London Tales is part of The Children's Film Foundation Collection from BFI. The CFF made nearly 200 films between 1951 and 1985. The single DVD has 3 films that are just under an hour each. Two are in B&W and one in color. I've gotten several of the DVDs and enjoyed them.
The Salvage Gang 1958 Written by Mary Cathcart Borer and directed by John Krish.
Fours kids hang out together in the girl's garden shed. That's Christopher Warby as Freddie, Frazer Hines as Kim, Mandy Harper as Pat and Ali Allen as Ali. They all had short careers being child actors except for Frazer Hines. Some might know him from Doctor Who. In making a rabbit hutch Kim messes up Pat's dad's saw. They feel they need to buy him a new one but don't have enough cash between them. The decide to do odd jobs to raise the cash. Painting a guy's narrow boat in the canal doesn't go too well.
Ali and Pat try to drum up some cash by dog washing and Kim and Freddie try washing cars. Neither makes a bean so they hit on the idea of collecting iron to sell as scrap. The make some flyers and stick them in people's mailboxes. Trouble is they aren't quick enough to the streets the next morning. Freddie is delayed because his family is moving down the street and they miss getting the scrap before a scrap peddler comes along. Kim, Ali and Pat find a brass bed and take that to the scrap yard and get ten bob.
Turns out it's Freddie's bed and his mom is upset that the bed disappeared, she blames the movers. The kids head back to the scrap yard but it's been sold to a guy on a truck. They chase it down and get the bed back. Now they have to push it across London.
Along the way they pick up a homeless guy who has to be lured off the bed with a cheese sandwich. The guy was played by Wilfred Brambell who would play Albert Steptoe in the British comedy Steptoe And Son. That was the show that All In The Family was patterned after. Everything works out for the most part, the bed is returned, and a new saw is bought. Sadly,Pat's dad wrecks it when he uses it on the rabbit hitch. It was fun to watch.
Operation Third Form 1966 Another film with scrap dealers. Hindle Edgar and David Eady wrote the original story, Michael Barnes wrote the screenplay and Eady is the director.
The bell from a school goes missing when the bearded scrap collector Paddy accidentally knocks it into his cart. Sydney Bromley plays Paddy, his career started in 1944 and stopped when he died at 78 in 1987. He was in all sorts of popular film and TV. Paddy has a junk yard and a recently acquired new partner in Skinner. That's Paddy and Skinner in the picture on the right. Skinner is played by Derren Nesbitt whom I've seen in many TV shows and films, often as a villain. His first roles were on The Adventures Of Sir Lancelot back in 1956 and he is still acting as of 2018. Over the years he had parts in Doctor Who, The Saint, Danger Man, Secret Agent, The Prisoner, The Protectors and many more.
Tom, one of the kids at the school is blamed for the theft of the bell. That's Tom and his sister Jill in their kitchen on the right above. Jill would have a fairly descent career, the highlights for some would be the two Doctor Who movies with Peter Cushing as the Doctor. That's Roberta in the picture on the left. It was an entertaining film but not considered part of the TV Doctor Who story line. Back in OTF Tom had been in the school after hours but to get homework, not to steal the bell, he got spotted and now he's in deep trouble. He spots the bell at the scrap yard but it disappears when he returns with a Bobbie. He organizes his friends into finding the bell to clear his name.
The kids set up a command in a garage next door to the scrap yard and they follow Skinner around the streets of London. They find out he's got a robbery going on with a guy in a Jaguar. They're going to steal that painting, the one int he pic above right, it's painted by Goya and valuable. All the running around and spying on Skinner sort of reminded me of Emil And The Detectives.
Like the kids in Erich Kästner's novel the kids in OTF organize, survey, detect, and catch the crooks. It had an entertaining story and all the 1966 scenery around London was fun to see. The kid actors are usually pretty good and the production is fine for a low budget film.
Night Ferry 1977 The screenplay is by Michael Barnes writing under the name Mike Gorell-Barnes, David Eady is the director. The film's title refers to the train that ran between London and Paris between 1944 and 1980, the train would travel over the channel in a ferry boat. The London to Paris trip would take 12 hours each way. Our film's story starts on the train tracks you see in the title sequence.
Graham Fletcher-Cook plays Jeff, that's him in the picture on the left, he's flying his model plane in a green space next to the train tracks. When it lands in the train switching yard, he goes in to get his plane back. He's not supposed to be there and he's chased. Hiding he accidentally sees Bernard Cribbins and Aubrey Morris up to no good. They've stolen a valuable mummy and sarcophagus. Jeff knows it but he can't tell anyone because he wasn't supposed to be in the train yard and a man chasing him got hurt.
Jeff gets some help from his friends Nick and Carol. It turns out that Carol's dad was the man who got hurt, Jeff goes to apologize and Carol's dad doesn't turn him into the policeman played by Jeremy Bulloch. There's plenty of running about the Clapham London neighborhood before the action climaxes on the Night Train. They all get on the train at Victoria Station in London and the cops get everyone off at Dover.
Bernard gets chased in his pajamas through the train station and Aubrey passes out when Nick dresses up as the mummy. It was a fun romp, I enjoyed it. Glad I picked this set up, I think it's got a better than average trio of films than the other CFF DVDs I've already seen. I know I'll watch it again.