Taken from the original Time Life series of profiles of Coronation Street characters/families I own nothing of this - All copyright to Granada Televison & Time Life Videos
Marvellous. The truth is that, beneath their surfaces, Ena and Elsie were very much alike, strong women struggling for independence, which is why they were so close later in their lives. Marvellous writing and acting.
It was touching to see that, despite their many cat fights there was mutual understanding and support for each other. Characters were so well written back then. Thanks for posting
What I love about their relationship was that they were exactly mother like daughter, I think Elsie always saw Ena as a mother, these were the golden days absolutely class and pure talent
Today's young social media generations live a smartphone life (says I typing away) & can't do the basic social interaction of society. It's grim really. I stopped watching when the Aussie soaps started & Corrie began changing to their instant pop-up storytelling, no gradual or idle chit chat like Corrie done. They just cut that all away as flim-flam - but that's what held Corrie together like mortar does to brickwork or even Ringo did for the Beatles. Also I loved the Rover's weaving camera work from chatting group to group performed adroitly like a ballet. So Corrie just became another Aussie Soap & worse Ken Barlow looked & acted like a Mafiiso boss in these recent years. Who'd thought this back in these great days.
Eeh they dont make actresses like Violet Carlson (Ena) and Pat Pheonix (Elsie) or any of the other actors that have been and gone from the Street (between 1960 and 1987 when Hilda Ogden left) Im glad people are putting the classic episodes online so people can enjoy them and discover them ❤❤
'I make no mention of names, but there's a certain woman as comes in this snug, and lull know 'oo I mean when I say she looks like a weasel in specs...' 😂😂😂
The theme song from Coronation Street is legendary. It was very familiar to me even though I didn’t watch it voluntarily until 2000. It’s possible I heard it from my Great Auntie’s tv in Australia in the early 1980’s. She was addicted to soaps and I spent a lot of time with her. It has only been very recently that I have focused in episodes from 1976 onwards. The nostalgia is fantastic. I really believe the characters and storylines unlike the modern Coronation Street which is absolutely unbelievable. That is the beauty of British kitchen sink dramas of yesteryear. Am presently up to 1983. My reason for continuing is the Duckworths but I will miss Elsie Tanner…..Thank you for this wonderful post. ❤ I will head back to 1960 soon enough. What a wonderful social commentary. Tony Warren’s imagination is fantastic.
At the start of Corrie's beginning until '63 she was a nasty piece of work & a bad 'un, but the production side saw she was instantly recognisable in name & vision & thought we need to make her a bit likeable so they softened the corners but kept the essence of Ena & she like Elsie became a institution.
From New Zealand born 1965, my first memories of TV and probably first opening credit music of TV shows that I remember. Omg, it is a wonder we didn't pick up the accent, maybe we did....
Ena and Elsie will never be repeated as the talent just isn't there now. But more than that the writing is so poor nowadays I believe these two wonderful ladies would have refused to speak half of what is written now. This clip is pure class. Enjoy it and realise it will never be again.
As I've said before, in the early 70's, i had spent the summer with my aunt, and she would never miss this afternoon show, as I had to sit there, at 10, I was getting into this show. Then as a young adult Coronation street was on the t.v, and low and behold, there was some of the same character's! The same children were on it, but grown, I was hoked forever
I think there were some poignant scenes between Elsie and Ena. Those were when Ena showed a maternal concern for Elsie when the latter was at her most vulnerable. It showed at such times the mutual respect each had for the other despite their petty differences.
The confrontation at the start was great viewing. It says everything that Elsie Tanner realised that Ena Sharples was telling the truth and that knocked the fight right out of her. Deep down Elsie knew Ena was just as strong and bold as she was herself and would not have had any problem telling her the contents of the letter to her face had she been guilty.
Weren’t they wonderful. So much more entertaining to anything that’s on the T. V today. Am I right in thinking that it was live in these days. Such a joy to watch.
How I agree with you. In those days most of the actors and actresses in the programme were from Films and/or Stage, so acting was second nature to them and it shows. Sadly many of those great actors & actresses are no longer with us. Nowadays most of the actors & actresses in the programme are straight out of acting school and are so 'full of them selves'. Many have a lot to learn.
Omgosh. The original and why...my mum, grandmother and aunties loved. Saw 2019. WORDS cant be said. !!! Terrible. Script writer's need thrown of a bridge. Terrible. Thank you. Great writing, story lines and they nailed the characters. Appreciate sharing. 👍
It was! The original set was inside the studio. In one of the very early episodes you see Ken Barlow step from the pavement onto the road, but it's all a painted floor. The first outdoor set was a simple facade, then the set was built on the Granada Studio lot, opened in 1982 (I believe) by HM Queen Elizabeth 2 and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. That set has not long been demolished and a new one built at Media city in Manchester.
Yes these two were two of my favorite characters and I totally agree with your assessment. Also most of the older generation at that time were actually loveable creatures, sadly they have passed away. One of the characters I would I suppose came close to them in my opinion was Blarnch who played Kenneth Barlow's mother in law, sadly she too has passed away. Since then I have stopped following the series. I also feel they have lost that dialect, was I Liverpuddlien? Of course it has alot to do with the script writers. Thanks for the memories.
Road to coronation street brought me here, I was born late 80s .Oh My god its amazing, Totally different to the Corrie i grew up with. Elsie was drop dead gorgeous and Ena was amazing. I felt nostalgic for those times.
This first colour scene in Coronation Street could only be in December 1969, because Alan Howard's first appearance was December 1st 1969 and the woman narrating this said 1979 by mistake meaning 1969.
Yeah but you made a lot less back then too...it sounds cheap but not when you compare wages of today then yesterday plus you got more bills today with cell, phones, internet, cable ect that you didnt have back then which also made things more affordable in those days!
I love the formality (yes, there's more, but want to mention this bit). Are You Being Served? ran for ten years and all the way through, they maintained 'Mrs. Slocombe, Captain Peacock, Miss Brahms, Mr. Humphries'. It was the rarest occasion when they mentioned their first names (ironic I thought, Miss Brahms initials were SB and Mrs. Slocombe's were BS), but as two women who have known each other all their lives, it is still Mrs. Sharple and if need be, Mrs. Tanner, tho clearly she called her Elsie at times.
Alf was a minor character to start with. I believe he worked with Frank Barlow at the GPO sorting office, but would have known the men of the street due to the pubs and maybe ww2
The scene between 49:45 and 50:30 proves that this was filmed before June 1965. It is because Leonard Swindley's (Arthur Lowe) last appearance in Coronation Street was the last day of May 1965.
Dad's Army had started yet, '68ish? so was he pushed or shoved. Once he took Dad's Army that was that for any further work elsewhere. Mind you Swindley was no difference to Mainwaring. Same character all round. Everyone watched Dad's Army but not Coronation Street.
Elsie Tanner and Edna Sharples clashes almost as much David Platt and his sister Sarah had done about 45 years later in Coronation Street. Come to think of it Elsie Tanner and Ivy Tilsley clashed just as much as David and Garry Windass did later.
Elsie/Pat Pheonix looked so much better in the 70s and 80s. It isn't logical but this lovely lady did. Dennis's character should have been gay he was always so camp, but of course that wouldn't have happened then, but all the signs were there. What a GREAT character was Dennis Tanner.
Bloomin' eck-Elsie's known Ena a long time, if she first asked Ena for advice when she was six! That'd have been in about the 1920s, wouldn't it? (Think Elsie would probably have been forty-something when Corrie started, considering Dennis ( her son) was an adult.)
Elsie Grimshaw was born in 1923 and moved into Coronation Street in 1939 as a 16/17 year old bride, Ena hadn't moved into the street at that point, but she was nearby.
Is it true that The Book that Saturday Night & Sunday Morning was the inspiration for Coronation Street. I feel sorry for both Elsie & Ena in the sense that they both had issues from the past. Ena still looked at Elsie as a "Scarlett Woman" while Elsie is still looked down upon for coming to the Street at Sixteen in 1940. Ena calls herself a Religious Woman but she should remember the Biblical Quotes "Though Shall Not Pass Judgement On Anyone without casting the first stone", "Those Who Live In Glass Houses Should Not Throw Stones", and "Let He/She who is without Sin step forward." I remember when the Late Jeanne Cooper (Ex-Katherine Chancellor) The Young & The Restless embarrassed Jill (Then played by Deborah Adair) bringing up her past but John told her he didn't think any less of her and if she fell in love with an Older Man Phillip Chancellor so what.
Well, they should never have made up the rumour about Christine having another boyfriend anyway. I mean ok, she was much younger than Frank, but she was an adult so what business was it of Ena or Elsie?
They only did it to try and give Frank & Christine a chance at being happy without people gossiping about the age gap - however, each thought that the other was going to warn Frank about what was being said and to ignore it, it was just to put people off the scent.
As I Understand it the man with glasses at the point 40:15 is Stacy Dorning's father. Stacy Dorning was Ethel in a T.V. series about a naughty boy 12 years later.
So Elsie and Ena are going to pretend Christine's got another boyfriend, in order to get her and Frank together? I'd have thought it'd have the opposite effect-and make Christine mad at BOTH of them!
It was a case of give Christine another boyfriend who, with people talking about him, it would take the scrutiny and pressure off of Christine and Frank to get to know each other better. However, no-one told Frank, who thought that he was the last person to find out about this pretend boyfriend.
Paul Brouwer I get that, but wouldn't it have been easier to just let things take their natural course between Frank and Christine? I mean what were they going to tell Frank anyway? 'Oh, we're spreading a rumour about Christine having another bloke in order to help get you two together.'? Am I the only one who thinks this is a strange way to go about it?
@@alexanderjones9572 That's what they were trying to do. Frank and Christine were being talked about and so it didn't give them much of a chance to let things take their natural course. I think that Elsie & Ena would have put it a little bit more tactfully when they told Frank.
Maybe I’m wrong - but it’s odd that Ena didn’t know who Elsie‘s husband was because I thought Elsie had lived in town for a long time as had Ena so I’m not sure why Ena didn’t know who her husband was
If it's her first husband Arnold, I'm not surprised. Elsie moved to the street in 1939, Arnold would have gone off to fight in the war, so that was nearly 6 years of not seeing him on a regular basis. I don't know how long it was after the war that he left Elsie and the two young children, but he did, only to come back admist the poison pen letter saga.
I dont think its intended as a 4th wall break. Its more a case of Ena verbalising to herself. But its always a writers weak device when they resort to that. After all, Vi Carson could have said all that with a look!
Paul Brouwer He is very good but I knew you would understand where I was coming from with what I said. Thank you Paul I do enjoy these early Coronation Streets.
I don't think that they are round the wrong way. What i think has happened was that back in 1961 when this was shot, there was only an indoor set and it was either shown live or recorded as live. With there only being enough space to put up half of the street set, they didn't think people would notice that it didn't take that long for Ena to get down to the middle of the street. I am very sure that I have the full episode and I will take a closer look at the full thing.
