From Carry On to Casualty, House to Halloween II, fictional hospitals shine a healthy light on understaffing, overworking, malpractice and, yes, pandemics
“I’m not going in there. It’s full of sick people; I’ll catch something,” says an injured boxer admitted to hospital at the start of Carry On Nurse (1959). It’s a gag that takes on an ominous topicality at a time when hospitals are perceived as such perilous places that even sick people have been trying to avoid them, and where inadequately protected hospital staff are as much at risk from the Covid-19 pandemic as their patients.
It’s not supposed to be like this, according to decades of films and TV soaps in which doctors and nurses are more at risk of broken hearts than broken healthcare systems, and even these can be fixed. George C Scott as Dr Bock in The Hospital (1971) is impotent,...
“I’m not going in there. It’s full of sick people; I’ll catch something,” says an injured boxer admitted to hospital at the start of Carry On Nurse (1959). It’s a gag that takes on an ominous topicality at a time when hospitals are perceived as such perilous places that even sick people have been trying to avoid them, and where inadequately protected hospital staff are as much at risk from the Covid-19 pandemic as their patients.
It’s not supposed to be like this, according to decades of films and TV soaps in which doctors and nurses are more at risk of broken hearts than broken healthcare systems, and even these can be fixed. George C Scott as Dr Bock in The Hospital (1971) is impotent,...
- 6/25/2020
- by Anne Billson
- The Guardian - Film News
Decades of rainy-Sunday screenings have blinded us to the true nature of postwar British cinema – freedom, naughtiness and a very black humour indeed
It begins with a parrot and a gaucho band. We're in South America – or a tiny patch of it, conjured some 60 years ago on a sound stage in London. The customers wear fur wraps and hair cream. The Atlantic stands, suspiciously immobile, beyond the window. And here is Alec Guinness, a British robber in rich retirement, sitting at a table, grinning a complacent grin and declaring his attachment to the Latin high life in that thin, high, gurgling voice. He is a prototypical Ronnie Biggs – and he's prepared to put his money where his mouth is.
When a conspicuously privileged middle-aged woman stops to talk, Guinness presses a roll of banknotes into her outstretched hands – a donation for the "victims of the revolution". A waiter receives a similarly thick wad of beneficence.
It begins with a parrot and a gaucho band. We're in South America – or a tiny patch of it, conjured some 60 years ago on a sound stage in London. The customers wear fur wraps and hair cream. The Atlantic stands, suspiciously immobile, beyond the window. And here is Alec Guinness, a British robber in rich retirement, sitting at a table, grinning a complacent grin and declaring his attachment to the Latin high life in that thin, high, gurgling voice. He is a prototypical Ronnie Biggs – and he's prepared to put his money where his mouth is.
When a conspicuously privileged middle-aged woman stops to talk, Guinness presses a roll of banknotes into her outstretched hands – a donation for the "victims of the revolution". A waiter receives a similarly thick wad of beneficence.
- 7/21/2011
- by Matthew Sweet
- The Guardian - Film News
Distinctive, durable British character actor on stage and screen
Terence Longdon, who has died of cancer aged 88, was a character actor whose parted hair and thick-set face – though not his name – were familiar for several decades. Only once did he step into the spotlight at the top of the bill, when he starred as the title character in the television series Garry Halliday (1959-62). The almost-forgotten BBC children's adventure programme, based on books by Justin Blake, perfectly fitted Longdon's educated, smooth, well-mannered persona – and a man who had flown with the Fleet Air Arm during the second world war. The actor played a Biggles-like commercial airline pilot, with Terence Alexander as his co-pilot, Bill Dodds. Posing a constant threat to the Halliday Charter Company was "The Voice", an arch-villain who sat behind a two-way mirror and shone a light into the faces of his gang members, keeping his own in darkness.
Terence Longdon, who has died of cancer aged 88, was a character actor whose parted hair and thick-set face – though not his name – were familiar for several decades. Only once did he step into the spotlight at the top of the bill, when he starred as the title character in the television series Garry Halliday (1959-62). The almost-forgotten BBC children's adventure programme, based on books by Justin Blake, perfectly fitted Longdon's educated, smooth, well-mannered persona – and a man who had flown with the Fleet Air Arm during the second world war. The actor played a Biggles-like commercial airline pilot, with Terence Alexander as his co-pilot, Bill Dodds. Posing a constant threat to the Halliday Charter Company was "The Voice", an arch-villain who sat behind a two-way mirror and shone a light into the faces of his gang members, keeping his own in darkness.
- 6/13/2011
- by Anthony Hayward
- The Guardian - Film News
It seems oddly fitting a movie ostensibly about mental illness should be one of the most schizophrenic releases of the past decade. Sadly this isn't meant as a compliment. Perhaps The Double Life's spastic tonal shifts, disconnected editing and its cast who seem as if they're acting in four or five different films each were intentional stylistic choices on the part of director Ning Ying (Perpetual Motion), but for the most part they're good for little more than (unintentional) hysterical laughter.
The narrative attempts to weave together two simultaneous plot threads; first a charismatic university lecturer in psychology, under pressure from his dean to curb his cavalier approach to education, has himself committed to an institution. Second, a security guard at that same institution discovers his ex-wife has also just been admitted as a patient (Zhang Jingchu, Beast Stalker, The Road, Jade Warrior, who can charitably be described as slumming...
The narrative attempts to weave together two simultaneous plot threads; first a charismatic university lecturer in psychology, under pressure from his dean to curb his cavalier approach to education, has himself committed to an institution. Second, a security guard at that same institution discovers his ex-wife has also just been admitted as a patient (Zhang Jingchu, Beast Stalker, The Road, Jade Warrior, who can charitably be described as slumming...
- 5/25/2010
- Screen Anarchy
Peter Rogers, the producer and creator of the much-loved Carry On… series of films, has died. He was 95.Rogers, who died at his home in Buckinghamshire on Tuesday, following a short illness, was the brains behind all 31 instalments of the hugely popular British comedy franchise, from Carry On Sergeant in 1958, right through to the final Carry On, 1992’s Carry On Columbus, which he executive produced.Rogers, who was born on February 20, 1914, started his career as a journalist, before becoming a screenwriter for J. Arthur Rank. From there, he quickly moved into producing, turning a serious script called The Bull Boys into a jolly comedy called Carry On Sergeant, which starred a young Bob Monkhouse and Carry On regulars Kenneth Williams, Kenneth Connor and Charles Hawtrey.Critically derided, the film was nonetheless a success, and so Rogers started work on Carry On Nurse almost immediately. From there, an increasingly risqué and ribald formula was created,...
- 4/16/2009
- EmpireOnline
By Wrap Staff
Peter Rogers, producer of the popular British "Carry On" films, has died. He was 95.
Rogers died Tuesday at his home in Gerrards Cross, northwest of London.
He produced all 31 of the innuendo-laden "Carry On" films, beginning with "Carry On Sergeant" in 1958 and including "Carry On Nurse" and "Carry On Doctor," which featured leering references to breasts and bottoms. He continued at Pinewood Studios until early this y...
Peter Rogers, producer of the popular British "Carry On" films, has died. He was 95.
Rogers died Tuesday at his home in Gerrards Cross, northwest of London.
He produced all 31 of the innuendo-laden "Carry On" films, beginning with "Carry On Sergeant" in 1958 and including "Carry On Nurse" and "Carry On Doctor," which featured leering references to breasts and bottoms. He continued at Pinewood Studios until early this y...
- 4/16/2009
- by harley lond
- The Wrap
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