REVIEW: The Gypsy and the Gentleman (1958)

The Gypsy and the Gentleman (1958)

The film opens in a basement full of “betting gentlemen” watching Sir Paul Deverill (Keith Michell) struggle with a greased pig.  He is supposed to be marrying Vanessa Ruddock (Clare Austin), though he doesn’t love her.  As he rides home in a coach with her father, he promises him they will marry regardless.  Meanwhile, two gypsies, Belle (Melina Mercouri) and Jess (Patrick McGoohan) are making their way on foot in the same direction as Deverill.

Belle enters the Deverill kitchen to try and “sell her wares”, and gets kicked out, stealing some cooked chicken in the process.  She brings the food to Jess, who is building a fire, and she states she is not a gypsy, since her father was a “gentleman”.  Meanwhile Deverill has a hot bath, a luxury to the gypsies. 

Aunt Lady Caroline Ayrton (Helen Haye) visits Paul and his sister Sarah (June Laverick), who Caroline says will get her fortune, not Paul, who will squander it away.  Caroline is in love with a medical student, John Patterson (Lyndon Brook). 

The band of gypsies hold a sort of fair, full of locals, and Deverill holds a boxing match.  He promises to pay the winner “a purse”, but after the match, he discovers his pocket has been picked.  Blame is put on Belle, who the crowd turns on.  She seeks safety in Deverill’s arms, and returns his purse.  She flirts with him, and he proceeds to give her freedom… and the money.  Deverill will get another purse for the winning boxer.

Next we meet Sarah’s intended, as well as Deverill’s. 

One rainy night, Deverill’s coach is passing Bess and Jess’s camp, and she runs up to the road and finagles herself into the coach.  She tells him sister Sarah that she isn’t a real gypsy, because her father was a gentleman.  She is offered a roof over her head for the night.  This ends up being a night in Deverill’s bedroom.

Belle ends up living at the house, Sarah doesn’t like it, Belle steals the second purse of money intended for the boxer, Deverill is called on to decide which woman to keep, Belle or Vanessa, he chooses Belle, etc etc etc.   Belle and Deverill get married.  Sarah tells her there is no money, just debts.  Belle gets mad.  But she sticks around, determined to be something more than poor.

Time passes, and it appears most of the valuables in the Deverill house have been sold to pay creditors.  Most of the staff is gone.  Jess manages to become Deverill’s “man”, taking care of horses, etc.  He lives over the stable.  Belle occasionally flirts with him, but also hits him like she hits the last remaining maid.  He makes it clear Belle can’t treat him that way, and also if he ends up having to run, he will run alone. 

Aunt Caroline passes away, and the family lawyer comes to the house.  He explains the terms of her will.  Sister Sarah will get her fortune if she marries before she turns 21.  Belle and Jess start working on making sure she can’t get married in time, scheming with the lawyer. 

Jess locks Sarah inside a “folly” on the estate, what looks like an Oriental tower of sorts, surrounded by water.   She often met her boyfriend John there.  So when John arrives looking for her, he goes to see if she is there.  Jess pretends he is living in the folly, and John leaves. 

Sarah ends up escaping the folly, and makes it to London.  Belle, Jess, and Deverill head there as well.  Belle and Jess meet up with the lawyer and Jess suggests having Sarah committed to an insane asylum.  She is found, then kidnapped and brought to the asylum.  Bess gets a drunken Deverill to sign the proper paperwork to keep his sister locked away.

Sarah’s friend Mrs. Haggard (Flora Robson) finds out, and tries to free her.  She succeeds in convincing the corrupt head of the hospital to let her go instead of being exposed to the public.

Deverill suddenly sobers up enough to go to his lawyer’s office.  He discovers what has been going on behind his back, and suddenly grows a spine. 

The movie ends with Sarah and Mrs. Haggard in a coach speeding away from the asylum, followed by Jess and Belle on another coach.  Deverill is on horseback racing toward them from the opposite direction.  They meet on a stone-arch bridge over a swift waterway.  Jess and Belle fall into the water.  Deverill jumps in after Belle, as Jess swims toward the shore.

Belle yells out for Jess, as Deverill keeps her above water.  Deverill has saved Belle’s life, but she only wants Jess.  Jess keeps swimming and gets onto the shore.  He looks back, but sees no one.  Deverill decides to drown Belle and himself.

This movie can be found online with some digging.  It appears to have been released on DVD in a few countries (such as Region 0/Spain)

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This film is somewhat notorious for McGoohan fans (female ones, anyway) thanks to that beard and the smooching scenes.  To what extent his infamous no-kissing policy actually extended, we may never know.  But his Rank roles did require kissing women, no more so than in this story.  Though, you never really see lips touching lips!

I had already formed an opinion of this movie thanks to female fans' comments regarding his kissing scenes (positive), McGoohan's own opinion of his Rank films (negative), and even one newspaper editorial from years ago where a woman was rather upset at his non-Secret Agent-like character (scoundrel). I found a copy of the film posted online and gave it a view...

The whole film actually has a decent "look" to it. Even a less-than-stellar online copy had good color, though McGoohan's eyes didn't look at all blue, so a good copy from a good print probably would look amazing. But there are plenty of outdoor scenes, elaborate sets, and colorful costumes.  It doesn’t look cheap.

But the plot looses your interest after a while, and the ending is rather trite.

The two lead characters, Belle and Sir Paul Deverill, are, well... CADS. It is very hard to be sympathetic to either of them. They both ask for what they get.

I found Melina Mercouri rather annoying.  I probably shouldn’t fault her, but her character instead.  She sure was fiery!  But she just seemed to be pushing the sexy-thing too much. Her whole performance was a bit over the top. Her outfits made the most of her teeny waist and were cut to make the most of the upper-half of her.  Let’s just say she was no Dagmar (look her up…).

Keith Michell as Sir Paul Deverill also annoyed me.  But, again, his character is a spoiled jerk you have no sympathy for, either.  I found myself wondering if I, the viewer, was supposed to hate him for dumping nice Sarah Deverill for slutty Belle, or feel for him because he is being duped.  His death in the end is no great loss…

The "nice" characters are pretty run-of-the-mill, though Flora Robson is a bit of a stand-out as Mrs. Haggard.  June Laverick likewise was OK as Sarah Deverill, if a bit too mousy. 

As for McGoohan's character, Jess, one minute he seems nice, then nasty, then a bit of both, then also a cad.  But how can you hate a character that sits and gently pets a white ferret?  It doesn’t really matter, because he looks darn sexy in his beard.  And I am generally no fan of beards! 

I didn’t find his infamous “love scenes” with Mercouri as steamy as fans always suggest.  I still didn’t see any lip-on-lip contact, he still seems distracted (by food or a purse of money), and the scenes still fade out just in time.  There also didn’t seem to be any sort of connection between the two actors, unlike his kiss at the end of “Nor the Moon by Night”. 

But all that smooching aside (and there is a lot implied in this film), McGoohan’s best scene, acting wise, may actually be the one where Jess pretends to live in the folly.  He’s a totally different character, and actually gets some dialog to say.

Now, if you like horses, there are a lot of them in this one.  I couldn’t quite tell which actors were actually doing their own high-speed riding, some of it side-saddle, but there is one thing I just have to ask:  HOW does McGoohan get onto his horse like that??

Watch it if you must, but have a good reason to, like I did...

REVIEW: Charley's Aunt (1941)

Charley's Aunt (1941)

Charley's Aunt began life in 1892 as a British stage play, and has been performed in one form or another basically ever since. At least eleven film versions have been produced around the world. So, given the long-term popularity of this one, I won't bother going into the plot here.

The long and short of it is Oxford University undergraduate Lord Fancourt Babberley is conned into wearing a dress and impersonating fellow student Charley Wykeham's aunt, Donna Lucia d'Alvadorez, a rich widow from Brazil, in order to act as chaperone for two girlfriends. Things get more and more complicated from there, with two different fathers competing for the fake aunt and her money, etc.

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Anyone who has ever listened to a good quantity of Jack Benny's radio shows knows he once played Charley's Aunt. There were many gags regarding the costume itself. But it took me until this year to acquire and watch the 20th Century Fox Cinema Archives DVD (2018).

The first few scenes almost made me not watch the rest of it. Jack trying to sound English was, well… sad. Sure enough, after doing a little reading about the original play, I found out that those very scenes were in fact different than the original story, and thankfully things picked up a bit once Jack Benny put on the dress… and that fake accent seemed to fall by the wayside as well!

Most of the casting is good, though Benny does seem a bit out of place at times, as does James Ellison, who also doesn’t pull off being English.  But Benny does an admiral job as Aunt Donna Lucia, especially with the sight gags.  I’m not used to seeing Jack MOVE so much!  I certainly don’t associate him with slapstick. Laird Cregar is convincing as Ellison’s father, but was actually under 30, younger than the man he was playing the father of!  The three female leads (Kay Francis, Anne Baxter, Arleen Whelan) look stunning in their costumes.

If you pay attention, you can almost imagine which scenes could be the beginning and end of on-stage acts, just by the amount of time spent on one set.

Get past the beginning, and you end up with a fun little movie with some good sight gags.

If you would like to watch Charley's Aunt on DVD, the UPC is 024543586173 (20th Century Fox)

REVIEW: High Tide at Noon (1957)

High Tide at Noon (1957) 

The film begins with Joanna MacKenzie (Betta St. John) arriving by boat on a seemingly deserted island in Nova Scotia. She wanders around the empty buildings, frightened by a clock chiming in a house. She runs outside and begins to think about the past.

(CUE FLASHBACK…)

We now see a supposedly younger, happier Joanna landing on the island yet again, but it now is teeming with activity from the lobster fishing trade. Her family owns most of the island, and she has returned from school to again live in the family’s house with her mother, father, and brothers.
The Breck family is introduced to the audience as scheming “trash”, always looking for trouble. Despite this, Joanna gives Simon Breck (Patrick McGoohan) some flirty attention, but regrets it when he asks her to meet her that night at an abandoned house (“the old Graham place”). He proceeds to kiss her, then tries to go further and Joanna manages to escape to the safety of her brothers and Nils (Michael Craig), who are playing pool. Nils walks her home and is the only one who knows about what happened.

At a local dance, Simon again makes advances, and an all out fistfight begins. Joanna escapes and stands at the docks alone, thinking. She accidentally overhears her brother Charles talking to his girlfriend, Matille, realizing the girl is pregnant. She later has a heart-to-heart with her brother, who ends up marrying Matille while he is on the mainland selling the family lobster-catch. Their parents are not pleased.

Nils tells Joanna that he’s wanted to propose marriage to her for a long time, but she tells him she isn’t in love with him, and Nils is crushed.

One rainy day a handsome stranger arrives on the island. His name is Alec (William Sylvester), grandson of Sandy Graham, and he intends on taking over her old house. As time goes by, Joanna and Alec fall for each other, and get married. They fix up the house and make it a home, but married life becomes less than happy due to a lack of lobsters in Alec’s traps, and his gambling habit.

One reason the MacKenzie family is also not catching lobsters is someone is cutting the ropes which connect the wooden traps to each lobsterman’s buoys. The Breck family is given a stern talking to by the elder MacKenzie.

After one particular poker game with the same Brecks, Alec comes home and swears to Joanna he will no longer gamble, and will work as hard as he can to earn money and be a good husband. In time, their bills start to get paid, and things begin looking brighter.

Things start to change yet again one night when Alec drowns in a boating accident. Then, one by one, friends and family members move to the mainland where fishing is better.

One rainy night, Simon goes to Joanna’s house, and in so many words tells her now that she isn’t married anymore, he intends on calling in Alec’s I.O.U.’s, which add up to $600. Since she has no money, the house may end up his. He then begins telling Joanne she really wants him, and next thing the audience sees is her running into the family house, crying. Nils goes after Simon, who gets into a boat and speeds off into the sea. Nils can’t catch up, and yells to him he’ll kill Simon if he ever sets foot on the island again.

The lobster business continues to be threatened for locals, and Nils tries one more time to get Joanna to say “yes” to marriage. She again refuses him, and leaves the island. She then realizes she may have made a huge mistake.

Finally, even Joanna and her parents have to leave the island.

We then return to the beginning again, with Joanna on the deserted island. But someone is on the beach… Nils…

Oh, and he says the lobsters are back.

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This film was entered into the 1957 Cannes Film Festival, and a look around the ‘net will turn up a few photos of Rank actors Betta St. John, June Laverick, Anne Heywood, and Patrick McGoohan at the event. There is also a very brief film clip from a Pathe newsreel. No doubt more images exist in collections.

I’m a female who doesn’t like love stories, so I had to force myself to watch this one (yes, once again, because Mr. McGoohan was in it). But I figured the fact it was entered at Cannes would mean it was an excellent film regardless.

Wellp… I wasn’t impressed. In fact, I thought it was downright boring.

Most of the acting was ok, though I have to confess McGoohan’s treatment of Simon would have been more believable had he not tried to sound (North) American. I already knew ahead of time his character was a louse, so I was prepared for his very un-John Drake-like behavior. Still… I had to chuckle and raise an eyebrow (or two) when he had Betta St.John in a clinch!

There were lots of actual outdoor scenes, with only a few obvious-fakey outdoor ones. I was surprised to find behind the scenes photos online showing the sets used.  Perhaps those scenes would have been more obvious to me had I watched an actual DVD on a TV and not a web-sourced copy on an old tablet.  But all in all the film has an OK look to it, though there were no beautiful seas or sunsets, or rolling fields, etc to help elevate it to a higher caliber.

Plot wise, again, I don’t like love stories. So I’ll try not to be too harsh.

Firstly, Simon seems to have already had a go at trying to kiss Joanne in the past. He’s still intent on getting her all for himself. When she arrives on the island after school is over, and he talks to her for the first time, the fact he specifically asks how old she is should have been a wee-bit of a hint that she should RUN. But NO, instead she basically flirts with him, and stupidly goes ahead and meets him at the abandoned Graham house! Then she lets him kiss her! DUH! Like he isn’t going to try to go further? The girl comes across as stupid, not innocent.

The fact she spurns Nils is also a stupid move. Then she marries Alec, not already knowing he likes to gamble? I guess a longer courtship was called for. Though things do work out and they seem to be in love.

The idea of her brother getting a woman pregnant was a bit racy for the era. When she goes into labor, we never do find out much about the result, other than Charles and their father make up.

Too many vague points here and there ruin the believe-ability of the plot.

We never get much explanation as to just what happened to cause the boating accident that killed Alec, other than at least one of the MacKenzie brothers blames himself, and alcohol may have been involved.

Did Simon actually rape Joanna? If so, all that happens is Nils yelling at him as he escapes via boat? A family full of brothers and we hear nothing else about retribution?

And what about that official who seems to be part of the reason the lobstering on the island is going to die? Why can they catch more off the mainland? Are there regulations or something?

And WHY is Nils on the beach at the very end? Is THAT why Joanna came back in the first place?  And if the lobsters are back... is he happier about THAT or seeing Joanna???

I guess I would not tell someone to stay away from the film, just don’t expect a lot of action or ground-breaking dialogue or camera work.

If you'd prefer not to watch this film as a lowish quality online copy, it was available as a Region 2 (non-US) DVD (EAN: 5060105724800)

The old family clock... about to trigger a movie-long flashback

The Breck family... nothing but trouble...

The MacKenzie family

Charles has got hitched on the mainland... he "had to"

A stranger named Alec lands on the island

Joanne marries Alec

An empty money box

Simon visits the widow-MacKenzie... he's calling in Alec's gambling debts, and is not happy about being rejected by her yet again

Nils in the Breck house, about to get revenge on Simon, do "don't mean to fight you... if that's what you want"

More bad news for the lobstermen...

Nils tries one more time to get Joanne to marry him

Leaving the island... best not to look back

"The lobsters are back!" and we are back to the present day once more

OBSERVATION: The Great Corona Supermarket Raid of 2020

OBSERVATION:  The Corona Great Supermarket Raid of 2020

This post has photos taken at the Groton MA Shaw's Supermarket on March 13, 2020... which was, incidentally, Friday the 13th.  This was a bit after the Corona Virus everyone really started to make people panic and raid supermarkets for staples like toilet paper, tissues, milk, bread, eggs, etc.

Here in Massachusetts, this is what you get when a major snow storm (aka:  Nor'eastaaaah) is on the way.  And people who panic and clear the shelves often are teased, as the odds of being "off the grid" in this part of the country for any length of time is slim (with the possible exception of the coastline).

I myself had never witnessed the Snowmageddon supermarket phenomena, so seeing all the shelves empty thanks to Covid-19 was rather novel. 

Now, about three weeks later, there are so many daily updates and changes to policy it is impossible to share any of it here.  History will tell just what happened.

NOTE:  Please excuse the photo quality... my cell phone takes crappy pics!

INCOMPLETE LIST OF OBSERVED ITEMS 

THAT ARE HARD TO FIND AS OF 4/2/20:

TOILET PAPER

TISSUES

PAPER TOWELS

HAND SANITIZER

LYSOL

MOST LIQUID SOAPS

SPAM

SOME CAMPBELL'S SOUP FLAVORS

ALL RAMEN NOODLES

ALL PASTA

Paper products isle...

Paper products isle...

Bread, etc isle...

No eggs...

The water isle...

Water isle...

Most of the produce was gone...

Sugar and flour almost all gone...