Ken Hughes was an interesting character. The closest thing I have to a personal anecdote came from an old friend who was an assistant director: "Ken Hughes was the dirtiest man I ever met." I don't really know what he meant by that, and it may be unfair. But you can see little hints in his work.Hughes is best-remembered today for Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968), and he did some of the better work in the astonishing sixties farrago Casino Royale (1967), but none of that really typifies him. His best film may be The Small World of Sammy Lee (1963), which he wrote as well as directed, and which brought to a kind of climax his early thriller period.Hughes' first film, in 1952, was Wide Boy, about a lowlife blackmailer, not a distinguished work but an unusual one for its frankness about the anti-hero's Jewishness. Sammy Lee is a much more...
- 5/28/2019
- MUBI
Set in the grimy streets of early-60s Soho, The Small World of Sammy Lee is a lost gem of British cinema. Starring Anthony Newley as a strip-club compere who owes a large amount of money to a local villain, it was written and directed by Ken Hughes (best known for Chitty Chitty Bang Bang) and was photographed by the renowned Wolfgang Suschitzky. It also features a host of recognisable faces in smaller roles, including Steptoe’s Wilfrid Brambell, The Rag Trade’s Miriam Karlin, and Till Death Us Do Part’s Warren Mitchell.
•The Small World of Sammy Lee is released on Blu-ray on 14 November
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•The Small World of Sammy Lee is released on Blu-ray on 14 November
Continue reading...
- 11/4/2016
- by Guardian Staff
- The Guardian - Film News
Wendy Hughes, who has died in Sydney aged 61, will be remembered by her peers as one of the finest actors of her generation.
Hughes won the AFI award for best actress for Careful, He Might Hear You in 1983 and was nominated on six other occasions, for Newsfront, My Brilliant Career, Lonely Hearts, My First Wife, Echoes of Paradise and Boundaries of the Heart.
.She was a brilliant actress who set the standard and was pioneering for her era,. filmmaker Philippe Mora, who was a close friend in the 1980s and early 1990s, told If.
.In my opinion without Wendy there would have been no Judy Davis, no Nicole Kidman and no Cate Blanchett. If timing had been different she would have been a major international star. As it is she leaves a legacy of perfect performances as one of Australia's greatest actresses..
Mora wanted to cast Hughes as the female...
Hughes won the AFI award for best actress for Careful, He Might Hear You in 1983 and was nominated on six other occasions, for Newsfront, My Brilliant Career, Lonely Hearts, My First Wife, Echoes of Paradise and Boundaries of the Heart.
.She was a brilliant actress who set the standard and was pioneering for her era,. filmmaker Philippe Mora, who was a close friend in the 1980s and early 1990s, told If.
.In my opinion without Wendy there would have been no Judy Davis, no Nicole Kidman and no Cate Blanchett. If timing had been different she would have been a major international star. As it is she leaves a legacy of perfect performances as one of Australia's greatest actresses..
Mora wanted to cast Hughes as the female...
- 3/8/2014
- by Don Groves
- IF.com.au
Co-writer of TV sitcoms On the Buses and The Rag Trade
At the height of his writing partnership with Ronald Chesney, Ronald Wolfe, who has died aged 89 after a fall, enjoyed huge success with the sitcom On the Buses; its bawdy humour was panned by the critics but lapped up by the viewing public. Originally turned down by the BBC, the idea for a comedy based around the antics of a driver and conductor giving their inspector the runaround at the Luxton Bus Company appealed to Frank Muir, head of entertainment at the newly launched ITV company London Weekend Television.
Reg Varney played Stan Butler, at the wheel of the No 11, and Bob Grant was his lothario conductor, Jack. The pair made life hell for the miserable Inspector Blake (Stephen Lewis). Blakey's "Get that bus out" and "I 'ate you, Butler" were two of the most frequent lines that flowed...
At the height of his writing partnership with Ronald Chesney, Ronald Wolfe, who has died aged 89 after a fall, enjoyed huge success with the sitcom On the Buses; its bawdy humour was panned by the critics but lapped up by the viewing public. Originally turned down by the BBC, the idea for a comedy based around the antics of a driver and conductor giving their inspector the runaround at the Luxton Bus Company appealed to Frank Muir, head of entertainment at the newly launched ITV company London Weekend Television.
Reg Varney played Stan Butler, at the wheel of the No 11, and Bob Grant was his lothario conductor, Jack. The pair made life hell for the miserable Inspector Blake (Stephen Lewis). Blakey's "Get that bus out" and "I 'ate you, Butler" were two of the most frequent lines that flowed...
- 12/20/2011
- by Anthony Hayward
- The Guardian - Film News
Miriam Karlin, A Clockwork Orange Miriam Karlin, best known outside the United Kingdom as the woman killed by a giant phallus in Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange, died earlier today at a British hospital. Karlin, who had been suffering from cancer, was 85. Born Miriam Samuels to an Orthodox Jewish family on June 23, 1925, in North London, Miriam Karlin began her acting career after training at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts. She acted with the Royal Shakespeare Company and was the first woman to play the (until then) male lead in Harold Pinter's The Caretaker. Another notable stage role was Golde in [...]...
- 6/4/2011
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Actress Karlin Dies
British actress Miriam Karlin has died at the age of 85 following a battle with cancer.
The A Clockwork Orange star passed away at a London hospital on Friday and the news was confirmed by Equity actors' union spokesman Martin Brown, who called Karlin a "wonderful actress" and a "marvellous friend".
Karlin began her career on the stage but made a transfer to onscreen roles in films such as The Entertainer, The Millionairess and a part in British TV show The Rag Trade. She also appeared in Stanley Kubrick's 1971 classic A Clockwork Orange as a woman murdered by Malcolm McDowell's onscreen character.
She was bestowed with an Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 1975 and made her last film appearance in 2008 opposite Daniel Craig in Flashbacks of a Fool.
The A Clockwork Orange star passed away at a London hospital on Friday and the news was confirmed by Equity actors' union spokesman Martin Brown, who called Karlin a "wonderful actress" and a "marvellous friend".
Karlin began her career on the stage but made a transfer to onscreen roles in films such as The Entertainer, The Millionairess and a part in British TV show The Rag Trade. She also appeared in Stanley Kubrick's 1971 classic A Clockwork Orange as a woman murdered by Malcolm McDowell's onscreen character.
She was bestowed with an Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 1975 and made her last film appearance in 2008 opposite Daniel Craig in Flashbacks of a Fool.
- 6/3/2011
- WENN
Miriam Karlin has died at the age of 85. The actress, best known for her roles as Paddy in sitcom The Rag Trade and the cat lady in Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange, passed away in St John's Hospital, London today after a battle with cancer. Born Miriam Samuels in 1925, Karlin also featured in The Entertainer and Room at the Top, and more recently appeared in Flashbacks of a Fool and Children of Men. She was also known (more)...
- 6/3/2011
- by By Mayer Nissim
- Digital Spy
Actor best known as Paddy, the militant shop steward in the BBC's The Rag Trade
The actor Miriam Karlin, who has died of cancer aged 85, became famous in the early 1960s as Paddy, the militant shop steward of a London clothing firm in the BBC television comedy series The Rag Trade. As Paddy, who was always willing to signal a strike with a whistle and her catchphrase "Everybody out!", Karlin was watched by millions, and quoted by millions. But neither that success, nor her more serious roles on stage, removed the gnawing dissatisfaction she felt at not achieving something more serious. She channelled some of that feeling into promoting broadly leftwing causes as a member of the council of the actors' union Equity, and as a campaigner for the Anti-Nazi League, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and Soviet Jewry.
She was born Miriam Samuels and brought up in Hampstead, north London,...
The actor Miriam Karlin, who has died of cancer aged 85, became famous in the early 1960s as Paddy, the militant shop steward of a London clothing firm in the BBC television comedy series The Rag Trade. As Paddy, who was always willing to signal a strike with a whistle and her catchphrase "Everybody out!", Karlin was watched by millions, and quoted by millions. But neither that success, nor her more serious roles on stage, removed the gnawing dissatisfaction she felt at not achieving something more serious. She channelled some of that feeling into promoting broadly leftwing causes as a member of the council of the actors' union Equity, and as a campaigner for the Anti-Nazi League, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and Soviet Jewry.
She was born Miriam Samuels and brought up in Hampstead, north London,...
- 6/3/2011
- by Dennis Barker
- The Guardian - Film News
Chicago – To coincide with the Blu-ray box set of Stanley Kubrick films (including “2001: A Space Odyssey,” “The Shining,” and eight more films), Warner Bros. has released a very special edition of “A Clockwork Orange,” timed to the four-decade anniversary of one of the most influential movies ever made. With stellar new special features, a great transfer, and a timeless film, this is one of the best Blu-ray releases of the year to date.
Blu-Ray Rating: 5.0/5.0
Honestly, what more could I possibly add to the conversation about “A Clockwork Orange”? It’s one of the most written-about films of the last fifty years and one of the most important of its era. I don’t think it’s a perfect film but it’s undeniably one of the most influential of all time. One of my favorite bits in the excellent collection of special features on this release features a...
Blu-Ray Rating: 5.0/5.0
Honestly, what more could I possibly add to the conversation about “A Clockwork Orange”? It’s one of the most written-about films of the last fifty years and one of the most important of its era. I don’t think it’s a perfect film but it’s undeniably one of the most influential of all time. One of my favorite bits in the excellent collection of special features on this release features a...
- 6/2/2011
- by [email protected] (Adam Fendelman)
- HollywoodChicago.com
The strike by women at the Dagenham Ford factory in 1968 that led to the Equal Pay Act is given the Calendar Girls treatment
Andrzej Wajda's superb Man of Iron (1981) was shot in the Gdansk shipyards at the very heart of Solidarity's activities, gave Lech Walesa a brief role as himself, and became part of the political process it commented on. It was a rare case of a feature film based on a major episode in the history of organised labour made close to the actual events. More typically, Mario Monicelli's The Organizer (1963) was a bracing reconstruction of a strike in late 19th-century Turin. Bo Widerberg's Adalen 31 (1969) lyrically recreated the violent strike in northern Sweden that ushered in 40 years of Social Democratic government.
There was an even greater gap in the case of Comrades (1986), Bill Douglas's epic account of the Tolpuddle Martyrs, the Dorset labourers transported...
Andrzej Wajda's superb Man of Iron (1981) was shot in the Gdansk shipyards at the very heart of Solidarity's activities, gave Lech Walesa a brief role as himself, and became part of the political process it commented on. It was a rare case of a feature film based on a major episode in the history of organised labour made close to the actual events. More typically, Mario Monicelli's The Organizer (1963) was a bracing reconstruction of a strike in late 19th-century Turin. Bo Widerberg's Adalen 31 (1969) lyrically recreated the violent strike in northern Sweden that ushered in 40 years of Social Democratic government.
There was an even greater gap in the case of Comrades (1986), Bill Douglas's epic account of the Tolpuddle Martyrs, the Dorset labourers transported...
- 10/2/2010
- by Philip French
- The Guardian - Film News
Sally Hawkins gives a winning performance in this uncomplicated film about industrial strife at the Ford plant
Audiences of a certain age may recall a British sitcom called The Rag Trade, which ran for a few years in the mid-1970s and highlighted the antics of the militant women at a London textile firm. These characters were forever clashing with management, endlessly threatening to down tools and head for the picket line. The show's catchphrase, delivered by Miriam Karlin's shop steward, was "Everybody out!"
Coincidentally, it is the same battle cry employed by Rita O'Grady (Sally Hawkins), the firebrand hero of Made in Dagenham, which premiered in London last night, suggesting that this fact-based film is informed as much by comedies about trade union disputes as by the disputes themselves. And so it proves.
The film pays loving tribute to the striking machinists at Ford's motor plant via the...
Audiences of a certain age may recall a British sitcom called The Rag Trade, which ran for a few years in the mid-1970s and highlighted the antics of the militant women at a London textile firm. These characters were forever clashing with management, endlessly threatening to down tools and head for the picket line. The show's catchphrase, delivered by Miriam Karlin's shop steward, was "Everybody out!"
Coincidentally, it is the same battle cry employed by Rita O'Grady (Sally Hawkins), the firebrand hero of Made in Dagenham, which premiered in London last night, suggesting that this fact-based film is informed as much by comedies about trade union disputes as by the disputes themselves. And so it proves.
The film pays loving tribute to the striking machinists at Ford's motor plant via the...
- 9/21/2010
- by Xan Brooks
- The Guardian - Film News
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