The North East Film Archive is one of a network of regional film archives established to collect, preserve and show film made in, or about the North East of England. Our collections are non-fiction, and date from the early 1900s to the present day, providing a rich record of life in the region over the 20th century. Many of our films are available to watch, free of charge, on our website.
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Tale of the Unexpected
An old artist discovers his animalistic instinct when he attempts a plein air sketch in Middlesbrough.
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Overview
A landscape artist has a brush with the wild beasts of his imagination when he picks a spot to sketch with a view of the Cleveland Hills. He turns his back on a modern 60s school in Middlesbrough (all those Mondrian squares) and looks to the natural world with an upbeat Fauvist flourish. There's a mildly unexpected twist ending to this cine club short by Betty Cook, filmed around Acklam Hall and the King's Manor and Hall Garth schools.
As President of the Cleveland Cine Club and the North East Cine Society, the amateur film-maker Betty Cook was immersed in local film production and made her own home movies from the 1960s through to the 1980s. The title of this film may be a nod to the ITV adaptations of Roald Dahl's 'Tales of the Unexpected', which aired on British television between 1979 and 1988. Betty Cook's star was Leonard Winter, a talented cine enthusiast himself, who made many 9.5mm movies between the 1930s and 70s. He moved north to Middlesbrough in the late 1940s and appeared in several Cleveland Cine Club productions, including a sinister film called The Glade (1975) also available on BFI Player.
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