6/10
Lobster Fever
25 August 2017
Few people have actually seen this title that holds a prominent position in the history of the British cinema as the film that drew J.Arthur Rank into the industry. The authentic location footage shot by the distinguished Austrian cameraman Franz Planer in exotic North Yorkshire depicting the fictional fishing village of Bramblewick repeatedly clashes with the studio exteriors depicting the village itself, the contrast heightened by the vertiginous Soviet-style cutting in the earlier scenes then all the rage in British films; although the tempo of the piece settles down eventually.

The 'foreign' interlopers the Lunns from twenty miles up the coast are the first to use new-fangled engines on their boats, while tugboats are depicted as brash new competitors during a salvage operation. The sense of a long vanished era is further reinforced by the sums of money discussed; "ten quid's ten quid remember" one character says. An almost unrecognisably young and slender Niall MacGinnis makes his debut here; he made an even longer trek soon afterwards to the Shetland island of Foula to make Michael Powell's 'Edge of the World'.
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