Episode 201 - The Commitments (1991)
Reel Britannia
Dublin soul, magnificent music and enough creative differences to sink a small record label. This episode was recorded a couple of weeks ago, before the terribly sad news of Glen Hansard’s death earlier this week. We remember him with great affection as Outspan Foster, one of the unforgettable faces and voices at the heart of The Commitments. Dublin has the music. Jimmy Rabbitte has the ambition. What he does not yet have is a band, any money, or the faintest idea how to keep a roomful of volatile musicians from throttling one another. This time on Reel Britannia, Scott is joined by...
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Episode 200 - Porridge - The Movie (1979)
Reel Britannia
Fletch Gets Out. Getting Back In Is the Tricky Bit. For its landmark 200th episode, Reel Britannia is heading behind bars for Porridge – The Movie, the 1979 big-screen outing for one of Britain’s best-loved television comedies. Ronnie Barker returns as the wily Norman Stanley Fletcher, still doing his best to serve his sentence with the minimum possible effort. Alongside him is Richard Beckinsale as the good-natured Lennie Godber, while Fulton Mackay’s fearsome Mr Mackay and Brian Wilde’s endlessly flustered Mr Barrowclough attempt to maintain something vaguely resembling order at...
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Episode 199 - The Wrong Arm Of The Law (1963)
Reel Britannia
When the crooks and the coppers join forces, London’s criminal underworld is in very confused hands. For Episode 199, Reel Britannia slips into the sharply dressed, cheerfully crooked world of The Wrong Arm of the Law, a 1963 British crime comedy in which the nation’s criminals discover that even dishonesty was better organised in the old days. Peter Sellers stars as Pearly Gates, a suave London gang boss who divides his time between running a fashion house and supervising a criminal organisation with the efficiency of a suburban business. His employees may be thieves, but they enjoy...
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Episode 198 - Hammer Britannia 024 - Nightmare (1964)
Reel Britannia
Hammer opens the door to a nightmare where every shadow has a secret. For the latest episode of Reel Britannia, we step into the chilly corridors and troubled dreams of Nightmare, Hammer’s 1964 psychological thriller from director Freddie Francis and writer Jimmy Sangster. This is Hammer without the fangs, capes, castles, or buckets of Kensington Gore. Instead, it gives us something colder and more unsettling: a black-and-white tale of fear, memory, manipulation and madness, where the terror creeps in quietly and then refuses to leave. The story follows Janet, a young woman haunted by...
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Episode 197 - The Tall Guy (1989)
Reel Britannia
Episode 197 - The Tall Guy (1989) “What in the name of Judas Iscariot's bumboy is going on?” Dexter King (Jeff Goldblum) is an awkward American actor stranded in London, suffering from severe hay fever and a chronic case of career stagnation. His day job consists of being repeatedly humiliated on stage as the hapless straight man to Ron Anderson (Rowan Atkinson), a spectacularly arrogant and insecure British comedian who wields his ego like a blunt instrument. Dexter's miserable existence takes a sharp upward turn when a trip to the clinic for allergy shots introduces him to Kate...
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Episode 196 - School For Scoundrels (1960)
Reel Britannia
Episode 196 - School For Scoundrels (1960) "Hard cheese old boy!" School for Scoundrels is one of those wonderfully sharp British comedies that takes something faintly ridiculous and plays it with a completely straight face, which of course makes it even funnier. Released in 1960, it follows Henry Palfrey, a polite, mild-mannered man who seems to be permanently stuck on the losing side of life. He is decent, respectable and reasonably successful on paper, yet somehow he always ends up second best, especially when faced with people who have more confidence, more nerve and rather fewer...
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Episode 195 - Home At Seven (1952)
Reel Britannia
Episode 195 - Home At Seven (1952) He came home on time... a day too late. Home at Seven is a neatly unsettling British mystery that begins with one of the simplest ideas imaginable and turns it into something deeply unnerving. David Preston, a mild-mannered bank clerk, arrives home after work expecting an ordinary evening with his wife. Instead, he is met with shock, confusion and growing alarm, because as far as everyone else is concerned, he has not been gone for the day. He has been missing for over twenty-four hours. David is utterly baffled. To him, nothing is wrong. He left work,...
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Episode 194 - Go to Blazes (1962)
Reel Britannia
Episode 194 - Go To Blazes (1962) "So many firms nowadays prefer conflagration to liquidation." If you are looking for a cracking way to spend eighty minutes, Go to Blazes is a proper hidden gem of British cinema. It has that pitch-perfect 1962 atmosphere—stylish, colourful, and just a touch rebellious. The plot is an absolute hoot: three ambitious but slightly dim-witted crooks decide the ultimate way to beat the London traffic after a smash-and-grab is to nick a literal fire engine. It is one of those "so barmy it just might work" ideas that keeps you smiling as you watch them navigate...
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Episode 193 - Hammer Britannia 023 - Taste Of Fear / Scream Of Fear (1961)
Reel Britannia
Taste Of Fear / Scream Of Fear (1961) "You say my mind is affecting my legs. You're wrong. It's my legs that are affecting my mind." Taste of Fear, released in 1961 and also known in some territories as Scream of Fear, is one of those wonderfully chilly British thrillers that shows just how much tension can be created without a drop of gore. Directed by Seth Holt for Hammer Films, it stands slightly apart from the studio’s more famous horror output of the period. Instead of Gothic castles, vampires and lurid supernatural shocks, this is a sleek, sinister psychological suspense picture,...
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Episode 192 - To Sir With Love (1967)
Reel Britannia
Episode 192 - To Sir WIth Love (1967) "If you must play these filthy games, do them in your homes, and not in my classroom!" Set against the vibrant, swinging backdrop of 1960s London, To Sir, With Love is a timeless feel-good classic that radiates warmth and optimism. The film stars the legendary Sidney Poitier as Mark Thackeray, an unemployed engineer who takes a temporary teaching position at a rough-and-tumble East End school. At first, the situation seems impossible. The students are rowdy, rebellious, and determined to drive their new teacher away just as they did the...
info_outlineWhen the crooks and the coppers join forces, London’s criminal underworld is in very confused hands.
For Episode 199, Reel Britannia slips into the sharply dressed, cheerfully crooked world of The Wrong Arm of the Law, a 1963 British crime comedy in which the nation’s criminals discover that even dishonesty was better organised in the old days.
Peter Sellers stars as Pearly Gates, a suave London gang boss who divides his time between running a fashion house and supervising a criminal organisation with the efficiency of a suburban business. His employees may be thieves, but they enjoy paid holidays, luncheon vouchers and a surprisingly enlightened approach to staff welfare. Crime, it seems, was never so civilised.
Trouble arrives when a gang of Australian crooks begins impersonating police officers and helping themselves to the proceeds of other people’s robberies. This is regarded as extremely poor form. With both Scotland Yard and the London underworld irritated, Pearly finds himself entering into an unusual alliance with Inspector “Nosey” Parker, played with glorious bluster by Lionel Jeffries.
Directed by Cliff Owen and written by a team that includes Ray Galton and Alan Simpson, the film surrounds Sellers with a marvellous collection of familiar British faces. Bernard Cribbins brings nervous energy to Pearly’s reluctant associate O’Toole, while John Le Mesurier appears with the beautifully weary air of a man who has already filled in far too many forms.
The Wrong Arm of the Law is a breezy caper filled with bungling crooks, pompous policemen, double-crosses and a reassuring amount of London location work. It belongs to that wonderful strain of British comedy in which authority is treated with suspicion, crime is conducted by committee, and nobody appears capable of organising anything without first stopping for tea.
Join us for Episode 199 of Reel Britannia, as we revisit a British battle between law and disorder — with just a hint of professionalism.
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