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.

Its that time: Christmas in Connecticut or France ?

Some seasonal viewing: a '40s Hollywood christmas tale, or a recent French look at another dysfunctional family during the holiday season ?

CHRISTMAS IN CONNECTICUT: Released the last year of WWII in 1945 (I was born that December), the film is full of subtle patriotic gestures and holiday nostalgia but never sinks to sentimentality. Stanwyck is sexy and sassy as always and is a lot of fun here. She is a cooking columnist who's built up this whole image of living on a small Connecticut farm with husband and baby cooking all these marvelous delicacies. Trouble is she's unmarried, childless, writes her column from her apartment in New York and doesn't know how to boil water. But her writing is a hit with the public. Trouble comes when she's hijacked into cooking a home Christmas dinner for a war hero sailor played by Dennis Morgan who gets to sing a couple of songs as well. Her publisher Sidney Greenstreet likes the idea so well that he invites himself to the dinner. So with borrowed farm, baby, and Reginald Gardiner who'd like to make it real with Stanwyck she tries to brazen it through. S.Z. Sakall adds a great deal of Hungarian malaprop & double-entendre humor in support as Babs' true source of culinary talent & Una O'Connor is hilarious as Gardiner's obnoxious Irish housekeeper. A nice treat then.


A CHRISTMAS TALE: Fancy another French family dysfunction drama? Rather like Assayas's SUMMER HOURS (reviewed at French label), only this one is two and half hours long in the company of some unsumpathetic people as the Vuillard family gathers: parents Junon and Abel, a daughter Elizabeth and her son Paul, Henri and a girlfriend, Ivan, his wife Sylvia and their young sons, and cousin Simon. Six years before, Elizabeth paid Henri's debts and demanded he never see her again or visit their parents' home. Paul, at 16, has mental problems and faces a clinical exam. Junon learns she needs a bone marrow transplant if she's to live beyond a few months: thus the détente bringing all together. Two family members have compatible marrow, but the spats, fights, cruel words, drunken toasts, and somewhat civilized bad behavior threaten all; plus Junon may simply refuse treatment.

It turns out to be an overly long and incredibly talky dysfunctional family drama, by Arnaud Desplechin, led by a chilly Catherine Deneuve as the dying matriarch (such a contrast to her sunny role in the delicious POTICHE (yes, also reviewed recently at French label). She's dying of a rare kind of cancer, and the spectre of that eventuality plus the proximity of brothers and sisters who haven't seen each other for a while and have scores to settle puts everyone in a reflective mood. It rather strikes home if you too have brothers and sisters who do not see or have much contact with each other .... Melvil Poupaud (so effective in Ozon's TIME TO LEAVE - yes, its at the french label) scores as the youngest son.



We also of course have the perennial IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE with Jimmy Stewart running through Bedford Falls in the snow as he gets his life back, and THE MIRACLE ON 34TH STREET (the Maureen O'Hara-Natalie Wood one) and '54's WHITE CHRISTMAS though how many times can one watch that? and of course theres always those recent christmas perennials like ELF and BAD SANTA and GREMLINS. I was pleased to catch up with favourites Lee Remick and Angela Lansbury in the glutinously sentimental tv film A CHRISTMAS STORY: THE GIFT OF LOVE from 1982, and dear Loretta in CHRISTMAS EVE one of her final roles in '85, as the rich old lady with not long to live re-uniting her family, assisted by ailing Trevor Howard. If that does not get you crying for christmas nothing will ! Perfect viewing anytime though, and particularly at this time of year, is the 1952 film of the play THE HOLLY AND THE IVY, a perfectly British treat with Ralph Richardson, Margaret Leighton and Celia Johnson all sublime (and yes see Richardson, Leighton or Johnson labels for review); and let's not forget the lovely if rarely seen HOLIDAY AFFAIR from 1949 with Janet Leigh having to choose between Robert Mitchum or Wendall Corey! It should be a holiday staple too.

People We Like: the great dependables (2)

Last time round, my great dependables were those sterling British actors Jack Hawkins, Trevor Howard, Nigel Patrick and Harry Andrews. Here's another batch of people we like, the distaff side this time...

GLYNIS JOHNS. Born in 1923 Glynis Johns is still with us, in her 80s. What a fascinating career she has had, from those 40s ingénues (AN IDEAL HUSBAND) and that mermaid MIRANDA (reprised in ‘54’s MAD ABOUT MEN). Glynis’s husky voice and comedy sense made her ideal for films (where she began in the 1930s). In a very prolific career highlights include PERFECT STRANGERS, DEAR MR PROHACK in ’49 opposite the young Dirk Bogarde, THE CARD with Alec Guinness, THE COURT JESTER in ‘55, and opposite James Stewart in NO HIGHWAY (1951) as the air hostess, Disney fare like ROB ROY, THE WEAK AND THE WICKED, ANOTHER TIME ANOTHER PLACE, SHAKE HANDS WITH THE DEVIL, AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS, with Kerr again in THE SUNDOWNERS, the mother in MARY POPPINS, THE CHAPMAN REPORT (where she is great fun gurgling over Ty Hardin in those spray-on shorts, below, as per my review), and a lot of television including her own tv series GLYNIS. Married and divorced 4 times her first husband Anthony Forwood became the lifetime partner of Dirk Bogarde.
I met Glynis in 1966 when she was doing a play THE KING’S MARE in London, I recall a very short lady with enormous eye-lashes! Of course her greatest stage success must be A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC where Stephen Sondheim wrote “Send In The Clowns” to suit her voice. She was Lady Penelope Peasoup in the BATMAN series in ’67 and other work included LOCK UP YOUR DAUGHTERS (Mrs Squeezum), Myfanwy Price in the all-star UNDER MILK WOOD (1972) and an Amicus horror compendium VAULT OF HORROR in ’73 – Glynis was fun in it though and didn’t disgrace herself. What a trouper.



MARGARET LEIGHTON (1922-1976). Margaret was a leading actress in classical theatre who also took successfully to the movies. Her brittle manner and glamour was evident from the 1940s and in films like THE ASTONISHED HEART with Noel Coward and THE HOLLY AND THE IVY (both reviewed below). She also scored in Hitchcock’s 1949 UNDER CAPRICORN as Millie, the devious housekeeper who is secretly tormenting Ingrid Bergman as she is in love with Joseph Cotton. Other cinema roles include CARRINGTON V.C., THE GOOD DIE YOUNG opposite her husband Laurence Harvey, THE CONSTANT HUSBAND, THE BEST MAN, she is brilliant as the Blanche Du Bois type Caddie in the 1959 THE SOUND AND THE FURY (below, also reviewed here) and in the all-star THE MADWOMAN OF CHAILLOT, '69. Among her television roles was AN IDEAL HUSBAND in 1969 and she won two Tony awards for theatre roles in SEPARATE TABLES and as the original Hannah Jelkes in NIGHT OF THE IGUANA in 1962. She had a late career resurgence with her fearsome mothers in Losey’s THE GO-BETWEEN (where she is no longer able to tolerate the deception going on between Bates and Christie) and she gets the last word as Lady Melbourne in Robert Bolt’s LADY CAROLINE LAMB. She was one of those SEVEN WOMEN for John Ford, his last film in 1966, where her missionary head clashes with Anne Bancroft, and she is fun as the aged hippie with Elizabeth Taylor in ZEE & C0, 1972.
She was also married to publisher Max Reinhardt, and after Harvey she had a happy marriage to Michael Wilding (below). She died aged 53 in 1976. Fascinating now catching up with her other roles, Miss Leighton was certainly a class act.



ANN TODD (1909-1993). A fairly new discovery for me, I now find Ann Todd fascinating. She had a fairly remote Garbo quality which with her patrician manner made her ideal for those upper class roles she portrayed for her third husband David Lean in the 40s and early 50s. In movies since the 1930s, I first noticed her in the 1945 PERFECT STRANGERS (or VACATION FROM MARRIAGE) for Korda, as the nice woman Robert Donat could have had a romance with, before he re-unites with wife Deborah Kerr. Hitchcock then took her to Hollywood (along with Alida Valli) for his rare misfire THE PARADINE CASE in 1947 as Gregory Peck’s wife. This is a fascinating oddity to see now. She is perfect in THE PASSIONATE FRIENDS for Lean in 1948, as per my review (Ann Todd label), as the wife of Claude Rains who meets her old lover Trevor Howard again at an Alpine holiday, so the stage is set for dramatics when her jealous husband turns up. MADELEINE was another created for her by Lean and she is also ideal in THE SOUND BARRIER (again, reviewed here) in ’52 as Ralph Richardson’s daughter who marries test pilot Nigel Patrick, as they try to break the sound barrier. Other roles include Losey’s TIME WITHOUT PITY in ’57 and a Hammer thriller A TASTE OF FEAR in 1961 – she even played in THE SON OF CAPTAIN BLOOD with Erroll Flynn’s son, Sean (which would be interesting to see now). She later took to directing and made some successful documentaries about travels in then exotic locations like Nepal.





PAMELA BROWN (1917-1975). One of the most fascinating British actresses, Pamela had memorable looks and that distinctive voice which made her ideal for some eccentric roles. She began in theatre and then in films with Michael Powell and Emeric Pessburger. She and Powell lived together until her death aged 58 in 1975. I have already written about her Catriona in I KNOW WHERE I’M GOING in 1945, one of my absolute favourite women in cinema. Other roles include RICHARD III, LUST FOR LIFE, BECKET, the seer in CLEOPATRA (above), in Losey’s SECRET CEREMONY and FIGURES IN A LANDSCAPE, a silent cameo as Mrs Fitzherbert in the Brighton flashbacks in ON A CLEAR DAY YOU CAN SEE FOREVER, LADY CAROLINE LAMB, THE NIGHT DIGGER with Patricia Neal, and another Rumer Godden drama about nuns IN THIS HOUSE OF BREDE. It is a very prolific career with lots of television also. Never a conventional beauty, Pamela added a dramatic presence to whatever she appeared in, and is always a pleasure to see.



Soon: British actresses of the 40s and 50s: Muriel Pavlow, Dinah Sheridan, Shirley Eaton, Yvonne Mitchell, Diana Dors, Sylvia Syms, Virginia McKenna, Rosamund John, Wendy Hiller, Celia Johnson, Margaret Lockwood, and Dame Flora Robson. I have already written extensively here on Kay Kendall, Joan Greenwood, Claire Bloom, Belinda Lee …

3 very British treats

THE ASTONISHED HEART, 1950, written by Noel Coward who also scored the music and he stars too as the psychiatrist contentedly married to Barbara (Celia Johnson). Barbara meets her old school friend Leonora (Margaret Leighton) by chance and they become friends again. There is an initial coolness between the husband and Leonora but soon passions are raging beneath those stiff upper lip exteriors as they embark on an affair. The wife though does not seem to mind too much and even encourages the lovers to go away together. Is she waiting for it to run out of steam and he will return to her? I knew nothing about this 1950 rarity so the ending is a surprise. It is all redolent of that older age of film-making, easy to spoof now, with the upper-class accents, the high life in Mayfair (complete with butler and cook) as Coward and Leighton do the rounds of nightclubs and restaurants, ordering their stingers and trying the samba. The two ladies are of course splendid as ever (with Leighton, as gowned by Molyneux, the height of late 40s chic), but it is odd seeing Coward with his clipped vocal delivery and mandarin appearance as the clever man torn between two women [he was perfect though with Johnson in IN WHICH WE SERVE] … it seems Michael Redgrave was set to star initially. Coward’s pals Graham Payn and Joyce Carey are in support, and co-director is Terence Fisher who helmed those Hammer classics. A very intriguing oddity then - essential though not to know how it is going to end....

Much more conventional is THE HOLLY AND THE IVY from 1952. Adapted from a play and directed by George More O’Ferrell it is a “heartwarming tale of an English minister and his family reunited at Christmas time” so why isn’t it a Christmas perennial? Ralph Richardson is the rather bumbling minister but he hardly seems old enough to be the father of daughters Celia Johnson and Margaret Leighton (again) or son Denholm Elliott. Celia is the dutiful daughter who stays at home to look after him but she longs to leave and marry reliable John Gregson who has an offer of work abroad. Also returning home is Leighton as the wayward daughter in London whose life has gone wrong – she has taken to drink after the loss of her wartime lover and the death of her child. As son Denholm rails to the minister, he cannot be told the truth about them, but he turns out to be very human and understands perfectly as solutions are found to suit everyone. Add in two maiden aunts (one very bitter about losing her own chances of marriage by having to look after aged parents) and suave Hugh Williams and the stage is set for a nice drama played out with the snow falling on that perfectly quaint English village. I loved it.



Back to 1945 (the year I was born!) for THE SEVENTH VEIL, an enormous hit at the time and one can see why. It's a delirious melodrama, classily done, which pushes all the right buttons: lots of music, heightened emotions and great roles for James Mason and Ann Todd. Todd starts as a convincing 14 year old in pigtails, in thrall to her ward Nicholas (Mason with that cane…). She becomes a famous pianist but is always under the Svengali-like spell of her lame cousin/guardian and mentor until she attempts suicide by jumping off a bridge. Enter the doctor (Herbert Lom) who tries to unlock her secrets and her phobia about playing again. Lom discovers the severely shy young woman's repressed need for love, and her guardian's overbearing need to live his life's dream through her and her talent as a pianist. By the end her three suitors (the band-leader she wanted to elope with, before Nicholas whisked her off to Paris, and the painter who fell for her as he painted her, as well as the brooding Nicholas) are all waiting to see which she will choose – but it is not really a surprise. Lom, in a long and varied career, went on to play the psychiatrist in a successful tv series THE HUMAN JUNGLE.



Todd, with her odd Garbo quality, is fascinating as ever here, and no wonder Mason was soon on his way to Hollywood. Todd though remains virtually unknown of all the major British actresses of the ‘40s – was she too patrician or aloof for the moviegoers to take to their collective bosoms? Directed by Compton Bennett, with an Oscar-winning script by Muriel and Sydney Box.

Those '50s literary adaptations ...

20th Century Fox turned out a Steinbeck adaptation in 1957 – the long unseen THE WAYWARD BUS – so rare in fact that neither their Jayne Mansfield or Joan Collins boxsets could include it – I think I read that the Steinbeck estate was not releasing it? Surely this was popular on its release, Steinbeck must have been big business after EAST OF EDEN? It is a perfect period piece in black and white and captures that ‘50s world of diners and buses perfectly. Rick Jason is the bus driver, married to diner owner Collins, Jayne is the stripper down on her luck, on the bus to her next engagement, as is travelling salesman Dan Dailey, also down on his luck. It is directed by one Victor Vicas (who?). Jayne is touching here and plays a real character for once and Joan acquits herself ok. An interesting coda though is that on the US dvd of A LETTER TO THREE WIVES there is a documentary on Linda Darnell which includes a test she did in ’57 for the Collins role, with Rick Jason (her co-star from THIS IS MY LOVE) – and she would have been perfect here as the slightly older blowsy wife who hits the bottle – but it was a new decade and Fox went with their new English import! - no wonder poor Linda hit the bottle....



Back to the wonderful world of the 20th Century Fox literary adaptation – usually produced by Jerry Wald and directed by someone like Martin Ritt. Two William Faulkner adaptations have long been near the top of my most wanted list and I finally got to see them last week: THE SOUND AND THE FURY and SANCTUARY. I may be at a disadvantage in not having read the books, but as films they are certainly interesting.

THE SOUND AND THE FURY must be one of the most perfect Deep South sagas of a dysfunctional family barely scraping by. The period detail is laid on with a trowel here and it is all oh so familiar. Very eclectic casting too: Joanne Woodward though is surely too mature for the wayward teenager Quentin (wouldn’t Fox’s other younger contract players like Tuesday Weld or Diane Varsi be more suitable?) Yul Brynner (with hair!) is a strange choice here as the stepson keeping the family together, but one forgets what a compelling presence he is with that distinctive voice; his mother who wants to stay in bed is Francoise Rosay and who else but Ethel Waters for the family servant, who is getting on in years. Add in young Stuart Whitman as Joanne’s rather persistant suitor. Then suddenly something electrifying happens: walking into frame carrying her suitcase is the reason I had wanted to see this for such a long time: Margaret Leighton [below] as Caddy, the mother who had abandoned Woodward as a baby and now wants to come home after years of being a kept woman. Leighton is Blanche Du Bois to the life and one can see she would have been as good as Vivien Leigh in the role. So in all, a fascinating mix of talents even if a rather turgid film. Maybe reading the book first would give one a better understanding of these people?



Also long unseen here, is Tony Richardson’s 1961 film of SANCTUARY which I had wanted to catch up with for Lee Remick’s performance as Temple Drake. Bradford Dillman plays her husband and Yves Montand (fresh from Marilyn Monroe and LET’S MAKE LOVE) as the bootlegger Candyman who rapes her. Blues singer Odetta is also in the cast. Remick is as fascinating as ever as the tease who takes to sex and booze, and that remote to us now 20s era of flappers and the Charleston is well conveyed. The story is bizarre though with the death of the baby – again, perhaps a reading of the book would be useful. An odd choice though for director Tony Richardson. Montand has a great 'look' with the hat and the cigarette, but back then the English language continued to defeat him. Remick though is the reason to see this, with lots of lingering close-ups of her.

Perhaps I should now go back and have another look at THE LONG HOT SUMMER or (if I could find it) HEMINGWAY’S ADVENTURES OF A YOUNG MAN?

Over at MGM they were doing literarly adaptations too – one of the rarest being their version of Jack Kerouac, as Arthur Freed produced their 1960 version of the beat world THE SUBTERRANEANS, which has also long been unobtainable here in the UK, and what a fascinating experience it is, being as hilariously awful as one would expect - when I included that poster on it a few weeks ago I did not imagine I would be seeing the movie quite so soon! Again, I have not read the Kerouac book. It starts with struggling writer George Peppard being kept by his uncomprehending mother Anne Seymour who works as a nurse – so he goes off and falls in with some beatniks – the very annoying Roddy McDowell and Janice Rule, with a young Jim Hutton in tow. Leslie Caron struggles to make sense of Mardou (who I understand was black in the novel), but after GIGI etc it seems a poor role for her, and what did Alan Freed see in the material to think it was worth producing?

It’s introduction after the credits paves the way for us to enter this strange new underworld: “This is the story of a new Bohemia – where the young gather to create and destroy. In all times, in all cities, for good or evil, the young Bohemians have been the makers of the future. They are foolish and they have genius. You will find them on the left bank in Paris, in London’s Soho, in Greenwich Village, and here in San Francisco in the area known as the North Beach”. Thus straight society was introduced to the world of the beats back in 1960!

This farrago is assembled by one Ranald MacDougall who also helmed Joan Crawford’s turn as QUEEN BEE and Gina Lollobrigida as the high class hooker in GO NAKED IN THE WORLD, also 1960. We get to see Andre Previn, Gerry Mulligan and Carmen McRae in the nightclub sequence where the (rather mature) beatniks hang out, and there are some nice San Francisco views. Perhaps with the coming release of HOWL there may be a revival of interest in the beat generation?