Original on Ch4 at this moment; unless you're glued to baby (non) news, apart from a quite superb Graham Greene story, Dickie Attenborough's best ever performance and some great direction, it has some wonderful old faces... I just spotted Alan Wheatley (killed off early) who was the Sheriff of Nottingham in that 50s TV series of Throbbin' Hood. And the first Dr Who. Hermione Baddeley is stunning but Ida is one of the great literary inventions as far as I'm concerned. A marvellous movie.

Yes, a classic.

The Palace Pier (featured in the movie) is now renamed Brighton Pier; this happened when the West Pier mysteriously burned down some years ago.

Brighton Races (dogs, as well - on Sunday mornings!) are also still going - but don't attract the London gangs, with their razors, anymore.

Fascinating...
trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/18077432

Dickie Attenborough returned to Brighton in 1969 to direct the musical film Oh! What a Lovely War.

About WW1, it was set largely on the West Pier - and starred Dirk Bogarde, John Gielgud, Jack Hawkins, Kenneth More, Laurence Olivier, Michael and Vanessa Redgrave, John Mills, Maggie Smith and Ralph Richardson.

To name but a few....

White Badger wrote:
Oh! What a Lovely War. About WW1, it was set largely on the West Pier

Illustrating the futility of war - in a variety of innovative ways - this movie (written by Len Deighton) was ahead of its time.

It used the seaside and music hall as the backdrop to WW1, showing General Haig (John Mills - the only actor to win an Oscar, without delivering lines) selling tickets to the pier (the war).

Cricket scoreboards showed the number of dead and 16,000 white crosses were erected at Ovingdean, near Brighton, for the classic finale - filmed by helicopter.

A small number - bearing in mind that 8,000,000 died in the war, and

- 60,000 were killed in the Battle of the Somme, on the first day
- 11% of France's entire population were killed or wounded
- 200,000 died in the trenches