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Films that didn't really cross the Atlantic

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    Films that didn't really cross the Atlantic

    Are there any good examples of films regarded as classics (or cult classics) on one side of the Pond but not the other? We do seem to share more in cinema than we do in food or musical taste, but there must be some. Did anyone in America get Withnail and I? Or the Carry On films? And was Spike Lee's stuff in the 1980s and 1990s generally popular in the UK, or was it just students like me watching because we desperately wanted to be cool?

    #2
    Withnail - a few

    Carry On - nope

    Ealing comedies - a few arthouse denizens

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      #3
      Titanic.

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        #4
        Get Carter did pretty well in the UK, I think, but was initially rated X in the US because of the violence. It only gained a cult following here in the "video store era." The remake with Sylvester Stallone was not released in the UK.

        I suspect there are a number of Michael Caine films like that and other cockny-gangster type films that didn't even try to do well in the US. I'd never heard of The Italian Job until I saw the remake with Charlize Theron, which was pretty good, but completely different.

        The original probably got a boost from that, along with those scenes in The Trip where Coogan and Brydon are trying to outdo each other's Caine impression with "You were only supposed to blow the bloody doors off!" Then again, I don't know if anyone else in the US has seen any of those Coogan/Brydon food-trip movies or, for that matter, anything else by Michael Winterbottom. 24 Hour Party People and Tristam Shandy: A Cock And Bull Story are two of my favorite films ever.

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          #5
          Until fairly recently It's a Wonderful Life. I never saw it growing up and it was never on UK TV that I'm aware of (and we did the whole bumper Radio Times thing for Christmas which I studied at length every year so I would have known). In the States it's a deeply ingrained part of Christmas and everyone but everyone has watched it multiple times.

          I get the impression that it's more known now in the UK but perhaps just so we can get all the references to it in every other film.

          (See also the original Miracle on 34th Street)

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            #6
            Those are excellent calls

            How about the Wizard of Oz and Gone With The Wind?

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              #7
              No they were both huge in the UK. My Mum must have seen GWTW a dozen times.

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                #8
                No those were always well known and famous (and regularly on TV)
                Last edited by ad hoc; 21-08-2019, 19:47. Reason: As Amor says

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                  #9
                  Yeah, I'd second It's A Wonderful Life. I'd never even heard of it until it was referenced in The Exorcist 3.

                  I think I know why British audiences never took to it, btw. The town that George Bailey never lived in - with its bars, casinos and strip clubs - was much more fun than the puritanical bible study class he had helped create. No-one in Britain post-war wanted any part of the latter. We wanted to have as much fun as possible before the bombs started dropping again. This reasoning probably crosses into our subsequent love of Carry On.

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                    #10
                    Originally posted by ad hoc View Post
                    Until fairly recently It's a Wonderful Life. I never saw it growing up and it was never on UK TV that I'm aware of (and we did the whole bumper Radio Times thing for Christmas which I studied at length every year so I would have known). In the States it's a deeply ingrained part of Christmas and everyone but everyone has watched it multiple times.

                    I get the impression that it's more known now in the UK but perhaps just so we can get all the references to it in every other film.

                    (See also the original Miracle on 34th Street)
                    Could be true, though I'm fairly sure I'd saw It's a Wonderful Life as a kid. Old Christmas movies are tricky, because most of them weren't originally released for Christmas. IIRC Miracle on 34th Street was released in May. They only became popular during the festive season with the advent of TV.

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                      #11
                      Those are good examples. What about A Christmas Story?

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                        #12
                        Originally posted by Rogin the Armchair fan View Post
                        Yeah, I'd second It's A Wonderful Life. I'd never even heard of it until it was referenced in The Exorcist 3.

                        I think I know why British audiences never took to it, btw. The town that George Bailey never lived in - with its bars, casinos and strip clubs - was much more fun than the puritanical bible study class he had helped create. No-one in Britain post-war wanted any part of the latter. We wanted to have as much fun as possible before the bombs started dropping again. This reasoning probably crosses into our subsequent love of Carry On.
                        I don't recall him starting a puritanical Bible study. Not in the cut I've seen, anyway. He hung out at Martini's, a bar run by an immigrant. That was very progressive for the 40s, I imagine.

                        Places with lots of bars, casinos and strip clubs are not actually fun for the people trying to live there, especially if all of those establishments are owned by the same guy who is also the town's biggest slumlord.

                        The more problematic part of George's vision of a world without him is the assumption that Mary would have just ended up alone and therefore unhappy, and yet still in Bedford Falls/Potterville if she hadn't met George. 1946 Donna Reed is smoking hot. She could have just left town for Buffalo or NYC or anywhere else and had all kinds of adventures, married or not.

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                          #13
                          Originally posted by Amor de Cosmos View Post

                          Could be true, though I'm fairly sure I'd saw It's a Wonderful Life as a kid. Old Christmas movies are tricky, because most of them weren't originally released for Christmas. IIRC Miracle on 34th Street was released in May. They only became popular during the festive season with the advent of TV.
                          It's often said that Its A Wonderful Life was a relative failure on release and owes its popularity to US TV stations in the 70s picking it up as cheap filler to pad out the festive schedule (possibly something to do with copyright). Which doesn't entirely explain why it took the UK longer to catch on, as terrestrial TV was full of old black and white movies well into the 80s (or so it seemed) and they missed a (cheap) trick here.

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                            #14
                            Probably most of them. Which British films were smashes in the US period? And what's the definition of a British film?

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                              #15
                              Originally posted by Walt Flanagans Dog View Post

                              It's often said that Its A Wonderful Life was a relative failure on release and owes its popularity to US TV stations in the 70s picking it up as cheap filler to pad out the festive schedule (possibly something to do with copyright). Which doesn't entirely explain why it took the UK longer to catch on, as terrestrial TV was full of old black and white movies well into the 80s (or so it seemed) and they missed a (cheap) trick here.
                              I wasn't living in the UK so can't say for sure. Except that, in my memory, British TV depended a lot more on Christmas Specials than North American TV, where old movies were a big part of the schedule.

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                                #16
                                Originally posted by ursus arctos View Post
                                Withnail - a few

                                Carry On - nope

                                Ealing comedies - a few arthouse denizens
                                Eh? The Carry On films were massively popular in the States - mainly with the same audience that bought into Benny Hill in a big way.

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                                  #17
                                  Originally posted by Hot Pepsi View Post
                                  Those are good examples. What about A Christmas Story?
                                  Not a thing here at all. I only found out it existed when YouTube nostalgia-type reviewers kept banging on about it.

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                                    #18
                                    Originally posted by Stumpy Pepys View Post
                                    Probably most of them. Which British films were smashes in the US period? And what's the definition of a British film?
                                    Many David Puttnam produced films in the early eighties did well over here: Midnight Express, Chariots of Fire, and The Killing Fields for example.

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                                      #19
                                      Originally posted by Jah Womble View Post

                                      Eh? The Carry On films were massively popular in the States - mainly with the same audience that bought into Benny Hill in a big way.
                                      I'd never heard of the Carry On films until I started doing OTF about 20 years ago. Benny Hill was on PBS. I don't think Carry On was.

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                                        #20
                                        And of course there are the James Bond series.

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                                          #21
                                          I’m pretty sure The Benny Hill Show wasn’t aired by PBS, at least not initially. Various independent networks in New York, LA and Philadelphia, is how I recall it. Could be mistaken, though.

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                                            #22
                                            Originally posted by Amor de Cosmos View Post

                                            I wasn't living in the UK so can't say for sure. Except that, in my memory, British TV depended a lot more on Christmas Specials than North American TV, where old movies were a big part of the schedule.
                                            There was a long stretch when It's a Wonderful Life was shown multiple times on multiple channels all through December. Wikipedia has a whole explanation of how it had become public domain. And then Turner colorized it. Then in the mid 90s, NBC (then part of GE, I guess) managed to buy the exclusive rights and now just shows it twice, but by that time it had become a Christmas standard. Of course now it's available on streaming services and is often shown in actual theaters around Christmas.

                                            Contrary to a lot of the reviews at the time, it's not really sentimental and sappy. It's actually very dark. It is, after all, about a guy contemplating suicide after a life-time of being cheated by small-minded assholes despite always trying to do the right thing. But it's also a story of how life is what happens while you're making plans for something else. That's a very important lesson, especially for young adults to understand, and yet I can't think of many films that really explain it this well.

                                            At the time, the FBI considered it subversive and communist because of how it portrayed Potter.

                                            The real weakness in it is the Mary character. She's a bit too perfect and patient.

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                                              #23
                                              Originally posted by Jah Womble View Post
                                              I’m pretty sure The Benny Hill Show wasn’t aired by PBS, at least not initially. Various independent networks in New York, LA and Philadelphia, is how I recall it. Could be mistaken, though.
                                              I thought it was on PBS. Maybe it was on WPIX.

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                                                #24
                                                Originally posted by Amor de Cosmos View Post
                                                And of course there are the James Bond series.
                                                More popular here than in the UK?

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                                                  #25
                                                  A lot east - west. Kes, Gregory’s Girl, Billy Liar, all that sort of stuff. The only thing that came to mind the other way was A Christmas Story.

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