Downton Dolls

I just have to share this: paper dolls of some of the DOWNTON ABBEY cast: cut out and dress your favourites from The Dowager Countess (with a range of expressions!), Matthew and Lady Mary, or the evil Thomas and O'Brien below stairs. What no snooty Lady Edith, well-meaning Mrs Crawley, The Earl or Lady Cora or those running the house: Carson, Bates, Mrs Hughes and cook Mrs Patmore ?

More dolls and DOWNTON at Costume Drama label ...

Titanic, 1953

Fanscination with The Titanic rolls ever onward - in its centenary year. We will soon have a new 4-part series written by Lord Julian Fellows (DOWNTON ABBEY), and of course whatever one thinks of James Cameron's 1997 blockbuster, the second half after the iceberg hits is stunningly well done as one really feels the ocean invading and sinking the ship ... so it was interesting to catch Jean Negulesco's 1953 version. Winner of three Academy Awards, the 1953 TITANIC holds up well, even on a much smaller budget - as does the 1958 A NIGHT TO REMEMBER, with Kenneth More, perhaps the best all-round version of events without silly stories at the forefront.

Fascination with the fate of the huge and opulent liner is as strong as ever, especially since improved technology has led to more breathtaking visits to the ship's resting spot on the floor of the Atlantic where state-of-the-art robots with cameras explore the crumbling interiors of the still eerily majestic but rapidly decaying wreck.



20th Century's contribution to the story hold the interest with Clifton Webb and Barbara Stanwyck heading the cast as an ill-matched couple; she is in fact leaving him and returning to America with their children as he joins the ship at the last minute to reason with her. Webb and Stanwyck bring their expertise to this soap opera story and it remains very affecting. Add in young Robert Wagner, more like a 50s teenager than a 1912 one, and Thelma Ritter as the famous Unsinkable Molly Brown, and Brian Aherne as the captain and the stage is set for some dramatics. Negulesco keeps it going nicely and it has that early 50s 20th Century Fox look in spades.

The tempestuous exchanges between Webb and Stanwyck are strongly and believably acted, and then we have the sinking of the vessel - not as graphically done as in the later versions, but suitably stiff upper lip to the end. Interesting to compare these versions this anniversary year, we shall be hearing more about them.

Ken's Rainbow

That was a nice wave of affection for Ken Russell who died recently, at the good age of 84. BBC here in England ran WOMEN IN LOVE the other weekend, terrific to see it again after some decades - it remains his "prestige" film, they also showed the lesser known THE RAINBOW from 1989, also by D.H. Lawrence, with the same lead character Ursula Brangwen when younger.

WOMEN IN LOVE is so exhuberent - there is just so much in it, so much plot, so much happening, so many vivid characters, Ken here in his prime has great material to work with and a great cast and comes across like an English Fellini, creating great moods and images, it is so very 1969. I had forgot how marvellous Alan Bates was in his prime, and it must also be Oliver Reed's finest moment, Eleanor Bron is also terrific. Russell was a visionary who marched to the beat of his own drum and WIL remains a film that is both visually striking and rich in narrative. Perhaps the more apt comparison is to Orson Welles, a fellow auteur who started his career in the good graces of the critics and then began making more challenging films that were interested in stretching the medium.



Ken too while "hot" did some challenging films: THE MUSIC LOVERS (I have a new dvd of that to watch, so a report later) and I understand a new complete print of THE DEVILS will be unveiled (but not sure if I want to see that again....) and he kept working to diminishing returns after the success of TOMMY. I loathed VALENTINO and he seems to have lost his mass audience around then, but kept making movies even ending up making them in his garage. THE SAVAGE MESSIAH should be a re-discovery, and perhaps the amusingly awful LISZTOMANIA , and his forays into American movies ... (I recently also got BILLION DOLLAR BRAIN (1967) to complete my Francoise Dorleac movies.)

The BBC also showed a new documentary on him, great to see clips from his "Monitor" days, those black and white films on composers like Delius and Elgar. THE RAINBOW though is a curious trifle - almost D.H. Lawrence lite, or a parody of those themes. IMDB says: Ken Russell's loose adaptation of the last part of D.H. Lawrence's "The Rainbow" sees impulsive young Ursula coming of age in pastoral England around the time of the Boer War. At school, she is introduced to lovemaking by a bisexual physical education instructress. While experiencing disillusionment in her first career attempt (teaching), she has an affair with a young Army officer, who wants to marry her. Unable to accept a future of domesticity, she breaks with him, and eventually leaves home in search of her destiny.

Ken obviously inspired a lot of affection so appearing here must have been a labour of love for Ken's regulars like Glenda Jackson and Christopher Gable as Ursula's loving parents with their bohemian (for the time) marriage. David Hemmings is simply marvellous as Uncle Harry - before he got too florid - and he brings a lot of humour and grace to the role. The unusual looking Sammi Davis is Ursula, and Amanda Donohue (later the star of Ken's bonkers LAIR OF THE WHITE WORM) is the school teacher who teaches Sammi the joys of sapphic love as the girls strip and run around naked in the rain ... Amanda soon though latches on to Hemmings and marries him and has a baby, while soldier Paul McGann shows Sammi the joys of hetero sex, as he too strips and runs around naked. Add in school teaching with lecherous teachers and the scene is set for the usual Ken histrionics. So, an enjoyable romp, another of those British films of the era exploring sex in those restrictive times, like that other 1970 D.H. saga THE VIRGIN AND THE GYPSY by Christopher Miles, who also gave us the later DH bio THE PRIEST OF LOVE with more stripping off by Ian McKellen and Co in 1981 - reviews at costume drama label.


I also recorded THE BOYFRIEND - also not seen that for decades, should be fun again, as Ken's regulars like Max Adrian, Glenda, Gable, Georgina Hale, Antonia Ellis, Vladek Sheybal, Graham Armitage and the very gauche Twiggy [now starring in Marks & Spencer clothes advertisments] amuse and entertain us back in 1971.

Christmas treats ...

Starting with a box of macaroons from Paris - the box is a work of art in itself, I feel tempted to hang it on the wall, it has a lovely black cat on it - also a spice & marmalade cake, also from Pierre Herme, Paris. Then dipping in and out of all those old movies on television, catching up with some not seen since I was a kid, and a few old favourites.

NIGHT PASSAGE is a pleasant memory of a '50s Sunday afternoon matinee, this 1957 James Stewart western should have been another of his tough westerns with Anthony Mann, but Mann walked due to script problems, so it was directed by James Neilson. A look at frontier life along the railroad, with train robberies; I remember liking this scene with Stewart and young Brandon DeWilde on the train, also on board was Elaine Stewart (another of this year's departees, aged 80) married to big boss Jay C Flippen! Audie Murphy and Dan Duryea were among the baddies, and Ellen Corby another tough frontier woman.


TARZAN'S GREATEST ADVENTURE from 1959 - not seen this since then but its as effective and violent (effectively directed by John Gullermin) as I remembered - Gordon Scott the perfect Tarzan for '50s kids, Anthony Quayle a terrific villain with young Sean Connery and Niall McGuinness in his gang, along with bad girl Scilla Gabel - Sophia Loren's stand-in on BOY ON A DOLPHIN, and here starting out her own career as a sizzling eurobabe. Scilla was always good value in Steve Reeves epics and movies as diverse as SODOM AND GOMORRAH and my fave MODESTY BLAISE.





THE PRINCE AND THE PAUPER - one of those lavish (it says here...) 1977 remakes, helmed by the usually reliable Richard Fleischer (THE VIKINGS, BARBABBAS) this is an idiotic remake of the Erroll Flynn original. Lurid colours and guest stars aplenty: Charlton Heston, the older Rex Harrison, Raquel Welch is mainly silent - the interest for me is the re-teaming of Oliver Reed (rather portly here) and David Hemmings as his evil brother - their hell-raising was taking its toll on them here, since they were young in 1964's THE SYSTEM, a key movie for me then [review at David Hemmings label], showing the 60s just starting to swing. Mark Lester as both the prince and the pauper shows that most perfect child actors (OLIVER) grow up to be very uninteresting indeed, he is lanky here with frizzy hair and there is no difference at all between his two roles ... an amusing time-waster then, not in the same league as the producers' delightful star-stuffed MUSKETEERS films by Richard Lester. Right: THE SYSTEM gang in '64 including Olly and David Hemmings - 2 years later he was the star of Antonioni's BLOW-UP and the icon of the age!



THE SEARCHERS. A classic one never tires of of course, like THE QUIET MAN and VERTIGO, also afternoon or late night delights. More on Ford's classic western at Jeffrey Hunter label - he has that bath scene here with Vera Miles (Mrs TARZAN in real life as she was then married to Gordon Scott!; her pregnancy cost her that leading role in VERTIGO). I shall get around to appreciating Vera in due course. What is jarring about THE SEARCHERS now is the treatment of the squaw Hunter accidentally marries; but to counterbalance that we have those essentially 50s yet timeless scenes with those characters Martin Pawley, Laurie Jurgenson and Natalie Wood's Debbie.

MANSFIELD PARK, the 1999 film of a Jane Austen novel seems to have divided opinions, as a lot of Austen purists hate it. I read the book some time ago, it is not my favourite Austen - that is PERSUASION by a mile, one I can re-read and like all 3 adaptations (costume drama label). The priggish Fanny Price is indeed Austen's least loveable heroine as she relishes her moral superiority over the other young people putting on the play, which she does not approve of. It is a good cast here though, with Harold Pinter (left) as Sir Thomas Bertram whose business interests in Antigua turn out to be slavery, James Purefoy and Johnny Lee Miller as his sons; the marvellous Sheila Gish (right) as Mrs Norris who tries to keep Fanny as the poor relation, and Lindsay Duncan as both Fanny's downtrodden mother and opium-addicted wife of Sir Thomas. Frances O'Connor is a spirited Fanny, but hardly fair to Austen's original.

Finally, a re-view of 1958's A TALE OF TWO CITIES as well, not seen since I was a kid. French actor Paul Guers who did actually look like Bogarde, plays Charles Darnay whom Dirk replaces on the guillotine - Guers has been in some other items I saw recently like Demy's BAY OF ANGELS and THE GIRL WITH GOLDEN EYES (both at French label). This is solid Rank Organisation fare by Ralph Thomas with all those familiar featured players: Rosalie Crutchley, Freda Jackson, Athene Seyler, Christopher Lee, Donald Pleasance etc, all looking splendidly in period.

THIS HAPPY BREED. Another perennial favourite, as I have written about before (Kay Walsh label). Kay excels as Queenie the dissatisfied daughter of Robert Newton and Celia Johnson; and there is that endless bickering between Amy Vaness's mother-in-law and Alison Legatt's spinster sister, all part of the Higgins family in Clapham between the wars. The period detail is just perfect and the emotions are fully engaged, particuarly that scene when the parents in the garden are told of the deaths of their son and his wife, as the camera stays in the sitting room where afternoon tea is about to be served ...

And one discovery: THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: THE LION THE WITCH & THE WARDROBE from 2005: "When the Pevensie family are evacuated out to the country, they are unaware of the adventure they will encounter. During a game of hide and seek, the youngest daughter, Lucy discovers a wardrobe which transports her to the land of Narnia. Covered in snow, Narnia is full of weird and wonderful creatures, but is watched over by the evil White Witch. When all four Pevensie children end up through the wardrobe, they discover that it was meant to be, as two daughters of Eve and two sons of Adam must join with the mighty lion, Aslan (voiced by Liam Neeson) to defeat the evil White Witch". Tilda Swinton is perfect as the Ice Queen/White Witch and James McAvoy (whom I had not though much of) is an adorable faun and the children are just perfect. For a CGI movie I liked it a lot, and Andrew Adamson's direction is also perfect! I shall have to watch the others now ...



The new DOWNTON ABBEY special is indeed a treat, and ticks all the right boxes, and the new GREAT EXPECTATIONS is an odd re-telling, rather different from Lean's version, with Ray Winstone a perfect Magwitch, and Gillian Anderson as a wraith-like younger Miss Havisham. Unusual though to see a plain-jane Estella (who is meant to be a glacial beauty out of the rather ordindary Pip's league), but here Pip with his sculptured cheekbones and pouting lips, is much prettier than her! Pip is Douglas Booth who was one of Isherwood's boys in CHRISTOPHER AND HIS KIND (gay interest label). Now for that BEN HUR re-boot, with Winstone again (as Jack Hawkins). It cannot be a patch on Wyler's classic but may have some cheap laughs!
BEN HUR (2010) actually turned out to be quite interesting, shot in Morocco it looks more like THE LIFE OF BRIAN than a Hollywood blockbuster, and wisely does not try to be - the chariot race for instance is much smaller scale (no circus maximus here) and the ships at war are courtesy of CGI effects and there are interesting script variations from the Wyler film. Winstone is a mumbling Arrius, Hugh Bonneville good as a nasty Pilate, Alex Kingston right as Mrs Hur (the leprosy is also played down), but in all a radical re-working of the original material. Joseph Morgan is a totally underwhelming uncharismatic Ben, but Stephen Campbell Moore (from THE HISTORY BOYS) a rather good Messala.
We will though be still watching the Lean and Wyler originals when these lightweight remakes are soon forgotten - I tuned in to Lean's EXPECTATIONS again yesterday and was bowled over again by how perfect it all was, with that great double act of Martita Hunt and Jean Simmons as the perfect Havisham and Estella, and that marvellous black and white photography, so right for Dickens.

Seasons Greetings !

I never tire of David Lean's classic 1946 GREAT EXPECTATIONS and that great double act of the great Martita Hunt and Jean Simmons as Miss Havisham and Estella. I never saw that 1974 version which was meant to be a musical and then wasn't but Margaret Leighton [right] must also have been a terrific Havisham [and favourites Sarah Miles a spiteful Estella, Michael York an earnest Pip and James Mason suitably grim as Magwich - Ray Winstone in this new version]. The jilted Miss Havisham has also been played by Charlotte Rampling in 1999 (left below) and now by Gillian Anderson [left] in a new BBC production this christmas, as a much younger almost alluring recluse - Jean Simmons in her later years even played her for some long forgotten tv version! Happy holidays!

Coming up: more Italian and French rarities, more gay interest titles, more cult classics, more trash, more 'people we like' [Peter Finch, Alan Bates, David Warner, Vera Miles, George Sanders, Brandon De Wilde], more on Deneuve, Romy Schneider, Anouk Aimee, Gerard Philipe and some new movies too - starting with those popular choices BRIDESMAIDS and THE INBETWEENTERS MOVIE! How I spoil you.

L'Innocente - Visconti's final film, 1976

L'INNOCENTE, 1976 - Luchino Visconti's final film (he shot most of it from a wheelchair) is both an intense drama and also one of the most ravishing costume dramas ever committed to celluloid. [It sits next to BARRY LYNDON in my cabinet shelf of 70s movies as the 2 most perfect costume dramas of that decade].
Giancarlo Giannini is Tullio, a wealthy and arrogant aristocrat openly having an affair with another woman (Jennifer O'Neill's Teresa Raffo), thus driving his wife (Laura Antonelli's Giuliana) to start her own affair with a writer Filipo D'Arborio (Marc Porel) that leads to a pregnancy and baby. Giannini is magnificent in a role that instills in the viewer zero sympathy and outright hostility. The film heads into what can only be described as one of the most memorably tragic conclusions since Shakespeare, and is also one of the most beautifully filmed and costumed movies ever (Antonelli with that veil across her face...), with sumptuous costumes, rooms and sets. Surprising nudity too - male as well as female as Guiliana is undressed a few times, and Tulio glares at the naked D'Arborio in the shower. One can see how this lush, opulent film stately directed by Visconti with slow zooms and tracking shots must have influenced Scorsese's AGE OF INNOCENCE, played out as it is in stately drawing rooms for piano recitals, fencing classes, summer villas and mansions at dawn, in that "fin de siecle" era.


Jennifer O'Neill (dubbed in Italian - did Luchino need an American name in the cast?) is devastatingly beautiful and seductive as the self-assured, selfish, spoiled, ambitious, self-seeking lover, as much as Laura Antonelli is the opposite side of the coin but in a lower key, as the humble and insecure, betrayed, embittered, resentful wife, but also devastatingly gorgeous. (Below: Visconti on set).



The drama increases as Guiliana becomes pregant as her husband desires her all over again and wants her back, D'Arborio having died of a tropical disease, but he does not want the baby, the innocent of the title (we never see the wife and lover together, that affair is played out offstage). She pretends not to care for the baby to keep it safe but Tullio is too jealous of it, leading to ultimate tragedy. Then after a final confrontation with the glacial Teresa .... there is that great last shot of her leaving in that chilly dawn. The novel is by the great Gabriele D'Annnunzio, and script co-authored by Visconti regular Suso Cecchi D'Amico (who died last year aged 96), photography by Pasqualino De Santis. The costumes are ravishing and the cast including Rina Morelli, Didier Haudepin, Massimo Girotti, ideally cast even to the smallest part. It's a lasting pleasure and Visconti's farewell to the class and way of life he knew. Giannini was also ideal in those Lina Wertmuller films like SEVEN BEAUTIES.