The Canada Post -- The Top News Stories

7-49 UP

Network Releasing

£30

IN 1964, a World in Action documentary was broadcast of seven-year-olds from various UK backgrounds and social spheres talking about their hopes and dreams for the future. And every seven years since, the documentary crew returned to interview them. This meant that at age 14, 21, 28, 35, 42 and 49, the world got to see incrementally the growth of each child into adulthood and how that adult life, unfolding from youth into middle age, compared to each child’s early musings.

All but one married, some early, some later, some more than once. By 49, most had children, many had grandchildren. And each life had been absolutely fascinating as this series charted how the youngster of 1964 would shape the country by 2000 and beyond. Fascinating too is how, at age 49, their views of the Labour government circa 2006 were consistently negative, regardless of their backgrounds and particularly towards enforced multiculturalism which one regarded as harmful to the country he grew up in.

Directed by Michael Apted and initially designed to explore the question of whether the UK’s rigid class system would predetermine these children’s lives, the result has been groundbreaking and award-winning television. It also continually confirms the Jesuit dictum: "Give me the child until he is seven and I will show you the man.”

The complete series, which has enjoyed unprecedented and enduring attention in Canada, is available on DVD. A must for any comprehensive DVD library. •••••

Le Silence de la Mer

Eureka Entertainment

£20

The name of Jean-Pierre Melville should be familiar to all true film buffs, not least because he was responsible for Le Silence de la Mer.

This 1949 masterpiece centres around Nazi officer Werner von Ebrennac who boards at the house of an elderly Frenchman and his niece in a picturesque farmhouse in occupied France.

Their response is to refuse to acknowledge him, their perceived enemy, who turns out to be a kind, highly cultured German who fully understands their attitude towards him. And this has an unforseen effect as his presence in France is revealed to be as much a result of naivité – he repeatedly expresses the view that Germany and France will be united in “a beautiful marriage” – as the desire to embrace a culture he has for so long admired from afar. Hypnotic! •••••

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

Studio Canal

£19.99

AT the Oscar award ceremonies this year, this understated spy drama is in the running with an Oscar nomination for Gary Oldman who stars as retired British intelligence officer George Smiley in this brilliant recreation of John LeCarre’s novel.

In it, Smiley is pressed back into service after the death of his former boss, Control (John Hurt), and tasked with investigating the identity of the mole inside UK special branch. Well, there’s four traitors actually – including rogue agent Bill Haydon (Colin Firth).

Set in the early 1970s during the Cold War, when an operation in Budapest has gone badly wrong, it transpires that Control not only believed that one of four senior figures in the service was in fact a Russian agent but that the Hungary fiasco was an attempt to identify which of them it was. Smiley concurs with Control’s assessment of the Budapest operation and the continuing success of Operation Witchcraft (an apparent source of significant Soviet intelligence), and so he takes up the task of determining the identity of the mole.

Also among the stars of this complex tale, which is artfully related through flashbacks, is London itself. Can you identify its multiple settings?

All part of the game, of course, which is amplified by a second DVD of highly informative extras. Aces! •••••

Every Girl Should Be Married

Irene

Jericho

December 7th

Odeon Entertainment

£9.99 each

FOR fans of vintage films from the 1930s and 1940s, Odeon continues its releases of great RKO films previously unavailable in the UK on DVD. The latest, all gems, include:

Every Girl Should Be Married (1948), which stars Cary Grant and Betsy Drake who, a year after the film was made, became his wife. At the heart of this screwball romantic comedy is the manipulative Anabel Sim (Drake) who, in setting her cap for Dr. Madison Brown (Grant), catches the department store magnate Roger Sanford (Franchot Tone) instead. ••••

Irene (1940) marked the first American appearance of the British film star Anna Neagle as a lovely Irish girl who gets to star in her own Cinderella story and wear the Alice Blue Gown that turned the song into a smash hit. Torn between a fashion house owner (Ray Milland) and the son of a rich Long Island family (Alan Marshall), who will win her heart? ••••

In Jericho (1937), the magnificent Paul Robeson stars as Jericho Jackson, a medical student who accidentally causes the death of an officer on an American warship being torpedoed during World War I. After he’s sentenced to death, he flees to an African country where he soon becomes a hero. But will his good name ever be restored? •••••

December 7th (1943) is a controversial docu-drama directed by John Ford and starring Walter Huston, Harry Davenport and Dana Andrews. This stunning recreation of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour was so ruthlessly censored, however, that the original 82 minute version is only now viewable. Plus Odeon has included the censored versions for comparison. Essential viewing! •••••