Flickers

This 6-part series is a joyous spoof of the beginnings of the British film industry with low-born Arnie Cole (Bob Hoskins) and sidekick Llewellyn (Fraser Cains) desperate to become filmmakers. Arnie is so desperate, he even forms a loveless marriage with a well-to-do spinster Maud (Frances de la Tour) to get the money to start his film company.

Many film "types" are spoofed, including the little comedian who's quite nasty in real life, the adult woman posing as a child star, the foreign-born auteurs, the great star who deigns to be in films ... for a price, and the unsung technical genius behind the camera who makes it all work.

Plot also shows what a cutthroat business it really was in those early years with sabotage and theft as usual business practices.

Driven by catchy music by Ron Grainer and star-making performance by Hoskins and De la Tour, the six episodes whiz by, leaving the audience wishing for more.

The subplot of the loveless marriage and how it grows makes the characters human and lovable.

Besides Bob Hoskins, Frances de la Tour, and Fraser Cains, there are many familiar faces in the large cast. Sherrie Hewson plays the hapless Letty, Andy de la Tour plays Maud's brother, Dickie Arnold plays Corky Brown, Jim Hooper plays Percy, Sheila Reid plays Lily, Philip Madoc plays Jack, Granville Saxton plays Legendre, Sheri Shepstone plays Violet, Peggy Ann Wood play nanny, Teddy Turner plays Eddy Marco, Joanna Foster plays Clara, and Maxine Audley plays the imperious Gwendolyn Harper.

Great fun. Not to be missed.

It's good, but it's hardly what you'd call a comedy. The plot description I read made it sound like the Keystone Cops would show up. There is a little of that on the first disc, but most of the series is high drama, shouting, and pathos. Bob Hoskins plays Arnie Cole, an ambitious film distributor who's trying to become a producer. He enters a marriage of convenience with a rich socialite who has a kid "on the wrong side of the blanket" as he puts it. Their relationship has some charm, but the rest of characters are a nightmare. The comic, Corky Brown, is an aging, paranoid alcoholic who's barely holding his career and his marriage together. The Brewers, an acting family, are right out of "A Long Day's Journey Into Night". The leading lady of their first big film is an aging, coke addicted, diva right out of "Sunset Blvd." The director is a pompous pretender. Hoskin's girlfriend is shrill tramp. Not to mention that everything that can go wrong does go wrong. I thought I was going to get an ulcer just watching Arnie Cole. There is a LOT of unpleasant shouting. Like I said, it's good, but mostly at conveying why film making can be such a high stress dog-eat-dog industry.

This six-part Masterpiece Theatre comedy (!) is just about perfect.

The actors are extremely well cast and the roles are written with more depth than you see in 98-percent of all feature films. With each episode, the laughs come easier, the situations intensify and the characters become more and more like family. The emotional high point comes on a throwaway line, and it is perfect. Hoskins and de la Tour should have worked together many, many more times; they make a wonderful comedy team. A crime that this series isn't available on video: come on, PBS! I'll even pledge a membership if you make a FLICKERS DVD or VHS the premium! Hurry up, before my 20-year-old EP copy disintegrates!

A total delight and very very funny. All the characters (especially Arnie and Maud) are believable and lovable. I was first introduced to Bob Hoskins in this film and have been an ardent admirer of his extraordinary talent ever since.

But whatever happened to Frances de la Tour?

Please bring Flickers back by re-run or by any other means. Would love to have my personal video or DVD.

I rented the first two episodes from Netflix and was delighted to see them again after 25 years. As others have said, the chemistry between Bob Hoskins (Arnie Cole) and Frances de la Tour (Maud) really powers the show -- some of the subplots are a tad tedious. This was the first thing I ever saw Hoskins in and I've been a fan ever since. De la Tour hasn't been all that visible over the years, though she was also great in the comedy series Rising Damp (another one worth seeing again) and she had a small role in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (where she played the giant visiting French teacher).

Also memorable are Fraser Cains as Llewelyn, Arnie's long-suffering Welsh film projectionist, and Peggy Ann Wood as Maud's feisty Nanny.