TV Review - Hollywood UK:British cinema in the sixties****

Hollywood UK Episode One: Northern Lights BBC4 1st August 2005

This series of five programmes fronted by the late lamented Richard Lester (director of the Beatles films, amongst numerous others) is currently being re-run on Monday nights on BBC4. It was first shown in 1993 and well deserves to be aired again. It is an overview of the British film industry in the 1960s. `British film industry', I hear you cry, `I didn't know we had one'.

Well, we used to. As Lester says in his introduction, while there were only two British films in production at the start of 1993, there were 76 in 1967. A statistic which demonstrates the scale of film production in the sixties, when as Lester says, `Hollywood film studios were tripping over each other to shoot their pictures in London'.

For this series, the 1960s actually begin in 1958, with the release of Room at the Top. This first episode of the series concentrates on what came to be (rather dismissively) termed as the `kitchen sink' films - working-class dramas based in the north of England. So the main films discussed after Room at the Top are Look Back in Anger (1959), Saturday Night & Sunday Morning (1960), A Taste of Honey (1961), Whistle Down the Wind (1961), A Kind of Loving (1962), This Sporting Life (1963), and Billy Liar (1963).

These films were a considerable departure from the nature of previous British films which tended to be dominated by public school types. As producer/director Karel Reisz says, `It was time to make films about what's outside the drawing room'. So Room at the Top was adapted from John Braine's novel which included `an unprecedented amount of sexual frankness'. The Censor gave the film an `X' certificate (to be seen by adults only), which the producers seized on in their marketing efforts. The story of an ambitious working class lad who manages to marry into money, but causes the death of his mistress - his real love - it left the drawing-room far behind in favour of the bedroom, and the protagonist's clashes with his `social superiors'. Strong stuff. Look Back in Anger is really included here because of its importance as a play rather than as a film, so I will discuss it no further.

Saturday Night & Sunday Morning - in my opinion one of the best films here - sees an outstanding performance from Albert Finney as Arthur Seaton, lathe operator in a factory. We first see him at the lathe as the end of work on Friday afternoon approaches. As he produces widgets and puts them in a box we hear him counting them on the soundtrack - nine `undred n fifty-three, nine `undred n fifty-four, nine `undred n fifty-bloody-five. He then thinks about the weekend, `What I'm out for is a good time, all the rest is propaganda'. Arthur is a tough working class young man who hates the thought of being shackled - whether at work or by any woman. `Don't let the bastards grind you down' is his motto. Gritty, it is, and a must-see.

A Taste of Honey dwells on the changing sexual mores of the times. A teenage girl played by Rita Tushingham, falls pregnant by a sailor, who moves on. She then forms a relationship with a supportive gay man - advanced subject matter for 1961. Whistle Down the Wind was a vehicle for child star Hayley Mills, and for my money is the only film discussed here of little importance (ironic that the BBC should have chosen this film to show after the programme - the weakest of the bunch). A Kind of Loving is very redolent of the times. Alan Bates stars as the man trapped in an unhappy marriage after a shotgun wedding - a situation that is probably unthinkable now when something like a third (if I remember correctly) of weddings end in divorce.

This Sporting Life came at a time when audiences were tiring of `kitchen sink' films. Decidedly downbeat it was not a box-office success. However, it contained outstanding performances with Richard Harris as a tough rugby league player going into a steep decline, and Rachel Roberts (also in Saturday Night & Sunday Morning) as the woman he loves. Of this group of films, Billy Liar begins to point in a new direction. It is the story of a young Bradford lad who is something of a Walter Mitty character. He deals with the tedium of daily life by inhabiting a rich fantasy world. The film depicts a fine comic interplay between its characters. But Billy is really a bit of a sad character. When the magnificent Julie Christie character asks him to go to London with her he contrives to miss the train. (Julie, Julie, why didn't you ask me. I wouldn't have let you down. Okay, so I was only ten at the time, but you could have mothered me).

A fine start to a fascinating decade then, but the best is yet to come. Tune in to the other four episodes to find out what happens next. The series does a fine job as an overview of the most important British films of the decade, but sadly there is little room for analysis. Why was it that the sixties saw an amazing upsurge, not just in film, but also in popular music, fashion (and fashion photography), and the creative arts in general in this country? And why did it die away? There are a number of factors, but no space here to discuss it. If I have the time to review the other programmes in this series I may return to this question.

Interviewees in the first episode - Michael Caine, Julie Christie, Roman Polanski, John Osborne, Sir John Woolf, Karel Reisz, Alan Sillitoe, Peter Yates, Rita Tushingham, Paul Danquah, Murray Melvin, Bryan Forbes, Keith Waterhouse & Willis Hall, John Schlesinger, Joseph Janni, Lindsay Anderson, David Storey, Richard Harris, and Tom Courtenay (not bad, eh!). And from the archives, John Trevelyan, Tony Richardson, and Albert Finney.