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As long as I play my game, I am my creation
I suppose I am going through more than a mild phase of Colin Jeavons when I just watched "To Set a Deadly Fashion," the episode of Adam Adamant Lives! (1966–67) in which Jeavons plays the campest fashion designer I have encountered since Anatole of Paris. Technically there is a plot concerning bugged and lethal haute couture, but mostly there's the snippily explosive Roger Clair, the kind of prima donna villain who encourages the hero to comply nicely with his own murder because "the sight of blood puts me on tranquilizers for weeks" and spits with fury, "Oh, I think I'm going to faint!" I would love to have shoved him in a room with Roddy McDowall and seen if any of the scenery survived. I wouldn't have bet on it. The final fight scene was, as promised, completely silly. Why are both television versions of Eric Ambler's Epitaph for a Spy (1938) apparently lost? The 1963 one starred Jeavons, the 1953 Peter Cushing. I'd take either. I'm not picky. Have some links.
1. In terms of queer film history, it is a relatively big deal that Magnus Hirschfeld's Gesetze der Liebe (1927) has been rediscovered and restored. I knew about the survival of the condensed version of Anders als die Andern (1919)—it stars Conrad Veidt—but I had never heard that any of the rest of the later film escaped the Nazi destruction of the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft. I still hope the full version of Anders als die Andern will surface some day from another archive. My usual wishful phrase here is a broom closet in Argentina, but Hirschfeld's films should never be in a closet of any kind.
2. I hope there will be some kind of broadcast of Matthew Bourne's The Midnight Bell, since I love the idea of a ballet adapted primarily from Patrick Hamilton's Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky (1929–34). When I discovered his fiction and specifically that trilogy in 2010, I hoped it would do something to my brain, and years after the fact it turned out that it had.
3. I was delighted to find out from Tumblr that there will be a film about Operation Mincemeat, but since it is based on the book by Ben Macintyre, I have especially high expectations for the level of onscreen shenanigans. I am hoping its release will finally prompt me to watch The Man Who Never Was (1956), which I have meant to do for decades.
I meant to write more about my weekend with my niece and her friends, who seem to have attached to me to the point that they meowed at the door as soon as they heard that I was awake on Saturday and mobbed me as soon as I stepped outside—I almost got my hair braided by at least two people at once. There was a block party which I attended for a nerve-racking fifteen minutes, during which I watched a scrum of small children play something with boffer swords and portable soccer nets that looked a lot like Calvinball. I have promised not to watch the last half-hour of Splash (1984) without my niece. This afternoon was the first in-person rehearsal of A Besere Velt since the late winter of 2020; although I am remaining remote for now, it was good to sing the music with people I could hear again. I can't figure out where my last week went. I worry it was into my job. I need it to be into sleep.
1. In terms of queer film history, it is a relatively big deal that Magnus Hirschfeld's Gesetze der Liebe (1927) has been rediscovered and restored. I knew about the survival of the condensed version of Anders als die Andern (1919)—it stars Conrad Veidt—but I had never heard that any of the rest of the later film escaped the Nazi destruction of the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft. I still hope the full version of Anders als die Andern will surface some day from another archive. My usual wishful phrase here is a broom closet in Argentina, but Hirschfeld's films should never be in a closet of any kind.
2. I hope there will be some kind of broadcast of Matthew Bourne's The Midnight Bell, since I love the idea of a ballet adapted primarily from Patrick Hamilton's Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky (1929–34). When I discovered his fiction and specifically that trilogy in 2010, I hoped it would do something to my brain, and years after the fact it turned out that it had.
3. I was delighted to find out from Tumblr that there will be a film about Operation Mincemeat, but since it is based on the book by Ben Macintyre, I have especially high expectations for the level of onscreen shenanigans. I am hoping its release will finally prompt me to watch The Man Who Never Was (1956), which I have meant to do for decades.
I meant to write more about my weekend with my niece and her friends, who seem to have attached to me to the point that they meowed at the door as soon as they heard that I was awake on Saturday and mobbed me as soon as I stepped outside—I almost got my hair braided by at least two people at once. There was a block party which I attended for a nerve-racking fifteen minutes, during which I watched a scrum of small children play something with boffer swords and portable soccer nets that looked a lot like Calvinball. I have promised not to watch the last half-hour of Splash (1984) without my niece. This afternoon was the first in-person rehearsal of A Besere Velt since the late winter of 2020; although I am remaining remote for now, it was good to sing the music with people I could hear again. I can't figure out where my last week went. I worry it was into my job. I need it to be into sleep.
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That's cool!
On the subject of rediscovered films, I saw the other day that Chess of the Wind was found in a junk shop a few years back and was recently restored.
I look forward to the Operation Mincemeat film! (I really should get around to watching The Man Who Never Was too) I remember it being interesting to compare Montague's official account with Macintyre's book.
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(I just came by to Tanith Lee your Sunday night.)
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Good grief, that brings back memories!
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Some of her characters were Jewish magicians: legit. What's at the bottom of your bowl?
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The other thing I like about the news is that Gesetze der Liebe was one of the lost films I never expected to turn up, which means that if it can, who knows what else?
On the subject of rediscovered films, I saw the other day that Chess of the Wind was found in a junk shop a few years back and was recently restored.
Yes! I really love when this happens.
I remember it being interesting to compare Montague's official account with Macintyre's book.
I read them decades apart—I should do some kind of comparative re-read. I am fascinated that Ewen Montagu gets to be played by Clifton Webb and Colin Firth. Those are not exactly the same screen persona.
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I had heard of it through friends, but never actually watched an episode. I was charmed. (And I laughed out loud at "Cedric Sediment," which I hope you do not mind I have shared with
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I'm just glad the episode I wanted to watch wasn't one of the lost ones!
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Which one was Mincemeat, where they chucked in the guy who... oh! Yup. BIG FAVE.
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SOE must have viewed Ian Fleming as the one that got away.
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Why are both television versions of Eric Ambler's Epitaph for a Spy (1938) apparently lost?
Like, 2/3s of the 60s are lost and barely 1/3 of the 50s ever existed. *offers commiserations*
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And why not!
(I also like that someone else wants to blow up half of Blackpool.)
A modest but achievable ambition, I should think.
It's such a fun series.
I may watch more of it. I had nothing against the main characters, I was just enjoying Colin Jeavons so much. In true character-actor fashion, he is now turning up retroactively—through a roundabout chain of pop culture,
Like, 2/3s of the 60s are lost and barely 1/3 of the 50s ever existed.
And kiss the '40's goodbye completely? Commiserations appreciated.
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If that's the one I'm thinking of, I don't think you could forget that costume! Colin Jeavons is definitely one of those characters actors who was in everything, so you shouldn't run short of things to watch him in, even given the TV losses.
A modest but achievable ambition, I should think.
You would think so, and many of the AAL! villains do, but not when Adam is around to skewer people with his swordstick! (A minister nervsouly asks him to be a bit less, well, deadly in future and Adam is baffled by the idea.) I'm very fond of it, as I'm sure you know by now! It's very up and down, and unlike most of the other series of its kind, like The Avengers and the ITC serials, only shaky BBC video not film, but it's got its own charm. I think it helps that the three lead characters are, separately, all quite lonely until they come together (Adam is 66 years or so out of his time, George has plenty of people to party with, but is alone in the big city, and Simms they found as an out of work actor doing a stint as a Punch and Judy man at the end of the pier on Blackpool), but generally it enjoys itself knowingly being ridiculous & the leads are just charming.
And kiss the '40's goodbye completely? Commiserations appreciated.
There was barely any 1940s UK TV to kiss goodbye! It was stopped by WWII and then started again in a very limited way after, was temporarily halted again by the winter of 1947 for 2 or 3 months, and didn't really start picking up proper numbers of viewers until the Coronation being televised helped to get more sets out there. (For a long while it wasn't even capable of being broadcast to the whole country, and even then there was only the BBC with one channel until the mid 1950s when ITV came along.)
The casualty list, though, and the crimes of burnination is just endless and it only ever gets worse the more you get into it or try to follow different actors, writers, directors or series.
Btw, if you want more Colin Jeavons, he's in Shadow of the Tower too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PoIn02DwKg&t=6s He's not in it as much as AAL! but he's in the opening scene with a wig and big costume if you want to see him being sneaky in Tudor get up. (If you are up for a full on BBC 1970s heightened theatrical cod-Shakespeare historical ep, it's not bad at all, CJ is in it more than just the opener, don't worry, and John Franklyn-Robbyns as Sir Wm Stanley is (IMO) outstanding, especially as it's not an obviously sympathetic part in many ways.)
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I am fairly certain we were watching it for the costume. I'm amazed I remembered any of the plot.
Colin Jeavons is definitely one of those characters actors who was in everything, so you shouldn't run short of things to watch him in, even given the TV losses.
Which I appreciate, considering that he seems to have been almost strictly a TV actor. His feature filmography looks like mostly bit parts and barely a dozen of them—although if I finally get around to watching Bartleby (1970), it looks as though I can pick up him and John McEnery for a two-fer, so I should really do that.
Given that Jeavons is an actor I have been aware of since literally childhood, I'm still not really sure what caused him to spring out into sudden interest, except that as mentioned in a previous post he turned up in the shockingly not burninated 1959 BBC Bleak House younger and so far less eccentric than I had ever seen him and the next thing I knew I was watching random episodes of '60's TV for him. If I could get to the BFI, I could watch him in the surviving episodes of the 1959 BBC Great Expectations. I do not think I can get to the BFI.
The casualty list, though, and the crimes of burnination is just endless and it only ever gets worse the more you get into it or try to follow different actors, writers, directors or series.
I had known about the problem for years, but it was really brought home to me in 2010 when I fell into Peter Cushing and immediately had the pleasure of watching him in the 1954 Nineteen Eighty-Four (on YouTube!) and then went looking for his other TV work and ahahaha no. I know lost films and TV still turn up all the time, cf. this post, but I'd prefer them not to have gone missing in the first place. The more I find out existed, the more I find out doesn't exist anymore. I get that that's sort of the way time works, but I don't need it reproduced in the things I do for fun!
Btw, if you want more Colin Jeavons, he's in Shadow of the Tower too
What a diabolically clever way of interesting me in that serial.
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Me, too, although it wouldn't be Colin Jeavons I'd start with! XD
I know lost films and TV still turn up all the time, cf. this post, but I'd prefer them not to have gone missing in the first place.
I know. I understand how it happened, but really it was still inexcusable, because people knew how important keeping films and music had become, the BFI existed, and it was the era of establishing archives everywhere across the country, but it was difficult and more expensive to keep them. But people knew at the time, really, and should have made more of an effort to at least keep the things that they thought were important if nothing else & not just the odd director's example choice, or letting everything go hang the second an ITV company got bought over. I just hope there's still more out there! :-/
What a diabolically clever way of interesting me in that serial.
It's true, though, and it's not really a serial. Some of the eps are in linked pairs (1&2, 3&4 and sort of 10&11) but the rest are just one act plays in chronological order and the same characters pop up here and there. Ep 6 is therefore just a 50 min play on the downfall of Sir William Stanley, so if you wanted to see it just for CJ, it'd be no more or less accessible than a random ep of AAL! But if you're specifically after the 1960s, yeah, it is 1972.
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I'd still like to visit Emeric Pressburger Collection. One of the reasons is stupidly specific, but I also just want to read his scripts.
But people knew at the time, really, and should have made more of an effort to at least keep the things that they thought were important if nothing else & not just the odd director's example choice, or letting everything go hang the second an ITV company got bought over.
Yes. It's much worse when it could be done—whatever it is—and people just decide not to.
I just hope there's still more out there!
Agreed.
But if you're specifically after the 1960s, yeah, it is 1972.
No, no, the random episodes of '60's TV were just what I had immediate access to. I am open to a range of decades.
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Mention an old actor and they jdo this! *eyes all them suspiciously*
Anyway, as a DW-thing, I thought it'd be up on Dailymotion and it is, although honestly I def recommend the Terrible Tudors over this. It's very silly! Which is probably fine if you like Sarah Jane and DW and K9 and unconvincing Quaint Villages of Evil but not so much otherwise!
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That doesn't sound at all good, and I am delighted to hear it! Thank you for letting me know.
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