AGXStarseed
Well-Known Member
(Not written by me. I found myself looking at some old films/shorts made by the CFF before I was born and learned a bit about both the CFF and Saturday Morning Cinema, so I decided to post this for anyone who has any nostalgia and/or memories they want to share).
It's a fading memory for the middle-aged, but gave a start to Phil Collins, Susan George, Michael Crawford and many future stars. And Keith Chegwin. It gave parents a kid-free break, too.
A jolly super time...Five on a Treasure Island
The year is 1967. The place is your local ABC cinema. The event – the ABC Minors Children's Matinee, to which thousands of grateful parents have dispatched their offspring. First off is the ABC Minors song, the lyrics of which flash up on screen:
After this rousing number, the cinema's manager hosts some obligatory birthday singing and talent shows. Finally comes the moment the budding juvenile delinquents are all waiting for: Calamity the Cow, shot in glorious black and white, and brought to you by those jolly nice people at the Children's Film Foundation.
The star of this epic was a 16-year-old, pre-cockney Phil Collins, one of the many future young stars nurtured by the CFF. Other notable graduates of the CFF included Michael Crawford, Dennis Waterman, Susan George, Gary Kemp, Keith Chegwin and even Matthew "The Wright Stuff" Wright. Sadly, despite such luminaries – and the fact that the BBC was screening CFF as recently as the 1980s – far too many of the CFF's works are no more than vague memories for middle-aged filmgoers, of well-spoken urchins discovering buried treasure on the Isle of Wight. However, the CFF, with its encouragement of young talent and regular cinemagoing among children, deserves to be remembered as an integral part of postwar British cinema, alongside Hammer horror or Carry On.
Children's matinees had been shown in British cinemas since the 1920s, but after the second world war, educationalists raised objections to the nature of the films being screened, leading to the Wheare report into juvenile cinemagoing in 1950. One result was the creation of the X certificate; another was the establishment in 1951 of the Children's Film Foundation, which was funded by the so-called "Eady levy", a voluntary tax taken from all cinema ticket prices.
The CFF had a total annual production budget of £60,000 – an incredibly low figure, even allowing for the fact that most CFF films lasted for less than an hour and were filmed in under a fortnight. As the CFF was a not-for-profit organisation, ticket prices remained at a very reasonable sixpence (2½p) until 1971, leaving many children with sufficient money to buy ice cream to either consume or hurl on stage during the balloon-making demonstrations, according to choice.
The CFF's early offerings were nearly all shot in black and white, and followed the CFF's official template for "clean, healthy, intelligent adventure" that would never "play for sensationalism or unhealthy excitement or vulgarity". This was a world in which England was under threat from a wave of cockney-accented villainy, prone to various combinations of jewel-thieving, low-grade spying and largely non-violent bank robbery. Fortunately, the children of the average CFF epic were brave and resourceful (the fact that the average 1950s CFF villain was usually utterly thick was also a help); the drama would usually conclude with the police arriving in a black Wolseley as the villains floundered in a convenient duck pond. The inspector would then inform the children that they were a credit to their nation. A jolly super time would have been had by all. With such an ethos it was entirely natural that the first adaptation of Enid Blyton's Famous Five would be made by the CFF. It was Five on a Treasure Island, the release of which this month on DVD by the BFI should be properly celebrated with lashings of ginger beer.
In 1955, 1,915 cinemas in the UK screened children's matinees, of which 1,400 carried the works of the Children's Film Foundation. By 1963, the monies allotted to the CFF were sufficient to allow for colour filming on location for a film called Treasure in Malta (featuring some brilliantly hammy "international master criminals" of no fixed accent), but a market survey in the following year suggested the cops-and-robbers dramas were losing their appeal in favour of pictures that appealed to "children's strong instinct for fair play and a pronounced sympathy for the underdog". The archetypal 1960s CFF film in this regard was 1963's Go Kart Go starring Dennis Waterman (who did not sing the theme tune), in which teenage cads utterly fail to sabotage a soapbox race. The formula reached its apogee with 1968's Magnificent Six & a Half serial, which mutated into Here Come the Double Deckers!, a series that was co-produced by 20th Century Fox and thus, incredibly, shown on US network television.
What strikes the modern viewer most forcibly about CFF productions is the child actors' precise diction, which was a quite deliberate tactic on the part of the CFF. Owing to restrictions on the use of child performers because of union regulations and the law, the CFF habitually cast students of the Italia Conti stage school, all of whom had been trained in the art of clear speaking for the theatre. Mary Field, then the CFF's chief executive, believed provincial audiences would not understand regional dialects and so the CFF promoted received pronunciation.
Filming was often carried out during the school holidays, with the child cast supported by the reliables of postwar British screen – Ronnie Barker, David Lodge, Patricia Hayes or Sydney Tafler, all working for Equity minimum rates – and the directors were usually reliable pros such as Don Sharp, film-makers who could apply their experience on the British B-film circuit.
The very notable exception to this rule was 1972's The Boy Who Turned Yellow, made by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. Unsurprisingly, it is not only one of the best made of the CFF films, but also holds the distinction of being the last production by Powell and Pressburger's celebrated Archers partnership.
The popularity of CFF films in the 1960s meant their budgets steadily increased throughout the decade and so films were being shot as far afield as Holland, Australia, Kenya, Egypt, Libya, Morocco and Tunisia. But in 1968, the CFF faced an external threat when the BBC launched Zokko, the first ever children's Saturday morning television programme. The CFF fought this unwelcome development with an all-colour policy – British TV was largely mono until 1970, and colour sets did not reach a majority until the late 70s. CFF films of the 1970s were to concentrate less on spiffing adventures (although these still had their place: see Mr Horatio Knibbles, Professor Popper's Problem and Egghead's Robot) and more on dramas that captured a lost England of Spangles and Vauxhall Chevettes.
This was also the era when British picture houses were closing rapidly. Regular cinemagoing now belonged to another era, but the CFF films helped children build a genuine link with their local cinema. Naturally, the Children's Film Foundation's budgets meant Star Wars-style special effects were not really an option – the Sky Bike that was obviously dangling on the end of a crane remains a fond memory for many filmgoers of a certain age – but the child actors were refreshingly uncloying compared with the stars of much of Disney's output, and the adult cast members were nearly always good value. Sometimes, as with Powell and Pressburger, genuine cinema greats were involved: 1978's A Hitch in Time and 1980's High Rise Donkey boasted scripts from none other than TEB Clarke of Lavender Hill Mob renown.
By 1978 there were a mere 300 cinemas putting on a Saturday children's matinee – down from a high point in 1955 of nearly 2,000. The CFF even tried supplying clips to the BBC's kids' film quiz, Screen Test, but the fact that so many of the CFF films provided were at least a decade out of date cannot have helped its cause. Rank disbanded the Super Saturday Club in 1981, and the newly renamed Children's Film & Television Foundation continued with a vestigial production output – but the abolition of the Eady levy in 1985 dealt the organisation a mortal blow.
The CFF's production ceased in 1988 with Just Ask for Diamond, but the body still exists as an advisory organisation. The vast success of the Harry Potter films – with their innate sense of fair play and a pronounced sympathy for the underdog – demonstrates that the CFF formula can be applied to a modern-day audience, and at a time when British TV is cutting back on the production of original drama for children, it could well be argued that the CFF, now utterly starved of funds but still rich in ideas, has even more of a role to play in British cinema than it did back in the days when a Saturday morning meant pocket money, the Beano – and films where a magic Austin Seven would rout a gang of trilby-hatted super-villains.
Source: How the Children's Film Foundation once dominated Saturday morning cinema
It's a fading memory for the middle-aged, but gave a start to Phil Collins, Susan George, Michael Crawford and many future stars. And Keith Chegwin. It gave parents a kid-free break, too.
A jolly super time...Five on a Treasure Island
The year is 1967. The place is your local ABC cinema. The event – the ABC Minors Children's Matinee, to which thousands of grateful parents have dispatched their offspring. First off is the ABC Minors song, the lyrics of which flash up on screen:
"We are the boys and girls all known as
Minors of the ABC
And every Saturday all line up
To see the films we like and shout aloud with glee
We like to laugh and have our sing-song
Such a happy crowd are we
We're all pals together
We're Minors of the ABC."
Minors of the ABC
And every Saturday all line up
To see the films we like and shout aloud with glee
We like to laugh and have our sing-song
Such a happy crowd are we
We're all pals together
We're Minors of the ABC."
After this rousing number, the cinema's manager hosts some obligatory birthday singing and talent shows. Finally comes the moment the budding juvenile delinquents are all waiting for: Calamity the Cow, shot in glorious black and white, and brought to you by those jolly nice people at the Children's Film Foundation.
The star of this epic was a 16-year-old, pre-cockney Phil Collins, one of the many future young stars nurtured by the CFF. Other notable graduates of the CFF included Michael Crawford, Dennis Waterman, Susan George, Gary Kemp, Keith Chegwin and even Matthew "The Wright Stuff" Wright. Sadly, despite such luminaries – and the fact that the BBC was screening CFF as recently as the 1980s – far too many of the CFF's works are no more than vague memories for middle-aged filmgoers, of well-spoken urchins discovering buried treasure on the Isle of Wight. However, the CFF, with its encouragement of young talent and regular cinemagoing among children, deserves to be remembered as an integral part of postwar British cinema, alongside Hammer horror or Carry On.
Children's matinees had been shown in British cinemas since the 1920s, but after the second world war, educationalists raised objections to the nature of the films being screened, leading to the Wheare report into juvenile cinemagoing in 1950. One result was the creation of the X certificate; another was the establishment in 1951 of the Children's Film Foundation, which was funded by the so-called "Eady levy", a voluntary tax taken from all cinema ticket prices.
The CFF had a total annual production budget of £60,000 – an incredibly low figure, even allowing for the fact that most CFF films lasted for less than an hour and were filmed in under a fortnight. As the CFF was a not-for-profit organisation, ticket prices remained at a very reasonable sixpence (2½p) until 1971, leaving many children with sufficient money to buy ice cream to either consume or hurl on stage during the balloon-making demonstrations, according to choice.
The CFF's early offerings were nearly all shot in black and white, and followed the CFF's official template for "clean, healthy, intelligent adventure" that would never "play for sensationalism or unhealthy excitement or vulgarity". This was a world in which England was under threat from a wave of cockney-accented villainy, prone to various combinations of jewel-thieving, low-grade spying and largely non-violent bank robbery. Fortunately, the children of the average CFF epic were brave and resourceful (the fact that the average 1950s CFF villain was usually utterly thick was also a help); the drama would usually conclude with the police arriving in a black Wolseley as the villains floundered in a convenient duck pond. The inspector would then inform the children that they were a credit to their nation. A jolly super time would have been had by all. With such an ethos it was entirely natural that the first adaptation of Enid Blyton's Famous Five would be made by the CFF. It was Five on a Treasure Island, the release of which this month on DVD by the BFI should be properly celebrated with lashings of ginger beer.
In 1955, 1,915 cinemas in the UK screened children's matinees, of which 1,400 carried the works of the Children's Film Foundation. By 1963, the monies allotted to the CFF were sufficient to allow for colour filming on location for a film called Treasure in Malta (featuring some brilliantly hammy "international master criminals" of no fixed accent), but a market survey in the following year suggested the cops-and-robbers dramas were losing their appeal in favour of pictures that appealed to "children's strong instinct for fair play and a pronounced sympathy for the underdog". The archetypal 1960s CFF film in this regard was 1963's Go Kart Go starring Dennis Waterman (who did not sing the theme tune), in which teenage cads utterly fail to sabotage a soapbox race. The formula reached its apogee with 1968's Magnificent Six & a Half serial, which mutated into Here Come the Double Deckers!, a series that was co-produced by 20th Century Fox and thus, incredibly, shown on US network television.
What strikes the modern viewer most forcibly about CFF productions is the child actors' precise diction, which was a quite deliberate tactic on the part of the CFF. Owing to restrictions on the use of child performers because of union regulations and the law, the CFF habitually cast students of the Italia Conti stage school, all of whom had been trained in the art of clear speaking for the theatre. Mary Field, then the CFF's chief executive, believed provincial audiences would not understand regional dialects and so the CFF promoted received pronunciation.
Filming was often carried out during the school holidays, with the child cast supported by the reliables of postwar British screen – Ronnie Barker, David Lodge, Patricia Hayes or Sydney Tafler, all working for Equity minimum rates – and the directors were usually reliable pros such as Don Sharp, film-makers who could apply their experience on the British B-film circuit.
The very notable exception to this rule was 1972's The Boy Who Turned Yellow, made by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. Unsurprisingly, it is not only one of the best made of the CFF films, but also holds the distinction of being the last production by Powell and Pressburger's celebrated Archers partnership.
The popularity of CFF films in the 1960s meant their budgets steadily increased throughout the decade and so films were being shot as far afield as Holland, Australia, Kenya, Egypt, Libya, Morocco and Tunisia. But in 1968, the CFF faced an external threat when the BBC launched Zokko, the first ever children's Saturday morning television programme. The CFF fought this unwelcome development with an all-colour policy – British TV was largely mono until 1970, and colour sets did not reach a majority until the late 70s. CFF films of the 1970s were to concentrate less on spiffing adventures (although these still had their place: see Mr Horatio Knibbles, Professor Popper's Problem and Egghead's Robot) and more on dramas that captured a lost England of Spangles and Vauxhall Chevettes.
This was also the era when British picture houses were closing rapidly. Regular cinemagoing now belonged to another era, but the CFF films helped children build a genuine link with their local cinema. Naturally, the Children's Film Foundation's budgets meant Star Wars-style special effects were not really an option – the Sky Bike that was obviously dangling on the end of a crane remains a fond memory for many filmgoers of a certain age – but the child actors were refreshingly uncloying compared with the stars of much of Disney's output, and the adult cast members were nearly always good value. Sometimes, as with Powell and Pressburger, genuine cinema greats were involved: 1978's A Hitch in Time and 1980's High Rise Donkey boasted scripts from none other than TEB Clarke of Lavender Hill Mob renown.
By 1978 there were a mere 300 cinemas putting on a Saturday children's matinee – down from a high point in 1955 of nearly 2,000. The CFF even tried supplying clips to the BBC's kids' film quiz, Screen Test, but the fact that so many of the CFF films provided were at least a decade out of date cannot have helped its cause. Rank disbanded the Super Saturday Club in 1981, and the newly renamed Children's Film & Television Foundation continued with a vestigial production output – but the abolition of the Eady levy in 1985 dealt the organisation a mortal blow.
The CFF's production ceased in 1988 with Just Ask for Diamond, but the body still exists as an advisory organisation. The vast success of the Harry Potter films – with their innate sense of fair play and a pronounced sympathy for the underdog – demonstrates that the CFF formula can be applied to a modern-day audience, and at a time when British TV is cutting back on the production of original drama for children, it could well be argued that the CFF, now utterly starved of funds but still rich in ideas, has even more of a role to play in British cinema than it did back in the days when a Saturday morning meant pocket money, the Beano – and films where a magic Austin Seven would rout a gang of trilby-hatted super-villains.
Source: How the Children's Film Foundation once dominated Saturday morning cinema
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