Les bicyclettes de Belsize

It is very gratifying to know that I am not the only person familiar with this film. Now, to the matter in hand. I did record it off TV the last time it was ever broadcast. Then I moved house. A box of odds and ends that included all my home recorded videos never made it to the new address. By the time I noticed several month had passed and the removal company could not help (obviously). SO, has anyone got the facility to copy their video onto another? I would of course pay for the blank tape to record on, postage and something for your time. Alternatively, does anyone have a copy and not want it any more? If someone out there can help it will mean the end of a 3 year search on the internet and a very happy birthday for my mother who is soon 80 and misses the film terribly. THANK YOU.

For those interested in this film, I felt it worth mentioning that it is now available via Optimum Classic/Studio Canal (optd1142) on the same release that features Norman Cohen's utterly wonderful 'The London Nobody Knows'. As you might expect, the DVD is lovingly assembled and the print quality of both films is superb.

Juxtaposing both on the same disc carries some editorial weight: Cohen's London is genuinely (and properly) post-apocalyptic, still reeling from the human and economic tragedies of the Second World War, whereas Hickox describes a shimmering fantasy which, for the fortunate few, was not a million miles from the truth.

This film has been shown on UK terrestrial TV - the last time being a Sunday afternoon in March 1990 when I recorded it onto videotape. My main reason for watching was the spellbindingly beautiful actress Judy Huxtable, who here represents the pinnacle of English Perfect Dollybird - at once sexy and vulnerable. The male lead is played by Anthony May, who also appeared in the film The Triple Echo. Skip Martin, probably best known for his role as Hoptoad in the film The Masque Of The Red Death, appears in a small role at a party which is still going on while other people are getting up for work! The songs are superb - I don't know who sings the title song as used in the film, but Englebert Hunperdinck also recorded it and had a hit single with it. Why hasn't this film been on TV in so long? Why isn't it available on DVD ? And why aren't I married to Judy Huxtable ?

I haven't seen this short 1960s film for at least 10 years now, and yet I retain an intense fondness for it. Perhaps, as a Londoner born and bred (albeit in Fulham, south-west London), I savour it for its portrait of a particularly glamorous part of London (Hampstead and environs), at a particularly fashionable time (the late 1960s). (Whenever I walk around certain parts of London I feel myself to be back in the 1960s, and the Hampstead/Highgate area is one such part.) I recommend that anyone within commuting distance of London book a day (or afternoon) of walking over Hampstead Heath and adjoining area, and that anyone else within remote-control distance of a VCR record this evocative little film at the next opportunity.

As a student, I was sent home on Wednesday afternoons to study. As I was on a media production course, I felt justified in spending the afternoon watching television - surely that constituted study! Channel 4 threw up this little gem one afternoon and being a lover of musicals, I was instantly transfixed. Luckily it was soon repeated in the same time slot and I was able to set the timer (I was working by then) to tape it.

It is a great 30 minutes of entertainment. Quirky chap sees his ideal woman on a billboard poster and falls in love. Woman is dissatisfied with her life because all she wants is love... so will they get together? I couldn't possibly tell you...

Judy Huxtable is so gorgeous and I love the song 'Julie'. The film was made before I was born but I still appreciate the fashions, cars and lifestyle portrayed on screen. I did write to Channel 4 a year ago to ask if they had any plans to show it again but apparently they no longer own the rights. What a shame. An absolute diamond.