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From the good taste of Brief Encounter to the schlock of The Wicked Lady; the refinement of Anna Neagle to the slapstick of Old Mother Riley; the high production values of Things To Come to the no-production-values of a Tod Slaughter quickie - I love British films.

Sometimes they creak, sometimes they patronise; but they usually entertain.

At one point you could be forgiven for thinking that British Cinema consisted of documentaries, early Hitchcock,  the Free Cinema movement and James Bond, with the rest of the films being quota quickie dross. Then the American filmbrat generation began to champion Michael Powell's films. At about the same time feminist critics began to reclaim "the woman's picture": first with American films and then Margaret Lockwood's "Wicked Lady" cycle. By now the floodgates were open and it was okay to say "Damn it! I like Carry on Screaming!".

This site is dedicated to British films of the 30s, 40 and 50s, though it may occasionally stray out of these parameters (how else would I get most of the Carry On films in?). 3062 fiction feature films were made between 1930 and 1959. I don't suppose I'll get around to them all but I'm going to give it a stab.

I have limited resources so this site won't be too heavy graphically. Given the resources, I'd like to create the equivalent of the Silents Majority site (sadly defunct) which was informative and interesting.

What's on this week
A trawl through the Radio Times and NFT brochure to highlight the films that are on soon.
Star of the month
An in-depth(-ish) look at the work of a leading light of the British film industry.
Film of the month
A classic of world cinema, a neglected gem or an embarrassing turkey.
Book Review
How often this gets updated depends on how much reading I can get through and how much cash I have to buy new books.
Video review
Like the book review, heavily dependant on time and finances.
Sites of interest
The quickest way to get off this site and back to civilisation.
Article
Just me sounding off. But if you want to stick your fourpen'oth in then let me know and I'll find room.

Money

The links to Amazon get me around 4% of the purchase price of any item you might buy during your visit, which helps fund the site's costs.

Me

I'm David Absalom and if you want to know more about me or this site you can email me at the link below.


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