Michael Caine's early films defined the look of an era, but with scores by John Barry, Quincy Jones and Sonny Rollins they also defined its soundrack
There is a kind of music in Michael Caine's voice: deceptively flat, barely inflected, emitting just the tiniest glints of detached insolence and laconic menace as it maps the area between the pre-war docklands community of Rotherhithe, his birthplace, and Elephant and Castle, where his family was rehoused in a prefab built on bomb-damaged land not far from the location of Shakespeare's theatres. Few people alive know more about the actor's craft than Caine, none is more gifted in the art of underplaying, and that voice is integral to his virtuosity.
But there is music of a more conventional kind in the films that made him famous – when the former Maurice Micklewhite rather unexpectedly became the model of a new kind of English leading man,...
There is a kind of music in Michael Caine's voice: deceptively flat, barely inflected, emitting just the tiniest glints of detached insolence and laconic menace as it maps the area between the pre-war docklands community of Rotherhithe, his birthplace, and Elephant and Castle, where his family was rehoused in a prefab built on bomb-damaged land not far from the location of Shakespeare's theatres. Few people alive know more about the actor's craft than Caine, none is more gifted in the art of underplaying, and that voice is integral to his virtuosity.
But there is music of a more conventional kind in the films that made him famous – when the former Maurice Micklewhite rather unexpectedly became the model of a new kind of English leading man,...
- 1/31/2014
- by Richard Williams
- The Guardian - Film News
Television director in the glory days of the BBC, who went on to make feature films
Alan Bridges, who has died aged 86, was a leading director during the glory days of the BBC, from the mid-60s to the early 70s. Today, whenever media pundits analyse the history of television drama, they wax lyrical about The Wednesday Play and its successor Play for Today, bemoaning the virtual disappearance of the single play.
By the time Bridges started working in the Wednesday Play slot, he was already one of the BBC's most experienced TV directors – he had directed excellent 10-part adaptations of two 19th-century classics, Great Expectations and Les Misérables (both in 1967) – but he relished the "right to fail" ethos at the BBC, enjoying working with exciting contemporary writers.
While continuing to have a distinguished television career into the 80s, adeptly moving from the popular to the experimental, from the modern to the classical,...
Alan Bridges, who has died aged 86, was a leading director during the glory days of the BBC, from the mid-60s to the early 70s. Today, whenever media pundits analyse the history of television drama, they wax lyrical about The Wednesday Play and its successor Play for Today, bemoaning the virtual disappearance of the single play.
By the time Bridges started working in the Wednesday Play slot, he was already one of the BBC's most experienced TV directors – he had directed excellent 10-part adaptations of two 19th-century classics, Great Expectations and Les Misérables (both in 1967) – but he relished the "right to fail" ethos at the BBC, enjoying working with exciting contemporary writers.
While continuing to have a distinguished television career into the 80s, adeptly moving from the popular to the experimental, from the modern to the classical,...
- 1/29/2014
- by Ronald Bergan
- The Guardian - Film News
Cinema Retro has received the following press release:
London Film Memorabilia Convention
www.londonfilmmeorabiliaconvention.co.uk
At Central Hall Westminster – Saturday September the 22nd ( 10 am – 5 pm )
A celebration of the quintessential James Bond film!
Key members of the cast and crew, reunite for a one day and one-off unique event!
With over 100 sellers from four continents coming to London for the day. Selling Goldfinger and other original James Bond film memorabilia , plus general film memorabilia from the silents to the latest releases.
One of the worlds largest collections of James Bond film memorabilia ever assembled up for sale!
Plus vintage James Bond collectable retro toys and games!
The special guests on the day include –
Sir Ken Adam Honor Blackman Shirley Eaton Tania Mallett Margaret Nolan Caron Gardner Burt Kwouk Norman Wanstall
A special Sir Ken Adam retrospective with Sir Christopher Frayling An Honor Blackman retrospective show Goldfinger Memories – The Golden...
London Film Memorabilia Convention
www.londonfilmmeorabiliaconvention.co.uk
At Central Hall Westminster – Saturday September the 22nd ( 10 am – 5 pm )
A celebration of the quintessential James Bond film!
Key members of the cast and crew, reunite for a one day and one-off unique event!
With over 100 sellers from four continents coming to London for the day. Selling Goldfinger and other original James Bond film memorabilia , plus general film memorabilia from the silents to the latest releases.
One of the worlds largest collections of James Bond film memorabilia ever assembled up for sale!
Plus vintage James Bond collectable retro toys and games!
The special guests on the day include –
Sir Ken Adam Honor Blackman Shirley Eaton Tania Mallett Margaret Nolan Caron Gardner Burt Kwouk Norman Wanstall
A special Sir Ken Adam retrospective with Sir Christopher Frayling An Honor Blackman retrospective show Goldfinger Memories – The Golden...
- 9/4/2012
- by nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro)
- Cinemaretro.com
Network DVD have been trawling the forgotten archives of British TV, and have come up with a bizarre series of detective stories made from 1969 to 1970, and set in London in the 1920's. They feature Hugh Burden as Mr. J. G. Reeder, a shy civil servant who's really a super sleuth. I couldn't believe I'd missed it, so I was very happy to step into the Shadowlocked time machine to check it out.
The writer of the original stories from which the show is dramatised is Edgar Wallace, a classic name to men of a certain age. My father recounted to me the story of the man himself, forced into a life of production-line detective creativity by his own dire financial circumstances. I spent my youth watching Tales Of Edgar Wallace 1 hour black & white stories, drenched in atmosphere and usually with a twist in the tale, sometimes absurdly unbelievable, and sometimes emotionally shocking.
The writer of the original stories from which the show is dramatised is Edgar Wallace, a classic name to men of a certain age. My father recounted to me the story of the man himself, forced into a life of production-line detective creativity by his own dire financial circumstances. I spent my youth watching Tales Of Edgar Wallace 1 hour black & white stories, drenched in atmosphere and usually with a twist in the tale, sometimes absurdly unbelievable, and sometimes emotionally shocking.
- 7/2/2010
- by admin@shadowlocked.com (Parsley The Lion)
- Shadowlocked
Garfield Morgan was a leading British character actor in films and television. He made one of his final screen appearances as an ill-fated elderly farmer in the 2007 zombie horror film 28 Weeks Later.
Morgan was born in Birmingham, England, on April 19, 1931. He attended drama school in Birmingham and began performing on the local stage in the early 1950s. He became a prolific television actor later in the decade, with roles in such series as Out of This World, The Edgar Wallace Mystery Theatre, Undermind, The Saint, The Baron, Out of the Unknown, The Avengers, Department S, My Partner, the Ghost, Paul Temple, and The Persuaders. He was featured as Tao Gan on the ancient Oriental mystery series Judge Dee in 1969, and was the slave master in the 1985 television adaptation of John Christopher’s juvenile sci-fi novel The Tripods: The City of Gold and Lead.
Morgan also appeared in a handful...
Morgan was born in Birmingham, England, on April 19, 1931. He attended drama school in Birmingham and began performing on the local stage in the early 1950s. He became a prolific television actor later in the decade, with roles in such series as Out of This World, The Edgar Wallace Mystery Theatre, Undermind, The Saint, The Baron, Out of the Unknown, The Avengers, Department S, My Partner, the Ghost, Paul Temple, and The Persuaders. He was featured as Tao Gan on the ancient Oriental mystery series Judge Dee in 1969, and was the slave master in the 1985 television adaptation of John Christopher’s juvenile sci-fi novel The Tripods: The City of Gold and Lead.
Morgan also appeared in a handful...
- 12/31/2009
- by Harris Lentz
- FamousMonsters of Filmland
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