Rent or Buy

Sadly, such pictures have become part of Christmas Past, thanks to a plethora of cheap teleplays purchased as part of a blockbuster package and the networks' insistence that modern audiences dislike anything in black and white. But it's still possible to indulge in a little Yuletide nostalgia, courtesy of Renown Pictures (www.renownpicturesltd.com), whose back catalogue ranges from 1930s historical adventures to Swinging Sixties musical comedies and includes the odd gem along the way.

The Italian-born Rafael Sabatini was once synonymous with swashbuckling excitement. Hollywood repeatedly adapted such novels as Captain Blood and Scaramouche. But it was a story from his 1927 collection, The Nuptials of Corbal, that inspired Karl Grune's The Prisoner of Corbal (1936), a romantic triangle set against the backdrop of the French Revolution.

It's a rather stuffy affair and the performances are a little inert, as they often were during the first decade of talking pictures. But this is a fascinating example of how British cinema sought to compete with Hollywood by importing foreign stars and attempting to impose a certain cultural quality on what was essentially penny dreadful material.

The dashing continental star Nils Asther headlines as a leading figure in the Committee for Public Safety, who saves the aristocratic Hazel Terry from the guillotine and disguises her as his nephew in order to prevent zealous sergeant Noah Beery from discovering her true identity when they are sent south to prosecute Hugh Sinclair, an enlightened marquis, who has been branded an enemy of the state in spite of the loyalty of his peasantry. Frustrated in his efforts to find evidence against Sinclair, Asther flirts with Terry. But she falls in love with his nemesis when he offers her sanctuary in his chateau from Beery's boorish troops.

Determined to keep the pair apart, Asther passes a law that makes marriage compulsory for everyone in the village - but which outlaws matches between the nobility. However, his scheme is thwarted by an unexpected summons to Paris and he finds himself forced to do the decent thing before his firebrand replacement arrives. Despite the odd outdoor sequence filmed in Madeira, this is a rather stage-bound and passionless melodrama. Yet it's also a valiant attempt to produce a prestige picture on what was essentially a Quota Quickie budget. Moreover, it's not without its points of interest, chief among them being the clash between the cut-glass enunciation of Sinclair and Terry and Asther's thick Swedish accent and Beery's laudable attempts to conceal his Kansas City twang.

The contrast between the clipped tones of Michael Denison and Dulcie Gray and the awkward delivery of their Italian co-stars is equally pronounced in Henry Cass's The Glass Mountain. But it rarely detracts from the enduring appeal of this sentimental melodrama, which was a sizeable box-office success on its release in 1949.

In the carefree days of Appeasement, composer Denison finds the money to buy the riverside cottage of Gray's dreams by collaborating with eccentric Scottish poet Sebastian Shaw on a series of popular ditties. But, while they make his fortune, they fail to bring him artistic fulfilment and he longs to write a significant classical piece. But the war intervenes and Denison's plane is shot down over the Dolomites and he is rescued by a partisan group led by Valentina Cortese and the famous operatic tenor, Tito Gobbi.

Despite the fact that he is married and she is dating local war hero Antonio Centa, Denison and Cortese become inseparable and she tells him the legend of the doomed romance that ended on the mountain that towers above her home. Suitably inspired, Denison begins to turn the tale into an opera on his return to Blighty. But he can't forget Cortese and Gray sportingly allows him to desert her and return to Italy.

Gobbi arranges for Denison to premiere his opus at the renowned Teatro La Fenice. But he becomes so wrapped up in his work that he fails to notice that the devoted Cortese is not only becoming increasingly homesick, but is also racked with guilt for luring him away from Gray, whose cause is subtly argued by Shaw, as he toils on the libretto. Thus, when Gray's flight comes down near the Glass Mountain on opening night, Cortese knows her fate is sealed.

Beautifully photographed by William McLeod and Otello Martelli and boasting a score and opera extracts by the great Nino Rota, this hugely watchable drama offers an intriguing insight into British screen aesthetics at a time when neo-realism was transforming Italian cinema. Henry Cass and uncredited assistant Eduardo Anton make evocative use of the mountainscapes in creating a mood that owes as much to German Bergfilme and Heimatfilme as anything Anglo-Italian. But it's the adult attitude to adultery and the reverence bestowed upon high culture that make this so absorbing at a remove of six decades.

Denison and Gray are typically reticent and Gobbi seems distinctly uncomfortable when not singing. But Cortese recalls Ingrid Bergman with her moist-eyed expressions of adoration and stoic acceptance that not even the mountain recreated on the opera house stage will echo her name as proof of Denison's undying love. Her performance earned her a Hollywood contract and she continued to make movies into the 1990s. She will celebrate her 88th birthday on New Year's Day.

Cast as `the other woman' in Val Guest's Dance Little Lady (1954), Eunice Gayson will turn 83 next year. She remains best known for playing James Bond's girlfriend, Sylvia Trench, in Dr No (1962) and From Russia With Love (1963). But she turns in a splendidly brassy display at the vampish ballerina who steals Terence Morgan away from Mai Zetterling in yet another attempt to foist haute culture upon British audiences that wound up taking a more accessibly novelettish route.

Released just six years after Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's balletic masterpiece, The Red Shoes, this is also the story of a dancer suffering at the hands of a selfish impresario. However, neither Wilkie Cooper's colour cinematography nor Frederick Pusey's production design can match those of Jack Cardiff and Hein Heckroth, while David Paltenghi's choreography falls far short of Robert Helpmann's. Yet, this is still a highly watchable potboiler that takes the clichés and contrivances of the Hollywood backstage musical and efficiently recycles them in a balletic setting.

The roguish Morgan has dedicated himself to making Zetterling the best dancer in London. However, he has also promised Gayson that he will pluck her from the chorus and Zetterling spots Gayson showing her gratitude at a party thrown by conductor Reginald Beckwith to celebrate her West End triumph. She tries not to make a scene. But, on the journey home, Morgan loses his temper and overturns his car, with the resulting crash ending Zetterling's career.

While Morgan heads for the continent with Gayson, Zetterling recovers in the care of doctor Guy Rolfe, who suggests that she uses her dance experience to help orthopaedic patients like young Richard O'Sullivan. This inspires Zetterling to teach alongside her mentor, Ina De La Haye, who has high hopes of Zetterling's 10 year-old daughter, Mandy Miller. Unfortunately, so does the opportunist Morgan, who returns to Britain with Hollywood producer Harold Lang, who insists that he does whatever it takes to get Miller under contract.

The denouement is more than a little preposterous, but it doesn't spoil a spirited drama that could easily have been produced Stateside with Leslie Caron and Margaret O'Brien as the mother and daughter. The ballet sequences seem inserted for authenticity rather than any artistic intent. But the storytelling is solid and Morgan makes a splendidly loathsome cad, whose bid to coerce Zetterling into signing Miller's lucrative deal goes up in flames.

The mood is considerably lighter in Maclean Rogers's Something in the City (1950), which features the inimitable Richard Hearne, who became Britain's first TV star in the BBC series Mr Pastry's Progress and who might now be a small-screen immortal had he not insisted on playing Doctor Who in the manner of his slapstick alter ego when he auditioned for the role of the time lord following the departure of his onetime sidekick, Jon Pertwee.

Hearne switches between identifies in this elongated sitcom, as he seeks to prevent trusting wife Betty Sinclair from discovering that he lost his job in a respectable city firm by setting off each morning in his dapper suit and bowler, only to detour to the East End in order to change into the threadbare garb of a walrus-moustachioed pavement artist, who hawks his wares outside the National Gallery. Selling enough to get by, Hearne manages to get away with his deception. But when his daughter, Diana Calderwood, announces that she is engaged to Tom Gill, his snooty newspaper editor father, Garry Marsh, details hack Bill Shine to report on Hearne's every move.

Wrongly deducing that the city slicker has been murdered by the shabby dauber, Shine sparks a manhunt that threatens to ruin inspector George Merritt's last three days before retirement. However, Hearne proves elusive in both his guises and not only manages to avoid the long arm of the law, but also succeeds in claiming the reward that Marsh has offered for information about the mysterious painter.

Shot on a shoestring, this is a lively comedy of errors that makes the most of Hearne's acrobatic background. Indeed, in struggling to carry a grandfather clock, clambering over fences, shinning up drainpipes and careening through busy streets on a mini-moped, he anticipates Michael Crawford's brand of harum scarum knockabout in Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em.

The supporting also cast does its bit, with Dora Bryan giving Shine a hard time in her café and Horace Kenney piling on the pathos as Hearne's hawker pal. And the secondary characters come similarly close to stealing the show in James Hill's Every Day's a Holiday (1965), a pop romp that is much closer in spirit to the Tommy Steele and Cliff Richard vehicles that had dominated the British musical scene before The Beatles changed everything with A Hard Day's Night (1964) and Help! (1965).

The principals are John Leyton, Mike Sarne and Grazina Frame, who take summer jobs at a holiday camp run by Charles Lloyd Pack and his Girl Friday, Liz Fraser. Leyton dreams of being a singer and adopts a series Rat Pack poses in his bedroom mirror (including an unfortunate blackface impression of Sammy Davis, Jr.), while Sarne tries to live down the fact he was born with a silver spoon in his mouth.

Frame, on the other hand, is being forced by aunt Hazel Hughes into taking opera singing lessons with Italian coach Ron Moody, who conspires to help her escape to the coast and then steers Hughes away from her likely haunts when she comes in search of her niece. But Moody isn't the classical guru he claims to be and his ruse is rumbled by Leyton's father, Michael Ripper, who remembers him from their old music-hall days.

Moody and Ripper decide to enter the camp talent contest, as does Freddie Garrity and his fellow chefs. But, much to the frustration of Nicholas Parsons (who is directing a live feed for TV), there's a last-minute change in the line-up that sees Sarne, Leyton and Frame form a combo with rocking tailors Richard O'Sullivan and Tony Daines and the Baker Twins, Susan and Jennifer.

As it most specifically seeks to capture its times, this has worn less well than the week's other offering. But it still breezes along, in spite of some indifferent tunes. The biggest misfire is the `Crazy Horse Saloon' routine that pitches Leyton back into the Wild West, although the Freddie & The Dreamers track `What's Cooking' is also pretty lame. However, they do better with `Don't Do That To Me', which has the same impish charm as Sarne's `Indubitably Me'.

Indeed, comedy provides the majority of the movie's highlights, whether it's Parsons lamenting the fact he never gets the chance to make brooding Swedish arthouse sagas like Uppsala Nights or Hughes becoming increasingly sozzled on alcoholic sauces to prevent her from discovering that Frame is hiding with her bandmates in Garrity's freezer. There's even room for a dash of sentiment, as Sarne's hapless children's entertainer befriends taciturn tot, Nicola Riley. But what will most amuse film buffs is the misspelling of cinematographer Nicolas Roeg's first name in the credits.

Among the other temptations on the Renown books are Compton Bennett's Daphne Du Maurier adaptation, The Years Between (1946); St John Legh Clowes's take on James Hadley Chase's shocking crime thriller No Orchids for Miss Blandish (1948); Gordon Parry's fine version of Thomas Hughes's public school classic, Tom Brown's Schooldays (1951); Alan Bromly's The Angel Who Pawned Her Harp (1954); Robert Day's Corridors of Blood (1958), which teams Boris Karloff and Christopher Lee; Terence Young's Serious Charge and Joseph Losey's Blind Date (both 1959).

However, the pick of the entire list is Brian Desmond Hurst's Scrooge (1951), which is illuminated by an exceptional performance as Charles Dickens's penitent miser by Alastair Sim. It's just a shame that it's presented in the computer colourised version rather than the original monochrome, as the washed-out hues compromise the chiaroscuro lighting that cinematographer C.M. Pennington-Richards cast over Ralph Brinton's atmospheric sets.

The story is too well known to need retelling here. But the casting is worth noting, with George Cole impressing as the younger Ebenezer Scrooge, while Rona Anderson brings a palpable sense of regret to Alice's admonition that her fiancé thinks more of money than he does of people. Ernest Thesiger also makes the most of a cameo as the undertaker, as does Kathleen Harrison as housekeeper Mrs Dilber, while Michael Hordern and Francis De Wolff show well as Jacob Marley and the Spirit of Christmas Present.

The only unpersuasive performances come from the usually dependable Mervyn Johns and Hermione Baddeley as the Cratchits, as they look far too hale to be one step away from the workhouse, while Glyn Dearman's Tiny Tim is surprisingly agile on his crutches. But the focus is so firmly on Sim that few will notice or care.

The skittishness of his Christmas morning bonhomie is a joy to behold. But the scowling cruelty of his more curmudgeonly scenes, the hostility with which he initially greets the ghosts and the terror and remorse he experiences on witnessing the festivities after his passing are every bit as compelling and cast a long shadow over everyone who has attempted the role since.

Released in the United States as A Christmas Carol, this is rivalled only by The Wizard of Oz (1939) and It's a Wonderful Life (1946) as a Yuletide favourite on American television and it's without question one of the DVDs that every household should possess.