Name That Tune

Hi All,

I remember a film from my youth (well, I saw it in my youth, I suspect it was made late 50s or 60s)

In my minds eye, it is B&W, but then so was the device I was watching on probably......

A young girl discovers a stack of 78s and discovers her father was a jazz musician.

Her friends think it?s nonsense, how could it be?

It?s a bit cheesy, and I?ll spare you any more detail as it would be spoilers.

Does anyone know the title?

(It?s not The Jazz Singer).

Probably

Red Nichols and his Five Pennies

The film was called the 5 Pennies

Yes, I vaguely remember that as well. It was very, well dated when I saw it. Cringe making, but then its another era altogether. Try watching other films of the period and the language makes them sound very odd. Lots of stiff upper lip and understating of things. Brian

My wife remembered it from her childhood and I bought her the DVD as a present one Christmas. Cheese as you say but oddly engaging, and Danny Kaye when he's not clowning around is good in a not always sympathetic role.

"Daddy, will you dance with me?" - not a dry eye in the house.

I've been tuning into the Talking Pictures channel recently where they are showing many British "B" pictures of the 1950s and 60s and it's interesting to see how social attitudes have radically changed.

Warning: the acting in some of these films is seriously bad and some of the plots are full of holes. There was a film the other day starring Jack Warner (playing a police inspector) where they asked the possible parents to come and identify a body - probably forgetting at the time that it was headless body and they hadn't found the head.

It seems that every "mastermind" crook in the post war UK had a gun not handed after the war and owned a members only night club that looked more like a down market cafe. I think this popular sub plot feature was to give a starlet (never to be heard of again) and signed up to the film company a singing spot in the film.

Thanks everybody,

After I?d posted, I thought it might be Danny, though how I remember this, I don?t know.

I did almost meet him once. My parents though not rich scrimped and saved and went to Spain for a week each summer and took with them whichever of their children were young enough to go for free.

They would hit the local bars, and I would go to the beach with my inflatable boat.

One time they pointed out Danny and said to go over and talk to him, but I was shy and didn?t know who he was.

Interesting bit on TV last week about Talking Pictures itself.

It's run from thweir home by a retired film buff and his daughter. No other staff. The films are mostly (all?) from his own collection.

That's probably 100% accurate

There were a LOT of weapons around in the 1950s. Never mind personal weapons that got 'lost in battle' there were looted Lugers and Birettas as well.

And those plot lines didn't get invented out of thin air either. There were a lot of sleazy nightclubs around - I went to some in the 60s.

Bob Eager expressed precisely :

Thanks, I didn't know that. I assumed it was some sort of company behind it, because it seems so very well organised.

They also show lots of BFI films too. Many of the films do have very poor story lines, but worth watching for 'the way things were' and the vehicles.

I always used to watch Westerns for the scenery. When I finally made it there it was just like the films...

Indeed. Contrast that with the BBC, BBC4 in particular.

Mr Talking Pictures and his daughter are presumably having to pay royalties on all the films they show along with managing all the technical difficulties involved. Which by the looks of things is all financed solely by adverts for mobility aids and dormeo matresses.

(At least so we thought, up until now ...)

The BBC are sitting on an archive going back 50 years of more. All their own material, which never gets shown. They occasionally broadcast showcase compilations on BBC4 such as say "Photography on the BBC" or "Architecture on the BBC" comprising clips from various documentaries they've made down the years. To some people at least its clear that these original documentaries would be well worth showing in themselves even in B/W; and the suspicion must be that it's only because they'd show up a lot of modern programming that they never see the light of day. The same goes for a lot of BBC drama as well both series and one offs.

Instead at weekends in particular they'd rather fill out BBC4 with endless reruns of "Top of The Pops" from the 70's and 80's and interminably repeated documentaries about Fleetwood Mac, Queen, Pink Floyd etc etc.

michael adams

...

The BBC would rather you PAID to watch them(*) on Britbox :-(

(*) The programs that the BBC censors have decided that you should be able to watch.

All the material on Britbox, which could be classed as popular entertainment, has already been issued on DVD and before that possibly on VHS.

Actual physical box sets of lot of the older stuff can be picked up new nowadays for around £10 or £20.

What I'm more concerned about are the less popular programmes which the BBC clearly have no intention of either showing again, or issuing on DVD

Take Jonathan Meades.

He;s made over 50 documentaries for the BBC

michael adams

...

He bought the rights (for peanuts?) to them when he realised that the main broadcasters weren't interested in them. It's in the Guardian article. What's not in the article is how they came to set up the TV channel. Would be interesting to know what the issues were/are with that.

Bob Eager was thinking very hard :

Thanks for the link!

Yes, and we are paying for that oft repeated dross. All good stuff shown once, but it becomes dross when repeated so very often.

Peter Johnson explained on 02/07/2020 :

Yes, must have needed a lot of courage as a private individual, to just decide to go ahead and put on a brand new national television channel.