Film Appreciation

All meetings start at 10.00 on the 4th Monday of the month. Coffee and biscuits are available from 9.30

The Group, rapidly expanding, continues to meet at 10am on the fourth Monday of the month, in the Scout HQ.

JULY 26th: The Lady Vanishes (1938). This was Hitchcock's penultimate film made in the UK. It also brought international recognition   to its stars, Michael Redgrave and Margaret Lockwood. Set in central Europe immediately prior to the Second World War, it concerns a grouyp of travell;ers, anxious to get back to England. Redgrave is a young musicologist, Lockwood a self-assured holidaymaker, going home to be married. The action take place almost entirely on a train from which the lady of the titl,.a retired governess with a secret, apparently vanishes.

August 23rd: The Prince and the Showgirl (1957). London, June 1911: Visiting royalty and nobility arrive for the Coronation of King George V, among them Prince Charles  of Carpathia (played by Laurence Olivier who also produced and directed). Based on Terence Rattigan's play The Sleeping Prince, the film also showcases Marilyn Monroe as the showgirl whom the prince invites back to his embassy for supper. The ensuing hours are tinged with farce, but also with moving pathos

Monday, September 27th:  'The First of the Few'  (1942). The story of the Spitfire which helped win the Battle of Britain  70 years ago. Leslie Howard, who also directed, stars as RE Mitchell, inventor of the 'plane,  a 'plane so revolutonary that Whitehall initially refused funding. Then, along came a World War I veteran pilot, played by David Niven, who was prepared to risk his life on the test flights.

Monday, October 25th: 'Death in Venice' (1971). Visconti's production of the Thomas Mann novel, starring Dirk Bogarde as composer Gustav von Aschenbach, who travels to  Venice for health reasons. There he becomes obsessed with the striking beauty  of an adolescent Polish boy, Tadzio, played by Bjorn Andresen,  who is staying with his family in the same hotel. Stunningly photographed and acted, and enhanced by Mahler's music, this is  an  enigmatic and somewhat disturbing  film.

Monday, November 22nd: 'Scrooge' (1951):  For many, this is the definitive version of Dickens' 'A Christmas Carol'. with Alastair Simm in the title role. A host of British cinema stars involved include  George Cole,  Kathleen Harrison,  Hermione Baddeley,  Mervyn Johns,  Jack Warner, Patrick Macnee and Michael Hordern.

NB There is NO meeting in December.

Please see the newsletter for details of the co-ordinators