After the excellent 1952 film version, we had in 1955 on ITV – in the Theatre Royal series of 34 plays – a play entitled ‘Bardell v Pickwick’

This wasn’t exactly The Pickwick Papers but an episode from it.

This was the first production in the Theatre Royal series going out on 25 th September 1955 – probably going out ‘live’ in those days.

It featured Roddy Hughes as Mr Pickwick and Donald Wolfit as Sergeant Buzfuz.

Sam Kidd reprised the role of Sam Weller

Television dramatisation of an episode from Charles Dickens’ “Pickwick Papers”, in which Mr Pickwick is taken to court by his landlady Mrs Bardell. She accuses him of breach of promise after she believed he was offering her a proposal of marriage when he had been talking about getting a manservant.

ABOVE – It seems that in this scene Donald Wolfit is strongly making a point

The amusing law courts scene from the famous masterpiece was one of the highlights of this production

This television play was produced by Harry Alan Towers – Harry Towers who later moved into making feature films – two of the first he did – and filmed in Africa both starred Richard Todd in ‘Death Drums Along the River’ and a follow up ‘Coast of Skeletons’

In fact would you believe it, Harry Towers later produced this same story ‘Bardell v Pickwick’ under the same name in 1959 in the Armchair Theatre Series – this time John Salew played Mr Pickwick

Now back to an actor featured above –

Sir Donald Wolfit was without doubt one of the greatest Shakespearean actors of the last century. He was not appreciated by the likes of the pompous Laurence Olivier and his contemporaries, mainly because, in my view, Sir Donald came from a working class background and scaled those dizzy heights like no other had done.

He was the last of the Actor-Managers who brought Shakespeare to the masses – and saw that as his mission – all over the world

ABOVE – Sir Donald Wolfit , Lady Wolfit and their daughter

I only came across this film when I was looking into the career of the multi talented and famous Felix Felton – featured in the very last article

The film was made at the Brighton Film Studios and was from a novel by Douglas Baber

My Death is a Mockery (1952) is a dark tale of smuggling, murder and capital punishment. The film has been shown in recent years

This film stars Bill Kerr (Hancock’s Half Hour) in a rare dramatic role, Donald Houston and Kathleen Byron.

Kathleen Byron – five years or so after her great performance as Sister Ruth in ‘Black Narcissuss’

Donald Houston – not long after he had been out to Fiji with Jean Simmons for ‘The Blue Lagoon’

Liam Gaffney as Father Matthews – ABOVE – he was also in ‘Street of Shadows’ another film, like this one, made at the Brighton Films Studios

The film had a rare screening in London again – last year in May 2019. It can be acquired on DVD but not easily – still if you are determined to get it you will

This is a bleak and bullet-spattered sea-smuggling crime drama and tells the story of a ‘down-on-his-luck’ fisherman (British star Donald Houston) who is tempted into a dangerous but more lucrative line in black-market booze at the urging of his wayward wife (Kathleen Byron) after a brief bar-room liaison with a small-time spiv played by Bill Kerr, in a rare serious role.

This Adelphi FIlms’ crime drama was caught up in controversy upon its release, after it was reportedly the film Christopher Craig saw shortly before killing policeman Sidney Miles and apart from a single 1960 TV screening it has been largely unseen since.

DOUGLAS BABER – the Author

As mentioned before in this article, the film comes from a novel written by Douglas Baber and on the imdb site there is this comment from the novelist’s daughter – I hope she doesn’t mind me re-printing this from 2006 :-

‘This film was from a book of my fathers but I never saw it being too young! has anyone a copy? I never knew it existed only the book. Is it being re run? If you saw it anywhere please let me know as I am interested. This has to run for 10 lines so what can I say about something that is important. My father was a POW for some years and later found that the the family who took him in when he was shot down in Belgium were assassinated. This and the Prison Camp added stress to an already sensitive nature. He wrote some books under another name John Riston. He died in 1963 leaving just the one child – myself. He was a man of deep thoughts and reacted to these in a difficult way, perhaps that is why he wrote so well. I have all his books, and my favourite is The Slender Thread.‘

The above detail we would never know but for this comment which is quite sad to read, but it shows what people endured during those dark wartime days. Her father Douglas Baber was obviously a brave and heroic man

Books by Douglas Baber : BELOW

BRIGHTON FILM STUDIOS

 Between 1949 and 1964 at least a dozen feature films—mainly crime and thrillers and usually released as B features, supporting more prestigious productions—were made by Brighton Film Studios and a number of others made use of the facilities. It was also used to shoot television commercials in the early days of ITV.

The Studios were situated on St Nicholas Road, Brighton.

It became an auction house after the studio closed and was later converted into flats.

ABOVE = Ronald Howard comforts June Thorburn in a scene from the film

Great Britain’s Danziger Brothers–were responsible for this film.

“The Spanish Sword” is quite a slow-moving story of a knight who tries to thwart the plans of a greedy baron. This is not one of writer Brian Clemens’ finest hours, to say the least–his script is cliché-ridden – as someone once said but not of this one that the scriptwriters threw every cliché in the book at the audience and they threw them back’

Having said that when we went to the Cinema in those days, we weren’t too bothered about the script but just wanted a good story and plenty of action

Film Director Ernest Morris does his best within the short time he has to tell the story after all this was a supporting film with a running time of 62 minutes. I have a feeling that if I had seen this at the cinema I would have enjoyed it.

Nigel Green played the villain and was able to give us some good moments

Star Ronald Howard looks a little lost but battled away

Leading lady June Thorburn – she always looked pretty and was a great addition to the cast.

J

The character actor Nigel Green, born in Pretoria, South Africa, in 1924, was educated in England and studied chemical engineering before winning a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London. By age 24, he was appearing on stage at both the Old Vic and Stratford-on-Avon, and in the early 1950s, he made his film and television debuts. In 1956, he received serious injuries in an accident, but he fully recovered and established himself as a familiar figure in British film and television. His forceful, dominant manner inevitably led Green to military and authoritarian roles throughout his career while his tall, muscular physique was appropriate for playing such characters as Fertog “The Bear” in the television series William Tell (1958), Little John in Sword of Sherwood Forest (1960), and Hercules in Jason and the Argonauts (1963). Green had a number of small film roles in the early 1960s until his appearance in the critically acclaimed Zulu (1964), after which his film roles improved. Perhaps his best-known performance is that of Michael Caine ‘s superior in the stylish spy film The Ipcress File (1965). In addition to a few British horror films, such as The Skull (1965), The Face of Fu Manchu (1965), and Countess Dracula (1971), Green also appeared in a number of Hollywood films, including Tobruk (1967), The Wrecking Crew (1968) and The Kremlin Letter (1970). Green’s later films brought him international recognition and a chance at stardom; however, his career was brought to an abrupt end by his sudden death in 1972 at age 47 from an accidental overdose of sleeping pills.

Now here is a name that seemed to around a great deal when we were listening to the Radio – probably in the early fifties, often on Children’s Hour where we would hear ‘By Felix Felton’ or ‘ with ‘Felix Felton’ or ‘written by Felix Felton’ or ‘Adapted by Felix Felton’ – so to me that just seemed to be name that was always around

An accomplished actor, writer and producer Felix Felton was the narrator of the Radio show ‘Toytown’. During the war he played the mayor in Toytown, which was a popular children’s radio programme that was part of Children’s Hour. This radio slot was a boost to the morale of many families whose lives had been disrupted by the war.

However I would not remember that far back so he must have been – and was – around much later.

Felix Felton, was a British film, television, stage and voice actor as well as a radio director, composer and author.

He wrote two orchestral suites which were played by the London Philharmonic and other orchestras.

Above – Felix Felton in ‘My Death is a Mockery’ 1952

My Death Is a Mockery is a 1952 British crime film directed by Tony Young and starring Donald Houston, Kathleen Byron and Bill Kerr.

It was shot at the Brighton Studios as a second feature.

Here he is with Joan Hickson in ‘Doctor in Distress”

He adapted the Radio play ‘The Eagle of the Ninth’ in 6 episodes for the BBC among many others.

In fact today he cropped up in the wonderful ‘The Pickwick Papers’ 1952 with James Hayter in the title role – on Talking Pictures

He appeared at the Coliseum in The Pajama Game with Max Wall, Edmund Hockridge and down the cast list was Arthur Lowe

Again BELOW a scene from one of his many plays – ‘No Quarter’ at the Hampstead Theatre Club

Felix Felton – a man of many talents

BELOW are the 100 Top Grossing Films of 1952.  They are listed in a table below showing who starred in them.

Also there how much each film grossed when it was released and how that gross means in today’s money.

I was amazed to see ‘Moulin Rouge’ in the Top Ten but it seems that although it did not fare well in the UK it did extremely well in the United States – difficult to know why that should be

Also we see that Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis had two films in the top ten and then another one at number 11 – I knew that they were popular but hadn’t realised the full Box Office clout that they had.

Two of my own favourites ‘The Story of Robin Hood and His Merrie Men’ and ‘The Prisoner of Zenda’ did quite well. Both in beautiful Technicolor – at it’s best here

Frankie Vaughan may not have had a long film career but he did go to Hollywood to star alongside Marilyn in ‘Let’s Make Love’

He had of course made a couple of good films here namely ‘These Dangerous Years’ and ‘The Heart of a Man’ – the latter one I seem to remember very well and then later he was in ‘The Lady is a Square’

The British films were made by Anna Neagle’s husband Herbert Wilcox who was – and had been – a major player in British films, often with his wife in the them – and they were usually successful.

Frank certainly looks very relaxed here as he prepares for a scene with Marilyn Monroe –

I had forgotten that he did in fact make a film before the ones I mentioned above – he had appeared in Arthur Askey’s comedy Ramsbottom Rides Again (1956)

In this film, his film debut, Frankie sings “This is the Night” and “Ride, Ride, Ride Again.”

Ramsbottom Rides Again was a comic western ( filmed at the Beaconsfield Film Studios in England ) about the timid grandson of a tough guy sheriff. In the cast were Frankie Vaughan, Shani Wallis and Sabrina, Arthur Askey’s busty discovery from his BBC television series.

So when you think of it, within a few years, Frankie Vaughan had shared the screen spotlight with both Marilyn Monroe and Sabrina – I cant think of anyone else who did that !!

Whilst in Hollywood, Frankie made another film for 20th Century Fox which seems to get quite good reviews – it was ‘The Right Approach’ and would be his last film

Frankie plays a ruthless young Hollywood hopeful who uses his friends (and anyone else handy) as stepping stones on his way to fame as a singing star.

After moving into the communal bachelor pad he shares with his brother and three other struggling youngsters, he wastes no time in moving in on the girlfriend of one of the guys (Juliet Prowse) only to discard her in favour of a journalist (Martha Hyer) who he hopes will help his career

In this film we get to see Frankie Vaughan be really selfish and mean to people – even so he seems to make a charismatic and likeable bad guy.

It is a screenplay originally intended for Elvis.

I can’t think that this film did any good though – I can’t recall it at all and wonder if anyone else can

Well probably we should start by saying ‘Technicolor’ although this was a process that had been around since the mid thirties in film land – but I mention it because it was certainly a big plus for the Cinema in that they had something really good that Television could not compete with.

I just loved the Technicolor prints of the early fifties – to me a colour print that has never been equalled let alone bettered.

BELOW: Cinemascope n- This is the Wide Screen process adopted by 20th Century Fox. It requires a single projector using a wide angle lens to throw a picture two and a half times the width of the normal screen.

ABOVE – Cinemascope proved to be much more popular and long lasting than the other two – it was branded under different names such as Regalscope and over here Hammerscope for the Hammer Film ‘The Abominable Snowman’

Initially film directors found it difficult to fill the very wide screen – that was relatively easy with an epic type film – such as ‘The Robe’ which was the very first Cinemascope film

As time went on though they just seemed to ignore the format and make the film as normal and that proved the best way

It certainly added to the spectacle at the cinema as you gazed up at that enormous screen and sometimes, depending where you were sitting, or how close you were to the screen. you were turning your head side to side in order not to miss any of the action.

In one sequence of ‘The King and I’ we had Yul Brynner at one side of the screen and Deborah Kerr right at the opposite side talking to each other – it looked good and impressive.

On a widescreen print, only then can the real grandeur, splendour and colour of the enormous sets and opulence of the film itself can be fully appreciated.

Cinemascope, had been used in the Rodgers and Hammerstein film “Carousel” before this one though

BELOW – 3 D which required us all to wear glasses but in my view it was very effective – I simply loved it.

Robert Stack starred in the first 3D film ‘Bwana Devil’ and he said that during the filming there was little difference only that they face two cameras. When they saw ‘the rushes’ two weeks later he said that they all seemed to have photographed well so they were pleased with that but the extra dimension 3 D dominated every scene.

The public loved this 3D experience and the film did well – however the critics were not so enamoured with the storyline and the film itself. However they did not matter – but the 3D experience did.

In fact it was marketed as ‘NaturalVision’ – and the film grossed 5 million dollars against a budget of around 325,000 dollars.

I have also just noticed that Nigel Bruce – so well known to us as Dr Watson – was in this film

BELOW – Cinerama which requires three projectors which throw three different images onto the very large curved screen which tended to engulf the audience.

I well remember seeing ‘Khartoum’ at the Coliseum in London on a very hot summer day – a few years after this in the mid 60’s

The London Coliseum

From 16th July 1963 it became the second of London’s four Cinerama theatres, first showing the 3-strip version of “The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm” which played for the first 5 months on the largest sized screen in London, the deeply curved 80ft wide, 30ft tall screen. Then from 2nd December 1963 70mm single strip film was shown beginning with “It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. Next came John Wayne in “The Magnificent Showman” from 16th July 1964 until 10th January 1965. Other 70mm films followed including some foreign made ones, then on 14th October 1965 Tony Curtis in “The Great Race” played for 4 months. In April 1966 3-strip Cinerama returned with “Cinerama’s Russian Adventure”. “The Bible…In the Beginning” was screened in D-150 from 6th October 1966 until 3rd June 1967. This was followed by “The Young Girls of Rochefort” in 70mm and several months of revivals and foreign films. “Grand Prix” which was transferred from the Casino Theatre in November 1967 was its next presentation. This was followed by a 70mm blown-up version of Elizabeth Taylor in “The Comedians” and a 70mm revival of Mike Todd’s “Around the World in 80 Days” which opened on 21st March 1968, and was the final film to be shown here, closing on 22nd May 1968.