Blitzed: Hell Drivers
Part of Blitzed: A three film season about British Men, Masculinity and the 1950s
DOORS 6:30PM (7PM START) TICKETS £8 ADV (CLICK HERE) £10 ON THE DOOR
Screening and extended introduction by Hannah Hamad (Media Studies lecturer at University of East Anglia) who will be talking about Stanley Baker and 1950s masculinity.
HELL DRIVERS
Cy Endfield, 1957
Stanley Baker was the perfect new man for the 1950s: butch, beefy and all about gravel. In Hell Drivers, he broke straight out of the Rhondda, playing Tom, an ex-convict looking to make good as a driver for a gravel merchant. But Red – played with wolfish menace by Patrick McGoohan – is having none of it when Tom threatens his position as top dog. With a murderer’s row of acting talent in supporting roles, from Sean Connery to Sid James to Peggy ‘Gun Crazy’ Cummins to Herbert Lom, this is a very British thriller that is unafraid to glamorise the world of gravel haulage.
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Blitzed: A three film season about British Men, Masculinity and the 1950s
As Britain’s ‘finest hour’ faded in the collective memory in 1950s, British masculinity stood at the crossroads. With the decline of Empire, a decimated home front and troubling youth menacing the headlines, what was a chap to do? This series explores the way that British men faced (or repressed) these ruptures. In Obsession, we a homosocial triangle forms as one man traps another in a Blitzed building. In Cast a Dark Shadow, Dirk Bogarde hints at his sexuality, murdering a series of brides for his own dark reasons. In Hell Drivers, Stanley Baker plays an ex-convict making good at a gravel company, showing a new masculinity that has nothing to do with honour and everything to do with commerce.
Join us for three films that show British men trying to control the queer forces – in the culture and within themselves – brought on by the rupture of the War and the start of a new, changed manhood.
other films in this season: