Swithin
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Posts posted by Swithin
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Nice group, TB! I worked with one of your December ladies, now 92, a mere 81 when I met her.
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I remember enjoying There's Magic in Music, which was on tv years ago. Alternate title seems to be The Hard-Boiled Canary. Has that been on TCM, or around anywhere recently?
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*Basil Rathbone* is one of the greats. He could do anything -- films, theater, sing -- look at his music hall performance in disguise, in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes ! How many people know that he originated the role of Dr. Austin Sloper in the original Broadway production of The Heiress, a play which today is enjoying a successful revival on Broadway. (Rathbone's daughter Catherine Sloper was played by Wendy Hiller.)
But I digress -- regarding the subject of this thread, the selling of DVDs doesn't bother me. It's fairly low profile and keeps the films coming without interruption.
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Funny, I do find that women will use men's names, but it's usually not the other way around. Wonder why.
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SHE? I thought Calvin was a bloke! I frequently discover that many of the posters I thought were male, are not!
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That's a great list of ladies, it includes almost everyone. However, I don't think it's a particularly good programming idea. Because it's so general, it will end up being a re-packaging of movies that have been shown quite often, in the guise of a "new series." But regarding a tribute to *Ida Lupino*: maybe that would provide an opportunity to show, finally, *The Light that Failed*.
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Woman in White
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{font:Georgia}
"Economy’s depressed not me,
my spirit’s high as they can be
and you may say that I ain’t free,
but it don’t worry me..."
{font}Sung by Barbara Harris in *Nashville* (1975)
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It would have been back in the very early 20th century. His wife sent him a photo of herself, with money hidden in the frame. That's how he bribed his way out. For all the incredible brutality and repression of the Communist era in Russia, we shouldn't forget the inhumanity of what preceded it: the age of the Tsars.
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As Chico says in one of the films, "Hair today, gone tomorrow."
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Lincoln loved Shakespeare. When he read/heard Constance's speech from King John, shortly after his child died, it is said he burst into tears. Here are excerpts from Constance's speech, in which she laments the death of her son:
"I am not mad: this hair I tear is mine;
My name is Constance; I was Geffrey's wife;
Young Arthur is my son, and he is lost:
I am not mad: I would to heaven I were!
For then, 'tis like I should forget myself:
O, if I could, what grief should I forget!
Preach some philosophy to make me mad,
And thou shalt be canonized, cardinal;
For being not mad but sensible of grief,
My reasonable part produces reason
How I may be deliver'd of these woes,
And teaches me to kill or hang myself:
If I were mad, I should forget my son,
Or madly think a babe of clouts were he:
I am not mad; too well, too well I feel
The different plague of each calamity.
And, father cardinal, I have heard you say
That we shall see and know our friends in heaven:
If that be true, I shall see my boy again;
For since the birth of Cain, the first male child,
To him that did but yesterday suspire,
There was not such a gracious creature born.
But now will canker-sorrow eat my bud
And chase the native beauty from his cheek
And he will look as hollow as a ghost,
As dim and meagre as an ague's fit,
And so he'll die; and, rising so again,
When I shall meet him in the court of heaven
I shall not know him: therefore never, never
Must I behold my pretty Arthur more.
Grief fills the room up of my absent child,
Lies in his bed, walks up and down with me,
Puts on his pretty looks, repeats his words,
Remembers me of all his gracious parts,
Stuffs out his vacant garments with his form;
Then, have I reason to be fond of grief?
Fare you well: had you such a loss as I,
I could give better comfort than you do.
I will not keep this form upon my head,
When there is such disorder in my wit.
O Lord! my boy, my Arthur, my fair son!
My life, my joy, my food, my all the world!
My widow-comfort, and my sorrows' cure!"
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I'm not sure I know that film! Unless it was on one of the old NYC TV horror shows when I was a kid. Sounds great!
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My grandfather's brother (I believe they were born in Odessa, probably in the 1870s) was sent to Siberia for attempting to assassinate the Tsar. He bribed his way out.
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John Abbott, who played the brother of Mr. Rochester's first wife, is a great actor. His best role is in Women in White (1946), in which he plays Frederick Fairlie, a man who can't stand noise. His big scene in that film is one of the great eccentric scenes.
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*The Exterminating Angel Baby Face in the Crowd Roars*
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vecchiolarry,
*The Egyptian* is my absolute favorite epic of all time. I was taken to see it as a very small boy and used to dream about it. But I always assumed that the disease with which Nefer returns to Sinuhe is some sort of VD that has a skin component, like syphilis. Is leprosy actually mentioned in the film (or the book)?
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LOL -- it's too early for me to focus on spelling. I think in my youth (like 10-14), I was heavily into doo-****/rock/pop in the early 60s; particularly liking the Shirelles, etc. I liked the Supremes only through "Baby Love," then drifted into folk -- Ochs, Dylan, Collins, Baez, etc. I never really got into those later 60s groups (apart from the Beatles), though I did get pretty heavily into traditional UK folk, like the Watersons, Jean Redpath, and Frankie Armstrong. Never got into disco much, I think my favorite early 70s guy was Don McLean, though in the 70s I began to listen to classical/opera. Got back to rock a bit with Blondie and a few of the others in the early 1980s.
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Funny... I really like Dylan's version of "My Back Pages." I was never a fan of The Birds. Particularly don't like their version of "Mr. Tambourine Man," a song sung best by Collins and second best by Dylan, IMHO.
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I love Judy Collins. I think her performances of songs by Dylan and Leonard Cohen are better than the songwriters. Particularly her version of "Mr. Tambourine Man" (Dylan); and "Suzanne" (Cohen). But I went to a concert she gave about ten years ago and wasn't fond of some of the new stuff she did. I recognized that a great artist doesn't want to be stuck in one era. It's just that I wanted, to quote Ilsa in Casablanca, "some of the old songs." She certainly gave us some, but not enough. But that had nothing to do with politics/folk songs; she just needed to continue to grow.
My favorite male singer of the late 60s folk period was Phil Ochs. I have many of his songs on my phone. How timely some of the political songs still are! And how wonderful the non-political ones, like "Rehearsals for Retirement," "Pleasures of the Harbor," et. al.
My favorite Dylan song remains "Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands," as sung by Joan Baez. I played it endlessly in college, driving my suite-mates crazy. It's a very long song!
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That fight scene between Edna May and Blanche is one of the great scenes. "I'm an Englishwoman, I'm your match!" is one of Edna May's lines.
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The IBDB, which is usually accurate, also credits Ms. Yurka with playing Helen of Troy in the Broadway premiere of Troilus and Cressida in 1932. It's hard to imagine that one of Shakespeare's greatest plays would not receive its Broadway premiere until 1932, but it is a complex play that was not routinely performed, even in England. Leo G. Carroll and Charles Coburn were also in the cast.
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The great Blanche Yurka had a rich stage career. She played Hamlet's mother (Gertrude) to John Barrymore's Hamlet in 1922 but was actually 11 years younger than Barrymore. Claudius (Gertrude's husband) was played by Tyrone Power, Sr.
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I was introduced to his music via the film Harold and Maude. What a perfect marriage of film and music! Btw, there are many artists -- novelists, painters, etc. -- who disavow some of their work for any number of reasons. Who cares -- if it still speaks to us.
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I thought I saw him down on 47th Street, but I think he may be back here.
Classic Character Actors
in General Discussions
Posted
LOL, quite right, it wasn't Cusack, it was the lovely Nanette.
Btw, I too adore Ms. Booth. I knew Arthur Laurents, who worked with Booth on his play, The Time of the Cuckoo. Arthur hated the film version -- Summertime, because it totally changed the nature of the character played by Booth in the original.