It's unavailable on DVD and I've never seen a VHS, but some lovely person has put the whole thing up on YouTube. You might as well watch it before they take it down again.
I was just thinking of him in character for Jamaica Inn and realizing that I'm unable to picture him in any other mode than a cad eating a chicken leg and saying, "I'm in the mood for entertainment, let's visit the dungeons."
Hee. With the possible exception of Hobson's Choice (1954), I have actually never seen Laughton in any of his famous roles—The Private Life of Henry VIII (1933), Mutiny on the Bounty (1935), Rembrandt (1936), The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939). I discovered him first as a director; I love him because of The Night of the Hunter (1955), which should never have been his only film. I can't remember if you've seen it. It is American mythology, purely distilled; there's nothing else like it. Robert Mitchum was never more beautiful or more terrifying. And out on Criterion DVD now, thank God.
And on a totally different front, you should see The Canterville Ghost (1944), minor and atmospherically confused—it's never quite sure whether it wants to be comedy, drama, or fantasy-horror, though it introduced me to Robert Young and I do think there are some brilliant things about it—as it is, because everyone should have the chance to hear Laughton as a ghost delicately bowing out of a conversation: "Excuse me, I really must gibber at the oriole window."
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It's unavailable on DVD and I've never seen a VHS, but some lovely person has put the whole thing up on YouTube. You might as well watch it before they take it down again.
I was just thinking of him in character for Jamaica Inn and realizing that I'm unable to picture him in any other mode than a cad eating a chicken leg and saying, "I'm in the mood for entertainment, let's visit the dungeons."
Hee. With the possible exception of Hobson's Choice (1954), I have actually never seen Laughton in any of his famous roles—The Private Life of Henry VIII (1933), Mutiny on the Bounty (1935), Rembrandt (1936), The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939). I discovered him first as a director; I love him because of The Night of the Hunter (1955), which should never have been his only film. I can't remember if you've seen it. It is American mythology, purely distilled; there's nothing else like it. Robert Mitchum was never more beautiful or more terrifying. And out on Criterion DVD now, thank God.
And on a totally different front, you should see The Canterville Ghost (1944), minor and atmospherically confused—it's never quite sure whether it wants to be comedy, drama, or fantasy-horror, though it introduced me to Robert Young and I do think there are some brilliant things about it—as it is, because everyone should have the chance to hear Laughton as a ghost delicately bowing out of a conversation: "Excuse me, I really must gibber at the oriole window."