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thisbluespirit[I started this post in July 2018. I feel perhaps I should finish it before I have no memory of anything I watched any more. I already couldn't remember the things I watched in June when I wrote it, so expect even less sensible comments than usual.]
... or some of it, anyway. I have been recording films off the TV a lot lately, especially since I discovered Talking Pictures, which is a good enabler is you're into old British films (and TV). Some modern things may get in, too. I do watch them. I just don't always talk about them.
Rome Express (1937)
I can remember very little about this already! It was interesting and a 1930s thing set on a train (although obv. not as good as The Lady Vanishes), and I'm not really sure what it was doing, but it was mostly fairly enjoyable, I think. It also turned out to have Conrad Veidt in it, so I finally got to see him in a thing instead of merely hearing people talk about how amazing he is. (I can indeed believe he is amazing. He was pretty great in this and he was mostly wandering about the edges of it being vaguely Sinister.)
The Ghost and Mrs Muir (1947)
Widowed Mrs Muir moves into a seaside cottage which is haunted by its previous owner, a sea captain. This was very cute and a lot of fun and then TAKING PEOPLE'S MEMORIES ARGH ARGH. But it was pretty delightful until then. If you don't have an amnesia squick like me, I recommend it. If you do, it was still a lot of fun, but be prepared, unlike me.
[Which was as far as I got in July.]
Dracula (1958, aka Horror of Dracula)
I enjoyed this one, particularly (obviously) Peter Cushing, but also Christopher Lee's Dracula. I had gained a fairly accurate idea of Peter Cushing's Van Helsing but not of Lee's Dracula and I had not quite expected him to be so quiet and imposing and fluid.
I don't know if I had a more cut-down version perhaps, but it otherwise seemed pretty anaemic, even dull, and was very 1950s in eliminating pretty much any sexual undertones (how is that even possible?) from everything - barring the climactic fight between Van Helsing and Dracula, that is. Anybody who ships it, I see why. The scariest thing was Michael Gough being good. I kept waiting for him to do something evil and he never did.
Obviously, though, I need to see all the rest of the Hammer Dracula films before I can make any proper comments and I shall have to attend to that forthwith. :-D (I'm not just saying that - I have another on my DVR and have ordered The Brides of Dracula as it went down to Very Cheap on the weekend.)
But the more versions of Dracula I see, the more I'm impressed with the two old TV versions I've seen - the 1968 Thames version, despite its shakiness is (so far) the most interesting non-faithful adaptation, or certainly the least straight, while the 1977 BBC is far and away best and most faithful so far (although it's also, weirdly for 70s UK TV, more constrained on the sexual front, but then it was a high profile BBC event and may even have had US funding, which always came with caveats).
The Browning Version (1951)
I recorded this off Talking Pictures and I was a little hesitant, because I studied Rattigan's The Browning Version for A-Level and watched the BBC 1980s version with Ian Holm and Judi Dench, which I loved and I wasn't sure it was a thing where I wanted another version, even with Michael Redgrave, or if I was in the mood for its painful small tragedy at that moment, but I decided to go for it.
I'm not even going to try and be incoherent: you see, I really, really love The Browning Version still - and this one actually has a happier coda, which was all the more interesting because it was written by Terrence Rattigan himself. Anyway, in short: I award it all the stars, I loved it and recording it was 110% the right choice and now the only downside is I either have to keep it forever or get my own copy some day.
TBV is about a little-loved Classics master at a boys boarding school who is about to retire, and plays out a very claustrophobic drawing room tragedy (although at the ending it could be a new beginning and more hopeful, or not - the film actually gives us the hope, and I enjoyed that, too).
A Canterbury Tale (1944)
sovay recced this to me, and I'm very glad of it, as it was a lovely and interesting film. It's definitely something I need to watch again and I would also very much pass the rec onwards. I was struggling for any words to say more than that, because it is both excellent and pretty much none of the things you would expect it to be, and failing whe sovay helpfully wrote about it again, far more thoughtfully and beautifully and summed it up as follows: " I find it an incredibly kind film, funny and endlessly rewatchable, simultaneously numinous and WTF." And, yes, I am nodding along with that. Definitely well worth watching.
Our Town (1940)
I picked this up in a charity shop and it wasn't a particularly good copy, but what it was other than that I couldn't tell you. Maybe someone here can tell me. What even is it?
Jassy (1947)
I do remember this one because it had Margaret Lockwood and Patricia Roc in colour! Oh, and Esma Cannon. Probably some other people, but I forget them, as they were not Margaret Lockwood, Patricia Roc or Esma Cannon.
This was definitely a Gainsborough melodrama and it packed in one terrible trope after another. I think it was heading for a full house on the bingo card before Gainsborough stopped making melodramas. So, if you're not charmed by ML and PR in colour running away from school together, YMMV a lot. (I mean, Margaret Lockwood is half-gypsy and obv. has second sight, and Esma Canon is dumb and magically manages to speak at the end, so, er, yes.
Patricia Roc was not in the second half anything like enough, which was very sad and means that Love Story (1944) is still the femslashiest Margaret Lockwood/Patricia Roc film out there. (I realize there are many more reasons to hold a grudge against The Man in Grey than this, but if they had only cast Patricia Roc it would have been the actual femslashiest. (There's nothing wrong with Phyllis Calvert, but she's just not magically femslashy with Margaret Lockwood.) But then it's probably best to have any more reasons to love that terrible film.)
I found an online review that said it was boring. I can think of a lot of criticisms of it, but boring would not be one of them. Anyway, Gainsborough Melodrama Cliche Bingo Central with flashing warning lights. In colour. I'm afraid I enjoyed it quite a lot, but obviously if you want only one Gainsborough melodrama, you should watch The Wicked Lady and not this.
The Jane Austen Book Club
(I do watch modern things, I just talk about them less. They're more likely to lead to arguments I can't be doing with.) Anyway, I started out annoyed with this one, but then ended up quite enjoying it after all, if with reservations, BUT then everybody had sex all at once and it was too much, EXCEPT that one couple had an intense Persuasion reading scene instead and I was bowled over by that, but they kept being interrupted by everyone else having sex while not reading Persuasion, which was annoying.
So, I went on tumblr to see if anyone had giffed the intense Persuasion reading scene, but they had not. They were only interested in one character, who was not in the intense Persuasion reading scene. Where is my gifset? It's not as if I want to watch the film again just for that. Honestly, what is the point of watching modern stuff if people don't even gif things for you? ;-p
[My comments on things I have watched are getting worse and I don't even have gifs to bring today in compensation. I'm sorry.]
... or some of it, anyway. I have been recording films off the TV a lot lately, especially since I discovered Talking Pictures, which is a good enabler is you're into old British films (and TV). Some modern things may get in, too. I do watch them. I just don't always talk about them.
Rome Express (1937)
I can remember very little about this already! It was interesting and a 1930s thing set on a train (although obv. not as good as The Lady Vanishes), and I'm not really sure what it was doing, but it was mostly fairly enjoyable, I think. It also turned out to have Conrad Veidt in it, so I finally got to see him in a thing instead of merely hearing people talk about how amazing he is. (I can indeed believe he is amazing. He was pretty great in this and he was mostly wandering about the edges of it being vaguely Sinister.)
The Ghost and Mrs Muir (1947)
Widowed Mrs Muir moves into a seaside cottage which is haunted by its previous owner, a sea captain. This was very cute and a lot of fun and then TAKING PEOPLE'S MEMORIES ARGH ARGH. But it was pretty delightful until then. If you don't have an amnesia squick like me, I recommend it. If you do, it was still a lot of fun, but be prepared, unlike me.
[Which was as far as I got in July.]
Dracula (1958, aka Horror of Dracula)
I enjoyed this one, particularly (obviously) Peter Cushing, but also Christopher Lee's Dracula. I had gained a fairly accurate idea of Peter Cushing's Van Helsing but not of Lee's Dracula and I had not quite expected him to be so quiet and imposing and fluid.
I don't know if I had a more cut-down version perhaps, but it otherwise seemed pretty anaemic, even dull, and was very 1950s in eliminating pretty much any sexual undertones (how is that even possible?) from everything - barring the climactic fight between Van Helsing and Dracula, that is. Anybody who ships it, I see why. The scariest thing was Michael Gough being good. I kept waiting for him to do something evil and he never did.
Obviously, though, I need to see all the rest of the Hammer Dracula films before I can make any proper comments and I shall have to attend to that forthwith. :-D (I'm not just saying that - I have another on my DVR and have ordered The Brides of Dracula as it went down to Very Cheap on the weekend.)
But the more versions of Dracula I see, the more I'm impressed with the two old TV versions I've seen - the 1968 Thames version, despite its shakiness is (so far) the most interesting non-faithful adaptation, or certainly the least straight, while the 1977 BBC is far and away best and most faithful so far (although it's also, weirdly for 70s UK TV, more constrained on the sexual front, but then it was a high profile BBC event and may even have had US funding, which always came with caveats).
The Browning Version (1951)
I recorded this off Talking Pictures and I was a little hesitant, because I studied Rattigan's The Browning Version for A-Level and watched the BBC 1980s version with Ian Holm and Judi Dench, which I loved and I wasn't sure it was a thing where I wanted another version, even with Michael Redgrave, or if I was in the mood for its painful small tragedy at that moment, but I decided to go for it.
I'm not even going to try and be incoherent: you see, I really, really love The Browning Version still - and this one actually has a happier coda, which was all the more interesting because it was written by Terrence Rattigan himself. Anyway, in short: I award it all the stars, I loved it and recording it was 110% the right choice and now the only downside is I either have to keep it forever or get my own copy some day.
TBV is about a little-loved Classics master at a boys boarding school who is about to retire, and plays out a very claustrophobic drawing room tragedy (although at the ending it could be a new beginning and more hopeful, or not - the film actually gives us the hope, and I enjoyed that, too).
A Canterbury Tale (1944)
sovay recced this to me, and I'm very glad of it, as it was a lovely and interesting film. It's definitely something I need to watch again and I would also very much pass the rec onwards. I was struggling for any words to say more than that, because it is both excellent and pretty much none of the things you would expect it to be, and failing whe sovay helpfully wrote about it again, far more thoughtfully and beautifully and summed it up as follows: " I find it an incredibly kind film, funny and endlessly rewatchable, simultaneously numinous and WTF." And, yes, I am nodding along with that. Definitely well worth watching.Our Town (1940)
I picked this up in a charity shop and it wasn't a particularly good copy, but what it was other than that I couldn't tell you. Maybe someone here can tell me. What even is it?
Jassy (1947)
I do remember this one because it had Margaret Lockwood and Patricia Roc in colour! Oh, and Esma Cannon. Probably some other people, but I forget them, as they were not Margaret Lockwood, Patricia Roc or Esma Cannon.
This was definitely a Gainsborough melodrama and it packed in one terrible trope after another. I think it was heading for a full house on the bingo card before Gainsborough stopped making melodramas. So, if you're not charmed by ML and PR in colour running away from school together, YMMV a lot. (I mean, Margaret Lockwood is half-gypsy and obv. has second sight, and Esma Canon is dumb and magically manages to speak at the end, so, er, yes.
Patricia Roc was not in the second half anything like enough, which was very sad and means that Love Story (1944) is still the femslashiest Margaret Lockwood/Patricia Roc film out there. (I realize there are many more reasons to hold a grudge against The Man in Grey than this, but if they had only cast Patricia Roc it would have been the actual femslashiest. (There's nothing wrong with Phyllis Calvert, but she's just not magically femslashy with Margaret Lockwood.) But then it's probably best to have any more reasons to love that terrible film.)
I found an online review that said it was boring. I can think of a lot of criticisms of it, but boring would not be one of them. Anyway, Gainsborough Melodrama Cliche Bingo Central with flashing warning lights. In colour. I'm afraid I enjoyed it quite a lot, but obviously if you want only one Gainsborough melodrama, you should watch The Wicked Lady and not this.
The Jane Austen Book Club
(I do watch modern things, I just talk about them less. They're more likely to lead to arguments I can't be doing with.) Anyway, I started out annoyed with this one, but then ended up quite enjoying it after all, if with reservations, BUT then everybody had sex all at once and it was too much, EXCEPT that one couple had an intense Persuasion reading scene instead and I was bowled over by that, but they kept being interrupted by everyone else having sex while not reading Persuasion, which was annoying.
So, I went on tumblr to see if anyone had giffed the intense Persuasion reading scene, but they had not. They were only interested in one character, who was not in the intense Persuasion reading scene. Where is my gifset? It's not as if I want to watch the film again just for that. Honestly, what is the point of watching modern stuff if people don't even gif things for you? ;-p
[My comments on things I have watched are getting worse and I don't even have gifs to bring today in compensation. I'm sorry.]
no subject
Date: 16 Apr 2019 08:51 am (UTC)Yaaay!
(I love this movie. I did go out and buy a copy on DVD. I have only elliptically written about it; at the point in time when I first saw it, it was very close to the bone. It still is, unfortunately, so I have no excuse for not trying again sometime.)
sovay recced this to me, and I'm very glad of it, as it was a lovely and interesting film. It's definitely something I need to watch again and I would also very much pass the rec onwards.
I am so very glad. It stands a decent chance of being my favorite film.
no subject
Date: 16 Apr 2019 09:05 am (UTC)I followed your link - with The Browning Version, as I said, we (briefly) studied the play for A-Levels, and we watched not this film but a BBC 1980s TV performance of the Rattigan play (which doesn't have the softer tag of the film's ending), starring Ian Holm and Judi Dench, with Michael Kitchen. I, too, didn't want to see a film version of it after and it was only Michael Redgrave who tipped me over into trying this one - I still have no desire to see the 90s one! It doesn't seem to be particularly highly regarded, so I think it's the right choice on both our parts, anyway. :-D
Which is to say, if it ever does feel like something you can approach again, I very much also recommend the 1980s performance of the play, which was where I first met Ian Holm properly by name. (It's here on YT, although Pt1 is unhelpfully blocked in the UK; I don't know if it also is in the US.) The involvement of Rattigan in the film mean that the play and the film are not quite identical, but they are complementary options, and I appreciated that a lot when watching it.
no subject
Date: 16 Apr 2019 09:17 am (UTC)I knew one person on LJ who loved it, but I have still never tracked it down and I feel all right with that. I would almost certainly attend a production of the one-act, see below.
Which is to say, if it ever does feel like something you can approach again, I very much also recommend the 1980s performance of the play, which was where I first met Ian Holm properly by name.
Alas, the first part is blocked by YouTube in the U.S., too, but now that I know it exists I will look for it in its entirety, because that sounds like a terrific cast. I've read the one-act play—in keeping with tonight's theme, I actually discovered it thanks to Eric Portman, who originated the role of Crocker-Harris in 1948—but never seen it performed.
no subject
Date: 16 Apr 2019 02:00 pm (UTC)There is always someone! :lol: (Not that I can speak; i'm often that one myself, as are we all from time to time.)
I've read the one-act play—in keeping with tonight's theme, I actually discovered it thanks to Eric Portman, who originated the role of Crocker-Harris in 1948—but never seen it performed.
It has been a very long time since I've done either, but I don't recall there being any significant differences with the 1985 TV one - I'm pretty sure it was effectively a straight performance and that's why we were watching it.
no subject
Date: 16 Apr 2019 06:53 pm (UTC)I will defend the one hour of good film in The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964) against all comers!
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Date: 16 Apr 2019 11:37 am (UTC)I've not actually seen "Our Town", only read the play, but from what I remember twenty years later, this seems like the correct reaction. ;P
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Date: 16 Apr 2019 12:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 16 Apr 2019 01:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 16 Apr 2019 07:01 pm (UTC)Canonically it can't be performed on a stage set, which is one of the reasons I have a lot of difficulty imagining a movie of Our Town unless it was literally the filmed record of a stage production. It's an incredibly metatheatrical show. No fourth wall, makeshift sets of tables an d chairs, props at a minimum, and the conceit of the central character of the Stage Manager is that they are just that, the stage manager of the theater in which you are seeing the play, the audience's interlocutor, sending the characters on and off and through the paces of their lives but without any hint of being a supernatural character within the drama such as that job description might suggest, merely an all-round actor-manager who is sometimes a character, more often a narrating voice. I've known the 1940 film existed for some time, because the music's by Aaron Copland and it features much of the original 1938 stage cast, but it has realistic sets and it changes the ending and I just can't imagine it's any good. Any attempt at realism would kill the project.
[I put this comment in the wrong thread the first time around and had to move it.]
no subject
Date: 16 Apr 2019 07:35 pm (UTC)I looked it up after watching so I knew that they'd changed the ending, but what they do is make the Stage Manager character somone who is addressing a cinema audience and then directing them back to the scenes from the film so realism is not what it's going for.
The print was really bad, so I didn't keep it. Otherwise I might have done just to keep on puzzling out what it was trying to do and whether I liked it or not. But it sounds like to make a film, they've made it a metafictional movie instead of a metafictional stage production, which seems a reasonable enough translation. What you'd make of the life-death dream bit, though, I suppose I don't know! I was just very relieved they hadn't killed off the woman, because that would just have been tiresome.
no subject
Date: 16 Apr 2019 07:52 pm (UTC)You’re quite right it would be hard to do as a movie, unless it was shot like Vanya On 42nd Street.
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Date: 16 Apr 2019 07:54 pm (UTC)I mean, now I'd like to see that.
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Date: 16 Apr 2019 07:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 16 Apr 2019 08:01 pm (UTC)If it does not make the fear of disappointment worse, I enjoyed Vanya on 42nd Street. It was not my platonic Vanya, but I only ever find out what one of those looks like by seeing different versions anyway.
no subject
Date: 16 Apr 2019 01:52 pm (UTC)Ha, well it's good not to be alone!!
no subject
Date: 16 Apr 2019 12:51 pm (UTC)Oh, I saw about 45 mins of this on Talking Pictures, but then had to go out or something (can't remember) so didn't see the ending. I really enjoyed what I saw, but if it ends with her losing all her memories of her interactions with the Sea Captain, then I'm glad I stopped when I did. I thought it was very funny and very good on female agency for its time.
Enjoy the rest of the Hammer Dracula films! The cut scenes which were found in a Japanese print and restored in 2013 did spice up the 1958 version quite a bit - they made the seduction of Mina much sexier, and the final disintegration more graphic. I don't know whether your version included those or not. Anyway, Brides has some distinct lesbian and polyamorous subtext, as does Prince of Darkness (the next one). I recommend working through them in release order if you can.
no subject
Date: 16 Apr 2019 01:56 pm (UTC)She does eventually recover her memories at the point of death, so there's a sort of happy ending, but still. Surprise amnesia is not my favourite thing! 0_o
Enjoy the rest of the Hammer Dracula films! The cut scenes which were found in a Japanese print and restored in 2013 did spice up the 1958 version quite a bit -
I think mine did have some extra scenes, but whether they were in the film or I was supposed to go find them afterwards, who knows? I shall have to examine the extras more carefully. It's very 1950s, though, which is fair enough. It was only 1958.
Anyway, Brides has some distinct lesbian and polyamorous subtext, as does Prince of Darkness (the next one). I recommend working through them in release order if you can.
I am not sure which one I have on the DVR; it might be Prince of Darkness, but I'm not sure, but Brides is winging its way to me as we speak. I kept recording a lot of Hammer - I might have to check in as to whether or not they are all sufficiently safe for a wimpish horror viewer to watch! Heh. (I have just started The Mummy.)
no subject
Date: 16 Apr 2019 04:51 pm (UTC)It's a good policy! And they're all pretty tame until you get to the 1970s, so I shouldn't worry too much. The only one you might want to be careful with from that point of view is Scars of Dracula, which - well - lives up to its name, right on Patrick Troughton's back...
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Date: 16 Apr 2019 04:53 pm (UTC)Yes, but you say that and then you say the words "Patrick Troughton!" :-D
My recording has been a bit random - Horror have only showed one of the Draculas since they started, so I've just recorded everything else on the basis that I could always ask the internet and delete it later. There definitely were a couple of 70s ones, though.
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Date: 16 Apr 2019 03:57 pm (UTC)Hammer films get more heaving bosoms as they go along. I get confused with the Dracula sequels as to which is which.
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Date: 16 Apr 2019 04:49 pm (UTC)Hammer films get more heaving bosoms as they go along. I get confused with the Dracula sequels as to which is which.
I suspected it would be all go once the 60s arrived!
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Date: 21 Apr 2019 05:44 pm (UTC)The 1958 Dracula was my first real vampire movie, and at eleven it scared me stiff. I was surprised over how little Christopher Lee spoke when I rewatched it a few years ago. He is still rather scary, though- no doubts at all his Dracula is a very nasty piece of work.
no subject
Date: 21 Apr 2019 07:47 pm (UTC)I was very impressed with his Dracula! I had a pretty good idea of Peter Cushing's Van Helsing from vids and gifs, but Lee wasn't what I expected here and I was really impressed with his performance. In general, I'm not really in Dracula for Dracula himself (he's sort of more of a catalyst than anything else), but he was a definite highlight.
And, heh, none of us were keen on the surprise (or not) amnesia!