Underplayed Gems

Crumpet: A Very British Sex Symbol (2005)

Crumpet: A Very British Sex Symbol poster
The 3D catalogue: film cases on wooden shelves, with the cat sitting at the counter next to its greeting.

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The film shelves have a room of their own that you can walk around in. The cat behind the counter is the AI Catbot, and they pick real films from the same catalogue when you tell them what you feel like watching. Nothing is for sale, here or in there. Go in from here and this film is already out on the counter, with more like it waiting on the shelf next to it.

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How it feels

This BBC documentary looks back at British female sex symbols from the 1950s through the 1980s, using archive film clips and interviews. It covers figures from James Bond movies, Hammer horror films, and Carry On comedies, along with cultural commentators.

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What happens

Crumpet!: A Very British Sex Symbol is a one-hour BBC TV documentary written by Julie Burchill and Jane Garcia. Presented by Tony Livesey and directed by John Moulson, it was first shown on UK TV on 28 December 2005. The programme charted the history of British female sex symbols (known as "crumpet", an English colloquialism), starting with Diana Dors and using archive footage up to the late 1980s, featuring some of James Bond's glamour girls, vampire victims in Hammer Horror films, the sexy girls of the Carry On films, vestal virgins in the TV comedy Up Pompeii, and characters in Man About the House. It also features interviews with members of Pan's People, the resident dancing troupe on Top of The Pops, and an interview with the singer-songwriter Lynsey de Paul. The documentary featured actors Honor Blackman, Ingrid Pitt, Barbara Windsor, Madeline Smith, Alexandra Bastedo, Caroline Munro, Julie Ege, Sue Upton, Sally Thomsett, Leslie Philips and Wendy Richard. As well as this, it included analyses by cultural commentators such as Dylan Jones, Germaine Greer, and Ned Sherrin. The Guardian newspaper reviewed the programme and noted that, perhaps surprisingly, Greer was not angered by the material that was being considered. She observed in the programme that "There's not much nutritional value in crumpet, but it won't kill you". A year later, to redress the balance, the documentary Beefcake: A Very British Sex Symbol, also presented by Livesey, was broadcast by BBC2 on 27 December 2006. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

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