FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION
Although Leicester born and bred, Joe Orton made his name (and met his end) in his small flat on Noel Road, Islington. Your choices, then, for what we’ll be screening on Tuesday 1 Dec are out of three more films local to your friendly neighbourhood film club… Up for the vote are:
Arsenal Stadium Mystery (Thorold Dickinson, UK, 1938)
"The Arsenal Stadium Mystery remains both a classic whodunit and a high-water mark for pre-war British film..." Paula Hammond, Film Juice
When a star player drops dead during a charity football match between Arsenal and amateur side the Trojans, Inspector Slade of Scotland Yard (Leslie Banks) is called in to solve the crime. And when it is revealed the player has been poisoned, suspicion falls on his teammates as well as his former mistress... Set at the original Arsenal Stadium on Gillespie Road, Arsenal Stadium Mystery is a charming pre-war who-dunnit like wot they don't make any more.
High Hopes (Mike Leigh, UK, 1988)
Philip Davis and Ruth Sheen star as Cyril and Shirley Bender, a couple of Marxists at odds with their extended family and the neighbours of their eldery mother: the upper-class Boothe-Braieses (Lesley Manville and David Bamber). Things come to a head with the family get together to throw a surprise 70th birthday party for Mrs. Bender... With a supporting cast that includes Philip Jackson, Jason Watkins and Edna Doré as the widowed family matriach, Mike Leigh’s politically charged comedy drama was filmed around King’s Cross and, most memorably, in Highgate Cemetery.
Telstar: The Joe Meek Story (Nick Moran, UK, 2009)
It took Nick Moran the best part of 12 years to get this made. And the end result's screamingly energetic, wildly uneven, gay as a goose and at times, utter genius. As a Joe Meek biopic, it's perfect. Robbie Collin, News of the World
Con O'Neill stars as legendary self-taught electronics whizz, Joe Meek, who amazingly produces a string of home-made hit singles from his studio in his flat above a shop on the Holloway Road. But behind the early '60s hits "Have I the Right," "Just Like Eddie," "Johnny, Remember Me" and "Telstar" is a troubled individual whose chaotic private life and drug use leads to a tragic end... Telstar: The Joe Meek Story is a fascinating look at one of music's bona fide geniuses.
