dirac

I thought the idea was that it didn't need to apply to Freddy - Eliza is merely taking her frustration about Henry Higgins out on him because he's an easier target. At least in the "My Fair Lady' interpretation (as opposed to 'Pygmalion). But it's never been my favourite part. I think you're right, Ostrich. Freddy's just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I was referring to the unfortunate nasal whine she had at the time of "Dancers," which comes quite close to wrecking the movie and was apparently the subject of some concern on the set, but I guess it was too late to do anything about it. Fortunately the problem was cleared up by the time of "Center Stage," much to this filmgoer's relief. That's right. I forgot about that. Heckroth won an Oscar for his work on The Red Shoes, along with Arthur Lawson who also worked on the set design.

Quiggin writes: Like Yul Brynner, going on and on and on. I understand the whole Kay Kendall business was more convoluted than Rattigan knew, or let on. Harrison was a piece of work, all right. We haven’t talked about him much, but Day-Lewis is an.....interesting choice for Higgins.

Thanks, sidwich, that's very helpful.

Bardem certainly looked better on paper - I wonder what the 'exhaustion' business was about, it's one of those generic explanations that could mean anything -- but Day-Lewis could be good, too. Somebody tell me about Fergie.

I never thought of that, but I think you're right!

I had the same experience, PeggyR. LOTR is certainly a classic, just not my kind of classic, I guess. I enjoyed the movies, oddly enough. Major Mel may have some tips for us in the best way to approach the books. I couldn't get through Silas Marner either, Ostrich. In fact, I don't like any Eliot novel as much as I do Middlemarch, which I love.

I agree, but it wasn’t just that Knightley was the star and accordingly favored – Atonement was presented primarily as a romance, which it’s far from being – the British Costume Drama of the season. The new Brideshead Revisited has been remade in much the same way, only more radically (although Atonement was much better as a film). I’d settle for an illegitimate one, as they say in Victor/Victoria. Blunt is an excellent choice – she has the acting chops for Shaw. I gather this will be a non-musical, but I wouldn’t be against choosing Blunt for a musical version and dubbing her. Knightley is still very young and she has time to improve, but I agree she’s getting an awful lot awfully soon. Usually even if I don’t like a star I can see why others do, but in Knightley’s case I’m somewhat baffled. The camera loves her, true. (I'm not Gwyneth Paltrow's biggest fan I think she was a much better actor than Knightley when she was Knightley's age. You could see what the fuss was about.) Most actresses have difficulty with this. However, the fault may not lie with our stars – Kenneth Tynan said it was Shaw’s fault, the early Eliza is horribly overwritten and exaggerated. I think it’s safe to say that if it’s awkward for Hiller it would be awkward for anyone. Hepburn was quite wrong for the part, though. In 1938 he was too young and callow, but the Harrison of, say, “Unfaithfully Yours” as Higgins would have been something to see. It's not that he's bad in the film - he's superb - just a little too practiced, and too old, for my taste. That's right, and as I remember Shaw's preface it's clear that Doolittle's speeches were at least as important to him as anything else in the play.

Lerner eventually admitted – after many years of claiming he’d developed new scenes for the musical from incidents only talked about in the play – that the script of the old film was his blueprint. I knew the play and the old movie version first, which I suppose is unusual these days. We did the play in high school and our drama teacher showed us the old movie – where he got it I’ll never know – deliberately steering us away from the musical. (He had nothing against it, he just thought the old film was better as a whole, and years later I still agree with him.) I like the movie of “My Fair Lady” just fine, although it’s bloated and overlong - some scenes just go on forever. I suppose Leslie Howard is not as good as Harrison, but I like him better because he’s in the right age bracket to make the implied romance more believable, and it’s always nice to be reminded that he could be funny. Also, he hadn’t been playing the role for years and years before the shoot and his performance is the fresher for it. The old movie also has the great Marie Lohr as Higgins’ mother, and Rupert Brooke’s old flame Cathleen Nesbitt makes an appearance. Hiller is just wonderful. No, there is not. Sickening. I'm ready to put a contract out on the lassie. Well, she was okay in Atonement.

Thanks, aurora, I forgot about "Dancers." Yes, it's worth seeing, of course, but I was a little disappointed by the performance of Giselle (Ferri & Baryshnikov). It also has a very young Julie Kent, exquisitely beautiful. (She doesn't dance, but boy, does she ever talk.)

Daniel Day-Lewis is going to lead the cast:

Emma Thompson is set to write the screenplay for a projected remake of “My Fair Lady,” evidently a non-musical one: http://www.broadway.com/gen/Buzz_Story.aspx?ci=569051 I was wondering what was meant by "additional material" until I saw the quote from Thompson. After all, Lerner's book is so close to Shaw - more specifically, so close to the film adaptation starring Wendy Hiller and Leslie Howard - that it's possible to question his credit line. On the other hand, if it's not a musical, and it doesn't seem to be, why not call it a remake of Pygmalion and have done with it, even with the extra material?

“Anne of Green Gables” gets a prequel. Review in The Guardian. Hmmm.

No, thank God. I think you're right about that.

This is really interesting news. I hope someone sees this performance and reports on it.

We would have to add “The Company” to that list, as well, I think. “Center Stage” is no masterpiece, but it’s also a ballet-centered film. There's also "Nijinsky" with George de la Pena and Leslie Browne, and the curio "Spectre of the Rose." Well, “The Red Shoes” had a director of distinction, Michael Powell (with an assist from his Archers partner Emeric Pressburger) and a great cinematographer in Jack Cardiff. Herbert Ross was a very good journeyman director but not someone with a lot of visual imagination. I think some of the excerpts in The Turning Point were well chosen, although the movie as a whole was a disappointment, especially considering the people involved (Ross, Nora Kaye, Arthur Laurents, all talented people with a real grasp of the subject matter). “ The Red Shoes” ballet-within-a-film is pretty long, but there’s relatively little real dancing in it. Moira Shearer said later that she liked her dance sequences in “The Tales of Hoffmann” better, because she could really dance. It’s fascinating to watch, though. The other dance excerpts in “The Red Shoes” are very good, and I always get a kick out of the bit of “Swan Lake” that shows us what Shearer sees as she spots her turns – and there’s a cameo from Marie Rambert, no less. Thank you for the pictures, rg. The DVD of “The Red Shoes” has some nice memorabilia, provided by Martin Scorsese from his own collection - he loves the movie.

Certainly The Mayor of Casterbridge has a dramatic story, Ostrich. A lot of people can’t get through Middlemarch, a favorite of mine. Go figure.

Hmmm... that may have been true for Slick, but it certainly hasn't been true for a host of pop stars past and present. Martin Scorsese had to do some judicious cutting to ensure that a certain eminent rock star featured in The Last Waltz didn't have a big cocaine drip coming out of his nose, to take only one example. Being high doesn't necessarily make you non-functioning, especially when you're younger. There's self medication, there's debauchery, there's having a good night out...there are many different ways and degrees of drug use as there are of drinking.

Oh, why not? I loved that show! You may well be right in your other points about the movie, miliosr. Maybe I will get to it next weekend, but then I said that about Mamma Mia! last time.

sandik, I resorted to the same expedient with The Mayor of Casterbridge in high school. I never did get around to trying the book again and perhaps I should.

Now that's a surprise -- which makes me want to read the second book. Thanks, canbelto. Not a surprise to anyone who followed Sills' career....

There'd be no shame in it even without the kid factor.

BBC photo gallery.

I can't point you anywhere specific, but something that comes up regularly in discussions and interviews related to Nureyev's defection is the way the dancers were encouraged to spy on each other when abroad, reporting on when their colleagues left the hotel, when they came back, who they were with, etc. Gennady Smakov's book, "The Great Russian Dancers" if I'm recalling the title correctly, has some details on who was In, who was Out, and how some dancers fell out of favor.

Thanks, aurora. Going to YouTube isn't yet second nature for me.