And a ceiling that's peeling all over the floor

[sovay]

Today has been very quiet and characterized by cats. This is a good thing.

1. In this week's issue of The New Yorker, Anthony Lane writes about Churchill and movies, including The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943) from a perspective I had not previously considered:

Certainly, "Colonel Blimp" presents no detriment to morale. Indeed, the gist of the plot is that the future and the defeat of Hitler lie squarely in the hands of modern soldiery. Did Churchill fear that viewers might see in this fuchsia-faced, harrumphing old grump a trace of their determined leader, his jaw jutting out like the prow of a dreadnought? Did he maybe see that trace himself? "War, which used to be cruel and magnificent, has now become cruel and squalid," he declared in "My Early Life," in an outburst of pure Blimpery. He added, "In fact it has been completely spoilt. It is all the fault of Democracy and Science." He and Wynne-Candy even attended the same boarding school, Harrow. In other words, Powell and Pressburger had conjured a fictional life that veered perilously close to Churchill's, as dense with derring-do, divisiveness, emotional extremes, and lurching reversals of fortune as his had been. By showing the ages of Blimp, they made the Churchill film that never was. And what they omitted, perhaps to his dismay, was his extraordinary late bloom. That would be more than enough to hurt the Prime Minister's pride.

2. I can see that I will have to check out Joseph Losey's Blind Date (U.S. Chance Meeting, 1959), because a rather inefficient search for "film noir" and "blind date" just threw this recording at me of Hardy Krüger singing "Blind Date (I'm a Lonely Man)." I had no idea that was even a thing. My favorite what-the-hell-they-can-sing moment will probably always remain Peter Lorre bouncing along to "Ja, die Polizei" in Was Frauen träumen (1933) with the recent discovery of Anthony Perkins coming a close second, but I still want to know the context here.

3. Plans for this evening have to do with meeting rushthatspeaks for Track of the Cat (1954) at the HFA. It's the next-to-last night of the Wellman retrospective. I would still like to write about the three pre-Codes I saw last week. If I can't get a time machine, maybe a pocket dimension?

Comments

[alatefeline]

I am in favor of days characterized by cats. :)

[sovay]

I am in favor of days characterized by cats.

They improve any day they are part of, even when we have to pull Autolycus out of a bowl of lasagna. (spatch enters the room, firmly gripping a cat who is doing his best to look innocent while coiling to spring back into the kitchen: "Garfield was a bad influence.")

[alatefeline]

*giggleSNORT*

[moon_custafer]

I liked Peter Lorre anyway, but that just took him up another notch in my estimation.

[sovay]

I liked Peter Lorre anyway, but that just took him up another notch in my estimation.

I discovered it on the internet about six years ago and it has consistently given me joy ever since. I have no idea what the rest of the movie is like, but for these two minutes alone, I will always be glad it existed.

[selenak]

It was co-written by Billy Wilder (then still spelling himself Billie; it was the last German film production he worked on before emigrating) and is pretty charming. The music was composed by Robert "last master of the Viennese operetta" Stolz, like Wilder a future emigrant (the movie is full of them). Lorre's character is the inspector pursuing the lady thief who is the heroine of the movie.

[sovay]

It was co-written by Billy Wilder (then still spelling himself Billie; it was the last German film production he worked on before emigrating) and is pretty charming.

And it's on YouTube! It wasn't six years ago when I discovered the clip; I could barely find any information about the plot. Thank you for impelling me to search again.

[selenak]

Re: Lane's speculation as to why Churchill had it in for Blimp: sounds plausible enough to me. Re: Churchill's image in the public consciousness pre-WWII (which would have been very recent on his mind), and his own self image, and how very Victorian he was to his core, let's not forget that contrary to what The King's Speech claims, Churchill sided with Edward/David 100% in the abdication crisis, tried his damn best together with Lord Beaverbrook to keep him on the throne, and declared Edward would "shine in history as the bravest and best beloved of all the sovereigns who have worn the island Crown", I kid you not. (His relationship with Bertie/George was lukewarm at best until the war.) At the suggestion of Beaverbrook, Edward summoned to Fort Beldevere Aneurin Bevan, in order to see what the Labour Left thought about the whole thing. (Answer - not much, but Nye was always up for champagne for which someone else was paying.) He found himself sharing a sideroom with Churchill, on with whom he already did not get, and heard Churchill complaining that the circumstances indicated that he, a Churchill, scion of a noble house, would have reluctantly to betray his king. 'Never mind, Winston', Nye piped up to the biographer of Marlborough,' it's not the first time.'

(Sidenote: given that Jack Churchill, the future Duke of Marlborough, started his career by sex with Charles II. mistress Barbara Villiers, complete with jumping out of Barbara Villiers' bed and into the dungheap beneath the window when Charles II. showed up (I always loved Charles' commentary: "Young man, I do forgive you, for you do it for your bread."), and indeed Barbara's 5.000 pounds for that jump found the Churchill family fortune, Nye certainly had a point. *g*)

So yes: definitely sounds like a man who could see himself caricatured as Colonel Blimp, overlooking how sympathetic a character the hero of that movie is.

Incidentally, re: Churchill on screen, Lane missed out one (admittedly tv, not movie) example of where he came across as human rather than as a collection of famous moments and mannerisms, which was the series about his Mum, scripted by Julian Mitchell, with this tongue-in-cheek gem in the last episode, in a post WWI party:

Supporting Character A: Everyone keeps saying "Freud says" or "according to Freud" - who IS Freud, do you know?
Supporting Character B: The chap who claims all men are really in love with their mothers.
Camera: pans to Winston, watching Jennie dance enchantedly
Supporting Character A: How ridiculous.

[sovay]

Re: Lane's speculation as to why Churchill had it in for Blimp: sounds plausible enough to me.

Same, but I hadn't seen it before: most of the accounts I had read of Churchill's objections focused on political rather than personal grounds. (The extras on the Criterion DVD include memos between him, Brendan Bracken, and Michael Powell.) I do not always agree with Anthony Lane—he persists in treating science fiction and fantasy like inherently trashy genres, where every now and then he shockingly acknowledges there might be something of value in a not strictly realist film and more often his criticism misses the point completely—but I enjoy him as a critic, partly because he comes up with thing like this.

contrary to what The King's Speech claims, Churchill sided with Edward/David 100% in the abdication crisis, tried his damn best together with Lord Beaverbrook to keep him on the throne, and declared Edward would "shine in history as the bravest and best beloved of all the sovereigns who have worn the island Crown", I kid you not.

I know you don't! I don't think Timothy Spall does a very good Churchill, either, but that is less of a historical objection and more a matter of him doing an impersonation when everyone else in the cast is being a character.

which was the series about his Mum, scripted by Julian Mitchell, with this tongue-in-cheek gem in the last episode, in a post WWI party

Nice.

[moon_custafer]

on with whom he already did not get

I see what you did there.

One of the best bits in Plot Holes of WWII is the complaint that Churchill was only in one episode of WWI, where he was a bumbling comical general, and when he comes back for the sequel he’s suddenly been rewritten:
“he's not only Prime Minister, he's not only a brilliant military commander, he's not only the greatest orator of the twentieth century who can convince the British to keep going against all odds, he's also a natural wit who is able to pull out hilarious one-liners practically on demand. I know he's supposed to be the hero, but it's not realistic unless you keep the guy at least vaguely human.”

[sovay]

“he's not only Prime Minister, he's not only a brilliant military commander, he's not only the greatest orator of the twentieth century who can convince the British to keep going against all odds, he's also a natural wit who is able to pull out hilarious one-liners practically on demand. I know he's supposed to be the hero, but it's not realistic unless you keep the guy at least vaguely human.”

I have never heard of Plot Holes of WWII, but this is wonderful.

Hardy Krüger

[selenak]

P.S. re: Hardy Krüger - I saw him last year at the Frankfurt Book Fair; still mentally and physically firm. He talked about growing up as the son of Nazi parents, being sent to a Nazi elite school, waking up to the horror as a young actor, about his deep anger about the current resurgence of fascist populists everywhere right now, and about the way it was being normalized. Which, btw, wasn't an unusual thing for him - he's been an anti-right wing violence & extremism activist since many years, and founded the intitiative "Gemeinsam gegen rechte Gewalt" (Together against violence of the right).

Re: Hardy Krüger

[sovay]

P.S. re: Hardy Krüger - I saw him last year at the Frankfurt Book Fair; still mentally and physically firm.

I am very glad to hear he's in good shape (and has a new book out). I imprinted on him fairly seriously with Robert Aldrich's The Flight of the Phoenix (1956).

He talked about growing up as the son of Nazi parents, being sent to a Nazi elite school, waking up to the horror as a young actor, about his deep anger about the current resurgence of fascist populists everywhere right now, and about the way it was being normalized.

I have read interviews in which he talks about his early life. I hope his anger is listened to. [edit] I don't know a graceful way to say that I appreciate the additional information, but I didn't think it was unusual; I understand that you don't know what I know about actors I mention in flyby on the internet.

Re: Hardy Krüger

[selenak]

Same here. Not least because the usual suspects can't dismiss him as not knowing what he's talking about in any way, shape or form.

Re: Hardy Krüger

[sovay]

Not least because the usual suspects can't dismiss him as not knowing what he's talking about in any way, shape or form.

Yes. I just wish we didn't have to depend on the authority of personal memory. History is supposed to last more than the time it takes its actors to die out.

[cmcmck]

The Blimp in the film is nothing at all like the Blimp in the well known cartoons. I suspect Blimp was also a much more thoughtful soldier than Churchill ever was.

I find him an appealingly deep character.

[sovay]

I find him an appealingly deep character.

Clive Wynne-Candy wasn't my introduction to Roger Livesey because that was Torquil in I Know Where I'm Going! (1945), but he's worth being fond of. Lane acknowledges the appeal.

[thisbluespirit]

If I can't get a time machine, maybe a pocket dimension?

Oh, hold out for a time machine! The pocket dimension won't help with the theatre trips plan. ;-)

[sovay]

Oh, hold out for a time machine! The pocket dimension won't help with the theatre trips plan.

Good point!