on the website, the quality varies from actually alright to genuinely some of the worst stuff I've ever heard.

also learned that the woman who played Linda Perelli in Widows is now called Sara Farouk Ahmed and lives in Cairo teaching Egyptian dance

AH, yeah I saw the one where The Rubettes were playing their latest single.

A few bits in common with their first/biggest hit, but.

Veronica Mars starts from the beginning on itv2 from Tuesday morning

Amazing - was thinking of rewatching that

the jordan peele-related-somehow twilight zone reboot has started on Pick on monday nights. not sure of his involvement beyond being a rod serling for the 2020s but... hour long epiodes though...

enjoying veronica mars, even though i still have trouble telling the male teenagers apart.

Synth night on Sky Arts (ch11) tonight including TD documentary and I Dream OF Wires, that documentary on modular synths that i've still not seen. more tomorrow (including one focussed on women)

probably most have seen it, although i haven't, but excited to catch 'In A Lonely Place' on one of the Great Movies channels next thursday at 9pm.

Great movie

It's so good it could convert anyone to Cahiers auteurism, even if they're not called Noodle Vague. Hope it's the same print that Criterion had access to for their gorgeous looking blu-ray.

It’s a good one.

today on TPTV

British Rails Are Long and Fast (1969)

Intended as a sales tool for manufacturers, this short film details the production, installation and maintenance for long welded track in use on British Railways.

(i am learning a lot - 20 or 30 miles without a joint in the track, but that also means 20 or 30 miles without an expansion gap, hence the recent heat-related problems)

Great Movies has been showing rolling Christmas films since the beginning of September. I bet they think they're so funny and random. Cunts. Revoke their broadcast licence

yeah, i notice this every year (actually started last thursday)

they aren't even the good xmas movies...

at least ch5 leaves it until after halloween

There aren't enough good Christmas movies for 4 hours television, let alone 4 months

christmas carol (alistair sim version)
christmas carol (jean luc picard version)
christmas carol (kermit version)

Scrooged
Love & Peace
It's A Wonderful Life
Bad Santa

think that's it

Holiday Affair!

ppl also really rate Remember The Night but I've not seen, Indicator blu on the way

For those with London Live, "Nico, 1988" om tonight at 11pm. John Gordon Sinclair as her manager!

and my PVR caught Press Gang series 2 on That'sTV at, er, 3am this morning

Seems like a good time to be sleeping downstairs due to Covid in Da House. Last night I saw Fry & Laurie and Reggie Perrin.

(you all okay mike?)

Tonight at 8:

https://www.radiotimes.com/programme/b-2w6mzj/the-amazing-hattie-jacques-larger-than-life/

Koogs - I'm negative, C is positive, so keeping our distance. Thanks for asking :)

Phase IV on TPTV tonight, if you can't sleep.

stoked for the upcoming british transport films season on tptv

("stoked", do you see!?)

The London Nobody Knows on TPTV in the last couple of weeks. James Mason walks around various public toilets and london markets, watches people selling eels etc

For those with London Live, I forgot to mention "Cul-de-sac" was on last night but, worry not, it's on again tomorrow night. Tonight we have "Radio On", which I've never seen, followed by "Twisted Nerve", which I haven't seen since I was about 12.

Blaze (ch64) is shoing Blown Away from 10 on sunday, which is Sewing Bee / Pottery Throwdown / Wordwork Challenge but with (american) glass blowing. which sounds interesting. only it's 30 minute episodes and i'm not sure how that can possibly work.

blown away is good, it's like the anti bake off / throw down - strong American vibe, an emphasis on how hardcore it all is and most of the contestants are extremely lacking in modesty. there's only one challenge per episode, 30 mins is fine - bake off is too long imo.

i have been watching Forged In Fire (also on blaze, but recently picked up on 5 Select, ch56, 2 a night from 22:00) for years and that's the same or heavier given that the focus is bladed weapons of various kinds. is fascinating and i've learnt a lot.

(mostly how to kill ballistics dummies)

> Blown Away

lol at repeated mentions of 'glory hole'

maybe too fast for me though. would like to know the people more, and watch them work. and see the finished pieces in more detail than the fly-past the camera crew does. reminds me of the repeats of GBBO on Food Network where they've edited them down to an hour long and made them frenetic.

RADIO ON is overrated.

I've still not seen THE LONDON NOBODY KNOWS, but have read the book.

London is on again on Wednesday, 5 past midnight. and they have a catch-up service now, but it's patchy

worth watching for the people drinking meths outside a church

film noir season on sky arts from Sunday. 3 part documentary and accompanying films. first up seems to be The Glass Key which I'm not familiar with.

ooh thanks for that heads up!

Glass Key is a Chandler adaptation, prob less known due to not having a famous director and Alan Ladd instead of Bogey or Mitchum

Good tip, Koogs.

THE GLASS KEY is not by Raymond Chandler.

Sorry, Hammett! Got confused because Bogart is Sam Spade in Maltese Falcon but also Marlowe in Big Sleep.

I read The Maltese Falcon just recently and was struck by a) the extreme faithfulness of the Bogart/Huston film and b) that there are no other Sam Spade novels (just a couple of short stories).

Yeah, I read the audiobook of that and it did v much feel like listening to a radio version of the film.

Legend are showing The Twilight Zone (the original) from the beginning. times seem to be all over the shop though.

"Vanishing Point", Talking Pictures, 9.30pm tonight.

Watching a Twilight Zone on Legend and it feels...motion smoothed? Even though I have that turned off and no other channels are?

has been mentioned before, i think, but kenny everett video show is on channel 65 if you need blackface and cartoon breasts and Hot Gossip in the wrong aspect ratio at 12:30 of an afternoon.

bowie was on, smoking between lines, and chasing a man in a bowler hat and suspenders with a violin bow whilst trying to keep a straight face.

I remember enjoying the first couple series, not the stuff that gets repeated in highlights (the Toyah and Rod S takeoffs weren't funny the first time but Toyah introducing hers while dressed as Kenny was, for instance) but the Sid Snot, etc .

But the last few series were painfully unfunny.

they used to repeat episodes of the Kenny Everett Video/Television Show on Paramount Comedy in the late 90s and I was obsessed with it. Sarah Squirm on snl sometimes reminds me a bit of TKEV/TS
the 'spiderman needing a piss' sketch will forever be one of the most perfect pieces of television ever made

this is series 3, 1980

Always kinds liked Captain Kremmen.

in about 10 minutes talking pictures is showing the episode of Maigret with Pauline Boty in it

> Watching a Twilight Zone on Legend and it feels...motion smoothed?

yeah, something looks off but then going from 60s usa series on film(?) to 2020 digital has probably had multiple things done to it

feels like every night the only thing on TV that I want to watch is Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads? on That's TV.

Annika on drama, sometime at the weekend. it's Nicola Walker in Scottish marine homicide unit but actually some kind of Scandinavian so she's always dropping in references to Norse mythology (her boat is called mimir for instance) and salty licorice. she talks to the camera as well, displaying its radio 4 roots.

tried the first episode of that cos I loved walker in unforgotten but it was v much not my thing. from what I can remember she has a v annoying child in it.

and astrid, murder in Paris is back. i find out painful to watch at times. it's like Monk but she struggles more with day to day life. but they've got young Astrid pretty much perfect.

and Happy Valley season 1. it's like from 15 years ago but Ryan is the same Ryan. it's brutal and has some great ptsd acting.

Wait, is this a channel called Drama, showing a programme (new?) called Annika? With an English actress playing a Scandinavian in Scotland? And it's all taken from Radio 4 ?!?

Channel 20 yes. mostly old episodes of the bill and to the manor born and stuff of that ilk. also handy for repeats of dickens adaptations.

Annika is not new, but is new to me (oh, 2021 it says). if i'm unsure it's because Drama is all repeats so it's been shown somewhere before (oh, Alibi (uktv / Sky) and Masterpiece in the US).

https://corporate.uktv.co.uk/news/article/uktv-tv-adaptation-radio-4-drama-annika-alibi/

For anyone who fancies staying up till 2.45am on Wednesday, Talking Pictures is showing "Thomasine and Bushrod", a Blaxploitation Western from 1974... with music by Arthur Lee!

^ that's not showing up in the epg yet (or in my listings mag for this week or next)

they missed a trick by not calling the new Vic Reeves And His Wife Paint Birds show on sky arts Paint Along With Nancy (and Jim)

it's multiple episodes and has special guests (including edwin collins) so i'm sold.

i don't enjoy celeb stuff but god bless Nancy Kaminsky

the Architecture of Railways show on Yesterday continues to be little gem of a thing. always something interesting on it, like the brutalist, analog electronic signal box in birmingham the other week.

is that the one with the Icelandic presenter i have a sad crush on because yeah it's good and largely annoyance-free

the main presenter is tim dunn, but he does a london underground spin-off with a woman who could possibly be icelandic and has a name that's almost but not quite sidney. (googles... siddy, Sigurbjörg Alma Ingólfsdóttir)

(that signalbox in full - https://www.birminghamworld.uk/news/birmingham-new-street-signal-box-tour-4087955 )

yeah that's right, i googled cos there's something in her tone that feels not full english and i figured she was either mad posh or not a native speaker

or both! both are possible lol

so after the Twilight Zone series 1 they are showing Twilight Zone series 1... (i have the first two seasons on dvd, i was hoping to get to see the rest)

but there are new Bob's Burgers on itv2 as of yesterday. late last night's (repeated 8 today) was a halloween episode and the kids always have good punning costumes

Gradiator (graduate / gladiator), Sherlock Ness Monster, Peter Pan's Labyrinth

The second half of the 8pm double-bill last night (well, we watched it at 9:30pm on +1) was unfamiliar to us and I think everything in the 2023 run so far had been repeats.
I do miss Bob and Linda when they're not on. And Teddy, especially Teddy.

Slits documentary on London Live last night has some great home movie footage. also touches on the Nora / John lydon relationship mentioned in the obit thread.

> And Teddy, especially Teddy.

you're in for a treat tonight then

itv2 has just started Dawson's Creek from the beginning. i remember it as one of a bunch of sassy teen dramas around that time (party of five, my so-called life). was odd how much of it i remembered. the only thing that strikes me as odd is that he's film obsessed but doesn't seem to rate anybody beyond spielberg.

Dr Morbius the early years

Dawson's movie love is very Gregg Turkington yes, iirc they do also watch Casablanca.

Annika being shown on BBC1 on saturday, i notice. odd that it was on Drama first, it's usually the other way around.

Psycho is showing when he goes to sign up for film classes and they all go to the cinema to see some film that they don't ever name (and i didn't recognise. oh, Waitng for Guffman it says on the cinema)

Fireball XL5 on TPTV from saturday. 1962. so after Supercar but before Stingray.

also on TPTV, Picnic At Hanging Rock - 21:30 on Saturday and 21:00 next Monday.

Chimes At Midnight was on TPTV too on Saturday night(?)

haha yes I reviewed that on the last podcast (I review Picnic on the current one)

i semi-watched Chimes on Saturday night, it deserves its rep imo

A friend asked me if TPTV were showing a restored version of Chimes, but I didn't know. My memory is that it was the sound recording that was in most of need of fixing, rather than the image quality.

it looked and sounded fine to me

Looked and sounded good.

probably the best place to note that Network DVD have just gone into administration. 😞

that sky arts documentary about female electronic artists is on again tonight, quarter past midnight.

fireball xl5 was a bit hokey and sexist but the things that were always good, like the vehicle designs and general model making, were already there.

M Hulot's Holiday on Talking Pictures TV at 19:00 on the 9th of July. Also, for the Umberto Lenzi completists in the house, Sandokan: Pirate Of Malaysia at 14:50 on the 8th.

july!?

Yes. Bit early to set your DVRs I realise, but I received the spreadsheet today and it's unlikely I would remember to give the heads up closer to the date.

That gives me enough time to decide if I'm an Umberto Lenzi completist or not.

I've never got to see The Sailor Who Feel from Grace with the Sea tho it's a book I'm very fond of, thanks Talking Pictures

Fell, either way spellcheck

i figured sky arts was just endlessly repeating the first 4 seasons of Alfred Hitchcock Presents but noticed today that it's s06e04 so I've missed a truckload (which they will repeat, endlessly)

I've never got to see The Sailor Who Feel from Grace with the Sea tho it's a book I'm very fond of, thanks Talking Pictures

Started watching it but the Sailor took forever to show up and when he did it was an almost comatose Kris Kristoffersen.

i was maybe a bit drunker and more distractable than i'd realised but i'll try to stick it out on demand or something

it's on again tomorrow at 9

Jesse James meets Frankenstein's Daughter is quite a juxtaposition

mudlarking on the thames. London Live. does what it says on the tin really. cheap tv, head-mounted camera, first person view, often of nothing but the ground. lots of buttons, lots of coins, lots of broken clay pipes*, the odd foot high Nkondi in the shape of a dog...

*all these clay pipes still hanging around after hundreds of years - the disposable vapes of their time.

(pipes were 1700-1770 apparently)

Secrets of the London Underground is back, and about camden this week. hadn't realised it was bombed during the war.

TPTV just showed the episode of The Edgar Wallace Mystery Theatre, "Strangler's Web", which had Pauline Boty, the pop artist in it. much bigger role than the Maigret episode they showed around christmas.

TPTV have had a couple of screenings of Sam Fuller's Underworld USA this week - would recommend if it comes round again.

Saw on Monday night (I think).

repeats of repeats of the Twilight Zone on legend has just shown the one in the first series where it breaks the 4th wall and it's probably the most effective version of that i've ever seen.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_World_of_Difference (oh, richard matheson)

(although probably the highlight of the entire first season happens in episode 1...)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WH2S4kg2tY8

forgot to mention that I saw a film on tp the other week I think was called " the day the world caught fire" about the west and Russia conducting nuclear tests at exactly the same time unbeknownst to each other causing environmental changes that lead to the end of the world. told from the pov of a British newspaper. p enjoyable dialogue.

Excellent film.

Edward Judd's crack at film stardom!

iirc there's an early michael caine uncredited walk-on part in that

val guest as well

Down to the Sea in Ships, on very early this morning, like 3am, hadn't heard of it but taped it on spec. Whaling drama about a grandad and his grandson, full-sized boat, full-sized whales. an example of what TPTV does the best, i think.

(i'll now look it up on imdb and it'll have 6 oscars)(oh, lionel barrymore, dean stockwell as the grandson...)

Portrait Artist of the Year back on sky arts (ch11) from today. there was a special beforehand as well - PAotDecade which was a lot of the previous winners doing Judy Dench

Legend has just finished its second run of Twilight Zone series 1 and started on series 1 again. come on...

a lot of the previous winners doing Judy Dench

Who says tv has become sexless!

tptv has 'rich and strange' on 9th of november - a pre-war hitchcock i've not seen before (or, indeed, heard of)

It's great and important and jazz

think there's an early brian de palma on tptv next Friday that I've never seen.

funny things:

kes is on tptv and then on film4 the following night.

a kiss before dying also on twice, on tptv and somewhere else

Small Films documentary on bbc4 tonight. prior to that a couple of episodes of bagpuss including one i don't recognise, Owls Of Athens

didn't make the connection until the documentary that professor yaffle from bagpuss is basically cliff clavin from cheers

https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0056478/

this was on tptv this morning. Anna Karina talking English in a comedy starring Bob Monkhouse and Hattie Jacques. it's after A Woman is a Woman but before pretty much everything else. it's quite bad, she's just about saving it.

(oh, it's called She'll Have To Go in the UK at least, 1962)

Bob's Burgers from the beginning on itv2 from Monday

my 12-yr-old freeview box has taken to turning itself off when i'm using it and turning itself on when i'm not

i'd upgrade obviously except there's a whole bunch of stuff recorded on it that i want to salvage if possible (no clue how tho)

the hitachi problems chatbot just laughed when i asked them abt it

some pvrs have an "export" feature that'll let you move stuff off the internal disk onto a random usb drive. mine needs a disk specially formulated and will only do sd recordings, not hd. takes stupidly long and you end up with raw .ts files but...

i fear my humax will eventually die and there won't be a decent replacement

Talking Pictures, 10:45 tonight, "The Death of Adolf Hitler", 1973 TV play, with Frank Finlay playing Bruno Ganz, looks like it might be worth a look.

just before that, ie now, Hammer House of mystery and suspense. Dirk Benedict, Burt Kwouk, Brian Clemens, Val Guest

one of the 3 times Michael 'Mr Bronson from Grange Hill' Sheard played Himmler, not to be confused with any of the 5 times he played Hitler

oh HHOM+S is different from the thing i used to watch before Match of the Day which was HHO Horror. only 13 episodes of each.

Stumbled across "Revolver" on London Live last night: 1973 Italian crime thriller, directed by Sergio Sollima, music by Morricone, starring Oliver Reed(!), what's not to like! I'd recommend catching this if it's shown again, which it almost certainly will be.

Yeah that's a good one, Sollima a very underrated director in the Italian genre stable. Love the French vocal "Un Ami" on the soundtrack.

Reading that Oliver Reed was increasingly pissed and difficult as the filming proceeded and he does look kind of red and puffy. He's great in it though. I always like his acting anyway.

> if it's shown again

22:00 tomorrow, 4th sept

Sergio Corbucci western, "The Mercenary", on London Live at 10pm tonight. I'm wondering what I missed on Tuesday now.