Sunset

You find me in a reflective, nay pensive mood this evening. I have driven back from Spridlington, a village north of Lincoln, a beautiful and quiet place. As I drove back towards Mansfield, which is neither beautiful nor quiet, I was driving towards the setting sun and its vivid red colours filled the evening sky, painting the Trent valley with its majestic splendour.

As I drove along I was listening to some music and watching the changing scenery and thinking about this day - a day that has involved so many actions that if I were to list them it would take hours - from sitting up in bed, making a cup of tea, brushing my teeth, climbing into the car, talking, walking, laughing....

We take it for granted that we can do these things with differing degrees of ability and taking into account our age, our flexibility, any illnesses or injuries we have - yes, we take it for granted.

I conduct many funeral ceremonies for people who have suffered with dementia and Alzheimer's, it is a terrible disease, your mind turning to mush whilst your body carries on regardless. Today I carried out a funeral for a lady who had suffered a disease which is much worse - motor neurone disease.

The process is very cruel as you may well know - your mind stays sharp whilst your body slowly grinds to a halt - I can't think of anything worse. You end up unable to carry out any of the simple actions that I took for granted all day.

I know this is not a very cheery blog but I don't feel very cheery, even a beautiful sunset couldn't lift my spirits - and I doubt the bottle of Pinot I am about to tackle will ease the the situation - but at least I can open the bottle, lift the glass and swallow the wine.

If you want to know more about MND - click here.

Calling Doctor Lector

Greetings to my tiny band of perfectly formed followers  - I need to ask you a question.

What do you believe?

We are fast approaching the time when you will be asked to complete the census - sadly the Biblical requirement to travel to the place of our birth to be counted is no longer part of the process, which is probably the only reason that I would ever have re-visited Wisbech - capital of the Fens.

On the day of the census the head of the household will record all sorts of information and we will therefore all have to tell the state where we are and what we do and how many times a week we flush the toilet. We will also be asked what we believe, what faith do we belong to. This is where I get a little niggled and would like to stock up on fava beans and chianti - I don't think my faith or lack of it, is the  business of the state.

What will happen is that many will tick the Christian box because it's a default UK position - many who tick the box never go to church, never prayer, never watch Songs of Praise, never buy Daniel O'Donnell CD's and will be the worst hypocrites on the face of the planet.

The Hindu, the Sikh, the Muslim, the Jew, the Buddhist, the Rastafarian, the Jedi will all tick their boxes and those with no faith can tick the no faith option and we will end up with a list of figures which people will then use to argue that religion is dead or alive or wounded...

The information will be used to support the entrenched positions already occupied by fundamentalists of all creeds, including atheist.

So what good will it do? None.

Why can't we let faith be a private thing? Why can't we accept that some people change their mind according to life experiences?

What I believe today I may not believe tomorrow.

It's about as much use as asking what football team you support or what is your favourite colour.

So, followers of the Guru, bend to my will and on the day of the census draw a new box on the form and give it the title 'mind your own bleeding business!'.

There we go, just a quickie this morning - I am having my ears lowered and I have miles to go before I sleep...

See you soon dear ones.

Whatever Florrie Wants....

So, here we are again dear hearts - and after a swift kick up my blogging arse I return to a daily ramble full of intelligent comment and drivel.

It was a reuniting with Florrie that finally pushed me back over the edge into ego-world and to be frank it was not a moment too soon as my head is full of rubbish that needs sharing.

I enjoyed talking about movies and so on but it would seem that my reminiscences are not as well received as my ramblings.

Florrie was visiting our humble part of the globe from her chateau 'darn sarf' to help celebrate the 50th birthday of my sister in law Susan. It was a gathering of 34 people, family members and friends, who scoffed their way through piles of goats cheese, roast beef and a rather phallic looking fish mousse, whose positioning between two potatoes made more than a few ladies blush and a few men laugh out loud.

There were also various sweet treats plus several bottles of Rioja or Chablis depending on your taste.

A nice meal, good company and then a wonderful chocolate birthday cake which did not sport fifty candles due to the fire risk - instead one huge candle that should have come with its own semi clad fireman according to Mrs B.

This was only one part of the birthday celebrations, because very much like the Queen (whose hair style Sue copies very closely) there had been a second and earlier celebration held at Jamie Oliver's new restaurant in Nottingham. It was very nice too but we didn't have phallic fish or candles, these were saved for Sunday.

Anyway, Florrie told me off for not writing a blog she liked - and so throughly chastened I reunite my blogging muscles with the dark recesses of my mind and bring you - rubbish - endless witless, rubbish.


Fortunately I have things to say today - the car has been making a sort of quiet banging noise and I thought I better get it seen to before it becomes louder and more expensive. You will be glad to know that even a gentle, restful almost melodic little bang can cost you an arm and a leg - ask Paul McCartney.

Mrs B needs a new car but that again will be relegated in the list of purchases as I sell a kidney to pay for the repairs of my own sweet chariot.

I got home at about 10.30am, having avoided the news all morning, and settled down to watch The Oscars, which I had recorded. It was a very bad show, the hosts were young and pretty and not up to the job - they allowed Kirk Douglas on stage and I thought he would never go - he'll be back next year as one of the faces in the montage of dearly departed luvvies though.

Colin Firth won - surprise, Natalie Portman won - surprise, Melissa Leo said a rude word - no fucking surprise - the whole thing was awful and then they brought out a children's choir to sing Somewhere Over The Rainbow and I suddenly had the urge to join the Foreign Legion. I resisted though, because I wanted to watch Bargain Hunt.

Well not much else to say today, so I will make my goodbyes and head off to start worrying about tomorrows blog - thanks for that Florrie!

Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid!

This weeks meander began with Sir Christopher Lee being honoured at the Bafta Film Awards with a Fellowship, for his achievement in film and a career spanning almost seventy years. He holds the record of completing 266 films since 1948,many of which are blockbusters like Lord of the Rings, but for me Christopher Lee was Hammer Horror, with his friend Peter Cushing, they bring back some wonderful scary memories.

Sir Christopher Lee
Bafta 2011

Throughout the history of cinema, shock and horror have been a regular part of our film diet. These days the pretty boy vampires and werewolves of the Twilight Saga rule the roost but in years gone by the monsters were a little less boyish but still had a strong sexual element in their portrayal, epitomised by Lee as Dracula.

As a youngster I always loved scary films, I would watch Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff all day and perfected pretty good imitations of their voices.

The Tingler

There were always scary films on late night television, I seem to recall Friday nights being a favourite time to sit up and enjoy such classics as The Tingler with Vincent Price.

The names I remember are not just those of the great stars, but the supporting actors too who added a sense of menace and usually met a grisly and gruesome end - some had faces that just suited horror films. Peter Lorre, George Zucco, Henry Daniel, Lionel Atwill as well as spooky ladies like Maria Ouspenskaya.

Vincent Price as Dr Phibes

In Great Britain I had the great fortune to be born at a time when Hammer Horror was still producing great films - starring Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee and great supporting stars like Thorley Walters Andrew Keir, Francis Matthews and Ingrid Pitt.







Vincent Price would also surface in the UK to make such wonderful films as Theatre of Blood and The Abominable Dr Phibes.

But let me take you back to the glory days of black and white horror, the wonderful films that were made by Universal including definitive adaptations of Dracula, Frankenstein, The Wolf Man and The Mummy.

During the 1930’s and 1940’s we see the production of films that are still watched to this day and still clearly influence new films treading this familiar path - but for me they never made a better film of Frankenstein than the one James Whale made in 1931.

Perhaps you have seen the film Gods and Monsters, starring Sir Ian McKellan, which looks at the life of Whale after his star had faded, but it reminded a new generation of film goers to have another look at the classic film. Beautifully shot it is a haunting tale which contains both pathos and shock - too much shock for the time as certain scenes were banned for many years.

Karloff 

Boris Karloff acts his heart out under all that make up and it all can be clearly seen in his eyes - the pain, the torment of the creature and yet the yearning to be something more that an assemblage of human pieces.

Lugosi

I really cannot recommend the film highly enough and once you have seen it I’m sure you will feel like watching Dracula too - Bela Lugosi giving his Eastern European heritage full rein as he mesmerizes Helen Chandler as Mina Harker. Also produced in 1931, the film was directed by Tod Browning but produced by Carl Laemmle Jnr, the producer of Frankenstein and The Mummy (1932).

There had been earlier attempts to film these classic horror stories and we must also recall the various versions of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde that have popped up from time to time - but as a boy, this was a starting point for a love affair with horror which stays with me to this day.

When the mantle (or cape) was passed to Christopher Lee, we saw Dracula in a new light and in Technicolor - Kensington gore running down the necks and décolletage of a series of buxom ladies such as Barbara Shelley, Madeline Smith and Linda Hayden.

Lee as Dracula

Of course Lee needed a new cape because Lugosi had been buried in his after he died in 1956, a shadow of his former self and a man who was perhaps re-born for us all after Martin Landau portrayed the old actor in Tim Burton’s Ed Wood (1994) although his family would be quick to tell you that the portrayal was far from accurate - well it is the movies.



Burton also employed Lee in several of his films and admitted that actors like Lee were a staple of his youth, actors who knew how to control the horror and not allow the horror to overtake the performance.

Cushing

Lee is by all accounts a very nice man, as were his friends Cushing and Price. Cushing the eternal Van Helsing or Baron Frankenstein, Price the master of gothic American horror - each man giving countless performances with great heart.

As an aside, to see the two sides of one actors work I would suggest you watch Vincent Price in The Masque of the Red Death (1964) and then The Whales of August (1987) two brilliant and totally different characters painted by a talented actor.

Modern horror films seem to rely an awful lot on how bloody and brutal they can make the deaths, whereas with the films I recall it was the suspense and the shock that really made you jump - and in writing this blog I feel myself wanting to watch The House That Dripped Blood or Tales From the Crypt...but I might wait until Friday night!

Sleep well my children, and do not fear the darkness - but perhaps what the darkness conceals...
Evil Laughter

Lee, Price & Cushing

Me Tarzan, You Rebecca!

It’s amazing that in starting this journey through the dark winding cobweb strewn back passages of my mind, that I have rediscovered so many joys from my childhood years...this week it was all those wonderful Tarzan films starring Johnny Weissmuller.

What started me on this particular trail was recalling the name Henry Stephenson.

Henry Stephenson

Henry Stephenson was a dignified British character actor who at the time he appeared in the film Tarzan Finds A Son (1939) was almost 70. Not the most familiar of names but a face that would pop up in many films from Captain Blood (1935) to Oliver Twist (1948) - in which he played the kindly Mr Brownlow with Sir Alec Guinness as Fagin and Robert Newton as Bill Sikes.

Thinking of Henry Stephenson got me reflecting on other British and US character actors from that era and the flood gates opened - Sir C Aubrey Smith, Sir Cedric Hardwicke, Nigel Bruce, Dame Judith Anderson, Gladys Cooper, Reginald Denny, George Sanders.

Johnny Weissmuller

But I’m leaping ahead, let me return to the beginning - Henry Stephenson appeared in two of the twelve Tarzan films made by Weissmuller, the former Olympic swimmer who filled the role and the loin cloth from 1932 until 1948. In both movies Stephenson played a character who was ennobled, Sir Guy Henderson and Sir Thomas Lancing, and this is what actors like Stephenson gave to the cinema - they gave gravitas and a sense of class - it balanced the crassness and brashness of some of the new stars like Weissmuller.

As a boy, a chance to watch or re-watch a Tarzan film was never missed, mostly to see the antics of Cheetah the chimpanzee of course. Weissmuller was a very athletic man and according to the biography of Esther Williams, he did not reserve that ability just for playing Tarzan!

Ably supported by Maureen O’Sullivan as Jane and Johnny Sheffield as Boy, the hero battled angry natives, angry lions, angry crocodiles, angry snakes and also angry Nazis. Guess who won?
And who could forget one of the most iconic sounds in film history....Tarzan Calling!

This sound was claimed by Weissmuller as his own, but we know now it was created in a studio by Douglas Shearer, a sound recordist.

The making of the Tarzan films gave the studios a chance to use loads of stock footage and as they were cheap to make and had a good audience response, they were steadily churned out over the course of 16 years until Weissmuller handed the loin cloth and swinging vine duties to Lex Barker and Gordon Scott.

There was also room for lots of great character actors to make appearances, like Sig Ruman, Neil Hamilton, Henry Wilcoxon, Barton MacLane, Maria Ouspenskaya and the aforementioned Sir C Aubrey Smith.

C Aubrey Smith

Smith had been a cricketer, a victorious England Captain no less,  and he carried this love of the game to America where he was quite insistent that any British actors come along and join the Hollywood Cricket Club. With roles in films as diverse as The Crusades, The Prisoner of Zenda and And Then There Were None, he also played Jane’s father in Tarzan The Ape Man (1932).

Now stay with me because the connections are going to get a bit convoluted...

Tom Conway

Tom Conway was an actor who will
probably ring no bells in the minds of anyone reading this blog - but for me Tom Conway is a name I recall for a couple of reasons. Firstly he was the brother of George Sanders, who he closely resembled, and secondly he starred as The Falcon, taking over the role from his brother and making a series of quite good mystery thrillers. Conway starred in two Tarzan films, one with Weissmuller and one with Lex Barker - he was suave, there is not other word to describe him - suave.

Of course  this was a family trait because his younger brother, Sanders, was the epitome of the suave English gentleman even though he was born in Russia. He may have been born in Russia but it was to British parents who repatriated him to England at the start of the Russian revolution.

George Sanders

If you have not heard or do not recall George Sanders, let me remind you that it was he who provided the voice of Shere Khan the Tiger in The Jungle Book (1967).

Sanders would become a regular in Hollywood and British cinema across 40 years until he committed suicide at the age of 65. He left a most revealing note which read:

‘Dear World, I am leaving because I am bored. I feel I have lived long enough. I am leaving you with your worries in this sweet cesspool. Good luck.’

He did leave behind a wonderful collection of performances, usually the cad or the villain and an especially smooth performance in the film Rebecca (1940).

And so we arrive at our final destination for today, a film that is still watched and enjoyed the world over, Hitchcock making his first film in America but a very British story and a film stuffed with great British character actors including the aforementioned C Aubrey Smith plus Dame Judith Anderson, Nigel Bruce and starring Laurence Olivier and Joan Fontaine.

Joan Fontaine is the younger sister of Olivia De Havilland, both still alive at the respective ages of 93 and 94. The only sisters to win Best Actress Oscars, they were both nominated in 1942 when Fontaine’s win was the start of an alleged falling out between them.

Joan Fontaine and Judith Anderson
in Rebecca (1940)

The one iconic role in the film that I recall above all others is that of Mrs Danvers played with controlled malice by Dame Judith Anderson. Listen to her here trying to persuade Fontaine to commit suicide...
Dame Judith Anderson as Mrs Danvers

Dame Judith - T'Lar

Dame Judith was an Australian who was a renowned stage actress before moving to films. A string of great performances followed topped off for me by her portrayal of the Vulcan High Priestess T’Lar in Star Trek:The Search for Spock. She was 86 and from every wonderful wrinkle shone a life of acting greatness.

Anyway, there we have it, from Tarzan to Rebecca and all because of Henry Stephenson, a man forgotten by many - but not by me.