Swinging Down the Street So Fancy Free

A frumpy woman in her early twenties dreams of being loved but despite her continual attempts to have a romance finds herself observing life from the sidelines, barely noticed by those around her. Reduced to a one sentence description, Georgy Girl (1966) sounds dreary and depressing but on-screen this tale of a desperately lonely woman unfolds as a madcap, often irreverent farce which at times is cruelly indifferent to the sad-sack characters it parades before us. This is a film where tone is everything and Georgy Girl, directed by Silvio Narizzano, is distinctively different in this respect, standing out from countless other cinematic tearjerkers about ugly ducklings and lonely spinsters. The film also captures London at the height of the Swingin’ Sixties when everything seemed like a put-on or a come-on.

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The Radioactive Mud Monster

In many ways a precursor to The Blob (1958) and Caltiki, the Immortal Monster (1959), X the Unknown (1956) is a much more thought-provoking and serious attempt to demonstrate the consequences of science run amok than your standard monster-on-the-rampage chiller. The film, directed by Leslie Norman, was actually inspired by the success of The Quatermass Xperiment (1955, aka The Creeping Unknown), which was released the previous year and was a huge box office hit for Hammer Studios.    Continue reading