9 best british film dramas

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While the film noir movement may seem like a distinctly American phenomenon, British studios embarked on their own shadowy thrillers, laced with postwar cynicism. This five-DVD collection assembles some of the lesser-known Brit noir titles from the Rank Studios, featuring such major talents as actors James Mason, Trevor Howard, and John Mills; and directors Ronald Neame and Roy Ward Baker.

THEY MET IN THE DARK (1943) Discharged for treason, a former Navy Commander (James Mason) sets out to expose the espionage ring that destroyed his career - Directed by Carl Lamac.

THE OCTOBER MAN (1947) After a traumatic brain injury, a young engineer (John Mills) tries to repair his life. But his recovery is thwarted when a woman (Kay Walsh) is found strangled and he becomes the prime suspect - Directed by Roy Ward Baker.

SNOWBOUND (1948) A British Army vet (Dennis Price) exposes a plot by ex-Nazis to reclaim a stash of gold bullion hidden at a ski resort. This edition was derived from a master suffering from moderate deterioration and is presented in a less-than-ideal condition - the stellar cast included Robert Newton, Herbert Lom and Stanley Holloway - Directed by David MacDonald.

THE GOLDEN SALAMANDER (1950) A British archaeologist (Trevor Howard) finds himself caught between a gang of North African gun-runners and the woman he loves (Anouk Aimee) - the top-notch cast included Herbert Lom and Wilfrid-Hyde White - Directed by Ronald Neame.

THE ASSASSIN (aka Venetian Bird) (1952) A private eye (Richard Todd) arrives in Venice in search of a fugitive, but soon discovers that the city s winding waterways hold dark secrets - Directed by Ralph Thomas.

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Dark Film Mysteries is a robust collection of classic film noir (black film), a genre that became a cinematic staple for American audiences during the mid-1940s through the late-1950s. Viewers were eager to venture into the darker attitude of crime fiction that developed around the Great Depression two decades earlier and finally emerged on film during WWII.

Film noir stories generally developed around suspicious male characters that maintained unsympathetic and doom-filled attitudes that would manifest when they encountered beautiful woman of questionable character (femme fatale). She would use her feminine sexuality to manipulate him into an unsuspecting fall guy generally involving a murder. After the betrayal, the femme fatale would frequently be destroyed as well, often at the cost of the hero s life.

Shot in a low-key black-and-white, gloomy visual style with roots in German Expressionist cinematography, these films showed the dark and callous side of human nature, and were filled with an oppressive atmosphere of pessimism, fatality, and doom that was enhanced with shadowy characters and locations swirling with both moody dialogue and cigarette smoke.

In addition to 10 other film noir classics, included on Dark Film Mysteries is an excellent example of one of the moodiest, blackest thrillers ever made... Fritz Lang's steamy and fatalistic Scarlet Street (1945).

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On the heels of the Diamond Jubilee and the London 2012 Olympics, get your BRIT FLICK FIX - 10 beloved films from across the pond in one beautiful DVD gift set!



• THE QUEEN - Winner of the Academy Award® for Best Actress, Dame Helen Mirren gives a spellbinding performance in The Queen, the provocative story behind one of the most public tragedies of our time - the sudden death of Princess Diana.



• SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE - Love is the only inspiration in this witty, sexy smash starring Oscar® winner Gwyneth Paltrow among an all-star Academy Award®- winning cast including Judi Dench, Geoffrey Rush, Colin Firth and Ben Affleck.



• BRIDGET JONES’S DIARY - Renee Zellweger stars in the “cheerful, cheeky” (Los Angeles Times) comedy based on the international best-selling book. Bridget Jones is a busy journalist and a “singleton” lost amid a sea of “smug-marrieds” in London.



• THE ENGLISH PATIENT - Winner of 9 Academy Awards® including Best Picture, Best Director (Anthony Minghella) and Best Supporting Actress (Juliette Binoche), THE ENGLISH PATIENT is a "fiercly romantic" (THE NEW YORK TIMES) epic where love knows no boundaries.



• THE VERY THOUGHT OF YOU - Joseph Fiennes and Monica Potter lead an impressive cast in this sexy romantic comedy about three old friends who unwittingly fall for the same woman.



• THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST - Starring Reese Witherspoon, Colin Firth, and Rupert Everett, here is the hilarious adventure of two dashing young bachelors and the outrageous deceptions they find themselves in over love!



• FINDING NEVERLAND - Johnny Depp, Kate Winslet, Dustin Hoffman, and Julie Christie star in this magical tale about one of the world's greatest storytellers and the people who inspired his masterwork, PETER PAN.



• EMMA - This delightfully fun and lighthearted comedy is based on Jane Austen's classic novel. Dazzling Gweneth Paltrow shines as Emma, a mischievous young beauty who sets up her single friends. Funny thing is… she's not very good at it!



• ENCHANTED APRIL - Two proper Englishwomen, determined to get away from their drab lives and innatentive husbands, find paradise in the serene countryside of the Italian Riviera in this enchanting adventure starring Josie Lawrence and Miranda Richardson.



• TRAINSPOTTING - Starring Ewan McGregor (MOULIN ROUGE!) in an unforgettable breakthrough performance, TRAINSPOTTING electrified audiences and critics with its hilariously dark humor, stunning visuals and sharp honest take on both the exhilarating highs, and the terrifying lows, of addiction.

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Keep Calm and Watch British Cinema!

6 Critical Acclaimed British Films!

CONTENTS:

Once Upon a Time in the Midlands

Starring: Robert Carlyle, Rhys Ifans, Kathy Burke, Shirley Henderson, Ricky Tomlinson, Finn Atkins

From the wrong side of the tracks comes the right kind of love in this offbeat comedy, that mixes working-class grit and quirky humor.

Still Crazy

Starring: Helena Bergstrom, Juliet Aubrey, Timothy Spall, Bill Nighy

Follow the hilarious exploits of the '70s rock band Strange Fruit, as they reunite 20 years after a nasty break-up and attempt to recapture their fame and fortune.

Last Orders

Starring: Michael Caine, Tom Courtenay, David Hemmings, Bob Hoskins, Helen Mirren, Ray Winstone

Covering nearly half a century in the lives of a group of South London buddies, Last Orders paints a portrait of their lives that will make you laugh and break your heart.

Crush

Starring: Andie MacDowell, Imelda Staunton, Anna Chancellor

Sisterhood is put to the ultimate test when Kate s best friends conspire to save her from her newfound obsession, a handsome 25 year old former student.

Young Adam

Starring: Ewan McGregor, Tilda Swinton, Peter Mullan, Emily Mortimer

Her name was Cathie and Joe was the last person to see her alive. Only Joe knows the shocking truth that could save the life of an innocent man, or send the guilty one to the gallows.

Driving Lessons

Starring: Julie Walters, Rupert Grint, Laura Linney

When Ben lands a job tending to an over-the-hill actress with the mouth of a drunken sailor, he is torn from his repressive roots and taken on a transforming adventure.

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While the film noir movement may seem like a distinctly American phenomenon, British studios embarked on their own shadowy thrillers, laced with postwar cynicism. This five-film collection assembles some of the lesser-known Brit Noir titles from various British studios, featuring such major talents as actors John Mills, Joan Collins, Valerie Hobson, Dennis Price and Sean Connery; and directors Lewis Gilbert, Gerald Thomas and Don Chaffey. British Noir Volume 2 includes The Interrupted Journey (1949), Cosh Boy (1953), Time is My Enemy (1954), Time Lock (1957) and The Vicious Circle (1957).



Special Features:

-Trailers

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State of Play (2003) (BBC) (Repackage/DVD)

Stephen Collins is an ambitious politician. Cal McAffrey is a well-respected investigative journalist and Stephen's ex-campaign manager. En route to work one morning, Stephen's research assistant mysteriously falls to her death on the London Underground. It's not long before revelations of their affair hit the headlines. Meanwhile a suspected teenage drug dealer is found shot dead. These (apparently unconnected) events expose a dangerous habit within modern government of dancing too closely with the corporate devil. Friendships are tested and lives are put on the line as an intricate web of lies unfolds.

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“In the grand tradition of The Forsyte Saga and Upstairs, Downstairs” —Time magazine



“Powerfully addictive” —Time magazine

“Chronicles the passion and politics of Victorian England” —Los Angeles Times



This sprawling BBC saga follows an aristocratic family through three generations of power, wealth, intrigue, and scandal in Victorian England. Based on Anthony Trollope’s “political” novels and adapted by British author Simon Raven (Alms for Oblivion), this classic PBS series has captivated audiences on both sides of the Atlantic.



Emmy^® winner Susan Hampshire (The Forsyte Saga) stars as the beautiful and witty Lady Glencora, whose arranged marriage to rising politician Plantagenet Palliser (Philip Latham, “marvelous from beginning to end” —The New York Times) endures public and private crises as the family ascends the social ladder. The outstanding cast also features Jeremy Irons (The Borgias), Derek Jacobi (The King’s Speech), Anthony Andrews (Brideshead Revisited), Peter Vaughan (The Remains of the Day), and Penelope Keith (To the Manor Born).

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Set before and during the great war, Birdsong captures the drama of that era on both a national and a personal scale. It is the story of Stephen, a young Englishman, who arrives in Amiens in 1910. His life goes through a series of traumatic experiences, from the clandestine love affair that tears apart the family with whom he lives, to the unprecedented experiences of the war itself.

Busy screenwriter Abi Morgan (The Hour, The Iron Lady) adapts Sebastian Faulks's 1993 bestseller for this introspective Masterpiece Classic two-parter, which reflects on love and war in equal measure. Costume-drama veteran Eddie Redmayne (The Pillars of the Earth) plays Stephen Wraysford, a British textile man based in Amiens in 1910 (before his career skyrocketed, Michael Fassbender was attached to the role). While staying with Isabelle (Clemence Poesy, In Bruges) and her controlling husband, Stephen falls in love with his hostess, but her marriage and stepchildren stand in the way. The story continues to proceed along two tracks: Stephen's time with Isabelle and her sympathetic sister, Jeanne (Marie-Josee Croze), and his time as an imperiled lieutenant in the trenches of World War I, where he finds a friend in the selfless Jack (Joseph Mawle) and a foe in the callous Captain Gray (Matthew Goode) as memories of Amiens spur him on. If the peacetime scenes are light and leisurely--sometimes too leisurely--the wartime scenes are dark and tense as Stephen and his men crawl through tunnels, setting off explosions. Flashbacks reveal that Isabelle eventually returned his affection, except the course of their relationship did not run smoothly. By the end, he's lost most of the things he once desired, but an alternative path lies ahead. In this sense, Birdsong bears some comparison with Atonement and Downton Abbey, though the downbeat nature of the material won't be to all tastes. --Kathleen C. Fennessy

Review

The memory of love pierces the thunderous fog of war in Birdsong (Sunday, PBS, check local listings), a wrenching new Masterpiece Classic that covers some of the same historical territory as this year's Downton Abbey the terrible toll of World War I but with a grittier, less schmaltzy, more artful and erotic approach.



Based on the haunting 1993 novel by Sebastian Faulks, and adapted by Abi Morgan (The Hour), this is the story of young Stephen Wraysford (Eddie Redmayne, projecting the same sort of emotional transparency he displayed in My Week With Marilyn), a British officer on the front lines in Northern France who seems perpetually lost in thought. "Funny how your head's here, but your heart's always somewhere else," says a plainspoken "sewer rat" (Joseph Mawle) whose job it is to burrow beneath No Man's Land on the Western Front in treacherous tunnels, laying charges under the German enemy. As Stephen's new assignment takes him reluctantly underground, we retreat with him to a blessedly peaceful summer six years earlier, in the French countryside not far from the current shelling, replaying his encounter with the woman who would change his life.



On first encounter with the unhappily married Isabelle (the limpid, lovely Clemence Poesy), Stephen is shell-shocked with longing and desire. The blossoming of their passionate, turbulent romance provides poignant counterpoint to the numbing carnage of war, with its horrific imagery of mud and blood hardening this boy into an aloof leader described by others as a "cold one." If they only knew. As the stories converge at the devastating battle of the Somme, the same river where Stephen and Isabelle made their first real connection during a pastoral boating excursion, we wonder if anything can survive this tragedy. Birdsong is a tearjerker with guts and soul. --Matt Roush, TV Guide



On Sunday, April 22, Masterpiece Theater debuts Birdsong, a two-parter starring Eddie Redmayne ( My Week with Marilyn ) and Clemence Poesy ( Harry Potter ). Adapted from Sebastian Faulks popular 1993 novel by acclaimed screenwriter Abi Morgan ( The Hour, The Iron Lady ), it follows Stephen Wraysford, a young English lieutenant whose war experience is framed by memories of his affair with Isabelle, an unhappily married French woman, years before. (It drops the novel s third plotline, set in the 1970s.)



Birdsong is the second and best novel in a loose trilogy set in France during World War I (with The Girl at the Lion d Or and Charlotte Gray, later filmed with Cate Blanchett). Faulks is enamored with the romance of French life and his novels detail the sensuality of the food, the simplicity of rustic living, and the beauty of the land, even (or especially) as war threatens this existence. This adaptation captures this, contrasting the sunny, gossamer idyll of Stephen and Isabelle s pre-war relationship (Redmayne and Poesy are quietly excellent) with the dehumanized violence of the barren front.



As the horror of the trenches reflect his psyche, deadened by Isabelle s sudden desertion, Stephen is filmed regularly in forward motion, as if indicating the slipping away of a past and a tranquil world no longer possible after such destruction. In the final scene, when the camera pulls in on him, it feels like a casting off of the emotional wreckage of the past and of the claustrophobia of the trenches, a moment about the desire to live, about a life, at last, in the present. --Kelley Kawano, Word and Film



As a tapestry of time and place, "Birdsong" is a wonder to behold. It begins in the trenches of northern France in 1916, where British Lt. Stephen Wraysford (Eddie Redmayne) is facing a task more frightening to him than any combat. Instead of going "over the top," he and his infantrymen are headed below ground, into the tunnels being dug close to German trenches so British miners-turned-soldiers can lay charges and blow the enemy to kingdom come.



Eventually these men will take part in the Battle of the Somme, during which the British suffered some 350,000 casualties. Yet no experience here is more ghastly than the tunnels, which flooding or collapse can turn into a mass grave in an instant.



At night in his trench quarters, Stephen tells fortunes with a deck of cards. But mostly he summons memories, escaping in his mind to play and replay the summer of 1910, when he visited France to stay with a wealthy textile manufacturer and fell in love with the Frenchman's wife, Isabelle (Clemence Poesy).



Although it's a bittersweet, if predictable, story, the love affair is not the strongest aspect of "Birdsong." The talented Mr. Redmayne, who can convey emotions with only a twitch of a facial muscle, will nonetheless not be everyone's idea of a romantic lead. When Matthew Goode appears in the small role of a British officer so lovely that he seems doomed for sure, it's hard not to wish that he was the one with all the screen time.



Yet the role of Stephen calls for someone young enough to act on his desire with impetuous energy before the age when men become more calculating. So too, for dramatic purposes, he must begin the war in innocence, as an idealist. This Mr. Redmayne's Stephen convincingly is, though the most memorable character is an innocent of another sort. That would be the miner-soldier Jack Firebrace (Joseph Mawle). Jack is the British everyman who was shoved into the maw of war. He's also a character out of D.H. Lawrence, a simple man with uncanny instincts. Playing this endangered animal, Mr. Mawle slowly breaks your heart.



Indeed, it is Jack who protects his lieutenant's soul and will make you wonder, long after the curtain falls on "Birdsong," how England might be different today if a generation of such men had not perished in the mud of France and Flanders almost century ago. --NANCY DEWOLF SMITH, Wall Street Journal

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Persuasion 2007

Jane Austen fans will delight in the sumptuous production design and first-rate acting in the 2007 Masterpiece Theatre version of Persuasion. Sally Hawkins is controlled and moving as Anne Elliot, the quietly heartbroken but sensible heroine who was "persuaded" (read: forced) to turn away her true love but still carries an unseen torch for him. Hawkins's performance is genteel yet steely, and the quiet strength of the entire production. Hawkins looks alternately quietly lovely and sadly pinched--as one might expect the long frustrated Anne to look.

Other highlights include a post-Buffy Anthony Head, as Anne's clueless, blustery father, Sir Walter. Head gets to turn on his deft comic talent here in ways most American audiences have not yet seen him; he's clearly enjoying himself immensely, blustering about "my shrubberies" and other trivial affairs. The cinematography is lush (several breathtaking tracking shots are used, especially early on), as are the period costumes. The production was filmed exclusively on location, and the reality of the sets enforces the story.

Some fans may prefer the 1995 Amanda Root version, for the casting of Ciaran Hinds as Capt. Wentworth, but this later effort is a worthy entry in the Austen film oeuvre--and Rupert Penry-Jones is a dreamboat in his own right. As the wistful Anne says, on behalf of all women, "We do not forget you, so soon as you forget us." --A.T. Hurley