Lunch Hour

Shirley Anne Field gives a fiery performance as a young designer on the brink of starting an affair with a married male supervisor (Robert Stephens) at the wallpaper factory where she works. Based on the play by acclaimed writer John Mortimer (Rumpole of the Bailey) Lunch Hour is directed by James Hill (Black Beauty, Born Free). With a tightly-focussed plot telling the story of an illicit lunch-hour rendezvous in ‘real time’, this is a stylish and highly enjoyable story of subterfuge, simmering tensions and sexual conflict. Also presented here are three of James Hill’s acclaimed and fondly remembered short films, all of which have more recently garnered an appreciative fanbase amongst enthusiasts of so-called Trade Test films (which were broadcast to test the then-new colour transmission system by BBC TV engineers during the 60s and 70s).

• Skyhook (James Hill, 1958, 17 min): Sumptuous colour documentary film.
• Giuseppina (James Hill, 199, 32 min): Academy Award winner for Best Documentary Short Subject.
• The Home-Made Car (James Hill, 1963, 28 min): Fondly-remembered and hugely entertaining short film.
• Fully illustrated booklet.