This is a real Technicolor beauty – the photograhy and locations on the beautiful colour print just shows the colour process at its best.

Now and Forever, is based on the play The Orchard Walls by R.F. Delderfield, and tells the story of a romance between Janette, played by Janette Scott, and Mike, played by Vernon Gray. Both are young and from different backgrounds, and after realising that they will not be allowed to be together and maybe marry, so they decide to elope to Gretna Green in Scotland and tie the knot

Released in 1956, Now and Forever is not a very well known film sadly. As a former child star, Janette Scott was marketed as this being her first film role as an adult. The supporting cast also includes Kay Walsh as her teacher, Pamela Brown as her mother, and Jack Warner as Mike’s father.

Now and Forever is advertised as being a heart-warming love story, and from looking at the artwork for the film, you would probably think that this is a romantic film. Although this aspect is central to the plot, as we are following a young couple and their growing relationship, the film is much more dramatic than it may first appear including a lot of teenage angst between the two main characters and their parents.

The film is very charming, and the two leads do very well in their role as lovers separated by the class system. However, it is not easy to see how this film has been mostly forgotten over the years. It should not have been cast aside.

Bryan Forbes appeared briefly in the film with a few lines, among a host of British film character actors.

Below – The Film Premier at the Empire Leicester Square in London 1956

The filming locations as we will show are quite beautiful. As shown BELOW – Courtesy of Reel Streets.

The pictures will underline the beauty of the locations chosen and the Colour – and just think, there are many more when you see the film

ABOVE: Janette Grant (Janette Scott) and Mike Pritchard (Vernon Gray) spend time by the river.

Above: As the two return from the theatre one evening, Mike’s car, ‘The Rocket’, stalls while passing through a ford. The ford takes the River Lea over Waterend Lane at Waterend to the east of Wheathampstead in Hertfordshire

ABOVE: The disapproving Mrs. Grant drives her daughter into town. High Street, Chipping Campden with St. James’ Church in the left distance.

ABOVE: While her mother is sending a cable to Canada, Janette gets out of the car. High Street, Chipping Campden in Gloucestershire.

ABOVE: Janette heads for Pritchard’s garage to find Mike. Alongside the River Windrush in Bourton-on-the-Water with the War Memorial in the left background and High Street on the right.

ABOVE: The lovers drive through the night. Facing south-west on High Street in Chipping Campden, Gloucestershire with the Lygon Hotel to the left.

ABOVE: Having slept in the Rocket after travelling 107 miles, the couple wake up on the following morning.

ABOVE En route to Scotland where they plan to get married, Mike and Janette take a break for breakfast. Outside the Redesdale Arms on High Street in Moreton-in-Marsh, Gloucestershire.

A Morris Oxford comes to a screeching halt as Janette runs across the road in front. High Street in Chipping Campden with the Market Hall to the left and the tower of St. James’ church in the distance.

The two pause to look at engagement rings and ask the Jeweller (Henry Hewitt) for prices before being invited inside his shop.

After buying a ring they can afford, Mike and Janette continue on their way. High Street, Moreton-in-Marsh with the Town Hall in the left background.

ABOVE: The Pump Attendant (Hal Osmond) approaches the roadster as it comes to a halt.

Leaving the car for repairs at the garage, Mike and Janette look for a room for the night. Lake Road in Waterhead, Westmorland with Lake Windermere in the background.

Mrs. Grant and Mr. Pritchard examine the wreckage of Mike’s Austin Seven.

The couple reach a railway station and Mike walks onto the platform. Coniston railway station on Station Road in Coniston, Lancashire

A police car stops and Mike sees Mrs. Grant get out to speak with the Station Master. The station at Coniston opened in 1859 and was the terminus of the branch line from Foxfield to the north of Kirkby-in-Furness.

ABOVE: An idyllic setting – Farmer Gilbert (Charles Victor) and his wife Aggie (Marjorie Rhodes) discover that the runaways have spent the night in their stable.

ABOVE: Mike and Janette leave the farm and continue towards the border where their parents are waiting with the police.

From a Film Press Book BELOW :-

More from the Press Book below :-

BELOW : The Director Mario Zampi of Mario Zampi Productions, discusses a scene with Vernon Gray and Bryan Forbes :-

Johnny Weissmuller back as Jungle Jim in another film of the series for Columbia. This was the seventh and they were to make 16 in all – which has to be proof that these films were successful.

These Jungle Jim films were always entertaining, and to tell you the truth, if one of them appears on TV even now, I always make a point of watching it – and I always enjoy it.

Sheila Ryan was the female star of the film/ She had been around in films for a few years and had been married very briefly to Western star Allan ‘Rocky’ Lane. She had made quite a few films with Gene Autry before that

Johnny Weismuller with Bob Waterfield and Sheila Ryan ABOVE

The Skeleton Men – ABOVE

In this film Bob Waterfield a quite well-known American Footballer took a leading role – he was married at the time to Jane Russell – indeed they were wed for quite some time before they divorced.

Bob went on to remarry but died at the age of 62 a few years later.

See the exciting trailer BELOW

Sheila Ryan or

Katherine Buttram, died at the young age of 54 from a mysterious lung ailment at Motion Picture Hospital, Woodland Hills, California. Doctors were unable to diagnose the specific disease that claimed her life. She had been ill for several years. Besides her husband, she is survived by a daughter, Kerry, 19.

Unlike the classis 1939 film with Charles Laughton on brilliant form as the Hunchback, this remake does not seem to be remembered and nor does it seem to appear on Television – in fact I can’ t remember it ever been shown in England on TV.

It starred Gina Lollobrigida as Esmeralda – this picture above is taken from the front cover of Picturegoer of 14 November 1959 – so by this time the film had come and gone without causing too many ripples on the water by the sound of it.

Anthony Quinn played the Hunchback and apparently was very good in the role giving a different interpretation than had been previously done.

The film was made in France with a French Director and cast – apart that is from the two leading roles. It did prove very successful at the Box Office in France when released – and did quite well elsewhere.

Maybe it is not shown much because it is a French film although I can’t think why that would be unless the initial promotion was not as good.

ABOVE – A shocking scene as Quasimodo is mercilessly whipped. This really is terrible to see such cruelty

This version apparently is pretty faithful to the Victor Hugo novel

Unlike other  film versions though, this is the first known version where Esmeralda dies. However unlike the book her death is different. As the Court of Miracles attacks Notre Dame and Quasimodo defends it, Esmeralda goes to the door and meets the Court. They triumphantly carry her out but then the King’s guard fires an arrow at them. Esmeralda turns to run back inside Notre Dame but she is shot by an arrow and dies.

This was filmed in Cinemascope and EastmanColor – this was the very first version in colour – and I have always loved the Cinemascope format – doesn’t fit the TV screen so well though – but that does not mean anything because this film was made to be shown in the Cinema on that big screen – like so many more films were

I have said this before, and probably will say it again, but I have been so fed up with listening to the Radio News either on the BBC or LBC with it’s doom laden bulletins and phone-ins that I have changed to listening in the car to a lot of Radio Plays – Full Cast type CDs rather than a book being read.

So have gone from Agatha Christie and The Pale Horse, to Sexton Blake, Paul Temple – and now Lord Peter Wimsey which stars Ian Carmichael in the role he fits so well. He played Lord Peter on Television and then produced the same stories on Radio – now released on CD.

They are really good and fascinating stories.

Before this, and back into the Fifties Ian Carmichael played in many British films of the day, often as upper class twits who come good in the end – and also have an appealing streak in them

It was the film version of his first stage success, Simon and Laura (1955) which established Ian Carmichael on the screen. The following year his portrayal of an artful conscripted dodger in the Boultings’ comedy Private’s Progress endeared him to everyone who had ever been called up and the character returned, fleetingly, in I’m All Right, Jack (1959). In this picture he had just been demobbed and, in looking for work, became caught in a wrangle between capitalists and trades unionists from which he emerged, inadvertently, triumphant.
Meanwhile there had been the title role in the not-very-successfully filmed Kingsley Amis novel Lucky Jim. Then came Happy Is The Bride, a Boultings’ comedy about rural society weddings.

In School for Scoundrels (1960) he attended an academy to learn how to shed his gentlemanly inhibitions in order to compete for a young lady’s hand, and then in Heavens Above (1963) he played a confused cleric in a Boultings’ satire about the Church.

ABOVE – Ian chatting away on the set of the film ‘Brothers In Law

On Talking Pictures at the weekend was ‘Left Right and Centre’ a British Comedy with Ian cast as the Conservative candidate in a by election who arrives by train and on the journey becomes somewhat taken with a very pretty girl – as she does with him. Trouble is she turns out to be the Labour Candidate in the same by election. They have fallen in love with each other, so the film has a happy ending despite a number of bumpy moments along the way.

Much later we all remember him as the Doctor in one episode of Heartbeat in 2003 before he then went on to play the same role Dr T.D. Middlewitch in The Royal – and he was in 28 episodes between 2003 and 2009. In fact the very last episode he had made was on Television in 2009 – and he had actually died before this was shown.

He did live up in that area of North Yorkshire where Heartbeat and The Royal was set – in fact in Grosmont – for quite a few years

These advertisements are scanned from the Picturegoer Magazine dated 7 April 1951

This magazine along with Picture Show was weekly and was full of reviews of the new releases as well as articles on films and film stars.

It was a way of getting to know what was happening on the silver screen – the cinema at that time, was a really good night out and people would go probably twice a week – so it was big business for the film makers, distributors and the thousands of cinema owners world wide.

I think I have mentioned before that in the 1951 F.Maurice Speed Western Film Annual there were 107 Western films released that year – incredible at more than two per week. Maybe a lot of them would be supporting films no doubt but nevertheless the Hollywood Studios were churning them out at this sort of rate

Vengeance Valley – Robert Walker and Joanne Dru both very good – Burt Lancaster – well he was good in his early acrobatic roles – if slightly over the top, but in later roles I am not so sure.

The stories of him threatening Film Directors does not sit easy with me.

Once such example was with Michael Winner the British film Director :

Burt Lancaster had a volatile temper, and on a mountainous filmset during the making of Lawman he attacked Michael Winner over some trifle. ‘You ****** moron, don’t you dare ******  tell me what to do!’ He grabbed Michael Winner and threatened to throw him off a 1,000-foot cliff. ‘

After recovering from the attack he was consoled by someone who knew Lancaster well. ‘It was a very good sign. Burt only threatens to kill his friends.’

ABOVE – I would have gone to see this one ABOVE because it had Victor Mature in the lead role – I have to say again though, that this is a film I can’t remember ever having seen

The advertisements BELOW were not featured in this magazine but were released sometime in 1951

Interesting to see that, at the time of the release of Iron man Jeff Chandler was quite a big star and this film also had Evelyn Keyes and Stephen McNally – both experienced and seasoned players – but Rock Hudson was not known and he comes a little way down the cast list

ABOVE – As the advertisement says ‘ This is the Big One’ and I suppose it was in 1951 – very colourful and spectacular – with a brilliant performance by Peter Ustinov

The ABOVE is a Musical that I like – I also like the 1935 version with Paul Robeson in fact I think I preferred that one

ABOVE – The F.Maurice Speed Western Annual for 1951 which is referred to in this article.

This is something of an unusual article because it features a castle in North Wales that has not been used in a film to my knowledge but surely it should have been – it just lends itself perfectly to such a use.

Way back in the early Sixties, I was on holiday staying in Abergele and we visited this castle which has always stuck in my mind because of it’s stunning location. At that time it was open as a Castle to visit with a tour round parts of it, as I remember. I was impressed.

One thing that did stick with me is being told that it had been used by boxer Randolph Turpin when he trained for his famous fight against Sugar Ray Robinson in 1953.

When you look at the above picture, you can almost see it as Castle Dracula – just a perfect location, and I am so surprised, and have been over the years, that this has never been used.

I have now realised on looking further that there have been films that have used the Castle – Prince Valiant in 1997 and Holiday on The Buses in 1970. Although I know and like the 1954 version of Prince Valiant with Robert Wagner and James Mason, I was not aware of this later one at all.

‘Holiday on the Buses’, I do know and have watched it many times with my children when they were small – and I liked it too. I think a Holiday Camp at Prestatyn, nearby, was used.

We now learn though – and this news may have sparked my memory of this place – and hence this article – that the castle will be used as the location for I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here – the TV show that attracts millions of viewers and is usually located in Queensland Australia, close to where my daughter lives. Due to Coronovirus, the show had to be re-planned and re-located and Grwych Castle has been chosen.

So although I am surprised that this has not been used more in films, it seems that fame will come to the Castle via a most unexpected turn of events – I have a feeling this will put the Castle ‘on the map’

I have not seen this film but this is a review I read that makes me want to see it. In fact it is a film I had never heard of until I was browsing information on actor Bruce Bennett ( formerly Herman Brix ) who had played Tarzan in one or more films in the Thirties – and apparently played him well. Anyway back to this one, and it does seem that Bruce Bennett just knew that his performance would have to be outrageous to make the film both entertaining and watchable.

Bruce Bennett wrote the screenplay for this film as well as playing the starring role. Here is that Review :

Wow! What a bad and yet at the same time awesome film experience. The acting is so-over-the-top, the storyline so twisted, and the mood, tone, and pace so depraved, that I honestly can say that I have never seen anything quite like this. For many, that will be good news if they can say the same!

Don’t get me wrong, Fiend of Dope Island is an atrocious film. It has awful acting, no special effects, and has a story with little merit or any redeeming qualities. It is; however; a fun bad film to watch and has perhaps one of the most outrageous performances I have seen in Dope island dictator Bruce Bennett who runs his island whipping natives and friends alike any time they don’t move fast enough for him or displease him in some way – which it seems is all the time as he is always drunk.

Charlie Davis (Bruce Bennett) is a psychotic man who owns an island in the Carabean where he whips and treats everyone there like slaves. One day a boat comes by and a beautiful dancer is on board and Charles sets his attention to her, which causes a mutiny.

THE FIEND OF DOPE ISLAND is a pretty bad film if you want to be a snob and look at it as something it’s not. If you’re wanting a good looking, Oscar-winning film then this here certainly isn’t going to be for you. The film is actually very fast-paced and it is good entertainment

The highlight is without question the insane and way over-the-top performance of Bruce Bennett. I’m going to say he probably watched several Bela Lugosi movies when he was younger and perhaps he realised that everything about the film was bad that he hammed it up for some entertainment. It’s his nutty performance that makes the film worth watching and it was really fun seeing and hearing his insane laughing and non-stop rants. Tania Velia does a nice job in her role of the dancer.

The film has many campy moments but there’s no question that it’s one of the more outrageous and over-the-top adventure films ever made. The “dope” connection isn’t played up as much as you might imagine it would be but this is still a fun film if as you don’t take it too seriously – and I don’t see how you possibly could.

This is a film that I really like. Not at all well known and a supporting picture at that running just 68 minutes

It starts out looking like a run-of-the-mill Western but changes into a very different kind of film. Raymond Burr plays a real ‘baddie’ here and is not that good but the rest of the cast do well. Another unusual aspect is that the one or two of the characters seem to turn out different to what we might first think – an apparently good man turns out to be anything but.

Lance Fuller ABOVE

Lance Fuller and Susan Cummings

The best part of the film was a sequence taken directly from Lust for Gold 1949 where the Indians attack gold prospectors in a remote valley many years before. Very much a studio set but extremely well done with production quality well ahead of the rest of the film.

Wiilliam Prince had also been in ‘Lust for Gold’ seven years earlier – and he alos has a leading role in this one

Interesting to note that the Englishman that played Valerie French’s father in the film was Reginald Sheffield who was the father of Johnny and Billy Sheffield who were boy stars in films – Johnny playing Boy in the Tarzan films and later Bomba The Jungle Boy. I well remember seeing this film as a youngster and somehow the plot has always stayed with me – and on seeing it again last evening – the main elements that had stuck in my mind were there. I had remembered a search for the Braganza crosses – small metal crosses – that if found would lead to the famous Braganza treasure in Treasure Mountain. I have looked for the name Braganza before – and not been able to find it – and thought I had this wrong but I was pretty sure I had it right – and so it proved to be the case. The production values of the film were not top class by any means but the flashback sequence to the man who had discovered the treasure 200 years earlier when the Indians attacked and killed the searchers and Braganza himself in the cave was very well done – these scenes were pinched for an earlier film Lust for Gold with Glenn Ford.

William Prince as Robert Kendall and Valerie French together ABOVE

ABOVE – Having found the Second Braganza Cross, Robert Kendall tires to work out the significance of the Snake Rock Formation

He stands inside the rock formation and gradually sees – ABOVE

The shadow of him with his arms outstretch forms the third Braganza Cross – ABOVE

Valerie French looks up at the rock ABOVE

ABOVE and BELOW Robert Kendall fights with Raymond Burr who falls to his death from the rocks down a sheer drop, hundreds of feet to the floor of the valley

Lance Fuller ABOVE – half Indian and he guards the treasure we learn as the film unfolds

They all leave the valley home at the end of the film

The story about Arizona’s Lost Dutchman Gold Mine is well known. It fires up the imagination, the various clues to its location and the lore going with it. Columbia used the material twice: the first in 1949’s Lust for Gold with an A-list production, at least for that budget-minded studio. This film is the second, but generally inferior to the first.

Nonetheless, production does a good job here with staging desert sequences, especially Robert Kendall’s clambering search for the third gold cross. It is a diverse group (Prince, Burr) has come together at a desert cabin where an old man (Sheffield), his daughter (French), an Indian girl (Cummings), and a half-breed (Fuller) live.

The film is visually entertaining with a generally unpredictable storyline that manages a few twists. The package may not equal the 1949 version, but this is a good enjoyable film with some of the exterior filming excellent.

It has taken a long time searching for this film but I now have it and have seen it again – and in point of fact, I have not just got the DVD but have acquired, some time ago, the 16 mm film itself – so I can stage a real film show – might just do that !

Universal bought the story in January 1950. The film was intended to be a vehicle for Yvonne de Carlo. Douglas Fairbanks Jr was sought for the male lead but that role eventually went to Richard Greene, returning to Hollywood after two years in Britain. Jackie Gleason signed to play a comic support role. Universal contract player Rock Hudson, who had just impressed in Winchester 73, was also cast.

Richard Greene was back in Hollywood I think he was still married to Patricia Medina at that time but not for much longer

Richard was approaching the time that he found TV success both sides of the Atlantic with the excellent ‘Robin Hood’

Yvonne’s 3 handmaidens were all beautiful, but one in particular, Anne Cramer, looked very much like her. Anne must have been a fascinating person. Later, she attained a PhD in film technology,, and another in literature. She was employed through the years in various aspects of film production – and then switched to psychoanalysis in her retirement years.

The ending is really interesting, when Yvonne and Omar meet after the big battle in ‘The Palace of 1000 Pleasures’, with Omar in chains. Yvonne holds all the cards at this time, and heaps psychological vengeance on Omar, telling him that he may be whipped with 100 lashes, or put on the rack.. Then, she rapidly changes her attitude, to bring him some very good news. During this time, Omar makes some general comments about women: “Be she wench or princess, a woman is only a woman, and always needs a master”. Then he must have thought better of it and came out with “A man should never argue with a woman”.

It’s a almost fairy tale and very much romanticised and Hollywoodised but with above all spectacular clothing and fencing scenes. Almost like a Douglas Fairbanks and Rudolph Valentino film set in that fantasy world of highly romantic splendour.

Richard Greene as the Desert Hawk is just a dashing adventurer like any pirate – and this is a part he was perfect for – Yvonne de Carlo as the princess.

The colours are also magnificent throughout, this is a dashing costume drama of great swashbuckling and a dazzling extravagance of costumes all the way, and Frank Skinner’s music is first rate.

Great colourful entertainment

Another film on Talking Pictures that I did not know but watching much of it, although the print was not brilliant, the storyline seemed quite absorbing.

Van Johnson and Vera Miles had come over from Hollywood to make this one – they had been here a few years before – to star together in ’23 Paces to Baker Street’ .

There was also a pretty strong cast of top British actors, Bernard Lee, Geoffrey Keen and Emlyn Williams to name but three – also Jean Kent.

In the film Van Johnson had been evacuated from Liverpool to the United States during the Second World War. His mother died young and he is working his way around the world before he settles down to a career in electronics. He doesn’t know what became of his father, so he makes enquiries. He discovers he has been in prison for sixteen years for strangling a young girl. He investigates and finds the official story quite sketchy, and it seems that the officials make it difficult for him to find out more about it.

The the subplot involves Vera Miles, with whom he has fallen in love.

Bernard Lee, later to be ‘M’ in the Bond films is good as Van Johnson’s father, brutalised by years in prison – although I find it hard to take him in this role after seeing the Bond films.

He played quite an uncouth, thuggish character here, which did not suit him – I remember him just before this in a film I like called ‘The Ship that died of Shame’ with Richard Attenborough and George Baker

Emlyn Williams plays a mysterious and creepy man brilliantly. He was a classic stage actor and made quite a few films. He was in Ivanhoe in 1952, and a few years after that The Deep Blue Sea ( a Terence Rattigan play made into a film ) and The Wreck of the Mary Deare

He also played the part of Mr Dick in a film adaptation of David Copperfield – I love the character of Mr Dick – as Aunt Betsy Trotwood says ‘Mr Dick puts us all right

This version had a real star-studded cast resembling a ‘whos who’ of classic British Theatre, film and Television

In this film a character played by Anthony Newlands plays a newspaperman who gets the investigation moving and somehow connects everything together eventually arriving at the truth

Vera Miles, I always like to see in films. She was no stranger to visiting England in the Fifties indeed she came here while Gordon Scott made a Tarzan film – Tarzan and the Lost Safari – mainly at Pinewood – and married him either before the film or shortly after it.

She had played in the previous Tarzan and the two of them became romantically involved during that time – they later married.

Gordon Scott and Vera Miles were married for almost four years. They dated for about a year after getting together in Aug 1954 and married on 14th Apr 1956. Sadly they divorced on 2nd Mar 1960.

American Actor Gordon Scott was born Gordon Merrill Werschkul on 3rd August, 1926 in Portland, Oregon, USA and passed away on 30th Apr 2007 Baltimore, Maryland, USA aged 80. He is most remembered for Tarzan.

Vera Miles was born Vera June Ralston on 23rd August, 1929 in Boise City, Oklahoma, her career from spans 1948–1995.

Her most famous role to me would be in the classic ‘The Searchers’

To sum up this a tense, emotional and very satisfying murder mystery drama, adapted from AJ Cronin’s novel, was only director Jack Cardiff’s second film.

He sustains the suspense throughout by creating an electric atmosphere of corruption in high places and you can sense that just about everyone has something to hide. For example, it transpires that the prosecutor at Mathry’s trial, Sir Matthew Sprott (Ralph Truman), had doubts about the strength of the evidence against him, but he nevertheless employed his considerable skills as a barrister to ensure he got convicted because he didn’t want the embarrassment of losing a case. It would have affected his career progression and, today, he is standing for parliament in a highly publicised by-election. When Paul pushes his way into his office asking a lot of awkward questions about his father, he puts pressure upon the police superintendent to have him confined to his ship until it sets sail for America again because he doesn’t want the scandal and potential mud slinging from political opponents to cost him his election.

The key witness at Mathry’s trial, Louise Birt, the murdered woman’s flat mate, has done very nicely since then owning her own nightclub and bar on New Brighton. Paul suspects that somebody paid her for her testimony and set her up in business as a reward for shielding the real killer.

All of these twists and turns are sufficient to hold an audience’s interest and the performances from the two American leads are quite good too. Van Johnson displays the anguish and passion as Paul Mathry who finds himself battling the city’s establishment to clear his dad’s name and Vera Miles is really effective as his girlfriend. The pair are falling in love with each other, but the relationship is put in jeopardy as a result of an incident in her past that has left her emotionally scarred.