Hooray for Mr. Movies

He is known for his unbridled passion, his encyclopaedic celluloid knowledge and a lifetime’s devotion to the golden age of Hollywood.

For more than 45 years in the public spotlight, Bill Collins has been bringing movies to Australians.

While many of his contemporaries have sadly gone to the great silver screen in the sky, the veteran Collins returns to the small screen week after week to share his love for the movies of Bette, Joan, Humphrey, Clark and co. Generations of Australians have grown up hearing behind the scenes details and learning an insight into the styles of great movie directors, all told by a storyteller himself.

“I started on the ABC in 1963, but I started writing about films in a magazine called TV Times,” Collins told TV Tonight. “And before I could turn around there I was presenting The Golden Years of Hollywood on Channel Nine on Friday nights, and I’ve been on TV ever since.”

Many Australians grew up hearing Collins’ movie anecdotes, especially during his long residency on Network TEN. Whether highlighting a standout performance, noting a soaring soundtrack, or explaining the political climate in which a film was born, Collins has been a foster child of Hollywood. But despite his obvious association with American films, he is just as enthusiastic for other international cinema.

“I love British and Italian and Japanese films, but Hollywood’s are the ones I present. Just because I present those doesn’t mean my range isn’t a bit wider. I love films from all over. Directors like Visconte and Fellini. They are golden years films from Italy.”

Collins, who received an OAM in 1987, admits to not watching films on commercial television.

“There are too many interruptions. There was a time when that’s all we had, well now we do have something better.”

Better, for Collins, is subscription television which has been his screen home since 1995. With entire channels devoted to film, it has been a match made in movie heaven.

“I see most of my films at home,” he concedes. “Quite frankly I wonder how long the multiplexes are going to last.”

He admits he is yet to see Baz Lurhmann’s Australia but says the two greatest films ever made about our nation are The Castle (“Because that is the real Australia we all know that”) and 1971’s Wake in Fright set in the brutal outback.

“Every time I present Wake in Fright on television I get hate mail from people saying ‘how could you present a film like this about our country?'”

He says too many contemporary films tackle subjects or use styles that don’t interest him.

“The bad language, the violence, the special effects –I’m tired of all of that. I don’t want to indulge in the sado-masochism of the new James Bond film.

“I think one of the most interesting people behind the cameras, as well as in front of them, is George Clooney. I think he’s one of the rarities.”

On FOX Classics, Collins will present a showcase of stellar films produced by Hollywood in the year 1939, beginning with The Wizard of Oz, followed by Great Garbo’s Ninotchka, Goodbye Mr Chips, Dark Victory, The Women, Mr Smith Goes to Washington and ending with the epic Gone with the Wind.

1939 was a triumphant year and settling on the films was no easy task.

“There are about 50 we could have chosen from,” he said. “Where’s Beau Geste, for example, which is one of my all time favourite movies? Where’s Hollywood Cavalcade, which is the first movie I ever presented on television? I’m not saying we haven’t got the good ones, we certainly do, but I reckon we could have gone for a month without any trouble whatsoever.

“It was a year the climaxed with Gone with the Wind and The Wizard of Oz, made by the same director in the same year! It’s amazing.”

Ever the educator, Collins will also present posters of other movies from 1939 “so people will realise it’s not just the ones they’re seeing.”

1939 is the first ‘showcase annual’ he is presenting on FOX Classics, with themed weeks usually given over to actors and directors. But if it is well received he might consider other years. He certainly has the enthusiasm for it.

“Probably 1940! The year of Rebecca, The Philadelphia Story. And then 1941 we had Lady Hamilton, and so many other great pictures.”

FOX Classics presents 1939: The Classic Year.
Sunday February 15
* The Wizard of Oz – at 7.30pm
Stars Judy Garland, Frank Morgan, Ray Bolger, Bert Lahr, Jack Haley, Billie Burke and Margaret Hamilton. Dorothy Gale is swept away to a magical land in a tornado and embarks on a quest to see the Wizard who can help her return home.

* Ninotchka – at 9.20pm
Stars Greta Garbo, Melvyn Douglas, Ina Claire, Bela Lugosi, Sig Ruman and Felix Bressart. A stern Russian woman sent to Paris on official business finds herself attracted to a man who represents everything she is supposed to detest.

Monday February 16
* Goodbye, Mr Chips – at 8.30pm
Stars Robert Donat, Greer Garson, Terry Kilburn, John Mills, Paul Henreid and Judith Furse. The story of an English schoolteacher’s rise to headmaster and the tragedies and joys that touched his life.

Tuesday February 17
* Dark Victory – at 8.30pm
Stars Bette Davis, George Brent, Humphrey Bogart, Geraldine Fitzgerald and Ronald Reagan. An heiress learns that she has only 10 months to live because of a brain tumour, but her love for her doctor-bridegroom carries her through.

Wednesday February 18
* The Women – at 8.30pm
Stars Norma Shearer, Joan Crawford, Rosalind Russell, Mary Boland, Paulette Goddard and Joan Fontaine. The sweet, happily-wedded Mary Haines finds her marriage in trouble when shopgirl Crystal Allen gets her hooks into Mary’s man.

Thursday February 19
* Mr. Smith Goes to Washington – at 8.30pm
Stars Jean Arthur, James Stewart, Claude Rains, Edward Arnold, Guy Kibbee and Thomas Mitchell. A naive man is appointed to fill a vacancy in the US Senate. His plans promptly collide with political corruption, but he doesn’t back down.

Friday February 20
* Gone With The Wind – at 8.30pm
Stars Clark Gable, Vivien Leigh, Leslie Howard, Olivia de Havilland and Thomas Mitchell. American classic in which a manipulative woman and a roguish man carry on a turbulent love affair in the American south during the Civil War and Reconstruction.