Ah, Jack Clayton's "The Innocents" (1961), Mort.       I got this, too, from Moviemail (they are in Camden Town) some time ago.   That spooky tune sung over the opening titles by Miles and Flora!  Auric?     Of course, this classic is rarely seen on TV because viewers don't like black and white films.  Such humbug.   I remember seeing it at The Carlton, Haymarket, in cinemascope format - also included on the DVD, albeit 'enhanced' a wee bit.   Clayton's version of 'Sons & Lovers' (1960) is also worth a shufti, too.

Incidentally, once registered, Moviemail will also send you a free monthly catalogue, well illustrated.

Ah, sweet mystery of life, George!     You've reminded me of hilarious lunches with John Laurie at the BBC canteen at North Acton and I used to sit eating and spluttering, alongside lovely Roland Culver, as John held court - completely OTT and indefatigable.  Roland had played an FCO official in "Life & Death of Col Blimp" (1943), John was Murdoch batman to Roger Livesey, and they used to reminisce about 'Micky' Powell,  particularly when he was in a bad mood.   I also remember John's rage when Donald Pleasance had had the temerity to compete with him, several years earlier, for the role of Uncle Ebenezer in a Disney version of 'Kidnapped'. (1960).  Coincidentally, it is on C5, on Sat, 13 Sept at 13.30 hrs.  And John always had a twinkle in his eye.

And Roland's FCO chappie in 'Blimp', interrogating the young Livesey (Blimp).

           A brusque     "1.  What d'y want?   2.  What's it got to do with the Foreign Office?
                              3    I'll tell you.     4   OUT."

Thanks for that Offbeat. I've missed all the others thanks to the silly WHSmith arrangement but I'll certainly grab that one!

Once again, bullshit baffles brains.  I managed to get the DVD of 'The Lady Vanishes' (1938) from my local newsagent, this morning; same supplier as 'The 39 Steps' last Sunday.   Apparently, this is because the DVD could be contained within the plastic covers for other miscellaneous magazines, quite a separate matter from the weekday Times which doesn't have 'extras'.

I've looked at the opening titles and, again, the remastered print is pristine.   I'm really looking forward to making the acquaintance of Basil Radford & Naunton Wayne as the eternal FCO chappies, Charters & Caldicott, two cricket-obsessed Englishmen concerned only with getting out of Europe in time for the Test Match.  I also want to put to the test whether I can still approximately, at least, remember Miss Froy's (Dame May Whitty) code breaking tune.   In spite of the menace of the espionage plot, the film is essentially humorous.    It was made at the tiny Islington Studios and was released at about the time of the Munich crisis, becoming one of the high grossing films of 1938.

At this time, West End actors were usually sniffy about appearing in the cinema and knew even less about the required technique if they did.  Later, well into the 1960s, it was considered downright 'vulgar' to do a commercial.   Several star names did lucrative commercials in America, providing they were only screened there, or perhaps, Japan.   Olivier managed to break the taboo after he gave his name to a brand cigarette in the late 1950s.

I've just had a shufti at Michael Redgrave's 1983 biography, In My Mind's Eye (Weidenfeld & Nicholson), and he was quite candid about his initial approach to the craft of filming.   Hitchcock would frequently call "cut" as Redgrave didn't understand that, having done a master shot, he couldn't vary his expression, or gesture, in mid-shot, or close-up, if they didn't match the master shot.

    "I was sitting in the make-up chair on my third morning, brushing the sleep from my eyes, when
     a voice behind me said, 'They tell me this is your first film.   I have made fourteen in Hollywood,
     and boy! is it a grind!'

     It was Paul Lukas, an actor I greatly admired and liked, and in the long waits between each
     set-up, he and I discussed the horrors of film-making.

     One morning, when the film was well adavanced, Paul found me again in the make-up room.
     He came towards me with a severe frown on his face and then, with elaborate courtesy,
     took my hand and kissed it.   English actors are not accustomed to kissing hands at
     seven-thirty in the morning.   The gesture arrested me, as did, even more so, his next remark.
     'You're a real actor!  Why did no one tell me?   I saw you in Three Sisters last night, (Redgrave
      played Baron Tusenbach)  and boy!
     you're a great actor.   But here, my friend, you're not even trying.'
     'No,' I said, as a matter of fact I find it intensely boring.'
     'But, my dear boy, it's all going in the can.   Once the director has taken the last shot of a
     scene it's too late to wish you could do it again.  It's all in the can!'
     From that moment I started to act.   I could not bring myself to see the film until
     15 years later, but when I did I could detect, even at that distance of time, the moment
     when Paul had pulled me up and I had started to try.'

     Fast forward to the early 1970s when I had a bread and butter role in "Justice", a series
     which starred Margaret Lockwood; - a professional, through and through - we sat next to each other in a couple of courtroom scenes.
     Even during set-ups at Yorkshire TV studios, there was little time for chat as she had to
     concentrate on complicated narrative exchanges with young Richard Beckinsale (so talented; so
     young.  He died within the decade).  She remembered 'The Lady Vanishes' with affection
     and, indeed, her earlier Hollywood years as an ingenue, "I spoke..so..WELL" she added with a twinkle.
     Not a trace of the smoky tones of her later years; in fact, very similar to Moira Shearer.
     She confirmed that Redgrave could be rather grand but they developed a good working
     relationship during the filming.

     Peter Willes, Head of Drama at YTV, was also a young actor in Hollywood in Margaret's era.  He often played the snivelling neurotic - he had the right,good looking public school features - and I asked him how he got on with Errol Flynn, Basil Rathbone, David Niven, in the 1938 remake of 'The Dawn Patrol'  - several unprintable anecdotes, but Errol Flynn's seaside house at Santa Monica which he shared with David Niven was called "cirrhosis by the sea"!

Hi, Anty!        Dinsdale Landen.    Yes, a first rate farceur and I don't say that lightly.   It requires enormous facility to play farce and, perhaps, I'll scribble a few notes and open a new thread on the topic.   DL was hilarious as the dude, opposite Frank Finlay, in Ben Travers "Plunder" at the NT in the late 70s.  Sadly, there was no follow-through to his huge success - the elusive luck syndrome - and his career didn't recover.   I used to meet up with a few thesps after a stroll on the Heath - occasionally a farcical site in itself! - before having a jug in a Hampstead pub.   Dinsdale would sometimes be there in warmhearted mode, behind the lugubrious disposition, and this, too, can be the chemistry for playing farce.  Sadly, he is no longer with us.     See you on another thread on this topic.   

Dear Stanley,

Get thee behind me Satan!    £17.99 for 15 movies?  <swoon, shock horror!)

I do recall Marnie and enjoying it when it was broadcast a few years back.

Did Hitch have fantasies about Grace Kelly?

Anty, Hitch was besotted by Grace Kelly and Ingrid Bergman, although I'd rather not engage with his fantasies!   What about the 360 degree kaleidoscopic camera shot of Ingrid and Cary Grant in a clinch in "Notorious" (1946) - another essential acquisition.    And the phallic symbol as the train, in long shot,  zooms into the tunnel, as Grant & Eva Marie Saint converge at the end of "North by North West".

Ollie, 'The Third Man' and 'Shadow of a Doubt' as a double-bill?    A consummation devoutly to be wished - I only have to reach for my shelves.       On the matter of double-bill features, my scribbled notes for a thread include MY fantasy double bill which I'm now about to transfer to DVD.   I've been reading the Letters of Dirk Bogarde and a reference to his work with Alain Resnais on "Providence" - the time and memory lapses - set me on a quest for my off-air video, as the film has virtually disappeared.   I terrify my neighbours with shouts of 'Eureka' as I also came across, in the same batch, Claude Sautet's 1992 'Un Coeur en Hiver' - the Ravel Piano Trio on the soundtrack (it was new to me at the time) and this story of a threesome is quite exquisite.   

Well spotted, Ollie.    When "North by North West" was first shown, in 1959, - I saw it at The Empire, Leicester Square, - there wasn't a trace of irony at the obvious phallic symbol.   However, when I saw it again at the NFT, in the 70s, the cinema erupted at the, er, climax!      And isn't Bernard Herrmann's score a real classic?    Hitchcock became jealous and this created a breach in their relationship.   Steven C Smith wrote a fine biography of B.H. 'A Heart at Fire's Centre'; The Life of Bernard Herrmann (1991) University of California Press.