According to its director, this film is lost.
Presumably it was never bought for television and so disappeared when Border Film Productions stopped making films sometime in the 70s.
Michael Winner (yes, that one) claimed on a recent BBC4 documentary that his second opus, a musical called "Climb Up The Wall", was also lost. Intriguingly, a review on this very site by one Sylvester (the cat?) claims "The Clock Strikes Eight" as Winner's second film. It's described as "a very routine murder mystery", but it's hard to tell whether he's actually seen it. Silly cat.
In "Truly Madly Cheaply: British B Movies", Matthew Sweet made the point that while a lot of British black and white B films are cráp (I agree) they offer perhaps a more realistic representation of Britain in the 50s/ early 60s than many big budget films did. In mentioning the important part these films played in our parent's and grandparent's cinema experience (a regular, fleapit experience rather than some rare multiplex treat) Sweet neglected to explore the impact these films had when shown as afternoon matinees in the 80s. Quite often, with the BBC showing the Test card, in the gap between "Pebble Mill" and "Jackanory" - and BBC2/ Channel 4 either broadcasting schools TV or nothing at all - these British B films were the only things on in the afternoon. Imagine that, kids! And what a bizarre contrast 50s Britain, with its pipe smoking police detectives and cut glass speech, formed with life in Thatcher's Britain and more especially for single mums, the unemployed or school kids bunking off school, who had nothing better to do with their afternoons than watch these strange, black and white representations of a lost world.
Presumably it was never bought for television and so disappeared when Border Film Productions stopped making films sometime in the 70s.
Michael Winner (yes, that one) claimed on a recent BBC4 documentary that his second opus, a musical called "Climb Up The Wall", was also lost. Intriguingly, a review on this very site by one Sylvester (the cat?) claims "The Clock Strikes Eight" as Winner's second film. It's described as "a very routine murder mystery", but it's hard to tell whether he's actually seen it. Silly cat.
In "Truly Madly Cheaply: British B Movies", Matthew Sweet made the point that while a lot of British black and white B films are cráp (I agree) they offer perhaps a more realistic representation of Britain in the 50s/ early 60s than many big budget films did. In mentioning the important part these films played in our parent's and grandparent's cinema experience (a regular, fleapit experience rather than some rare multiplex treat) Sweet neglected to explore the impact these films had when shown as afternoon matinees in the 80s. Quite often, with the BBC showing the Test card, in the gap between "Pebble Mill" and "Jackanory" - and BBC2/ Channel 4 either broadcasting schools TV or nothing at all - these British B films were the only things on in the afternoon. Imagine that, kids! And what a bizarre contrast 50s Britain, with its pipe smoking police detectives and cut glass speech, formed with life in Thatcher's Britain and more especially for single mums, the unemployed or school kids bunking off school, who had nothing better to do with their afternoons than watch these strange, black and white representations of a lost world.
