Random Shavian Semi-Review
Jan. 27th, 2024 01:17 pmStill 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.
