Silver Sirens

What’s On

Screenings of classic films on UK television and at the BFI cinema

Today

What a Carve Up! (1961)
1 1 1

A madman fakes his own death in order to murder his relatives.

Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope (1977)
1 1 1 1 1

A rebel princess in a distant galaxy escapes, and with the help of her robots and a young farmer overcomes the threatening forces of evil.

Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
1 1 1 1

The Rebel Alliance takes refuge from Darth Vader on a frozen planet.

The Guns of Navarone (1961)
1 1 1 1

In 1943, a sabotage team is sent to destroy two giant guns on a Turkish island.

Hobson’s Choice (1954)
1 1 1 1

In the 1890s a tyrannical Lancashire bootmaker is brought to heel by his plain-speaking daughter and her simple-minded husband.

There Is Another Sun (1951)
1 1

A fairground wall of death rider turns to crime.

Tomorrow

The Last Curtain (1937)
1 1

An insurance investigator tracks a series of robberies to a gang who are hiding the stolen jewels in the produce of a bakery.

The Saint (1968)

Zulu (1964)
1 1 1

In 1879 British soldiers stand fast against the Zulus at Rorke’s Drift.

Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope (1977)
1 1 1 1 1

A rebel princess in a distant galaxy escapes, and with the help of her robots and a young farmer overcomes the threatening forces of evil.

Northanger Abbey

Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
1 1 1 1

The Rebel Alliance takes refuge from Darth Vader on a frozen planet.

The Final Test (1953)

The Jazz Singer (1980)
1 1

Oddly timed reprise of The Jazz Singer, with doting mother replaced by patient wife.

Albert, RN (1953)
1 1 1 1

Prisoners of war construct a lifelike dummy to cover the absence of escaping prisoners.

Dick Powell Theatre

Monday, 26th June

Rebecca (1940)

The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)
1 1 1 1 1

British POWs in Burma are employed by the Japanese to build a bridge; meanwhile British agents seek to destroy it.

Curse of the Pink Panther (1983)
1

Inspector Clouseau has disappeared, and Dreyfus selects the world’s worst detective to replace him.

The Rogues

The Saint (1968)

An Affair to Remember (1957)
1 1 1 1

An ex-nightclub singer falls in love with a wealthy bachelor on a transatlantic liner, but an accident prevents her from attending their subsequent rendezvous.

The Great Escape (1963)
1 1 1 1

Allied prisoners plan to escape from a German prison camp.

Brideshead Revisited

Double Confession (1950)

At a seaside resort, a man finds his wife dead and tries to frame her lover, but becomes confused with two real murders with a different purpose.

Raise the Titanic (1980)
1 1

Assorted Americans try to recover rare minerals from the wreck of the ship that sank in the North Atlantic in 1912.

Persecution (1974)
1 1

A rich American woman in England is hated by her son and fearful that her murky past will be revealed.

Tuesday, 27th June

Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
1 1 1 1 1

An adventurer’s life with the Arabs, told in flashbacks after his accidental death in the thirties.

The Rogues

Where There’s a Will (1955)
1 1 1

A London family inherits a dilapidated Devon farm and makes a go of it.

The Ladykillers (1955)
1 1 1 1

An old lady takes in a sinister lodger, who with his four friends commits a robbery. When she finds out, they plot to kill her, but are hoist with their own petards.

Alcoa Theatre (1958)

Jassy (1947)
1 1 1

A gypsy servant girl falls in love with her master but is accused of murder.

Wednesday, 28th June

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954)
1 1 1 1

Victorian scientists at sea are wrecked and captured by the mysterious captain of a futuristic submarine.

London Town (1946)
1 1 1

An understudy finally achieves stardom thanks to his daughter’s schemes.

The Rogues

The Navy Lark

Those People Next Door (1953)
1 1

A young man’s titled parents object to his working-class fiancé.

The Great Escape (1963)
1 1 1 1

Allied prisoners plan to escape from a German prison camp.

Mary, Queen of Scots (1971)
1 1 1

The story of Mary Stuart’s opposition to Elizabeth I, her imprisonment and execution.

Folly to Be Wise (1952)
1 1 1

A brains trust at an army unit sets off a battle of the sexes.

Reach for the Sky (1956)
1 1 1

Douglas Bader loses both legs in a 1931 air crash, learns to walk on artificial limbs and flies again in World War II.

Salome (1953)
1 1 1 1

Princess Salome of Galilee eludes her licentious stepfather, falls in love with a secret Christian and leaves home when her dancing fails to save the life of John the Baptist.

Thursday, 29th June

Shadowlands (1993)
1 1 1 1

The emotionally repressed C S Lewis, Oxford don and famous writer of children’s books and works of popular theology, enters into a marriage of convenience with an American woman, whom he grows to love, only to learn that she has terminal cancer.

Beauty and the Barge (1937)
1 1

A woman is taken in by a barge skipper, to the fury of the widow he is courting.

The Rogues

The Shining (1980)
1 1 1

Under the influence of a desolate hotel where murders had occurred, a caretaker goes berserk and threatens his family.

Scarlet Thread (1951)
1 1

Jewel thieves take refuge in a Cambridge college.

Bonnie Prince Charlie (1948)
1 1

The hope of the Stuarts returns from exile but is eventually forced to flee again.

Beautiful But Dangerous (1954)
1 1 1

An heiress returns to the town of her childhood to distribute anonymous gifts to those who helped her.

A Bridge Too Far (1977)
1 1 1 1

The story of the Allied defeat at Arnhem in 1944.

Appointment in London (1953)
1 1 1

The exploits of a squadron of Bomber Command during one month in 1943.

It’s Great to Be Young! (1956)
1 1 1

A popular teacher falls foul of the new headmaster who tries to disband the school orchestra.

Alcoa Theatre (1958)

The Avengers (1965)

Friday, 30th June

The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)
1 1 1 1 1

British POWs in Burma are employed by the Japanese to build a bridge; meanwhile British agents seek to destroy it.

Heaven Knows, Mr Allison (1957)
1 1 1

Marooned on a small Pacific island during World War II, a marine and a nun, antagonistic to each other, combine to outwit the Japanese.

An Affair to Remember (1957)
1 1 1 1

An ex-nightclub singer falls in love with a wealthy bachelor on a transatlantic liner, but an accident prevents her from attending their subsequent rendezvous.

The Rogues

Murder at 3am (1953)
1 1

A police detective suspects that his sister’s boyfriend is a murderer.

Spartacus (1960)
1 1 1 1

The slaves of ancient Rome revolt and are quashed.

The Guns of Navarone (1961)
1 1 1 1

In 1943, a sabotage team is sent to destroy two giant guns on a Turkish island.

Chance of a Lifetime (1950)
1 1 1

The owner of a small engineering works, impatient with the unionism of his men, gives them a chance to run the factory themselves.

Alcoa Theatre (1958)

The Beachcomber (1954)
1 1 1

An alcoholic ne’er-do-well in the Dutch East Indies reforms after an unexpected adventure with a lady missionary.

The Bed Sitting Room (1969)

Saturday, 1st July

The Guns of Navarone (1961)
1 1 1 1

In 1943, a sabotage team is sent to destroy two giant guns on a Turkish island.

House Broken

Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
1 1 1 1 1

An adventurer’s life with the Arabs, told in flashbacks after his accidental death in the thirties.

Once a Sinner

Romeo and Juliet (1954)
1 1

In Shakespeare's classic play, two families of Renaissance Italy, the Montagues and Capulets, have hated each other for years, but the son of one family and the daughter of the other fall desperately in love and secretly marry.

The Bounty (1984)
1 1 1

William Bligh is summoned before a court martial to explain the events leading up to the famous mutiny.

Dulcima (1971)
1 1

A farmer’s daughter reluctantly moves in with a persistent, lecherous old miser.

Acknowledgements

Programme and film information obtained with thanks from myDigiGuide and BFI.