Stanley Baker

[Arthur Pringle]

TV Times 1974

[Charles Bronson]

I watched Stanley in 'Hell Is A City' again yesterday. I seem to enjoy this film more each time I watch it. I love Stanley's performance as a copper.
For me along with Hell Drivers, it's one of Stanley's very best films.

Here's a link about the film from a site set up by a guy in Manchester. He covers various stuff in the Levenshulme area, so I'm not advertising another TV and film location site. It's got loads of stuff about the film. I haven't read through it all myself yet though.

www.levyboy.com/hell_is_a_city.htm

Charles.

[Arthur Pringle]

'A Child In The House' was on talkingpicturestv the other day, Stanley Baker's first proper lead role & I think his first film with Cy Endfield, here credited as C. Raker Endfield. The film stars Mandy Miller as the child, often credited simply as 'Mandy' she was an early child star & appeared in a number of films in the 50s, she's still alive today. 'A Child In The House' is a rather boring tearjerker with Baker as an Eddie Boyse type.

www.reelstreets.com/films/child-in-the-house/

[JonH]

Great actor! Cheers for that 😁

[Arthur Pringle]

Another Cy Endfield/Stanley Baker film on talkingpicturestv earlier, 'Jet Storm' from 1959. Baker plays an airline pilot in one of the first 'disaster movies', this film is a prototype 'Airport' with a varied cast of characters including Marty Wilde, Bernard Braben & his real life wife Barbara Kelly ( both regulars on UK tv ), a rare straight role for fellow Welshman Harry Secombe, David Kossof as a Holocaust survivor, Patrick Allen as a mouthy American, down the cast list is Helmut from Auf Wiedersehen Pet's mother Irene Prador.

Richard Attenborough plays a man whose daughter is killed by a hit & run driver who he's tracked down & is on the same plane as him. He has a bomb strapped to his waist & is threatening to kill everyone, Baker tries to talk him down. Not a great film but practically every disaster film that followed from 'Airport' to 'The Poseidon Adventure' & 'Juggernaut' copied this formula.

[Three Litre]

Love that scene in Zulu "Form three ranks!"

[Arthur Pringle]

Fortelling the future, there are a couple of references to Zulu passengers in 'Jet Storm'.

[D.C. Burtonshaw]

Think I remember this film from seeing it on the TV as a schoolkid, good description, in a "prototype Airport". ;-)

[Kenny Dalglish 1979]

A terrific British actor.  Sometimes compared to the likes of Lee Marvin because of his reputation as a hard man and all-out tough guy.  Actor Tony Pitts reminds me slightly of Baker and I reckon he himself would be a great lead in an action film or crime thriller (he played the dodgy Hargreaves in Line Of Duty).  

I still have the fecking awesome Hell Drivers in my DVD collection - a much better film than the slow Wages Of Fear.  I remember watching Campbell's Kingdom on BBC2 in 1998 and Hell Is A City is also a top film with Stanley going after an American villain.  I saw Innocent Bystanders again last year on DVD (saw it back in '99) and that was good fun too.  Interesting locations, solid action and a fair plot.  

Zulu is probably my favourite British film of all time with a relentless pace and I wouldn't mind watching Sands Of The Kalahari (saw a bit of it on BBC2 in 2000).  I also think Baker could have been an interesting 007 had Connery not been cast.  Maybe they would have filmed the stories more closer to the novels.  Just imagine more true to the book versions of Doctor No, Thunderball, On Her Majesty's Secret Service and You Only Live Twice then Connery picks up the baton with Diamonds Are Forever, Live And Let Die and The Man With The Golden Gun after spending the '60s doing gritty character parts like Woman Of Straw, The Hill, The Offence, etc.  Then along comes Roger Moore for TSWLM till AVTAK and Dalton takes over.

[Arthur Pringle]

Baker judges a beauty contest in this short clip-