Recommended Television Programmes

[Maclintick]

I really tried to like 'I Know Where I'm Going', but my boat remained resolutely unfloated, I'm afraid.

Surprisingly, LMcD, none of the usual suspects have risen to the bait of your maritime metaphor, but I'll batten down the hatches, and attempt to plot a parallel course, if you get my drift. It's not a hard and fast rule, but one mainstay of the P&P franchise is that the romantic leads rarely remain on an even keel for long, and are summarily upended into a maelstrom of heightened passions, a whirlpool of emotions, whereupon in the course of the films they either end up safely anchored (I Know Where I'm Going, A matter of Life and Death) are left high and dry or all at sea (Blimp), or are sucked into the deep (Black Narcissus, Red Shoes, )
-- enough nautical metaphors, ed...

Don't get me wrong, IKWIG is a sweet, charming tartan rug of a film, which passes a pleasant hour-and-a-half, but if I'm honest the love interest here doesn't exactly set the screen alight. Roger Livesey's performance, in contrast to Blimp or A Matter of Life and Death, strikes me as phoned-in on one of those bakelite jobbies beloved of the Tobermory coastguard, and Dame Wendy, illustrious stage actress that she was, a shoe-in for strong and decisive female rôles, doesn't have enough of the screen siren about her to set this audience member's pulse racing. Maybe the B&W photography is to blame, and that the radiance of her undoubted stage presence, so admired by GBS, needs Technicolor to fan the flames, as it were.

[gradus]

I was hooked by the charm of the film and I thought the performances delightful. Lovely to see so many fine actors in their early years.

[Pulcinella]

We watched the first episode of After the party last night: it took a while to get used to the accent but it bodes well as a gripping series, and it got good reviews.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/After_...rty_(TV_series)

[Dave2002]

Just fiddling [ha...] around with various things, including the living room TV - and found a new version of the film Red Shoes - which dates from the late 1940s. Looks good.

I might start watching the whole thing later on via the iPlayer. Some of the scenes of Covent Garden and Paris are interesting - to see how they may have looked once.

[Serial_Apologist]

Just fiddling [ha...] around with various things, including the living room TV - and found a new version of the film Red Shoes - which dates from the late 1940s. Looks good.

I might start watching the whole thing later on via the iPlayer. Some of the scenes of Covent Garden and Paris are interesting - to see how they may have looked once.

I love the film for its proto-psychedelic sequence, which was quite remarkable and prophetic for its date. Where it has never stood up for me is in the music, stylistically about 40 years behind its time.

[smittims]

I just love the way Anton Walbrook says 'Ze redshuuuuus...'