dirac

I have very few memories of any of these gentlemen from their television work. I do recall Culp in Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice. Graves, like Leslie Nielsen, achieved a form of cinematic immortality playing it straight for the Zuckers in the "Airplane!" series and other Zucker opuses. Graves, of course, was Captain Oveur ("Dunn was over Unger, and I was over Dunn"; "Joey, have you ever been in a Turkish prison?").

Thanks for this, cubanmiamiboy. Always a pleasure to read your reviews.

Thanks for posting, Mme. Hermine. Ms. Thebom was ninety-four.

I accepted her in High Noon and The Country Girl although the first is apprentice work and she's too pretty for the second. Her range as an actress doesn't seem to have been especially wide and even in 'upper class' roles she shows certain limitations. But, you know, who cares. Daisy might have been a very good part for her, though - hadn't thought of that one. The Swan is one of those movies I'd like to like more but can't quite. Kelly and Guinness have a wonderful rapport, though.

Hi, Jayne. Thanks for starting the topic. The subject has come up before, I think, so if you're interested in what others have said in the past try a search with "accents," but there's always room for more discussion! Regarding the NYT article, I would say an American hearing British actors "doing" Americans is going to be more sensitive to imperfections, and vice versa. Also, what bothers some people won't necessarily disturb others. I tend to remember the vividness and immediacy of Winger's acting in An Officer and a Gentleman and not her accent, for example, but that's me. Probably the people who suffer most from having to listen to bad accents are audience members born south of the Mason-Dixon line, who have to listen to the all purpose "Southern" accents so often deployed by actors on both sides of the Atlantic.

A link to the famous Howell Conant photograph of a bare-shouldered Kelly in the water. It was a departure for its time, a cover girl picture taken without obvious artifice. Note that Kelly’s head is at a slight angle; this was to downplay her square jaw. Nobody is quite perfect.

I'd say Mature wasn't so much a bad actor as a nonactor. As Mashinka says he had sincerity. I thought he was perfect as Samson, though. (He made a few good noirs at Fox, too.) And I will say this for Heston, he may lack charm but very few actors could stand in the middle of those giant spectacles and not be totally overpowered. I thought that Troy was pretty awful, not even enjoyable as camp, although I like the "What's your name, kid? Aeneas?" bit at the end - I guess someone was preparing the ground for a sequel. I grew up with the Mary Renault books and she loved Alexander. In some ways his father Philip is a more attractive character based on what we know but back then war wasn't a moral issue and going out to conquer the world was considered a pretty splendid thing to do even if a lot of people got hurt along the way. Alexander could be savage if you tried to fight him but in other respects he wasn't so bad. That's a good question. I would say that the Biblical Spectacular is a separate genre but there is some overlap, as with J.C.'s special guest appearances in Ben-Hur. The De Mille Ten Commandments is still shown on network television in prime time every year, which is remarkable when you think about it.

I never got around to reading the Hampton play but I did understand that many thought like you, Mashinka, that the film was an improvement. It's a very fluid piece of filmmaking, especially for a costume drama. For some reason those tend to be on the clunky side even when they're good.

Thanks for telling us about these. The De Meyer photographs of Nijinsky are amazing.

Interesting topic, iczerman. I tend to agree with this: Are there other scenes out there that BTers regard as special challenges for ballerinas or danseurs?

I enjoyed reading that, innopac. Food for thought there.

The Olivier Hamlet has a number of big cuts, the most well known being the elimination of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, and as I remember Oliver also omits Fortinbras arriving at the end to clean up the mess. It's probably the least well regarded of his Shakespeare films today but it looks better and better to me over the years. I wouldn't say it's stagey, rather the reverse - Olivier keeps his camera so busy roving around the castle that one wishes he'd hold still for a minute. Hamlet was never considered one of Olivier's best roles but I liked him very much. The Branagh Hamlet goes the whole hog, four hours long, and I wanted to like it more than I did. I agree with sidwich that his Henry V is generally wonderful. It doesn't hit the peaks of Olivier's film but it doesn't have the lows, either. Branagh isn't quite up to the St. Crispin's Day speech, which Olivier hits out of the park, but he's more than good and his supporting cast is generally superior to Olivier's.

Thanks for posting the article, Mashinka. The sword and sandal movie actually did go away from the multiplex for some time until the success of Gladiator revived the genre on the big screen and the small. Spartacus is a very good movie, great cast, althought it's never been a big favorite of mine. It was more ambitious than other movies of this type, another attempt at the Sweeping Epic with a Brain in its Head. Kubrick did direct after Kirk Douglas, possibly unwisely, fired Anthony Mann. Because Dalton Trumbo was still on the blacklist Kubrick offered helpfully to take credit for the screenplay as well, but Douglas nixed that idea. The trend to more dirt and blood has been with us for awhile, too. There's a new cable show called "Spartacus: Blood and Sand" and going by the trailers the title is accurate. The Heston Ben-Hur is a crashing bore - I tend to tune out after the triumph for the Roman general Ben-Hur rescues at sea - but the silent version with Ramon Novarro isn't so bad. It's much livelier and doesn't go on for nearly as long. I like Novarro, which helps - he's a far more engaging presence than the likes of Heston or Douglas (they're much more in the line of Francis X. Bushman). As the article says, the Alexander the Great with Burton is a turkey, but I don't know if a really good feature film on Alexander is possible. It would have to be a television miniseries, I think. You would sacrifice in spectacle but gain in coherence. Filmmakers tend to assume that because Alexander died young they can squeeze everything into two or three hours, and they assume wrong.

Just listening to him sing "Ma France."

A well deserved honor.

Hello, Richka. Although dance books come up in this forum as people post about what they're reading, the place for more extensive discussion of dance books is the Writings on Ballet forum. You might try there looking there. Thank you to everyone for keeping this thread going.

Thanks for the article, Mashinka. Walsh sounds as if he's pretty far gone. Kelly was a beautiful woman and a decent actress. I love looking at her. She was certainly the perfect 50s mannequin. She also has a distinctive and appealing voice, like many great stars. Rear Window is her best picture, I think.

I don't see why not. I'm sure a clever arranger could come up with something pretty. They could do a medley of Sondheim's hit.

She's ubiquitous on our TV screens in the States, as well, on PBS at any rate. Good for her.

Thanks, SanderO.

No law against starting a new topic.

That's interesting, cubanmiamiboy. Thanks for posting it. You never know where you'll find these tidbits.

Off topic: I too love to hate The Competition. Remick charges through it, Sam Wanamaker is fabulous and I would cheerfully sign up for duty as one of his conductor groupies, and you can pass the time trying to decide whether Dreyfuss or Irving is more annoying. The pianos are gorgeous.

Thanks for the info.

One of the drawbacks of Wiseman's method that he makes a point of not following up on remarks of this kind. You can gloss them any way you want and make educated guesses as to what was meant, but without elaboration they're less than enlightening.