ATD Film Club

Film 4 2330 tonight: Remembrance.

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This is a must-see for my fellow Plymothians. Loads of location filming around the city in general and Union Street in particular.

For you non-Plymothians: this is the city I grew up in. I was 17 in '82 when this film was made. It was really exactly like this much of the time.

For everybody: the cast at he time was completely unknown but there's loads of people in it who have made a decent career for themselves so there's loads of well-known, but very young, faces to spot.

I haven't seen this film for years and years. I wonder how it has aged?

Recommended.

Thanks Franny.

I vaguely knew one of the bikers in the Two Trees scene. Not well enough to know his name - Simon, possibly? - but well enough to talk to and he and his mates just happened to be there when they were filming and were roped in to add a bit of colour.

It's all mega-low budget stuff but none the worse for that.

Im currently watching THE CLASH: NEW YEARS DAY '77 on the Beeb iplayer. Very good if you like punky reggae vibe stuff.

Will check it out when I get the chance.

Back to Remembrance... I had a buddy who went away to join the RAF. While he was away he got very matey with a lad named Chris from Glasgow and his mate came down to visit. This would have bang on the era when Remembrance was made.

We went out for the night in town and Chris's verdict at the end of the evening? "Bloody hell. Glasgow is supposed to be rough but it is nothing like Plymouth."

That was when Union Street was Union Street!!

Just watching this and it's alright - slightly before my time. By 86/87 when I first ventured down Union Street things were starting to change from this.

Would the old Yardie on the Hoe singing the praises of the Navy have ben typical of the time.

Well it was a feature of my youth that old boys used to walk their dogs, gather, sit around, chat and smoke their pipes.

My experience of this was more Central Park based but if it happened there I'm sure that it happened elsewhere too and The Hoe would have been the obvious place in that part of town where it happened. Add to that the fact there used to be plenty of ex-matelots in Plymouth and it is quite possible.

Obviously the film was extremely Navy-centric but I clearly remember Union Street being exactly like that with the Naval Provost vans on patrol and there being matelots and bootnecks all over the place.

As for the minutiae of all the various threads in the story they probably all went on at some time or another, and probably more than once, but possibly not all on the same night.

Recorded this last night and really looking forward to watching it (but probably not tonight as I've got Detroit to watch). It's a perfect combination for me: it's my era (only I was old enough to drink in 1982), and I might spot a few familiar faces, but there's no risk of spotting myself as I'd gone off to get educated and wanky by then.

A pub that featured quite largely in the film was The Antelope.

I've no idea where it was. One of you lot must know...

I hope Peggy reports back with her thoughts... Loads of location filming (almost 100% in Plymouth/Devonport) and a real trip back in time.

The film was very low-budget and very raw. Kind of like a loveletter to a very seedy urban underbelly. Very much in the gritty realist mode. In fact it was pretty brutal, I suppose, with a surprisingly touching ending.

It was far from perfect but I really enjoyed it.

What's the first rule of Film Club?

Rules? Nobody talks about Film Club?

Not keen on 'em really but how about:

1. Give notice a film is coming on with channel, date and time.
2. Discuss it afterwards avoiding spoilers.

Maybe even review films currently in the cinema (avoiding spoilers)?

Dunno. Let's not get too hung up on rules except perhaps "no spoilers".

You ain't seen me, right?

The Antelope became the Hackney Carriage and Maxine's. Don't remember it (we used to drink op the Minerva and the Breton Arms) but that's what google said.

Haven't watched Remembrance yet, but I'll throw in hearty recommendations for Baby Driver and Captain Underpants. And Loving Vincent, but only on a proper cinema size screen.

Funnily enough I was always far more of a Barbi Boy too...

"8 o' clock, Breton Arms?" "Yeah, alright." And then onwards. Usually ending up at either The Quay Club, Robin Hood Club or Sea Anglers.

Very rarely went near Union Street but there was the odd occasion. The Antelope was the Hackney Carriage? Got it.

I got Baby Driver for Christmas but haven't watched it yet.

Err, I'm no expert on Union St, but surely the Antelope was the old name for what became The Central, the pub named after the TCE painted in green black and white on the Octagon, I think it's closed down now. As I remember, along with the Dolphin, it was a more regular haunt of Beryl Cook. Maybe it was called the Hackney as well, there's a rank right outside, or used to be. Just checked....same place

I watched the first half hour of Remembrance and found it rather boring and slow. And yes, I could see it was going to be gritty, so gave the rest a miss. Even the rain among the Hoe flagpoles didn't do it for me. Maybe it's because I've seen too much of that sort of thing in the flesh and haven't really got time for it anymore. Don't get me wrong, I've enjoyed life in the raw, just not interested in matelots and the like. In real life I gave Union St a go for the odd year and found nothing redeeming about it whatsoever, although I did like Ziggys down in Bath St as a late night reggae/meet for a period. The Hub now I think possibly. I liked the Grand Theatre pub and the United Services for an infrequent drink before armageddon dealt them a blow.

Ziggy's was where I used to go, mostly, if I went down that way; sometimes The Astoria.

It wasn't so much the Navy thing that did it for me. I used to avoid the Matelot/Bootie places simply because they were Matelot/Bootie places and '82 was pretty much at the height of the Falklands War (strangely not mentioned at all) so it was Navy Navy Navy all over the place. It was the wider incidental stuff: Naval Provost permanently on the prowl; milk in bottles; everybody smoking everywhere; the cars; the fashions; how grimy everything looked; pound notes; just how "Plymouth" everything was.

The way of life it depicted was totally alien to me in so far as all the Navy stuff was concerned; I was never a part of that and avoided it like the plague as much as I could. There was still loads I could relate to though.

The first hour or so was a bit incoherent, the early beating by the bouncer apart, but it did draw together come the end reaching a conclusion that I wasn't expecting (despite having seen it before many years ago).

It was also interesting to see so many actors who have gone on to greater fame at a stage of their careers where nobody had the foggiest as to who they were and I also recognised one of the bikers in the Two Trees bit which was kind of cool.

I enjoyed watching it and it was nice to see a big slab of life set in a city that we don't usually see much of in films or on TV though. Wouldn't go anywhere so far as to say it was brilliant because it had its flaws and it wasn't especially a pleasant film to watch... Would I have enjoyed it much had it been filmed in, say, Portsmouth? I doubt it.

I see it features "Nasty" Nick Cotton.

Sir Francis Drake wrote:

Ziggy's was where I used to go, mostly, if I went down that way; sometimes The Astoria.

It wasn't so much the Navy thing that did it for me. I used to avoid the Matelot/Bootie places simply because they were Matelot/Bootie places and '82 was pretty much at the height of the Falklands War (strangely not mentioned at all) so it was Navy Navy Navy all over the place. It was the wider incidental stuff: Naval Provost permanently on the prowl; milk in bottles; everybody smoking everywhere; the cars; the fashions; how grimy everything looked; pound notes; just how "Plymouth" everything was.

The way of life it depicted was totally alien to me in so far as all the Navy stuff was concerned; I was never a part of that and avoided it like the plague as much as I could. There was still loads I could relate to though.

The first hour or so was a bit incoherent, the early beating by the bouncer apart, but it did draw together come the end reaching a conclusion that I wasn't expecting (despite having seen it before many years ago).

It was also interesting to see so many actors who have gone on to greater fame at a stage of their careers where nobody had the foggiest as to who they were and I also recognised one of the bikers in the Two Trees bit which was kind of cool.

I enjoyed watching it and it was nice to see a big slab of life set in a city that we don't usually see much of in films or on TV though. Wouldn't go anywhere so far as to say it was brilliant because it had its flaws and it wasn't especially a pleasant film to watch... Would I have enjoyed it much had it been filmed in, say, Portsmouth? I doubt it.

Part of one of my jobs when working in the naval base was to manage a reserve stock of vehicles retained for issue when regular transport held by various departments within HMNB was in workshops for service, repair etc. It was a regular occurrence for the Naval provost to be on the phone at 9.00 Monday morning asking for a replacement for their Sherpa which had been kicked in during the weekend Union Street frolics, you could almost set your watch by it. Provide them with a replacement, that would get kicked in and go into the workshops, original would be ready, that would get kicked in etc, etc, a never ending cycle. I believe the Camels Head [later to be called the Submarine, now under the St Budeaux dual carriageway] was also a venue for Matelot/Marine altercations from time to time, my great aunt worked in the pub and used to tell a tale or two of the happenings there.

Missed this thread but interested in looking at the film...bit before my time as I wasn't going out in town until the late 80's...but will be curious to see how it compares to my own experience.

We still felt Union St could be pretty rough around the turn of the 80's/90's and it was standard to see fights down there. My mates and I used to drink on the Barbican and then head to Union St as a final destination. By the early 90's they were turning left into Jesters and I went right into The Warehouse.

Just about remember some good nights at The Star of the West on strong cider and a teenage foray into Diamond Lils.

Of the other films mentioned, thought Baby Driver was pretty good after seeming like it might be formulaic for the first half hour. Loved Detroit - pretty powerful, especially in the current climate.

I'm a bit younger again (and given that I'm 40, it shows what a bunch or old buggers we are here) so I was going out on Union Street in the mid-to-late 90s when the Warehouse waned and JFKs became more popular. Jesters was ever-present though, despite (or perhaps because of) it being a dump. It seemed sketchier at the start of that period than at the end. I went to Blondes three times, at the insistence of others, and there was a dancefloor-clearing brawl each time. I suppose that period also covers the point when bouncers had to be accredited, and security firms moved towards turning potential trouble away at the door, rather than letting them in in the hopes of having a ruck later.

Anyway, the film sounds interesting, and I'll probably give it a watch. Detroit is also very good indeed. I've not got to the pictures much, so I've been watching things on Netflix. Monsters is great - a low budget sci-fi/horror flick - as is the Green Room, with Patrick Stewart as a Neo-Nazi leader who sets dogs on people. I also watched Network for the first time, and loved it!

Watched Remembrance over the weekend. The storyline wasn't all that, and some of the acting was a bit wooden, but as far as a picture of Union Street in the early 1980s it had it all. The cabbies on the corner (next to the site which is now the Pavilions) with a sign offering a price for 'DYD (all wharves)', the hordes of police, civil and military, the friction between locals and matelots, everywhere closing at the same time, and the rest. Although we didn't drink in Union Street we went down there a lot after the pubs closed because the Metro had moved by then, from Exmouth Road to the top floor of a building that's now a convenience store with flats above, a couple of doors before the Clipper. Many's the time I've fallen out of there into scenes very like those in the film. Brought back a lot of memories, not all of them welcome if I'm honest.

But I was also tickled by some of the incongruities (if that's the word and I've spelt it proper). A matelot going on Dockyards and Warships; a cracking shot, from the Saltash side I think, of a train going over the Brunel Bridge; the impression being given that Raleigh (a training establishment) is/was the naval base; and above all the idea that matelots joining a ship which was due to sail that day would (a) be able to wander aboard at the last minute (who did they think would be driving the thing?) and (b) had to catch the Torpoint Ferry to get to it. I suspect these were in there because they had some nice shots they wanted to use, because they couldn't film in the places they wanted to, to highlight the contrast between Union Street and other bits of Plymouth, or simply because the script needed padding out a little.

One final thing the film did was to remind me that the armed forces were held in very low esteem back then - hence the bit at the posh party and a few other scenes with blokes justifying their decision to join up. It's only since the Falklands War (yes, that was the same year this was released, although maybe it was filmed earlier, and it did happen very suddenly: I know guys who only got a few hours' notice they were going) and especially since Iraq One that the heroes stuff has re-emerged.

Edit: It also struck me as odd that two of the main matelot characters were janners. Given the animosity, it always seemed that Plymouth beys didn't join the navy - if they went for the forces, it was the army, or occasionally the RAF.

I didn't know anybody who joined the RN; I knew one lad who went into the army and a handful that joined the RAF.

I quite liked the punky Janner sister in the Dockyard & Warships bit. Totally disinterested. Her brother, the blond lad, stole the show, I thought. I wonder who he was or what he's done since?

Pretty much agree with all you say. It certainly wasn't a great film by any stretch of the imagination but it was fascinating as a period piece or historical document.

Undoubtedly my fav actor. Drexyl my fav baddie. Great clip here from my fav film...

Peggy wrote:

The Antelope became the Hackney Carriage and Maxine's. Don't remember it (we used to drink op the Minerva and the Breton Arms) but that's what google said.

Haven't watched Remembrance yet, but I'll throw in hearty recommendations for Baby Driver and Captain Underpants. And Loving Vincent, but only on a proper cinema size screen.

The Antelope was on the corner of the Octagon, my favourite was the Castle just a few yards along Union Street, I well remember “Rocking Henry” packing them in while belting R&R on the Piano.