51 replies to this topic

[PaulButler58]

May I draw my fellow TNF'ers attention to this channel. It has a number of little vignettes on it, as well as some seriously vintage films that are so bad they are good!

 

However they have a series called "Look at Life" which was filmed in the late 50's through to the late 60's and today's one that I (re)caught was entitled "Speed Kings" and has some fascinating paddock and racing footage in it with appearances from Stirling , Tony Brooks and Jack Brabham.

 

It also covers the "Racing School" at Brands Hatch and has some lovely sequences of people following Ian Burgess around the track and being "judged" by people sitting in a box on the start finish straight as to whether they'd make the cut.

 

I wish I could remember the name of the young lady who's  mother was "appalled" she'd attended the school, I have to say I did wonder if she carried on at all!

 

Well worth a look.

 

There was another short on the other day as well showing the fitting of the Laycock overdrive to the MGB and how it gave a 16% improvement in consumption so for every 5 gallons you got a 6th one free.

[absinthedude]

I think I have a super 8mm film print of "Speed Kings"...many of the Look At Life shorts were released on film back in the 70s. I think there's a series of DVDs out these days. 

 

Talking Pictures is a really small family owned operation with many of the films taken from the personal collection of the family who run it. Worth supporting.

[Collombin]

A couple of years ago they showed an excellent short feature on racing in the 1930s, with footage from Donington, Nurburgring, Indianapolis and Langhorne amongst others. I suspect it will be repeated again at some point.

[PaulButler58]

A couple of years ago they showed an excellent short feature on racing in the 1930s, with footage from Donington, Nurburgring, Indianapolis and Langhorne amongst others. I suspect it will be repeated again at some point.

 

That is one thing you can depend on , if you miss it , it will come around again!

[Vitesse2]

We have mentioned TPTV in various threads before, including this one: https://forums.autos...es#entry9454600

 

As I pointed out there, the Look at Life features were then all available on YouTube, although it appears that ITV have now had them taken down.

[Macca]

TPTV regularly shows episodes of a series called Scotland Yard; in one episode titled The Dover Road Mystery there is a scene near the end shot at Brands Hatch with a Lotus XI supposedly owned by villains who do bank robberies to finance their racing.

The stories are said to be based on real cases; does this one have any basis that anyone knows of?

Paul M

[Gary C]

What year was it produced, Macca?

[Macca]

Screened in Ferbruary 1960; starred Geoffrey Keen and Leonard Sachs.

Paul M

[RTH]

You can still buy I box set of DVD  Look at Life films  dozens of them on all subjects .

[Roy C]

Some Look at Life films are still up on YouTube. "Sport Against the Clock" - the 1960 RAC Rally, narrated by Raymond Baxter:
https://youtu.be/ZTyNFGhGp5k

[Collombin]

Just bumping the thread to mention that this coming Sunday's (19th June) edition of the Footage Detectives will apparently be showing film from a Monaco GP from the 1960s. Looking forward to seeing what Mike and Noel make of it - "definitely 1950s", "I think this is the Isle of Wight" etc.

[Vitesse2]

Just bumping the thread to mention that this coming Sunday's (19th June) edition of the Footage Detectives will apparently be showing film from a Monaco GP from the 1960s. Looking forward to seeing what Mike and Noel make of it - "definitely 1950s", "I think this is the Isle of Wight" etc.

Have to say I've only watched them once - they did seem somewhat clueless, although maybe that's just to encourage contributions. There was film of an aircraft they couldn't identify landing at an unknown airport. It was pretty obviously an Avro York but even if you didn't know that, two minutes googling the plane's clearly visible registration would have brought up the details and the near certainty that the airport was Hurn!

 

The channel does now have a 'catch-up' website: www.tptvencore.co.uk

 

No idea if it's viewable outside the UK though.

[bradbury west]

There was a short run of races at minor circuits a while back, and one showing motor cycles at Oliver’s Mount, plus another of ten minutes of pre war stuff. 
Off thread, I enjoy the original Maigret  series on Saturday evenings at 8pm,  with Rupert Davies as the eponymous detective. It takes me back to reading them in my schooldays, nostalgia link…..

Roger Lund

[nexfast]

 

 

No idea if it's viewable outside the UK though.

 Through the site you can watch a few videos from abroad but not all, depending on who owns the rights for the country where you are trying to view them

[Collombin]

Anyone catch this? It featured several minutes of decent colour footage from Monaco 1966, showing a bit of the F3 race as well as the Grand Prix.

Mike and Noel recognised Graham Hill and Stirling Moss straight away, and although I wouldn't have expected them to recognise Beltoise it's a little surprising they didn't recognise JYS - he'll be mortified. Colin Chapman? "Looks like David Niven, but I don't think it was".

[nicanary]

I'm watching a film on TPTV whilst waiting for the delayed toss in cricket. A 1962 offering called Night of the Prowler. Apparently it's about a successful racing team who have substantial and well-furnished offices (I'd love to have seen Charlie Cooper's face) and are developing a new model. It was a stripped Healey Silverstone!

[bradbury west]

TPTV  has a  “red  button” equivalent service for re calling films etc which  you might have missed.  I have found it useful to look at their programme schedules, but not all have a useful explanatory briefing. Always worth a look, though, especially for old filmed “fillers”  in the early hours which cover old motor sport snippets, so worth recording to view at leisure. I applaud the owners for setting up such a service. Elsewhere, with all the channels which are available to me, and we  do not have a terribly wide “ selection box” of subscriptions, a simple Virgin pack,  I find there is usually precious little of real interest to watch.

Packs away soap box and exits stage left and stands in the anachronism cupboard,      again….

Roger Lund

[Macca]

I'm watching a film on TPTV whilst waiting for the delayed toss in cricket. A 1962 offering called Night of the Prowler. Apparently it's about a successful racing team who have substantial and well-furnished offices (I'd love to have seen Charlie Cooper's face) and are developing a new model. It was a stripped Healey Silverstone!

Indeed….but on the office walls are photos of a Cooper T53 and a Morgan-JAP.

Paul M

[nicanary]

Indeed….but on the office walls are photos of a Cooper T53 and a Morgan-JAP.

Paul M

....and a BRM P48 in one office.

[small block]

Tonight at 9.30 pm UK time, 'Vanishing Point'. Spectacular action involving a Dodge Challenger and not much else...

[john aston]

Vanishing Plot , more like . As someone once said about Wagner ' Some wonderful moments and some terrible half hours ' .   

[marksixman]

Tonight at 9.30 pm UK time, 'Vanishing Point'. Spectacular action involving a Dodge Challenger and not much else...

I seem to remember some quite good shots of an extremely under-dressed young lady on a motorbike.

 

Must go now, time for my perversion !!!

[Odseybod]

At the other extreme, worth looking out for "Mr Denning Drives North" on the same channel, with a rather elegant Phantom 1 Rolls-Royce, a Miles Gemini aircraft and a nicely convoluted plot (though some of its attitudes towards the travelling fraternity may cause upset among sensitive souls). 

[Philip Whiteman]

For my money, Vanishing Point has aged rather well - and is perhaps more convincing given our developing understanding of quite what cops in the US and radical groups were getting up to. For anyone interested in light aircraft, the scenes with the young guy buzzing that old car are quite electrifying (the aeroplane is a Cessna T210G Turbo Centurion which - as its name suggested - had a turbocharged 520cu in motor pushing out 300hp and would have been capable of hitting towards 250mph from a shallow dive, as in the film. Interestingly the actor is clearly flying the thing in scenes where the camera is mounted under the port wing looking towards the cabin.

Plus of course there's the sexy stuff in fine old 1970s style - but let's not go there...

[jonpollak]

I was told to sit down, watch this film and don't get any ideas about changing things when I first arrived in this country.

Jp

[Glengavel]

I seem to remember some quite good shots of an extremely under-dressed young lady on a motorbike.

 

Must go now, time for my perversion !!!

 

In some versions, all of the young lady's scenes are excised.

 

For such a supposedly counter-culture film, the attitude to the gay hitch-hikers is a bit off. A film of its time, I suppose.

[Collombin]

Vanishing Plot , more like

Vanishing Point, Duel, Le Mans - "car films with no plot" could almost have had their own Academy Award category that year. I'm quite a fan of all three.

[Glengavel]

Vanishing Point, Duel, Le Mans - "car films with no plot" could almost have had their own Academy Award category that year. I'm quite a fan of all three.

 

Not forgetting Two Lane Blacktop.

[bradbury west]

Off thread, I enjoy the original Maigret  series on Saturday evenings at 8pm,  with Rupert Davies as the eponymous detective. It takes me back to reading them in my schooldays, nostalgia link…..

Roger Lund

The final episode of Maigret aired  the Saturday before last. I very much enjoyed the whole run of them, albeit very much of its time, which is very much as it would be.   Proper nostalgia on various levels.

Roger Lund

[john aston]

I was told to sit down, watch this film and don't get any ideas about changing things when I first arrived in this country.

Jp

 As a result of watching this gem Joanne and I are spending hours watching Look at Life films . Bread making at Sunblest, by pass construction and effects , holidays - you name it. The street scapes are wonderful - not the shiny E-Types , Minis and Cortinas used in modern  films trying to evoke the past , but smoky Standard Vanguards, ancient  E93 Prefects  , those godawful American aping Vauxhall Victor F series and even the odd Messerschmidt. Blokes  in flat caps with awful teeth ,smoking as they worked, women in in pinnies and house coats and kids dodging Karrier lorries in the road . The Goodwood Revival pantomime might make impressionable youngsters think every street was peopled  by handlebar moustache toting Wing Commanders and Marilyn Monroe or Rosie the Riveter lookalikes - all I can say is that early Sixties West Riding was  dirty , unglamorous and - to my ten year old self- unspeakably boring .      

[absinthedude]

I was told to sit down, watch this film and don't get any ideas about changing things when I first arrived in this country.

Jp

 

No need to do the washing up, just throw the cups away! These days tea is as indispensable in the office as the boss' secretary. How times have changed. Which is worth noting because these little windows on past times were meant to capture both the every day and the extra-ordinary. Last year while going through my late grandfather's output of 8mm cine film I came across a couple of scenes shot in a Yorkshire cotton weaving factory in 1964. Looks even more grim and unsafe than the history books will tell you. 

 

Though a condition of employing me is that I have my own kettle and stash of tea. Currently I have good old Tetley tea bags, plus loose leaf Assam, Genmaicha and Assam with chocolate. 

[Charlieman]

The street scapes are wonderful - not the shiny E-Types , Minis and Cortinas used in modern  films trying to evoke the past , but smoky Standard Vanguards, ancient  E93 Prefects  , those godawful American aping Vauxhall Victor F series and even the odd Messerschmidt. Blokes  in flat caps with awful teeth ,smoking as they worked, women in in pinnies and house coats and kids dodging Karrier lorries in the road . The Goodwood Revival pantomime might make impressionable youngsters think every street was peopled  by handlebar moustache toting Wing Commanders and Marilyn Monroe or Rosie the Riveter lookalikes - all I can say is that early Sixties West Riding was  dirty , unglamorous and - to my ten year old self- unspeakably boring .      

Modern TV and film drama is often well researched about the past but somehow misses out on the obvious. People in the 1960s/70s and earlier owned fewer things -- household ornaments and books. Things that they owned, like those cars, might be well used and in need of a wash. Things which were new should look as if they were well looked after at time -- telephones did not have tatty cords and book jackets were not faded.

 

I suspect that mistaken presentation of the recent past contributes to misplaced resentment of baby boomers felt by Gen X,Y,Z. They don't realise that the recent past was a grimy and sometimes dangerous place, and that the surviving baby boomers who have done well are either smart or lucky. And one should not presume that all surviving baby boomers have done well.

[BRG]

The final episode of Maigret aired  the Saturday before last. I very much enjoyed the whole run of them, albeit very much of its time, which is very much as it would be.   Proper nostalgia on various levels.

Roger Lund

I have been watching these too.  Although I remembered the series from my distant youth, I don't think I can have seen more than the odd episode at the time, as none of it - apart from the match striking on the wall, the brilliantly evocative music and Ewan Solon's pork-pie hat - rings any bells.  I have enjoyed the Parisian scenes and of course all the period traffic especially the iconic Citroen 15s with their suicide doors

 

One episode was largely filmed in Honfleur in Normandy and I had just visited the town when it came on.  It had changed immensely, but also not at all.  In 1960 it was a working fishin port, now it is a tourist venue.  But the buildings & the harbour are the same

[Vitesse2]

Vanishing Point, Duel, Le Mans - "car films with no plot" could almost have had their own Academy Award category that year. I'm quite a fan of all three.

Not forgetting Two Lane Blacktop.

And - admittedly three years later - Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry. Probably the best of the lot. And it does have a plot! Although how Susan George got cast in that as an American I don't quite understand. She's good in it, but very much cast against type.

[Vitesse2]

Talking Pictures are showing the motor racing-themed 'Mask of Dust' tomorrow (Friday) at 17.05. Some discussion from years ago here ... https://forums.autos...-2#entry8266353

 

Probably available on their on demand services afterwards.

[Odseybod]

Talking Pictures are showing the motor racing-themed 'Mask of Dust' tomorrow (Friday) at 17.05. Some discussion from years ago here ... https://forums.autos...-2#entry8266353

 

Probably available on their on demand services afterwards.

Just watched it. As mentioned in the previous thread, it really is a stinker.

 

I think shots of Goodwood and Silverstone have been combined for the first race featured - so quite a long lap. And the second one seems to have bits of Reims, maybe the 'Ring and possibly even Crystal Palace, though I was viewing through half-closed eyes by this point so can't be sure. The cars are nice, though.

[Vitesse2]

Yes, it was pretty dire! I think there was some Rouen in there too! I was particularly impressed with the vanishing and reappearing Goodwood chicane.

 

And did you notice the name 'Carreras' on the boards above the Goodwood pits? Guess what the surname of the executive producer was ...

[pete53]

Just watched it. As mentioned in the previous thread, it really is a stinker.

 

I think shots of Goodwood and Silverstone have been combined for the first race featured - so quite a long lap. And the second one seems to have bits of Reims, maybe the 'Ring and possibly even Crystal Palace, though I was viewing through half-closed eyes by this point so can't be sure. The cars are nice, though.

Yes definitely Crystal Palace was featured. 

[john aston]

Yes, it was pretty dire! I think there was some Rouen in there too! I was particularly impressed with the vanishing and reappearing Goodwood chicane.

 

And did you notice the name 'Carreras' on the boards above the Goodwood pits? Guess what the surname of the executive producer was ...

 I would have guessed Carreras tobacco actually - whose brands Guards and Rothmans were active sponsors? And I think another of their brands , Craven A , was often  proffered by Stirling Moss , who had a personal sponsorship deal with them I believe . 

[Vitesse2]

If you've nothing else to do, there's a 'quota quickie' with a vague motor sport connection on TPTV later this afternoon (16.40) - Stock Car, starring Rona Anderson, who is trying to save her father's garage after he's killed in a stock car race. Susan Shaw, Frank 'Captain Peacock'/'Herbert Truelove' Thornton and the ubiquitous Harry Fowler in supporting roles - plus the film debut of Sabrina. According to IMDB she took elocution lessons for this part, but was later over-dubbed with a Cockney accent. Also in it is Kim Parker, who would appear in the absolute stinker Fire Maidens of Outer Space the next year, as did Harry Fowler and Susan Shaw and the equally ubiquitous Sidney Tafler. Kim Parker was married to Paul Carpenter, who plays the male lead in Stock Car ...

[Bloggsworth]

For our friends over the pond, a "stock car" for us is more a 1/4 mile oval dirt track racing thing, rather than NASCAR...

[Vitesse2]

Well, I've seen worse movies. Plot (and I use the word advisedly!) was a typical clichéd B-movie quota quickie. Most of the machinery involved was typical of mid-50s short track racing; big Yank metal from the 1930s and 1940s - Ford V8s, Dodges, Chryslers, Hudsons - although I think I spotted a Jaguar Mark V in the race as well, but there was also a very nice 1952 or 1953 Cadillac and an early split screen Morris Minor convertible too, both on the road.

 

I think the racing scenes might have been filmed at Harringay, given that the track was billed as being 'Westingay'. Although as the film was made by Butchers, who were based in Walton-on-Thames, maybe it could have been Wimbledon? Butchers usually used South London venues where possible.

[Odseybod]

...  Also in it is Kim Parker, who would appear in the absolute stinker Fire Maidens of Outer Space the next year ...

One of my all-time favourites, from a time when spacemen habitually lit another ciggie if driving their spacecraft was becoming a bit complicated.

[Vitesse2]

One of my all-time favourites, from a time when spacemen habitually lit another ciggie if driving their spacecraft was becoming a bit complicated.

Sparking one up at any opportunity was a feature of Stock Car too, although I have to say it didn't seem to have stunted Sabrina's growth ...

[Charlieman]

Stock Car: It also featured an unusual Vauxhall Big Six ambulance.

[Steve123]

I am not entirely sure about his, but I think that the racing scenes in the dreadful film "Stock car" were filmed at Staines stadium.

[opplock]

IMDb says it was Staines stadium. 

 

If a worse motor racing film has been made I'm fortunate enough to have missed it. 

[Lemnpiper]

For our friends over the pond, a "stock car" for us is more a 1/4 mile oval dirt track racing thing, rather than NASCAR...

 

 Would a prime example of these be the racing cars  featured  in the Dave Edmunds  video for his circa 1983/84  song  "Slippin Away"?

 

 

 

 Paul

 

  Pity  films like Vanishing Point , and Dirty Mary & Crazy Larry dont pop up on Broadcast Tv much anymore.

[Vitesse2]

 Would a prime example of these be the racing cars  featured  in the Dave Edmunds  video for his circa 1983/84  song  "Slippin Away"?

Not familiar with that video, but if you google 'Spedeworth 1980s' that will give a flavour of what we called stock cars at that time. Nothing like a NASCAR stocker!

 

However, the cars in the movie under discussion are mostly big American sedans from the 1930s and 1940s, which by the mid-50s were going out of fashion as the UK manufacturers recovered. Mostly really only fit for scrap usually and much of the early racing was pretty much in the destruction derby category.

 

Pity  films like Vanishing Point , and Dirty Mary & Crazy Larry dont pop up on Broadcast Tv much anymore.
 

Both those air about once a year here in the UK.

[Collombin]

Vanishing Point is on again this Saturday on Talking Pictures, I noticed.