On Tuesday evening I watched the second part of the Robson Green Swim in which he went on a swimming expedition around the UK before tackling the swim from the Northumberland coast to Holy Island a journey usually tackled at low tide by the causeway which links the island to the mainland. I have always liked Robson Green from North Shields and watched his TV career with enjoyment which for me started with his performances of Soldier Soldier. I bought the CD which he made with Jerome Flynn, fellow actor in the series was made after the success of the Unchained Melody which they sang in one episode.
His most popular series since have been Touching Evil and Wire in the Blood. He has also featured in a documentary series Wild Fishing where he has travelled the world bring the sport to public attention. The two programme series which ended this evening explained why the task was important to him as a tribute to his father, a coal miner, who had taught him to swim and would think nothing of going into the North sea for swim in his trunks at 10 degrees. In the build up to the two miles distance swim he undertook of pleasurable experiences such as a midnight swim in Oxford and in the Cam at Cambridge as well as a Rock pool on the South West Coast. He tackled a low temperature swim in Wales and a whirl pool in Scotland. He was taught strength swimming by a woman who prepares those who want to swim across the Channel between England and France. He camped by and swam in Loch Ness and publicised the Lido as well as a private swimming club. He had to be rescued from the cold of the Tyne River and went into shock having completed the task. The closing shot is of a swim with his son, following in his own father and son footsteps. Courage is the twin of fear and one cannot exist without the other.
Over the weekend I watched a comparatively unknown excellent film called- I died a thousand deaths with Jack Palance and Shelley Winters. The story was first brought to the screen in 1941 as High Sierra with Humphrey Bogart and Ida Lupino. The film was written by John Huston with W Burnett and directed by Raol Walsh. The main character is a professional criminal Roy Earle whose early release from prison is arranged by a crime boss Big Mac because he wants Earle to lead a jewellery and cash robbery at a major hotel in an early Palm Springs type of resort located in the desert close to the High Sierra mountains.
Earle encounters a family of unsuccessful dirt farmers on their way to Los Angeles to stay with a daughter and her family. They have with them their grand daughter who is an attractive young nineteen year old affected by a club foot. She represents everything he is not and becomes attracted to her. She welcomes his interest especially when he offers for her to have an operation but is then humiliated when he discovers that she has only contempt for his interest and wants to be able to impress a boyfriend from back east who her family had tried break the interest fearing his interest was not serious given that she poor and disabled and his family was rich.
Earl finds that his companions in the forthcoming crime are two inexperienced petty criminals and an inside man whose ability to carry out his part is in doubt. In this version a young Cornel Wilde played the Hotel reception manager. Until the right time the robbers hide out in a cabin camp where one of them has brought a girl friend picked up from a dance hall and she falls in love with Earl who takes no interest and wants her to be sent packing. At the camp an attendant has been taken up with a stray dog who then attached himself to Earle. The relationship with the disabled girl and an endearing dog helps to turn what could have been a stock heist film in which the criminals have problems with each other into story where there is some sympathy for the lead criminal and significant more for the female lead who hitches up with him.
While Jack Palance performance as Earle is excellent he is still not in the same league as Humphrey Bogart. I do not remember the performance of Ida Lupino but Shelley Winters while being stock Shelley Winters is like Humphrey Bogart being stock Humphrey Bogart, in other words both could make acting the phone book interesting and anything they do is usually several notches above most actors and usually in a different dimension.
The integrity of the film is that there is no attempt to hide the fact that Earle who tries not to kill or harm bystanders, likes friendly dogs and is kind to the statutory gangster’s moll, is nevertheless a ruthless professional criminal who will do what is necessary to avoid going back to prison. The relationship which develops between Shelley and Palance is credible and moving as it reaches its inevitable climax with the fact that he is travelling with a woman and a dog which answers to the name of Pard leads to them being spotted and the classic manhunt, to him failing to persuade Winters to go her own way she being there when he is corned in the High Sierras and is killed rather than go back to prison.
I also saw part of the Return of the magnificent seven and listen to the Simon Mayo pod cast with Mark Kermode discussing his film reviews anticipating they would do Avatar after listening to the Bring Back Barry Norman Jonathan Ross review on Tuesday evening. The film is reported to have cost between $250 to $300 million dollars and to break new ground in CGI graphics 3D and marks the return of James Cameron after his “I can never beat that achievement” of 11 or was it 12 Oscar wins with Titanic. I will await until the Kermode review before deciding on a live visit.
During theh programme I learnt that I had missed out on the film of the year because I am not into vampire films whether they are about platonic love or sex and that the new Sherlock Holmes film made by Guy Ritchie of Lock Stock and two Barrels and other films to avoid unless inebriated or under twenty five and wanting to take out a bird on a weekend night. The film which raised my hopes is a take on Fellini’s 8 and half which I acquired on DVD as a Christmas present last year and which has been remade as 9 and which features Penelope Cruz as the mistress, Marian Cotillard as his wife and also has Judi Dench, Sophie Lauren, Nicole Kidman, Kate Hudson as lovers and muses of the film Director played by Daniel Day Lewis with a creative blockage but noted the Kermode conclusion that despite this cast of casts it does not add up to an important or memorable film, but I shall still go to see it at the fist opportunity..
On Sunday I switched over late to the Sports Personality of the Year Show because of wanting to watch the end of the Forsyte Saga, an ITV adaptation of the John Galsworthy Trilogy with the first novel published in 1906 and the last two in 1918 and 1920. I do not believe I have read the novels although it is something that I have thought of doing.
In 1967 the BBC turned the trilogy into a 26 episode series which was shown on Saturday evenings on BBC and repeated on Sunday nights causing a furore for two reasons. Its popularity was such that churchmen and publicans complained about the effects it was having on their trade, remembering this was at a time when Pubs were places were people went to drink and perhaps play games such as darts and dominoes, rather than to eat, and the Pub large Screen Sports TV was a thing for a decade or more in the future.
The second reason why the Saga hit the headlines is that it involved a novel in which a married woman left her husband, not for one man but for two and where the precipitating cause of her departure was her marital rape. Not Having read the book I am unaware how these aspects were handled in the writing but even for the swinging sixties it was unique for such subject matter to be highlighted a major popular series. The series brought additional fame for Eric Porter who played Soames the husband, and Nyree Dawn Porter his wife Irene. Irene leaves her husband for the architect designing their new home and after his death she takes up with Phillip Bosinney who is in turn betrothed to the daughter of another Forsyte called Young Joylon, an artist played by the much love Kenneth Moore who had come to the fore in the cinema especially with his portrayal of Douglas Bader, in Reach for the Skies.
The books and the TV series covers several generations from Victorian England, Boer War when war was still considered an adventure for young men and when British society was dominated by the aristocracy and those who had elevated themselves to the upper class through their created wealth, sending their sons to the public schools and the army, and funding their daughters through the London season in the hope of marrying into the landed gentry or uniting with other wealth, political and powerful connections. It was the era when the working class if not still slaving in poverty on the land, were in service or working down the mines or in the new factories with their slum housing and working all hours. Britain was the China and India of today.
Hollywood had attempted to create the atmosphere of the times and the issues in of the first book, Man of Property in 1949 called the Forsyte Women with Greer Garson, Errol Flynn, Walter Pidgeon and Robert Young and which still appears on multi channel TV. It was however the BBC series which brought Galsworthy and the Forsyte’s to the attention of the comparative new TV watching generation.
The main character Soames is as common today as it was then in viewing life as the accumulation of not just of wealth but possession of which a wife and children were part and which the law treated the same as other property. This approach is a fundamental part of all the middle East religions of Jews, Muslims and Christians devised by men and developed for men and which continues to be advocated and practices by the fundamentalists of these faiths today.
I discovered that there were several previous episodes on the ITV player but not all and then that a DVD set was available for under £10. The series had been such an important part of my cultural heritage that I decided to purchase. I will detail my reactions to the series in the New Year. Getting back to the West Wing is taking longer and longer.
Joe was back home on Wednesday signing copies of his singles which is released to stores today. The 500 individuals who obtained wristbands from 8am this morning were invited back into the store for the media covered event. The police attempted to discourage everyone else to stay away. It will be interesting to see what happened.
I finally cracked this week over Christmas goodies and last night I enjoyed a portion of Christmas cake and cheese plus some walnuts cracked from shell. The walnuts were part of a second pack which had been my only indulgence to-date along with a packet of peanuts and raisins .
My evenings have been taken up with three re runs this week, Babylon 5 which has been excellent, and X files which has been so so. The third has been NCIS. The FX channel suggested they were showing a new series so I checked and discovered that have been relaying season 7 on a once a week basis while also showing episodes from an earlier series which I now know went back to the beginning with me catching up at the beginning of this week to last episode of Season 2 number 46 and the death of Caitlin by a Mossad agent who has crossed over to the enemy, son of Mossad deputy Director and half sister of Ziva David who kills him, saving unit head Gibbs and is subsequently assigned to the unit as the replacement or Caitlin. The Unit also a new Director who once Gibbs trained and had become lovers. As two episodes are shown every weekday evening, up to four hours of viewing between six and ten has come to form my evenings this week
I managed to rise this morning to catch the opening of first Test in South Africa and then got on with work and preparations for my Christmas Trip, managing some shopping in the early evening.
His most popular series since have been Touching Evil and Wire in the Blood. He has also featured in a documentary series Wild Fishing where he has travelled the world bring the sport to public attention. The two programme series which ended this evening explained why the task was important to him as a tribute to his father, a coal miner, who had taught him to swim and would think nothing of going into the North sea for swim in his trunks at 10 degrees. In the build up to the two miles distance swim he undertook of pleasurable experiences such as a midnight swim in Oxford and in the Cam at Cambridge as well as a Rock pool on the South West Coast. He tackled a low temperature swim in Wales and a whirl pool in Scotland. He was taught strength swimming by a woman who prepares those who want to swim across the Channel between England and France. He camped by and swam in Loch Ness and publicised the Lido as well as a private swimming club. He had to be rescued from the cold of the Tyne River and went into shock having completed the task. The closing shot is of a swim with his son, following in his own father and son footsteps. Courage is the twin of fear and one cannot exist without the other.
Over the weekend I watched a comparatively unknown excellent film called- I died a thousand deaths with Jack Palance and Shelley Winters. The story was first brought to the screen in 1941 as High Sierra with Humphrey Bogart and Ida Lupino. The film was written by John Huston with W Burnett and directed by Raol Walsh. The main character is a professional criminal Roy Earle whose early release from prison is arranged by a crime boss Big Mac because he wants Earle to lead a jewellery and cash robbery at a major hotel in an early Palm Springs type of resort located in the desert close to the High Sierra mountains.
Earle encounters a family of unsuccessful dirt farmers on their way to Los Angeles to stay with a daughter and her family. They have with them their grand daughter who is an attractive young nineteen year old affected by a club foot. She represents everything he is not and becomes attracted to her. She welcomes his interest especially when he offers for her to have an operation but is then humiliated when he discovers that she has only contempt for his interest and wants to be able to impress a boyfriend from back east who her family had tried break the interest fearing his interest was not serious given that she poor and disabled and his family was rich.
Earl finds that his companions in the forthcoming crime are two inexperienced petty criminals and an inside man whose ability to carry out his part is in doubt. In this version a young Cornel Wilde played the Hotel reception manager. Until the right time the robbers hide out in a cabin camp where one of them has brought a girl friend picked up from a dance hall and she falls in love with Earl who takes no interest and wants her to be sent packing. At the camp an attendant has been taken up with a stray dog who then attached himself to Earle. The relationship with the disabled girl and an endearing dog helps to turn what could have been a stock heist film in which the criminals have problems with each other into story where there is some sympathy for the lead criminal and significant more for the female lead who hitches up with him.
While Jack Palance performance as Earle is excellent he is still not in the same league as Humphrey Bogart. I do not remember the performance of Ida Lupino but Shelley Winters while being stock Shelley Winters is like Humphrey Bogart being stock Humphrey Bogart, in other words both could make acting the phone book interesting and anything they do is usually several notches above most actors and usually in a different dimension.
The integrity of the film is that there is no attempt to hide the fact that Earle who tries not to kill or harm bystanders, likes friendly dogs and is kind to the statutory gangster’s moll, is nevertheless a ruthless professional criminal who will do what is necessary to avoid going back to prison. The relationship which develops between Shelley and Palance is credible and moving as it reaches its inevitable climax with the fact that he is travelling with a woman and a dog which answers to the name of Pard leads to them being spotted and the classic manhunt, to him failing to persuade Winters to go her own way she being there when he is corned in the High Sierras and is killed rather than go back to prison.
I also saw part of the Return of the magnificent seven and listen to the Simon Mayo pod cast with Mark Kermode discussing his film reviews anticipating they would do Avatar after listening to the Bring Back Barry Norman Jonathan Ross review on Tuesday evening. The film is reported to have cost between $250 to $300 million dollars and to break new ground in CGI graphics 3D and marks the return of James Cameron after his “I can never beat that achievement” of 11 or was it 12 Oscar wins with Titanic. I will await until the Kermode review before deciding on a live visit.
During theh programme I learnt that I had missed out on the film of the year because I am not into vampire films whether they are about platonic love or sex and that the new Sherlock Holmes film made by Guy Ritchie of Lock Stock and two Barrels and other films to avoid unless inebriated or under twenty five and wanting to take out a bird on a weekend night. The film which raised my hopes is a take on Fellini’s 8 and half which I acquired on DVD as a Christmas present last year and which has been remade as 9 and which features Penelope Cruz as the mistress, Marian Cotillard as his wife and also has Judi Dench, Sophie Lauren, Nicole Kidman, Kate Hudson as lovers and muses of the film Director played by Daniel Day Lewis with a creative blockage but noted the Kermode conclusion that despite this cast of casts it does not add up to an important or memorable film, but I shall still go to see it at the fist opportunity..
On Sunday I switched over late to the Sports Personality of the Year Show because of wanting to watch the end of the Forsyte Saga, an ITV adaptation of the John Galsworthy Trilogy with the first novel published in 1906 and the last two in 1918 and 1920. I do not believe I have read the novels although it is something that I have thought of doing.
In 1967 the BBC turned the trilogy into a 26 episode series which was shown on Saturday evenings on BBC and repeated on Sunday nights causing a furore for two reasons. Its popularity was such that churchmen and publicans complained about the effects it was having on their trade, remembering this was at a time when Pubs were places were people went to drink and perhaps play games such as darts and dominoes, rather than to eat, and the Pub large Screen Sports TV was a thing for a decade or more in the future.
The second reason why the Saga hit the headlines is that it involved a novel in which a married woman left her husband, not for one man but for two and where the precipitating cause of her departure was her marital rape. Not Having read the book I am unaware how these aspects were handled in the writing but even for the swinging sixties it was unique for such subject matter to be highlighted a major popular series. The series brought additional fame for Eric Porter who played Soames the husband, and Nyree Dawn Porter his wife Irene. Irene leaves her husband for the architect designing their new home and after his death she takes up with Phillip Bosinney who is in turn betrothed to the daughter of another Forsyte called Young Joylon, an artist played by the much love Kenneth Moore who had come to the fore in the cinema especially with his portrayal of Douglas Bader, in Reach for the Skies.
The books and the TV series covers several generations from Victorian England, Boer War when war was still considered an adventure for young men and when British society was dominated by the aristocracy and those who had elevated themselves to the upper class through their created wealth, sending their sons to the public schools and the army, and funding their daughters through the London season in the hope of marrying into the landed gentry or uniting with other wealth, political and powerful connections. It was the era when the working class if not still slaving in poverty on the land, were in service or working down the mines or in the new factories with their slum housing and working all hours. Britain was the China and India of today.
Hollywood had attempted to create the atmosphere of the times and the issues in of the first book, Man of Property in 1949 called the Forsyte Women with Greer Garson, Errol Flynn, Walter Pidgeon and Robert Young and which still appears on multi channel TV. It was however the BBC series which brought Galsworthy and the Forsyte’s to the attention of the comparative new TV watching generation.
The main character Soames is as common today as it was then in viewing life as the accumulation of not just of wealth but possession of which a wife and children were part and which the law treated the same as other property. This approach is a fundamental part of all the middle East religions of Jews, Muslims and Christians devised by men and developed for men and which continues to be advocated and practices by the fundamentalists of these faiths today.
I discovered that there were several previous episodes on the ITV player but not all and then that a DVD set was available for under £10. The series had been such an important part of my cultural heritage that I decided to purchase. I will detail my reactions to the series in the New Year. Getting back to the West Wing is taking longer and longer.
Joe was back home on Wednesday signing copies of his singles which is released to stores today. The 500 individuals who obtained wristbands from 8am this morning were invited back into the store for the media covered event. The police attempted to discourage everyone else to stay away. It will be interesting to see what happened.
I finally cracked this week over Christmas goodies and last night I enjoyed a portion of Christmas cake and cheese plus some walnuts cracked from shell. The walnuts were part of a second pack which had been my only indulgence to-date along with a packet of peanuts and raisins .
My evenings have been taken up with three re runs this week, Babylon 5 which has been excellent, and X files which has been so so. The third has been NCIS. The FX channel suggested they were showing a new series so I checked and discovered that have been relaying season 7 on a once a week basis while also showing episodes from an earlier series which I now know went back to the beginning with me catching up at the beginning of this week to last episode of Season 2 number 46 and the death of Caitlin by a Mossad agent who has crossed over to the enemy, son of Mossad deputy Director and half sister of Ziva David who kills him, saving unit head Gibbs and is subsequently assigned to the unit as the replacement or Caitlin. The Unit also a new Director who once Gibbs trained and had become lovers. As two episodes are shown every weekday evening, up to four hours of viewing between six and ten has come to form my evenings this week
I managed to rise this morning to catch the opening of first Test in South Africa and then got on with work and preparations for my Christmas Trip, managing some shopping in the early evening.
