First published in the 1920s, the Radio Times chose , quaintly, not to change its name when television arrived.
Initially only showing the BBC programming, it was 1991 before Radio Times included the commercial TV weekly listings.
I check the films on the various channels each week in R.T.
The anonymous film reviewer for the magazine is somewhat limited in the space he/she has to comment.
Below are some of the brief (very brief) reviews I’ve seen recently. Mainly westerns.
”Warm Western.”
Listed in Radio Times as PERSONAL COLUMN:
“Preposterous thriller.”
“Female werewolf horror devoid of scares or even a transformation.”
“Rudimentary “.
,
“Cult Western.”
(Cult?)
”Western.” (Honestly, that’s all that was said.)
Budd Boetticher’ verbose Western.
Stop right there! Randolph Scott is a man of few words.
“Standard Issue Western.”
Below par. Really?
“Tiresome.”
Actually the mystery reviewer doesn’t seem to like most westerns.
They aren’t really reviews, just a couple of generally meaningless lines in the small space permitted for each film.
All I can say to the Radio Times is, why bother! Give us the details and we’ll make up our own mind.
Vienna's Classic Hollywood
I think someone was having a bad day when they were “reviewing” some of those movies.
Certainly not encouraging anyone to view the films!
Oh my, somebody had “the grumpies” when he wrote that. My theory is the reviewer was Bosley Crowther writing anonymously. Just to spread some extra cheer. He would have loved that.
There’s a few really good movies in the bunch. Actually I like them all.
You may be right – definitely a tinge of the Crowther.
Not a dud among them.
Vienna, these are all good movies and well worth viewing. I think the best reviewers are ourselves. It all depends on what each individual likes and dislikes. We are all different and will see things in different lights at certain times. I wouldn’t discourage anyone from viewing these movies.
There are some movies that I really like that someone else may not and vice versa. It just depends on the individual tastes. As you say, “Give us the details and we’ll make up our own mind.”
Well put, Walter. We all have our favourite films.
The film “reviews” on the RT website are done by various people.
https://www.radiotimes.com/movies/
Good website.
My friend Tony Sloman is one of the RT reviewers. Having started his film going in the fifties I feel Tony tends to view some films from that era with rose coloured glasses.
It used to be the case that films were “reviewed” once, and that was reprinted whenever the film was reshown.
I expect that is the case.