Categories
beer in fiction / tv pubs

Snob screens in the Punch & Judy Man, 1963

The 1963 film The Punch & Judy Man has a scene in a pub where a ‘snob screen’ is an essential part of the action, and fuel for class satire.

In The Punch & Judy Man Tony Hancock plays a seaside entertainer at war with the snooty town council which wants to take Piltdown-on-Sea upmarket.

When rain comes, he and his fellow entertainers and hawkers retreat to a seafront pub called The Trident – actually a studio set at Elstree, evidence suggests.

Being skint, and being working men, they stand in the public bar drinking mild and bitter. Meanwhile, the suit-wearing town dignitaries hang out in the saloon drinking expensive spirits.

Between them is a barrier: an ornate ‘snob screen’ in wood and etched glass, jutting out a few feet from the bar.

Hancock, who co-wrote the film as well as starring in it, uses these as the basis for a bit of ‘business’ which, handily, you can see some of in the trailer for the film.

He pops in and out of the various windows, taunting and teasing the snobs behind the snob screen. In other words, he refuses to respect (literal) social barriers, and highlights their purely symbolic nature.

After all, he and his pals can hear almost every word that is being said a few inches from them, on the other side of the screen.

What is slightly odd is that most surviving examples of tilting or swivelling snob screens are there to separate customers from bar staff, rather than from each other.

A view along the bar of a traditional Victorian pub with swivelling screens, with etched glass.
Snob screens between customers and serving staff at The Barton Arms, Birmingham.

In Licensed to Sell: the history and heritage of the public house (Brandwood et al, 2011) the small section on snob screens explains that they were also known as ‘shy screens’.

Pub designer Ben Davis, in his book The Traditional English Pub, 1981, describes them like this:

“This was a Victorian invention consisting of a polished mahogany structure fixed to the counter top and containing small panes of decorative glass in centre-pivoted timber frames. This allowed the ‘snobs’ in the Saloon Bar to be served and at the same time to cut themselves off from the direct scrutiny of the lower orders – perhaps their own servants or employees – in the Public Bar.”

This sounds more like the purpose of the screen we see in The Punch & Judy Man but it is still mounted on the bar, rather than along the bar.

A person ducks beneath a screen in a traditional wood-panelled pub.
Screens separating bars at The Prince Alfred in Maida Vale.

And while there are numerous examples of screens separating bars or sections in pubs, they don’t tend to have pivoting or opening windows. Why would they?

We have to assume that the production designer on Hancock’s film took some liberties here. Artistic licence, if you like, to facilitate a gag the Lad Himself wanted to perform.

A few more footnotes

Even if this isn’t a real pub, and licence has been taken, it’s worth recording a couple of other observations.

First, there are pump clips. Small ones, on the public bar only, but they’re there. This ties into the date we’ve previously suggested for the popular uptake of pump clips, in around 1963.

Secondly, a bit of business between Hancock and his pals underlines the status of different types of beer.

The beach photographer Nevil (Mario Fabrizi) is pressed into buying a round to make up for a breach of etiquette in touting for customers during a performance.

Hugh Lloyd, as Hancock’s hangdog assistant, takes advantage by ordering a large bitter, causing Nevil’s eyes to widen in panic. This is an expensive order! He balances it by ordering a half of mild for himself – the cheapest thing on the menu.

And, finally, it’s yet another faux-Watney’s pub on film, with a famous Red Barrel on the bar. Was the Watney’s publicity department particularly friendly to filmmakers, perhaps?

A promotional booklet for the film (reproduced with the 2019 Network Releasing Blu-ray) trumpeted various ‘national tie-ups’ with Kellogs, Gordon & Moore’s toothpaste, Kodak, Remington Shavers and Lyon’s Maid ice cream. But not Watney’s.

Categories
20th Century Pub beer in fiction / tv

The 1950s pub captured in a 1980s film

Distant Voices, Still Lives from 1988 is Terence Davies’ attempt to capture working class Liverpool life of the 1940s and 50s on film. His evocation of pub life is particularly powerful.

Perhaps a fifth or a quarter of the whole film takes place in or outside the pub.

Cosmetically, most of the details are right. We see etched glass bearing the name of Higson’s, bottles of Mackeson Stout, ten-sided pint glasses, and bell pushes on the benches where the ladies sit.

It’s run-down and plain, this pub, but that doesn’t matter because the people bring it to life.

It is where families and friends get together, crowding every space.

In a repeated shot, from the lounge or saloon into the public bar, we see men ordering rounds of drinks:

“Nora! Hey, Nora! Can I have two ‘alves of shandy, a Mackies, a Double Diamond, a pale ale and lime, a black-and-tan, a pint of mix, a rum and pep, a rum and blackcurrant, and a Guinness?”

“Rum and pep” is rum with peppermint cordial; “mix”, also known as half-and-half, is 50/50 mild and bitter.

Another reason this pub feels so vibrant is the constant singing.

Eileen (Angela Walsh, second left) sings in the pub in Distant Voices, Still Lives.

Singing is how the women in the film express their feelings, from sadness to joy.

Taking it in turns to perform, or harmonising together, they sway with their glasses:

“When that old gang of mine get together… On the corner of my home town… We were friends in the past… And our friendship will last… ’Til the curtain of dreams comes down!”

Would people put up with it these days? You’d probably end up in a snarky video on social media.

There’s also a strong implication that men who don’t like the pub – who don’t go, or complain about having to go – are the most likely to be unhappy:

“Come on, Les, just one drink.”

“Alright, just one, to wet the baby’s head, but we’re not staying here all fucking night.”

They simply don’t have what it takes to rub along with other people.

There are plenty of pubs on film but this portrayal seems, somehow, more real than most. Perhaps its because it isn’t treated as special – just part of everyday life, like the back yard or the kitchen.

Distant Voices, Still Lives is available via the BFI.

The trailer for the recent rerelease of the film in a restored version.
Categories
beer in fiction / tv

Amazon’s Beer Masters: overall, good, with some off flavours

One of the things we did during our recent period of Covid isolation was to work our way through the Amazon reality show Beer Masters. It wasn’t a difficult task – there are only five episodes.

Ed Wray’s neat review has prompted us to add a few thoughts.

First, kudos to the producers, Electric Robin, for coming up with a way to make the Bake Off format work for a product which is slow to manufacture.

Our tongue-in-cheek post about TV formats from more than eight years ago was really intended to make the point that we couldn’t see how this could be done.

But, in the end, they found quite a clever mechanism: by keeping all the contestants in until the end, it simultaneously solves the issue of maturing time, while making for a gentler and what feels like a fairer format than the weekly elimination model that we’re all so used to.

This could lend itself to other crafts, too – The Great British Knit Off?

We also really liked that the final challenge required the contestants to make the same beer twice, testing their ability to deliver consistency.

The international cast was also a selling point, despite some occasionally awkward attempts to make the contestants banter in English.

It almost felt like a travel show at times with sequences at homes in France, Italy, Belgium and the Netherlands, as well as filming in breweries in Belgium and Holland. In these sequences, the visuals switched to the slick Netflix documentary style, all drone shots and depth of field.

A typical location shot from Beer Masters. SOURCE: Amazon Prime Video.

Jaega Wise made an excellent presenter, not mincing her words when the beer wasn’t up to standard, but always feeling kind and constructive.

Her co-host, James Blunt, filled a thankless role adequately, making the odd joke and asking daft questions on behalf of the layman viewer.

Some commentators have argued that the format removed all tension from the show, and indeed, it did feel at times as if drama was being contrived around, for example, a stuck sparge, or a slightly leaky tap.

Each episode also includes an on-the-day challenge, too. None of these were as interesting as the brewing but did provide a race-against-time quality and allowed the contestants to gather round and look nervous while being judged.

We wondered several times who this was pitched at. As (very) occasional homebrewers, we didn’t feel patronised, or out of our depth. The obvious wasn’t stated too often and there were some interesting insights into other people’s home brewing setups. And there were some extremely relatable moments, such as when one team lost their hop filter in the boiler.

Perhaps, however, they could have spent less time on the somewhat laboured descriptions of what makes an Abbey beer, or a pilsner, and told us a bit more about the contestants’ kits. We could see some interesting gadgets and arrangements that were never really discussed.

If the aim is to spark a home-brewing revolution, as was suggested at a couple of points, then this probably won’t do it.

Of course, you could say that who it was pitched at was the general beer consumer, in a clever piece of stealth advertising by AB-InBev.

All of the commercial beers featured are AB-InBev products, with carefully managed stories designed to highlight their ‘authenticity’ (Camden Hells, Tripel Karmeliet) and/or consistency (Stella Artois).

Some of this was interesting in itself, and it’s hard not to be impressed by professional brewers being professionals. In fact, we thought the explanation of how global quality control was enforced from the Stella Artois mothership was one of the most interesting nuggets in the whole show.

But, ultimately, the presentation of the stories of these beers was downright misleading at times.

We understand why the producers would work with AB-InBev: instant access to a whole raft of brewers and breweries without having to juggle multiple commercial partners. But it was a bit weird that the parent company wasn’t, as far as we noticed, mentioned even once.

Overall, the fact that we’re still talking about it suggests it’s got something about it. Concerns about transparency aside, we hope there’ll be a second series, with some tweaks to the format.

Beer Masters is available free for Amazon Prime Video subscribers in the UK.

Categories
20th Century Pub beer in fiction / tv london pubs

Lose Bunny Lake, find a pub

The 1965 psychological thriller Bunny Lake is Missing was set in London and, of course, features a scene set in a pub – The Warrington Hotel, Maida Vale.

Bunny Lake was a flop on its original release, and an obscurity for decades. Now, like many lesser-known films of the period, it’s been beautifully restored and released on Blu-ray.

That gives us an opportunity not only to see the pub as it looked almost 60 years ago but also to freeze the frame, zoom and enhance, to see what details we can pick up.

First, a disclaimer: this is a real pub, not a studio set – there are enough clues to be sure of that. But, of course, it is filled with studio extras, not real drinkers, or so we assume.

That means some of what we see is sort of real, and some sort of isn’t – although the film is intended to feel real rather than presenting that romantic fantasy version of London so often seen in American productions.

In fact, Laurence Olivier, as Superintendent Newhouse, makes that point very well, in dialogue written by novelists Penelope Mortimer and John Mortimer:

“Ever been in a pub before? Here it is, the heart of Merrie Olde England. Complete with dirty glasses, watery beer, draughts under the doors, and a 23-inch television.”

Oh, yes – the television. A novelty in pubs in the 1950s, by 1965, it’s a fixture – almost the centrepiece, in fact, front and centre above the bar. It shows the news first, then a performance by The Zombies. Middle-aged and elderly drinkers seem transfixed by it.

A pub television.

Never mind the TV, you’re probably thinking – what about those bottles beneath it.

In this shot, and others, we’ve got:

  • Babycham
  • Courage Brown Ale
  • Worthington Pale Ale
  • Guinness
  • and some others we don’t recognise, but you might

There’s also some very prominent point-of-sale material for SKOL lager.

Bottled beers

What about draught beer? There’s a very obvious Courage Tavern Keg Bitter font in several shots, a draught Guinness font, and a single lonely cask ale pump-clip advertising Flowers.

Tavern Keg Bitter
Guinness
Flowers

That last one is a bit confusing because Flowers was a Whitbread brand by 1961 and this pub was definitely a Barclays (Courage) pub. Perhaps this is a bit of set dressing by a production designer who – can you believe it? – didn’t especially care about brewery ownership.

There’s also some background detail for students of pub grub to enjoy. Jars of pickles. Boiled eggs. Pies. Miserable sandwiches. And a full but unconvincing steak, seafood and oyster menu.

Pickles
Sandwiches
Full dining menu

What’s also clear is that this was a handsome building. Green and White’s The Evening Standard Guide to London Pubs from 1973 says:

A dominant building at the north end of Warrington Crescent… the Warrington is a glowing example of faded splendour, possibly due to the fact that it has never really been taken up by the Maida Vale elite. It has one of the most imposing pub entrances in London, with its own ornate lamp-standards and a coy lady holding a torch in a niche on your right as you go in. Fascinating interior with some art nouveau stained glass, only slightly marred by some more recent murals, a salmon-pink ceiling hung with chandeliers, and a crescent-shaped bar with a brass footrail. Probably the best example of an Edwardian pub in London.

The exterior of the Warrington
Painted sign on the door: LOUNGE
Art Nouveau windows

Apparently, it’s still worth a visit. Next time we’re in London, plagues and regulations permitting, we’ll try to pop in for a sad sandwich and a bottle of brown ale.

Categories
beer in fiction / tv featuredposts

Dreadful welcome: pubs on film

Old Hollywood was a town overrun with homesick British expats, making films that reflected a particular vision of the old country – nostalgic, parodic and often with a Gothic tint. That was reflected in its portrayal of pubs, too, skewing their image for decades to come.

Consider 1943’s Sherlock Holmes Faces Death, one of the better entries in the run of Sherlock Holmes films starring Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce, which gives us The Rat & Raven.

The film is set in Northumbria, not that you’d know that from the cast of assorted Brits, Antipodeans, Irishmen and Americans, all speaking stage cockney or Transatlantic English.

The pub, which appears 35 minutes in, is located in the country town of Hurlstone – instantly recognisable to students of horror film as the standing ‘European village’ set at Universal Studios, built c.1920 and reused endlessly to stand in for everywhere from the Western Front to Wales to the fictional ‘Visaria’ where Frankenstein’s monster rampaged in his later post-Karloff career.