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1 9 6 9 – 1 9 7 1 (USA) 20 x 30 minute episodes Named after the Swahili word for “hello” or “how are you?” (commonly used in Kenya and Tanzania) and ostensibly set in Africa (though filmed in…
Even the most amiable of families can sometimes fall out. In this case, the family is of the Mafia variety, tough and ruthless, yet kind and compassionate to its own. Kirk Douglas, sporting a flowing Cosa Nostra moustache, is Frank…
In 1975, author Ronald McKie won the Miles Franklin Literary Award (Australia’s most prestigious annual literary prize) for the novel this film was based on. It was a fine and sensitive study of a boy growing up in a Queensland…
When a movie rests as strongly on its two principals as this story does, you really need top-notch acting to carry it off. Man Friday has got just that, with Richard Roundtree in the title role and Peter O’Toole as…
Arthur and Gerrie Mason (Eli Wallach and Julie Harris) live reasonably respectable, comfortable middle-class lives in a New York suburb with their teenage children, Maxie (Deborah Winters) and Artie (Stephen McHattie). All hell breaks loose when her parents discover 16-year-old…
Described as “a comedy of evil”, this entertaining film has one of those utterly amoral stories which are so rarely seen on our screens. Bizarre yet beguiling, and played against a baroque background, it is high comedy, witty and sophisticated.…
1 9 8 1 (Australia) 50 x 30 minute episodes Holiday Island was supposed to be a soap opera about a holiday resort on a tropical island. Dubbed “Horror Day Island” (and also “Arcade with palm trees”), it turned out to…
1 9 7 9 (UK/Germany) 13 x 30 minute episodes Debuting at 6.15 pm on Saturday 7 April 1979, this serialisation of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Scottish story was a co-production between HTV and West German television company Tele München and…
1 9 7 4 – 1 9 7 6 (UK) 30 minute episodes This rock and soul music show from Tyne Tees TV featured the talents of established groups and the many up-and-coming bands that hailed from the northeast. This was…
1 9 7 7 – 1 9 8 0 (UK) 1 9 8 8 – 1 9 9 0 (UK) 88 x 50 minute episodes 3 x 90 minute episodes James Herriot’s tales of his time as a country vet first appeared…
1 9 6 9 (New Zealand) 6 x 30 minute episodes British geology professor Professor Stanton (Bruce Montague) arrives in New Zealand and becomes involved with pretty young journalist Judy Foster (Kay Gaylor) and the “Alpha Society”, a Mensa-like group of…
1 9 7 4 – 1 9 8 8 (New Zealand) Launched in February 1974, this popular New Zealand children’s television magazine show was based on the British programme Blue Peter and offered a weekly mix of lively educational segments, outdoor adventures, sketches,…
The summer of 1966 was on the way and all kinds of good and varied things had been topping the charts that year in Britain – The Spencer Davis Group’s Keep On Running, The Walker Brothers’ The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine Anymore, plus the…
In 1964, Jim (later Roger) McGuinn, David Crosby and Gene Clark began playing folk music in coffee houses around Los Angeles, calling themselves The Jet Set. They eventually got a rhythm section – drummer Michael Clarke and bassist Chris Hillman…
Formed around Scottish singer Maggie Bell the band worked initially in clubs and air bases around the UK and Europe before arriving in London in 1969, where they were christened by their manager, Led Zeppelin Svengali Peter Grant. The group had fantastic…
By the end of the 1960s, many artists were swept up in the wake of The Beatles and their aggressive exploration of pop and rock’s possibilities. For many young musicians (especially the formally trained), expanding the form by incorporating motifs and highly arranged…
Nick Lowe probably has the greatest ear for melody in the modern world. But this is not just a pop melody-composing genius – this is also a very clever man with a sense of humour. Example? When David Bowie released an…
Although they never strayed from their gritty R&B-based sound, Dr Feelgood was a fixture of England’s Pub Rock scene since the early 70s. While they were comparatively latecomers to the scene – not playing their first London pub gig until July…
A superb film re-creation of Frank Loesser and Abe Burrows’s wonderfully acerbic stage musical, with all of Bob Fosse’s original choreography preserved on film by Dale Moreda. Robert Morse repeats his Broadway role in a marvellously wicked, devastatingly funny part…
“In Australia, when an Aborigine man-child reaches sixteen, he is sent out into the land. For months he must live from it. Sleep on it. Eat of its fruit and flesh. Stay alive. Even if it means killing his fellow…
The inept Inspector Clouseau sets out to unmask a notorious international jewel thief known as The Phantom who is believed to be behind the theft of the priceless Pink Panther diamond from its heavily guarded place in the Lugash National…
The renowned detective’s insanely jealous younger sibling, Sigerson Holmes (Gene Wilder), becomes involved with foreign spies, Professor Moriarty (Leo McKern) and Jenny – a music hall starlet who is a compulsive liar (Madeline Kahn). Jenny is being blackmailed and the…
I Wanna Hold Your Hand is not a movie about The Beatles. It’s a film about the fans and the frenzy the Fab Four caused on their first visit to the USA – a tribute to Beatlemania and the innocence…
African killer bees are moving west and threatening to engulf Houston, Texas. Quick, call on entomologist Brad Crane (Michael Caine) and a hive of Hollywood has-beens to out-ham each other while reciting terrible dialogue and getting stung by coloured Styrofoam…
The unlikely and satirical adventures of this small and furry creature with the short trunk first appeared in the Daily Mail in 1949. Created and drawn by Canadian artist and jazz musician Wally Fawkes, Flook ran for 35 years before its sudden…
1 9 0 8 – 1 9 7 3 Lyndon Baines Johnson was born in Stonewall, Texas, and trained as a teacher and lawyer. While working as secretary to a Texan congressman, he attracted the attention of Franklin Roosevelt, who…
On 6 June 1933, the world’s first drive-in movie theatre was opened in Camden, New Jersey, USA, by Richard Hollingshead Jr. Hollingshead patented a ramp system that slightly elevated the front of the vehicle, allowing viewers to sit back in…
Until the early 1960s, the artefacts of our so-called mass culture were never taken seriously by social and cultural critics. More often than not, these artefacts were either routinely ignored or simply dismissed as an example of the mindless fluff…
In the 1950’s and 1960’s, the USA and the Soviet Union raced each other to be first into space. The Soviet Union won. On 4 October 1957, the Soviets launched Sputnik 1, the first spacecraft to orbit the Earth. America was…
The Automobile Association (The AA) was founded in London on 19 June 1905 by a small group of motoring enthusiasts under the temporary name “Motorists’ Mutual Association”. It was renamed The Automobile Association just one week later. The AA was…
January 01 – Spain and Portugal join the European Economic Community (EEC). 04 – Thin Lizzy bass player and vocalist, Phil Lynott dies of heart failure after laying in a coma for a week following a drug overdose. He is…
January 01 – Groucho Marx dies in Los Angeles. 01 – London’s first full-time punk venue, The Roxy, opens in Neal Street, Covent Garden. The Clash play at the opening. 02 – Legendary jazz pianist and composer Erroll Garner dies. 03 -…
January 01 – A new law comes into effect in California, prohibiting people from smoking in bars and restaurants. 01 – American tennis player Helen Wills Moody dies from natural causes at the age of 92. 05 – Sonny Bono (of…
In 1935 when King George V celebrated his silver jubilee, the Empire had to come to London. In 1977, acknowledging the changed times, Queen Elizabeth II went to the Commonwealth. In the royal yacht, by train, by road, and often…
January 01 – In Britain, the first edition of Top of the Pops screens on the BBC. Host Jimmy Savile introduces The Rolling Stones, Dusty Springfield, The Hollies, The Swinging Blue Jeans and The Dave Clark Five. 03 – Barry…
January 01 – The Watergate criminal trial ends. Aides of former President Nixon (Attorney General John N. Mitchell, Chief of Staff H. R. Haldeman, Robert Mardian and John D. Ehrlichman) are found guilty of trying to cover up and convicted…
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Enjoy your trip in the time machine!
The first woman to scream for Hammer was probably Shirley Grey in William Hinds’ second film, The Mystery of the Marie Celeste (1936). Among notable actresses whose function was to look…
As The Beatles phenomenon grew in scale, it soon became clear that money could be made by catering to obsessed British teenagers. Eventually, millions of pounds were spent on Beatle-goods,…
Park the car, get out that picnic table and eat those spam sandwiches you made earlier. Sit back in that fold up chair and drink flask-stewed tea . . .…
It’s really quite simple: This is Moonbase (pictured above) – These are the folk who are supposed to stop the UFOs entering the Earth’s atmosphere in the first place This…
The image that endures is of a platinum-blonde picture of innocence silhouetted against a picture tube of pure evil. “They’re heeeere!” called out 5-year-old Heather O’Rourke as Poltergeist’s Carol Anne…
The term “Ozploitation” refers to low-budget Australian-produced exploitation genre filmmaking of the 1970s and 80s. From bawdy sex comedies like Alvin Purple (1973) to horror films like Patrick (1978) and…
I first saw Le Hoodoo Gurus at some shitty little pub in Surry Hills – an inner-city suburb of Sydney – in 1982. There were probably just over a hundred…
American-born promoter Lee Gordon arrived in Sydney in 1953 with a discount selling technique that had already made him a small fortune in the States. He found Australia just as…
Johnny O’Keefe produced more Top 40 hits than any other Australian recording artist. He had 29 hits spanning 1958 – 1974, including five number ones and eight more in the…
1 9 9 3 – 2 0 0 1 (Australia) 400+ x 30 minute episodes This Australian lifestyle and home renovation television series aired on the Nine Network from 1993 until…
1 9 6 4 – 1 9 6 5 (USA) 1 9 6 4 (UK) 13 x 25 minute episodes 1 9 6 9 (Australia) 1 9 7 6 – 1…
1 9 5 7 (Canada) 39 x 30 minute episodes The first major dramatic series produced on film in Canada, Radisson revolved around French explorer and fur trader Pierre Radisson (Jacques Godin)…
1 9 5 9 – 1 9 6 0 (Canada) 39 x 30 minute episodes French-Canadian actor Gilles Pelletier starred as Corporal Jacques Gagnier in this Canadian television drama series about…
1 9 6 8 – 1 9 7 5 (Canada) 95 x 30 minute episodes Aired on Télévision de Radio-Canada from 1968 to 1975, Grujot Et Délicat was a French-language…
1 9 6 1 – 1 9 6 4 (Canada) 89 x 60 minute episodes This Canadian drama anthology series from CBC Television aired from 4 October 1961 to 20 July…
The huge success of Canadian comedy Porky’s (1981) – it grossed over $110 million – convinced the main creative talents that a sequel would be a good idea, so a…
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Nostalgia Central covers the period 1950 to 2009 and is presented as a historical artefact. Some words and references which reflect the prevailing attitudes of those times may be considered culturally insensitive, discriminatory, offensive or inappropriate today..