Feminism arrives in the Carry On world as Sid James refuses to employ female cab drivers and his wife Hattie Jacques starts up a rival company using only dolly birds (and Esma Cannon!). It feels more like an Ealing Comedy than a Carry On but has glorious moments and lines (especially "What! With tweeds!" from Michael Ward)
11.00 am Film4 Sun 28 April
True story of how HMS Amethyst escaped from the Chinese revolution in 1949. The story is fascinating but the film far too long.
11.00 am Film4 Mon 29 April
Ealing comedy without the cosiness and sentimentality - this is black, sophisticated and witty. Alec Guinness plays eight members of a family bumped off by Dennis Price's black sheep in his rise to a dukedom. Valerie Hobson plays good but dull; Joan Greenwood plays bad but fun.
3.55 pm Film4 Mon 29 April
Kenneth More is the shy engineer on a transatlantic voyage who gains confidence during each hour lost as the ship passes through the time zones. He manages to woo financier Roland Culver and Hollywood star Betsy Drake. It's a whimsical idea that doesn't really come off.
11.55 am Talking Pictures TV Tues 30 April
Small group of Brits get separated from the army during the desert campaign and have to make their way through the desert to Alexandria. In their midst is Anthony Quayle who claims to be South African but might be working for the Germans. Leading the group is John Mills, fighting to keep off the bottle and giving one of his best performances. Classic war film that ages well.
11.00 am Film4 Wed 1 May
Michael Redgrave is the inadequate teacher heading for retirement with Jean Kent as his bitch of a wife in this adaptation of Rattigan's play.
5.35 pm Talking Pictures TV Thur 2 May
H.G. Wells' tale of life in the future is by turns dull, silly and virtually plotless. It's also fascinating, prophetic and the most remarkable sci-fi film of the thirties. Essential viewing for any film buff.
8.55 am Talking Pictures TV Fri 3 May
A fast-talking American sacrifices everything for his scheme to control wrestling in London, but it all goes terrifyingly wrong.
Cracking British noir. See here for fuller review.
12.20 pm NFT2 Tues 30 April
Laurence Olivier finally cracked the problem of how to film Shakespeare with this wonderfully imaginative Technicolor epic. Moving effortlessly from the tiny stage of the Globe to the fields of Flanders this patriotic spectacle was just what the country needed during WWII.
2.40 pm Studio Thur 2 May
