And a ceiling that's peeling all over the floor
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![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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?
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?
Hardy Krüger
Re: Hardy Krüger
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
Re: Hardy Krüger
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.