Arena Season 1, Episode 590

Flames of Passion: the Other Side of British Cinema · BBC Four · Sunday, September 2

Britain's postwar cinema was not well looked upon by many critics. The melodramas, crime films and horror shockers were almost all derided by contemporary critics. Unearthing a wealth of vibrant extracts from forgotten and over-looked movies, this documentary celebrates the British cinema of the 1940s and 50s when films of the era tended to deal with the difficulties and occasional traumas of women and men as they come to terms with the postwar world.