The British New Wave--March 2012 on TCM

[kingrat]

Coming up in March: a year or more ago in a programming challenge I had suggested a month-long tribute to the British New Wave, The TCM programmer replied that several of the ideas in that particular challenge either gave the staff ideas or went along with projects they were working on. Whatever the inspiration, TCM will be highlighting the British New Wave every Monday night.

March 5

Room at the Top
The Entertainer
Saturday Night and Sunday Morning
Morgan: a Suitable Case for Treatment
Victim

March 12

A Kind of Loving
The L-Shaped Room
The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner
A Taste of Honey
Girl With Green Eyes

March 19

This Sporting Life
Billy Liar
The Servant
Seance on a Wet Afternoon
Only Two Can Play

March 26

Kes
Darling
The Pumpkin Eater
The Knack . . . and How To Get It
Petulia

I'm sure we could think of other films we'd like to add to the list. I've never seen The Angry Silence, and would like to see Nothing But the Best again. Still, it should be interesting to see how well these films hold up individually and as a group. I've never seen A Kind of Loving, Morgan, Only Two Can Play, or The Knack, and only the first half of Kes. There certainly are a lot of outstanding performances in these films. By the way, The L-Shaped Room and Seance on a Wet Afternoon have not generally been available on Region 1 DVD, so if you're interested, recording them would be a good idea.

[JackFavell]

I'm really looking forward to Morgan!, The L Shaped Room, and Petulia.... I think I've seen all the others. Oh, that's right, I haven't seen A Kind of Loving either.

The Knack is just great, it's so irreverent, the editing is super. I love the way it looks. The Servant is sensational, though I will probably skip that one - I have to be in the right mood for it. Same with The Entertainer.

I remember seeing Seance on a Wet Afternoon and being icaptivated with it when I was young. I hope it's still good.

I cannot bear Rita Tushingham. I'm sorry! Moira, don't try to convince me I'm wrong, I just can't watch her!

[moirafinnie]

I cannot bear Rita Tushingham. I'm sorry! Moira, don't try to convince me I'm wrong, I just can't watch her!

I like her in some things, but not all, JF.

[charliechaplinfan]

Please everyone watch A Kind of Loving for me, it's filmed around here which is a bonus but it's a lovely movie, one of my favourites.

[JackFavell]

That's the main reason I'm watching, Allison!

[charliechaplinfan]

It's a good reason. I could watch many of these movies again, there's only a couple I haven't seen before, many of them I'd like to watch again.

[MikeBSG]

"Seance on a Wet Afternoon" is very good.

I see that "Hell is a City" is being shown early this morning. It is a terrific British police drama. Very powerful. A movie that should be better known.

[kingrat]

This Monday, the five films to be shown are:

A Kind of Loving
The L-Shaped Room
The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner
A Taste of Honey
Girl With Green Eyes

That includes three unmarried and pregnant young women. Unlike JF, I'm quite fond of Rita Tushingham. I'm eager to see A Kind of Loving and like the other four.

[charliechaplinfan]

Hell is a City is a great movie, I haven't seen Girl With the Green Eyes. A Taste of Honey is worth a look and The L Shaped Room is Leslie Caron away from the trappings of Hollywood, she's very good.

[kingrat]

Whether you like Morgan, a Suitable Case for Treatment (1966, Karel Reisz) probably depends on how you feel about the title character. David Mercer, the playwright and screenwriter, sees Morgan as a lovable if difficult James Dean type, only more significant because he's a would-be artist and a Trotskyite. You'll probably like the film if you think Morgan (David Warner) is cool. Or, maybe, interesting. If you see him as a frightening, obnoxious bully, you won't care for the movie. I'm definitely in the second group. David Warner went on to make a career of playing villains, and to me he's playing one here, although Mercer and Reisz don't think so. Morgan's taste for violence, fortunately for those around him, is undercut by his ineptitude.

Is this the only time Vanessa Redgrave played a dim-witted character? Any number of starlets could have played the role of the rich, feather-brained wife. It's interesting to see Redgrave, who usually played strong, intelligent women, as someone who is quite the opposite.

The film perks up whenever Irene Handl or Robert Stephens takes the screen. Handl, as Morgan's mum, is a hard-working salt of the earth type, familiar from many British movies, except that she spouts Marxist platitudes all the time. Handl plays the role perfectly deadpan and thus gets every bit of hilarity out of the dialogue. She has the best-written part and all the best lines. Robert Stephens usually strikes me as a capable but not very charismatic actor. Here he has plenty of charisma and energy, even though as the middle-class (boo!) gallery owner who's sleeping with Morgan's wife, we're supposed to hate him. The disarming cool with which he handles Morgan's eruption into the gallery won me over completely.

In Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, his first full-length feature, Karel Reisz seems to be a natural. Here he adds trendy and cutesy bits from the New Wave, which may arguably be all that this material deserves. Not a step forward, though it may have looked like one at the time.

[JackFavell]

I love Saturday Night and Sunday Morning. It's my favorite of the new wave films, along with This Sporting Life. Frankly they are very similar.

I saw Morgan last when I was a teen, and I thought it was great then... maybe when you are young, David Warner seems really cool. Now not so much. I think he's a very good actor, but his turn in Time After Time spoilt him for me. Ever since then I immediately envision him as Jack the Ripper.

[moirafinnie]

Tonight's lineup includes the films shown below on TCM:

8:00 PM
Kes (1970)
A young man finds escape from his working-class life training a pet falcon.
Dir: Kenneth Loach Cast: David Bradley , Lynne Perrie , Freddie Fletcher .
C-111 mins, TV-PG, CC, Letterbox Format

10:00 PM
Darling (1965)
A young beauty sacrifices love and happiness to become an international celebrity.
Dir: John Schlesinger Cast: Julie Christie , Dirk Bogarde , Laurence Harvey .
BW-126 mins, TV-MA, CC,

12:15 AM
Pumpkin Eater, The (1964)
A woman drifts through multiple marriages in search of stability.
Dir: Jack Clayton Cast: Anne Bancroft , Peter Finch , James Mason .
BW-110 mins, TV-PG, CC, Letterbox Format

2:30 AM
Knack...And How To Get It, The (1965)
A rampant womanizer tries to help an innocent friend bed an eccentric girl.
Dir: Richard Lester Cast: Rita Tushingham , Ray Brooks , Michael Crawford .
BW-85 mins, TV-PG, CC, Letterbox Format

4:00 AM
Petulia (1968)
A married doctor falls for the young wife of an abusive rich man.
Dir: Richard Lester Cast: Julie Christie , George C. Scott , Richard Chamberlain .
C-105 mins, TV-MA, CC, Letterbox Format

[JackFavell]

kingrat,

How'd you like Term of Trial?

[kingrat]

I liked TERM OF TRIAL when I saw it a couple of years ago. Not just Laurence Olivier and Simone Signoret in good form, but this is the only film in which Sarah Miles looks like a really talented actress to me. Terence Stamp is always welcome. The story actually seems rather timely.

I got around to seeing THE KNACK, which seemed both funny and dated at the same time. I probably laughed more at BEDAZZLED, another one I'd never seen, although the Peter Cook/Dudley Moore script and Stanley Donen's direction didn't seem to have much to do with each other. The Cook/Moore humor is often purely verbal, and the more aggressive directorial choices, like all the shots through windows and gauze, did not point up the humor of the script. The scene with Moore and Cook as dueling pop stars is utterly true, with Moore shouting "Love me! Love me!" and Cook proclaiming utter indifference, which is an even stronger aphrodisiac. My favorite line was the devil's offer to the old lady--if she had enough bottles of the sponsor's product--of "a silver tea service and a night on the town with Alfred Hitchcock." Should the movie be reissued as "Don't Trust the D---- in Apt. 23"?

[JackFavell]

Ha!

I realized I have to be in the mood for Bedazzled, this time it struck me (literally) as so sledgehammery that some of the more funny stuff just comes off like poor Dudley's plea for love. Other times I have loved it.

I like The Knack, I think partly because it's dated. There is something very interesting to me about watching that time period and the ideas in the film. I know it sounds weird, but I feel the same way about Blow Up. It's like a slice of 1965 or 1966. They both feel like a turning point in movies, having to do with rather juvenile men, but the films were becoming more adult or something. I don't know if that makes any sense.

I really liked Term of Trial, which I'd never seen before. The performances were all around perfect, and though the story was somewhat predictable, I loved the ending with Simone Signoret and Olivier pulling a George and Martha reversal. God, Signoret was a great actress. I find her more and more fascinating as I get older. Olivier is at his best here, with no fancy stuff going on.