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“Great Expectations: British Postwar Cinema 1945-1960” is the theme of this year’s Locarno Film Festival Retrospective, unveiled in London on Monday. It follows the festival’s 2024 look back at Columbia Pictures at 100.

Described as “a tribute” to British cinema from that period promising to be “painting a rich and diverse picture of life in the postwar years as reflected in British popular cinema,” the retrospective will feature more than 40 films and is produced in partnership with the BFI National Archive and the Cinémathèque Suisse, with the support of StudioCanal and curated by Ehsan Khoshbakht.

“After the end of the Second World War — and as its overseas empire began to crumble — Britain embarked on the rocky road to national reconstruction and revival,” Locarno organizers said. “Featuring everything from beloved classics by legendary filmmakers like David Lean, Carol Reed, and Powell and Pressburger (themselves the subject of a major Locarno retrospective...

Stars: Richard Todd, Michael Redgrave, Ursula Jeans, Basil Sydney, Patrick Barr, Ernest Clark, Derek Farr, Charles Carson, Stanley Van Beers, Colin Tapley, Raymond Huntley, Hugh Manning | Written by R.C. Sherriff | Directed by Michael Anderson

Many of the classic World War 2 movies are based on real-life battles and events that led to the victory by the allied forces. The Dam Busters is one of the most famous of these, and now with a collector’s edition release to celebrate the 75th Anniversary of the raid itself, we can look back and see how the film still holds up.

Focusing on Dr. Barnes N. Wallis (Michael Redgrave) and the men who flew the raid, The Dam Busters provides a dramatized version of just what it took to destroy the Ruhr Dams. A raid that although it seemed impossible, was managed through the creation of the bouncing bomb.

When looking at the style of Michael Anderson’s 1955 classic,...

"The dramatic true-life story of the men who broke the Nazis' back!" Studiocanal in the UK has debuted a short new trailer for a special re-release screening of The Dam Busters, the 1955 WWII film about British bombers taking out German dams. This action film is regarded as one of the best WWII films, becoming the most popular film in British cinemas in 1955 when it was released. The Dam Busters has been in the news recently, as Peter Jackson has been trying to remake it for a long time. Nothing has come together yet and it's still in development. Studiocanal is hosting a special 4K restoration screening for one night only in May in the UK, with a gala at the Royal Albert Hall that will be broadcast to other cinemas around the UK. The Dam Busters stars Richard Todd, Michael Redgrave, Ursula Jeans, Basil Sydney, Patrick Barr, Ernest Clark,...

Actor whose 1940s heyday featured two films as co-star to James Mason

The 1940s was a ripe period for women in British films, when stars such as Margaret Lockwood, Phyllis Calvert, Valerie Hobson and Jean Simmons had a chance to shine. Although Joyce Howard, who has died aged 88, was never in their league, she had her moments of glory in a relatively short career which lasted from 1941 to 1950. Howard's high spots were the two films in which she co-starred with the up-and-coming matinee idol James Mason: The Night Has Eyes (1942) and They Met in the Dark (1943).

Howard was the ideal foil for the saturnine Mason. In the former film, she is the vulnerable, repressed heroine whose passions are aroused by Mason's brooding, secretive composer, the kind of relationship so beloved of wartime British melodramas. The film, directed by Leslie Arliss, creates a pervasive sense of danger, with the characters...