The Alan Bates Appreciation Thread

[moira finnie]

Alan Bates with Hayley Mills in the gentle story written by her mother, Mary Bell, Whistle Down the Wind.

I've been wild about the late Alan Bates since seeing him in Whistle Down the Wind (1961) and rediscovered him much later in his virtuoso performance as Butley. I think his ability to express various shades of feeling and thought in one tender, worried or sarcastic look and his verbal fluidity was so underappreciated when he was alive, it breaks my heart to think that many people have no idea who he is today. I hope that his professional contributions in everything as varied as the reserved Englishman in Zorba, The Greek to the free spirit in Georgy Girl to The Fixer to King of Hearts to Women in Love to The Go-Between will be revived someday, at least by drama students, who could learn so much from him. His Vershinin in the filmed version of The Three Sisters directed by Olivier was one of the best versions of Chekov's character I've seen. I suppose that he is not known now so much because he didn't pursue stardom, but appeared to choose most of his roles carefully.

I have a friend who worked at Vogue magazine in a behind the scenes capacity and met him again after 30 years space of time when he was appearing on Broadway near the end of his life. He remembered her, (or at least he made her believe that he did)! She'll never quite get over that kindness.

[charliechaplinfan]

Moira I'd just mentioned Alan Bates on the Richard Harris thread.

I love Alan Bates and he is so underrated. Many of the films you mention have been released over here. I don't know why he isn't rated as highly as Richard Harris, Albert Finney etc he was as good.

You didn't mention what I consider to be his best film A Kind Of Loving. The plot involves him getting his girlfriend pregnant, they aren't really suited by he 'persuaded her' or 'turned her head' and he is a draughtsman, so quite a good catch in the industrial north which is where it is set. The film covers their courtship and shotgun wedding and the aftermath. It has plenty of humour and realism.

It's one of my favorite films of all times and one of the best of the sixties. It resonates with me because it was filmed a few miles away in the time when my parents were courting and got married (not shotgun!)

I think Alan Bates tried to take on a wide range of roles and didn't confine himself to one type. I hope he gets his due. He wasn't a known drinker, like Oliver Reed or Richard Harris, there wasn't any scandal linked to him whilst he was alive, although someone has published a biography that tries to sensationalise the fact that he may have liaisons with men.

[moira finnie]

Thanks for mentioning A Kind of Loving, Alison. I saw it once so long ago, I need to see it again sometime. I believe that it was an early John Schlesinger film. Wasn't Bates also in a kind of flashier Room at the Top type of movie around that time too, called Nothing But the Best with Millicent Martin? His work much later in An Englishman Abroad in which he brilliantly played Guy Burgess trapped in Moscow due to his own complicity, is another movie (for tv) that I forgot to mention.

Sorry to hear about what seems to be a scandalous biography. I'm not sure if it was necessary for someone to cash in on Mr. Bates' private life, especially since there were tragic events, such as his twin son's death in his late teens from asthma and his wife's early death, but it is part of the world we live in, I guess.

[silentscreen]

I've come to a new appreciation of Alan. Thanks to Alison, I've managed to catch two of his earlier films: The Entertainer with Olivier, and A Kind of Loving. Previously I had seen the very excellent Whistle Down the Wind. He's someone that I vaguely remember from my youth, but for whatever reason, never really effected me on a conscious level. I did't pay much attention to movies in my youth. He certainly was intense!

[stuart.uk]

I acually prefered the tv series of A Kind Of Loving with Clive Wood and Joanna Whalley as Vic and Ingrid, because it took the story beyond where the film ended with the marriage breaking down and yrs later Vic marrying Susan Penhaligan, who played an actress.

I noticed that Alan Bates and Albert Finney both had small roles in The Entertainer playing Larry Olivier's sons. I liked Georgy Girl, the kitchen sink drama Bates made with Charlotte Rampling and Lynn Redgrave.

The Fixer is unpleasent viewing, but educational nonetheless with Bates as a Russian Jew falsly accused of rape, who is tortured in an atempt to get a confession, but still maintains his innocence.

From what I can gather he was good oppisite Bette Midler in The Rose.

Though I haven't seen it, An Englishman Abroad is clearly an important Tv drama with Coral Brown, because it's about an important part of post war British history. Bates played an intellectial Englishman, who out of consience supplied the Russian's with secret information. I do remember around the same time the the drama was made another Englishman Sir Anthony Blunt, who worked for the Queen was exposed as a Russian spy.

I also like the humourous side to his character that was seen in serious real-life drama Evelyn

[MikeBSG]

I strongly recommend "Oliver's Travels," a TV movie he made in the 90s that was shown on PBS' "Mystery." In it he plays a college professor who travels across Britain unwraveling a conspiracy. In some ways, it was a rumpled-cuddly version of "The Thin Man."

[charliechaplinfan]

Moira, I've never heard of Nothing but the Best Alan Bates is an actor I'd like to be completist about.

We haven't mentioned Far From The Madding Crowd he plays Gabriel the shepherd. I love the book, Gabriel is the dependable chap but not very exciting, he wins Bathsheba by his devotion and gentle manliness. Alan Bates brings Gabriel to life, my problem with the film? How could I ever want Troy played by Terence Stamp when I could have Alan Bates's Gabriel.

Stuart, I don't think I would ever want to watch the series of A Kind Of Loving, this is partly because I look at this era through rose coloured glasses given me courtesy of my parents, partly because Alan Bates and June Ritchie are perfect in their roles and partly because I am a romantic, I prefer to think they find a loving way through their troubles and away from her mother of course.