BFI Flipside: Seedy, sleazy and ignored British cinema!
BFI is restoring and making available lots of overlooked British films. The Flipside series contains mainly films from the sixties and the seventies. Most of the films were ignored by the general public at the time of their release. They are also seedy, sleazy, and certainly not to everyone's taste. All Flipside releases comes with several short films, documentaries, and even feature films as bonuses, which also are included in this list. There are some arthouse, some science fiction, some flipside sexuality to experience, but also interesting music from the time the films were made. Lots of "Zeit-Geist"!
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- DirectorRichard LesterStarsRita TushinghamRalph RichardsonPeter CookIn post-nuclear-holocaust England, a handful of bizarre characters struggles on with their lives in the ruins, among endless heaps of ash, piles of broken crockery and brick, muddy plains, and heaps of dentures and old boots. Patriotically singing "God Save Mrs. Ethel Shroake, Long Live Mrs. Ethel Shroake", they wander through this surrealistic landscape, forever being warned by the police to "keep moving", and prone to the occasional mutation into a parrot, cupboard, or even--yes, a bed-sitting room with "No Wogs" scrawled in the grime on its windows. In particular, this story revolves around the odd "love story" of a girl who lives with her parents in one compartment of a London Underground train, the commuter in the next compartment, and the doctor they meet after returning above ground in search of a nurse for the heavily-pregnant girl.
- DirectorArnold L. MillerNorman CohenStarsDavid GellCaron GardnerNoel Harrison"The world's greatest city laid bare!", roars the tagline to LONDON IN THE RAW (1964), a salacious documentary that tours the strip-clubs and underground dives of the still-swinging city.British, low-budget, exploitation documentary, presenting some of what went on in 1960's London. Colour. Apparently two versions exist, one 45 and one 74 minutes. Stanley A Long is director of photography. In the Blue Angel club, Joy Marshall sings "Bill Bailey" and "Forbidden Fruit".
- DirectorPeter DavisStaffan LammA documentary about the riders who belong to a British motorcycle club. Included are interviews with both male and female bikers.Black and white documentary with interviews with several bikers and girls. 30 minutes.
- DirectorPeter DavisDon De FinaStaffan LammExcellent fly on the wall documentary about a strip club and its girls made at around the start of 'The Sexual Revolution' of the mid sixties. The film neither glamorizes nor sullies what it captures which is a interesting moment in time.Black and white documentary with interviews, from Soho strip club The Phoenix, Old Compton Street, in London. 25 minutes.
- DirectorPeter DavisPub was filmed at the Approach Tavern on Approach Road, leading up to Victoria Park in East London. It was made for Swedish television to give an impression of a typical working-class British pub.Black and white documentation of the inside of The Approach Tavern, Approach Road, in East London. 15 minutes. The film is shot in 16mm, and actually from 1962.
- DirectorArnold L. MillerStarsDavid GellMacDonald HobleyBilly J. KramerExploitation film documentary on 'Swinging London' as it actually happened. Arnold Louis Miller, the director of 'Nudist Memories', interviews mods, rockers and beatniks. Wife Swapping, an overworked stripper, child birth, the killing of chickens and an interview with Billy J. Kramer also feature.
- DirectorJohn IrvinStarsKaty JordanTina SamuelsJulie LesterA controversial documentary studying the lives of three London strippers and their costume designer.
- DirectorDon LevyStarsMichael GothardGabriella LicudiPeter StephensWhen young poet Max (Michael Gothard) hires a marketing company to turn his suicide-by-jumping into a mass-media spectacle, he finds that his subversive intentions are quickly diluted into a reactionary gesture, and his motivations are revealed as a desperate attempt to seek attention through celebrity.
- DirectorDon LevyStarsDavid CohenPeter CookAlan DaichesAn expose of the pretensions and perversions of British academia.
- DirectorDon LevyProduced by the Nuffiled Foundation of Unit for the History of ideas, Time Is, directed by Don Levy (Herostratus), is an experimental collage film looking at the scientific problems connected with the nature of time. Alternating between original and `found' footage such as newsreels, sports footage, nature photography, the film uses a number of techniques including slow motion, time-lapse and single-frame filming, negative imagery and juxtaposition.
- DirectorDon LevyPUNULSE emphasises the interconnection of images through movement. - Punulse intoxicatingly links disassociated images through movement and demonstrates Levy's considerable skill as an editor.
- DirectorDon LevyStarsPeter WhiteheadMalaise cross-cuts imagery to a reverberated voice-over, both of which have a semi-abstract, cut-up feel
- DirectorDon Levyin Catharsis a jump-cut image of a cricketer in solarised slow motion is punctuated by flash frames and rising reversed piano notes.
- DirectorDon LevyStarsMargaret Robertsonin The Point of Noon images are rapidly cut to match the delivery of Margaret Robertson's voice-over.
- DirectorDon LevyIn Black Ice a similar voice-over is drowned out by that of the man who reads the title (there is no textual introduction and the film seems almost to flow on from the previous one) while a black screen is punctuated by semi-abstract imagery.
- DirectorGerry O'HaraStarsTom BellJudy CarneEdward HigginsA married theatre lighting technician with two small children has an affair with a teenage actress.
- DirectorGerry O'HaraStarsDorothy TutinAnn LynnTom BellA spy and his wife simultaneously attempt adultery.
- DirectorPete WalkerStarsMichael LatimerLuan PetersDerek AylwardA mercenary joins forces with 2 crooked cops in an attempt to steal a fortune in gold bullion from a corrupt Arab country.Very speculative violence and nudity in this gritty british clubland thriller with gangster and spy connections. Michael Latimer is Moon, the man of violence. I believe The Wallace Collection is the band that plays in a gay-club.
- DirectorPete WalkerStarsSebastian BreaksVirginia WetherellJack AllenPlayboy John Carter is implicated in the murder of a blonde from a discotheque and is forced by gangsters into posing for pornographic photographs.This Pete Walker film has less graphic violence but is very exploitative with nudity. Seems like the export-edition is about ten minutes longer. Somewhat british gangster melodrama with a shoot-out at a ghost-train in an amusement park on a pier in Brighton.
There is also a good (unidentified) progressive rockband playing in a club right at the beginning of the film. 67 minutes. - DirectorPeter WatkinsStarsPaul JonesJean ShrimptonMark LondonBritain's biggest pop singer, Steven Shorter (Paul Jones), receives unwavering adulation and possesses total control over his rabid fans, which includes nearly the entire population. Yet Shorter is not an autonomous performer -- he is little more than a puppet for the government, promoting whatever agenda they see fit. When a beautiful artist, Vanessa Ritchie (Jean Shrimpton), is commissioned to paint his portrait, she pushes Shorter to question his obedience to his manipulative handlers.
- DirectorPeter WatkinsStarsBrian RobertsonPeter WatkinsA short story narrated by an unknown British soldier who reveals his hopes, fears, and disillusionment while heading into battle against the German army.
- DirectorPeter WatkinsStarsMichael RoyJohn NewingStan MercerAn amateur short film which retells the Hungarian revolution of 1956.
- DirectorGerry O'HaraStarsMargaret Rose KeilLinda MarloweDavid WestonLondon is in full '60s swing in "That Kind of Girl," a shamelessly entertaining exploitation film that revels in sexual titillation while moralizing about the dangers of STDs.
- DirectorJ.B. HolmesStarsDesmond CarringtonMargery FleesonTilsa PageIn this dramatised documentary about venereal disease, pregnant Joan realises that she has syphilis and must confront her husband Ken with this fact.
- DirectorDerrick KnightScenes from the march to Aldermaston in 1959. Snapshots of everyday scenes from people's lives, Easter 1959, compared with elements of hydrogen bomb and the products of testing. The March to Aldermaston - marchers on the road, breaks by roadside, camping. The marchers in Kensington going past the Ideal Home Exhibition, entering Trafalgar Square on Easter Monday.