Have a Nice Christmas

It's the weekend before Christmas and I want to say to have a great holiday and New Year. For 2009 I hope to write some more here. So that's all and take care.

How the Mighty Have Fallen

Well, I am back again just to say that I am deeply sad by all the people that died the last couple of weeks including Sydney Pollock, Dick Martin, Harvey Korman, and most sad of all-John Phillip Law. To repeat what my Mom said to me recently God is testing our faith to see if we can make it. But I think there's more to this: I think something bad will happen and that is God will have the last word on if we can secure our future. In the meantime, I'm going to be watching the 60's movie Medium Cool shortly about the 1968 Democratic Convention riots in Chicago. That is all for now.

Sorry That I've Not Been Here

Well good news: It seems like my head has just cleared up and now I want to write some more movies from the 60's. After I finish the blog that I was going to publish our computer had to go a major change: First with the tower (as me and my father added new anti-virus componets) and then a new computer screen. Let's face it-blowing $700 on those two things were quite a bitch. But now that's over. I am willing once again to write some more stuff. Hope no one forgot me.

cinemaretrocover

cinemaretrocover
Originally uploaded by Eric'sdomain25

England Swings: The Chalk Garden

In my last column I mentioned about the montage of all the people that died the past year during the Oscars. One of them of course was Deborah Kerr. So I decided on writing about one of her movies that she during the 1960's. That was The Chalk Garden.
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Based on the 1955 Broadway play written by Irene Selznick and released in May 1964, Kerr stars as Miss Madrigal-a governess (she had already played one in the movie The Innocents) who arrives at a mansion on the British countryside. She has come here so that she can help Laurel (Hayley Mills)
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who is becoming a troubling teenager
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and also there is the butler Maitland (John Mills; who just happened to be Hayley's father).
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After spending a few days with her, Madrigal now knows why she is becoming a sulking brat: Her mother Olivia (Elizabeth Sellers) doesn't love her and Laurel will do anything to accept her back.
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Having been a brat before Madigral is confident to straighten out her before her patience gets very thin.
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The movie was directed by Ronald Neame (who would later direct Gambit; a movie that I previously wrote, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, and The Poseidon Adventure) while Edith Evans, who plays Miss Maugham (had had originated the role when it came to London in 1956) received an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress. It was an entertaining film through it all (as what Hayley Mills character says at one point: "I don't shake hands. It's so animal!").

Thinking Things

Well, we are two months into the new year. So far nothing big has happened. Last weekend was the Oscars and I didn't watch it live. When I saw it on tape, I thought the show was horrible. Then of course they go to the montage of all the people that died the past year. They showed Michelangelo Antonionni and his movie Blow-Up. I must admit (as I told this to my Mom) that was the movie that changed my life because it was the movie that delivered the message: "Life is Fragile". And that is the sad part about the movies today: They don't make them with that phrase tacked on ("No Country For Old Men"? I don't think so).
Staying with the subject, I don't know if anyone's familar with 60's British actress Judy Geeson.



Anyway, I saw this wonderful photo of Geeson and her young sister Sally taken outside their parents home in England from 1967 in which the two are sitting on top of the family car (which just happened to be a Mini!) and wearing different kinds of clothing. To the point, the picture was so good that I wondered why actresses today aren't like this in which they have their heads straight. Also to point out, Geeson appeared in movies like To Sir With Love, Hammerhead, and of course Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush;



in which it has never been released on video on DVD mainly since it was racy and climaxed by the scene near the end in which Geeson and Barry Evers' characters get naked and go into a lake.



I also encountered a strange fact from Wikipedia regarding another sweet British blonde actress from that period-Susan George. Can you believe she's been married to fellow British actor Simon MacCorkindale since 1984 and they have NO children? I was flabbergasted because will all that devotion they have, I thought they would have at least three children.
How many people are familar with the magazine CinemaRetro? In which they write about the movies of the 60's and 70's.



Can you believe they publish only three issues a year? Fear not: They have an on-line blog (just like this) in which they write information every day for those who can't wait in-between issues. CinemaRetro writer Lee Pfieffer made an interested fact in the audio commentary to the movie Our Man Flint in which his magazine is the only publication in which the movies of director Sam Peckinpah and Don Knotts are featured back to back. Well, that is all I need to say. I wil try to write some more.