Films you've seen lately

[Belgrove]

The odd thing about watching Lawrence of Arabia on the massive IMAX screen at Waterloo was, at its finish, I would have been perfectly happy to sit through all its 226 minutes again. It's like listening to a great piece of music, to be experienced knowing one will never plumb its depths. For such a long film, nothing much happens and the (superbly realised) action sequences are few and brief. It's a detailed character study that, paradoxically, gets nowhere near to explaining its subject. Rather it hints at Lawrence's many complexities, avoiding the overt. This is achieved with the help of Robert Bolt's spare screenplay, with allusive and at times poetic but natural dialogue. In spite of its superficial romanticism and luminous imagery, it is a dark and unsettling film.

The acting is immaculate. Peter O'Toole captures perfectly Lawrence's 'otherness', both to his fellow British officers and the Arabs with whom he lives and fights. Alec Guinness's subtle portrayal of Prince Feisal leaves an impression that he, alone among all men, has the measure of Lawrence. But it's the look of the film that is its defining quality. The desert scenes can have an abstract beauty and composition of a Whistler - harmony in white, blue and gold. The famous shots of figures emerging from the shimmering desert heat are both beautiful and audacious for the time they take to form into a narrative device that propels the story forward, not just a strikingly original image taken for its own sake.

One of my earliest fragmentary memories of attending the cinema was of the attack on Aqaba from the desert. An extended panning shot, taken from the heights above the garrison of warriors from another age on horse and camel, that sweeps through the town and finishes on a massive armoured Turkish gun pointing towards the sea. Seeing that panoramic shot again, in glorious 70mm, took me back to my childhood and impressed and thrilled afresh.

You can tell I'm a fan.

[Nick Armstrong]

I've just watched "Cash on Demand" (UK, 1961) on Talking Pictures TV...

Channel 81 is proving to be a treasure-trove for too easily forgotten British masterpieces of the postwar period up to the mid-1960s.

Yes, I agree - I scan the Talking Pictures TV schedules quite carefully and record quite a few. (Flemish Farm, with the RVW score and mentioned up-thread, is coming up again next week and is set to record...). I shall look out for Cash on Demand too, and record it when it re-appears: love those 1960s crime films (the cars! the street scenes!)

Then again, there are disappointments! Last week I recorded a version of David Copperfield which I saw listed and was amazed I'd never seen: Ralph Richardson and Wendy Hiller as the Micawbers, Michael Redgrave as Peggotty, Ron Moody as Uriah Heep, Edith Evans as Aunt Betsey, Emlyn Williams as Mr Dick, Laurence Olivier and Richard Attenborough as DS's ghastly teachers, etc etc, screenplay by Jack Pulman and a score by Malcolm Arnold.....! How could this classic have escaped my knowledge?!

The answer: it's the most dreadful Dickens adaptation I've ever seen, and for that reason obviously never gets an outing (save at 2am on Ch.81!). Having achieved the unbelievable feat of reducing the above glittering cast, and the wonderful source material, to almost utter tedium, it's no wonder that the name of director Delbert Mann ( ) has vanished down the toilet of film history...

Actually, I think it must have been a 'made for TV' movie, given the 4:3 format and deterioration of the picture quality - for a 1969/70 film it looks pretty dreadful. So that doesn't help. But the whole thing is directed in an almost completely lifeless way, aggravated by the structure: each episode of the story done as a 'flashback memory' interspersed with DC wandering along a beach and recalling his life with tortured expressions and exclamations.

The latter are rendered laughable by the fact that the bloke playing DC (I think they must have cast a good-looking newcomer, name unknown for similar reasons to the director ) is shockingly wooden and unconvincing.

Not Malcolm Arnold's finest hour either - I think he must have dashed off the main theme in about 3 minutes, and kept repeating it throughout the film: it has a drippy 70s feel that further alienated this audience member.... in fact it was so poor that it didn't occur to me that it was Arnold till seeing the credits, at which point I thought, yes the Arnold fingerprint is there... but oh dear.

Even the set-pieces with Edith Evans or Olivier/Attenborough fail to catch fire. The only exception is the scene towards the end where Micawber unmasks Heep - Ralph Richardson is, I thought, really magnificent in that scene and manages to transcend the dross of the production: he makes Micawber subtly over-the-top and pompous as the character requires, but at the same time, completely believable - rather than the caricature of many versions, you quite believe you could meet someone like this. I found the scene really compelling and made it worth watching...

(.... in a different way, actually, it was all worth watching as a fascinating study of how bad handling can reduce the most promising cast list almost to naught, the most extreme example of that phenomenon I can recall)

[vinteuil]

You can tell I'm a fan.

... me too. I was rather pleased with myself when watching it at a relatively early age to have clocked that the 'real' power resided not with the glamorous Lawrence - nor the exotic tribal chiefs - nor the uniformed Allenby and other soldiers - but with the little dapper civilian in the grey suit - Mr Dryden (Claude Rains) : the future shape of the Middle East lay with people like him...

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[gradus]

I spend an increasingly high proportion of my viewing with Talking Pictures - even those Edgar Wallace mysteries which I often prefer to the stuff served up by BBC1 and ITV.
It's partly the fascination of seeing London as I remember it in the early sixties as well as the occasional cameo by stars early in their careers and leading actors who were once familiar faces but are now largely forgotten.
Merton Park studios were not exactly Hollywood and the same old sets keep cropping up but that makes it all the more endearing imv.

[Lat-Literal]

Skater Dater (1965):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRIt3aDX7-k

On the basis of BBC World Service - "The Documentary - Skateboarding is 60":

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3csxgtl

Interesting sound quality, along with the surf music, on the first - the boards are a bit like the sea, a bit like the motorway, and a bit sci-fi/ aliens from outer space as befits the times.

There are quite a lot of fascinating professional comments about aspects of the urban architectural environment in the documentary.

A fair few parallels in the small part of this programme, re-run yesterday, where the sanitised design of new golf courses was discussed alongside much more including Nelson Mandela:

Talksport - My Sporting Life - Gary Player in conversation with Danny Kelly - https://talksport.com/sport/golf/819...r-13110566889/

[aeolium]

A very belated alert to a showing of Losey's classic The Servant on Talking Pictures tonight starting at 11.15 pm. Wonderful performances, screenplay and direction (and music).

[Conchis]

A very belated alert to a showing of Losey's classic The Servant on Talking Pictures tonight starting at 11.15 pm. Wonderful performances, screenplay and direction (and music).

Dirk Bogarde's performance in this film is so good that I feel like applauding it - particularly his response to James Fox and Wendy Craig when they catch him in flagrante with his 'sister'.

[jayne lee wilson]

I must briefly put in the strongest possible recommendation for James Erskine's John Curry biopic The Ice King. I saw this on BBC4 recently, and it was extraordinarily beautiful, heartbreaking but finally uplifting. The last direct-to-camera words from John Curry - about his belief in Art and the importance of Art, in its power to move - in one of his last TV interviews were very, very moving indeed. They came from a man who had experienced, and won his Art from, great isolation, emotional extremes and suffering.

The footage of his choreographic creations is so rare (and fuzzy, handheld) that I'd never seen most of it. In works like Afternoon of a Faun, he raised ice-dance to truly high art. It's a terrible shame more of it wasn't preserved on film, probably due to aesthetic snobbery about supposed glitziness, "touring ice shows" etc.

[Richard Tarleton]

Haven't watched it yet, but I well remember watching his gold medal winning performance at the Olympics at the time. Also his winning the BBC Sports Personality OTY that year. The prizes were presented IIRC by Lord Mountbatten, who clearly didn't find Curry to his taste and (it struck me at the time) mostly blanked him in favour of whoever it was came second, or third. I don't think I paid much attention to skating subsequently - he so thoroughly transcended the genre that there didn't seem much point in watching anyone else.

Have just re-watched The Post. The hot weather and drought also seemed perfect conditions for revisiting Jean de Florette and Manon des Sources, and the original version of Peter Weir's Picnic at Hanging Rock (I also have the director's cut, and a DVD about the making of the film). That cured me of any desire to continue with the current TV version after the first episode.

[LMcD]

Haven't watched it yet, but I well remember watching his gold medal winning performance at the Olympics at the time. Also his winning the BBC Sports Personality OTY that year. The prizes were presented IIRC by Lord Mountbatten, who clearly didn't find Curry to his taste and (it struck me at the time) mostly blanked him in favour of whoever it was came second, or third. I don't think I paid much attention to skating subsequently - he so thoroughly transcended the genre that there didn't seem much point in watching anyone else.

Have just re-watched The Post. The hot weather and drought also seemed perfect conditions for revisiting Jean de Florette and Manon des Sources, and the original version of Peter Weir's Picnic at Hanging Rock (I also have the director's cut, and a DVD about the making of the film). That cured me of any desire to continue with the current TV version after the first episode.

Many thanks for backing my judgment - it always looked like a wrong'un to me!
Must watch Jean de Florette and Manon des Sources again. Without giving anything away to those who haven't seen it, the second contains what must be what one of the most heart-stopping moments in the history of the cinema.

[Richard Tarleton]

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Must watch Jean de Florette and Manon des Sources again. Without giving anything away to those who haven't seen it, the second contains what must be what one of the most heart-stopping moments in the history of the cinema.

Agreed - I think we mean the same moment! A pair of the most beautiful, devastating and ultimately uplifting films I've ever seen. With a haunting score!

[jayne lee wilson]

This seems like good moment to say - don't miss Mark Kermode's Secrets of Cinema!

Going out on BBC4 2100 Tuesdays, so far he's done The Romcom and The Heist, all with brilliantly insightful and entertaining analysis of archetype, stereotype, cliché and subversion. With many wonderful clips!

The key to it (well apart from his astonishing filmic omniscience) is really his use of language and his effortlessly gripping delivery-to-camera. Perfect blend of levity and gravity. Addictive.
(Tomorrow it's...Coming of Age... can't wait to see what he says about The Breakfast Club....and if you want to know why The Fly featured in Romcoms, you'll have to catch up for yourself...)

[vinteuil]

This seems like good moment to say - don't miss Mark Kermode's Secrets of Cinema!

Some of the best tele on at the moment.

(Along with BBC2's Travels in Trumpland with Ed Balls on Sundays.)

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[LMcD]

Somebody recently recommended 'The Death of Stalin'. Having failed to engage, shall we say, with 'The Thick Of It', I approached this film with some caution, but I needn't have worried. I thought it was very sharp and very funny, with some wonderful ensemble acting (especially the scenes featuring all those 'unanimous' resolutions). Simon Russell Beale was outstanding as the reptilian Beria. And K488 will never be quite the same from now on.

[Stanfordian]

Some of the best tele on at the moment.

(Along with BBC2's Travels in Trumpland with Ed Balls on Sundays.)

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TV Programme - Not to be missed - We loved it:

BBC Two - Mortimer & Whitehouse: Gone Fishing, Series 1

Comedians and lifelong friends Bob Mortimer and Paul Whitehouse, both having suffered life threatening heart surgery, share their personal and hilarious life experiences while travelling around the UK fishing for elusive species. They make the backdrop of mainly river fishing both interesting and very funny. There are 6 in the series all available on iplayer.