Two lads decide to "adopt" a baby when they aren't allowed to keep a dog. Charming film with a special Oscar a-piece for Jon Whiteley and Vincent Winter.
1.00 pm Film4 Wed 27 Aug
British tourists go to Paris.
There are too many stories for comfort in this ensemble piece, but with a cast like this there's always going to be a memorable gem or two.
2.45 pm Film4 Wed 27 Aug
After a doctor tells Dirk Bogarde he's dying he goes to Canada and tries to prevent Stanley Baker from flooding a valley for a hydro-electric scheme. Nice scenery helps distract the mind from niggling plot worries (not least during the climactic dam failure only twelve hours after they start filling it. We knew Baker was using dodgy concrete but he'd have to be building with tissue paper to get that sort of failure).
4.25 pm Film4 Wed 27 Aug, 2.45 pm Film4 Sat 30 Aug
A butterfly collector is sent behind the Iron Curtain to investigate a biological weapons research centre.
Comedy thriller which was another nail in the coffin of Margaret Lockwood's career.
2.20 am Film4 Fri 29 Aug, 1.00 pm Film4 Mon 1 Sept
Titanic movie which more than holds its own against the modern blockbuster.
12.40 pm BBC2 Sat 30 Aug
John Clements is the soldier who resigns just before being sent to the Sudan and who receives the four white feathers from his girlfriend and three friends. The shame makes him determined to force his former associates to take back the feathers and so he goes off in disguise to do brave deeds of derring-do.
Produced by Alexander Korda and directed by his brother Zoltan, this is the great adventure story. The Technicolor photography brings out the best of the extensive location work and the performances (particularly Ralph Richardson's) are memorable. This is probably the best British Empire film ever made.
1.35 pm More4 Sat 30 Aug, 10.45 am More4 Fri 5 Sept
Valerie Hobson goes undercover to expose a plot to sink the British fleet in WW1 and falls for German Conrad Veidt.
Excellent spy thriller which marked the first collaboration of Powell and Pressburger.
1.00 pm C4 Mon 1 Sept
Powell and Pressburger's tale of a bomber crew forced to bale out over occupied Holland. It gets a bit preachy as it wears on but it's fairly effective propaganda and worth comparing to the duo's latter 49th Parallel and its tale of Germans trying to cross Canada.
1.30 pm C4 Tues 2 Sept
Starry cast (Alec Guinness, Flora Robson, Jack Hawkins and many others) tell how the island of Malta came to be awarded the George Cross in W.W.I.I.
5.05 pm Film4 Tues 2 Sept, 1.00 pm Film4 Fri 5 Sept
Thriller set in 1940. The British try to liberate diamonds from an Amsterdam vault before the Germans get to the city.
Interesting docu-drama, both glum and sentimental, but with enough action to keep things going.
10.45 am More4 Wed 3 Sept
Classic Powell & Pressburger fantasy which impresses more with every viewing. David Niven is the pilot who should have died in a crash but the angel sent for him got lost in the fog. By the time he's found, he's fallen in love and heaven holds a trial to see if he should live or die.
1.30 pm C4 Wed 3 Sept
Catholic nuns hide Jewish children from the Nazis. It sounds perfectly horrible but the whole thing is so well handled and the performances are so nicely judged that it works magnificently.
2.55 pm Film4 Wed 3 Sept
Lumme, that's Elke Summer as an archaeologist in this not-so-good re-run of Camping. There are some prize moments among the dross, but the series was definitely on the skids at this point.
7.10 pm Film4 Wed 3 Sept
Two submarines are being built in occupied Holland and the resistance are determined to sabotage them. Well-made drama produced by Powell and Pressburger, which lacks that touch of magic.
1.00 pm Film4 Thur 4 Sept
A group of Anglican nuns try to bring a bit of Christian discipline in the Himalayas but fail. It's another unforgettable film from The Archers as English repression comes under the spotlight. Kathleen Byron is the one we all remember going mad with lust for David Farrar (and who can blame her). Deborah Kerr has a good sniff around him as well.
1.30 pm C4 Thur 4 Sept
Noel Coward's story of a family between the wars. It's sentimental and maybe faintly patronising, and the Technicolor makes the whole thing seem very artificial and theatrical; but once you get past that you have a fascinating saga that's well worth another look.
4.50 pm Film4 Thur 4 Sept
The pursuit of German battleship Admiral Graf Spee was one of the most dramatic navel engagements of the war. This re-enactment by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger lacks their usual flare and falls down badly with the model work.
1.15 pm C4 Fri 5 Sept
A classic bit of British fantasy. The plot is familiar: Rex Harrison's dead first wife comes back to haunt him after medium Margaret Rutherford holds a séance. It's all done in the best Coward style. Harrison, Kay Hammond and Constance Cummings have never been better but it's Rutherford who steals the picture.
5.05 pm Film4 Fri 5 Sept
Nothing this week.
