
Paul Merton looks at the British films of Alfred Hitchcock, the silent films and the early sound films.

Paul Merton looks at the British films of Alfred Hitchcock, the silent films and the early sound films.
2009-02-28
0
6.5After returning home to his long-estranged mother upon a request from her deathbed, a man raised by his parents in an orphanage has to confront the childhood memories that have long haunted him.
5.9A shipowner intends to scuttle his ship on its last voyage to get the insurance money. Charlie, a tramp in love with the owner's daughter, is grabbed by the captain and promises to help him shanghai some seamen. The daughter stows away to follow Charlie. Charlie assists in the galley and attempts to serve food during a gale.
6.1Roscoe and Buster operate a combination garage and fire station. In the first half they destroy a car left for them to clean. In the second half they go off on a false alarm and return to find their own building on fire.
6.2Mr. Pest tries several theatre seats before winding up in front in a fight with the conductor. He is thrown out. In the lobby he pushes a fat lady into a fountain and returns to sit down by Edna. Mr. Rowdy, in the gallery, pours beer down on Mr. Pest and Edna. He attacks patrons, a harem dancer, the singers Dot and Dash, and a fire-eater.
6.3Roscoe and Buster give a bullying Strongman the what-for, but after the performance troupe quits it's up to Fatty and Buster to keep the show going.
6.2SEDUCED AND ABANDONED combines acting legend Alec Baldwin with director James Toback as they lead us on a troublesome and often hilarious journey of raising financing for their next feature film. Moving from director to financier to star actor, the two players provide us with a unique look behind the curtain at the world's biggest and most glamourous film festival, shining a light on the bitter-sweet relationship filmmakers have with Cannes and the film business. Featuring insights from directors Martin Scorsese, 'Bernando Bertolucci' and Roman Polanski; actors Ryan Gosling and Jessica Chastain and a host of film distribution luminaries.
6.1Pierre and Jacques are working as waiters at a restaurant where the cooks go on strike. When the two are forced to work as bakers, the striking cooks put dynamite in the dough, with explosive results.
6.1Two wanderers, a young man and a young woman, meet in the desert and decide to travel on together. The two travellers walk and hitch-hike their way down the road to their destination, the beach, becoming friends and lovers.
6.2Buster and a woman are mistakenly married and her initially unfriendly family begins to treat him nicely when they come to believe he has a large inheritance awaiting him.
6.0Mother, father and daughter go to the park. The women doze off on a bench while the father plays a hide-and-seek game with a girl, blindfolded. Charlie leads him into a lake. Both dozing ladies on the bench fall for Charlie and invite him for dinner. The father returns home with a friend. Charlie rushes upstairs and dresses like a woman, shaving his mustache. Both men fall for Charlie.
6.7A young golfer is mugged by an escaped convict and finds himself in a prison where he foils a jailbreak.
6.8Stan and Ollie are hired to build a house in just one day. When they are done, a bird lands on the house and it collapses. Naturally, the owner wants his money back.
6.1In the 1970s, a British sound technician is brought to Italy to work on the sound effects for a gruesome horror film. His nightmarish task slowly takes over his psyche, driving him to confront his own past.
6.6Buster clowns around in a blacksmith's shop until he and the smithy get in a fight which sends the smithy to jail. Buster helps several customers with horses, then destroys a Rolls Royce while fixing the car parked next to it.
6.8The history of cinematic sound, told by legendary sound designers and visionary filmmakers.
7.2An intimate documentary delving into Rian Johnson's process as he comes in as a director new to the Star Wars universe.
6.2On his way to a restaurant, Ambrose, a happily married man, obliges to mail a letter for a woman in the apartment lobby. Unbeknownst to him, the letter is about a rendezvous with her own lover at their "trysting place". Elsewhere, after some domestic frustration, Charlie runs an errand to buy a baby bottle before stopping at the same restaurant. After a confrontation there, they both inadvertently leave with each other's coats. Later, their wives independently discover what appears to be incriminating evidence of extramarital affairs from the pockets of the swapped garments. It all comes to a head when all four of them find themselves at the "trysting place" in the park.
7.6When Allied forces liberated the Nazi concentration camps in 1944-45, their terrible discoveries were recorded by army and newsreel cameramen, revealing for the first time the full horror of what had happened. Making use of British, Soviet and American footage, the Ministry of Information’s Sidney Bernstein (later founder of Granada Television) aimed to create a documentary that would provide lasting, undeniable evidence of the Nazis’ unspeakable crimes. He commissioned a wealth of British talent, including editor Stewart McAllister, writer and future cabinet minister Richard Crossman – and, as treatment advisor, his friend Alfred Hitchcock. Yet, despite initial support from the British and US Governments, the film was shelved, and only now, 70 years on, has it been restored and completed by Imperial War Museums under its original title "German Concentration Camps Factual Survey".
6.6The legendary Roberto Duran and his equally legendary trainer Ray Arcel change each other's lives.