I am in the process of wondering whether or not to get the DVD of the W1A series, which, at the time, I thought really funny, but now seems a bit too near the truth.
-
-
-
Will it be found under 'Comedy' or 'Documentary'?Originally posted by Serial_Apologist View PostComment
-
Trouble in Paradise (1932)
Director: Ernst Lubitsch
Screenplay: Samson Raphaelson
Sets: Hans Dreier
Cast: Miriam Hopkins, Kay Francis, Herbert Marshall, Edward Everett Horton, Charlie Ruggles, C. Aubrey Smith, Robert Greig.
This is my favourite Lubitsch film. It is a sophisticated comedy, crackling with witty sexual innuendo, made just before the censorship of the Motion Picture Production Code took effect. In Venice, Gaston Monescu (Herbert Marshall), a master thief masquerading as a baron, meets Lily (Miriam Hopkins), a pickpocket posing as a countess. The two fall in love and decide to team-up. They leave Venice for Paris. There, Monescu steals a valuable diamond-encrusted purse from wealthy Madame Colet (Kay Francis). When Mme. Colet offers a large reward for its return, Monsecu claims it and, under the name of M. Laval, obtains a job as her secretary. A romantic attachment ensues. As someone remarks, ''She says he's her secretary. And he says he's her secretary. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe he is her secretary''. Which of the two women, Lily or Mme. Colet, will Monescu eventually choose?
Lubitsch said, ''I've been to Paris, France, and I've been to Paris, Paramount. I think I prefer Paris, Paramount.'' Hans Dreier's art deco sets create a nineteen-thirties Paris not as it was, but as it should have been. The three films that Samson Raphaelson wrote for Lubitsch are the director's greatest. But here, pre-code, he has a freedom with the dialogue that he would never have again. As an example, Mme. Colet addresses her secretary,
''What are you going to do with my day tomorrow, M. Laval?''
''Well, we'll have breakfast in the garden, together''
'Uhuh''
''Then horse back riding, together''
''Uhuh''
''Then lunch in the bois''
''Together''
''Then I would say a little nap''
''To.....''
In addition to the three leads, the supporting cast is uniformly excellent.
Trouble in Paradise can be watched at
Comment
-
... yes, it is lovely.Originally posted by Dermot View Post
Lovelier still, for me (because it stars Gene Tierney
), is the Lubitsch/Raphaelson 1943 film Heaven Can Wait =
.Comment
-
To the cinema for the first time in an age - a welcoming and safe environment at the local independent venue.
I’ve never been sure what constitutes an award winning performance, but Oscar winning Anthony Hopkins in The Father (called Anthony) is truly astounding, as is Olivia Colman as his daughter Anne, who is caring for her father as he slips further into dementia. It’s a film that is so sympathetic to, and cleverly portrays, Anthony’s bewilderment and frustration as his world dislocates. It is also sympathetic to Anne’s predicament in trying to live a life while providing care. But it’s not a doom and gloom film, Anthony can turn on a sixpence from being confused and irascible to an outrageous charmer, and then again, a single glint in the eye reminds us he played Hannibal Lecter. Ultimately it’s heartbreaking but filled with humanity. A superb film.Comment
-
Tonight on Free Thinking (1 July)
10pm Free Thinking
Director John Schlesinger (1926-2003) followed his Oscar-winning Midnight Cowboy with the 1971 drama Sunday Bloody Sunday, about an artist who has relationships with a female job consultant and a male doctor. Schlesinger, writer Penelope Gilliatt, and actors Glenda Jackson and Peter Finch were all nominated for Academy Awards, and the film won five Baftas, but it performed poorly at the box office. Was it ahead of its time? Matthew Sweet re-watches it with guests including Glenda Jackson, playwright Mark Ravenhill, film historian Melanie Williams and BFI archiviest Simon McCallum. They discuss, among other things, the film's evocation of late-1960s London and its score.
Actually early 1970s semi-alternative London is well evoked - that cultural interregnum I so happily recall (and miss in many ways) between May '68 and the first of the Miners' strikes over here. I don't want to miss this: this is one of my favourite films.
Comment
-
Yesterday, I scrolling through films to watch in 4k, and came the 2020 adaptation of Jane Austen's Emma. It looked to be a good cast, but I was very disappointed with the result. I know it's part comedy, but this seemed more like a sendup. To be honest, I didn't think much of the Gwyneth Paltrow film adaptation either, with so many famous actors somehow miscast.
The one that really stands out is the 1996 ITV feature length version with Kate Beckinsale in the title role, again with a strong cast, but very well adapted by Andrew Davies.Comment
-
Just watched the Ice Road. Very exciting - total suspension of disbelief required to make it through to the end.
There is a real Ice Road - see https://www.naturaldiamonds.com/holl...-road-netflix/ though the film wasn't made anywhere near that.Comment
-
One of them's going to be more and more difficult to locate with global warming, I would assume...Originally posted by Dave2002 View PostComment
-
We've just watched - in my case for the first time since 1954, the year of its release, and in the case of my better half for the first time ever - 'The Sea Shall Not Have Them'. This caused quite a bit of excitement locally at the time, especially the scene that was filmed at the railway station, across the road from our school. I'm pleased to say that at least part of the original station canopy is still there (so is the school!).
Dirk Bogarde the pick of a strong cast that also included big stars from the 50s - Michael Redgrave and Anthony Steel - and regular support players such as Nigel Patrick, Glyn Houston, Jack Watling, Joan Sims and Sidney Tafler. Directed by Lewis Gilbert, with a sparse but effective score by Malcolm Arnold.Comment
-
Originally posted by Serial_Apologist View Post
I hugely enjoyed seeing again (on BBC Four this week) Schlesinger’s 1995 version of Cold Comfort Farm for the BBC, with an amazing cast led by Eileen Atkins and Ian McKellen, all giving it just the right amount of crazy… I had the subtitles on to ensure registering Stella Gibbons’s wonderful dialogue.
Still available on iPlayer & heartily recommended: https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episod...d-comfort-farm
"...the isle is full of noises,
Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices..."
Comment
-
The 1962 Val Guest film Jigsaw (which reappears periodically on Talking Pictures TV) is a cut above a lot of other English crime movies of the time.
For me, it has a lot of the elements that over 45 years later made The Killing &c so compelling (albeit compressed into its 110 minute duration): gruesome murder, meticulous piecing together of clues, troubling leads that go nowhere, various suspects along the way… all against an atmospheric backdrop, in this case early ‘60s Brighton and surroundings.
Jack Warner leads as a very different kind of cop from Dixon of Dock Green, a grizzled old detective who drives the investigation with a tenacity that Sarah Lund would have admired. Lots of well-known faces too (including John Le Mesurier playing very much against his usual type)
Strongly recommended."...the isle is full of noises,
Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices..."
Comment
-
I watched The Deer Hunter yesterday (as it's available currently on BBC iPlayer) for the first time since it was released in 1978. There's a good deal of controversy about its merit as a film, especially, I understand, because of the depiction of the Viet Cong in the two Russian Roulette scenes as barbarously cruel. I wonder what views people here have of the film? It seems to me a quite valid portrayal of the way men from less privileged backgrounds (here, steel workers) were drafted for service in the Vietnam war. I'm still mulling the multiple metaphors around their ethnically Russian bacckground, the hunting and Russian Roulette.Comment
-
IN beautiful HD black-and-white, a starkly truthful documentary about Pigs, Hens and Cattle - "Gunda", from Victor Kossakovsky.
Following mainly the lives of a sow and her piglets as they grow and demand her milk and succour, there is no commentary, no music, just the natural sounds of the birds and animals themselves. No humans on screen, just the animals in close-up and in the surrounding countryside.
Quiet, subtle, faithful to lives of the animals themselves. Very, very moving, with final scenes that will stay with you for a long time....
On various streaming services, Sky Cinema etc...Comment
Comment