#british film history

[georgefairbrother]

Possibly reaching peak nerdiness here, but Jack Crump-Denham Coaches was a bus company that was situated either adjacent to, or actually within, the grounds of Pinewood Studios. As well as providing transport for cast and crew to locations, the company also supplied buses for on-screen use.

So, any time the plot called for a works outing, a trip to a nightmarish foreign resort or school camp, a Jack Crump coach was called upon.

Two films in which the coaches featured prominently were the cinema adaptation of Please Sir, and Carry On at Your Convenience, both from 1971. In Please Sir, a Jack Crump coach drove the anarchic class 5C from Fenn Street Secondary Modern to a rural camp, driven for the purposes of the story by Jack Smethurst. In Carry On at Your Convenience, it was a trip to Brighton for the WC Boggs and Son works outing.

There's actually very little available information about Jack Crump himself or his company, aside from fragments scattered through various vintage bus enthusiast sites. He remains a fascinating footnote to British cinema history.

[zippocreed501]

Released 65 years ago...

Carry On Sergeant (1958)

directed by Gerald Thomas

[matyas-ss]

In a Rose Garden, Lawrence Alma-Tadema. Private collection.

[karnaca78]

studying (art) when I'm not studying (exam) 🌴

[oldshowbiz]

Pacific Western Brewing in Prince George, British Columbia was the brewery where the McKenzie Brothers movie Strange Brew (1983) was filmed.

[illustratus]

[oceancentury]

Nicholas Galitzine as the 1st Duke of Buckingham in Mary and George (2024).

[schlock-luster-video]

On November 7, 2015, The Wicker Man was screened at the Night Visions Film Festival.

Here's some new Christopher Lee art!

[wolfstargazer]

I appreciate and understand the love for Dead Poets Society in the Marauder-era fandom. The aesthetic is immaculate.

As a Brit and an older fan I would like to make a public service announcement that you're all sleeping on The History Boys. And would encourage everyone to go watch it.

[jimhowickfan1]

[glauces-notebooks]

rewatching night at the museum for the first time in a while and wow. i missed this film.

[georgefairbrother]

Remembering British film director and writer Sir Alan Parker CBE, who passed away July 31st, 2020, aged 76.

Born to a working class family in Islington, North London he made his early reputation as a pioneer of creativity in television advertising. He formed a creative partnership with David Puttnam and went on to become one of his generation’s most accomplished film directors.

He directed Jack Rosenthal’s television play, The Evacuees, for the BBC (BAFTA and International Emmy), and his first international cinema success was Bugsy Malone (1976), a musical gangster pastiche featuring a cast of children, including Jodie Foster, Scott Baio, Andrew Paul (The Bill), Bonnie Langford and an uncredited Phil Daniels. He said that he wrote Bugsy Malone out of frustration, as his work was constantly being rejected on the grounds of being 'too parochial'.

He went on to create a commercially successful, diverse and at times controversial body of work, including Midnight Express (written by Oliver Stone: they didn’t get on), Fame, Pink Floyd-The Wall, Mississippi Burning, The Commitments, Evita and Angela's Ashes. His final feature film was The Life of David Gale in 2003.

According to his official website;

"...In all, his films have won nineteen BAFTA awards, ten Golden Globes and ten Oscars...In January 1998, Parker took up his post as Chairman of the Board of Governors of the British Film Institute and in August, 1999 he was appointed first Chairman of the UK Film Council; a position he held for five years...In November, 1995, Parker was awarded with a CBE by Queen Elizabeth II for services to the British film industry and he received a knighthood in 2002. He is also an Officier des Arts et des Lettres, awarded by the French Government..."

He was also fascinating to listen to on the subject of the film industry generally, and gave a number of entertainingly grumpy interviews over the years. In the mid 1980s, his Thames TV documentary, A Turnip Head’s Guide to the British Film Industry, which according to his own website ‘lambasted the British film establishment and film critics’, seemed to upset just about everyone but won the British Press Guild award for the year’s best documentary.

He was interviewed by Warner Brothers executives as a potential director for the first Harry Potter, however during a teleconference (from his kitchen table at home) didn’t seem to express enough interest or gratitude at being asked. When a Warner exec told him that lots of directors would just love to do it, Parker said, 'Well go and ask them, then', and that was the end of that.

In conversation with David Puttnam for a BFI function, Alan Parker explained why he gave up making films, and talked a little about his art and drawing.

"…I’m out of it, I’ve had enough, I think it’s time for someone else to do it. I get more pleasure out of doing my art…I’ve been directing since I was 24, and every day was a battle, every day it was difficult, whether you’re fighting the producer who has opinions that you don’t agree with, the studios or whoever it is, because film, unlike art, pure art, film is hugely expensive, and the moment it gets expensive, you have people you have to serve…I’ve been punching out, all my life…to fight for the work…for our right to make our movie, the way we want to do it, and that’s hugely difficult, because it seems that you’re forever punching out. There comes a time, when you think, I don’t want to do that…I showed (a friend) one of my art works, and he said, who’s your audience here? Because that’s what film people think. I said the audience is me, and that’s all I care about, if someone likes my art, fine, if they don’t, fine…If they don’t like my movies, I want to kill ‘em…"

He was Michael Parkinson's first guest on Desert Island Discs in 1986, (a great interview) and featured once again 14 years later talking to Sue Lawley.

[zippocreed501]

Albert Finney as Arthur Seaton

Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960)

[thisbluespirit]

Films watched (2010s): MADE IN DAGENHAM (2010) dir. Nigel Cole; screenplay by William Ivory. Starring Sally Hawkins, Bob Hoskins, Miranda Richardson, Geraldine James, Rosamund Pike, Andrea Riseborough, Jaime Winstone, Daniel Mays & Richard Schiff.

"What do you think this strike's all been about? Oh yeah. Actually you're right. You don't go on the drink. You don't gamble, you join in with the kids, you don't knock us about. Oh, lucky me. For Christ's sake, Eddie, that's as it should be! You try and understand that. Rights, not privileges. It's that easy. It really bloody is."

[the-alan-price-combo]

60 years ago - on November 16th, 1964, the Animals recorded "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood"!! 🐾✨️

[itsicecold]

top gun inspired postcards made by rubberstuffers promoting safe sex c.1995-2000 and a navy themed postcard from 1994, distributed by Gay Men Fighting AIDS

accessed through the wellcome collection: