Well it’s finally here, our steaming hot June offering. This month it’s starring the delicious Katy Wix, who you may know from her double act with Anna Crilly formerly known collectively as ‘Penny Spubb’. I don’t know why they were called that, it was probably named after a girl they laughed at at school or something. Anyway, she is in it and she is brilliant (Katy, not poor old Penny. I believe she killed herself). This is a loving tribute to all those lovely old black and white films you used to watch on BBC Two when you had a day off school with chickenpox. They would put them on at 3pm, but actually they were all about steaming torrid bitterness, jealousy and sexual repression. And lots of sick children were made even sicker by having to watch them. I believe this has been statistically proved by the government now. Oh well, how was anyone to know? Anyway, sick repression and bile is not the content of our film. Oh no. It’s called ‘A Dead Cat’, and that… is that. Have a gander. You might even see some twitches of Bette Davis and Joan Crawford in there.
This month it was a very close call because we got all caught up with going to Dublin amongst other things. We filmed it all in Bromley (Of course. All the best melodramas occur in Bromley) in director Jacqueline Wright’s family ’seat’. I believe there were a few hairy moments when Jacqui’s actual real life house cat nearly escaped from the house, and we had to prevent the ultimate irony from happening… Anyway, the cat is fine. No cats were harmed in the making of this film. Sam Hardy, who was one of our brilliant DoPs on ‘LifeSpam’, was reunited with us on this shoot, and managed to generate all those beautiful, and authentic looking, images. Claire McGonigal did a sterling edit job for us (she edited ‘Roots’) and Chris Lincé did some just incredible titles for us that just blew us away. Check out the wee jackal at the end! And I’m not just saying that to make you watch it! Please do check out our amazing team on the credits as everyone did such an brilliant job. Hanane Dauki did splendid period makeup and Dawid Wasilewski stepped into to do sound at the last minute! What a trooper! In fact, it’s probably the most exotic and glamorous sounding crew list we’ve had to date. The composer has a particularly 1940s credits style name – Moritz Schmittat – he will go far.
Tags: 1930s, 1940s, A Dead Cat, Alice Lowe, Anna Crilly, Bette Davis, Black and White, Bromley, Claire McGonigal, classics, Dublin, Film, Film Noir, Jackal Films, Jacqueline Wright, Joan Crawford, June, Katy Wix, Melodrama, Movie, Penny Spubb, Sam Hardy, Spoof
Magnificence! I would like to eat this film.
Lovely, lovely, lovely. While I cannot speak to afternoon movies on BBC 2 (being a Yank it would be quite impossible), I can well imagine just this sort of movie. Hell, they actually make and play movies like this on the Lifetime Channel here in the States.
Regarding your statement, “They would put them on at 3pm, but actually they were all about steaming torrid bitterness, jealousy and sexual repression.” I thought that pretty much summed up the American perspective of the Brits. Weird.
And finally (and in tribute to G. Margenghi), will Delores be a woman in a year’s time?