No 1: A Star is Born (Cukor, 1954): Prince Charles Cinema, 8.05pm
This screening is part of the Funeral Parade strand at the Prince Charles Cinema. You can find all the details here.
Welcome
to the reason this blog exists. In December 2010 I watched this film, a
movie I went to see when restored and re-released in cinemas in 1983,
on television. I thought afterwards how much I would love to see this
movie on the big screen again and that prompted an idea to write a daily
blog picking a film to see in London. The purpose of starting the blog
was to highlight to film lovers the best movies on the capital's
repertory cinema circuit.
What
writing the blog has also done is reinvigorate my moviegoing. The act
of putting this small contribution to the London film scene together has
resulted in encouraging me to go and see more movies. I hope the blog
has had that impact on others too. This brilliant restoration of one of
the greatest Hollywood films of all time comes highly recommended. Many
believe Judy Garland gave her greatest performance in this film and one
critic has called Mason's the best supporting performance by a male
actor in modern Hollywood. Try and get to see A Star is Born where it
should be seen - in a cinema.
Chicago
Reader review:
Even
in this incomplete restoration George Cukor's 1954 musical remake of
the 1937 Hollywood drama is devastating. Judy Garland plays a young
singer discovered by aging, alcoholic star Norman Maine (James
Mason), who helps her to fame as "Vicki Lester" even as his
career slips. Garland gives a deeply affecting performance--halting,
volatile, unsure of herself early on and unsure of Norman later--and
her musical numbers are superb. Yet the film's core is its
two-character scenes, in which small shifts in posture subtly
articulate the drama's essence. Cukor gives his preoccupation with
self-image a surprisingly anti-Hollywood spin: despite the many
industry-oriented group scenes, the characters seem fully authentic
only when they're alone with each other. The scenes of Lester acting
seem tainted with artifice, and her a cappella performance of her
current hit for Norman on their wedding night further separates the
public from the private. Later, reenacting the production number shot
that day, she uses a food cart for a dolly and a chair for a harp;
Cukor's initial long take heightens the intimacy between her and
Norman, just as the household props implicitly critique studio
artificiality. All that matters, Cukor implies, is what people can
try to become for each other. The film was badly mangled when Warner
Brothers cut a half hour shortly after its release; this 1983
35-millimeter restoration replaces some footage, offering stills when
only the sound track could be found. Fortunately these slide shows
are confined to early scenes, giving some sense of what was
lost.
Fred
Camper
Here
(and above) is the trailer.
•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
No 2: Moss Rose (Ratoff, 1947): BFI Southbank, NFT2, 6.20pmA 35mm screening in the 'Projecting the Archive' strand at BFI Southbank introduced by Josephine Botting, BFI Curator.
BFI introduction:
We mark the centenary of Peggy Cummins with a film from her Hollywood
period – one of three collaborations with director Ratoff. Marjorie
Bowen’s 1934 source novel was itself based on an unsolved Victorian
murder and this adaptation features Cummins as a Cockney chorus girl who
blackmails a rich gentleman she suspects of being the killer. Despite
the excellent cast and crack screenwriting team, the film didn’t enhance
Cummins’ stateside career. Nevertheless, it remains an entertaining
mystery thriller set against the backdrop of foggy Victorian London,
Hollywood-style.
Here (and above) is the trailer.
No comments:
Post a Comment