Favorite Classic British Movies from an English Childhood - Part One

When I was a child in England, my mother and I used to sit down on Sunday afternoons and watch classic British movies. We'd get big cups of coffee, bags of crisps (potato chips) and bars of chocolate and settle down for a marathon movie watch. Courtesy of the BBC, we watched the classic Carry On comedy series, murder mysteries, historical stories, and dramas, anything that was on TV.

From the 1930s to the 1960s, the British movie industry was known worldwide. Studios like Ealing Studios, London Films and J. Arthur Rank produced some of the best cinema art that has ever been made. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the BBC used to show them all on Sunday afternoon television. These were the movies my mother and I watched.

Looking back on those wonderful afternoons, I remember there were some movies we'd even see over and over again. Those movies still have a fond place in my memory and, if they ever appear on television now, I still watch them even though I've seen them many times.

Here, in no particular order, are the six movies I remember seeing the most and the ones I loved the best. All wonderful movies in their own right and all, also, perfect examples of how phenomenal classic British cinema was. All are now available on DVD.

1. The 39 Steps. One of Alfred Hitchcock's earliest movies, it stars Richard Donat who plays Robert Hannay. Hannay is falsely accused of murder and has to go on the run while attempting to prove his innocence. I remember as a child being enthralled by the idea of being accused of something you didn't do, and being so thrillingly scared in many of the movies suspense scenes. A truly wonderful movie, which still holds up today.

2.How Green Was My Valley. Starring Walter Pidgeon, the consummate British actor, and Maureen O'Hara. Pidgeon plays a man looking back on his early life in a Welsh mining village and the things that happened that made him the man he was then. Brilliantly acted by all the cast and directed by John Ford, it won the Oscar for Best Picture in 1941. As a child, I always connected it with the idea of 'the grass being greener on the other side'.