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
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
British TV writer Ronnie Wolfe has died after falling down a flight of stairs at his home in London. He was 89.
Wolfe took a tumble on Thursday, hitting his head, and he lost his fight for life on Sunday, according to his son-in-law Arif Hussein.
The writer is best known for his work on popular 1960s U.K. TV sitcom On The Buses, which ran for four years until 1973.
Wolfe created several other comedies, including 1970s BBC show The Rag Trade, with writing partner Ronald Chesney, who has paid tribute to his pal.
He says, "We were together 50 years - it's like losing my brother."
Wolfe's wife Rose adds, "It has been a really, really sad last few days and a quite horrendous and totally unexpectedly sad end for a guy who was so funny in life. He was the most incredible husband and we had 58 years of superb marriage harmony."...
Wolfe took a tumble on Thursday, hitting his head, and he lost his fight for life on Sunday, according to his son-in-law Arif Hussein.
The writer is best known for his work on popular 1960s U.K. TV sitcom On The Buses, which ran for four years until 1973.
Wolfe created several other comedies, including 1970s BBC show The Rag Trade, with writing partner Ronald Chesney, who has paid tribute to his pal.
He says, "We were together 50 years - it's like losing my brother."
Wolfe's wife Rose adds, "It has been a really, really sad last few days and a quite horrendous and totally unexpectedly sad end for a guy who was so funny in life. He was the most incredible husband and we had 58 years of superb marriage harmony."...
- 12/19/2011
- WENN
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
Hancock given lifetime achievement award at Women in Film and TV Awards, hosted by Julie Walters
Sheila Hancock was "full of wonderment" as she accepted a lifetime achievement award at the Women in Film and TV Awards today.
Hancock, 77, who first made her name almost 50 years ago in the BBC sitcom The Rag Trade, told the specially invited audience she thought she "was not the sort of person" who wins prizes.
Hancock said: "I remember being at the Bafta awards once and I was nominated and I didn't win the bloody thing and Thora Hird came up to me and said: 'Don't worry love, just hang on until you're 70.' Maybe that's what's happened." Hancock, whose account of her marriage to Inspector Morse star John Thaw was a bestseller, also paid tribute to her daughters.
She said: "I've been married to two mad, bad, dangerous-to-know men and it was good.
Sheila Hancock was "full of wonderment" as she accepted a lifetime achievement award at the Women in Film and TV Awards today.
Hancock, 77, who first made her name almost 50 years ago in the BBC sitcom The Rag Trade, told the specially invited audience she thought she "was not the sort of person" who wins prizes.
Hancock said: "I remember being at the Bafta awards once and I was nominated and I didn't win the bloody thing and Thora Hird came up to me and said: 'Don't worry love, just hang on until you're 70.' Maybe that's what's happened." Hancock, whose account of her marriage to Inspector Morse star John Thaw was a bestseller, also paid tribute to her daughters.
She said: "I've been married to two mad, bad, dangerous-to-know men and it was good.
- 12/4/2010
- The Guardian - Film News
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
Beloved British TV star Reg Varney has died aged 92.
Varney, best known for his role as cheeky bus driver Stan Butler in classic comedy On The Buses, passed away of natural causes at a retirement home in Devon, England.
According to his daughter, Jeanne Marley, the actor died peacefully.
Born in east London in 1916, Varney served in World War II as an engineer and began his career as a performer, entertaining the troops.
His first U.K. TV performance was in the BBC show The Rag Trade, before landing his most famous role in the On The Buses in 1969. The show ran until 1973.
After the show, the actor appeared reprised his role in a stage adaptation of the hit series in a theatre tour of Australia, before performing his own cabaret show The Other Reg Varney in the U.K., Australia and Canada.
His wife, Lilian Emma Varney, died in 2002. He is survived by a daughter.
Varney, best known for his role as cheeky bus driver Stan Butler in classic comedy On The Buses, passed away of natural causes at a retirement home in Devon, England.
According to his daughter, Jeanne Marley, the actor died peacefully.
Born in east London in 1916, Varney served in World War II as an engineer and began his career as a performer, entertaining the troops.
His first U.K. TV performance was in the BBC show The Rag Trade, before landing his most famous role in the On The Buses in 1969. The show ran until 1973.
After the show, the actor appeared reprised his role in a stage adaptation of the hit series in a theatre tour of Australia, before performing his own cabaret show The Other Reg Varney in the U.K., Australia and Canada.
His wife, Lilian Emma Varney, died in 2002. He is survived by a daughter.
- 11/17/2008
- WENN
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