Quote: Hercules Grytpype Thynne @ 11th February 2021, 4:08 PMIf it's on again and I remember, I will let you know. In the meantime you will have to do with this :-
Chappers, I am your Mother!
Is that you Herc? You carry it off well.
TPTV Films Page 35
Bet you fancy me even more now, don't you. 
Emergency Call (1952) Yank title The Hundred Hour Hunt
Sure I'd seen this before, but remembered nothing of the plot and ending, so watched it again as it had Jack Warner starring in it, he being one of my favourite actors, and in this he'd been promoted from PC Dixon on the beat to a DI.
Little girl is dying from leukaemia and urgently needs a blood transfusion, but is a very rare blood group and so the chase is on to find three donors...................ALL of whom the doctor (Anthony Steel) and police have trouble finding for one reason or another - each person having their own back story. One of them for instance is the boxer turned actor Freddie Mills, actually playing a boxer in this with his manager being one Sid James who was perfect for the part of playing somebody in the dodgy sleazy world of that sport in the 1950s.
The one unique feature of this was the little girl was the real life daughter of the distraught mother Joy Shelton, who was the wife of Sydney Tafler who was also in the film playing the part of a small time crook. Nothing like getting all the family involved. 
Other faces playing minor roles were Thora Hird, Dandy Nichols and Graham Stark.
Worth a watch film actually, with three good sub plots.
Just starting to watch "It's all over town."
The Springfields, the Hollies and loads of other music acts of the time including my Mum's favourite Frankie Vaughan.
Also starring Lance Percival and Willie Rushton. I never realised he was ever young or beardless.
Plus Ivor Cutler.
For Those in Peril (1944)
Docudrama based on actual cases of the RAF Air Sea Rescue operating in the English Channel, who race to rescue ditched pilots (and race "against" the Navy to get there first) in their HSLs (high speed launch boats), as they dodge mines, German patrol boats and aircraft off the French coast.
With the help of the RAF and the RN with actors such as David Farrar and John Slater of the actors I knew, and made for a very good tense film.
Well worth a watch, and very moving in parts.
Three Witnesses (1935)
Didn't expect much from this pre-war murder "mystery" and I was right in thinking that, and it didn't help that two of the actors looked like each other so you had to annoyingly try and remember who was who with their slicked down hair and clipped upper class accents, which again grated. All the actresses also had these affected upper class voices, which sounds so strange now and I often wonder what Joe Bloggs and his wife thought of them when they were sitting in the one and nine pennies on their Saturday night cinema treat.
Two brothers (NOT the alike ones!) disagree about the running of their dead father's business and one of them gets mistakenly shot dead for the other - crazy.
As usual, knew no one in this apart from Garry Marsh, who went on to play much the same role in many films, with his tall round body, bald head and moustache.
Wouldn't recommend it.
Soapbox Derby (1958)
Second of the Saturday Morning Pictures featurette, starring a 15 year old Michael Crawford playing a 12 year old schoolboy as head of the motley small gang of Soapbox race car builders/drivers, and Crawford seems to be the only one of the boys that went on to do more with their acting career.
Only other people I knew in it were Denis Shaw, who often appeared as an ugly heavy, but in this instance he was the bully father of a rival soapbox gang. Also had Harry Fowler playing his usual Cockney barrer-boy in the market. "Allroight my old son, 'ave a 'nana"
Only of interest to see the views of London, mostly now obliterated by modern office blocks.
Welcome, Mr. Washington (1944)
"Two penniless sisters decide to let part of their inherited estate be used as an airbase for the U.S. military." states the IMDb - no it wasn't!!
Two sisters yes, played by a very young looking Barbara Mullen (Janet in Dr Finlay's Casebook) and the tiny Peggy Cummins who each fall for two American servicemen who are temporarily based on their farm and decide to help the girls who are now penniless since their father had died and left them nothing but the farm - the film starts with his funeral.
Much tongue wagging ensues with the local villages and tenants of the land owning girls, which is stirred up by one of the shareholders, and through a lot of misunderstanding there is much bitterness, but it all resolves itself in the end.
Not my sort of film, but it was the only one on my digi-box and I had a spare hour and a half.
Faces? Didn't know any of the "American" lead actors - there were though Martita Hunt, Danny Green (as a Yank!), Irene Handl and Graham Moffatt, but no Moore Marriott.
Strawberry Roan (1944)
I suppose I watched this because the leading actor was listed as Billy Hartnell** - could that be Dr.Who? And it was. So clearly he changed it at some time for the classier William, but it was a bit disturbing seeing him as a young lover groping and kissing a dancer he was besotted with who was part of the cabaret at one of the local farmer's annual dinner dances.
Essentially the film was about farmers and their way of life in the war and the title of the film was a calf that was a rare colour and good breeding stock that he bought for the dancer girl he eventually married after shunning the country girl who was lined up for him.
Pretty mundane film, with no one else of note, except apparently Petula Clark who I didn't notice, so perhaps she was cut.
I did put the name **Billy Hartnell into the IMDb as an idle search and it actually came up with him being the writer of a cheap crap semi porn Polish (?) film called "Abducted by the Daleks" (2005), which was changed to "Abducted by the Daloids" following legal action by the BBC. Presumably the Billy Hartnell was jokey a nom de plume.
Uneasy Terms (1948)
Michael Rennie as a top of his game private detective who is called in by a rich man who is not happy about some shenanigans going on with his three daughters, but just before he gets to see him, he is murdered. Did one of the daughters do it? There was no love lost between the sisters and a poison pen letter starts to stir up a bitter feud. One of the sisters, the main stirrer, is played by Moira Lister, and there were parts for Sydney Tafler as an iffy waiter and Paul Carpenter, who usually plays the lead part of a PI, but here he is Rennie's sidekick.
Gets more complicated than that as other people get involved/accused, including a dodgy night club owner played by Nigel Patrick who seems to be living a double life.
I have to confess I was pretty tired when I watched this and it started to lose me in its complicated plot, but an enjoyable murder/thriller, which I wish I had devoted more concentration to.
Green Fingers (1947)
Well, this is the second film with Robert Beatty in the starring role, that I've had to give up after half an hour as it was so bloody boring! Mr Beatty did some shit films in his early years imo.
I thought the title referred to someone who is very good with anything botanical, but not in this case as it turns out this war injured sailor (Beatty) has a gift for osteopathy, a branch of medicine that was in its early days and frowned upon by the medical profession it seems 
A number of faces in it such as Felix Aylmer, Wally Patch and Edward Rigby, both stalwarts of post war British cinema, and apparently Moore Marriott, although I didn't see him - presumably he was in the rest of the film I didn't watch.
Old age hasn't dulled your deductive reasoning anyway.
Being good with anything botanical is called having green thumbs,here.
Quote: john tregorran @ 19th February 2021, 7:33 AMOld age hasn't dulled your deductive reasoning anyway.
Being good with anything botanical is called having green thumbs,here.
Yeah, definitely green fingered - there used to be a brand of green thumbed gloves. 
Sabotage at Sea (1942)
Fairly good whodunit, but this time set on a freighter waiting to sail to the USA with some war salvage - it wasn't made clear what it was, but someone didn't want it to sail and so sabotaged the prop shaft (?), as they didn't want this war salvage to go to the USA.........................I think.
Too many red herrings for me, so it all got a bit messy along the way and confusing as to who did what, to whom and why, and too many people popping in and out.
Martita Hunt with Felix Aylmer and Wally Patch again, and the unfunny Ronald Shiner, and a just about recognisable Billy (William) Hartnell, who seemed to be playing two parts. (?) I didn't recognise any of the other leading actors.
Confusing, but just about worth the watch.
The Devil's Jest (1954)
Where do I start with one of the worse films I've ever seen? It didn't have one redeeming feature as it was so bad on so many counts, so thank heavens it was short. As somebody said on the IMDb, it was like a silent film where the soundtrack had been added after.
Even the leading lady was only in three films, this one being her last, and I'm not surprised. No one else in it I knew save for Valentine Dyall, who was only in it briefly as an Intelligence Officer, in charge of a group of dwindling Army officers trying to trap a German spy (the film is set in WWII) in a gloomy castle set somewhere on the English coast, but they get bumped off and.......................don't bother with it.