Blue Remembered Hills

1979 1h 12m EN

👍

7.3

SOLID

★7.3TMDB · 3

TV MovieDrama

Synopsis

Spoiler shield

On an idyllic summer afternoon in the summer of 1943, a group of children play in the West Country hills, fields and forests. With no adults around, they indulge in spontaneous games and horseplay - sometimes echoing the distant war, at other times revealing their own insecurities and petty vindictiveness.

“Some stories are better left unspoiled.”

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Cast

Colin Welland
Willie
Michael Elphick
Peter
Robin Ellis
John
John Bird
Raymond
Helen Mirren
Angela
Janine Duvitski
Audrey
Colin Jeavons
Donald
Dennis Potter
Narrator (voice, uncredited)

Credits

Behind the camera

Director: Brian Gibson
Writers: Dennis Potter
Languages: English
Countries: United Kingdom

Want more? Switch to Cinephile mode in the header for DP, composer, budget, box office, production companies, keywords, and release history.

Did you know?

Fun facts 🍿

1 / 8

RUNTIME

Did you know

Tight 72-minute runtime — shorter than most television pilots.

MoodPlayr · trivia#01

2 / 8

ERA

Did you know

47 years old — old enough to be someone's favourite childhood film.

MoodPlayr · trivia#02

3 / 8

RUNTIME

Did you know

Lean credit list — fewer than 30 people officially credited.

MoodPlayr · trivia#03

4 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Directed by Brian Gibson, shot by Nat Crosby. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.

MoodPlayr · trivia#04

5 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Original score by Marc Wilkinson. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.

MoodPlayr · trivia#05

6 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Editor David Martin shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.

MoodPlayr · trivia#06

7 / 8

CAST

Did you know

Colin Welland and Michael Elphick and Robin Ellis carry the top of the cast.

MoodPlayr · trivia#07

8 / 8

WILD

Did you know

IMDB entry: tt0078882 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.

MoodPlayr · trivia#08

Cinephile deep dive

The take

Brian Gibson directs. Nat Crosby behind the camera. Marc Wilkinson scores. David Martin cuts. Runs lean at under 100 minutes. Produced in United Kingdom. Dialogue in English.

Trivia

Things worth knowing

1Tight 72-minute runtime — shorter than most television pilots.
247 years old — old enough to be someone's favourite childhood film.
3Lean credit list — fewer than 30 people officially credited.
4Directed by Brian Gibson, shot by Nat Crosby. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.
5Original score by Marc Wilkinson. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.
6Editor David Martin shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.
7Colin Welland and Michael Elphick and Robin Ellis carry the top of the cast.
8IMDB entry: tt0078882 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.
9Only 3 TMDB ratings — you're getting ahead of the curve on this one.

The technical file

Cinematography: Nat Crosby
Original score: Marc Wilkinson
Editing: David Martin
Production design: Richard Henry
Costume design: Andrew MacKenzie
Makeup / hair: Ann Briggs
Runtime: 72 min · 1h 12m
Status: Released
Original language: EN
Certification (US): 12
IMDB: Blue Remembered Hills (1979)

Also by

Brian Gibson

Community reviews

What people are saying

CinemaSerf2024-11-17
★ 7/10
Anyone else grow up reading Enid Blyton books? Those "Secret Seven" or "Famous Five" stories where young folks had some jolly japes, sometime tempered with a baddie and some ingenious traps and wheezes? I thought for a while that this is what we were going to get here as a collection of youths are playing merrily in a forest in the middle of WWII. There's no sign of the atrocities of the war per se, here, but as the children play their dialogue and attitudes make it clear that their's isn't the innocence we might have initially expected. There are five boys and two girls and for just over an hour we watch their games become, well something just a bit more than that. The playful starts to become the serious, the fun more serious, the constraints of their age that ought to hem in their imagination become much more blurred - there is a realism to the behaviour that shouldn't be quite so prevalent - yet! As with any "tribe" there are leaders and followers, those who are bolder and those more timid - and writer Dennis Potter quite effectively imbues the characters with strengths and weakness that don't always conform to the stereotypes of the biggest, the oldest, or the girls being the "weaker". For me, Michael Elphick's "Peter" and Janine Duvitski's "Audrey" stood out as the complexities of their persona teased and terrorised, but Colin Welland and John Bird also added an huge amount richness to a story that ends up about as far away from Miss Blyton's idyll as it might be possible to imagine. It's frantic at times, the dialogue comes thick and fast and the story has a certain roundness to it that is anything but predictable. Is it wartime that is making those children grow up, is it nature, nurture - all three? It's entertaining, but in quite a provocative and lively manner and well worth an hour.

Production companies