By words that just hang in the air and stories that aren't going anywhere

[sovay]

I cannot say that I am going to town on the free channels of the Roku, because as of late I have been so exhausted that I am watching fewer movies than usual, but I am fascinated by TVTime because it gives me access to a remarkable number of British films which have been otherwise difficult to impossible to find—noirs, musical comedies, the aforementioned quota quickies—so long as I am willing to watch them at a quality that gives pirated media a bad name. It reminds me of the early days of Netflix and YouTube and I keep expecting to discover one evening that it's all been pulled on grounds of massive rights sketchiness, but in the meantime it's enabling me to pursue several avenues of exploration that until now had obliged me to wait on the hazards of Criterion and TCM and once upon a time the local arthouses. I am still out of luck on a couple of particular titles, of course, and I am dead out of luck when it comes to finding a couple of source novels in my local library, which would be less annoying if I could find them on my local internet. I'm not entirely sure what I'm researching and am not asking for suggestions, but I'll report back if it resolves into anything more complicated than comparative literature. If nothing else, I had never thought of John Mills as a noir-identified actor like Eric Portman or James Mason, but I've just seen him in a second example after The October Man (1947) and there's at least a third on my radar. I suppose when you are a national archetype, it's an unavoidable phase.

Comments

[thisbluespirit]

Aw, I'm glad you've got a new source, even if it is crackly. (Whatever the internet equivalent is, really. Crackly is probably not quite right these days! Questionable? Something? Ahem.)

Also: if you coincidentally ever wanted a list of obscure British films of interest, I might be able to come up with some if I can find my brain, because I rarely watch the major ones. (I still want you to tell me what I should think of The Third Secret, if they have it. I dn't know! I apparently should have watched Psycho first, and I'm not watching Psycho yet because, unlike TTS, it does not not have my man popping in to look concerned for two minutes in a corridor (no moustache, amazing). XD)

(I mean, in all seriousness, though, I have been slowly watching my way through the Ealing Rarities collection that Network offers, which means I have seen little-known 1930s and 40s Brit film. I just haven't seen so much well-known 30s and 40s film to know how it rates by comparison, so may be an unreliable barometer.)

Anyway, have fun! ♥

[poliphilo]

John Mills had extraordinary range- everything from shy, down-trodden Willie Mossop in Hobson's Choice to the hardened, heavy-drinking officer in Ice Cold in Alex. He was a remarkable actor.

[selkie]

I'm usually very good at shaking trees, but one doesn't find a lot of Emery Bonett! He [He? Is Emery like Evelyn?] wrote a couple of pulp/noir/idk titles I could snag you, but not a copy of A Girl Must Live. Which, shame, because it sounds caramel bananas.