Arts / When the Queen came to town

ONE of the highlights of the enormously-popular British Film Festival will be “When the Queen Came to Town” by Canberra’s Wildbear Productions.

Directed by Maurice Murphy and narrated by Bert Newton, the new doco provides a remarkable snapshot of pre-TV Australia when the young Queen visited the antipodes in 1954. It mixes professional cinematography in glorious Cinemascope with home footage.

The idea, according to Wildbear’s executive producer, Michael Tear, was entirely that of their producer, Tina Dalton, who accidentally came across an “amazing” Technicolor film version of the 1954 royal visit that, she was stunned to find, had only ever enjoyed one screening.

“It was such an incredible mass event,” Tear tells “CityNews”, with possibly three quarters of the population coming out.

“Look, you might think you’re a republican, but even republicans are fascinated by the Queen, they can’t help but admire her… she was a young woman and she made herself available to the public,” he says.

The proof is in the frocks, he comments, which were quickly reproduced in department stores – she was in every way, the “People’s Queen”.

Nostalgia can cut both ways, of course, and survivors of the 1960s may cringe at some scenes from that paean to the permissive era, “Darling”, for which Julie Christie won an Oscar playing bored model, Diana. That will be part of a retrospective that also includes “Billy Liar”, “The Italian Job” and “A Hard Day’s Night”.

Opening the festival on November 6 will be “Testament of Youth”, based on the memoirs of World War I pacifist Vera Brittain.

The closing film “The Imitation Game”, starring Benedict Cumberbatch, should interest Canberrans familiar with the story of Alan Turing who cracked Nazi Germany’s Enigma code, tipped for a swag of Oscars.

In comedy, “A Long Way Down” features Toni Collette, Pierce Brosnan and Aaron Paul, while Rosamund Pike and Billy Connolly set off on a disastrous road trip called “What We Did on Our Holiday”.

For film connoisseurs there’s veteran director Ken Loach’s “Jimmy’s Hall”, in which political activist Jimmy Gralton is deported from Ireland during the “Red Scare” of the 1930s.

A must for theatre lovers is “Miss Julie” featuring Jessica Chastain and Colin Farrell. And for art buffs, the “must” is “Mr. Turner”, starring Timothy Spall as painter J.M.W. Turner.

The Emirates British Film Festival, Palace Electric, NewActon, November 6-23, bookings to palacecinemas.com.au

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