Still working through a watching of Major Barbara (1941, thanks for the link ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sovay ) because I get overwhelmed* life keeps interrupting.
Also stopped to find out Robert Morley’s age at the time of filming (thirty-two or -three), because he’s blatantly younger than Andrew Undershaft, like, high-school-play teenager-in-a-fake-moustache younger. Works for the character, though.
O HAI Emlyn Williams, we meet again! *checks rest of cast* OK, I did not recognize Stanley Holloway in the opening scene, I think I’m used to seeing him at least a decade older.
I wonder if Newton’s casting as Ferrovius in Androcles and the Lion (1952) had anything to do with his role in the earlier movie — there’s a scene where Newton (as Bill Walker) spits in Todger Fairmile’s eye and Todger refrains from striking him, and the framing and expressions are strongly reminiscent of the scene between Ferrovius and Metellus, though with a different vibe and a (somewhat) different outcome. Google says Androcles and the Lion the play was written five years after Major Barbara, so it’s probably deliberate. You could give a worse description of Ferrovius than “he’s Bill Walker, but he’s trying to be Todger Fairmile.”
As Walker— yeah I nodded when Prof. Adolphus “Dolly” Cusins excitedly said of him “that’s exactly what an Ancient Greek would have done,” although thinking it over I’m not sure if Walker really is like an Ancient Greek, or even a pagan, so much as he is a Victorian idea of one, if that makes sense?
*I may never finish Starmaker (Live on Grenada TV, 1974), which I’ve also been watching intermittently. It’s like Harold Pinter: The Musical, and I’ve reached the part where the bleakness is definitely winning out.
sovay ) becauseAlso stopped to find out Robert Morley’s age at the time of filming (thirty-two or -three), because he’s blatantly younger than Andrew Undershaft, like, high-school-play teenager-in-a-fake-moustache younger. Works for the character, though.
O HAI Emlyn Williams, we meet again! *checks rest of cast* OK, I did not recognize Stanley Holloway in the opening scene, I think I’m used to seeing him at least a decade older.
I wonder if Newton’s casting as Ferrovius in Androcles and the Lion (1952) had anything to do with his role in the earlier movie — there’s a scene where Newton (as Bill Walker) spits in Todger Fairmile’s eye and Todger refrains from striking him, and the framing and expressions are strongly reminiscent of the scene between Ferrovius and Metellus, though with a different vibe and a (somewhat) different outcome. Google says Androcles and the Lion the play was written five years after Major Barbara, so it’s probably deliberate. You could give a worse description of Ferrovius than “he’s Bill Walker, but he’s trying to be Todger Fairmile.”
As Walker— yeah I nodded when Prof. Adolphus “Dolly” Cusins excitedly said of him “that’s exactly what an Ancient Greek would have done,” although thinking it over I’m not sure if Walker really is like an Ancient Greek, or even a pagan, so much as he is a Victorian idea of one, if that makes sense?
*I may never finish Starmaker (Live on Grenada TV, 1974), which I’ve also been watching intermittently. It’s like Harold Pinter: The Musical, and I’ve reached the part where the bleakness is definitely winning out.
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Date: 2024-03-02 10:32 pm (UTC)From:That's extremely valuable. T. S. Eliot functioned like that for me with poetry. (Not, actually, because of his politics, but because so much of his early poetry is certifiably bad.)
Thank you for the link! I’ve seen some clips of They Flew Alone on YouTube.
Same—probably the same clips, even. I've just never been able to track down a full copy before.
The actual holy grail of movies I have been chasing thanks to clips on YouTube is Border Flight (1936), which plotwise seems to have been one of those what-price-glory military love triangles, but the salient point is Roscoe Karns as a snarky mechanic. I will watch pretty much anything with Roscoe Karns in it. And I will watch pretty much any aviation movie from the '30's, which has produced mostly good results and occasionally dirigibles.
I mostly woke up for the five-minute cameo by Eric Donkin as Zoltan Karpathy — I’d imprinted on Donkin as a child watching the filmed-for-tv version of the Stratford Festival’s Mikado (he was Ko-Ko).
I imprinted on Richard McMillan's Pooh-Bah, but I understand the impulse. I should hope he was a good Karpathy.
(I have never seen a production of My Fair Lady, but I grew up on the movie and the original Broadway cast recording in the way where without putting in any effort I can probably still sing almost all of the score. I really love the 1938 Pygmalion. When I discovered it in 2008, it had just gotten a Criterion DVD which I promptly fell upon; it remains a favorite for multiple reasons, including my introduction to Leslie Howard's near-unique star niche as a romantic nerd. Two years later I got to feel undeservedly smug because I had written to them about Major Barbara.)
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Date: 2024-03-02 11:28 pm (UTC)From:Went looking for that clip from Stand-In that someone posted on Tumblr and which drew so many comments of “Who are these people?! What is this movie?! I need to see it!” but so far I’m just falling down a rabbit hole of Leslie Howard gif sets.
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Date: 2024-03-02 11:35 pm (UTC)From:Please enjoy Leslie Howard eating a banana.
(Stand-In is great and you should totally, if you have not done so already, see it. I should also warn you that I am probably not sensible on the subject of Leslie Howard. He is both an actor I enjoy and something of a touchstone. [edit] The important part: I can actually leave you alone about him.)
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Date: 2024-03-03 01:09 am (UTC)From:The important part: I can actually leave you alone about him.
Is there somebody who can’t leave people alone about Leslie Howard?
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Date: 2024-03-03 01:13 am (UTC)From:Okay!
Is there somebody who can’t leave people alone about Leslie Howard?
Not to my knowledge, but I am under the impression it can be damping to the enthusiasm to be discovering something new and then have someone else sail in with a list of long-time opinions, so I try not to inflict that dynamic on people.
(I really love Pimpernel Smith (1941).)
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Date: 2024-03-03 01:35 am (UTC)From:(I did resist the urge to add the five-minute clip of the end scene alone)
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Date: 2024-03-03 01:41 am (UTC)From:Excellent!
(I did resist the urge to add the five-minute clip of the end scene alone)
You can always give it its own post. It deserves it.