Television programmes [2]

Too real, too gut churning. "Threads" I mean. Watching the Raymond Briggs animation about nuclear war was enough. (When The Wind Blows). I remember how the weight of fear hung over every day in the 80's. How I nearly wet myself when an air raid siren yelled off one day as I was coming home from the shops with my daughter who was only a toddler. How sick I felt as I thought it was the 3minute warning ! How my heart banged because I believed this was death.

Tremors is not a B-movie.- Forest

{{Nothing is any more as they dont show three films in a row at cinemas any more so there is no A, Band C features. It is however in the style of and paying homage to the genuine B movies of the past such as Them! The honoury titleof B-movie is not applied these days based on cost but more on style.

Azriel Where the Wind Blows is another brilliant but harrowing film on the subject with beautiful blend of animation styles}}

They used to show 3 films? What was the C movie like?

We've all heard of double features but I've never heard of this.

{{News and cartoons}}}

I thought the newsreel and cartoons came first. Then it would be the main feature followed by the B movie. So I wouldn't have thought of it as 3 movies, but a double feature with the newsreel etc.

{{Don't think it denoted running order- my grandfather was a projectionist he said you got the big film which was your A feature, then you had your second feature, your B, and then you had the C can which was your news and stuff. Think they just used C to denote anything not one of the main features.  Though not 100% sure and sadly my grandfather is no longer about to ask on the matter.

edit add cause I couldn't remember the name of them earlier! In the UK the C film when it was a film was often a 'childrens' film- these were a joint venture between the UK government and Rank Film and produced really cheap kids films from 1958 until the late 70's- after which time the cinemas changed and you only got  a feature, no news or cartoons and the chidren's films went on repeat essentially as Saturday afternoon double bills- I remember going to see them in the late 70's andinto the start of the 80's when they disappeared as the summer blockbusters replaced them in the matinee slots.}}}

That's a lot of movie in one afternoon!

Tremors still isn't a B-movie though. But I can agree that it's an homage to the B-movie.

{{My grandfather used to open at 2 for the first film- at that time the kids one - and he'd finish for the day at 10pmish after the B movie played. I wish I had better memories of that cinema but it closed when I was still very young- La Scala- built for the golden age of cinema and exactly like you imagine it would be- big awning out front, massive posters on the front of the building, flags, door attendants in uniform and inside all curtains and red velvet everywhere.
Surprisingly hard to find photos of it, let alone good ones- here's one from its early days-



This one is fairly recently long after it closed but better shows the design as the old building work is still clear- the massive poster area, the flag poles ect you can still kind of get a ghost image of its former glory.



And this is now our cinema- from that heyday of cinema to what as you can clearly see is just a big shed made of corrugated iron painted blue   Don't think my granddad would have approved!}}}

Looks more like a feed store than a movie cinema! How many screens?

We have a number of shuttered theatres in New York from that age, known as the "Wonder Theaters".  I wish we still had them. Some of them have been restored, but never returned to their role as movie theaters; used instead for concerts and special events. not the same.

https://a002-vod.nyc.gov/html/recent.php?id=2809

How many screens?- Forest

{{ Two Studio A and B- neither very big, B is more like someone's overlarge lounge! (though this can produce some cool cineam experiences- I saw Fire Walk with Me in Studio B with about twenty other folk mos tof whom were similar Peaks fans and through a haze of cannabis smoke ) But in fairness to them despite the shitty cinema they do put a lot on, they live stream theatre plays, concerts, and have classic film weeks ect

Halfy- changing times I suppose but makes it no less sad to see these former temples to the dream factory in a such undignified state }}}}}

There's a movie theater built in the '30s, the Del Mar in Santa Cruz, near me, that's in operation. It's quite nice.

They did turn the Fox theater in Oakland into a music venue now.

Forest Shepherd wrote:That's a lot of movie in one afternoon!

Tremors still isn't a B-movie though. But I can agree that it's an homage to the B-movie.

Tremors is fantastic, love it. It never gets old. class actors too.  defo not a B movie. its a cult classic.

{{Been reconsidering the tv of my youth- I think by sheer good fortune I grew up in what turned out to be the golden age of children's tv drama, in the UK at least.
It was a time when childrens drama was taken seriously and never written down to children, it was clever, intelligent, often emotional, frequently terrifying and imaginative.
Heres a few examples of stuff I still recommend as still worth watching now, but to have had the good fortune to be maturing and getting to absorb all this wonderful drama at the same time was a lucky break I am only beginning to appreciate.

Chocky- this was written by John Wyndham- yes that one! Don't want to give anything away but got a fair share of freaked out watching this as a kid!



Dramarama- this featured a different story in each episode with no real link between them, it was as the name implies a variety fo different drama. Generally they were sort of televised plays, usually with a small cast and only a few sets- here for example is a very domestic tale starring a very young pre-fame Gary Oldham, and at the other end of the scale a rather Shakespearian tale about devils with David Jason as Mr Stabs.






Tripods- I kind of view this as what happens if the Martians form War of the Worlds had won and the we revisited earth several generations later to see what had happened. Effects work was particualry good for a tv budget kids show of the time (better than the effects on Who at the time for example).



The Box of Delights- with a theme tune that  will haunt your nightmares- a xmas treat and terror all at once.



Children of the Stones- freaky going son at megalthic stone circles and another theme tune to haunt you!



These are just a few of my personal favourites that stayed with me all my life, but there was so much else going on for childrens drama at that time, there was Grange Hill, the first time anyone had taken a stab and a realistic drama set in a working class comprehensive school in London, it tackled sexual abuse, drugs, family break ups, bullying, sexism, you name it it covered it over the years. And what a theme tune!

 

And of course there was Doctor Who too. Oddly the only survivor of that mentality of writing for children left on UK tv. 
And speaking of Who Moffat also made his writing debut for childrens tv then too with Press Gang, which was oneof the last true great chldrens programs of that era before he 90's arrived and killed childrens tv drama off with multiple tv channels and cheap imports from America being cheaper thanmaking our own and all this great drama got replaced by a  slew of rubbishy, samey, touchy-feely kids sitcoms like Saved by the Bell, Sabrina the Teenage Wich and its ilk-

}}}

This is the old ABC Ritz Cinema before it was turned into a bingo hall. It had real walnut wood bannister, stairs & seats, Huge Velvet curtains, soft carpet. It smelt of good quality polish & it was a thrill to go see a film.

Turned into a bingo hall. How ignoble. Makes me contemplate my fading years with trepidation.

I agree Petty, no 'safe spaces' for those kids what went wrong? it seems like in the past they trusted kids more, even the Victorians didn't mind scaring kids and they were super mawkish about children.

{{It just struck me Figg that the period in question- mid-70's to late 80's produced a phenomenal amount of exceptionally well written and imaginative television for children that had a bit of everything, there were also weirdly subversive, almost Pythonesque in their use of and subversion of British institutions and class systems (no coincidence they came abut at the same time- there was definitely something in the air!) and having that British quirky silly surreal edge to them.

Even Saturday morning fare like Tiswas which was a live show of barely controlled chaos that was so unpredictable it started the trend of adults tuning in to Saturday morning tv just to see what might happen. Often full of improvised moments, live cock-ups, and constantly breaking every rule and convention that had existed in childrens tv up to that time. This show changed how live tv was made and broadcast in the UK- with stuff like the Big Breakfast borrowing heavily from it years later.



and these clips goes someway to explaining why adults tuned in! Ah Sally!!!








So it wasn't just drama, and in cartoons we had stuff like Jamie and the Magic Torch, Ivor the Engine, Danger Mouse, Count Duckula, Mr Ben,  and an amazing area of inventive stop motion based or puppet based stuff too- the Clangers, Thomas the Tank Engine, The Flumps, Trapdoor, Chorlton and the Wheelies, Trumpton and Camberwich Green, Bagpuss and many more I am forgetting I am sure.



















You may also note some cracking memorable theme tunes in there too! But whe you take all this stuff aimed at the younger viewer, and combine it with all the quality drama such as the examples I gave earlier you ca see how growing up as a kid through this period was a bonanza of creative storytelling to be immersed in. Such a shame there is no such abundance for today's kids.

I think it was a combination of writers, animators and producers who grew up in the psychedelic 60's and were now making all this stuff in the 70,s and into the 80's. There was an attitude towards childrens tv- that it was not a side thing, or something to do as an afterthought, that it didn't have to be boring in its messages or how it educated but that it could be taken seriously and that in children you had an open minded audience ready for new ideas. Used They used it to question the world from a young adults perspective, to raise questions and new ideas, to get the viewer to both enjoy ad think about the concepts being presented. In other words to write it the same way and with the same intent as you would adult drama, only with the freedom of children imaginations and acceptance of imaginative ideas- I think that last part is what attracted so many of that acid dropping generation to write and produce childrens tv of that period and with the anti-establishment, and questioning of traditional institutions and roles that was in the air at that time in the adult world it made for something special. }}}

They were also extraordinarily magical,

Great shows. Loved them.

You had some odd ones. At the same period we were being raised on the old Warner Brothers and Hanna Barbara films. Bugs Bunny, Road-runner, Flintstones. The closest we came to what you were seeing might be HR Puffnstuff.

{{Great thing was for us Halfy is we got all those too- classic Warner brothers, Scooby-Doo, Flinstones, Jetsons through Yogi Bear and Hong Kong Phooey (personal favourite of mine)- we got all the prominent US cartoons we just also got a shitload of home-grown madness too and quality dramas.
Given there are now whole channels dedicated to kids tv it amazes me at the quantity and quality we got when thee were no such things as a childrens tv channel- it all got fitted into the schedules. And there was quite a lot of it- both the main channels filled a couple off hours in the morning with kids tv on holidays (when schooll was in the BBC broadcast children programs on bbc2 that fitted the school curriculums and a certain generation of school kids will remember having the tv wheeled into the classroom to watch 'How we used to liver' or some such as part of lessons) there was a 2-3 hours of kids tv in the afternoon when schools got out 5 days a week, 4-6 hours on a Saturday morning and usually a major kids drama- often adapted from a kids book- for Sunday afternoon/early evening and of course for long periods you also had Who in the Saturday prime time slot. So despite the lack of dedicated channels for kids- we got a hell of a lot of it.}}}

{{Trailer for season 2 of The Orville- I thought it greatly improved across the first series with my initial reservations still in tact though- if they are going to do proper scifi stories they need better than recycling old 50's ideas and TNG- seems they might have done that whilst keeping he enjoyable character traits. Got hopes for this one. And even its first season was way more ST than the official ST show was! }}}

{{ Clip form the fourth of the Bottom live shows with the great Ade Edmondosn and the great late Rik Mayall. The live shows kill me, its not so much the content of the plays that are funny, though they are, its the two of them playing off each other, trying to make each other corpse all the way through and the natural chemistry they have that comes from working together since they were teenagers. }}