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Movies on TV (Look Here)

Movies on TV (Look Here) (Look Here)

1 Feb 1981
52m

Programme looking at issues around television, with items on the buying of films for TV, Third World representation on TV, and rock music on TV.

This edition of LWT's monthly programme exploring issues in the world of television includes an item on the history of feature films on TV. Contributors - including then ITV film buyer Leslie Halliwell - note how films are ratings winners for the two channels, but that the 'gentlemanly' agreement that had long held between the BBC and ITV to share equally the range of films available had recently been tested, with each trying to outbid the other for key titles such as Gone with the Wind.

In an alternately serious and comic item presented by Jonathan Dimbleby and Alexei Sayle, the programme also takes a critical look at the arguably over-simplistic depiction of Third World countries on British television. Elsewhere, Annie Nightingale, Tony Wilson and Janet Street Porter consider rock music on television, arguing that it is better to make such programmes for a specific audience than to attempt to please everyone.

The final item, which makes space for a viewer to argue their case, looks at the arguably insensitive decision by ITV to run adverts during a broadcast of the Holocaust film Playing for Time, starring Vanessa Redgrave.

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From the collection

Silver Screens: A Century of Cinemagoing

From the picture palaces of the past to modern multiplexes...

The cinema has always been so much more than just a place to watch films. At the heights of its powers, the silver screen stood for spectacle, sophistication, electricity and elegance as well as entertainment, and the very venues themselves were star attractions. These architectural marvels stood proud in cities and towns up and down the country, enthralling audiences in their thousands in the days when "going to the pictures" was a national pastime.

For over a century, cinema has endured, and cinemas have changed with the times. The rise of television, video and home cinemas may have splintered the cultural dominance of the movies while bringing films to smaller and more convenient screens, but the thrill of the communal experience remains - as do many of the monumental structures themselves, whether they have been converted into bingo halls, renovated into plush modern picture houses, or left to loom over the high street.

This collection celebrates the cinema as both a cultural icon and a haven for generations of starry-eyed dreamers, and documents the changing face of filmgoing from the bygone bioscopes and the lavish picture palaces of yesteryear to the sticky-floored multiplexes of today. So dim the lights, grab your popcorn, and lose yourself in the magic of the silver screen.