![Smile :-)](./images/smilies/icon_smile.gif)
jdb1 wrote:A May 6 birthday:
Orson Welles - Scene from Macbeth. Whatta hunk he could be, when he wanted to. (It was scenes like this between Welles and Jeanette MacDonald that gave us Tim McIntyre.)![]()
[youtube][/youtube]
jdb1 wrote:A May 6 birthday:
Orson Welles - Scene from Macbeth. Whatta hunk he could be, when he wanted to. (It was scenes like this between Welles and Jeanette MacDonald that gave us Tim McIntyre.)![]()
[youtube][/youtube]
Oh, you are so right! Guess I was caught up in the Scottishness of it all, and in Orson's Alpha Male presence. I'm afraid Orsie affects me that way. I made the correction. (Welles and MacDonald -- now wouldn't that have been a hoot!)rudyfan wrote:Jeannette Nolan? Although I'd have paid good money to see Jeannette MacDonald as Lady Macbeth (just not Verdi's opera).
Yes, that would have been a hoot. For the record, Welles is my favorite Rochester in Jane Eyre. I need to revist Macbeth.jdb1 wrote:Oh, you are so right! Guess I was caught up in the Scottishness of it all, and in Orson's Alpha Male presence. I'm afraid Orsie affects me that way. I made the correction. (Welles and MacDonald -- now wouldn't that have been a hoot!)rudyfan wrote:Jeannette Nolan? Although I'd have paid good money to see Jeannette MacDonald as Lady Macbeth (just not Verdi's opera).
But Judith, Jane was supposed to be meek and bland on the surface. I've said this recently on another thread (Bond, James Bond): The best Jane I've ever seen was done by a British actress, Zelah Clarke, in a 1983 adaptation of Jane Eyre for A&E. It was so faithful to the book, I got out my well worn copy and read dialog as they spoke the words. Timothy Dalton was terrific as Rochester, more depth and fire than Welles (sorry, I'm sure I will have to watch my back till the furor dies down)he is so incendiary to her bland, it's almost painful to watch. I watched a scene at lunchtime today where Rochester declares his love for Jane, and calls her "almost otherworldly," and Fontaine gives him her usual sexless, blank stare.
Actually, Vivien Leigh did play the second Mrs. de Winter in 1950 for Lux Radio Theater, with Laurence Olivier. And she did well, I think, they were good together.Garbomaniac wrote:Yup, I think Vivian and Orson would have been dynamite together, and she was British! Remember, she tried out for the meek and plain second Mrs. de Winter in Rebecca and would have been good in that one, too.
jdb1 wrote:Yes, MissG, the Rochester of the book was not a man to love easily, but I don't think that was the purpose of the movie. The movie was another of Classic Hollywood's versions of a Harlequin Romance Novel, and Orson fit the bill perfectly. If this movie were truer to the book, perhaps Claude Rains or Edward G. might have played Rochester. But -- obviously the studio was aiming for a different sort of audience.
You know, this movie always make me think of another, which is actually something of a Jane Eyre in reverse: My Cousin Rachel. In that movie, we have a similiar casting situation -- the too hot to be true young Richard Burton, burning up the screen and completely overwhelming the far too old and rather lackluster Olivia deHavilland, who is supposedly the mystery woman, but seems much more like the president of the ladies' auxilliary of the local country club.