That two girls are too many, three's a crowd, and four you're dead
My sleep schedule has gone so far off the rails, I'm not even sure what time zone I'm in anymore, but I don't think it's the one I live in.
Yesterday I tried to take a sort of mental health break, finishing my work in the afternoon and then spending the rest of the day reading Henry Green's Back (1946) and watching John Cromwell's Caged (1950) and a serial and a half of Sapphire & Steel (1979–82) with an interlude of returning books to the library and making rice pudding. I would like to write about all of these things; they were differently great. I may just stare at more Sapphire & Steel instead.
I have decided that my personal best mode of dealing with white supremacists going around invoking Odin as a hate symbol and generally misunderstanding the Vikings is to go around invoking Loki as a queer symbol and talking a lot more about seiðr.
Courtesy of![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
moon_custafer: I may be in the wrong country to catch a theatrical screening of Leslie Howard: The Man Who Gave a Damn (2016) tomorrow night (watching movies for people's yahrzeits is just as valid as for their birthdays), but it looks like it will be coming to TCM. Hurrah.
P.S. Has anybody on this friendlist seen the 1977–78 ITV adaptation of Joan Aiken's Midnight Is a Place (1976)? I just discovered it exists; I like its setting of "Denzil's Song" and it's got David Collings, but I can't tell anything else about it except that it seems to have aged up Anna-Marie.
Yesterday I tried to take a sort of mental health break, finishing my work in the afternoon and then spending the rest of the day reading Henry Green's Back (1946) and watching John Cromwell's Caged (1950) and a serial and a half of Sapphire & Steel (1979–82) with an interlude of returning books to the library and making rice pudding. I would like to write about all of these things; they were differently great. I may just stare at more Sapphire & Steel instead.
I have decided that my personal best mode of dealing with white supremacists going around invoking Odin as a hate symbol and generally misunderstanding the Vikings is to go around invoking Loki as a queer symbol and talking a lot more about seiðr.
Courtesy of
moon_custafer: I may be in the wrong country to catch a theatrical screening of Leslie Howard: The Man Who Gave a Damn (2016) tomorrow night (watching movies for people's yahrzeits is just as valid as for their birthdays), but it looks like it will be coming to TCM. Hurrah.P.S. Has anybody on this friendlist seen the 1977–78 ITV adaptation of Joan Aiken's Midnight Is a Place (1976)? I just discovered it exists; I like its setting of "Denzil's Song" and it's got David Collings, but I can't tell anything else about it except that it seems to have aged up Anna-Marie.
no subject
And then, for reasons, I started picking up some of Network's Ealing rarities releases, which are (mostly) less famous Ealing films of the 30s, 40s & 50s with four random films to a set (I try to mainly get the ones with as most 30s stuff as possible) so it's been a bit of a lucky dip and they vary highly, but I kind of enjoy them even when it's terrible. 1930s filmland is an unexpectedly fun & calming place to visit every now and then. I have been keeping an eye on BBC2's Sat morning habits of repeating old film and saw The Thirty-Nine Steps as well that way (plus, Stage Door, my second US 1930s one, also v enjoyable.)
What I can say so far is that The Lady Vanishes is the best (<3<3<3), but I also very much enjoyed Laburnum Grove, Bank Holiday and The Thirty-Nine Steps & Return to Yesterday, so mostly I rather predictably like stuff that's fun and by Carol Reed and Alfred Hitchcock! I must definitely branch out into more US stuff - so far I've only managed Stage Door (also courtesy of the BBC) other than Miracle Woman. But in the meantime I am tempted by the fact that Network DVD are doing a similar 4-films-per-disc series of British 1930s musicals...
It's a very hit and miss way to see things, but it's also kind of addictive.
The Ghost Camera does indeed sound like something I would enjoy. I've tracked down a DVD of it and added it to the wishlist in the hopes that it gets cheaper at some point. (At least it's got a R2 release, maybe multi-region, it looks like that kind of thing. I'm very frustrated by how many old British films only have a R1 release, which is just mean!)
That's one I want to see! I love Barbara Stanwyck and have enjoyed David Manners whenever he's not in a horror movie, where his personality tends to disappear.
Aw, I enjoyed it, I have to say, but then I kind of generally enjoy the 30s stuff, so I don't know whether I'm a reliable guide or not. Barbara Stanwyck was great! I definitely want to see more of her. And David Manners was very tropey and pretty in it.
no subject
Nice! You have some very good box sets in your life.
What I can say so far is that The Lady Vanishes is the best (<3<3<3), but I also very much enjoyed Laburnum Grove, Bank Holiday and The Thirty-Nine Steps & Return to Yesterday, so mostly I rather predictably like stuff that's fun and by Carol Reed and Alfred Hitchcock!
I don't think there's anything wrong with that.
But in the meantime I am tempted by the fact that Network DVD are doing a similar 4-films-per-disc series of British 1930s musicals...
I repeat my comment about box sets. Go for it. I'm less familiar with British 1930's musicals of the 1930's than I am with American, but everything I've seen with Jessie Matthews has been great. (Okay, I've seen two things with Jessie Matthews, but they were both great.)
(At least it's got a R2 release, maybe multi-region, it looks like that kind of thing. I'm very frustrated by how many old British films only have a R1 release, which is just mean!)
It does seem to miss the point. DVD region codes are the Devil.
Aw, I enjoyed it, I have to say, but then I kind of generally enjoy the 30s stuff, so I don't know whether I'm a reliable guide or not.
In my case you are likely to be. Those are the decades I know the most about in film. (This is apparent from my Patreon, which is the only tag I'm afraid I can point you at. I keep thinking I should go through my journal and put in some basic tags for movies or actors or directors, but that would be thirteen years' worth of entries and then I have to stop thinking about it.)
Barbara Stanwyck was great! I definitely want to see more of her. And David Manners was very tropey and pretty in it.
Films with Barbara Stanwyck that I've actually written about appear to be Baby Face (1933), Night Nurse (1931)—which I love unreasonably—Double Indemnity (1944), and The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946), but I would also throw Remember the Night (1940), The Lady Eve (1941), Ball of Fire (1941), and East Side, West Side (1954) onto the recommendations heap. David Manners is wonderful along with the rest of the cast in The Last Flight (1931), very funny in Crooner (1931), sadly left his personality at home in Dracula (1931)—but that movie has Dwight Frye, so nobody cares—and looks like he's having fun in Lady with a Past (1932), which is a mess, but I'm really fond of it anyway. He's in The Mystery of Edwin Drood (1935), but I did not notice because I was watching Claude Rains. He's just kind of there in The Black Cat (1934) as well, but again nobody cares or notices because of Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, and a legitimately weird and nightmarish plot. I also keep forgetting he's in The Mummy (1932).
no subject
Hee, thanks for the enabling! I am mainly hesitating because a) I want more old 70s telly too and b) I am waiting for Network to do one of their marvellous sales, because they haven't had one yet this year & the Ealing sets go down to £5 a shot, with no p&p when they do!
DVD region codes are the Devil.
Aren't they just! Some old stuff is multi-region, or region-free, though, but it's unfortunately not always obvious from seller information.
And so many films! At least I won't run out of stuff to watch. Aside from Margaret Lockwood, I'm mainly being a bit almost deliberately lucky dip in my approach - the Ealing rarities, what BBC2 and charity shops provide, as it's quite fun - and then I suppose I'll have a better idea of what things I want to track down more deliberately. More Barbara Stanwyck, definitely, though.
My reviews of these are fairly short and frivolous, often with gifs. (Sometimes I do have more I would like to say, but I don't always have much brain going spare for such things.) However, if you would like to see, my 1930s, 1940s and 1950s tags are almost 100% for films (as British telly doesn't really exist much before 1960 anyway). But if you are interested, here are the entries for: Miracle Woman & Stage Door, It Happened in Paris, Autumn Crocus, The Dictator & Secret Lives, Three Men in a Boat, The Bailiffs, Loyalties & Laburnum Grove, The Silver Darlings & The 39 Steps, The House of the Spaniard, The Beloved Vagabond, Return to Yesterday, Lorna Doone, Lease of Life & Calling the Tune, The Ware Case & The Shiralee, Cheer Boys Cheer & A Honeymoon Adventure, Meet Mr Lucifer & Cheer Boys Cheer, Bank Holiday and The Lady Vanishes.