Desert Island Series One: Choose Your 25 British Favorites

by Sam Juliano

Unless we count some relinquished worldwide possessions, it would be difficult to find a proper British desert island for the hermetic movie fan to indulge in the most cherished of all moving pictures made within the shores of the “other Eden.”  Indeed the closest in temperament if not geographical kinship would be the British Crown Territory known as the Falkland Islands off the coast of Argentina, inhabited by a scant 3,100 or so kelpers, who recently voted overwhelmingly to maintain Queen Elizabeth as their monarch of choice.  The mountainous archipelago includes two larger islands, West Falkland and East Falkland, with the latter the home of the capital, Stanley.  British movie fans will be  boated in from Stanley to one of the smallest islands in the chain, Sea Lion Island, which measures 5 by 1.5 miles, and is presently home to only seven residents all year round.  The relatively harsh Winter runs from late April to early October, and it is during this time that sequestered British movie fans will be staying in separate screening rooms at the Sea Lion Lodge for an entire Winter, watching the same twenty-five films repeatedly, with sharing expressly forbidden.  Before flying in to Stanley from the USA, UK and a few other countries fans must submit their choices of the twenty-five films that they will be watching over and over during the time they will be spending at the lodge, exclusive of some outdoor breathers and the time needed for dining and rest.  Indeed, it will also be the responsibility of the traveler movie buff to bring DVD or blu-ray copies of the films he or she has chose.  Rules are simple enough: any film made in the U.K exclusively or in co-production is eligible to be chosen.  The question that needed to be correctly answered in settling on a choice is simple if it is a personal favorite  not necessarily a film that would be identified as what is generally regarded as great.  A good part of the time a favorite is also ‘great’ and vice-versa, but the final criteria to come to a fair compromise within own’s own tastes and perceptions is to ask oneself: is this the kind of film I can honestly watch repeatedly.  Usually the answer will come down to what dozen British films are that viewer’s personal favorites.

Sea Lion Lodge on Falkland Islands

Any or all readers who will be flying down to Stanley are urged to hereby identify the twenty-five films that will be joining them at the Sea Lion Lodge on April 21.  The list must be presented alphabetically, so as to avoid any rating of the group of films that would be nearly impossible to list in order of preference.

The proprietor of the lodge, Edwin Redgrave is a good-hearted bloke, and he announced last week that he feels for all those who will be spending almost six months at his establishment, and has decided to allow each customer 25 choices after an earlier guideline that had permitted less.

This writer/viewer has named his own 25 favorite British films or the 25 films that are hereby chosen to be watched repeatedly over a six month time frame.  Needless to say, so many other great British films had to be left behind until I get back stateside after by time at the lodge.  Particularly depressing was having to leave out several masterworks by Joseph Losey, mainly because I was torn as to which film I would choose.  Will Hay’s classic comedy Oh Mr. Porter! is another that really deserved to make the trip, as did the classic Alistair Sim A Christmas Carol and Carol Reed’s Odd Man Out and P & P’s The Red Shoes and A Matter of Life and Death.  Several Hammer studios releases were in the running too.  I was also divided on whether to go for Hitchcock’s The Lady Vanishes or The 39 Steps, but decided to choose neither, knowing that when I spend some time on an American possession in the Pacific, I’d have my fill of Hitch!  And I established a rule that no film after 2010 could be chosen, as a selection needs the “perspective” of at least two to three years.  Heck I might have chosen the recent musical Les Miserables without that self-imposed rule in place!  Ah well, perhaps Mr. Redgrave will extend his generosity a bit more!

Atonement (2007) Joe Wright

Barry Lyndon (1975) Stanley Kubrick

Beckett (1964) Peter Glanville

Black Narcissus (1947) Powell and Pressberger

Brief Encounter (1945) David Lean

Caravaggio (1986) Derek Jarman

City of the Dead (1961) John Moxey

Chariots of Fire (1981) Hugh Hudson

A Clockwork Orange (1971) Stanley Kubrick

The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover (1989) Peter Greenaway

The Devils (1971) Ken Russell

Great Expectations (1946) David Lean

Henry V (1989) Kenneth Branagh

Hope and Glory (1987) John Boorman

Kes (1969) Ken Loach

Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949) Robert Hamer

Lawrence of Arabia (1962) David Lean

Night and the City (1950) Jules Dassin

The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1942)  Powell and Pressberger

The Long Day Closes (1992) Terence Davies

The Masque of the Red Death (1964) Roger Corman

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) Stanley Kubrick

Oliver! (1968) Carol Reed

Richard III (1955) Laurence Olivier

The Third Man (1949) Carol Reed

I have posted ten screen caps from the 25 films randomly:

Roger Corman’s 1964 “Masque of the Red Death”

John Boorman’s 1987 “Hope and Glory”

Carol Reed’s “The Third Man”

Stanley Kubrick’s 1975 “Barry Lyndon”

Robert Hamer’s 1949  “Kind Hearts and Coronets”

Peter Greenaway’s 1989 “The Cook, the Thief His Wife and Her Lover”

David Lean’s 1945 “Brief Encounter”

John Moxey’s 1961 “City of the Dead”

Powell and Pressberger’s 1942 “The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp”

Ken Loach’s 1969 “Kes”

Please add your own choices for your upcoming stay at the Sea Lion Lodge: (and have a great time!  Be on penguin watch though!)