Roadblocks and Roads Not Taken: Fords on Water (1983), Coast to Coast (1987) and the British Bi-racial Buddy-Road Movie

Abstract

This article is about two low-budget British road movies which have long disappeared from the cultural radar: Fords on Water (1983) and Coast to Coast (1987). These films will be used as case studies to explore a number of factors that shaped film and television culture in the early to mid-1980s, including the importance of the television funding of feature films in an increasingly costly climate; the shifting strategic priorities of both the British Film Institute and the BBC during a pivotal moment in the history of their film-making activities; and the issues and difficulties involved in finding the right balance between social or political critique and comedy and generic conventions. The two films are rare examples of what might be termed ‘British bi-racial buddy-road movies’. The article will focus on the attributes they share: their obscurity and unavailability; their TV funding; their genre; and their theme of an inter-racial friendship bonded over a desire to escape from boredom and unemployment in Thatcher's Britain. However, it will also tease out their very different approaches, in terms of the more subtle and the more visceral aspects of tone, humour, politics and aesthetics. Finally, the article will consider the factors which prevented these lively films from reaching the wide audience they deserved, and whether they represent two ‘roads not taken’ in the intervening period in British film culture.