"An airline ticket to romantic places ..."

Freezing January and one's thoughts return to holidays in warmer climes and those interesting places still to visit: Taormina in Sicily with that Roman theatre, one of the most celebrated ruins in Italy (above), then there are Rome, Sorrento and Amalfi, postponed from last year due to knee injury. Taormina has been on my wish-list ever since I saw that Clarice Cliff "Taormina" china pattern (right). My late friend and partner Rory was the Clarice Cliff expert and had some ...
Will it now be possible too in the coming years to visit Leptis Magna that fascinating Roman ruin in Libya? (below)

Definitely planning a return to Lindos in Rhodes, and the fascinating Rhodes Old Town - my sister-in-law will love it. Lindos's acropolis with that view over the Mediterranean and perfect beach will be ideal for a stay there and it should be fascinating at night. (below)

I would like to return to Sweden too - Gothenburg was fascinating, and I must experience Stockholm and that Scandanavian culture...

Stockholm and Gothenburg

Also of course a return to the west of Ireland - Counties Kerry, Cork and Clare - that south-west tip, so accessible now with airports as opposed to those long journeys on trains and ferries. The two great beaches and seeing the wild Atlantic from the cliffs at Ballybunion does it for me (below) .... and its so near where I grew up and still visit. Its just across the Atlantic from Cape Cod or Maine.

Further afield, South America always beckons - I must eventually experience those magic names like Rio De Janeiro, Ipanema, Bahia, Lima, Machu Picchu, Bueonos Aires, Valpariso, Montevideo, Punta Del Este in Uruguay etc [no wonder I love Belmondo's THAT MAN FROM RIO]. Not to mention Egypt, India, USA (California and the west, New York and New England in the fall) and those magical Canadian names like Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Alberta, Banff (all Joni Mitchell country) - a train across the Rockies perhaps ...

Dirk at war again ....

A perfect Bogarde pose!

This time as Major Patrick Leigh Fermor [see Books, Greece labels] in ILL MET BY MOONLIGHT in 1957, the last of his 50s wartime capers - THE WIND CANNOT READ being mainly a (doomed) love story set in India. We are in Crete this time, in this final collaboration between Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger - who after those great '40s films I love like BLACK NARCISSUS, I KNOW WHERE I'M GOING, THE RED SHOES, A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH etc hit a lean patch in the '50s: THE TALES OF HOFFMAN was not a success and neither was the rare OH ROSALINDA! (which I now have a copy of to watch, review soon). They then did THE BATTLE OF THE RIVER PLATE in '56 and ILL MET in 57.







Dirk plays Patrick Leigh Fermor, who died this year - I did a obit notice at the time - and it is based on the true story of how during the war he was living with the partisans in occupied Crete and how they kidnapped a German general and got him off the island and on a ship to Cairo. It is boys-own stuff really and for a war film there is a surprising lack of action. so it's another World War II mission story, and there have been dozens. It IS more civilised than most. Bogarde leads the cast with Marius Goring as the general who comes to respect his captors. The likes of Chrisopher Lee and Cyril Cusack are in the background.

The star on set - with the Rolls in the background ...

Sir Patrick Leigh Fermor - R.I.P.

Sometimes reading the obituary of a particular life well lived, one is left with the idea of what dull, regimented lives most of us live these days. I was only vaguely aware of Patrick Leigh Fermor in that his wartime exploits were used in the Dirk Bogarde film ILL MET BY MOONLIGHT and that he wrote travel books. I have got one of these books now A TIME OF GIFTS, published in 1977 and what a treat it promises to be.

Fermor who died on June 10, 2011 aged 96, was one of the genuine Renaissance figures of the 20th century, a man of action and learning, who went on to lead a fascinating life after the war. Good looking, in a Jack Hawkins/Kenneth More kind of way, he set out at 18 to travel across pre-war Europe from the Hook of Holland to Constantinople (the subject of A TIME OF GIFTS). There is nothing ordinary about this work. In it a solitary young man, scarcely out of school, pits himself in a literary sense against the astonishingly varied social and political circumstances of 1930s Europe. He earns his living by his wits, by his outgoing personality, by his willingness to have a go at anything, and by drawing pictures of people, and he makes friends with Europeans of every class and kind, from the wildest of aristocrats to the grizzliest of peasants – treating them all, as Kipling would have liked, just the same.



He was also the architect of one of the most daring feats of the second world war, the kidnapping of the commander of the German garrison on Crete in April 1944 while working for British special operations on Crete [where he spent time living as a native]. Dressed as a German police corporal, he and a fellow British soldier ambushed and took control of a car containing General Heinrich Kreipe, the island’s commander, and bluffed their way through 22 checkpoints. After three weeks avoiding German searches, Kreipe was taken off the island by boat. The daring escapade was later turned into ILL MET BY MOONLIGHT, directed by Michael Powell, in which Leigh Fermor was played by Dirk Bogarde.

He wrote some of the finest pieces of travel writing and has been described as a “cross between Indiana Jones, James Bond and Graham Greene”. One of the films he co-scripted was John Huston's THE ROOTS OF HEAVEN in 1957, in which he appears (below, right). His scholarly exploits make others, like Peter Viertel or Romain Gary, seems like mere adventurers.



He married Joan Elizabeth Rayner, daughter of the first Viscount Monsell, in 1968. They moved to Greece and their house was created to their own design. She died in June 2003 aged 91. There were no children.

I shall be investigating his other travel books too, including part two of his journey across Europe, BETWEEN THE WOODS AND THE WATER. Fermor was a much-loved character, as detailed on this fascinating website: http://patrickleighfermor.wordpress.com/

Fantasy 1957 double bill: Boy On A Dolphin / Les Girls

One more look at 1957: A fantasy double bill of Fox's BOY ON A DOLPHIN and MGM's LES GIRLS...

BOY ON A DOLPHIN - a routine Fox programmer of interest now for introducting Sophia Loren to international audiences, and being one of the first American films shot in Greece - begins charmingly with a little travelogue on some Greek islands, which must have been a first for audiences of the time, including Rhodes where I was last year so its interesting seeing footage of it back in 1957. DOLPHIN though is set in Hydra another Greek island I visisted back in the '70s. Sophia is Phaedra who dives for sponges (its actually starlet Scilla Gabel who is Loren's stand-in here) and finds the statue of, yes, the boy on the dolphin. I was about 12 when I first saw this and was entranced with this new funny attractive Italian girl. (She had also appeared first in Kramer's ponderous THE PRIDE AND THE PASSION but no one liked that one! - and went on to do Hathaway's sahara western LEGEND OF THE LOST with John Wayne, which we also liked a lot, before her stint in American films. She is 23 here and already a star in Italy with films like TOO BAD SHE'S BAD and WOMAN OF THE RIVER in 1954 which I also liked a lot then. Sophia in that wet dress emerging from the Aegean was a sensation at the time - she and Brigitte Bardot were the two new European sensations of the '50s.



Phaedra goes to Athens (one could walk on the Acropolis then) where she soon finds rich collector Clifton Webb - who is terrific with Loren here - and Alan Ladd the good guy. The usual intrigue follows as Webb wants the statue for himself and Ladd wants to save it for the national as Loren is torn in two ... there's lots of local colour and its all nicely resolved. Amusing too seeing how they make Ladd seem the same height as Loren, with lots of clever posings on different levels ...

Cukor’s LES GIRLS in 1957, Kay Kendall's only film made in Hollywood, is a charming film showing Cukor’s fascination with theatre and artifice in this Rashamon-style telling of the same events told by different people. Kay - England's brightest and most glamorous comedienne, another Carole Lombard according to the critics - commits grand larceny on a large scale walking off with the picture, though Mitzi Gaynor and and the Finnish Taina Elg are also effective. It may be the last Gene Kelly musical and he does seem rather lack lustre here. However, Cukor’s direction, Orry-Kelly’s costumes, Cole Porter’s score and the terrific sets, including their Paris flat, are all standouts. Seeing it now on HD widescreen television those costumes positively leap out at one and it all looks dazzling. Kay again shows her ability to wear clothes and has a lot of fun in the court-room scenes as her Lady Sybil Wren defends her memoirs (Cukor regular Henry Daniell is the judge). She also has a hilarious drunk scene in Elg's version of the same events.

When she went to America to make this, her friend Gladys Cooper lent her her dog, a corgi named June, for company and there are some nice photos of Kay and June. There is a quick shot in the film of Lady Sybil (Kay) at her home between court appearances with a corgi dog next to her on the sofa – this of course has to be Gladys’ June.


Porter's score is actually rather lack lustre but the 3 girls are fun, for me Kelly works best playing a heel, and its all just timeless perfect entertainment! Kay made two more films, with directors, who like Cukor, knew how to showcase her haughty glamorous comic talent: Minnelli's THE RELUCTANT DEBUTANTE in 1958 capturing the high comedy style of the Harrisons (she had married Rex Harrison in '57) and Stanley Donen's ONCE MORE WITH FEELING in '59, released in 1960 after her death.

Places: Rhodes

Rhodes is the perfect Greek island. Well I have not done Crete or Mykonos or Santorini yet .... but knew Corfu, Poros and Hydra quite well 30 years ago, but Rhodes now seems a perfect destination. Our hotel was at the top tip of the island (above) with views of the beach on both sides from our balcony, and those Greek sunsets! It was just across the road to the beach, with Mandraki Harbour a short walk away - as seen above - where the large ships berth. Rhodes new town is nearby as is the heritage site of the medieval walled city, dating back to the 12th century. Shops and restaurants are in abundance.

Lindos is the perfect little Greek village, with 2 perfect beaches, and that amazing walled fortification at the top which also has a Greek temple dating back to the 3rd century. The view from the top over the Aegean is stupendous. There are donkeys (and taxis) available to transport people to the summit. Lindos can be approached by road - frequent coaches about 45 minutes from Rhodes town, but the best way is by boat from Mandraki harbour, this splendid outing takes almost 3 hours down the Rhodes coast past Fakiraki (where the holiday kids go) and 'Anthony Quinn beach' - THE GUNS OF NAVARONE was filmed here and its interesting seeing the locations used around the Harbour.

Rhodes is also near Turkey - one can do day trips to Marmaris - so there is that Turkish and Moorish influence in the architecture. Certainly a Greek island I would return to - perhaps based at Lindos.

Lindos Click to enlarge.