Arena: Flames of Passion

From the Second World War to the early 1960s, British movies were hugely popular with British audiences. Yet the mainstream films of these years have been dismissed by filmmakers and critics as unexciting and lacking any sense of true cinematic flair. The French director Francois Truffaut suggested that "there is a certain incompatability between the terms cinema and Britain". With a wealth of vibrant extracts from forgotten movies, Flames of Passion celebrates the British cinema of the 1940s and 1950s. Among the key films are They Made Me a Fugitive, Madonna of the Seven Moons and Hell Drivers.