Cinema Retro has received the following press release:
This
year the ground-breaking British film company Woodfall Films celebrates its 60th
anniversary. After a popular season at BFI Southbank throughout April, on 11
June 2018 the BFI will release 9-disc Blu-ray and DVD box sets containing some
of Woodfall’s most revered films, many newly
restored. A huge array of special features includes interviews with Rita
Tushingham and Murray Melvin, archive material, shorts from the BFI National
Archive and an 80-page book.
Woodfall revolutionised British cinema during the 1960s with a slate of iconic films. Founded
in 1958 by director Tony Richardson, writer John Osborne and producer Harry Saltzman (James Bond), the
company pioneered the British New Wave, defining an incendiary brand of social realism. Look Back in Anger (Tony Richardson, 1959), and Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (Karel Reisz, 1960) spot-lit working-class life with unheard-of
honesty. The same risk-taking spirit led the company to find a new generation
of brilliant young actors to star in their films, such as Albert Finney, Tom Courtenay and Rita Tushingham. The global
blockbuster Tom Jones (1963) expanded the Woodfall slate in an irreverent,
colourful direction that helped define swinging London
– further securing its extraordinary chapter in the
history of British film.
These box sets
bring together eight of
Woodfall’s early
ground-breaking films, many now newly restored and on Blu-ray for the first
time in the UK. Each set contains:
Look Back in Anger (Tony
Richardson, 1959), starring Richard Burton as a
jazz trumpeter
The Entertainer (Tony Richardson, 1960), which
stars Laurence Olivier as ageing music-hall veteran Archie Rice
Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (Karel Reisz, 1960)
(as previously released by the BFI), starring Albert Finney as factory worker Arthur
Seaton
A Taste of Honey
(Tony Richardson, 1961), legendary
kitchen sink drama focusing on working-class women, with a script by Shelagh
Delaney and Tony Richardson
The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (Tony Richardson, 1962) (as previously released by the BFI) starring Tom Courtenay at Colin
Smith
Tom Jones (Tony Richardson, 1963), (both the original theatrical release and the 1989
Director’s Cut), a raucous
and innovative multi-Oscar-winning adaptation of the classic novel by Henry Fielding
Girl with Green Eyes (Desmond Davis, 1964) with Rita
Tushingham, Lynn Redgrave and Peter Finch in a lively adaptation by Edna O’Brien of her own novel
THE KNACK…and how to get it (Richard Lester, 1965) which won the Palme d’Or at Cannes
Special features
- The Stories that Changed British
Cinema (2018, 47 mins): panel discussion held
at BFI Southbank during April, featuring actors Tom Courtenay, Rita
Tushingham and Joely Richardson, writer Jez Butterworth, journalist Paris
Lees; chaired by the BFI’s Danny Leigh
- Five audio commentaries featuring Alan
Sillitoe, Freddie Francis, Dora Bryan, Rita Tushingham, Murray Melvin, Tom
Courtenay, Adrian Martin and Neil Sinyard
- George Devine Memorial Play: Look Back in Anger, The Entertainer,
Luther, and Exit The King (Peter
Whitehead, 1966, 39 mins): extracts from four plays written by John Osborne
starring Kenneth Haigh, Gary Raymond, Laurence Olivier, Albert Finney and
Alec Guinness
- Oswald
Morris Remembers Woodfall (Alan
Van Wijgerden, 1993, 24 mins): the cinematographer reminisces about his
time with Woodfall
- Ten
Bob in Winter (Lloyd
Reckord, 1963, 12 mins)
- O
Dreamland (Lindsay
Anderson, 1953, 13 mins)
- Seven short films by Mitchell & Kenyon
(13 mins)
- Morecambe
Carnival (1 min): Topical Budget newsreel
- Lancashire
Coast (John
Taylor, 1957, 15 mins)
- The
Guardian Interview: Albert Finney (1982, 35 mins, audio only)
- Interview
with Shirley Anne Field
(2009, 10 mins)
- We
Are the Lambeth Boys (Karel
Reisz, 1959, 51 mins)
- Two video essays by Walter Lassally (2002,
21 & 19 mins)
- A
Taste of Honey 50th Anniversary Q&A with Rita Tushingham, Murray
Melvin and Walter Lassally
(2002, 15 mins)
- Interview
with Murray Melvin
(2018, 25 mins)
- Interviews with Rita Tushingham as she looks
back on her work with Woodfall (2018, 34 mins)
- Holiday (John Taylor, 1957, 18 mins)
- Momma
Don’t Allow (Karel
Reisz and Tony Richardson, 1956, 22 mins)
- Interview
with Vanessa Redgrave
(2017, 10 mins)
- The
USSR Today: Meeting to Mark the 200th Anniversary of Henry Fielding’s
Death (2 mins)
- Walter
Lassally in conversation with Peter Cowie (2018, 25 mins)
- Film
Poetry: Desmond Davis
(2018, 24 mins): a new interview with the director of Girl with Green Eyes
- Food
for a Blluuusssshhhhh! (Elizabeth
Russell, 1959, 31 mins)
- The
Peaches (Michael
Gill, 1964, 16 mins)
- Captain
Busby The Even Tenour of Her Ways (Ann Wolff, 1967, 16 mins)
- Now
and Then: Dick Lester (1967,
17 mins): Richard Lester interviewed by Bernard Braden
- British
Cinema in the 1960s: Richard Lester in Conversation (2017, 59 mins): Richard Lester discusses
his career in film with Neil Sinyard. Recorded at BFI Southbank in 2017
- Staging THE KNACK…and how to get it (2017, 2 mins): short piece with Keith
Johnston, director of the original stage production
- Trailers
- Seven stills galleries
- 80-page illustrated book with essays on all
eight films, further writing exploring the dynamic, look, and music of Woodfall,
plus notes on all the special features.
CLICK HERE TO ORDER FROM AMAZON UK