Hi all -

I found Rita's impossible-to-find film "A Place To Go" (1963) in the
hands of a British collector in West Midlands, England, who probably
has three thousand movies in his collection. I traded him a copy of
Rita's movie "The Guru" for it. It ought to be here in about a week.

In addition to "A Place To Go", my OTHER most-wanted Rita feature has
been "No Strings", which was a short comedy series that Rita did in
1974 with Keith Barron. The set-up is that he advertises for a
flatmate; she answers his ad, and unintentionally throws his life
into turmoil.

Well, I found the *pilot* episode for this series, which actually
appeared as an episode of the "Comedy Playhouse" anthology series in
1974. But now, the bad news. The guy with the Comedy Playhouse
collection stopped returning my emails. I don't know if he just
hates Americans, or what the problem is, but it is most frustrating
to have located this rare episode, and yet have it still remain out
of reach. I'll let you know if this situation changes for the better.

I received a DVD from a friend in Canada, who recorded Rita's
episode, "Seeing R.E.D." (originally telecast on 15 Jan 1984), from
the Bravo Canada re-broadcast of the "Seeing Things" (1981-1987)
series. You can find a synopsis of this episode on my Rita webpage,
www.ritatushingham.com, and as always, just let me know if you'd like
a DVD copy. Concerning this episode, Rita said, "Seeing Things was
fun to do, but working with a chimpanzee - even though he was lovely -
was not very easy as he was very naughty and very strong."

One of Rita's more recent films that I have transferred to DVD
is "The Boy From Mercury" (1996), filmed in Dublin, Ireland. Rita
plays the mother of an eight-year-old boy whose imagination leads him
to believe that he is an alien observer from the planet Mercury.
It's an enjoyable family movie with a great musical score, and fine
performances from Rita and Tom Courtenay, who plays a loveably
eccentric uncle.

As I mentioned in a previous post, a Brit friend is recording the
five-part "Hollywood UK" series for me. It now appears as though the
BBC has edited these episodes, and cut perhaps 10 to 15 minutes from
each. Not to worry, as my friend has the original episodes from 1993
on tape. He has promised to send me DVD copies of both the 1993
broadcasts, and the more recent edited broadcasts. Since he has been
able to record the recent broadcasts on higher-resolution DVD, I will
use them as a baseline, and paste the deleted scenes back in, taking
the deleted scenes from the slightly lower-resolution 1993 recordings.

Concerning our chances of seeing Rita in person, she said that she is
currently leaving her personal-appearance schedule blank, as she has
pressing family matters to attend to.

Kind regards,

Robert