Summer of British Film: Romance

Having raved about the BBC’s Summer of British Film and then previewed some of the thrillers this week, I suppose I am duty bound to look at some of next week’s romances. And to do so in good time, as they start tomorrow.

And what a wonderful selection it is! There are wonderful films like "I Know Where I’m Going" , Whistle Down the Wind and dear old Brief Encounter. More enjoyment from The Red Shoes and Gregory’s Girl, and two interesting films that I have not seen before: The Leather Boys and The Pumpkin Eater.

And more besides. You can find the full programme for the coming week on the BBC website.

But let me be cussed and write at more length about one of the lesser films: Sky West and Crooked. If nothing else, it holds interest as the only film directed by John Mills.

In many ways it is an attempt to recreate the success of Whistle Down the Wind, but here the chorus of West Country village children, with their concerns with death and resurrection, fail to ring true. Somehow, the austerity, the monochrome and remote Northernness of that film made the children’s belief that their criminal on the run was Christ credible.

The problem with this film is that one is unsure how old Hayley Mills is meant to be. She started playing a tomboy in Tiger Bay (also being shown this week) and went on to act in several films for Disney. She was a very virginal teenager in that post-Elvis, pre-Beatles era when teenagers had not fully been invented. On top of that, she was generally a couple of years older than the characters she played.

The result was that a couple of generations of English youths were unsure whether they wanted to climb trees with Hayley Mills or go to bed with her.

That confusion is accentuated in Sky West and Crooked, where she plays a traumatised teenager who has not grown up - or been allowed to grow up. The result is that one is unsure whether her love affair with a gypsy should be seen as an overdue liberation or make one feel queasy.

But there is much to enjoy in the film, notably a young Ian McShane as Hayley’s gypsy lover and Annette Crosbie (the future Mrs Meldrew) drinking herself to death.

And don't miss the first minute of the film, which in its own way is one of the most horrific scenes I have come across.

Sky West and Crooked is on BBC2 on Sunday 5 August at 11.45 a.m.