Leeds nostalgia: Film show statue theft plot

This week's featured film clip, available to view on the Yorkshire Film Archive website, is a piece of fictional drama made by the Leeds cine group Mercury Movie Makers, directed by Alan Sidi and distributed with help from the Yorkshire Arts Association.

The films boasts a spectacular pyrotechnic display during the climactic sequence. The opening shots in this film show several film camera’s being adjusted and moved. At night, a white Mercedes is perused by a white triumph through various urban streets in Leeds.

A rock soundtrack builds as the cutting between the two cars gets progressively faster.

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An exterior shot shows a row terraced housing and on the soundtrack, a radio exert contains a snippet from Alan Freedman’s Saturday show, which is broadcast from BBC London. In a bare kitchen decorated with only nude pictures of women, two working class men sit at a table. Mick, wearing a flat cap plays cards with an erotically themed deck, while Leftie eats a sandwich and reads the Daily Mirror. The two men discuss a news article which relates to an art exhibition taking part in Ryestead and plot to steal one of the statues on display, which they later attempt.

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