You're moving forward in a figure eight
Happy autumn! After some last-minute, early-morning runaround, I finally got to see a physical therapist about my back. In the evening, I baked things with apples in the toaster oven and watched several episodes of Mr. Palfrey of Westminster (1984–85) with my mother who has nostalgic feelings about the Thames ident with the river-mirrored skyline. The night is suddenly Arctic, full of the sharp colors of stars. I am hoping to have access to a telescope in time for Jupiter's closest approach since 1963, but if not, there's always binoculars. Have a couple of links.
1. I had not heard the contretemps about the origins of Betty Boop, but I appreciate PBS acknowledging that its failure to fact-check generated now-popular misinformation, which is of course harder to recall than the more complicated reality. "We could have thus avoided this teachable moment."
2. Courtesy of![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
thisbluespirit: a gifset of Martin Jarvis in Taste the Blood of Dracula (1970), which I suspect I may end up watching just to have an opinion about what happens to him after the end of it, as the film apparently does not.
3. Courtesy of a friend who is not on DW: a manuscript scourge, which is exactly what it sounds like, except it sounded like something different to me.
I watched a bunch of movies in the spring before we had to move and intended to write about several of them and did not manage it in time and it is true that I do not have a ready means of rewatching any of them at the moment, but they still feel oddly, mentally inaccessible to me and I am trying to sort out why. It frustrates me to feel so wiped out.
1. I had not heard the contretemps about the origins of Betty Boop, but I appreciate PBS acknowledging that its failure to fact-check generated now-popular misinformation, which is of course harder to recall than the more complicated reality. "We could have thus avoided this teachable moment."
2. Courtesy of
thisbluespirit: a gifset of Martin Jarvis in Taste the Blood of Dracula (1970), which I suspect I may end up watching just to have an opinion about what happens to him after the end of it, as the film apparently does not.3. Courtesy of a friend who is not on DW: a manuscript scourge, which is exactly what it sounds like, except it sounded like something different to me.
I watched a bunch of movies in the spring before we had to move and intended to write about several of them and did not manage it in time and it is true that I do not have a ready means of rewatching any of them at the moment, but they still feel oddly, mentally inaccessible to me and I am trying to sort out why. It frustrates me to feel so wiped out.
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and watched several episodes of Mr. Palfrey of Westminster (1984–85)
!!! <3 ??
(And, aw, at your mother and the Thames ident! I have the opposite thing because I associate it with Rainbow and familiar as it is, and much as I must have seen it on so many other things, some part of me still goes, "Oh, God, not Rainbow again!")
Courtesy of [personal profile] thisbluespirit: a gifset of Martin Jarvis in Taste the Blood of Dracula (1970), which I suspect I may end up watching just to have an opinion about what happens to him after the end of it, as the film apparently does not.
Oh, dear, I apologise profusely! Everybody else hates Taste for good reason, but... the thing is my first Dracula was the 1968, which hit on a lot of aspects that I really love as well as being entirely full of old telly people I like (the arrival of Dracula revealing hidden desires etc), and after I'd read the book and seen the 1931, I found Hammer's version a real let down in those terms. In other terms, it had Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing being amazing, so you can't complain, and I learned to appreciate Hammer's Gothic thing that they were doing and enjoy it. But Taste (which was made quite soon after the 1968 and I think may well have been influenced by it in some ways) suddenly starts to ask some of the same questions! Alice kind of almost has agency! The whole story revolves round her in a way that works! And for a bonus it was full of other old telly people I like - Ralph Bates, Peter Sallis, John Carson, Isla Blair, Russell Hunter and Martin Jarvis (even if he isn't in it much! He's probably not in it enough to make watching it for him much of a prospect). So I feel really bad about liking it because everybody else's complaints are extremely valid ones indeed. It's a problematic mess and Christopher Lee only just turned up for it. But it just almost, almost also is Hammer doing exactly what I wanted for one film and I got excited before it went back to business as usual.
Mind you, I also like it because some of the plot is rubbish but the narrative reason for the plot being rubbish is basically explained by the fact that Ralph Bates is the most hopeless henchman ever, which I think is a perfectly legit reason for Dracula to have a bad day - ironically revenging himself on Ralph Bates's death until he's finally destroyed himself by Ralph Bates's incompetence, too. If he'd just realised he wasnt't worth avenging, none of this would have happened! Don't choose the 19thC English would-be aristocrat and occultist! They will just think an old church has the right vibe and forget you might at least want it properly deconsecrated first. And I think that's great so clearly I should not be allowed to have any sensible criticisms of anything, because my sense of humour sometimes gets far too out of line. XD
(But the Alice stuff is genuinely interesting, and the whole chain of revenge gets started not just because the three men are terrible and hypocritcal anyway, but because Alice's father is also abusive and that's what lets Dracula get a way in to do what he wants to do, whereas Peter Sallis and John Carson at least love their children.)
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Thank you!
!!! <3 ??
My mother doesn't believe she watched it the first time around, although it fell exactly into the bracket of things she likes to watch. After two episodes she called my father to recommend it to him; she thought it was less complicated than le Carré, but "it's thoughtful and all the people in it are people." All three episodes we have watched so far have a trick of resolving quietly while still being individually momentous, which is a register of storytelling I really enjoy, and there's something haunting or bittersweet in all of them. Will keep you posted on the second series.
(And, aw, at your mother and the Thames ident! I have the opposite thing because I associate it with Rainbow and familiar as it is, and much as I must have seen it on so many other things, some part of me still goes, "Oh, God, not Rainbow again!")
Hee. I have never seen Rainbow—I am really only aware of it because it's in the filmography of Karl Johnson, whom I discovered first as one of Derek Jarman's muses.
the thing is my first Dracula was the 1968, which hit on a lot of aspects that I really love as well as being entirely full of old telly people I like (the arrival of Dracula revealing hidden desires etc), and after I'd read the book and seen the 1931, I found Hammer's version a real let down in those terms.
My first Dracula was Stoker! It is one of the fragments of the Western canon I actually read for school as opposed to picking up on my own time or just missing completely. And then we watched Nosferatu at the end of the class, so that was my first Dracula on film.
And for a bonus it was full of other old telly people I like - Ralph Bates, Peter Sallis, John Carson, Isla Blair, Russell Hunter and Martin Jarvis (even if he isn't in it much! He's probably not in it enough to make watching it for him much of a prospect).
You talk as though I wasn't seriously considering watching Frankenstein Created Woman (1967) once I found out Peter Blythe was in it!
(I am actually interested in the film in its own right. I'm not at all systematic about Hammer, but if something in one of their films is pointed out for my attention, it at least gets on my radar.)
(But the Alice stuff is genuinely interesting, and the whole chain of revenge gets started not just because the three men are terrible and hypocritcal anyway, but because Alice's father is also abusive and that's what lets Dracula get a way in to do what he wants to do, whereas Peter Sallis and John Carson at least love their children.)
See? Between your description and
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Yes, indeed. This is a lot of my EatD-Public Eye-Mr Palfrey feelings in a nutshell.
All three episodes we have watched so far have a trick of resolving quietly while still being individually momentous, which is a register of storytelling I really enjoy, and there's something haunting or bittersweet in all of them.
Yes. (I'm nodding a lot on the other end of the internet.) And idk why but I love so much the ending of "The Honeypot and the Bees" and Mr Palfrey's little "... a man who restores violins is arguably of more use to mankind than an Air Vice Marshall." As well as, the more ironic: "Our country right or wrong. We leave small matters such as crises of conscience, fastidiousness over the truth to traitors." Both feel like absolute showcases of why I chased this writer over elderly TV after I'd done with Public Eye (which was how I found the odd little gem that is Mr Palfrey).
Although, the quote from him that makes me laugh the most, re. being low-key is that the first show I can find that he produced (1963, 64?), to go in the Avengers slot on ITV in while it was off-air, he apparently sold to the press as being about "three level-headed people who try to prevent crime from happening." (It was not a very well known show, lol. I can't think why. XD)
Will keep you posted on the second series.
<3
My first Dracula was Stoker! It is one of the fragments of the Western canon I actually read for school as opposed to picking up on my own time or just missing completely. And then we watched Nosferatu at the end of the class, so that was my first Dracula on film.
I was much too wimpish to read the book myself and it wasn't a thing that was taught my school or college, but it is a shame. It would have gone nicely with my Wilkie Collins period. I do feel that Marian Halcombe climbed rooftops so that Mina Harker could run across Whitby.
See? Between your description and [personal profile] gwynnega's, that's interesting.
XD Christopher Lee apparently disagreed with us both, though, heh. But, yes. I will stand by it being interesting!
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"Prissy and cynical. I'll come to you for a character reference."
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XD I'd forgotten that bit! I must be due for a rewatch soon, really.
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If it leads to, like, gifs, I can only support this plan.
(I will also support it if you just enjoy the show and do nothing externally fannish about it, because you are not bound to!)
We just finished "Return to Sender," which my mother found one of the chillier episodes and I really enjoyed because, like "The Defector," it reinforced the arguable series brief that even when the inciting event of the plot-of-the-week is international, the stakes are personal, because it's one kind of tension if a turncoat nuisance's insistence on treating every interaction like a flamboyant game of brinksmanship is courting his own death, but it's a very different kind when his actions are boxing some characters who are not in the habit of wet work into having to plan to kill him. It would damage all of them—even the Co-ordinator, even Blair, who may be able to switch off his imagination in the way that Mr. Palfrey can't, but that doesn't mean it would be a good idea to demand it of him. And in "The Defector," Mr. Palfrey was able to get out of having to choose between betraying his country and betraying his friend, but it's not so clear that there's a similar trick to be pulled off here. It's playing chicken with a moral event horizon and that's gripping, although so are the individual conversations.
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My previous rewatching resulted in gifs and things! Unfortunately tumblr deletion lost them - I'd done a Favourite Episode gifset for A Present From Leipzig and Return to Sender (still haven't made one for Music of a Dead Prophet, but it's on the list). Photobucket also ate my icons! BUT I kept a lot of the caps for the giffing for A Present (because of Cally and maybe using Martin Jarvis for Iron), so I remade it a little while ago.
But I keep meaning to reupload my old icons and idk why I seem to need a kick to do it every time, but I've now re-posted the little Mr Palfrey set (not that I'm assuming you'd want an icon, but it's always nice to have stuff for the fandom about). And it means that I can rectify the whole thing where every time we talk about it, I'm, like, where did my Mr Palfrey icon go??? *points*
It's playing chicken with a moral event horizon and that's gripping
Oh, yes, that's a great way of describing that one! (Philip Broadley is a writer who can be really good or really tiresome & often rather sexist, or occasionally both together, and I am now deeply familiar with his works because he wrote a lot of Department S, Public Eye and Mr Palfrey, and he's a writer most likely to be simultaneously responsible for the worst episode of the series and some of the most enjoyable, so he's a name I always note! I also cannot get over that A Present From Leipzig isn't his, because at this point, I assume if I'm watching an old TV episode of anything and it's about gayness and antiques, it was by Philip Broadley, so Present does not compute in my head. But it is probably better than if it it had been written by Mr Broadley! Even though, as you can tell from Return to Sender, he can really pull out the goods on occasion too.
We just finished "Return to Sender," which my mother found one of the chillier episodes and I really enjoyed because, like "The Defector," it reinforced the arguable series brief that even when the inciting event of the plot-of-the-week is international, the stakes are personal, because it's one kind of tension if a turncoat nuisance's insistence on treating every interaction like a flamboyant game of brinksmanship is courting his own death, but it's a very different kind when his actions are boxing some characters who are not in the habit of wet work into having to plan to kill him. It would damage all of them—even the Co-ordinator, even Blair, who may be able to switch off his imagination in the way that Mr. Palfrey can't, but that doesn't mean it would be a good idea to demand it of him.
And, yes, absolutely - and why it bears rewatches, because the game of chicken is over after the first time, but the issues for the characters still stand each time around.
I tend to take that aspect for granted in a way, because after starting with Enemy at the Door, where Michael Chapman took everything he'd learned from writing micro stories in Public Eye and applied it to the occupation of the Channel Islands in WWII, I am used to "Big events have endless small personal consequences and moral dilemmas that nevertheless matter and may still have no clear answers" but with more painfully tragic outcomes and all balanced on a knife-edge. (Martin Jarvis's guest role that I mentioned is a perfect example - it is obviously important that a famous visiting neutral journalist sees the truth instead of the Nazi propaganda he's supposed to be writing, but the fallout of that in human terms - "The Education of Nils Borg" that proceeds over the fifty minutes - costs everybody involved on a very personal level)
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That was very unfair of it!
I don't think I realized you had lost your original Tumblr; I think I was under the impression you had just changed its name along with your journal's. I'm glad you've at least been able to reconstruct so much.
BUT I kept a lot of the caps for the giffing for A Present (because of Cally and maybe using Martin Jarvis for Iron), so I remade it a little while ago.
That's lovely! And I agree with you about the showcase: it told me instantly that I would love the show.
And it means that I can rectify the whole thing where every time we talk about it, I'm, like, where did my Mr Palfrey icon go??? *points*
I've just seen the episode that image comes from, too.
Philip Broadley is a writer who can be really good or really tiresome & often rather sexist, or occasionally both together, and I am now deeply familiar with his works because he wrote a lot of Department S, Public Eye and Mr Palfrey, and he's a writer most likely to be simultaneously responsible for the worst episode of the series and some of the most enjoyable, so he's a name I always note!
What
I also cannot get over that A Present From Leipzig isn't his, because at this point, I assume if I'm watching an old TV episode of anything and it's about gayness and antiques, it was by Philip Broadley, so Present does not compute in my head. But it is probably better than if it it had been written by Mr Broadley!
It may be holding position as my favorite episode so far, not merely because of Martin Jarvis. Did its writer do anything else of note?
And, yes, absolutely - and why it bears rewatches, because the game of chicken is over after the first time, but the issues for the characters still stand each time around.
The question of people's limits—where they are, where they think they are, what they do when run up against or blown past them—turned out to be one of the central concerns that makes film noir so attractive to me, so I appreciate it showing up in other genres, too. You would think it would be a staple of spy fiction, but not in my experience; the fact that Mr. Palfrey cares consistently about the question is one of the reasons it reminds me of le Carré, who was all about the costs.
(Martin Jarvis's guest role that I mentioned is a perfect example - it is obviously important that a famous visiting neutral journalist sees the truth instead of the Nazi propaganda he's supposed to be writing, but the fallout of that in human terms - "The Education of Nils Borg" that proceeds over the fifty minutes - costs everybody involved on a very personal level)
My immediate reaction to that is "as it should," further research suggests I may be able to watch Enemy at the Door once I have the pseudo-TV up and running, I need about three times the time I have in my life, thank you.
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Changing my name was what I was supposed to be doing, but apparently it is really easy to press the wrong button and delete your whole tumblr instead when you decide in the process to delete a now-unwanted sideblog. tumblr does not do take-backs! Boom, gone. But, yeah, I did at least find a lot of the stuff via reblogs eventually.
Did its writer do anything else of note?
I hadn't recalled Anthony Skene's name from my watches but when I went to look, he did also do three eps of The Prisoner, an atypical Special Branch episode that I remembered particularly and also three eps of Upstairs Downstairs (I only recall one of those as such, but it was a show of a generally high standard), and this was at least the third time he'd worked with Michael Chapman, having done Haunted (a lost show I pine for!) and Frontier (another lost 60s show I want, with James Maxwell, though given that is the NW Frontier of India, it would not be comfortable viewing any more even if well done, to say the least.) "A Present from Leipzig" seems to have been his penultimate TV script.
You would think it would be a staple of spy fiction, but not in my experience; the fact that Mr. Palfrey cares consistently about the question is one of the reasons it reminds me of le Carré, who was all about the costs.
Well, as you know, I do love this odd little show very much. XD <3
It's very much early Spooks, too (my first and actually-21st C! spy show), although tbf, actually, whatever it turned into, it always was a giant tragedy about what the cost is to you and other people if you're good at your job, but equally there's also a terrible cost to being bad at it. And, heh, I will have to actually watch some Le Carre one day, but I've been wandering around spy shows that obviously owe him debts in some sort of stubborn refusal to watch the main thing. (I actually have the 80s Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy DVD, so I really will one day, but I'm just going to need to be in the right headspace.)
My immediate reaction to that is "as it should," further research suggests I may be able to watch Enemy at the Door once I have the pseudo-TV up and running, I need about three times the time I have in my life, thank you.
<3 I mean, I just can't help talking about both these shows together because I saw EatD first and I see a lot of lines between them two. I do understand that the very historically grounded and researched and necessarily bleak EatD is a different proposition entirely! I know lots of people who understandably don't want to do it. I was sent some dvds
It isn't perfect, but I do think in general it walks the knife-walk it's set itself very well by dint of thorough research, and being absolutely relentless about human beings still being human whatever else is happening and refusing to give any easy answers to the questions it continually asks of its main characters.
I once did a sort of trailer for it, if you want to have an idea of what you might be getting yourself into if it became possible for you at some point: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSm4iXLZcdQ
ETA: That's lovely! And I agree with you about the showcase: it told me instantly that I would love the show.
Awww. <3 [<- v important edit, sorry. ;-)]
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Nice! Also it looks as though I remember all three of his episodes of The Prisoner, although it helps that Mary Morris was Number Two for one of them. (The internet tells me I would have briefly seen George Markstein as a casting in-joke in another.)
and this was at least the third time he'd worked with Michael Chapman, having done Haunted (a lost show I pine for!) and Frontier (another lost 60s show I want, with James Maxwell, though given that is the NW Frontier of India, it would not be comfortable viewing any more even if well done, to say the least.)
Gary Bond and Paul Eddington, though.
How much remains of either show in terms of pictures, reviews etc.?
And, heh, I will have to actually watch some Le Carre one day, but I've been wandering around spy shows that obviously owe him debts in some sort of stubborn refusal to watch the main thing.
Well, I still haven't seen Blake's 7.
(I actually have the 80s Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy DVD, so I really will one day, but I'm just going to need to be in the right headspace.)
I grew up on his books—I read The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1963) in my grandparents' house, in their slightly jacket-tattered first edition which I inherited. I actually dumped a bunch of recommendations on
It isn't perfect, but I do think in general it walks the knife-walk it's set itself very well by dint of thorough research, and being absolutely relentless about human beings still being human whatever else is happening and refusing to give any easy answers to the questions it continually asks of its main characters.
For the record, I'm not opposed to stories set during or about World War II! I just object to getting bitten by extra surprise antisemitism.
Awww. <3 [<- v important edit, sorry. ;-)]
Of course.
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I think there are three episode extant from Frontier? I don't know if there any from Haunted, which I'm sad about - the same team did a really fascinating little SF series called Undermind the year before, which does still exist. Haunted was supposedly a very similar format but with supernatural incidents instead of stealth alien invasion, and going by Undermind I'd dearly love to see it!
Well, I still haven't seen Blake's 7.
XD I helped divert you! lol.
And reading is still much, much harder than even modern telly. I am like the pickiest eater in the world, but with books. But I have confidence I can get my brain up to the BBC series one day! <3
For the record, I'm not opposed to stories set during or about World War II! I just object to getting bitten by extra surprise antisemitism.
Oh, I got that. I'm just not rational about EatD for multiple reasons already and then it got weirdly popular-ish about two years ago as well and it was not the zeitgeist and that got disturbing around the exchange scene. So, I just like to make sure people do understand what it is it's trying to do first - even though you probably don't need that. But still! It was made 40 years ago and deals with a lot of very difficult topics. Mostly, to its credits, genuinely well, but it's not perfect, either - and while I don't think you'll have a problem with the irony and ambiguity of these kinds of old school plays, that also doesn't help with some modern viewings, because we're less used to that style of TV storytelling now as a rule.
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I hope you can see them someday.
I don't know if there any from Haunted, which I'm sad about - the same team did a really fascinating little SF series called Undermind the year before, which does still exist. Haunted was supposedly a very similar format but with supernatural incidents instead of stealth alien invasion, and going by Undermind I'd dearly love to see it!
I've heard of Undermind! From someone other than you, even—
And reading is still much, much harder than even modern telly. I am like the pickiest eater in the world, but with books.
Understood. Good luck with one day feeling like watching John le Carré!
Mostly, to its credits, genuinely well, but it's not perfect, either - and while I don't think you'll have a problem with the irony and ambiguity of these kinds of old school plays, that also doesn't help with some modern viewings, because we're less used to that style of TV storytelling now as a rule.
Fortunately, I don't watch that much modern TV. If it doesn't click with me, it doesn't click, but I don't think I will feel bait-and-switched.
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And I mean, last year, Talking Pictures suddenly came up with four episodes of The Hidden Truth, which was even more unlikely than Haunted. Oh, I would love to see that one!
And, amazing, a person who knows Undermind! It was how I wound up getting into Department S, because I was a bit fed up with ITC serials which aren't my bag, but Rosemary Nicols really impressed me as one of the two leads in Undermind (and then also because
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For Dracula
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I hope you get to see Jupiter!
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What did that one look like?
I hope you get to see Jupiter!
Thank you! If you have field glasses or anything, you should be able to see it, too! I appreciated the reminder in the NASA article: "It's important to remember that Galileo observed these moons with 17th century optics."
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Parliament in silhouette, lights on the waterfront, and a full moon peeping out of clouds.
I've got binoculars, so here's hoping for a cloudless night.
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Brilliant! Good luck.
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I will brace myself. What do you find compelling about it?
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That sounds neat.
(Also, needless to say, one should NEVER taste the blood of Dracula.)
It was really not on my list!
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I want to hear all about it.
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The copier died today. I do not know how one would say copier in Latin, so I can't say Hic Iacet [Piece of Shit Son of a Whore Duplicating Machine with Razor-Sharp Edges] on its tombstone. My boss has now heard me shout "Piece of shit son of a whore" while snatching my crushed finger out of a machine, though. I should probably tithe to some sex workers in teshuva. They do honorable work and the copier does not.
All of which is to say, the fact that you are surviving at the level you are right now at all is really impressive, and I love the Thames logo thing. It came on the front of Dangermouse and Count Duckula, really fucking quality television in its time.
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A copyist is a librarius—as opposed to a scriptor who does the composition as well as the writing-out—and we shall assume a machine exists in the neuter, so how do you feel about Hic Iacet Librarium Cacatum, Proles Lupanaris, Acies ad Omnes? I'm so sorry.
I should probably tithe to some sex workers in teshuva. They do honorable work and the copier does not.
Especially now that it's dead.
*hugs*
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Remembering a bit from the third act of A Canticle for Leibowitz where an abbot says his office’s printer must possess a soul, because “that machine knows Good from Evil, and it’s chosen Evil.”
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The Betty Boop thing shows how even reputable news sources don't always fact-check thoroughly. Speaking as a nonfiction editor, it's amazing the things that people accidentally get wrong (when I edit, I check names and dates).
Hurray for the physical therapist! (And the telescope in your future.)
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I thought it was going to be a scourge of manuscripts, like a perniciously specialized species of beetle that only eats late medieval and early modern inks! I was not expecting . . . what I got.
Hurray for the physical therapist! (And the telescope in your future.)
Thank you!