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British TV shows based on films

Started by George White, September 08, 2019, 05:27:15 PM

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George White

Was thinking about this recently. After seeing the press for that new Four Weddings TV series on Hulu.

As opposed to the US, where every major film at some point acts as a pilot, British films don't get turned into TV shows.
It's almost always the other way round.

There are exceptions, of course.
In the 50s, there was a brief trend. Of course, Dixon of Dock Green, but there was the in-its-time-huge-but-now-"there was a TV series?" The Third Man, with Michael Rennie as Harry Lime, coproduced by Fox and the BBC, in a rare all-on-film production, but distributed weirdly by the other side, in ITC, abroad.  And a Hornblower pilot heavily inspired by the Peck film.



The 70s had Doctor in House, although that technically was based on the books, the Adventures  of Black Beauty, which while not technically based on the 1971 film of Sewell's novel, was allegedly commissioned after Tigon announced that they were planning a TV series based on their film.
Also, Quiller was technically based on the film, despite fidelity to the novels, as it was a coproduction with Fox, who had made the film, and repackaged episodes as MFTV sequels in the US.
Highlander was a British film, backed by EMI, but the TV series was Italian-French-Canadian.

Technically, the Pink Panther, although the first film was actually a US production shot in Italy, and James Bond Jr. See also the various American pilots for an Omen series.

I'm just curious but it's very telling the way the UK film industry works, when you see the amount of British films based on TV shows but not vice versa.  National Velvet, Lassie, Ghost and Mrs. Muir and 12 O'Clock High were US films set in the UK, that became US TV shows, though only 12 O'Clock High kept the UK setting, and unlike the others, wasn't based on a British/Irish novel or play.


More recently, Mike Bassett - Manager with Ricky Tomlinson had a series, Lock Stock... which seemed to be always on sale in those little video catalogues you got in papers c.2000, Snatch has had a series that almost no one in the UK watches, weirdly. The Young Offenders too

There were American pilots for To Sir, With Love (set in the UK, with Hari Rhodes, James Grout and Rosemary Leach replacing Poitier, Bayldon and Routledge, and Brinsley Forde there to make the similarities with Please Sir even more obvious) and Sid Caesar  in the Mouse that Roared.

Brundle-Fly

This Is England?
The Trip (off the back of A Cock And Bull Story)?

George White

Yes.
Just remembered another one.
Stormy Monday - the TV series. David Morrissey as young Sting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finney_(TV_series)

Brundle-Fly

Quote from: George White on September 08, 2019, 09:24:17 PM
Yes.
Just remembered another one.
Stormy Monday - the TV series. David Morrissey as young Sting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finney_(TV_series)

Never heard of Finney before.

ITV's Carry On Laughing (1975) Not to be confused with the compilation show. I remember seeing this at the time and there was an exchange where Sid tells Babs to stop scratching her bum and she replies, "I can't help it, Sid, it's tickly". Or something like that. My dad immediately switched channels saying, "I dont want to know about Barbara Windsor's itchy harris"

I did though. In detail. And I certainly didn't want to watch Pot Black instead.

dissolute ocelot

Wikipedia has a list (actually 2 lists, neither of which is Britain-specific), but aside from the Anglo-American 1960s serial The Third Man, with Michael Rennie in the title role, this thread is already more comprehensive. Surely somebody must have pitched a Lesbian Vampire Killers tv show, maybe the makers of HollyOaks?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_television_programs_based_on_films

George White

The two Billy Liar sitcoms, one with Jeff Rawle, the other with Steve Guttenberg

There was a US action show though made in Europe of The Man who Never Was

Bad Ambassador

Two of Anthony Horowitz's Diamond Brothers books - comedy thrillers for young teens - have been adapted. Just Ask for Diamond, based on, err, The Falcon's Malteser was a cinema release, but the follow-up was a TV series based on South by Southeast titled, boringly, The Diamond Brothers. The brothers were played by the same actors in both productions.

George White

Yes.

Forgot about the Born Free series

Similar to Quiller, IIRC the reason the BBC Smileys were coproduced with Paramount was because since makimg Spy who Came in from the Cold, they had the name rights to Smiley, why the Deadly Affair renamed him Dobbsas it was Columbia

George White

Charters and Caldicott - based on the characters from the FILM of The Lady Vanishes, created by Launder and Gilliat. 1986, with Robin Bailey (playing a character previously essayed by Arthur Lowe for the second time, post-Potter) and Michael Aldridge

Would the Screen Twos of the Snapper and the Van count? Technically NOT sequels to the film of the Commitments, but adaptations of books in the same series, with character names changed but Colm Meaney playing Jimmy/Dessie/Larry Curley-Rabbitte.



George White

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099356/?ref_=ttfc_fc_tt Lawrence of Arabia II with young Ralph Fiennes and then-Siddig El Fadil.


A US pilot based on the Man who Fell to Earth https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093486/

Mrs. Brown's Boys.

Anjelica Huston has a lot to answer for.

Bazooka

Police Camera Action was based on Police Academy.

George White

#12
Quote from: Huxleys Babkins on October 17, 2019, 05:31:41 PM
Mrs. Brown's Boys.

Anjelica Huston has a lot to answer for.
That's a weird sideways example, but yes, I suppose it counts.
They're both derived from books based on a radio show. But yes,Agnes Browne was the spark that lit the fuse.

I always love that Anjelica Huston has played two wildly differing sitcom matriarchs from opposite sides of the Atlantic.







The exotic and the effluent.




As a Dublin lad, I must say Anjelica Huston is more convincing as a Dub than Finglas boy O'Carroll. Then again, he is a delusional old  ham. He tried to launch his own Freddie Laker-style airline in the 90s.

https://www.independent.ie/woman/celeb-news/huston-ocarrolls-first-mrs-brown-30374239.html I love that he goes on that she has no feel for Dublin life. Err, sure, you live in Florida now.

The weird thing is that I can see O'Carroll as a more comic-like Gomez.

Barney Sloane

Hannay was a belated spin-off from the 1978 version of The 39 Steps.

George White


Glebe

Quote from: George White on October 18, 2019, 08:03:11 AMAs a Dublin lad, I must say Anjelica Huston is more convincing as a Dub than Finglas boy O'Carroll.

I've still not seen it (nor Agnes Browne, to be honest), but she also starred in her father John's 1987 James Joyce adaptation The Dead... apparently he was forced to shoot it in LA due to deteriorating health (it was his last film).

George White

Yes, though Channel 4 put money to it.
Most Irish people think her accent is excellent, esp. by standards of terrible accents.
But then she grew up mostly in Galway.


imitationleather

Lock, Stock and Snatch had spin-off TV series.

EDIT: It's mentioned in the OP. Soz I am a twat.

George White

Niall Toibin's death reminds me of Confessional, the Granada/Silvio Berlusconi miniseries continuing the adventures of Jack Higgins' Oirish hero Liam Devlin (no longer a WW2 vet), now played by Keith Carradine, stopping an IRA priest played by Robert Lindsay from blowing up the Pope (Anthony Quayle).

George White

Quote from: George White on September 10, 2019, 07:01:24 PM
The two Billy Liar sitcoms, one with Jeff Rawle, the other with Steve Guttenberg

There was a US action show though made in Europe of The Man who Never Was
Sorry, but this isn't quite true. Fox made both the film and the series, but neither are anything to do with each other.

Glebe

Quote from: George White on November 13, 2019, 12:44:53 PMNiall Toibin's death reminds me of Confessional, the Granada/Silvio Berlusconi miniseries continuing the adventures of Jack Higgins' Oirish hero Liam Devlin (no longer a WW2 vet), now played by Keith Carradine, stopping an IRA priest played by Robert Lindsay from blowing up the Pope (Anthony Quayle).

I've never seen it, but I know he was in Rawhead Rex too. In any case, RIP Niall.

pigamus

The short-lived Felicity Kendal sitcom Honey for Tea was based on Aguirre Wrath of God.

George White

Quote from: Glebe on November 13, 2019, 04:21:59 PM
I've never seen it, but I know he was in Rawhead Rex too. In any case, RIP Niall.
I dont think UTV aired Confessiinal

dissolute ocelot

Quote from: pigamus on November 13, 2019, 04:44:29 PM
The short-lived Felicity Kendal sitcom Honey for Tea was based on Aguirre Wrath of God.

Not 100% sure of that, but I'm A Celebrity... definitely was.

Glebe

Quote from: George White on November 15, 2019, 07:48:26 AM
  I dont think UTV aired Confessiinal

Soz, actually meant I've never seen Rawhead Rex but yeah, not seen Confessional either.

studpuppet

Quote from: Huxleys Babkins on October 17, 2019, 05:31:41 PM
Mrs. Brown's Boys.

Anjelica Huston has a lot to answer for.

Well fuck my hat, I never knew that.


George White

Quote from: George White on October 19, 2019, 08:04:38 AM
Yes, though Channel 4 put money to it.
Most Irish people think her accent is excellent, esp. by standards of terrible accents.
But then she grew up mostly in Galway.
Recently saw her in A Walk with Love and Death, age 18, and she comes across as an upper-middle-class Irish teen girl plonked in front of the camera. She sounds like an Irish girl trying to sound English by doing a Jenny Agutter impression

George White

Africa Texas Style, a British production acted as pilot for the all-Yank Cowboy in Africa.

St_Eddie

Does the BBC's extended series of Das Boot count?