Adam Scovell
BFI
United Kingdom
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Past articles by Adam:
The Offence at 50: brutalism, Bracknell and Sidney Lumet’s dark police drama
Starring Sean Connery as an embittered police detective on the hunt for a serial killer, The Offence gets some of its eerie power from the brutalist architecture of its new-town setting. How do these locations look half a century on? → Read More
Why I love Kathy Burke’s performance in Nil by Mouth
Her poignant turn as a woman living under the thumb of an abusive husband is a masterclass in empathy and heartbreak. → Read More
The Railway Children: in search of the Yorkshire locations, 50 years on
Does the chocolate-box Yorkshire depicted in The Railway Children still exist? More than half a century since its release, we went looking for the locations. → Read More
60 years of Agnès Varda’s Cléo from 5 to 7: how the Paris locations look today
One of the great Paris films, Agnès Varda’s Cléo from 5 to 7 sees a young singer wandering the streets and cafés of the capital while she awaits the results of a medical test. Would Cléo recognise the Paris of today? → Read More
In search of the Withnail & I locations 35 years on
Thirty-five years after the release of the cult British comedy, we go on holiday by mistake... → Read More
The 400 Blows: finding that beach and the Paris locations today
With François Truffaut’s French New Wave classic The 400 Blows back in cinemas, we went in search of the locations, including the beach where that famous final freeze-frame takes place. → Read More
How witchploitation cinema cast its spell on the counter-culture
In the 1960s and ’70s, a spate of low-rent exploitation films tapped sorcery and the occult for cheap, sleazy thrills. → Read More
How Hammer horror locations look today
The forests, graveyards and country manors of the Home Counties played many atmospheric parts in Hammer horrors. With Halloween approaching, we ignored the coachman’s warning and ventured back into British cinema’s heart of darkness. → Read More
London After Dark: the nocturnal 1960s films that inspired Edgar Wright... and how their locations look today
Edgar Wright’s Last Night in Soho was inspired by a host of 1960s British films that captured the swinging capital in all its seedy glory. But the Soho they depicted is no more, so how do their London locations look now? → Read More
The grisly, greasy-spoon horror of Robert Hartford-Davis
Inspired by real-life killings, 1968’s Corruption is one of the first – and most effective – British horror films of its kind. → Read More
The subversive sexual politics of Clint Eastwood’s Play Misty for Me
Compared to other films of the counter-culture era, Eastwood’s directorial debut looks at the darker side of Free Love. → Read More
In praise of Lucio Fulci’s violent, vengeful Spaghetti westerns
The Italian horror maestro’s handful of entries in the genre showcase his penchant for bloody retribution. → Read More
Richard Burton’s London: revisiting the locations of gangland classic Villain, 50 years later
Along with Get Carter, Villain was a landmark in a new wave of violent British gangster films of the early 1970s. Half a century later, the London it captured has changed irrevocably. → Read More
Pool of London: in search of the locations for the classic British noir
Filmed in the capital’s busy docklands, British noir Pool of London pushed the envelope in depicting an interracial romance on screen. Seventy years later, we went looking for the riverside locations. → Read More
Architecture of adolescence: the suburban landscapes of I Start Counting
With intriguing echoes of The Offence and Valerie and Her Week of Wonders, the 1970 British thriller I Start Counting stars a young Jenny Agutter and tells of a spate of murders occurring in a rapidly modernising English town. → Read More
Simone Signoret: remembering a French screen legend on her centenary
From Les Diaboliques to her Oscar-winning turn in Room at the Top, we remember the luminous screen career of French actress Simone Signoret, 100 years after her birth. → Read More
How Tod Browning’s Dracula changed horror cinema forever
The 1931 adaptation put the Count firmly on the cultural map and moved the genre on from its silent origins. → Read More
On Location: The South London of Alan Clarke’s The Firm
The British director’s controversial football hooligan drama makes great use of various domestic locales. → Read More
60 years of La notte: How Antonioni’s film walked over the empty glamour of the 1960s
Following the wanderings of an estranged couple over a single day in 1960s Milan, the middle part of Michelangelo Antonioni’s classic alienation trilogy unmasked the aimless hedonism of modern life. → Read More
How His Girl Friday redefined the screwball comedy
Howard Hawks’ 1940 film, starring Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell, remains one of Hollywood’s finest and most radical comedies. → Read More