Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs and I are watching Comfy, Cozy movies this September and October and this week we watched the 1945 version of Blithe Spirit.
This is a movie my husband and I had started a few months ago and didn’t finish up because we got interrupted and distracted by life, so when Erin suggested it for our Comfy, Cozy Cinema, I was all for it.
After watching it, I can share that this was not one of my favorite movies overall but there were parts I enjoyed and performances I found very well done. I also found the dialogue brilliant.
Before I go into my impressions, here is a little online summary of the movie, which is based on a play by Noel Coward:
“Skeptical novelist Charles Condomine (Rex Harrison) invites self-proclaimed medium Madame Arcati (Margaret Rutherford) to his home for a séance, hoping to gather material for a new book. When the hapless psychic accidentally summons the spirit of Condomine’s late wife, Elvira (Kay Hammond), his home and life are quickly turned into a shambles as his wife’s ghost torments both himself and his new bride, Ruth (Constance Cummings). David Lean directed this adaptation of Noel Coward’s hit play.”
I am going to get this out of the way now – I could have completely done without Rex Harrison in this movie. I hated his character. In fact, none of the characters were likable to me, but, as Erin pointed out to me after I watched it, that’s really the point of the play/movie – hence the title.
After double-checking the definition of “blithe” it made even more sense.
Blithe: showing a casual and cheerful indifference considered to be callous or improper.
That is exactly how every character in this movie acted.
While watching this movie, I also started to wonder if Rex Harrison is only capable of playing, arrogant, tone-deaf, rude, and bullheaded characters.
After watching him in Dr. Doolittle and My Fair Lady and now this – I can’t help thinking his range of an actor didn’t go much beyond these typecasts. I’m teasing a bit here because I have not seen every Rex Harrison movie. If you know of one where he isn’t a total jerk, let me know in the comments.
During the whole film, I wanted to throat-punch Rex’s character. Repeatedly.
I mean, it could be a hormone issue (I am at that age) or Rex Harrison might really have just been that annoying of a human being in this movie.
I know he’s playing parts in his movies, but he did it so well that I imagine there must be some of himself in there. I’ll have to research that at some point.
What I did like about this movie was Margaret Rutherford and it is fitting that this is the movie where she became known nation-wide in the UK after already having established herself on the stage and on television.
I first heard her name when I was researching actresses who had played Miss Marple in the past. Her first film debut was in 1936 but it was this performance – as Madam Arcati – that is considered her breakout performance. There are two reasons she might have done so well as the character – she had already portrayed Madam Arcati in the stage version of Blithe Spirit and Coward actually wrote the part with her in mind.
According to Wikipedia, theatre critic Kenneth Tynan once said of her performances on stage: “The unique thing about Margaret Rutherford is that she can act with her chin alone.”
She received rave reviews of her performance on the stage and the movies – from both critics and audiences.
After watching this movie I can see why – she played the part of being a batty old lady very well and if you delve into her sad history and upbringing, you would see why. That’s another tale for another blog post, but I’ll leave the link to her Wikipedia page here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Rutherford
Be warned there is some sadness about her life in that article, but also some joy and a great deal of success for her.
Even if this wasn’t a favorite movie of mine, I did not hate it. There were many humorous and witty moments in this movie and overall the acting was very good. I think in the end it simply wasn’t what I had expected – mainly because I had never seen the play.
One of the funny quotes from the movie was one that was removed from the U.S. versions by censors when it first released.
During an argument with Ruth, Charles tells her, “If you’re trying to compile an inventory of my sex life, I feel it only fair to warn you that you’ve omitted several episodes. I shall consult my diary and give you a complete list after lunch.”
As I read what other viewers thought about the movie online I saw that most enjoyed the movie immensely but a few wrote that they found that the movie felt flat because they were comparing it to the stage version. In the stage version there was more of a chance for the actors to bounce of the audience and for the audience to respond with laughter, one reviewer said. In the movie version some felt the jokes and humor just fell flat.
I spent much of the movie not finding the humor very funny because I was so horrified how Harrison didn’t seem upset by any of the events that happened. Again, though, I needed to go back to that definition of blithe when I decided to rewatch some scenes before writing this post. After that I found some of the humor a little funnier and recognized it as being more tongue-in-cheek in some places.
Some viewers might sense the lack of humor in some places because the director, David Lean, apparently did not do a good job translating the play to film, at least according to Coward, who had worked with Lean on one of his previous plays being transferred to film, and enjoyed that experience.
Coward, in fact, informed Lean, after he saw a rough cut of the film, that Lean had “screwed up” (but used a much more colorful term) the best thing he’d ever written.
Harrison later commented on Dean: ““When you’re on a comedy like Blithe Spirit, it is awfully hard working for a director who has no sense of humor.”
According to Wikipedia Harrison wrote in his memoirs:
“Blithe Spirit was not a play I liked, and I certainly didn’t think much of the film we made of it. David Lean directed it, but the shooting was unimaginative and flat, a filmed stage play. He didn’t direct me too well, either – he hasn’t a great sense of humour…..Lean did something to me on that film which I shall never forget, and which was unforgivable in any circumstances. I was trying to make one of those difficult Noel Coward scenes work… when David said: “I don’t think that’s very funny.” And he turned round to the cameraman, Ronnie Neame, and said: “Did you think that was funny, Ronnie?” Ronnie said: “Oh, no, I didn’t think it was funny.” So what do you do next, if it isn’t funny?””
The play, by the way, was written in six days at a seaside resort, where Coward had gone to escape the Blitz, according to Criterion.com.
Geoffry O’Brien writes in the article on Criterion: “..Blithe Spirit brought superficiality to another level of ambition: what audacity to write a comedy about death in the midst of bombing that would claim tens of thousands of civilian lives, a comedy in which the memory of a lost love became material for a punch line and mortality served as simply a piquant sauce for the same sexual dilemmas that were the staple of Coward’s brand of drawing room comedy. Blithe Spirit may be defined as a very British sort of resistance literature, encouraging resistance to encroaching catastrophe by blithely ignoring it.”
If you would like to read more about O’Brien’s thoughts (even he touched on how much better it is to see the play either before you see the movie or instead), you can find his very interesting (and full of big words) article here:
https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/2221-blithe-spirit-present-magic
I have to agree with O’Brien that the ending of the film is much more satisfying than the ending of the play, but I won’t share what I mean about that here in case you haven’t seen it yet.
I watched this one on Amazon Prime, where it was free with a subscription. It is also free right now on YouTube.
Read Erin’s impressions of the movie here: https://crackercrumblife.com/2024/10/10/comfy-cozy-cinema-blithe-spirit-1945/
Up next in our Comfy, Cozy Cinema is Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window. I’ve seen this one before but it’s been a few years so I am looking forward to watching it again and am glad that Erin suggested it.
Feel free to link up your own impressions of the movies at our link-ups. The links close at the end of the week but feel free to leave your blog post on future link-ups, even if it is for another movie.
Here is the rest of the schedule:
Also, don’t forget our Comfy, Cozy Care Package giveaway is still open until Oct. 15. We are giving away some things to make your autumn even cozier. The gifts include my book (Gladwynn Grant Gets Her Footing), Erin’s poetry compilation book, stickers, a journal, an autumn-themed mug, pumpkin-shaped chocolates, a book light, a blanket, and boxes of tea. We also hope to throw a few extras in to the winners!
You can enter anytime between today and October 15th, and the winner will be announced on our blogs on Thursday, October 17th. Please enter via Rafflecopter and it is only open to those 18 or older living in the US.” You can enter here: https://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/3614a4fa2/?
You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!
<aComfy, Cozy Christmas Movie Impressions: Holiday Affair
Welcome to another post where I share my thoughts about a Christmas movie I recently watched.
(This post is part of the Comfy, Cozy Feature with Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs. Read more about it and join up to the linky here. )
This movie stars Janet Leigh, Robert Mitchum, and Wendell Corey. Note: I will not be including large spoilers in this post.
Leigh plays Connie Ennis, a widower, whose husband died in World War II. She has a 6-year-old son, Timmy played by Gordon Gerbert , (ironically I worked with a man named Tim Ennis and my husband still works with him). She is dating a man named Carl (Wendell Corey) who is predictable and safe. You know, the ole’ boring boyfriend versus the dashing and bold potential boyfriend trope.
Mitchum plays Steve Mason, whom Connie meets at a department store when she’s there as a comparison shopper for another store. Steve pegs her in her role right away but doesn’t turn her in because she tells him she’s a single mom and her son’s only support.
That move gets him fired and one would think that means he is out of Connie’s life. On the contrary, they continue to have interactions when Connie goes to apologize to him and then he ends up helping her out on her next shopping trip.
That encounter leads to Steve meeting Timmy, who is enamored with Steve – much more so than Carl, who he knows wants to marry his mother.
Timmy acts out with Carl and is sent to his room and this leads to a heart-to-heart with Steve who learns Timmy wants a train for Christmas.
Steve makes this happen and yet another interaction occurs between him and Connie.
There is a lot of back and forth in this film and more than one interaction between Connie and Steve when she walks away from him angry and he just watches her walk away with a smug grin.
Steve knows he gets under Connie’s skin and he knows there is a spark between them. Connie, though, isn’t willing to admit that she could have a passion for any man other than her late husband. She doesn’t really have passion for Carl.
Part of the time I felt like both Carl and Steve wanted Connie to just get over her dead husband already and that annoyed me. Both men seemed threatened by a dead man.
Since Timmy is six, it’s probably been about five or six years since Guy, Connie’s first husband, has been dead. That is a fairly long time but I didn’t think it was fair of either man to want Connie to just forget her late husband.
Then I realized that it wasn’t that the men wanted her to forget Guy – they wanted her to be able to remember the good times of her marriage with him while not being afraid to find happiness in the future. In fact, one of them says this explicitly but I missed it so I went back and watched their interaction again.
I felt much better about the intent of the men after that and could agree with others who called it a clever and touching film, even if there were a few times I thought Steve Mason should be smacked. Ha!
This is a movie with a definite love triangle, of course, and you’ll have to watch to see how all that works out. Some of the movie is predictable but some of it isn’t. There are plenty of surprises to make this movie a unique and non-traditional Christmas watch.
There are some great lines like when Steve says to Connie at one point: “I don’t think I should stay around – I might fall in love with you.”
I also loved Connie’s in-laws. They were one of the cutest elderly couples I’ve seen in a film with all their witty banter. Mr. Ennis had a cute quote: “Mother, I’ve been married to you 35 years. You boss me, you heckle me, you hide my things and pretend I’ve lost them just so I have to depend on you. You’ve spent 35 years trying to make me admit that I couldn’t possibly get along without you; and you’re right. I couldn’t. What’s more, I wouldn’t want to. Every one of those years was good, even the bad ones because you were with me. And so I drink to your health and all the wonderful years to come.”
I also liked:
- Steve Mason: You see, if you aim higher than your mark, then you’ve got a better chance of hitting the mark.
- Connie Ennis: But he shouldn’t feel that he’ll always get everything he wants.
- Steve Mason: Well, not always, no, but every now and then, so that he’ll know that these things can happen.
- Landlady: It’s the last room at the end of the hall.
- Connie Ennis: Oh, thank you.
- Landlady: And leave the door open.
- Steve Mason: [Connie rings door bell] Come in.
- [Connie opens door and enters]
- Steve Mason: Well, you found the place. You know, very few people come here to eat anymore. Too much atmosphere. We’ve been thinking of closing down the joint to redecorate.
- [Closes door]
- Connie Ennis: Uh, the landlady said to keep the door open.
- Steve Mason: Let’s worry her, huh?
- [Closes Murphy bed closet]
- Steve Mason: But let’s not worry you.
According to an article on Turner Classic Movies, Holiday Affair was a box office flop that became a hit through repeated television airings, much like It’s A Wonderful Life.
It’s A Wonderful Life became the bigger classic, of course.
Mitchum’s casting was seen as a little odd at the time considering he’d just come off an arrest and prison sentence for pot possession. RKO’s owner and tycoon Howard Hughes had faith in him, though, and pushed for his casting to be kept.
According to TCM, “In fact, just before filming started on Holiday Affair, RKO paid $400,000 to acquire sole ownership of Mitchum’s contract from independent producer David O. Selznick, who had shared the contract with RKO.”
Mitchum may have had a bad boy reputation, but according to articles about the making of the movie, he was a dedicated actor and a practical joker. He made a point of using his jokes for a purpose, like when he and Corey both put their hands on Leigh’s knee in a scene to get her to make a certain face that was perfect for the final cut.
Mitchum also kissed her for real during the kiss scene to throw her off and that move also made for a realistic shocked reaction.
Leigh wasn’t as comfortable with Hughes, though, according to TCM.
“Leigh wasn’t as happy about her relationship with Hughes, who had arranged to borrow her from MGM for a series of pictures starting with Holiday Affair,” the article reads. “But that didn’t prevent a very strange encounter when he summoned her for a private meeting toward the end of production. Hughes presented her with a private eye’s report on her activities, claiming her current boyfriend, Arthur Loew, Jr., had ordered the investigation out of jealousy. Leigh saw through the ruse at once – all of the people she was linked to in the report were members of Loew’s family. Clearly Hughes had ordered the investigation himself. She informed him that their future meetings would be strictly business if he wanted her to keep making films at RKO.”
I found this movie free on Tubi and also on Max. It is available to rent on other streaming services, including Amazon Prime and AppleTV. If you know of anywhere else it is streaming, please let me know.
Have you seen this movie?
What did you think about it?
Comfy, Cozy Cinema: Rebecca (1940)
For the rest of October and all of November, Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs and I will be watching cozy or comfy movies and some of them will have a little mystery, creepiness, or adventure added in.
This week we watched Alfred Hitchcock’s Rebecca from 1940 and, no, the movie isn’t comfy or cozy so we should have called this feature Comfy, Cozy, and Creepy. Regardless of what the feature is called, Rebecca is a bit of a creepy movie. Technically it is called a gothic psychodrama.
Whatever it is called — it has an eerie air about it all the way through.
The story follows a woman (Joan Fontaine) who falls in love with Maximillian (Maxim) de Winter (Lauren Olivier), a brooding widower. Despite being told by her companion, Mrs. Van Hopper that Maxim is still obsessed with his dead wife Rebecca, this woman pursues a relationship with Maxim. The woman is also never named, apparently, that’s how unimportant she is to Maxim, I suppose. She’s simply ever called “the second Mrs. De Winter.” I find that odd, but anyhoo…
There are a lot of red flags when she is dating Maxim at first. Like his outbursts for one.
And the fact that Mrs. de Winter number two is completely obsessed with the man. Like desperately obsessed. Plus his proposal is a bit crazy. “I’m asking you to marry me, you fool.”
And that is only a short time after they meet. Insert wide-eyed face here. Can we say yikes?
Mrs. de Winter number two and Maxim get married very quickly and move to Maxim’s mansion, Manderley (because all rich people name their mansions and estates and I find that weird). Things start to get really creepy at the mansion because Maxim is even more broody there, but also because his housekeeper, Mrs. Danvers, is a real ghoul of a woman. Mrs. Danvers was a confidant of the first Mrs. de Winter, which she likes to tell the second Mrs. de Winter a lot. Mrs. Danvers has even kept Rebecca’s room like she had it before she died.
As the story continues, it is clear that the first Mrs. de Winters died under suspicious circumstances, even though Maxim told everyone she died by suicide.
Mrs. de Winter number two tries to cheer her new husband up by holding a house party but ends up wearing a dress Rebecca used to wear, which freaks Maxim all out. Of course, Mrs. Danvers told her to wear the dress.
It’s clear throughout this movie that Maxim needed some therapy after his first wife’s death but it will become even clearer that he needed that therapy for a reason other than her supposed suicide after a storm washes a boat ashore and –
Well, you will have to watch the movie to find out why.
Olivier is perfect in this movie as Maxim. He’s handsome, brooding, mysterious, and a bit jerky all at the same time. He reminds me of Cary Elwes in The Princess Bride, or Elwes reminds me of him actually since Elwes came afterward – you know what I mean.
Maxim is clearly in love with Mrs. de Winter number two (despite the fact she doesn’t have an identity apart from being his wife since her name is never used) but he can’t fully love her because of his past experience with wife number one.
This movie, by the way, is yet another adaptation of a book. Rebecca was originally written by Daphne du Maurier and producer David Selznick told Hitchcock he wanted the story of the movie to follow du Maurier’s story.
According to the American Cinematographers site, ” Kay Brown, East Coast story editor for Selznick, sent a synopsis to her boss with the highest recommendation (after reading the book). After consulting with his resident story editor, Val Lewton, the producer acquired the film rights to du Maurier’s book for a hefty $50,000.”
There was one huge difference between the book and the movie and it had to do with Hollywood codes and the ending, but I’ll leave you to figure that out on your own in case you have never seen the movie because it is a spoiler.
I did find it interesting to read during my research that du Maurier did not want Hitchcock to write the screenplay for this movie because she hated his adaption of Jamaica Inn, released in 1939. She said it reflected his cavalier attitude toward the original source material.
In the end, du Maurier didn’t have to worry because Selznick made Hitchcock keep the movie very close to the source material. It is interesting that the screenplay was written by Joan Harrison and Robert E. Sherwood and not Hitchcock.
Hitchcock told a magazine in 1938 that he planned to make the movie like he would a horror film.
“This is really a new departure for me,” he said in the November 5, 1938 edition of Film Weekly. “I shall treat this more or less as a horror film, building up my violent situations from incidents such as one in which the young wife innocently appears at the annual fancy-dress ball given by her husband in a frock identical to the one worn by his first wife a year previously.” (source American Cinematographer site: https://theasc.com/articles/du-maurier-selznick-hitchcock-rebecca).
This was Hitchcock’s first time working with Selznick and it is clear that in some ways he didn’t like working with him since at the end of the movie Selznick wanted a large plume of smoke to form an “R” (having to do with the plot) but since Selznick was so busy with finishing Gone With the Wind, Hitchcock had the R on the pillow instead. Hitchcock also edited the film in-camera, which means he only shot the scenes he wanted in the final film. The idea behind this was to keep Selznick from being able to cut or rearrange things.
Selznick did, however, find a way to re-edit the film and add his own touches to it, including adding some of the music. As always in Hitchcock’s films, this movie included many incredible cinematography moments, including a reflection in a pool of water of couples dancing in one scene.
The film was nominated for nine Oscars and won for best picture and (no surprise) cinematography in 1940, but surpisingly no awards were given to the actors or the director.
According to one article I read, Selznick always lived in the shadow of Gone with the Wind, never feeling like anything he did afterward measured up to it. Rebecca was the only movie he felt came close to Gone With The Wind.
I also found it sad and interesting that the filming for the movie began on September 8, which was only five days after England declared war and eight days after the German Army invaded Poland.
They budgeted the production for 36 days, but in two weeks the company was five days behind schedule, partially because the cast and staff were so worried about the safety of friends and family.
I have a lot of positives about this movie, but one thing I didn’t like was the constant score in the background. I really found the constant playing of music in the background to be irritating. The movie could have been, and was, suspenseful without it.
Have you ever seen Rebecca? What did you think of it?
If you haven’t watched it, you can currently find it for free on YouTube:
To read Erin’s impression of the movie, visit her blog here: https://crackercrumblife.com/
If you wrote a blog post about the movie you can share it in our link up.
Coming up in our Comfy, Cozy feature:
Little Women (November 2)
Tea with The Dames (November 9)
A break for Thanksgiving
And
Sense and Sensibility (November 30th)
Comfy, Cozy Cinema: The Lady Vanishes
For the rest of October and all of November, Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs and I will be watching cozy or comfy movies and some of them will have a little mystery or adventure added in.
This week we watched the 1938 Alfred Hitchcock Film The Lady Vanishes. This was my second time watching it but I honestly had forgotten half of it so I was glad Erin suggested it.
I needed the distraction watching it provided this week. I know. I say this every time I write about the movie we are watching, but I need a lot of distractions these days and this week especially.
The movie begins in the fictional country of Bandrika where Iris Henderson (Margaret Lockwood) is vacationing with friends before she goes home to the United States to get married.
She is staying at a hotel with her friends and others, most of whom got stranded when an avalanche wiped out the train tracks. She interacts with the musician — Gilbert Redman (Michael Redgrave) — after he wakes her up with his loud music when she’s trying to get enough sleep for her trip the next day. Because she complains, the manager of the hotel kicks Gilbert out of his room. He makes a very nervy move and walks into her room uninvited and tells her he is going to stay and tell everyone she invited him in unless she calls the manager and tells him to put him back in his room.
There are so very funny quips in this movie and one of them is after Iris calls the manager back to get Gilbert out of her room.
“For the record, I think you are the most contemptible man I have ever met!” she yells at the door as he leaves.
He looks around the door and says in a soft voice. “Confidentially, I think you’re a bit of a stinker too.”
Earlier in the movie the manager tells two British men who are trying to return to Britain for a test match of Cricket in Manchester that he doesn’t have a room for them but they can stay in the maid’s room. There are a couple of funny scenes with the maid trying to change in front of them and them trying to tell her she can’t but her not understanding because her English isn’t very good.
There is actually a lot of humor in this movie, which isn’t always the case in an Alfred Hitchcock movie.
The two British men need some food so they head to the dining room, but are told by the waiter that there is no more food because there have been so many unexpected people staying there due to the avalanche. They can’t understand him because he doesn’t speak English so a woman named Miss Froy translates for them.
They chat with her for a while and she tells them how much she loves looking at the mountains in this country and how she’s been a nanny there for six years and is going home to England the next day.
Miss Froy also speaks to Iris when they both try to figure out where the music is coming from. That’s right before Iris has Gilbert removed from his room.
The movie seems to be all fun and games until someone strangles the musician Miss Froy enjoys listening to. She doesn’t know the man has been murdered, of course. She just thinks the music has stopped.
She also seems clueless the next day at the train station when someone tries to kill her by pushing a large concrete flower box out of the window. Instead of hitting her, though, it hits Iris in the head, which leaves Iris dazed – a perfect setup for a train ride that gets really weird when Miss Froy eventually disappears.
Iris clearly has a concussion but Miss Froy seems to think putting perfume on a hankie and handing it to Iris to put on her head will help. Was that ever a thing for head injuries? I have no idea but it seemed weird. Anyhow, Iris falls asleep and when she wakes up Miss Froy is there and they walk to the dining car and have tea.
After they have tea, Miss Froy tells Iris to rest again. She does and when she wakes up Miss Froy is gone and when she asks the other couple in the car where she went, they tell her they never saw an older British woman and imply Iris is insane.
Implying Iris is insane is the plot for the next 20 minutes of the movie as everyone begins to say they never saw Miss Froy. We learn everyone has a various reason for saying they never saw the woman.
The British Cricket enthusiasts don’t want to be delayed any longer. They have a cricket match to get to. Another couple doesn’t want any attention brought to them because they are cheating on their spouses.
This movie is a master class in gaslighting.
If you don’t know what gaslighting is, it is saying something that happened isn’t what really happened or that the reason you think it happened isn’t the reason it happened. It’s also when a person tries to distract them from what they are concerned about by saying there is another issue altogether. Like if a woman catches her husband cheating and she confronts him, he might say, “You’re so bitter and mean all of the time. I don’t even know what is wrong with you,” to try to convince the woman she imagined it all and the real issue is that she’s mean and bitter. The goal is to make the person feel like they are crazy for being concerned or accusing someone of something.
When everyone starts lying, Iris is about to lose her mind and the only one who will listen to her is Gilbert – the musician she clashed with at the hotel.
Eventually, after seeing a wrapper for a certain tea (you’ll have to watch the movie to see what this means), Gilbert starts to believe Iris that the woman really was there and they begin to look for her together. They both feel something criminal is going on and eventually, it is implied that this crime is related to spying on another country.
Though the plot and issue is a serious one, there is humor involved. For example, humor is employed often in a fight scene between Gilbert and a man who is determined to take evidence of Miss Froy’s existence away from Gilbert and Iris. Not only do animals in the freight car of the train watch the fight going on, but the fight also continues into a magic box placed there by the cheating man, who they learn is a musician.
There seemed to be quite a few subtle slams in this movie against the British who just can’t imagine anything bad is happening on the train and gets upset when anything interrupts their tea time, but I think Hitchcock did that a lot.
The movie is based on a book called The Wheel Spins by Ethel Lina White, but apparently deviated heavily from the plot of the novel. Actually, after reading the plot of the novel, I really want to read it because it sounds very good.
The British cricket enthusiasts were not in the book at all and were added to the movie.
The book was written in 1936 and the movie was released in 1938. The novel and movie’s plot clearly references the events leading up to the start of World War II.
Michael Redgrave was known for his work on the stage and almost didn’t agree to take part in the movie but in the end, his decision to take the park when Hitchcock offered it paid off for him because it made him an international star.
He and Hitchcock never worked together again, however, because Redgrave wanted more rehearsals and Hitchcock wanted more spontaneity.
The movie was a hit in the UK and the U.S. when it was released according to information online.
Geoffrey O’Brien from The Criterion (a movie review site) states: The Lady Vanishes (1938) is the film that best exemplifies Alfred Htchcock’s often-asserted desire to offer audiences not a slice of life but a slice of cake. Even Claude Chabrol and Eric Rohmer, in their pioneering study of Hitchcock, for once abandoned the search for hidden meanings and—though rating it “an excellent English film, an excellent Hitchcock film”—decided it was one that “requires little commentary,” while François Truffaut declared that every time he tried to study the film’s trick shots and camera movements, he became too absorbed in the plot to notice them. Perhaps they were disarmed by pleasure . .”
O’Brien points out that the screenwriters of the film, Sidney Gilliat and Frank Launder, were the ones who really added the rich wit that made the film a joy rather than an ominous mystery.
This film was filmed in England and at that time they didn’t have a large budget, which is why much of the movie was filmed in only two places – the hotel and a 90-foot-long train car or two. This constraint would have limited most movie makers, but not Hitchcock, who was still able to line up amazing, eye-catching shots, including one that I noticed with the camera focused squarely on two glasses where a drug has been placed all while a tense conversation is going on in the background.
The whole time there is this tension for the viewer, who knows that those glasses have a drug in them and leaves the viewer with a desperate desire to cry out for the characters not to drink the tainted wine.
I really liked what O’Brien said about the performance of Dame May Whitty and agreed: Since in a moment she is going to vanish, Miss Froy must for a moment dominate everything, and Whitty achieves just that, and even more: she makes us feel an affection for Miss Froy deep enough that her disappearance will seem an unspeakable affront, an assault on Englishness itself in its least threatening form.
If you want to read more of O’Brien’s view of the film you can find it HERE.
If you want to catch up with Erin’s thoughts on the movie, click here: https://crackercrumblife.com/2023/10/12/comfy-cozy-cinema-the-lady-vanishes/
If you want to join in on the review yourself feel free to add your link below.
Next week we are watching Strangers on a Train and will write about it on October 19.
After that we are watching:
Rebecca (Oct. 26)
Little Women (November 2)
Tea with The Dames (November 9)
A break for Thanksgiving
And
Sense and Sensibility (November 30th)
Sunday Bookends: Mystery books, a planned autumn reading list, and still writing book two in the Gladwynn Grant Mystery series
It’s time for our Sunday morning chat. On Sundays, I ramble about what’s been going on, what the rest of the family and I have been reading and watching, and what I’ve been writing. Some weeks I share what I am listening to.
This week I’m joining up with Kimba at Caffeinated Reviewer and Kathyrn at The Book Date.
What I/we’ve been Reading
I finished All That Really Matters by Nicole Deese Friday. Finally. No, the book is not bad. It is very good, in fact. I just kept putting it aside so I could finish books for other authors or library books.
I’m going to try to not add any more library books to my TBR list right now . . . other than the one I just added: A Most Agreeable Murder by Julia Seales. Ahem.
I started it last night and we will see if I like it. So far I do. The last Regency cozy mystery I picked up from Libby I did NOT enjoy. Hopefully, this one will be better the whole way through this time.
I’ve also started another cozy mystery for a book tour: A New Leash on Life by Kathleen Y’Barbo. It comes out on October 1. I was going to read it slowly since I don’t have to review it until October 30th but I was hooked right away and have been enjoying it. I read another of her books in this series and I did enjoy it but I did not enjoy the ending. It sort of fell apart so I am hoping this one doesn’t. This book is different because it is somewhat like a romance with it being from two points of view – one from the woman and the other from the man – but it is also a mystery.
I am not a huge fan of those types of switches in books when it is first person but it’s not so bad in this book. After writing two or more POVs in all of my books in the Spencer Valley Chronicles, I have now decided I am not a huge fan of more than two of POVs and I really don’t like the back-and-forth POVs in romances as much anymore. I don’t know if I will ever write two POVs again or not, but I definitely don’t plan to write more than two POVs in one book.
Anyhow, back to the books I’m planning to read after the two I just mentioned.
For fall I have a stack of books I’d love to get through:
- Trouble Shooter by Louise L’Amour
- The Cat Who Blew The Whistle by Lilian Jackson Braun
The Cat Who Talked Turkey by Lilian Jackson Braun
A Case of Bad Taste by Lori Copeland
Sydney Chambers and the Perils of the Night by Jamie Runcie
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
I’d also like to add a Longmire book to that list because I don’t think I’ve read any Longmire this year so far.
The Boy and I are reading Red Badge of Courage for school so I’ll have to add that to my planned reading list too.
Little Miss and I are reading Gone Away Lake for school and sometimes we are reading it at night too. We are really enjoying it and I’m so glad that Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs sent it to us!
What’s Been Occurring
I wrote a bit about what’s been going on in my post yesterday. You can catch up there but the bottom line is: fleas, sick animals recovering, fall weather, and homeschool. There. You’re caught up. *wink*
Photos from Last Week
I didn’t take a ton of photos last week but here are a few and a few from my parents’ anniversary party last week.
What We watched/are Watching
Last week I watched two movies with Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs for our Comfy, Cozy Cinema: Fantastic Mr. Fox and The Secret World of Arrietty.
The Husband and I watched Song of the Thin Man yesterday after he cooked me dinner for my birthday. My birthday isn’t until Tuesday but he has to attend a meeting that night. It was the last movie in the Thin Man series with William Powell and Myrna Loy.
We also watched a few episodes of Newhart this week.
By myself I watched part of a documentary about what the Victorian royals wore.
My brother also sent these hilarious videos of real letters being read by celebrities. I was warned that some of them are crude so to be careful.
What I’m Writing
I am working on Gladwynn Grant Takes Center Stage for a November release and, in case you don’t know, Gladwynn Grant Gets Her Footing, the first book, is out already on Amazon and Kindle Unlimited. It will leave Kindle Unlimited on October 8 as I hope to be able to offer it on additional sites for sale. This a cozy mystery series and I really am having fun writing it, even though this week I was almost in tears trying to decide who my murderer is because I didn’t like who I had originally decided it to be.
Yes, I am writing other blog posts but, no, I haven’t finished them because I keep getting distracted by life. Sigh.
What I’m Listening To
This past week we took some time to turn off the TV (where cartoons are mainly played) and listen to some music, including Frank Sinatra and Tim McGraw. I know. What a mix right?!
Now it’s your turn
Now it’s your turn. What have you been doing, watching, reading, listening to or writing? Let me know in the comments or leave a blog post link if you also write a weekly update like this.
Summer of Marilyn: The Misfits
This week is my final week of Summer of Marilyn, where I watched Marilyn Monroe movies. My final movie was The Misfits with Marilyn, Clark Gable, Montgomery Clift, and Eli Wallach.
I’m going to be honest and admit right off the bat that I hated this movie in many ways. Part of me was confused why my husband recommended I add it to my list for my Summer with Marilyn feature. Once I watched the movie all the way through, I got why he suggested it but I still know I won’t watch this one again. It was too raw for me at this season in my life.
In other words, it isn’t that movie is bad – it’s that it is depressing with a capital D. Or most of it is. There are some moments toward the end where things start to look up.
I am so glad to be done with Marilyn movies – even if they were good. This capped off a depressing stagger through Marilyn movies that made me sad about her life.
My son says the same thing about Marilyn – watching her movies is sort of depressing when you think about how her life ended up and how used she was through her whole life.
I barely made it through this movie and found myself mentally tuning out through a few scenes to emotionally protect myself from the darkness and depression.
This movie was shot documentary style and I liked that about it.
I read another review of this movie and agree with the writer that this is not a movie you can really figure out. You just have to take it as it is.
“Haunting. That’s the word that best describes “The Misfits”.” Jay’s Classic Movies Blog writes. “It sums up this film’s atmosphere, performances, story, visuals, and even its legacy. Filled with symbolic overtones, it is one of the very few films that is better to think about and feel than figure out.
Marilyn’s character is Roslyn Tabor.
Guido is the tow truck driver who drivers Roslyn and her friend Isabelle to town so Rosalyn can get a divorce to a man she’s only been married to a couple of years.
After the divorce hearing, Isabelle and Rosalyn go to get a drink and run into Guido and his womanizing cowboy friend played by Clark Gable. Clark’s character is Gay. No, I mean his name is Gay or Gaylord Langland actually.
I have no idea why but Isabelle and Rosalyn accept Guido’s invitation to go see the home Guido built for his late wife.
The movie is already a bit dark and depressing but gets worse when Guido shows Rosalyn his wife’s room where she died. She was pregnant at the time and both she and the baby died. Guido never finished the house but offers Gaylord and Rosalyn the place if they want to fix it up.
Again, all very weird because Rosalyn agrees and becomes connected to Gaylord who is like 20 years older than her in real life and in the movie.
There is a series of sad moments that finally lead to running into Montgomery Clift who is riding broncos and bulls to earn money but agrees to go up in the mountains with Gaylord to round up Mustangs which they will sell for dog and cat food.
Rosalyn is completely devastated when she finds out they will be selling the horses to be made into dog food. It is just another reminder for her how cruel and awful life can be.
One thing I find super creepy about this movie is how all the men are attracted to Rosalyn and want to get in bed with her pretty much. They just leer at her most of the time and say things like, “Your eyes are so innocent. It’s like you were just born.”
It’s clear by some of the things she says that she’s been through a lot. She’s weird and deep and yet not deep all at the same time.
At one point she asks Guido if he danced with his wife. He says he didn’t because she wasn’t graceful.
“Why didn’t you teach her to be graceful?” Rosalyn asks.
“You can’t learn that,” Guido retorts.
“She died, she didn’t know you could dance,” Rosalyn says sadly. “To a certain extent you two were strangers. We’re all dying aren’t we? All the husbands and all the wives and we’re not teaching each other what we really know.”
And the sad thoughts and melancholy commentary continues from there.
The movie is based on a play by Arthur Miller, who Marilyn was married to at the time. She divorced him the same year and died a year later from a drug overdose.
Gable died before the movie came out. This movie was both of their final completed movies.
Everyone is very sad and broken in this movie. Like everyone. It’s very depressing. Clark Gable’s character is especially cruddy with no real feelings except for money.
Rounding up the wild horses in the end is like stomping down everything wild and free in life and Gaylord is all for that. He just can’t admit that it is the wrong thing to do. And Guido – well he just wants something in return for doing the right thing.
The best lines and the most intense acting Marilyn does starts when she turns to Guido in shock after he says he’ll stop the horses from being killed if she will consider getting together with him.
“You have to get something to be human? To do what’s right? You’ve never felt anything for anybody in your whole life. You could blow up the whole world and all you’d feel sorry for is yourself.”
Five minutes later she’s in the desert screaming “Murders! Liars! You’re only happy when you can see something die!”
It was like she was screaming at all of Hollywood in that moment and it was a kick in the gut for me.
There was way too much that was too close to Marilyn’s real life in this movie.
A woman used for her looks and her uncertainty and her lack of self-esteem to stand up for herself and decide what she wanted for her own life.
She seems so young in this film in some ways.
Young and hopeful and full of life, but inside she was truly dying – not just her physical body but her soul.
During the filming of this movie her co-stars felt she was on the way to doom and she was.
According to articles online, filming of the movie was hard because the weather was 100 degrees in Nevada, her marriage to Arthur Miller was failing, Miller was rewriting the film as it progressed, and at the end of the day she was drinking and taking pills to get through it all.
This movie might be the most honest movie I’ve seen her in – the way she doesn’t know what to do with her life, her confusion about life, her sadness, her melancholy chats about the meaning of life and the loss of life.
Like I said in the beginning, this whole marathon has made me hurt.
It’s made me hurt for Marilyn but also for all the people in the world who are beautiful on the outside and hurting on the inside. The people who search for their worth in the eyes of other people without realizing they were created for a bigger and better purpose – that life is worth living because there is a lot of good to be experienced, not simply because other people might see them as worthy.
I think sometimes it is better to watch movies and not know the personal lives of the actors in them.
Otherwise I find myself focusing too much on their personal lives and how they intersected with their movie roles.
If you want to see what I said about the other movies I watched, you can find the posts by visiting the search bar to the right and typing in “Summer of Marilyn.”
My next movie impressions will be with Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumb when we take on a variety of movies including noir, cozy, fun, and mysterious for autumn.
Summer of Marilyn: The Seven Year Itch
So here I am, behind yet again on my Marilyn movie-watching.
That’s okay, though. Summer is meant to be easy going and relaxed so I will take my time on these and if summer busyness gets in the way, I’ll just have to push my posts off.
If you are new here, I am watching Marilyn Monroe movies this summer and I have called the The Summer of Marilyn.
This week I watched The Seven Year Itch, which was nothing like I expected it to be.
I thought this movie was a drama until I started it and realized it was definitely not a movie to be taken seriously. This is the movie with the famous scene of Marilyn’s dress being blown upward by her standing over the subway grate.
This is a movie made in 1955 that jokingly explores the idea that middle-aged men who have been married seven years feel like they need to break out of the mundane and sow some more wild oats. I, personally, did not find it that funny that the movie makers thought it was funny to make fun of men in New York City sending their wives and children to the country for the summer so they can go meet other women and have parties, therefore feeling free and easy again.
We start the movie with Richard Sherman, a man working in book design, who sends his wife and son off to the country for the summer. Richard is determined he won’t be like other men who drink, smoke, and chase after women while their wives are gone.
Not long after he decides this, though, he heads home to a house that’s been made into apartments and starts complaining as he unlocks the door about how his wife wants to live in a house and not an apartment. Their apartment is nice, he decides, especially with nice neighbors upstairs and – he turns around and someone needs help being buzzed in through the main door.
That someone is Marilyn Monroe who is looking, of course, drop-dead gorgeous.
Richard has to renew his resolve not to forget himself and go crazy while his wife and son are gone with Marilyn acting all clueless and walking around upstairs either naked or half naked. When she almost drops a tomato pot on his head his resolve cracks and he invites her down for a drink.
It’s then he realizes she’s gorgeous but not too bright and that is totally fine with him.
He’s already been daydreaming a lot and Marilyn kicks his daydreams into high gear.
He enjoys daydreaming about how Marilyn will fall for him but, truly, Marilyn is just absolutely clueless to his advances and his more interested in getting into his apartment to take advantage of his air conditioning, which she does not have in her apartment.
Marilyn, incidentally, does not have a name in this movie. Her name is just The Girl.
This is another Billy Wilder film with Marilyn – like Some Like It Hot.
The movie is based on a play written by George Axelrod.
In addition to Marilyn it stars Tom Ewell who played Richard Sherman in the play as well.
Many lines from the play had to be cut because they were deemed indecent by the Hayes office, which determined what was and wasn’t allowed in movies at that time.
There has long been rumors that during the filming of the famous scene with Marilyn, there was too much noise to use the final footage and it had to be shot again on a sound stage. While it is true that the scene was shot twice, footage was used from both shoots, according to an article on Wikipedia. Marilyn really did stand over a grate outside the Trans-Lux 52nd Street Theater, then located at 586 Lexington Avenue in Manhattan. She also did get a lot of attention from the press and onlookers when this happened because Wilder invited them to drum up attention for the film.
This left Marilyn’s then-husband Joe DiMaggio pretty ticked off, but, alas, the scene became one of the most iconic ever in a movie.
Overall I enjoyed this movie, even if I didn’t like some of the messages underlying the plot. In the end, the craziness was drawn to a close before it got too crazy but the in-between stuff that seemed to suggest that men running around on their wives was okay wasn’t a great message for me. I do know that most of it was being said as a joke and that part of the message really was that it wasn’t actually okay to be done.
And, yes, I really liked Marilyn in this movie. She was so free and joyful. Yes, she was sexualized, just like in her other movies, but she also held her own as an actress, playing the comedic parts with ease and pure entertainment.
Next up for me for Marilyn Movies is Monkey Business.
After that, I only have two more movies:
All About Eve and The Misfits.
Both are dramas.
If all goes to plan, I’ll be writing about Monkey Business next week, on August 3, All About Eve on August 10 and The Misfits on August 17th.
(Monkey Business is available for free on YouTube, for those who might like to watch along.)
Summer of Marilyn: Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
I am watching Marilyn Monroe movies for the summer.
I have a confession.
I think she might annoy me a bit.
I know. Isn’t that awful?
It’s just that her breathy voice and the weird things she does with her mouth are so distracting to me. I know. Sacrilege to any hardcore Marilyn fan.
Maybe all her little gestures are annoying to me because I am a heterosexual woman and none of that does a thing for me.
Regardless, I’ve heard so much about her over the years, I figured I should actually watch her movies and see if she was any good or not.
So far, I have watched two of her movies all the way through and have decided that, yes, she was a good actress, but she was also put in a lot of stereotypical roles because of her large chest and pouty lips. I am hoping not all of her movies were like that, but these first two on my list here.
Of course, I have only watched the screwball comedies she was in so they would focus on her beauty as part of the plot points.
This week I watched Gentlemen Prefer Blonds with Marily and Jane Russell.
The movie starts with Marilyn getting proposed to – well, she’s getting a ring at least – by a bit of a nerdy man. That’s a theme in her movies – she’s always attracted to nerdy men with glasses.
As I started to watch the movie, I remembered I have seen it before. It has been years since I have seen it, though, so I totally forgot it was a musical. I should have remembered since it is the movie where Marilyn performed Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend.
Anyhow, the movie continues with Marilyn and Jane, who are showgirls, deciding to go on a cruise to Europe. The women are also best friends even though they are very different. Marilyn (Lorelei in the movie) likes a man to be rich and buy her diamonds while Jane (Dorothy) likes a man to be fit and doesn’t care about wealth.
They both like to make men watch them, however.
There is a lot of skin shown in this movie, including a scene where Jane dances with members of the Olympic team who are also traveling on the ship to Europe. They are wearing only tiny, skin-colored shorts, the entire time. Little Miss asked, “Why are those men naked?” I realized at that moment that watching the movie with her in the room might have been a bad idea, even though it is way more tame than the movies out today.
There are several ridiculous moments as a private detective follows Lorelei on behalf of the father of her fiancé, who thinks Lorelei is simply a gold digger. The private detective and Jane fall for each other, which, of course, complicates things. There is also this whole thing about Lorelei trying to con an old, rich, married man out of a diamond tiara and later being taken to court to answer for the theft of it. Then there is that sexy dance scene in court by Jane, which was totally bizarre to me, but supposed to be funny. I’m such a prude – I just found it disturbing.
When I watch Marilyn movies and see how absolutely gorgeous she is, I am one, jealous, but two, aware of what it took to get her to that place of beauty because I once read an article about all the plastic surgery, dental implants and other physical changes she had to read that perfection.
As I watched the movie I also wondered if her movie voice was really her voice. Like is that how she talked when she asked for a fresh towel at a hotel or asked her assistant to get her a cup of tea? Or did she yell at people with a thick accent – like a Brooklyn or Boston accent? “hey! I’m walkin’ here! Whatreya’ doin’”
I mean, why did she talk like that? Was it considered sexy back then? I find it a little annoying today but that’s probably because I’ve heard so many parodies of her voice.
After a Google search, I learned from Vogue magazine that the breathy, whisper she spoke in was something she used to overcome a childhood stutter. She kept it for her acting and it became her signature voice. So, yes. It was her real voice and she used it in her everyday life. Not like Michael Jackson who totally faked that high voice, but I digress….
Now, When I saw Marilyn sing that famous song, I wanted to know if it was her voice so I Googled that too. The answer was yes and no. She did most of the singing, but an actress and singer Marni Nixon actually supplied part of the notes – the higher notes – which are the notes I thought weren’t hers.
Jane Russell matched Marilyn in this movie with her talent and humor. I do believe she was the better singer, but she and Marilyn were such a fun pair and worked well together.
The bottom line is that I liked the movie, but, as a self-declared prude, there is a lot I could have done without. For one, I didn’t need to see Marilyn and Jane in such skimpy clothes so much. I definitely didn’t need to see all the cleavage and I found myself rolling my eyes more than once at these women essentially using their bodies and sexuality to get what they wanted. Men were portrayed in this movie as too stupid to think when the women were around because, according to the movie, they were both too hot to handle. Men couldn’t be around them without melting into a sexually aroused mess.
I know that some will say that a movie like this was needed to show that women can be in control too and use their sexual prowess to get what they want – like men have been doing for years – but I don’t like it when either sex does that. That doesn’t mean that I didn’t have some fun watching the movie. It just wasn’t my favorite movie because the whole theme of “Marilyn and Jane are hot so men will fall over them” just was overplayed and overused in my opinion.
If you would like to watch the movie I am sure you can find it streaming, but I also found it on Youtube here:
Next week I will be watching Some Like It Hot, which is another screwball comedy with Marilyn, Jack Lemon, and Tony Curtis.
If you would like to join in watching the movies with me, here is the rest of the schedule for the Summer of Marilyn:
July 6: Niagra
July 13: The Seven Year Itch
July 20: Monkey Business (because it’s Marilyn and Cary together)
July 27: All About Eve
August 3: The Misfits
Saturday Afternoon Chat: Some alone time, a couple of outings, visit by friends, and bad Anne of Green Gables sequels
Everyone, I am so excited because by the time you read this, or maybe while you are reading it, I will be having an afternoon to myself to write and watch movies and do whatever I want.
In other words, I will be sitting in my house completely lost and wondering why I thought it would be a good idea to accept my husband’s offer to take the kids to a movie and for me to stay home.
The whole thing sort of went down like this:
Husband: “I’m going to take the kids to Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse on Saturday and you can stay home and write.”
Me: “Uh. Oh. Okay.”
Husband: “Great. Have fun.”
And boom. Here I am. Alone. Writing a blog post.
Alone. In my house. With the dog. With my family 45 minutes away from me one way.
Alone with my thoughts and an old movie (How to Marry A Millionaire).
Ahem.
Did I ever mention that alone time is highly overrated? Because it is.
I’ll update in my Sunday Bookends post how many times I cried wishing my family was home with me interrupting me 15 times while I try to write and that I had instead gone with them.
For now, though, a little about last week.
There is very little to report, honestly. It was a fairly relaxed week – at least physically. Mentally my mind seemed to race all day.
We spent Sunday at a Memorial Day service at a small cemetery about 30 minutes away. A bagpiper played some music in honor of the holiday at the cemetery which was recently repaired and cleaned up.
The speaker who was supposed to come didn’t make it so it was just the bagpiper, but he did a wonderful job. The music was very poignant and moving as we overlooked the cemetery full of veterans of wars that our country fought as far back as at least the Civil War, if not the Revolutionary War as well.
After the service we stopped at a playground right down the road for Little Miss to play a bit. She, however, was more interested in playing in the creek behind the playground, which is totally fine with me. She had no interest in leaving the creek when it was time to go and we hope to stop by there again soon to give her even more time to play.
The water was very low there because we have not had a lot of rain recently and also did not have a very snowy winter.
I have a feeling that our county will be under a burn ban soon. In our area we are allowed to burn trash in a barrel outside in our backyards, but not if there is a burn ban in effect. That will probably come soon as our grass is starting to fade to yellow in some places and our trees are very dry.
Little Miss and The Husband threw rocks in the creek and Little Miss and I put our feet in the water. It was really a very nice and relaxing afternoon.
The Boy was home resting after working the night before.
On Monday we visited my parents for Memorial Day after The Husband went to a Memorial Day service to take photographs and my dad and The Boy went to a service downtown.
The Husband cooked steaks on the grill that my dad had bought a while ago from a local farmer.
The steaks were excellent.
Little Miss, The Husband, and the Boy took a ride on the golf cart before we left. Little Miss helped clean out the pool at my parents before the golf cart ride. My dad is trying to get it summer ready. We will have to do some more cleaning tomorrow when we visit to get it all the way ready.
On Thursday Little Miss had a friend over to visit.
Yesterday we did pretty much nothing, other than The Husband who was awesome and braved the heat we were having to pick up groceries.
It turned out to be not as hot as we thought it was going to be but he didn’t want me to have to deal with any drama after the loss of the key fob last week. There always seems to be drama when I do the shopping. Sigh. He also does a great job and keeps us well within budget. Not that I go too crazy with the budget, but Little Miss does tend to add extra fruits to the cart when we do it, which is okay by me.
This past week started writing more of book two of the Gladwynn Grant Mysteries. I am having fun crafting the story and will hopefully write a little more on it today during my break.
I started to watch Anne of Green Gables: The Continuing Story today but – ick. I forgot that the story was not from the books and was, quite frankly, ridiculous and way too over dramatic. The actors were too old to be playing the parts, they took the story out of Prince Edward Island and to the United States and Kevin Sullivan took way too many liberties with the characters for my taste.
I have not enjoyed every Anne book I’ve read (like Anne’s House of Dreams. Yuck. So depressing. Seriously.) but there is a reason I love L.M. Montgomery’s books. They are whimsical and full of joy, most of the time anyhow. There are some sad and hard stories but at their heart is a youthfulness and hopefulness to Anne that I really didn’t see in this mini-series or as much of it as I was able to watch today. I watched it years ago and remember not enjoying it very much then either.
Staying on the topic of Anne of Green Gables, this week I unfollowed the official account of the original mini-series when they started pairing scenes from the film with modern music – particularly Taylor Swift.
I am not a fan of Taylor, one, but, two, I am not a fan of modern music being paired with films about vintage shows or books. I read those books and watch similar movies to escape the modern world. I don’t see why they need to be combined and connected to the modern world in any way. Leave me my vintage fantasy world, please. That’s what I wanted to tell them but instead I just quietly unfollowed. No need to be a prude and a drama queen at the same time. *wink*
I usually share what I am drinking and forgot to do that at the beginning of the post so I’ll share now that I have made myself a cup of peppermint tea to sip and filled it with honey after being without honey for a week or so. The weather was very warm last week so I didn’t bother to make tea, but instead drank a lot of water with lemon or grape juice mixed in.
How was your week last week? Did you do anything exciting?
Drink any lovely teas or lovely beverages?
Let me know in the comments.
