Nina by Langston, 1965

I have had this Nina Simone EP (thats an Extended Play, 4 track 45rpm record, 2 tracks each side, for any new kids who never know vinyl records) since I was a teenager in 1965. 
We loved Nina back then, particularly her "I Put A Spell On You" which hit the charts, and this title track: "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood") as per my recent post on her, see label. The other tracks are "The Laziest Gal In Town" (a Marlene Dietrich classic), "Don't Take All Night" and "Nobody". 

Looking at it now, the sleeve notes by Langston Hughes capture it all perfectly, even now, 50 years later.....

"She is strange. So are the plays of Brendan Behan, Jean Genet, LeRoi Jones, and Bertholt Brecht.

She is far-out, and at the same time common. So are raw eggs in Worcestershire and The Connection.

She is different. So was Billie Holiday, St Francis, and John Donne. So in Mort Sahl. She is a club member, a coloured girl, an Afro-American, a homey from Down Home. She has hit the Big Town, the big towns, the LP discs and the TV shows – and she is still from down home. She did it mostly all by herself. Her name is Nina Simone.

She has a flair, but no air, she has class but does not wear it on her shoulders. Only chips. She is unique. You either like her or you don’t. If you don’t, you won’t. If you do – whee-ouuu-eu!  You do!

Why should one like Nina Simone because she sings a song differently? Plenty of singers sing songs differently. But many singers strain so hard to be different, pay arrangers so much money to make their songs sound different, but have no convictions themselves about what they are singing, and so seem hollow, artificial, fake, and wrong when they sing a song. Nina Simone is as different as beer is from champagne, crackers from crepes suzettes, Eastland from Adam Powell, Houston from Paris – each real in their way, but oh! how different – and how fake it is if it is not Houston you want, but the “city of light”.

The letters l-i-v-e that spell LIVE mean exactly the same as the letters N-i-n-a that spell NINA. As for that word SIMONE, be cool Jack, be cool! And listen to this record." 

Hughes (1902-1967) was a well known  poet, activist, novelist and playwright, who ticked all the boxes: black and gay (like James Baldwin or Billy Strayhorn, also popular at that time). He died aged 65 in 1967, 

Jeanne and the perfect guy

Another French flick we had not heard of here in the UK, as presumably it never played here. I would have heard of it or read about it and would have wanted to see it. Well, better late than never. It crossed me radar as being a previous film of the team behind the current THEO & HUGO, another highly praised gay romance. 

Directed in 1998 by the duo Olivier Ducastel and Jacques Martineau, JEANNE AND THE PERFECT GUY fascinates on several levels. The perfect guy is Mathieu Demy, son of French directors Jacques Demy and Agnes Varda - favourites of ours here at The Projector, see labels. Jeanne is Virginie Ledoyen (of THE BEACH and Ozon's 8 WOMEN).  The blurb puts it nicely:

"Only France could have produced a charmingly eccentric bonbon like JEANNE AND THE PERFECT GUY, In its heart and soul its a direct descendant of UMBRELLAS OF CHERBOURG and THE YOUNG GIRLS OF ROCHEFORT, one thing that distinguishes it is its sexual candour The sight of the young lovers cuddling in bed and singing sweet nothings gives the movie a jolt of romantic heat!" says the New York Times.

Always in a hurry, Jeanne is a beautiful young woman with a profusion of boyfriends, Then one day she meets Olivier the true love she has been searching for. When Olivier tells Jeanne that he is HIV positive, she refuses to get upset. Her devotion to Olivier is intense and unswerving. 

I can't begin to say how much I liked this, its delightful and with those resonances of Demy's father's films. (Demy senior in fact did die of HIV complications in 1990).  It covers gay issues, aids, sex, love, and compassion; pity though the score isn't by Demy regular Michel Legrand ...
We will now be looking forward to Ducastel & Mathie's THEO & HUGO, and I am going back for their COTE D'AZUR, another comedy of manners from 2006 ...

Two Bosie's ....

Interesting for us theatre folk to see two actors who have played Lord Alfred Douglas in David Hare's THE JUDAS KISS, together in a new revival of Tom Stoppard's TRAVESTIES, currently a sell-out at London's Menier Chocolate Factory, hopefully it will get a west end transfer. The witty play features wordplay on Oscar Wilde and dialogue from his THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST. 

Tom Hollander was Bosie in the 1998 original production, with Liam Neeson, as Oscar, which I enjoyed back then, Tom was a very petulant Bosie, as was Freddie Fox in the Rupert Everett version a couple of years ago, which was brilliant too (more on that at Oscar, Rupert labels). They must have had a lot to talk about the part ... Busy year for young Fox - that recent CUCUMBER and PRIDE, and also Romeo this summer in that recent ROMEO AND JULIET, reviewed recently (Shakespeare label). Tom of course also also been very busy with THE NIGHT MANGER and DR THORNE,

Since You Went Away, 1944

This perfect wartime drama was never on my radar or never showed up on television in the decades I have been watching, so seeing it or the first time is rather good now. Another perfect 1940s Hollywood Dream Factory creation, by producer David Selznick and directed by John Cromwell, shot by Lee Garmes and music score by Max Steiner; it really showcases Jennifer Jones (soon to be Mrs Selznick) after her success in THE SONG OF BERNADETTE in 1943. 

Like MRS MINIVER in '42 about those plucky Brits, this one focuses on the American home front and those women left at home (it starts with a closeup of those home fires burning) while their menfolk are overseas, some will not return ....

Plucky wife Claudette Colbert tries to hold it all together for her daughters Jennifer and teenage Shirley Temple (rather endearing here). 
Of course she has the requisite large comfy home (as in A LETTER TO THREE WIVES) and the married folk have single beds, and a devoted black maid/housekeeper/cook - yes, its Hattie McDaniel. Theres Agnes Moorehead as a bitchy neighbour - a stretch for Agnes - and the great silent star Nazimova too. The grumpy paying guest is none other than Monty Woolley (THE MAN WHO CAME TO DINNER) and sterling Joseph Cotton is the family friend and ex-beau of Claudette's Anne. No extra-marital shenanigans here! 

Two young guys stand out: Robert Walker plays Monty's nephew who is shipped overseas and has a lot of screen time with Jennifer (they were married then..., their son Robert Walker Jr became an actor too, popular for a while in the 1960s)  and just for a minute or two, Guy Madison - a real marine - as a marine here who certainly makes an impression, it launched his career after the war. (See my main post on him, below, or at label). 

Walker went on to that other perfect '40s  wartime romance, Minnelli's THE CLOCK with Judy, in 1945; his other standout role being Bruno in Hitchcock's STRANGERS ON A TRAIN in 1951 (the year he died aged 32, one of Hollywood's sadder stories,).      .

Its emotional and compelling and overlong, and you may require a hanky to wipe away a tear or two - there may be rather too many lush close-ups of Jennifer (one of the few stars who did not appeal to me). Its a great Hollywood creation from that Golden Age, up there with MRS MINIVER and MEET ME IN ST LOUIS.  I liked the cutaway shots of the two cats watching the humans too. 
What is fascinating now is how these wartime dream factory creations create such a cosy glow at a terrible time where dreadful things were happening in Europe with the concentration camps in full swing .....

RIP, continued ...

George Barris (1922-2016) at the grand age of 94. The uninitiated may wonder who, but Barris was maybe the last of those those great photo-journalists from the Golden Age - check Eve Arnold and Bob Willoughby, labels below, and like them he too took some amazing photographs of Marilyn Monroe. I have lived with Barris's pictures since the '60s, and had some good prints, and like Arnold he also did a book of them. He was also good friend with MM and captures her nicely in his writings on her, He later moved to Paris. 

He of course took those final pictures of her in July 1962 on the beach at Mailibu and also at a house, showing that new sleek radiant Marilyn - who only had a month more to live .... so here's one or two of them again .... 
(lots more at MM label).



Rod Temperton (1949-2016) aged 66. Surprisingly the British songwriter and musician from Cleethorpes wrote those massive hits for the Michael Jackson albums OFF THE WALL and THRILLER, due to his association with Quincy Jones, as Temperton was part the funk band Heatwave in the '70s. I particularly liked his "Love Is In Control" and others for Donna Summer in '82, and George Benson's "Give Me The Night", James Ingram's "Yah Mo B There" as well as hits for Patti Austin and Herbie Hancock, and Quincy's THE DUDE and BACK ON THE BLOCK albums. We need to replay them.

Helen Lawson at home

We LOVE this casual pose of Broadway legend Helen Lawson at home. The gay boys over at Datalounge.com were discussing her legendary career and all those stories. It seems the indestructible Helen is still going and planning a super reunion show with those other Broadway gals, some of whom she tangled with over the years: Margo Channing, Eve Harrington, Lora Meredith, Vicky Lester, and Helen's nemesis from their VALLEY OF THE DOLLS one Neely O'Hara - thats, of course if Neely is not back on the bottle, and Lora not away filming with Felluci in Italy (as she was in IMITATION OF LIFE), but at least Vicky - who was born in a trunk - knows that the show must go on ..... If only they could bring it to London. 

Speaking of which there is a new major production of Sondheim's FOLLIES opening at the National Theatre here in London late next year, should be as good as their A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC a decade or more ago - but which legend will sing "I'm Still Here" ... ? 

Helen of course wears that pant suit created for Vicki who was initially cast in VOTD.

Strictly 2016 ...

Its that time again, when our annual television dance marathon begins for the autumn months, every weekend for the run up to Christmas. 15 hapless "celebrities" are lined up, with one already axed. We always start wondering who half of them are, but then get used to them. Its the professional dancers I like, there are some interesting new ones too. We also like a charleston, and here are two doozies from last weekend.

EASTENDERS actress Tameka Empson - we like her character Kim, though I don't watch it any more - and new boy Gorka. Boy, can they dance.

I never thought I would see ex-politician Ed Balls, who lost his seat in the last election - doing a camp burly cowboy routine, but hey, its enormous fun, and he has been kept in another week. Go, Ed. Now for some more super routines as the weeks go on, and all those ritzy costumes and glitter and fake tans. Like Anita Rani last year, BBC breakfast girl Naga Munchetty has been transformed too; she's one to watch particularly as paired with Pasha, along with Danny Mac (me neither, apparantly he was in HOLLYOAKS), Ore Oduba (another BBC presenter) and leggy Natalie Cole can do no wrong either. Lets hope her celebrity, olympic athlete Greg Rutherford, can go the distance ... previous years' highlights are at Dance label. 

Take 2 men - French style.

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I had never heard of the Delon and Gabin starrer TWO MEN IN TOWN (DEUX HOMME DANS LE VILLE), from 1973. It can't have even opened here or I would have heard or read about it at the time. We like their teaming in MELODIE EN SOUS SOL, that snazzy casino heist by Verneuil in 1963 with its widescreen black and white and jazzy score and that killer final scene by the pool .... both guys were the epitome of French cool (like Alain and Belmondo in BORSALINO in 1970); their 1969 THE SICILIAN CLAN is a nice caper movie too, not to be taken seriously. More on these and other French gangster flicks at labels .... Here is what they say about the two guys in town:

A hard-boiled crime drama and an impassioned indictment of capital punishment, this is the third and final on-screen collaboration between Jean Gabin, France's pre-eminent film star, and the '70s Gallic anti-hero Alain Delon.

After an early release arranged by prison reformer Gabin, ex-safe cracker Delon is devastated by personal tragedy and makes a new start in the South of France, finds honest work and a new love. But a vengeful cop begins to stalk him and his ex-gang are eyeing up the bank where his girlriend (Mimsy Farmer) works, so his determination to go straight is pushed to the breaking point. 

Written and directed by Jose Giovanni (LE TROU),  a real pardoned death row inmate, TWO MEN IN TOWN fuses the two-fisted social commentary of Warner Bros 1930s heyday with the naturalistic storytelling of 1970s French noir cinema, and has an evocative score by Phillipe Sarde.

Well that sums it up nicely, its engrossing, the two leads are fine as usual, there is also a young Gerard Depardieu, and the marvellous Michel Bouquet (LA FEMME INFIDELE, THE BRIDE WORE BLACK etc). 

Its actually part of an Alain Delon Collection on Kino Video and the extras include trailers of 10 other Delon flicks in the collection - nothing essential from what I have got already. This one though is worthwhile. Gabin of course is as effortlessly watchable as ever, as is Delon, maturing nicely here, hard to think he is over 80 now. For lots more Delon (and Gabin) check labels. 

Take 3 girls - Italian style

Here's an oddity: despite my affection for British and Italian cinema I had never heard of SOUVENIR D'ITALIE (or IT HAPPENED IN ROME) a 1957 confection about 3 girls travelling in Italy - its sort of a romantic comedy with lots of scenery, a fascinating view now. But why it is so unknown, ok its just a bit of fluff, but maybe it never even played here - I checked my 1957 "Films and Filming" magazines and there is no review or ads for it (ditto another '57 one filmed in Italy: Diana Dors and Vittorio Gassman in THE GIRL AT THE PALIO set at the famous Palio race in Sienna). 

This one - SOUVENIR D'ITALIE - features prim English girl June Laverick (she wears spectacles!) driving her snazzy sportscar and giving a lift to hitchers Isabelle Corey (the headstrong one) and German Ingeborg Schoner (the sensible one). The car zooms zooms over the cliff into the sea at Portofino, so the gals have to hitch. We see them in Florence,Venice and Pisa before they head to Rome, so yes lots of Italy as it was 50+ years ago. 

An amusing sequence sees British grand dame Isabel Jeans (in a dry run for her role in GIGI) posing by that statue of David, with Alberto Sordi as her companion. He soon joins the girls through. Other men are Gabrielle Ferzetti and Massimo Girotti and Vittorio De Sica - for it is he - as a Count who offers the girls some hospitality in Venice. The men of course are dubbed but it does not matter in a slight trifle like this. I liked it a lot, directed by Antonio Pietrangeli. The girls of course all end up with their particular guy. 

June Laverick was a British starlet of the era, who did a few trifles (THE DUKE WORE JEANS with Tommy Steele, a Norman Wisdom film, and a good role in Losey's THE GYPSY AND THE GENTLEMAN in 1958, last credit in 1970). 

This was Italy before the LA DOLCE VITA era took off, Corey went on to Bolognini's GIOVANI MARITI while Ferzetti was on that island with Antonioni and Vitti for L'AVVENTURA filmed in late 1959.  Vittorio clocked up 10 acting credits in '57 - he probably just spent a few days on this one. 

Take 4 girls - American style

Another delirious 1957 treat: (which I reviewed back in 2011)

FOUR GIRLS IN TOWN. I had totally forgotten this 1957 Universal-International item though I know I saw it at the time, it is perhaps, like AWAY ALL BOATS, the quintessential U-I flick. We have 4 girls arriving in Hollywood, all up for an important part in a new biblical epic.

They are: Julie Adams [with her fearsome mother Mabel Albertson], Italian go-getter Elsa Martinelli, from France Gia Scala [who has a secret husband and child] and from Austria Marianne Cook (or Koch – she was the mentally ill wife in Sirk’s INTERLUDE) who is recovering from losing her beloved in a car accident]. There is also one Rita Holloway, the studio's main star who is only ever seen from the rear and looks uncannily like Jayne Mansfield in THE GIRL CAN'T HELP IT as she sways around the studio lot.

The girls are nicely depicted and the guys they meet include director George Nader (ideal for Julie), actor-on-the-make John Gavin, playboy Grant Williams [that INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MAN] and composer Sydney Chaplin. The very attractive Gia (who got the GUNS OF NAVARONE gig but later commited suicide) has the least role here. Julie is as attractive as ever and Elsa (right) is the most eye-catching, she really is the most under-rated of the Italian sirens.

It plays out nicely with a surprise ending and is SO Fifties! The girls are not complete of course until they each have a new man, and the scene where they gleefully catch fish coming ashore to lay their eggs would horrify today's sensibilities. Written and directed by one Jack Sher.

Guy & Kerwin, a few movie choices ....

My friend Martin has caught up with THE GARMENT JUNGLE, a 1957 thriller with Kerwin Matthews and the lovely Gia Scala. He likes Guy Madison as well (see post below) so for you Martin, here's Guy and Kerwin AND a young Kim Novak in FIVE AGAINST THE HOUSE, that nifty 1955 thriller (a prototype for OCEANS 11, which I reviewed a while back. Guy/Kerwin/Kim labels), plus the trailer for THE GARMENT JUNGLE .... and a moment from THE LAST FRONTIER in 1955 with Victor Mature; and his SLAVE OF ROME with Rosanna Podesta in 1961 ....

Girls & guitars, 2 . . .

Three of our favourite girls - since the 1960s - and their guitars. They go on, decade after decade ...

Marie Laforet  (our favourite from PLEIN SOLEIL/PURPLE NOON) in ST TROPEZ BLUES, 1961

Francoise Hardy  (my teenage crush) 

Joni Mitchell - evergreen.     More on all them at labels. 

I remember watching Joni waiting to go on at The Royal Festival Hall in 1970, the hippie princess with her guitar, standing at the side of the stage, not thinking I would be talking to her 2 years later in Kings Road, Chelsea .... as detailed previously. 

Sophia - happy birthday

Happy 82nd to Sophia Loren, still going strong. 

Here she is back in 1962 in a slight thriller FIVE MILES TO MIDNIGHT, with Tony Perkins. Any film that begins with La Loren at her peak dancing the twist in a Paris nightclub, before Tony Perkins comes in and slaps her face, has to be watchable ... (its directed by Anatole Litvak, and scripted by Peter Viertel. Litvak had already done Tony in Paris with Ingrid in GOODBYE AGAIN). 

RIP, continued ...

Edward Albee (1928-2016), aged 88, surely America's greatest dramatist after O'Neill, Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller. WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF? remains his masterpiece (there is a major new production in London next year), but we also rate his A DELICATE BALANCE, a super film in 1973 by Tony Richardson with Paul Scofield, Katharine Heburn and Lee Remick (right). I also saw his ALL OVER at the RSC in 1973 with the powerhouse duo of Peggy Ashcroft and Angela Lansbury. His other acclaimed plays include THREE TALL WOMEN and THE LADY FROM DUBUQUE.  Three of his plays won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and two of his other works won the Tony Award for Best Play. He was a Senior Gay too, though he did say "I am not a gay writer. I am a writer who happens to be gay".

Richard Neville (1941-2016), aged 74. Australian writer who moved to London in those Swinging Sixties and became the celebrated editor of the counterculture magazine OZ - I had several of their op art psychedelic posters on my walls then. OZ was the hippie bible - its issue 'Skoolkids OZ' in May '70 caused a famous prosecution case for obscenity. Neville later returned to Australia and continued his publishing ventures. 

Charmian Carr (1942-2016), aged 73, but she will always be "sixteen, going on seventeen" as Liesl, in THE SOUND OF MUSIC, 

Back to the Sixties at the V&A ....

We will have to trek up to South Kensington shortly to see this new exhibition at the Victoria & Albert Museum: YOU SAY YOU WANT A REVOLUTION: RECORDS & REBELS 1966-1970. Thats a mouthful .... The V&A site says:

This major exhibition will explore the era-defining significance and impact of the late 1960s, expressed through some of the greatest music and performances of the 20th century alongside fashion, film, design and political activism.

I have not been to the V&A for a long time, its such a massive place - but this sounds our kind of show, it runs until February next year. 1966-1970 was a crucial era for me, being 20 to 24 then, and living the London life, going to the Roundhouse (to see The Doors, Jefferson Airplane etc), the NFT, hippie underground clubs like the UFO, seeing 2001 in Cinerama and on acid, loving BLOW-UP etc  - I even lived off the Kings Road in Chelsea for a year or so then. 

It was not only the fashions, music, movies of the time that were so relevant, but that counterculture era in full swing. Perhaps the political significance of that time is too immense for a mere exhibition to encompass, as it will have to cover quite a lot, from the Paris revolutionaries to the US civil rights protests and the dawning of gay lib.

That perceptive critic Philip Hensher says there is little space given in it to feminism and the nascent gay rights movements: "The curious effect is to make it seem as if the revolutions of the late Sixties were a matter of most concern to heterosexual white people, and only at the margins were black and other non-traditional members of society allowed grudging admission". 

It does though capture some of the excitement and the liberation of that era. Being a young gay then I lived through it all, so will be able to see for myself before too long. 

As per the attached review, it seems a massive exhibition

https://www.creativereview.co.uk/decade-disruption-vas-say-want-revolution-records-rebels-1966-70/

headphones and all - well, at £16 a ticket ....

Steve Dinneen of CITY AM says:

The V&A’s David Bowie Is follow-up isn’t concerned with challenging stereotypes so much as celebrating them. Mannequins in Austin Powers getup blink with giant eyes; quotes form and disintegrate on the walls; psychedelic posters and record sleeves clutter every available surface.

It uses the same audio guide as David Bowie Is, detecting where you’re standing and fading in the appropriate music or speech, allowing the curators to micro-manage your personal soundtrack; Martin Luther King blends into advertising muzak blends into The Doors. There are objects of historical significance – the jacket John Lennon wore in the video for Imagine, the battered high-backed chair on which Christine Keeler posed naked for Lewis Morley – but Records and Rebels isn’t aimed at cultural trainspotters. Where it impresses most is in capturing the breakneck speed at which ideology, music and fashion shifted over these years, how a perfect storm of influences created a period of change unlike any before or since.

The first room looks at possible causes for the “revolution”; the erosion of trust in the establishment (evidenced here by the Profumo affair), the rise of the civil rights movement, the increasing popularity of LSD. The exhibition then races through various cultural movements – fashion, music, protest, consumerism – relying on punchy visuals rather than display cases and captions; one room features a Vidal Sassoon salon with a real-life model getting a hair cut, another recreates Woodstock, complete with faux-grass and beanbags. London is heralded as the capital of the world, with Carnaby Street its beating heart (hard to imagine now, with its rows of bland American chains).

The protest section is a highlight, a cacophony of recorded speech and angry music, divided into sections on Women’s Lib, the Black Panthers, Mao’s Cultural Revolution (illustrated with a Little Red Book and a creepy under-lit bust), France’s May 68 protests and, of course, Vietnam.

Everything is painted in broad strokes and primary colours – those hoping for nuanced discourse will leave disappointed. But nobody does mixed-media exhibitions like the V&A. Records and Rebels seamlessly fuses fashion, music, art and history into a dazzling, chaotic experience that will leave anyone under 60 with the distinct impression they were born into the wrong generation.

The Tom boys

This glut of new Toms on the acting scene makes one think any young actor starting out should change his name to Tom. Early Toms were Tom Courtenay and singer Tom Jones and Tom Wilkinson. Then we had that run of posh actors (Benedict, Eddie, Damian), while Tom Hardy was on the rise, getting his kit off a lot and getting covered in tattoos as he essayed various hard men, culminating in the two Krays last year (LEGEND) and taking on the MAD MAX mantle as well as leaving Leonardo in the wilderness in THE REVENANT .... no doubt he has more of the same lined up this year. 

Meanwhile, Tom Daley dived, Toms Hanks and Cruise became veterans, Tom Hollander kept being busy, being DOCTOR THORNE and joining Tom Of The Year, Hiddleston in THE NIGHT MANAGER. Hiddles also had HIGH RISE, a film on Hank Williams and currently back in superhero mode (THOR) after his summer romance with Taylor Swift. 

Now there is Tom Hughes - Albert in the new hit British series VICTORIA, we have not quite got used to him yet; Tom Sturridge is getting the breaks too (THE HOLLOW CROWN, Sgt Troy in the recent FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD), and Tom Riley seems the latest Tom on the block (DA VINCI'S DEMONS, THE COLLECTION). 
Tom Colley was also eye-catching as the Italian fisherman in the recent revival of THE JUDAS KISS. 
Then there's playwright Tom Stoppard, and singer Tom Chaplin from Keane back in the limelight. Meanwhile, Tom Bradby reads the London ITV news, and more Tom actors are Tom Ellis and the busy Tom Goodman-Hill.
Meanwhile Tom Ford has a highly-praised new film NOCTURNAL ANIMALS coming up at the LFF and opening here shortly. Thats about 20 Toms ....

Hitchcock/Truffaut

That recent documentary (by Kent Jones) on Francois Truffaut's 1962 interview with Alfred Hitchcock turns out to be a real treat. I had assumed it was a filmed record of their week-long conversation - I had the book when it first came out in 1966, and later as a paperback, but of course it was not filmed, just audio recorded, and lots of still photographs taken. 

So, we get a compendium of Hitch clips, from the earliest onwards, and some Truffaut moments too - I really have to see THE 400 BLOWS again now (somehow I never liked JULES ET JIM that much, but love LE PEAU DEUCE, HISTORY OF ADELE H, L'ENFANT SAUVAGE, the Antoine Doinel films, DAY FOR NIGHT, MISSISSIPPI MERMAID etc - as per reviews, Truffaut label), and regulars will know we have done a lot on Hitchcock here, including that "Sight & Sound" list with VERTIGO now at Number One - Hitch label. 

Also fascinating at the talking heads commenting here: only Scorsese, Paul Schrader, David Fincher, Richard Linklater, Wes Anderson, Peter Bogdanovich, Olivier Assayas, and Arnaud Desplechin.

All those clips of the Hitch classics and extended comments and scenes from VERTIGO and PSYCHO only makes one want to see them all again. 

Both directors were at their peak here, Hitch died in 1980, aged 80 after completing his last, FAMILY PLOT, in 1976, hard to believe Truffaut died four years later, aged 52 in 1984. Back to those movies, then.

Girls night out again + their GBF.

I am indebted to that wonderful site http://doloresdelargotowers.blogspot.co.uk/, for this different shot of one of our favourite photographs here (see sidebar, right).

Thats Vivien Leigh, Kay Kendall, and their gay best friend Noel Coward welcoming Lauren Bacall to London, in January 1959. (As mentioned here before, Kay was gone by September that year, but Bacall soldiered on for 50+ years, until 2014. A night out drinking cocktails could hardly get more glamorous. 

The Beatles 8 days a week

OMG, I just checked out of interest and my perfect condition 1964 Beatles Calendar is on sale on ebay for £92.99 ! I have had mine since '64, when I was 18 and a total Beatle nut. I was living in Ireland till then and I was told I was the first Beatle look-alike in North Kerry! - as per below. I even got my friend Mike to send me over a pair of those Beatle Chelsea Boots.

I also have, also from 1964 - when I was 18 and new in London - a Beatles headscarf, with images and facsimile autographs of The Fabs on it. Maybe thats worth a bit now too - there is a sold out one on ebay. The calendar has those great shots by Robert Freeman, who shot their early album covers, and the images seem unique to this calendar. I am open to offers .... 

The Beatles are now back again in Ron Howard's documentary on their touring years, EIGHT DAYS A WEEK, we will have to go and see it, a lot of that footage, particularly their American tours, will be new to me, as I did not watch television back then, in my London bedsit. Sniff .... thats why much as we loved A HARD DAY'S NIGHT it was utterly fabulous to go and see them on the big screen in colour in HELP! in 1965 - I sat through it twice at the Odeon Harlesden in North London, in those days of continuous performances. 

Now for EIGHT DAYS A WEEK ...  as they said on morning television here earlier, 52 years later and we are still talking about and listening to The Beatles. Good to see Paul and Ringo on the blue carpet at last night's premiere but we know they are 74 and 76, they don't need to dye their hair and beard. We have moved beyond "When I'm 64"!

Hunk de jour: Guy

Another person we like: Guy Madison - quite a lot about him on various sites. Here is his first role of a few minutes in the 1944 wartime drama SINCE YOU WENT AWAY. He was a real marine then, and had a career once he returned to Hollywood after the war.

I don't know SINCE YOU WENT AWAY, John Cromwell's film seems essentially of that era now, like CASABLANCA or MEET ME IN ST LOUIS. I have had to order it, for that great cast: Colbert, Cotten, Jennifer Jones, Robert Walker, Hattie McDaniel, Agnes Moorehead, Nazimova, and er, Shirley Temple. Guy made quite an impression here as the young marine. 

Below: with Judy Garland, at a premiere, and with Judy again a decade or so later.

Guy (1922-1996) had a respectable career, gravitating towards westerns - one of the first films I saw, when aged 8, was his 1954's THE COMMAND - like Dale Robertson, also big in westerns then, Guy was ideal out west or in cavalry uniform. as in THE LAST FRONTIER.
He also had a long-runnng western series THE ADVENTURES OF WILD BILL HICKOK. He is also good with Jean Simmons in the 1956 drama HILDA CRANE (review at Simmons label) and I like FIVE AGAINST THE HOUSE (also with gay Kerwin Matthews), and like Jeffrey Hunter, Tab Hunter, Robert Wagner, Tony Perkins etc he was a leading man of the 1950s, before the new crop arrived: Troy Donahue, Fabian, young Warren Beatty, Redford, etc. 
Like a lot of others he then did several costumers in Europe, as did his pal Rory Calhoun (who did a good one: Leone's THE COLOSSUS OF RHODES in 1961).  One of Guy's SLAVE OF ROME in 1961, is on YouTube, where he co-stars with Rosanna (HELEN OF TROY) Podesta:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xiPJoCrbtQA

There are lots of pictures actually of Guy and Rory (1922-1999; mainly a B-movie actor (left), best known now for those two Monroe films at Fox: RIVER OF NO RETURN where Mitchum is the lead, and HOW TO MARRY A MILLIONAIRE where he is teamed with Betty Grable), and with Susan Hayward in the musical sudser WITH  SONG IN MY HEART, 1952, which we like a lot. 

The boys went fishing a lot (and really caught fish, unlike BBM), both were clients of the notorious agent Henry Willson (Below with the boys). Guy was married for some years to the fragile actress Gail Russell, whom we like a lot, and he had 4 children by his second marriage. Rory was married to actress Lita Baron (usually a tough cookie in westerns), but like Cary Grant and Randolph Scott, and Tab and Tony Perkins, their friendship endured during their marriages.

Guy and Rory both did an intriguing-sounding 1949 western: MASSACRE RIVER. One to check out?  He seems a bit clunky jitterbugging though ... More Guy at label. 

Looking at MASSACRE RIVER now the chemistry between the boys is startling, with all that horseplay and fooling around, as Rory's trousers fall down and they grapple in the hot tub. The rest of it is standard 1940s horse opera. Guy had a good run in cavalry uniform, as here and THE COMMAND in 1954 (which I saw when I was 8, one of the first films I saw), THE LAST FRONTIER in '56, and others.