Beyond the Roundels

Some of the things I've been watching in 2025 that I haven't really talked about so far, mainly because my chief feeling for all of them is that I need to rewatch them to make up my mind what I actually think of them, which is not necessarily a comment on the film(s) so much as it is the state of my focus and concentration re. watching anything, thanks to the CFS.

The Man Who Loved Redheads (1955) This was in fact the last thing I watched in 2024, so you can't believe a word I say, just like the hero of the piece. This film was a Christmas present, requested because it was part of my Watch All the Rattigan quest (harder than it ought to be), and this film is Rattigan's own adaptation of his play Who Is Sylvia?, starring Moira Shearer, John Justin, Roland Culver, Gladys Cooper, Kenneth Moore & Denholm Elliott.

It's pretty much pure candyfloss and mostly a showpiece for Moira Shearer to dance, but I will watch it again sometime, definitely, because sometimes candyfloss is needed. It would have been good to have a bit more of a comeuppance/stronger repentance for the lead, but then it is fair to say it's also rather a toss up as to whether or not he actually has been misbehaving as much as it appears or mostly fantasising all along, in addition to the very light tone. (This seems to be the main complaint of contemporary reviewers as well, who add that it is not the best Rattigan, with which I can also concur; it is very odd to be agreeing with contemporary reviewers.)

Mark, Lord Binfield (John Justin) is obsessed with Sylvia, a red-headed girl he met at a party when he was a teenager, and despite marrying Caroline, ends up living a double life with a flat in London where he pursues redheaded women who look like Sylvia. It's narrated by Kenneth More, Moira Shearer plays Sylvia and all the women who look like her, while Gladys Cooper swoops in at the end to steal the show as Caroline, who turns out to have known all about it all along, while his image of Sylvia is so far divorced from the reality, he doesn't even recognise her as she is now. (<-- technically a spoiler, but one that IMO totally would have benefitted the initial viewing experience to have known, because I don't trust the 1950s.)

Its tongue-in-cheek tone, narration and lightness saves it from being anywhere near as terrible as that summary sounds, as indeed does Caroline. It is quality fluff & nonsense, basically, and if you wanted to see a 1950s ballet performance of extracts from The Sleeping Beauty, this will deliver. It also provides a bit of a swift romp through the first half of the 20th C, which may have been the thing I enjoyed the most.

Some screencaps (mostly of Denholm Elliott) here. Oh, which reminds me: it's in colour!! It's always very exciting when that happens in a British film before 1960. (It's, like, that's a thing???? We can have colour???? *\o/*)



Angel (2007) is definitely an oddity. I watched it for Romola Garai, because I saw a clip of it with her in the fabulous red dress she wears in the middle - some tumblr gifs and pics of the film including the Dress - and I have to say the dress did not disappoint. The dress was worth it on its own, even without the also amazing green dress and the pretty wonderful blue dress that also happened. XD

Anyway, it was directed by François Ozon, so it is a French/Belgian film rather than a British one, despite the mostly British cast (Romola, Charlotte Rampling, Lucy Russell, Sam Neill, Jacqueline Tong & Michael Fassbender). Angel Deverell is an Edwardian romance writer, a monstrous narcissist who tries to live as if she were the heroine of one her novels and eventually crashes and burns, but it's an oddity in that she never really learns anything or grows, which made it unsatisfying to watch for me on first viewing as I didn't know to expect that. But it is more a study of her character and a commentary on art, with the rise and fall of Angel's populist romances vs the lack of success and then posthumus rise of her husband's avant-garde art over the course of the 1900s to the 1920s. I will definitely have to watch it again to see what I make of it, now I have a better idea of what it's doing. But it's very well made and played and, as I may have mentioned, costumed, and I did not grudge my £3.50 or whatever it was going on this, because if there is an audience for Romola wearing fabulous things in a period drama, I am definitely part of it.

Also bonus points for one of my favourite things in films/TV, ( Cut for gif of fake books )

I was going to bring this post up to date, but this got long enough already, so I might as well leave it here!