Top B&W British movies

[Sue]

George Cole's first ever film was 'Cottage To Let', a 1941 propaganda film about a young lad who exposes German fifth-columnists.

It's a brilliant performance from a young actor, though the film itself is not totally excellent. It does have Alastair Sim, though.

Seem to recall Sim was practically a surrogate father to Cole.

 

[ska invita]

ska invita have you popped to the Croydon museum to see some of the early silent films they have there? Worth a visit just for those.

no, didnt know there was a croydon museum. what are the flims about?

 

[littlebabyjesus]

How about The Hill?

My problem is I can't remember what's b/w. I'd have sworn that was colour.

Lots already mentioned. Have we had The Servant yet? Great film.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Is there a British b/w film that uses and stretches the medium in the way of something like Night of the Hunter or M?

The Third Man is the only one I can really think of with haunting visual scenes, using shadows and light/dark. For that reason, I think I'd go along with that as the stand-out.

 

[ska invita]

The Third Man is the only one I can really think of with haunting visual scenes, using shadows and light/dark. For that reason, I think I'd go along with that as the stand-out.

agreed 100%... see line one in the OP! Its often in the top 3 films evah though, so i guess its not that contentious.

Ive seen the making of of The Third Man... IIRC the shadows are slightly an accident - they were sent off to shoot on location in Vienna and for some reason all they could bring in the way of lights were three really full on spotlight type lights...inevitably this meant shadows rather than filling in the gaps. Of course it wasnt just fluke, it was amazing cinematography.
Anoither thing they did for the outdoor night shots was wet the concrete with a hose so that it reflected more...

 

[Red Cat]

Bunny Lake is Missing

Whistle Down the Wind

Oh, I love Whistle Down the Wind.

 

[boohoo]

no, didnt know there was a croydon museum. what are the flims about?

just some early 'special effects' pieces and a car chase scene.

 

[hash tag]

Seem to recall Sim was practically a surrogate father to Cole.

Quite true. Sim was an interesting character to say the least and always encouraged and supported young talent. To this end, he took the young George under his wing for a few years I believe, though the circumstances escape me. It was probably as George was starting out. Another great from that era would be Margaret Rutherford. A lovely person who would only work with her Stringer!

 

[Indeliblelink]

That reminds me to mention The Happiest Days Of Your Life (1950) - a precursor to the St. Trinians films starring Sim & Rutherford. Very funny.

 

[jakethesnake]

Passport to Pimlico, one of the Ealing comedies, is worth a watch.

 

[Reno]

I think the most beautiful British b&w film ever is the ghost story The Innocents from 1961 based on The Turn of the Screw by Henry James. It's in b&w and in Cinemascope and it does extraordinary things with depth of field. Freddy Francis was the cinematographer, one of the greatest ever and he went on to shoot several films for David Lynch.

 

[Reno]

ive seen it, dont remember it being bnw though. so get your facts straight
...errr, just looked at clips and theyre all black and white. very strange
anyhow i mean like totally old films, not arty black and white stuff
not sure what smiley goes next
this one

and yeah its an interesting film - flawed but good stab

The thing with A Matter of Life and Death is that not only are two thirds of it shot in eyepopping Technicolor, its use of colour is a plot device which even gets referenced in the line "One is starved of Technicolor up here". The world of the living is in color, the afterlife is b&w, which is a reversal of The Wizard of Oz, where the real world was b&w and the unreal world was in color

My favourite b&w movie by Powell & Pressburger is I Know Where I'm Going in which a woman on her way to marry a rich industrialist, gets held up by a storm and instead falls in love with a Scottish island and a man who embodies the spirit of that island in an almost supernatural way. They made several wonderful films about the near magical power of landscapes and how that power can take hold of people (see also The Edge of the World, A Canterbury Tale and Black Narcissus)

 

[Idris2002]

The Long and the Short and the Tall.

From 1961, I think. A platoon in Burma during the war come to a bad end.

Based on a play, and maybe not fully cinematic. But the tension builds effectively.

 

[Sirena]

The Long and the Short and the Tall.

From 1961, I think. A platoon in Burma during the war come to a bad end.

Based on a play, and maybe not fully cinematic. But the tension builds effectively.

That looks good (even though it has Lawrence Harvey in.....) and I like a good stage play-turned-film.

 

[stdP]

A Night To Remember infinately better than Titanic

Cannae believe it took until page 2 for someone to mention A Night to Remember! It's what inspired Cameron to make his Schmaltz-infested version... if you've watched ANTR as many times as me (and were dragged to see Titanic as many times as I was) then you'd spot several scenes that were incorporated into Titanic; especially the one with a young couple trying to scramble on top of a floating trunk.

Would also like to mention:
Ice Cold in Alex (still my fave war film, my grandfather was in the war in north africa and always gave running commentaries when we watched this together)
The Day the Earth Caught Fire (has a grasp of physics as hokey as The Core, but has a good enough script that I can ignore that)

 

[Reno]

Cannae believe it took until page 2 for someone to mention A Night to Remember! It's what inspired Cameron to make his Schmaltz-infested version... if you've watched ANTR as many times as me (and were dragged to see Titanic as many times as I was) then you'd spot several scenes that were incorporated into Titanic; especially the one with a young couple trying to scramble on top of a floating trunk.

I love A Night to Remember but it wasn't what inspired Cameron to make his film. Cameron made his Titanic because of his fascination with Robert Ballard's discovery of the wreck of the Titanic in the 80s, which caused him to get into deep sea exploration and he constructed his film around his own expedition to the real Titanic. The reason why both films share incidents is because they were based on events which were reported about the sinking of the Titanic, but both films were researched independently (the earlier film was based on a factual book which includes its own inaccuracies, some of which Cameron addressed)

Cameron's Titanic is indeed cheesy and full of anachronistic dialogue but its an old-school Gone With the Wind style epic rather than the docudrama the earlier films was. A Night to Remember is a better written film but it often feels like the TV drama of which it was an expansion, while for all its melodramatic excess, Cameron's Titanic is a more impressive piece of film-making. From the immaculate reconstruction of the Titanic to the more accurate and far more visceral depiction of its sinking, Cameron's film has the resources and filmmaking talent to do things the earlier film couldn't do and for all the cheese, I think it works on its own terms.

 

[Mumbles274]

ANTR had scenes filmed at Ruislip lido if my film knowledge served me right

 

[SikhWarrioR]

ANTR had scenes filmed at Ruislip lido if my film knowledge served me right

Your knowledge is correct scenes from ANTR were filmed on Ruslip Lido

 

[ska invita]

Is weird though because I once saw a film called Pool of London (1951) Pool of London (film) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia and that film is known as the first time there was a black actor in a leading role in a UK film (even says it in the wiki)...its a great London film IIRC

Double checked if Proud Valley is a UK film and its filmed in Ealing studios and has a British producer, so seems so...

Earl Cameron, CBE (born 8 August 1917) is a Bermudian actor. Along with Cy Grant, he is known as one of the first black actors to break the "colour bar" in the United Kingdom. According to Screenonline, "Earl Cameron brought a breath of fresh air to the British film industry's stuffy depictions of race relations. Often cast as a sensitive outsider, Cameron gave his characters a grace and moral authority that often surpassed the films' compromised liberal agendas."[1] He also had repeated appearances on many British science fiction programmes of the 1960s, including Doctor Who, The Prisoner, and The Andromeda Breakthrough.

How Britain’s black miners are reclaiming their place in history

 

[hash tag]

Another classic film from Ealing was Hue & Cry with Alistair Sim. It is of course where Andrew Sachs began his film career as an uncredited schoolboy. RIP Andrew.

 

[A380]

Four pages and no mention of the best British film ever made, not just best B&W.

"There's something in my eye."

 

[Sue]

Oh, I love Brief Encounter.

 

[danny la rouge]

Four pages and no mention of the best British film ever made, not just best B&W.

"There's something in my eye."

Several mentions on the first and second pages.

 

[A380]

Several mentions on the first and second pages.

Oh yeah.

 

[bubblesmcgrath]

The thing with A Matter of Life and Death is that not only are two thirds of it shot in eyepopping Technicolor, its use of colour is a plot device which even gets referenced in the line "One is starved of Technicolor up here". The world of the living is in color, the afterlife is b&w, which is a reversal of The Wizard of Oz, where the real world was b&w and the unreal world was in color

My favourite b&w movie by Powell & Pressburger is I Know Where I'm Going in which a woman on her way to marry a rich industrialist, gets held up by a storm and instead falls in love with a Scottish island and a man who embodies the spirit of that island in an almost supernatural way. They made several wonderful films about the near magical power of landscapes and how that power can take hold of people (see also The Edge of the World, A Canterbury Tale and Black Narcissus)

View attachment 94233

I like that a lot too...only saw it about three years ago and was surprised to see Wendy Hiller. I'd only seen her as an elderly actor playing lady Bracknell ... brilliant actor.

 

[Cheesypoof]

Charlie Chaplin is my ultimate. I love his movies so much. Many of them were made in the US but are essentially British. I would consider Charlie Chaplins movies very 'British.' That is what makes them great.

 

[Sirena]

Four pages and no mention of the best British film ever made, not just best B&W.

"There's something in my eye."

You should also watch 'This Happy Breed' because it's Noel Coward and it's got Celia Johnson (and a wonderful Robert Newton) but it doesn't qualify here because it's colour.

Did anyone mention 'The Boys' (The Boys (1962) - IMDb) yet? It starts a bit naffly but it gets gradually darker. Worth a watch.

 

[A380]

You should also watch 'This Happy Breed' because it's Noel Coward and it's got Celia Johnson (and a wonderful Robert Newton) but it doesn't qualify here because it's colour.

Did anyone mention 'The Boys' (The Boys (1962) - IMDb) yet? It starts a bit naffly but it gets gradually darker. Worth a watch.

This Happy Breed Is fantastic too. Basically anything with Celia Johnson...

 

[danny la rouge]

Charlie Chaplin is my ultimate. I love his movies so much. Many of them were made in the US but are essentially British. I would consider Charlie Chaplins movies very 'British.' That is what makes them great.

Interesting notion. I was going for "made in the UK".

What would you say are the attributes that make a film British? What is this essence that Chaplin carried to Hollywood?

 

[blossie33]

Possibly Cheesy means his little bowler-hatted tramp type character was more 'British' than American?
I think of him like that.