Talking Meme #2
For the Talking Meme, from 
moetushie: The one old show (or movie) that you wish everyone would watch, and why.
I don't think there's anything everyone should watch (or read, or anything), because nothing's for everyone, and most certainly not when it comes to dodgy old British TV. And if I think about this, I could say Adam Adamant Lives! because we all need something cheerful in our lives right now, or any number of other things for lots of different reasons. But if I don't stop to think and go with gut instinct there's only ever one answer out of all the things I've watched, old and new, and I still can't justify it, but that is:
Public Eye (ITV 1965-1975)
“You’ve heard of old heads on young shoulders? Well, you employ me, you get an old head. You get old shoulders, too, but no one’s perfect.”
And then I'd instantly follow it with the rider that you shouldn't, because you won't like it and that would be awful yet inevitable. (Except a few of you versed in old TV maybe.) I wrote this as an introduction when I'd first watched it and was completely addicted to it.
So, I stopped and tried to understand myself and maybe what it is, is that I think people should watch Public Eye (even though they really shouldn't because they won't like it) because:
1. so they can stop and think hard and go away and make a Public Eye for their own time and place. (A show without any real formula, that can be as mundane as it wishes, as grim and bleak or as quirky and small-time, and utterly committed to showing how extraordinary the ordinary can be, and that is angry and despairing and critical and hopeful by turns and tunnels its way into all the cracks of society, and at least feels as if it's coming from ground-level.) People ought to know that it can be possible.
2. Alfred Burke, because he is amazing. (I still find it hard to believe that he is dead. This is totally wrong, universe, even if he died in 2011 aged 92 after a long life, rounded off with well-deserved and unexpected success. Still).
3. If you have any interest in more recent UK social history, this is an utterly fascinating source, albeit fictional, of course. (My favourite was the milk carton dispensing machine. I had no idea.)
(4. Also Mrs Mortimer because she is my darling, but YMMV. My parents loved her too, though. And love via a broken mug.)
This is Frank (from very near the end of the series)
I once made a list of recommended episodes. The links are now dead, but the eps are all still up, and you can find them here, and probably just by searching YT.)
I also once tried to express all of this in a fanvid. (I don't think I did too badly.)
Finally, have the theme in both original flavour and Series 4 moodiness.
Probably really, though, people who don't mind this kind of old telly should just all go watch Adam Adamant Lives! right now because it is the most adorable and cheerful thing about an Edwardian adventurer out of time and fighting improbable evils and then you can also all write fic, thank you, that will be lovely. (Just skip ep3 and the second half of ep 5; there are reasons why most people don't watch old telly, of course. Plenty of 'em! /o\)
If I turn to film instead, then there's also only one answer out of my old-time viewing, which is (also predictably) The Lady Vanishes (1938; directed by Alfred Hitchcock), which you'd surely have to be pretty pernickitty not to like even a little bit. Shenanigans on trains with bonus rabbits and magic tricks and battles and lady-spies and fake nuns and Margaret Lockwood, Michael Redgrave and Dame May Witty. Oh, and those two guys who only wanted to get get to the cricket match, dammit. They so did not ask for this!
(That wasn't quite in one, was it? I still managed to cheat a bit.)
Crossposted from Dreamwidth. Please click through to comment. -- Current comments:
moetushie: The one old show (or movie) that you wish everyone would watch, and why.
I don't think there's anything everyone should watch (or read, or anything), because nothing's for everyone, and most certainly not when it comes to dodgy old British TV. And if I think about this, I could say Adam Adamant Lives! because we all need something cheerful in our lives right now, or any number of other things for lots of different reasons. But if I don't stop to think and go with gut instinct there's only ever one answer out of all the things I've watched, old and new, and I still can't justify it, but that is:
Public Eye (ITV 1965-1975)
“You’ve heard of old heads on young shoulders? Well, you employ me, you get an old head. You get old shoulders, too, but no one’s perfect.”
And then I'd instantly follow it with the rider that you shouldn't, because you won't like it and that would be awful yet inevitable. (Except a few of you versed in old TV maybe.) I wrote this as an introduction when I'd first watched it and was completely addicted to it.
So, I stopped and tried to understand myself and maybe what it is, is that I think people should watch Public Eye (even though they really shouldn't because they won't like it) because:
1. so they can stop and think hard and go away and make a Public Eye for their own time and place. (A show without any real formula, that can be as mundane as it wishes, as grim and bleak or as quirky and small-time, and utterly committed to showing how extraordinary the ordinary can be, and that is angry and despairing and critical and hopeful by turns and tunnels its way into all the cracks of society, and at least feels as if it's coming from ground-level.) People ought to know that it can be possible.
2. Alfred Burke, because he is amazing. (I still find it hard to believe that he is dead. This is totally wrong, universe, even if he died in 2011 aged 92 after a long life, rounded off with well-deserved and unexpected success. Still).
3. If you have any interest in more recent UK social history, this is an utterly fascinating source, albeit fictional, of course. (My favourite was the milk carton dispensing machine. I had no idea.)
(4. Also Mrs Mortimer because she is my darling, but YMMV. My parents loved her too, though. And love via a broken mug.)
This is Frank (from very near the end of the series)
I once made a list of recommended episodes. The links are now dead, but the eps are all still up, and you can find them here, and probably just by searching YT.)
I also once tried to express all of this in a fanvid. (I don't think I did too badly.)
Finally, have the theme in both original flavour and Series 4 moodiness.
Probably really, though, people who don't mind this kind of old telly should just all go watch Adam Adamant Lives! right now because it is the most adorable and cheerful thing about an Edwardian adventurer out of time and fighting improbable evils and then you can also all write fic, thank you, that will be lovely. (Just skip ep3 and the second half of ep 5; there are reasons why most people don't watch old telly, of course. Plenty of 'em! /o\)
If I turn to film instead, then there's also only one answer out of my old-time viewing, which is (also predictably) The Lady Vanishes (1938; directed by Alfred Hitchcock), which you'd surely have to be pretty pernickitty not to like even a little bit. Shenanigans on trains with bonus rabbits and magic tricks and battles and lady-spies and fake nuns and Margaret Lockwood, Michael Redgrave and Dame May Witty. Oh, and those two guys who only wanted to get get to the cricket match, dammit. They so did not ask for this!
(That wasn't quite in one, was it? I still managed to cheat a bit.)
Crossposted from Dreamwidth. Please click through to comment. -- Current comments: