05.04.06
The Baim Collection
An awe-inspiring find comes down the email pipe: The Baim Collection.
The Baim Collection Limited owns and controls all of the copyright works of the late Harold Baim.
Harold Baim was a prolific producer of short films from 1946 to 1983.
There are over one hundred 35mm short films in the collection originally made for release in the British cinema and a couple of feature films. Nearly all of the surviving films are in colour and more than fifty of the titles are available on BETA SP tape.
And what films! Everything from travelogue (such as The English Riviera featuring this beautiful still of Sheila van Damm opening the boot of her Sunbeam) through animal films (the most appealing being ) via short documentaries about printers, wallpaper manufacturing, strippers (no, not wallpaper strippers) and quite honestly who knows what else.
Everywhere you go the eye is drawn to a new gem. Do try Telly Savalas Looks at Aberdeen, and in particular this lovely shot of the car park at Aberdeen airport. Or what, I ask you, is wrong with Pete Murray Takes You to Coventry.
Find of finds, for me, is Baim’s sole feature, 1963’s Cool Mikado, a swinging version of the comic operetta directed by Michael Winner and featuring Frankie Howerd, Tommy Cooper, Lionel Blair and his dancers, Mike and Bernie Winters, Pete Murray (yes!) and Stubby Kaye. I have found my new project in tracking down a viewable copy. Wish me luck.
Update: The nice man at the Baim Collection points out that there is some VHS stock of The Cool Mikado is still available from Amazon. When this is exhausted, he will investigate a DVD version, as he is for other Baim titles. Do write to him with encouragement if there’s anything in the collection you would buy.