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Feature Aliya Whiteley 20 Jun 2013 - 10:11

The films of post-war Britain are fascinating; Aliya picks 10 of the best British thrillers from the 1940s

The 1940s was a heck of a decade for the British. We started it at war with Nazi Germany, with the threat of Ira collaboration with the enemy looming large. By the end of it we had seen Independence achieved by India, lived through strikes and rationing, and held the fourteenth Olympic Games in London at a time of great austerity. The welfare state was under formation, and in the space of ten years we had become a very different country.

The British film industry reflected those changes, particularly in the thrillers that were made. The lines between good and evil, safety and danger, were the stuff of entertainment that tapped into the concerns of the public. It was a period of vivid, ambitious, and surprising films.

Chicago – The characteristics of the classic B-movie during the 1970s and ‘80s usually required prisons, women and uniforms designed to easily tear away. The Music Box Theatre in Chicago will highlight that era on Friday, October 12, when they present “Chained Heat.” One of the co-stars of that essential women’s prison movie, Sybil Danning, will be at the theatre in person to introduce the film.

Born Sybilie Joanna Denninger in Weis, Austria, Danning was the daughter of a U.S. Army major, and spent time between the United States and Austria as she grew up. After trying out working in the dental field and cosmetology, she began modeling and acting in the early 1970s, making her debut in an Austrian film called “Komm nur, mein liebstes Vögelein.” After working her way through that film industry, she began her American career with “Bluebeard” (1972) and “The Three Musketeers” (1973), but was also doing such...