This post is meant to make you aware that while British TV Series The Bletchley Circle is well wort watching for its wonderful post WWII period feel, it’s not a war movie, nor has it anything to do with Bletchley Park per se. If you’re interested in a movie on the code breakers at Bletcheley, then you’d have to watch Enigma.
Still, there’s a link. The women in the series worked as code breakers during the war. In the series however they put their knowledge to a very different use and catch a serial killer.
I liked watching this because of the period feel. The crime story is OK, not that gripping in my opinion, but entertaining. The idea that you could break a serial killer’s crimes in applying the laws you used to break a code is quite fascinating though. What I didn’t know is that those who worked at Bletchley were not allowed to talk about it not even after the war.
It’s a very watchable series, just not set during WWII but many years later.
One thing is for sure, the British comedy series Goodnight Sweetheart is quite different. I watched the first few episodes now and thought it was quite funny and certainly not known by too many.
Gary Sparrow, a young married man, lives in a little house, somewhere in London, with his wife. Their marriage is a bit shaken as she is on a steep career path and reproaches Gary his lack of ambition. He does try though, but gets something wrong all the time. Either he isn’t dressed appropriately for his job interview or his lack of stamina keeps him from moving up.
He and his new friend Ron spend a lot of time drinking beer and moaning about their wives.
Gary works as a TV technician and one day, looking for an address in London’s East End, he lands in an alley called the Duckett’s Passage. In a bar he asks for directions when he realizes people are dressed in clothes of the 40s. At first he thinks he is in a theme pub but soon he realizes that he really is in war-torn London in the 40s.
He falls in love with the barmaid and for some 58 episodes we will be able to travel with him back and forth between 90s and 40s London and watch him lead a double-life with two wives.
It is quite amusing and the period pieces are well done. A lot of the fun stems from Gary’s mentioning things that will happen much later or sing songs that haven’t been written yet, pretending they are his. But it’s equally funny to see him forget, that he is really in the 40s and how shocked he is when there’s an air raid.
I think it’s a fun twist on WWII, amusing and entertaining alike and infused with some serious 40s nostalgia.
If America only knew how good this was, it would be the highest rated Made-For-TV movie series of all time (hard to believe there are more people out there that would rather watch “The Columbo Mysteries” than Bernard Cornwell’s Sharpe Chronicles- that just goes to show the power of major network name-brand advertising. (Comment from a US IMBD reviewer)
The British TV movie Sharpe´s Rifles is the first of 14 installments focussing on the fictional character Lt.Sharpe. Bernard Cornwell’s novels are the source for this series. There are certain parallels to the Hornblower series (see Hornblower post) with the difference that Sharpe shows the Napoleonic wars on land. Unlike the Hornblower sequences these are full-length movies, each 110 minutes long.
I started to watch it on the last weekend and am really quite taken by it. This enthusiasm is certainly also due to Sean Bean´s starring as Sharpe. He is an excellent choice for this rough but likable maverick and daredevil.
In the first movie we get to know Sharpe and the motley crew of Chosen Men (snipers riflemen) that is very unwillingly under his command. Sharpe who is a sergeant is promoted to lieutenant because he saves General Wellesley´s life. Promoting someone from the ranks who is, like Sharpe, not a gentleman, proves to be somewhat problematic. The other officers don´t accept him because he is not one of them, the soldiers do not accept him because he is one of them. He really has a hard time proving himself and on top of that they are at war.
Sharpe´s Rifles takes place in 1809 in Portugal. Spain and Britain are supposedly allies against France but it seems as if Spain is not 100% decided on which side they want to fight.
Sharpe and his men, together with a company of officers and soldiers, are sent on a secret mission to find a banker that has disappeared and are attacked by a group of French soldiers. Apart from Sharpe and his men everybody gets killed.
In this movie Sharpe also meets Teresa or “El comandante Teresa” for the first time. Having survived rape and the butchering of her family by the French she holds a bit of a grudge against the French and men in general. Even so, love at first sight strikes them both. The whole love story part did actually remind me a lot of the one in The Last of the Mohicans. Teresa is a strong woman, the leader of her men and a very capable fighter herself.
After they have met, the main story line follows Sharpe, his men and Teresa on their way to a little Spanish town where they must raise the Spanish flag. Ok, this is not a gripping idea but it is excusalbele as this was the first movie in a long series and its main goal is to introduce us to the characters.
From the reviews I read I can deduce that there are much better installments still to come. As a first part this was very, very promising and I am looking forward to watch more of it.
No worries, I am not going to review them all. I´ll probabaly do some sort of final assessment once if have seen the others. For the time being I just wanted to share my discovery.
Below you find the beginning of part I. I think this should help you decide if you want to go for it.
I would say that this British TV series is one of the most realistic stories ever told about London during the Blitz and the dangerous duty of defusing the numerous unexploded bombs that hit the country. Danger UXB focuses on a young lieutenant, Brian Ash (Anthony Andrews), appointed to a bomb squad. His squad defuses all sorts of unexploded German bombs. This is highly stressful and very difficult. There are so many different types of bombs with different types of fuses. Magnetic, movement detectors, chemical reaction, clock work and time delay fuses. The bombs are found in many different places such as schools, gardens, back yards, living rooms, a night club, a factory which gives ample opportunity to tell side stories and show the lives of ordinary people during this time. It is hard to imagine what it must have been like to be bombed every single night. The series manages to give a very good feel for the danger of this line of work. I would say Danger UXB provides a rare combination of instruction and entertainment, combining historical accuracy with tales of everyday lives and the story of one young officer, his work , his dealings with fellow officers and commanders and his love life. British TV is a great source for realistic historical series and movies. I haven’t seen Piece of Cake yet but it is sitting here, waiting to be watched. Danger UXB is far less known. I highly recommend it. I think it is also interesting to compare it to the ubiquitous The Hurt Locker (see my post on The Hurt Locker) and see the difference between a bomb squad now and then.
I attached a video for you, where you can see that each episode initiates with original footage to enhance accuracy. Unfortunately this video has an addition to it but it is the best I could come up with. I couldn’t find any trailer only some fan videos but they had insufferable music.
All About War Movies 