Adam Bowen's Talkie Talk - Movies on TV and Vale Honor Blackman

AFTER EASTER 

FREE-TO-AIR TELLY SELECTIONS

Tuesday 14^th

Opening Night, Melbourne Film Festival, 1981

SBS World Movies 1140am: Chariots of Fire (1981) - a box office mega-hit featuring hundreds of pink knees pounding along a British beach, to the accompaniment of Vangelis’s soaring synth score. A highly romantic movie about two very different men running for Britain at the 1924 Paris Olympics.

SBS World Movies 930pm: The Long Good Friday (1980) – grisly crime melodrama, starring Bob Hoskins as a very nasty gang boss, whose empire is under threat.

Wednesday 15^th

SBS World Movies 730pm: Monty Python & the Holy Grail (1975) – likeable silliness abounds as King Arthur and his knights seek the Holy Grail via a series of neatly linked comedy sketches, set in very gritty-looking Middle Ages. Hilarious.

Thursday 16^th

SBS World Movies 120am: The Long Good Friday (1980) – see above.

SBS World Movies 7.30PM: The Life of Brian (1979) – The Monty Python team’s funny spoof set in biblical times. Brian (Graham Chapman) is mistaken for the Messiah and is crucified.

Friday 17^th

SBS World Movies 930pm: Slumdog Millionaire (2008) – fast-moving, feelgood romance about a young man accused of cheating on the Indian version of the TV quiz show “Who Wants to Be. A Millionaire”.

Saturday 18th

9Gem 3pm: The Ladykillers (1955) – Highly recommendedEaling Comedy, in which the spectre of violent crime throws its shadow over Mrs Wiberforce, an innocent old lady (Katy Johnson), who lives in a tumble-down house above a train line. A motley bunch of train robbers (including Alec Guinness and Peter Sellers) masquerade as a chamber music quintet, and rehearse in Mrs Wiberforce’s upstairs room. Brilliantly directed by Alexander Mackendrick, and shot in suitably murky Technicolor by Otto Heller.

SBS World Movies 730pm: The King’s Speech (2010) King George VI (Colin Firth), of Britain, is hampered by the most frightful stutter, but is helped by a speech therapist (Geoffrey Rush). A delightful bro-mance, which climaxes when the King makes a vital broadcast. The royal family, in a state of anxiety, hang on the King’s every syllable, as do listeners all over Britain and the Empire - glued to their radios. This suspenseful montage is accompanied by the allegretto from Beethoven’s Symphony No 7 - an emotional pulse, throbbing under the speech with a hypnotic, stately beauty.

SBS World Movies 730pm: The Damned United (2009) – if you like soccer, you’ll probably love this biopic of Briam Clough (Michael Sheen), focusing on his brief gig as the coach of Leeds United.

Sunday 19^th

SBS World Movies 1.40am: Slumdog Millionaire (2008) – see above 

VALE - Honor Blackman

Honor Blackman has died, aged 94. She was best known as a “Bond Girl” in Goldfinger (1964) and as the tough, glamorous, highly athletic Cathy Gale, in the first series of TV’s “The Avengers”. Born in the East End of London, the glamorous Ms Blackman appeared in many movies as an English Rose type; she was required to be decorative rather than assertive – despite working as a dispatch rider during WW2. She starred with Richard Burton in Green Grow the Rushes (1951), but it wasn’t until she clad herself in leather and knocked screen villains (and 007) for six, did she become a household name. Despite that fame, Blackman was more a jobbing actor than a star, content to work in many very ordinary productions.  Her last film appearance was Cockneys versus Zombies (2012).

Adam Bowen Productions