The Boys question

[JimN]

Many thanks for posting that article, Heinz.

The film "The Boys" was on general release (as a main feature) in the (northern hemisphere*) autumn of 1962. Like Les, from whom I haven't heard in quite some time), I didn't see the movie on release, though I didn't have to wait decades for my chance to view it, for certain values of "it".

In fact, during the summer of 1967, ITV showed a version of the film one weekday evening. But there was no way, back in those days when the main ITN News was still shown at 21:00 to 21:25, that an ITV station could show a near-two hour film uncut on such an evening. The film was cut in order to reduce the playing time, probably so as to fit into a 90-minute slot between 19:30 and 21:00. That would have necessitated severe cuts to some of the flashback scenes, though luckily, the episodic nature of the screenplay would enable that to be done without too much obvious disruption to the flow of the action and narrative. Although the film was shown in the northern region via Granada, the likelihood is that this was a nationally-networked showing, played out by one of the London-based companies, Rediffusion or ATV. If it was ATV, that would explain something else...

A similarly-cut version (it might have been from the same edited cine-reels) was eventually shown on the now-defunct Carlton Cinema digital channel. Carlton had bought up the resources and licences of Central Television, who were the descendants of ATV, so I suspect that the Carlton Cinema version (running at about 80m) was the 1967 edited-for-ITV version.

I VHS-recorded the CC version at the time, and among other things, I recall no pub scene featuring the tune The Girls, and have no memory of the dance-hall scenes (where Sweet Dreams is played by the band). These may well be among the most dispensable parts of the story, able to be cut without affecting the overall effect.

Eventually, though, as mentioned by Les, the BBC showed the film in its entire uncut length a few years ago. The BBC has always made a selling point of never cutting cinema films to fit to a broadcast slot, though of course, sometimes short cuts are made for other reasons. Watching the full version (repeated on BBC4) allowed me to hear all the music from the EP in the film for the first time, though as Les says, some of the uses (especially the girls heard playing music on a record player from an upstairs terraced house window behind a West End pub) seem contrived anyway - on a par with a brief snatch of Foot Tapper being played on a portable record player on a moving bus in "Summer Holiday"(!).

I mentioned the cinema scene used as the cover shot when I wrote a short accompanying article for my illustrations of The Shadows's EP covers, on this site.

http://shadowmusic.bdme.co.uk/gallery/image_page.php?album_id=20&image_id=530

Part of the reason for the success of the EP was that it was released in what turned out to be a sparse year for Shadows singles. Wonderful Land had been released in February, Guitar Tango had followed in June, but Dance On! didn't appear until November, and radio stations (both BBC and Luxembourg) latched on to the EP's title track that autumn. There were all sorts of reasons why BBC radio had particular practical use for instrumental pop records, and The Shadows were absolutely staple Beeb fare by 1962, and would remain so for some years.

In answer to Les's puzzlement as to why that particular picture was used as the EP cover shot when it arguably didn't really give a flavour of the film as a whole, I suggest that it was used because:

(a) it existed, as what was then known as a production still, taken on-set for possible use as point-of-sale advertising, known as "lobby matter", and

(b) it showed all four of The Boys in one relatively compact shot (though as a production shot taken by a stills photographer on-set, it showed a view not actually seen from that angle in the film).

The Boys themselves went on to various other things. Dudley Sutton became a well-known character actor, appearing in TV advertisements and several well-remembered roles on television. The late Ronald Lacey, who was already 26 when he played the 16-yr-old Billy, enjoyed success in both TV and cinema.Tony Garnett (listed as "Tony Garrett") had a well-regarded career as a producer, both in cinema and on television. Jess Conrad, of course, was already famous as a singer and has - to some extent - remained so, though his act is a masterpiece of self-deprecation (see:)



JN

(* That's for Ian Kershaw)

[Uncle Fiesta]

Best thing to do to a singer in my opinion.

INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC FOREVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[GoldenStreet]

Intriguingly, there's a PRS database entry for McGuffie's "Sweet Dreams" with lyrics by Perry Ford and Tony Hiller, no doubt the same tune but never actually issued on commercial disc.

SD.JPG

(61.32 KiB) Downloaded 2796 times

Bill

[ecca]

Beautiful tune but rhythm players nightmare.
This is me and my brass band playing it.....

https://www.box.com/s/9mx268c9y8c6tl3n7p91

[drakula63]

THANKS EVERYONE for some very interesting postings!! Especially thanks for the scan of the Shadsfax article. Obviously I have issues 36 and 38 - but no 37!!!!

I saw the film in the summer of 2007 during the afternoon. I thought it was quite good...

Thanks again.

[iefje]

It was shown on BBC 1 or BBC 2 in the early 2000's at a very late (or should that be early?) hour and recorded it onto a VHS tape. I do still have it. Via Malcolm Campbell's "A Guide To The Shadows And Hank Marvin On CD" book update of 2005, I learned that the film features a different take of "Theme From 'The Boys'", so I will safely keep the VHS videotape!

[Martin Payne]

I've just ordered the DVD of the movie from Amazon...If anyone's interested I'll let you know how it turns out.

Martin

[KurtFroberg]

Beautiful tune but rhythm players nightmare.
This is me and my brass band playing it.....

https://www.box.com/s/9mx268c9y8c6tl3n7p91

That is a masterpiece Ecca!!!

[Uncle Fiesta]

I remember the movie being on TV in about 1971 - that's the only time I've seen it.

[ecca]

Beautiful tune but rhythm players nightmare.
This is me and my brass band playing it.....

https://www.box.com/s/9mx268c9y8c6tl3n7p91

That is a masterpiece Ecca!!!

Recorded in Calcutta.