continued from page 33 suburban Jewish family. Watch for Michael Nouri, since the leading man of Flashdance, Jaclyn (here billed as Jackie) Smith as a model and director Larry Peerce's opera singer father Jan Peerce. But the honours are stolen from everyone by Michael Meyers as heroine All MacGraw's 1969 brother.
MONDAY We're No Angels ITV, 1.30pm-3.25pm
A really exquisite comedy which gives Humphrey Bogart a rare chance to lean to the lighter side, as one of three French convicts on the run from Devil's Island, who choose to sort out the problems of some friends in their own way. Most of the screenplay's gems go to Peter Ustinov, as a rolypoly convict who pretends to be straitlaced but covets secret memories of the fleshpots of Marseilles. There's also a pearl of a performance from Basil Rathbone as the ruthless cousin of the nice family with whom the jailbirds are hiding. 1954
TUESDAY A Fire Has Been Arranged C4, 2.30pm-3.45pm
Bud Flanagan and
of the performances, plus Rosie O'Grady's original Stanley Myers' lilting exploits in Sweet Rosie music, sees it home with O'Grady were made at 1984 room to spare. 20th Century-Fox, but, although one-time Fox contractee June Haver FRIDAY replaces another Fox blonde musical star, 13 FEBRUARY Betty Grable, as leading Once You Kiss lady, this sequel was made over at Warner a Stranger Brothers. Haver gets ITV, 1.30pin-3.25pm formula Warners' Except for Agatha backing from Gordon Christie's vintage MacRae, S Z Sakall, whodunit about murder Debbie Reynolds and on the links, a golf Gene Nelson (whose course setting for dancing steals the show) homicide is a rarity in and there's a good fiction films. Here it selection of turn-of-thereplaces the fairground century melodies. 1950 in a remake of Hitchcock's Strangers on The Chain a Train, with the C4, 9.00pm-10.50pm unbalanced predator This patchily successful being a woman (a firstcircular anecdote about Bitter confrontation between Alan Ladd and rate performance by a chain of people Doris Dowling in 'The Blue Dahlia': Friday. 1969 Carol Lynley). moving house will look more at home on Valentine The Blue WEDNESDAY The Haunted television screens, C4, 9.00pm-10.50pm Man Dahlia where its cosy, intimate Blockade An easy-going romance C4, 11.30pm-12midnight humour can be C4, 10.30pm-12.20am C4, 2.30pzn-4.00pm featuring two sprightly A strong cast in this The last great Forties appreciated in relaxed Banned in some septuagenarians, one of Scales of Justice crime film to star Alan style. Even the glare of American cities in its whom has a terminal featurette includes James the big screen, though, Ladd and Veronica Lake illness. Mary Martin — in day since, although it Ellis from TV's One by — creatures of the couldn't take the shine doesn't take sides, it is her first TV role for 20 One. Ellis, who has the Hollywood night. And off some gorgeous unmistakably set against years — looks radiant title role in this story of a performances, especially what music they made and is nicely matched by the Spanish Civil War, quest for revenge, made together. This one also those by Judy Parfitt, Blockade can be seen the dependable Jack his first major impact has war veteran William John Rowe, Billie today as an exciting Albertson as her with the British public Bendix complaining Whitelaw and Nigel action film with wellimpetuous suitor. as Sgt Lynch in about the 'monkey music' Hawthorne, the latter a organised crowd and However, it is Danny 1967 scream as a man who Z Cars. in his head, a lean and battle scenes. Much of DeVito (later of Taxi laconic screenplay by strips his home of every the dialogue for the film fame and star of Raymond Chandler, and last light bulb before was supplied Romancing the Stone, THURSDAY a rare fat part for that moving out (we've all (uncredited) by the The Jewel of the Nile character novelist James M Cain, The Daughter met 'em). Jack Rosenthal, lugubrious and Ruthless People in actor Will Wright, here here driving home the who wrote The Postman the cinema) who makes of Rosie as a hotel detective. old familiar message A lways Rings the greatest mark in a They reshot the original about happiness being O'Grady cameo role as a retarded Twice which has been ending — now the odds found in your own back C4, 2.35pm-4.25pm filmed twice, with Lana friend of the couple, are you'll never guess yard, has written better A switch of studios for Turner and Jessica who is a wiz on the 1946 'whodunit' scripts, but the subtlety 1938 the O'Grady family. TVM 1979 Lange. horses.
Chesney Allen were still finding their film feet when they made this sporadically funny farce about two crooks who bury stolen jewels, but find on their release from jail 10 years later that a megastore has been built over the spot. A similar situation was used 30 years later by the 'Carry On' production team for a Sidney James romp called The Big Job. Here the stars' thunder is somewhat stolen by Alastair Sim (in one of his first film appearances) and plump-cheeked C Denier Warren as two scurrilous gentlemen called Cutte and 1935 Shuffle.
A bridge that's gone too far? A LETTER from PM of London El reminded me about some of the film uses io which London's Tower Bridge has been put over the years. PM should know, as he is the son of a Beefeater, and used his 8mm camera to film many stars who appeared in location sequences; on one occasion he even got a smile from Brigitte Bardot, and had a chat with Shelley Winters during the making of A ble (1966). He wonders whatever happened to the 1959 film shot almost entirely within the bridge area. It was called The Boy and the Bridge, and concerned a young lad who hid in the ramparts of Tower Bridge because he thought he had committed a murder. The answer is that the rights reverted long ago to the original distributor who made no attempt to sell it to television and seems to have gone to ground somewhere in the West Indies. We have our detectives on his trail! Tower Bridge is probably the most photographed bridge in the world, though film shots of it are often used to establish the fact that the scene is set in London. The bridge always figured, for instance, as part of the trademark of Two Cities Films. Once it was used when it should not have been, in the 1944 film The Lodger, which was made in Hollywood. There at the end was Jack the Ripper's body floating past Tower Bridge,
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which was not opened until 1894 — a decade after the year in which the story was set! The Tower of London itself has turned up in hundreds of films, but it has usually been represented by sets, a.,s in Laurence Olivier's Richard III (1955). Hollywood was particularly fond of it in the days when location filming in London was unthinkable: George Zucco as Moriarty plotted to steal the Crown Jewels from the Tower in The A dventures of Sherlock Holmes (1939), and five years later Charles Boyer had his eye on them in Gaslight. More recently, a London businessman organised a gang to steal them in Traitor's Gate (1965).
Leslie Halliwell
Film buyer for ITV and C4 In tall tales and true, Tower Bridge (above) keeps appearing. Left: in 'The Boy and the Bridge' (1959) a fearful Ian MacLaine hides in the ramparts, but his father, Liam Redmond, is at hand. 7-13 February 1987 TVTIMES