Talking Pictures

Perhaps you aren’t old enough to remember Saturday morning film clubs for children, I guess you have to be well into your sixties before you can recall such a treat. If that’s the case you will also be unfamiliar with being able to enter a cinema at any time and sit through three or four films before you left, often waiting to see the beginning of the film you came into halfway through. Pictures as we called them then were made in two categories the main feature and the B feature. B features were cheaply made and churned out by a host of Film Studios in Britain. They were the first step for many a well known film stars of the future. Michael Caine is a prime example. That kind of cinema struggled with the advent of TV and by the mid seventies most had been torn down or turned into Bingo Halls.

So what happened to these B films? Until a few years ago this question remained unanswered. I discovered by accident a family company called Renown Films who had been quietly acquiring the entire back catalogue of B films from now defunct studios. Not only were they acquiring them but using the latest technology to restore them to mint condition.

Riding on the success of their film club and events, they took the giant leap into creating a TV station to bring their films free of charge to the widest possible audience. They managed against the odds to obtain carriage on every platform and after a considerable campaign secured listing in the Radio Times.

Talking Pictures TV was born and is doing very well.

There are some real gems to be found as they show films from the 30s,40s,50s and 60s. Last night I watched the wonderful film “The Smallest Show on Earth” which starred, Bill Travers, Virginia McKenna, Margaret Rutherford and Peter Sellers and a very early appearance of Sid James. They recently acquired the right to several Laurel and Hardy gems.

For true cinema buffs and those interested in the history of cinema this is a great service to have at you finger tips on channel number 343.

I know it may not be to everyone’s taste but it is well worth tuning to because as well as films they show “Glimpses” a strand showing shorts that show real life events from the past. I recently watched a 1950s portrait of London and I had forgotten just how dirty that great city was in the age of coal and steam. I admit to being in love with cinema and starting in a January I am collecting as many films from the 1930s on DVD as my budget will allow!