1960s: Armchair Theatre

A new old IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST! 

The blurb for Volume 4 of dvd pack (4 disks containing 12 plays and reasonably priced) of ARMCHAIR THEATRE says: "Pioneering, immensely influential and often challenging, ARMCHAIR THEATRE was (English) ITV's flagship drama anthology series. Bringing high-quality drama to the viewing public (back in the era when there were just two television channels and in black and white) the series easily demonstrated the network's potential to rival the BBC's drama output, with diverse and powerful plays showcasing some of Britain's most gifted writers and directors. This set comprises 12 plays featuring performances by some of the era's most celebrated and accomplished actors - including Susannah York, Colin Blakely, Ian Holm, Billie Whitelaw, Donald Pleasence, Terry-Thomas, Irene Handl, Patrick Macnee, Arthur Lowe and John Le Mesurier, among many others, including American import Carroll Baker (my pal Jerry will love this!). This volume includes early plays by both Jack Rosenthal, Ted Willis, Angus Wilson, Alun Owen, Len Deighton and John Hopkins, as well as Terry Southern." 

I just had to get this when I saw it included a production of Oscar's THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST which I had not heard of before, from November 1964 (I was 18 then, new in London, in my bedsitter but with no television, so I missed it) with, for me, a dream cast to equal the 1952 Asquith film which of course had the definitive Lady Bracknell in Edith Evans, and with Joan Greenwood and Margaret Rutherford. 
Here in 1964 we have Pamela Brown (whom I like so much in I KNOW WHERE I'M GOING) who is a formidable Bracknell, with the fabulously camp Fenella Fielding (CARRY ON SCREAMING etc) as her daughter Gwendolyn and young Susannah York is a perfect Cecily. Then theres Irene Handl as Miss Prism and Wilfrid Brambell as the Canon. The boys are Patrick Macnee (THE AVENGERS) and Ian Carmichael. Perfect 1964 casting! and it all works a treat - they certainly do Oscar justice. Lovely art nouveau set too for Algernon's apartment. The script had to be tailored to fit a 90 minute slot, but the BBC did the same with their Oscar productions in that OSCAR WILDE COLLECTION, but al the lines we know and love are here ....

Susannah York also features in another play here. I may have to investigate the other 3 volumes as well!

My very favourite film

Take the usual ingredients: a wilful heroine, an unconventional leading man, supporting characters we like and want to see more of, mix in the mystical highlands of Scotland, add in some Scottish castles, Scottish dances and songs, and the result is perfection. 
"Yes, but money isn't everything" ... That is probably the key line in I KNOW WHERE I'M GOING - Powell & Pressburger's timeless romantic fantasy from 1945 (the year I was born). The very independent Joan Webster who wants to marry a rich man travels up to the highlands on her way to the remote island of Kiloran which the millionaire has rented, but a storm forces her to stay on the mainland, at Erraig the house of Catriona (whose husband is away in the Far East, and children at boarding school), the war must be still on. Also staying is a friend of Catriona's Torquil whom Joan realises she is falling for, hence her desire to get away to the island. Navy officer Torquil [who is the real Laird of Kiloran] realising her dangerous plan to go out to sea in the storm helps her but the storm defeats them and the weary travellers arrive back at the house where Catriona puts Joan to bed in her own room with a roaring fire. (how wonderful it seems now to have real fires in bedrooms!). Catriona soon puts Joan to rights as Joan thinks that all these highland people are poor because they have no money so why doesn't Catriona sell her house Erraig, and their neighbour Mrs Crozier could sell her estate Achnacroish and Torquil could sell Kiloran - Catriona thinks about it and then says decisively "yes, but money isn't everything".  
The early scenes are marvellous too, at that fancy restaurant with Joan and her father and her trip by train to the Highlands - this was the real age of rail travel with sleeping compartments and attentive stewards. 

The next morning sees the storm abated, Joan has come to her senses as she sits on the table and says "I can't do a thing with my hair" and wonders where her wedding dress is (it was lost in the storm) to which Torquil replies "a mermaid will get married in it". The boat from Kiloran finally arrives to collect her, but will she have a change of heart? .... enter 3 pipers and the most perfect ending imaginable.

There is also that lovely detour to the Castle of Sorne to visit some snobby neighbours whom the pompous millionaire thinks are the only people worth knowing locally - it is the most perfect location with that high window seat (and young Petula Clark is the daughter) and then there is that lovely interlude at Achnacroish with Rebecca Crozier (Nancy Price) who sees Joan's worth at once and we have the highland dancing as the magic works on Joan. Torquil who is also there explains "highland economics" to Joan - letting Kiloran for three years means he can live there for six - and the millionaire installing a swimming pool means that "money spent is money earned" for the local workmen whom they travel with on the bus. The highlands scenes are marvellously shot, as we visit Tobermoreyand the Western Isles Hotel, and the Isle of Mull. 

These are just some moments from this lovely film, which grows on one at each viewing. The cast are all superb: Wendy Hiller as Joan, Roger Livesey (that voice!) as Torquil (he was not actually at the highland locations due to being in a play in London - his scenes are interiors, with a stand-in for location shots), Nancy Price as Mrs Crozier and that very individual actress Pamela Brown as Catriona, the resourceful woman managing on her own, in that perfect 1940s house, while her husband and children are away (she was Powell's lover at the time and until her death aged 58 in 1975) - her entry here with her dogs and gun and a rabbit presents her like Diana the huntress - as she says "if I don't shoot this rabbit then I don't eat"! She and Torquil are old friends and she soon realises the attraction between him and Joan. Hiller is delightful too as Joan who is used to getting her own way (as set out in the breezy introduction). The climax with the ruined castle and that curse and the highland tune are also just right. I also like the great photography with those great black and white images [like WHISKEY GALORE that other great film shot in Scotland in the '40s]. A film to cherish then, it may well be my favourite film of all. Like THE QUIET MAN or THE SEARCHERS it's admirers are legion and devoted, just like for Powell's others like BLACK NARCISSUS, A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH and THE RED SHOES all of which I also love dearly.

Costume drama heaven with Tom and Lady Caroline

What bliss over this bad weather to watch that 1963 hit TOM JONES again, and also to see a rare screening of the 1972 LADY CAROLINE LAMB on television. I have dvds of both, but nice to see them getting an airing. 

TOM JONES of course is utter bliss, a perfect costume version of the huge Fielding novel, but also capturing that early 1960s spirit too, as Tony Richardson's inventive direction deconstructs and re-creates the novel, using all those split cuts, razor sharp editing, characters talking to the camera and so on. Albert Finney is perfect here, and has great scenes with Susannah York delightful as Sophie Western, Diane Cilento, Joyce Redman (that food scene at the inn!) , and Joan Greenwood as the very demanding Lady Bellaston: "Sir, I know not of country matters, but in town it is considered impolite to keep a lady waiting". Indeed! Tom and Lady Bellaston meet at the Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens (below), where as Micheal McLiammoir's fruity narration puts it people go "to do and to be undone".

Then there is the divine casting of Dame Edith Evans and Hugh Griffith at that country estate, where Dame Edith is appalled at the rude country manners, and has short patience with the highwayman holding up her coach with his "Stand and deliver", to which she retorts: "What, sir, I am no travelling midwife"!, Rosalind Knight as Mrs Fitzpatrick, another randy lady, and Peter Bull and young David Warner as Tom's rivals. Young Lynn Redgrave pops up too. Its a constant delight and deserved all the Oscars and applause, and it of course set up Richardson and Woodfall Films to make their less successful films, like those two with Jeanne Moreau: THE SAILOR FROM GIBRALTAR and MADEMOISELLE. 

I have written about LADY CAROLINE LAMB here before - see Sarah Miles label. But I wrote this yesterday on a friend's review of it on Facebook:

Glad you liked it - I looked at it again last night - its marvellously done and maybe the last of the great British costume dramas (well, there's Lester's ROYAL FLASH in 1975). I have always liked Miss Miles (she seems retired now - her last credit, guesting in a Miss Marple was over a decade ago, but I saw her last year with her THE SERVANT co-stars at a special screening for the blu-ray launch of the Losey classic, and she looked fine then, of course as Bolt's widow - they married twice - she probably doesnt need to work now). But I digress (and namedrop), as usual - she also did 2 other iconic 60s movies : Antonioni's BLOW-UP and I WAS HAPPY HERE. Bolt indeed assembles a great cast - 

Leighton has another superb role (after Losey's THE GO-BETWEEN the previous year), Olivier (back with Miles after TERM OF TRIAL), Richardson, Mills etc all shone, and Jon Finch was the man of the moment (starring for Polanski and Hitchcock too then)., handsome sets and score by Richard Rodney Bennett - and Chamberlain an effective Byron. Leighton gets the last word and its perfect! The scene with Caroline as the blackamoor servant to Byron is fun, as Lady Caroline goes over the top and becomes "notorious"; she was surely an early drama queen as her histrionics and capacity for making scenes becomes rather tedious. 

Great performances: Olivier's Richard III

Great performances come in various shapes, few as stunning at the spider-like, stunted king who dominates Laurence Olivier's 1955/56 film of RICHARD III, which he produced and directed, as well as starring as the much-maligned monarch. Now that Richard's remains have been found (under a car park in Leicester!) and authenticated there is revived interest in the fate of this king - was he really as dastardly as Shakespeare painted him? 

Yes, this is the work of a ham in full overdrive mode - all rubber nose and moptop wig and a cushion up the back of his shirt, but nobody before or since has told the tale with greater clarity. By making Richard so comical and witty and clever and running rings around everybody else as he exacts revenge for his deformed body by killing his way to the Throne of England, Olivier's performance still resonates now. The stellar cast Olivier surrounded himself with - Gielgud, Richardson, the silent Pamela Brown as the old king's knowing mistress, Stanley Baker, Laurence Naismith, Cedric Hardwicke and particularly Claire Bloom as Lady Anne - none of them steals Larry's thespian thunder. 

From his first approach to the camera as he draws us into his confidence with those lines: "Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this son of York" - to that final "A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse" on the battlefield before he is hacked to death - this is a performance for the ages. I saw it as a child when most of the verse would have been over my head, but that scene where the murderers (Michael Gough and Michael Ripper - both very appropriately scary) drown Clarence (Gielgud) in the vat of wine is one moment that stayed with me, they also get the princes in the tower. It all looks great too, with fascinating costumes, music score by Sir William Walton, production design by Roger Furse, 

There was though another King that year: Yul Brynner, also mesmerising, in THE KING AND I and it was he who won the Best Actor Oscar (the others nominated were Kirk Douglas for LUST FOR LIFE and both Dean and Hudson for GIANT. It must be tough for an actor to have maybe one's greatest role the same year as a standout turn - but this was Brynner's breakout year (he also had his imposing Rameses in THE TEN COMMANDMENTS and ANASTASIA out there), like 1954 was Brando's. 

This though was Olivier's greatest decade - he went on to direct and star in THE PRINCE AND THE SHOWGIRL with Marilyn, his icy Crassus in SPARTACTUS, his great THE ENTERTAINER, TERM OF TRIAL and running the new National Theatre and that other towering Shakespeare role in OTHELLO and blacking up again for KHARTOUM (see Olivier label); his energy must have been prodigious. 

Ian McKellan's modern-dress 1995 version which I did not see seems unobtainable now (unless for very silly money). 

A lot more Shakespeare to investigate over the coming months: 6 cinematic HAMLETs: Olivier again with his Oscar-winning 1948 version, the Russian 1964 one by Grigori Kozintsev with the brooding Innokenty Smoktunevsky as the Dane (that impressed me once at the BFI and I have now got the dvd); then there's Tony Richardson's 1969 one with Nicol Williamson, Derek Jacobi for the BBC in the 80s, Zeffirelli's with Mel Gibson (it also features Bates and Scofield) in 1990 and the 1996 Kennth Branagh all-star one (Julie Christie as Gertrude!) - then there's 6 Hamlets I saw on the stage: Peter McEnery (1968), Michael York (1970), Alan Bates (in '72 with Celia Johnson as Gertrude), Jonathan Pryce (Jill Bennett was his Gertrude in 1980), Stephen Dillane in the '90s and David Tennant's understudy, a few years ago. Couple of MACBETHs too: Orson Welles in '48, Nicol Williamson for the BBC, Polanski's in 1972 and another television one with Ian McKellen and Judi Dench. and of course Welles' 1966 CHIMES AT MIDNIGHT is stunningly marvellous, as is his OTHELLO, both made on very shoestring budgets ..... Its going to be a winter of drama then .... I imagine Zeffirelli's HAMLET should look as good as his TAMING OF THE SHREW and ROMEO AND JULIET.

People We Like: the great dependables (2)

Last time round, my great dependables were those sterling British actors Jack Hawkins, Trevor Howard, Nigel Patrick and Harry Andrews. Here's another batch of people we like, the distaff side this time...

GLYNIS JOHNS. Born in 1923 Glynis Johns is still with us, in her 80s. What a fascinating career she has had, from those 40s ingénues (AN IDEAL HUSBAND) and that mermaid MIRANDA (reprised in ‘54’s MAD ABOUT MEN). Glynis’s husky voice and comedy sense made her ideal for films (where she began in the 1930s). In a very prolific career highlights include PERFECT STRANGERS, DEAR MR PROHACK in ’49 opposite the young Dirk Bogarde, THE CARD with Alec Guinness, THE COURT JESTER in ‘55, and opposite James Stewart in NO HIGHWAY (1951) as the air hostess, Disney fare like ROB ROY, THE WEAK AND THE WICKED, ANOTHER TIME ANOTHER PLACE, SHAKE HANDS WITH THE DEVIL, AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS, with Kerr again in THE SUNDOWNERS, the mother in MARY POPPINS, THE CHAPMAN REPORT (where she is great fun gurgling over Ty Hardin in those spray-on shorts, below, as per my review), and a lot of television including her own tv series GLYNIS. Married and divorced 4 times her first husband Anthony Forwood became the lifetime partner of Dirk Bogarde.
I met Glynis in 1966 when she was doing a play THE KING’S MARE in London, I recall a very short lady with enormous eye-lashes! Of course her greatest stage success must be A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC where Stephen Sondheim wrote “Send In The Clowns” to suit her voice. She was Lady Penelope Peasoup in the BATMAN series in ’67 and other work included LOCK UP YOUR DAUGHTERS (Mrs Squeezum), Myfanwy Price in the all-star UNDER MILK WOOD (1972) and an Amicus horror compendium VAULT OF HORROR in ’73 – Glynis was fun in it though and didn’t disgrace herself. What a trouper.



MARGARET LEIGHTON (1922-1976). Margaret was a leading actress in classical theatre who also took successfully to the movies. Her brittle manner and glamour was evident from the 1940s and in films like THE ASTONISHED HEART with Noel Coward and THE HOLLY AND THE IVY (both reviewed below). She also scored in Hitchcock’s 1949 UNDER CAPRICORN as Millie, the devious housekeeper who is secretly tormenting Ingrid Bergman as she is in love with Joseph Cotton. Other cinema roles include CARRINGTON V.C., THE GOOD DIE YOUNG opposite her husband Laurence Harvey, THE CONSTANT HUSBAND, THE BEST MAN, she is brilliant as the Blanche Du Bois type Caddie in the 1959 THE SOUND AND THE FURY (below, also reviewed here) and in the all-star THE MADWOMAN OF CHAILLOT, '69. Among her television roles was AN IDEAL HUSBAND in 1969 and she won two Tony awards for theatre roles in SEPARATE TABLES and as the original Hannah Jelkes in NIGHT OF THE IGUANA in 1962. She had a late career resurgence with her fearsome mothers in Losey’s THE GO-BETWEEN (where she is no longer able to tolerate the deception going on between Bates and Christie) and she gets the last word as Lady Melbourne in Robert Bolt’s LADY CAROLINE LAMB. She was one of those SEVEN WOMEN for John Ford, his last film in 1966, where her missionary head clashes with Anne Bancroft, and she is fun as the aged hippie with Elizabeth Taylor in ZEE & C0, 1972.
She was also married to publisher Max Reinhardt, and after Harvey she had a happy marriage to Michael Wilding (below). She died aged 53 in 1976. Fascinating now catching up with her other roles, Miss Leighton was certainly a class act.



ANN TODD (1909-1993). A fairly new discovery for me, I now find Ann Todd fascinating. She had a fairly remote Garbo quality which with her patrician manner made her ideal for those upper class roles she portrayed for her third husband David Lean in the 40s and early 50s. In movies since the 1930s, I first noticed her in the 1945 PERFECT STRANGERS (or VACATION FROM MARRIAGE) for Korda, as the nice woman Robert Donat could have had a romance with, before he re-unites with wife Deborah Kerr. Hitchcock then took her to Hollywood (along with Alida Valli) for his rare misfire THE PARADINE CASE in 1947 as Gregory Peck’s wife. This is a fascinating oddity to see now. She is perfect in THE PASSIONATE FRIENDS for Lean in 1948, as per my review (Ann Todd label), as the wife of Claude Rains who meets her old lover Trevor Howard again at an Alpine holiday, so the stage is set for dramatics when her jealous husband turns up. MADELEINE was another created for her by Lean and she is also ideal in THE SOUND BARRIER (again, reviewed here) in ’52 as Ralph Richardson’s daughter who marries test pilot Nigel Patrick, as they try to break the sound barrier. Other roles include Losey’s TIME WITHOUT PITY in ’57 and a Hammer thriller A TASTE OF FEAR in 1961 – she even played in THE SON OF CAPTAIN BLOOD with Erroll Flynn’s son, Sean (which would be interesting to see now). She later took to directing and made some successful documentaries about travels in then exotic locations like Nepal.





PAMELA BROWN (1917-1975). One of the most fascinating British actresses, Pamela had memorable looks and that distinctive voice which made her ideal for some eccentric roles. She began in theatre and then in films with Michael Powell and Emeric Pessburger. She and Powell lived together until her death aged 58 in 1975. I have already written about her Catriona in I KNOW WHERE I’M GOING in 1945, one of my absolute favourite women in cinema. Other roles include RICHARD III, LUST FOR LIFE, BECKET, the seer in CLEOPATRA (above), in Losey’s SECRET CEREMONY and FIGURES IN A LANDSCAPE, a silent cameo as Mrs Fitzherbert in the Brighton flashbacks in ON A CLEAR DAY YOU CAN SEE FOREVER, LADY CAROLINE LAMB, THE NIGHT DIGGER with Patricia Neal, and another Rumer Godden drama about nuns IN THIS HOUSE OF BREDE. It is a very prolific career with lots of television also. Never a conventional beauty, Pamela added a dramatic presence to whatever she appeared in, and is always a pleasure to see.



Soon: British actresses of the 40s and 50s: Muriel Pavlow, Dinah Sheridan, Shirley Eaton, Yvonne Mitchell, Diana Dors, Sylvia Syms, Virginia McKenna, Rosamund John, Wendy Hiller, Celia Johnson, Margaret Lockwood, and Dame Flora Robson. I have already written extensively here on Kay Kendall, Joan Greenwood, Claire Bloom, Belinda Lee …

"Yes, but money isn't everything.."

That is probably the key line in I KNOW WHERE I'M GOING - Powell & Pressburger's timeless romantic fantasy from 1945 (the year I was born). The very independent Joan Webster who wants to marry a rich man travels up to the highlands on her way to the remote island of Kiloran which the millionaire has rented, but a storm forces her to stay on the mainland, at the house of Catriona (whose husband is away in the Far East, and children at boarding school), the war must be still on. Also staying is a friend of Catriona's Torquil whom Joan realises she is falling for, hence her desire to get away to the island. Navy officer Torquil [who is the real Laird of Kiloran] realising her dangerous plan to go out to sea in the storm helps her but the storm defeats them and the weary travellers arrive back at the house where Catriona puts Joan to bed in her own room with a roaring fire. (how wonderful it seems now to have real fires in bedrooms!). Catriona soon puts Joan to rights as Joan thinks that all these highland people are poor because they have no money so why doesn't Catriona sell her house Erraig, and their neighbour Mrs Crozier could sell her estate Achnacroish and Torquil could sell Kiloran - Catriona thinks about it and then says decisively "yes, but money isn't everything".

The next morning sees the storm abated, Joan has come to her senses as she sits on the table and says "I can't do a thing with my hair" and wonders where her wedding dress is (it was lost in the storm) to which Torquil replies "a mermaid will get married in it". The boat from Kiloran finally arrives to collect her, but will she have a change of heart? .... enter 3 pipers and the most perfect ending imaginable.

There is also that lovely detour to the Castle of Sorne to visit some snobby neighbours whom the pompous millionaire thinks are the only people worth knowing locally - it is the most perfect location with that high window seat (and young Petula Clark is the daughter) and then there is that lovely interlude at Achnacroish with Rebecca Crozier (Nancy Price) who sees Joan's worth at once and we have the highland dancing as the magic works on Joan. Torquil who is also there explains "highland economics" to Joan - letting Kiloran for three years means he can live there for six - and the millionaire installing a swimming pool means that "money spent is money earned" for the local workmen whom they travel with on the bus.

These are just some moments from this lovely film, which grows on one at each viewing. The cast are all superb: Wendy Hiller as Joan, Roger Livesey as Torquil (he was not actually at the highland locations due to being in a play in London - his scenes are interiors, with a stand-in for location shots), Nancy Price as Mrs Crozier and that very individual actress Pamela Brown as Catriona, the resourceful woman managing on her own while her husband and children are away (she was Powell's lover at the time and until her death aged 58 in 1975) - her entry here with her dogs and gun and a brace of rabbits presents her like Diana the huntress - as she says "if I don't shoot this rabbit then I don't eat"! She and Torquil are old friends and she soon realises the attraction between him and Joan. Hiller is delightful too as Joan who is used to getting her own way (as set out in the breezy introduction). The climax with the ruined castle and that curse and the highland tune are also just right. I also like the great photography with those great black and white images [like WHISKEY GALORE that other great film shot in Scotland in the '40s]. A film to cherish then, it may well be my favourite film of all. Like THE QUIET MAN or THE SEARCHERS it's admirers are legion and devoted, just like for Powell's others like BLACK NARCISSUS, A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH and THE RED SHOES all of which I also love dearly.