Discover Top Posts Tagged with #charles frend

Jack Hawkins-Dorothy Alison "La tercera llave" (The long arm) 1956, de Charles Frend.

#Dorothy Alison #Jack Hawkins #Charles Frend

Barnacle Bill (All at Sea) (1957) Charles Frend

June 5th 2025

#barnacle bill #all at sea #1957 #charles frend #alec guinness #irene browne #percy herbert #victor maddern #maurice denham #harold goodwin #lionel jeffries #ealing

Barnacle Bill (aka All at Sea), Italian lobby card (fotobusta). 1957

#submission #Barnacle Bill #All at Sea #Charles Frend #Alec Guinness #Lobby Card #Lobby Cards #Fotobusta #Fotobuste

This might have been a pacifist film if Hawkins and Holden had blown up the bridge while all the British prisoners were lined up on it, and even that wouldn't have proved anything, for the analogous depth-charge episode in The Cruel Sea doesn't lead to a pacifist reaction. You can't make an omelette without breaking eggs and you can't make war without scrambling a few guts. In America, even better class audiences, it appears, shriek 'Kill Him! kill him!' as Nicholson tries to save his bridge. Industrial hall audiences here don't shriek, and they feel sorry for him, but - he's got to go. For the anti-Nicholson audience, the doctor's cry - 'Madness! madness!' - refers to Nicholson's actions. For the pro-Nicholson audience, it condemns the destructiveness of war. For those who feel with both sides, even if they know that Nicholson must die, it underlies the tragic criss-cross of heroisms of which the greatest has gone wrong, in a convulsive and challenging way. Nicholson's own evolution is not particularised. Is the bridge, for him, a symbol of the unconquerable quality which he, and his men, can show? Is it an emblem of honour, beyond all question of usefulness? Or do its associations with engineering relate it to the long utilitarian-liberal-middle-class tradition with its pacifist leanings (the merchant skipper of Billy Budd is an earlier champion of the same creed)!

Raymond Durgnat, A Mirror for England

#raymond durgnat #a mirror for england: british movies from austerity to affluence #the bridge on the river kwai #david lean #charles frend #herman melville

The Cruel Sea (1953) dir. Charles Frend

Starring-Donald Sinden, Jack Hawkins, Stanley Baker, Denholm Elliott, John Stratton, Virginia McKenna

#the cruel sea #1953 #charles frend #donald sinden #jack hawkins #stanley baker #virginia mckenna #brit film #uk cinema #denholm elliott #screencaps #screengrabs #my edits #brit cinema

The Cruel Sea (1953) dir. Charles Frend

#<33333333333333333333333 #the cruel sea #jack hawkins #donald sinden #gay subtext #gs*#charles frend #mine

Old Films Watched (1940s edition): 2. The Loves of Joanna Godden (Ealing, 1947); dir. Charles Frend; screenplay by H. E. Bates & Angus MacPhail (from the 1921 novel Joanna Godden by Sheila Kaye-Smith); starring Googie Withers, John McCallum, Jean Kent, Chips Rafferty, Sonia Holm, & Henry Mollison.

“A woman running a farm? Whoever heard of that!” // "You did. Just now."