Films/DVD Asylum

Posted by Awe-d-o-file (M) on March 07, 2012 at 17:25:35

I really enjoy Brit sitcoms, much more so than American offerings. Keeping Up Appearances is one I really like and I'm grateful for PBS reshowing it and many other good ones.

It was neat to see its two stars Patricia Routledge (Hyacinth) and Clive Swift (Richard) in some of their early work from the 60's, the two films mentioned in the subject line. I saw both the last few weeks on TCM. We see a young Hyacinth in "To Sir With Love" a film where Portier gets to break more racial ground, this time as a teacher. Cetainly a bit cheesy at times it does have its moments. We see a young Richard in a quite interesting film "Catch Us If You Can" (released as "Having a Wild Weekend" in the US) John Boorman's (Point Blank, Deliverance,Zardoz et al) feature film directoral debut.

When I saw the latter tonight my expectations were low. It lists the Dave Clark Five and a couple of not so well knowns as the stars. Well I was quite surprised and Boorman showed how progressive he was with themes quite ahead of their time. One major one was a cynical look at modern media and pop culture. In fact the DC5 do not play themselves in the movie although they do provide the title track and a few other tunes in the soundtrack. Some of the other soundtrack is quite good and features a nice reed player. Basil Kirchin did all the non-DC5 music. There's a great scene with some early hippies too with quite long hair for 1965.

So rather than me go on about the latter film here is a link to a review that I thought pegged it pretty well.

ET

• http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film2/DVDReviews32/catch_us_if_you_   (Open in New Window)

Edits: 03/07/12