Period pieces 1: Miss Marple / Mapp & Lucia

An investment for those long winter nights is a reasonably priced boxset of all 12 BBC Miss Marple stories featuring Joan Hickson as the intrepid detective of that perfect 1950s English village St Mary Mead. Hickson, usually seen in comic roles (YANKS, UPSTAIRS & DOWNSTAIRS, PLEASE TURN OVER etc) is just perfect here.

The 1960s Marple films with Margaret Ruthrford were comic trifles, and much as I like Geraldine McEwan and Julia McKenzie their later Marples were all wrong, and the films silly and stuffed with guest stars (step forward as usual David Walliams).

The main Marple stories like MURDER AT THE VICARGE, 4.50  FROM PADDINGTON, and my particular favourite AT  BERTRAM'S HOTEL are all iincuded and it will be a pleasure to see them again. See Miss Marple label for review of this,

I already have the 80s series of MAPP & LUCIA,  the blissful comic capers of those two warring ladies in Tilling in Sussex, in that perfect period between the wars, with Geraldine McEwan, Prunella Scales and Nigel Hawthorne all perfectly cast, as are all the other characters. I have reviewed this in more detail at Mapp & Lucia label. 

Follies concert, 1985

A group of showgirls from the Weismann Follies in the 1940s reunite in the 1970s. Originally produced in 1971 where it was a critical success but not a financial one, Stephen Sondheim's musical may well be his masterpiece. In 1985, a staged concert of his musical directed by Herbert Ross has taken on near legendary proportions - purely for that cast.

Lee Remick and Barbara Cook are the two leads  and both are sensational. Lee, sleek and gorgeous, does a marvellous "Could I leave You", and that delicious "The Story of Lucy and Jessie", while Cook, who died last week but at her peak here, does that amazing "Losing My Mind".

Add in Carol Burnett, and a rather irritating Elaine Stritch, who rather murders "Broadway Baby", plus veterans like Betty Comden and Adolph Green.

The first half is rather bitty but its interesting seeing the players rehearse and mingle, and then do the actual Concert. It took 4 days in all for a cast recording. 

I saw FOLLIES last a decade or more ago, it will be great seeing the new National Theatre production next month.  It is being broadcast live to cinemas on November 16.  

A treat: Lee and Dirk in The Vision, 1987

A thousand thanks to Colin for finding this - one of my Holy Grails - a 1987 BBC film with two of my top favourites, which was only ever shown once by the BBC and since unavailable. It is now on dvd, so thanks again Colin - just what I needed after a few days in hospital. 

Dirk Bogarde and Lee Remick head an outstanding cast (including Eileen Atkins and Helena Bonham Carter) in this powerful drama from the creative team behind SHADOWLANDS. Originally screened (in January 1988) as part of BBC2’s acclaimed Screen Two strand, THE VISION is a disturbing reflection on an era of televangelists, burgeoning satellite channels and ruthless media manipulation – quite timely then for 30 years ago.

Bogarde plays James Marriner, a faded, unhappily married for TV presenter, reduced to margarine commercials and opening supermarkets, who is persuaded to front The People Channel – a right-wing, evangelical satellite network poised to launch in Europe. Determined to recruit “Gentle Jim” as a reassuringly familiar anchorman, the network’s steely, seductive boss Grace Gardner (Remick) proves hard to refuse.

As the network’s first live transmission looms, Marriner – whose personal life is now under surveillance – has become deeply uneasy about its aims. Garner, however, makes it clear than any attempt to alert viewers to her organisation’s true agenda, will bring about a devastating retribution. 
Written by William Nicholson and directed by Norman Stone. 

Eileen Atkins (in another of her then Mrs Glum roles) is Bogarde's unhappy wife, and Bonham Carter their daughter, Dirk and Lee play perfectly together, at this late stage in their careers - almost their final work. I met them both (separately) at the BFI in 1970 (I was 24) and got to talk to them both, as per other posts on them (see labels). Its a great role for Remick, which she plays with relish and looks great here in her early fifties, a few years before her death in 1991. (We also saw Atkins on stage then as Elizabeth I in Bolt's VIVAT REGINA with Sarah Miles as Mary Queen of Scots).

I suppose it now too much to expect to get Lee's other BBC productions, SUMMER AND SMOKE in 1972 and Henry James' THE AMBASSADORS, with Paul Scofield, in 1977, finally on dvd too? - in the meantime, great to see THE VISION again, and it is so timely, even if the 80s technology looks so dated now.  Then there are Bogarde's other TV productions, like THE PATRICIA NEAL STORY with Glenda Jackson ...

Eighties nights ...

The Jewel In The Crown / Your Cheatin' Heart / Wish Me Luck

How did I ever miss THE JEWEL IN THE CROWN back in 1984? Well, I was moving around and out a lot .... This 14 part series is one of the best British television productions ever, up there with BRIDSHEAD REVISITED. It is a fascinating saga of the British in India in the 1940s, as adapted from Paul Scott's four novels "The Raj Quartet". 

The British Raj: though their position seems secure, thoughtful English men and women know that "their" time in India is coming to an end. The story begins with an unjust arrest for rape, and the consequences of this echo through the series. Questions of identity and personal responsibility are explored against a background of war and personal intrigue.

Television moved at a slower pace then, long scenes unfold, which would be edited quickly now, and we have time to take in all the details of the many strands of narrative and all that fascinating scenery. The first two-hour episode draws one in, as one wants to see what develops between Daphne Manners, new in India and local boy Hari Kumar (Susan Wooldridge and Art Malik) and that rather sadistic army man Ronald Merrick (superlative Tim-Pigott Smith, who died recently).  After episode three, the story changes gear and we follow the aftermath. The casting again is the thing here. with a great array of British thespians: 

Peggy Ashcroft superb as ever as Barbie, Geraldine James, Judy Parfitt (in superbitch mode), wonderful Fabia Drake and Rachel Kempson, Anna Cropper, Rosemary Leach, Wendy Morgan, and good to see veteran Marne Maitland too, from all those 1950s films. plus Charles Dance, Warren Clarke and Eric Porter among the huge cast. 

We are now half-way through this 14-episode saga, seeing an episode a night. Bring them on, Directed by Christopher Morahan and Jim O'Brien.

More India coming up too: I never saw Lean's A PASSAGE TO INDIA then either, I can record it tonight - more Dame Peggy and Malik and that great cast in Lean's Indian epic, which has to be seen finally. 

YOUR CHEATIN' HEART: We loved this six-episode series back in 1990, its quirky and off the wall. Super to get it on dvd now, as we return to that late 80s country music scene in Scotland, with a young Tilda Swinton and John Gordon Sinclair, with great music from Eddi Reader. Ken Stott shines too, as we follow the misadventures of Cissie Crouch (Tilda) and Frank McClusky as they go on the run from some weird gangsters .... its full of Scottish humour, as written by John Byrne and directed by Michael Whyte.

WISH ME LUCK. More conventional stuff - another series of wartime resistance in Occupied France, as the plucky Brits parachute in female volunteers to help the Allies defeat the Hun. This ran from 1987 to 1990, three series. Cool Kate Bufffery is marvellous the main character Liz, with rather annoying Susannah Hamilton as the annoying Matty, 

Jane Asher is perfect of course as Faith Ashley, running the department back in London, with Julian Glover, and another agent is young Jeremy Northam. Warren Clarke is the German commandant who begins to suspect ......  We get thrill and spills as the agents try to keep ahead of the Germans, as the those radio broadcasts have to get made .... who will get caught? The 40s period flavour is well done,.

Jane

In the pantheon of 1960s British actresses (led by Julie Christie, Susannah York, Sarah Miles, Rita Tushingham etc), Jane Asher was the posh one, with that standout long red hair. A child actress, she was Susannah York’s young sister in THE GREENGAGE SUMMER in 1961, and we liked her in Roger Corman’s 1964 THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH –she was interesting on radio recently saying she enjoyed working on it and with Vincent Price. 

She was also one of ALFIE’s girls in 1966, and went on to a lot of interesting items like Skolimowski’s DEEP END in 1970 – now on Bluray with lots of extra interviews, where she is the perfect 1960s dolly bird with those white boots and yellow PVC mac setting off the hair. She also did a lot of television and stage (I saw her with Laurence Harvey in Shakespeare’s THE WINTER’S TALE in 1967), and she is currently part of the hit musical AN AMERICAN IN PARIS ensemble., 
and I am watching a boxset of the 1980s war drama WISH ME LUCK, which we enjoyed at the time, where she is ideal as Faith Ashley, organiser of the secret agents operating in France during World War II. She was also in BRIDESHEAD REVISTED among others, and er, the short-lived rebooted CROSSROADS.

She was of course famous in the 1960s as also being Paul McCartney’s girlfriend – he lived for a time with her parents at their Wimpole Street address. Her brother Peter was part of  Peter & Gordon and later record producer for the likes of James Taylor. She has though never capitalised on her Beatles connections, and was also later famous for her cakes and baking, Perhaps she should take over THE GREAT BRITSH BAKE-OFF ? She is married to cartoonist Gerard Scarfe and it is always a pleasure to see her. She even tackled Lady Bracknell a few years ago. We should have seen that. 

More on Jane and DEEP END at label ...

For the weekend ....

George sings Joni / Jimmy revisits "Smalltown Boy" in 2014 / Joan's "Back To The Night" in 1975. I have just bought a vinyl album of that, one of her essentials with those great early songs, but somehow it is not on cd, unless for very silly money ...

Absolute Beginners, 1986

ABSOLUTE BEGINNERS was not quite a success in 1986, but Julien Temple's film is a fizzing delight now, perhaps a proto music-video film. It looks fantastic with all those day-glo colours and is quite impressive with those recreations of Old Compton Street in London's Soho, and the seedy tenements of Notting Hill and Portobello Road. It is 1958, so racial tensions are simmering as the new teenagers discover all that new music .....

A musical adaptation of Colin MacInnes' novel about life in late 1950s London. Nineteen-year-old photographer Colin is hopelessly in love with model Crepe Suzette, but her relationships are strictly connected with her progress in the fashion world. So Colin gets involved with a pop promoter and tries to crack the big time. Meanwhile, racial tension is brewing in Colin's Notting Hill housing estate...

Temple (I loved his documentary LONDON THE MODERN BABYLON a few years ago, and his pop videos include Bowie's JAZZIN' FOR BLUE JEAN and Culture Club's DO YOU REALLY WANT TO HURT ME?) has a great eye for staging numbers, brings in an eclectic cast to support his leads: Eddie O'Connell as the young photographer hero and young Patsy Kensit - a perfect Bardot type here - as the aspiring designer. There's Ray Davies of The Kinks doing a terrific number and none other than Mandy Rice-Davies as his wife. James Fox is the reptilian fashion designer. And then there is David Bowie as the slick ad man. One watches entranced, THEN Sade comes on to deliver that slinky number "Killer Blow". So, whats not to love?  One to re-watch again soon. 

Querelle & Fassbinder

One of the most bizarre movies is Rainer Werner Fassbinder's QUERELLE, a 1982 item from the novel by Genet - but in Fassbinder's vision it becomes a lurid if not sensational potboiler of repressed (and not so- ) homoerotic passions with all those matelots in those eye-catching outfits hanging out in waterfront dives in Brest in France, as our hero Querelle (Brad Davis) has the hots for his superior officer, a moody Franco Nero, right.. 
Add in Jeanne Moreau of all people, wearing those enormous ear-rings, intoning Oscar Wilde's "Each Man Kills The Thing He Loves" and Querelle submitting to her brutal husband, who likes getting off with those sailor boys.   It was all too much at the time, how would it fare now? It was actually released after Fassbinder's death in 1982. 

The Fassbinder we really like is his 1974 FOX AND HIS FRIENDS, reviewed here a while back, see Fassbinder label - where the director himself plays the loutish lottery winner taken to the cleaners by his smart new boyfriend (Peter Chatel, right) and his grasping family who need Fox's money to prop up ther ailing business. It ends on a very downbeat note as Fox's body is robbed by kids in a metro station.  

Other Fassbinders (once as prolific as Almodovar or Ozon) we liked then include FEAR EATS THE SOUL, his stylish hothouse lesbian drama THE BITTER TEARS OF PETRA VON KANT, EFFI BRIEST, THE MARRIAGE OF MARIA BRUAN, and the fascinating mess he made of Nabokov's DESPAIR with Dirk Bogarde, the director's last before his untimely drug-related death in 1982, aged 37. Still, he clocked up 44 credits ...  . 

A FOX memory - between 1976 and 1979 I was working at Dillons University Bookshop (now Waterstones) in London's University quarter, not in the bookshop but in an office upstairs, working with a German woman, Monica, who became a friend (we both loved Dietrich and Romy Schneider); one day she was expecting a guest for lunch and asked me to talk to him until she came back from a meeting. In walked this guy whom I recognised as Peter Chatel, the actor from FOX AND HIS FRIENDS, he sat on the edge of my desk and we talked about that until Monica returned, Chatel died aged 42 in 1986, another Aids casualty, 
Below: Andy Warhol visits the set, with Fassbinder and Brad Davis.

The Ballroom of Romance

William Trevor, the great Irish writer has died at age of 88. We celebrate his great output of novels and short stories. Some of them, like FELICIA'S JOURNEY, FOOLS OF FORTUNE, THE OLD BOYS have been filmed. Here is a lovely version of his short story THE BALLROOM OF ROMANCE, made in 1982. It captures that lonely Irish life on farms perfectly and the frustrations of single women looking for the right, or any, man ... Trevor is worth investigating if you do not know his work. His other short stories are perfect too: "Angels At The Ritz", "The Day We Got Drunk on Cake", "Lovers Of Their Time". "The Hill Bachelors", "The News From Ireland" etc. 

People We Like: Lauren

No, not that one, the other one: Lauren Hutton in AMERICAN GIGOLO.

We have covered Paul Schrader's 1980 hit AMERICAN GIGOLO quite a bit here, see label, usually focusing on Richard Gere, this is the role, as gigolo Julian Kaye, which established him after DAYS OF HEAVEN and YANKS. The film for me ushers in the glamour and glitz of the Eighties, with that Moroder soundtrack. But the more I see it the more I am fascinated by Lauren Hutton as the senator's wife, she is the still centre of the film and is marvellously watchable, and how she wears clothes, being a top fashion model of course (she was on the cover of VOGUE 25 times). Her character though is so sympathetic compared to the others on view here and the climax is so affecting when she gives Julian the alibi he needs to get off that fixed murder rap. 

Lauren, in her seventies now, is as fascinating to look at as Joni Mitchell - they both have that blonde, Nordic look. She is also effective in Alan Rudolph's WELCOME TO L.A. and THE GAMBLER with James Caan, and Altman's A WEDDING, as well as assorted tv series like NIP/TUCK and FALCON CREST.  She has notched up 57 movie credits and has turned producer. Like that other fashion model turned actress, Marisa Berenson, it is always a pleasure to see Lauren. 

Woody's films ranked !

I am indebted to that enterprising movie magazine LITTLE WHITE LIES, as they have ranked all Woody Allen's 46 films, with interesting comments on them, just as his new one CAFE SOCIETY is getting better than usual reviews here (My pal Martin "loved, loved, loved it".). The link is here:   Enjoy!

http://lwlies.com/articles/the-films-of-woody-allen-ranked/

I couldn't top that, Woody (is it really 51 years since he was chasing Romy Schneider in WHAT'S NEW PUSSYCAT?, our favourite 1965 cult movie .... ) has been variable over the years, with some movies I love (ok, the mainly early funny and mid-period ones) and some I just had no interest in seeing. 

My top 10 Woodys would be:      (but check the link and read all about them all). 

• ANNIE HALL
• MANHATTAN
• INTERIORS
• STARDUST MEMORIES
• HANNAH AND HER SISTERS
• CRIMES AND MISDEMEANOURS
• MIDNIGHT IN PARIS
• EVERYONE SAYS I LOVE YOU
• ANOTHER WOMAN
• RADIO DAYS
• BROADWAY DANNY ROSE
• THE PURPLE ROSE OF CAIRO
• LOVE AND DEATH

I dashed to BLUE JASMINE which seemed his best in years, it was only after we realised the flaws in the script, but it was marvellously done, especially by Cate Blanchett. His London movie YOU WILL MEET A TALL DARK STRANGER worked for us too. 1972's EVERYTHING YOU ALWAYS WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT SEX amused at the time - Woody as the Fool, Gene Wilder and the sheep - but that extended sperm sequence may jar now, with that anti-gay jibe (Are there any gays in the Woody universe, apart from Meryl Streep as the lesbian ex-wife in MANHATTAN?) 
Reviews of some of these at Woody label. Lets hope he, in his 80s,  can keep turning out a movie a year for a while longer yet ...  

Summer re-views: A Room With A View

Back to 1985 for this still charming treat, and perhaps the most popular Merchant-Ivory production till then, A ROOM WITH A VIEW from E.M. Forster, still delights now. Ok, its a perfect period costume drama, but its ideal for a warm Summer evening. The BFI in fact screened it in the open air, under the stars, projected on the wall of The British Museum in London a couple of summers ago (along with Hitch's BLACKMAIL, which actually used the Museum as a location for the climax back in 1929).

Here is what I said about ROOM a few years ago here:

A ROOM WITH A VIEW from 1985 - how we liked this at the time (one of my date movies in Brighton), one of their best films and the first of their E M Forster triple, followed by MAURICE (time for a re-view of that soon) in 1987 and then HOWARDS END - the definition of the much derided heritage cinema,
but they are all marvellous costume dramas with great performances, like their THE EUROPEANS (Lee Remick), THE BOSTONIANS (Vanessa Redgrave), HEAT AND DUST (Julie Christie, Greta Scacchi), QUARTET (as reviewed here, Maggie Smith label), as well as their earlier oddities like SHAKESPEARE WALLAH or SAVAGES. What a fascinating team they (director James Ivory & producer Ishmael Merchant, with scriptwriter Ruth Prawer Jhabvala ) were and the many stories of how they made those films and attracted all those casts, on meagre budgets ....

When Lucy Honeychurch and chaperone Charlotte Bartlett find themselves in Florence with rooms without views, fellow guests Mr Emerson and son George step in to remedy the situation. Meeting the Emersons could change Lucy's life forever but, once back in England, how will her experiences in Tuscany affect her marriage plans?

Maggie Smith and Judi Dench are perfection of course as the spinster aunt and the novelist Miss Lavish, Florence looks marvellous, the period detail looks perfect, there's wonderful Fabia Drake, Daniel Day Lewis as the prissy Cecil Vyse, Rosemary Leach, Denholm Elliot and that amusing scene where the Reverend Beebe (portly Simon Callow - I almost said Cowell !) joins George and Freddy (Julian Sands and Rupert Graves) for a naked swim as the ladies walk by .....  England and Italy both look great and the soundtrack and music and captions are ideal, as of course is Helena Bonham-Carter as Lucy Honeychurch. It all ends very satisfyingly with our couple back at their room with a view and the spinster aunt happy for them in her single bed. It all though makes one want to run off to Florence right now ...

There was another ROOM WITH A VIEW, a tv version in 2007 right, scripted by costume veteran Andrew Davies (also responsible for the great BBC 1995 PRIDE & PREJUDICE and the filleted new version of BRIDESHEAD REVISITED, see Costume Drama label). There is no ambiguity about the Reverend Beebe (Mark Williams) in this one ("not the marrying kind" according to Forster), he chats up Italian youths and has a leer in his eye as joins the boys stripping off .... Cecil in this one is James Fox's son Laurence .... like the recent tv version of SENSE & SENSIBILITY it amuses but is not as good as the film. It did though tack on a meaningless coda showing Lucy back in Florence in the '20s, George having perished in WW1!

Young Toscanini, 1988

I never imagined in my wildest dreams I would enjoy seeing Elizabeth Taylor in blackface as an opera diva singing (or miming to) an aria from AIDA, but that is just one of the treats in Franco Zeffirelli's 1988 YOUNG TOSCANINI, so thanks Jerry for that. 

Of course Zeffirelli (now 93) knows how to stage an opera and how to showcase a diva, we get both in spades here. His later films (this one never even played in London) may be inconsequential but are marvellously staged, costumed and cast. TEA WITH MUSSOLINI was fun with that cast, and Fanny Ardant is terrific as Maria Callas (whom Zeffi knew well) in CALLAS FOREVER in 2002. His huge hits in the 1960s were of course THE TAMING OF THE SHREW with the Burtons, and ROMEO AND JULIET in 1968. I particularly like his hippie St Francis film BROTHER SUN, SISTER MOON in 1973, where again he creates spell-binding moments. His long apprenticeship with Visconti certainly paid dividend. 

YOUNG TOSCANINI is an oddity. The blurb says:

In Rio de Janeiro in 1886, eighteen-year-old conductor Arturo Toscanini, in Brazil on an orchestra tour, is torn between an aging soprano attempting a comeback and a mistress his own age. Opera diva Nadina Bulichoff has interrupted her stage career for Dom Pedro II the emperor of Brazil. When Toscanini begins to coach his childhood idol for a return to the stage in "Aida," Nadina has fallen into deep depression. The conductor is instrumental in her transformation as her performance proves an ultimate triumph and she is back the top of her art.

Taylor is terrific here as Nadina, its a leading role and maybe her last significant cinema one. She certainly looks and emotes better than she did in that terrible A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC a decade earlier. I did not know C. Thomas Howell's work, but he has certainly been busy and still working now. Cast also includes Sophie Ward, Franco Nero, Philippe Noiret. Certainly worth seeing if one can catch it. 

I will now finally be moving on to Zeffirelli's 1990 HAMLET this week - again, a stunnng cast, and should be an interesting take on the play. I will be also tackling his 1996 JANE EYRE which may arrive today; there are so many JANEs around, it will be interesting to see how Franco stages it, and again has a great British supporting cast (Joan Plowright, Billie Whitelaw, Sam West, Richard Warwick, with William Hurt and Charlotte Gainsburg in the leads).  . 

The Gay Metropolis 1940-1996

Weaving oral history with precise cultural analysis, THE GAY METROPOLIS is the definitive social, cultural and political history of gay life in the major cities of the world over the last fifty years. Focusing on New York, London, Paris, Amsterdam, and Berlin, Kaiser chronicles how urban centres have been crucial in the genesis and evolution of gay culture. THE GAY METROPOLIS combines intimate stories of people as famous as Leonard Bernstein, Arthur Laurents and Gore Vidal, and as little known as Sandy Kern, a young Brooklyn woman who first heard the word 'lesbian' when a neighbour spied her with her arm around her girlfriend at the end of a wartime blackout.

This was a fascinating read when I first read it a decade or more ago, but I had lent it to a friend and never got it back ..... so I was pleased another friend mentioned it again recently, so I got another copy and enjoyed reading it all over again. As social history it can't be beat. Charles Kaiser has concentrated on New York, but it does not detract from an overall understanding of the 20th Century gay tapestry. 

We go from the closeted 1940s where though, as in wartime London, gay life flourished in secret * (see that extract from Gore Vidal's THE CITY AND THE PILLAR below), to the even more closeted 1950s when being gay was as bad as being a communist and they were hounded from government posts, and there was no mention of gay life anywhere, to the start of the gay, black and women's liberation movements of the 1960s, culminating in that Stonewall uprising in 1969 and the success of plays like THE BOYS IN THE BAND. It was routine in the early sixties for gays to kill themselves in films like ADVISE AND CONSENT, THE CHILDREN'S HOUR and THE SERGEANT, at least the British film VICTIM made an impact, as did SUNDAY BLOODY SUNDAY at the start of the 1970s when gay activism took to the streets and became more visible as the decade wore on, climaxing with the gay decadence of disco, Studio 54, "After Dark" magazine and the availability of gay material on those new video-cassettes .....

The 1980s though is a whole different story as that strange new illness began making inroads into the gay community and how it responded in the face of political indifference from the Reagan goverment...  there are lots of life stories here, and its all uplifting stuff by the mid Nineties - now 20 years later, the changes to gay life would be unimaginable then.  I think its an essential item for any gay bookshelf, maybe next to Vito Russo's THE CELLULOID CLOSET. Not only that, a very engaging read!  

Kaiser shows how before the sexual freedoms of the Seventies, World War II was a great liberator: "the war had caused a great change. Inhibitions had broken down. All sorts of young men - away from home and their towns and farms for the first time - were trying out all sorts of new things". 

Gore Vidal's 1948 novel THE CITY AND THE PILLAR set in Forties New York:

"Jim went straight to a Times Square bar frequented by soldiers and sailors. He studied the room carefully like a general surveying the terrain of battle. Then he selected his objective: a tall Army Lieutenant with broad shoulders, dark hair, blue eyes. Jim squeezed in beside him and ordered a drink. Jim's leg touched the Lieutenant's leg, a hard muscular leg which returned the pressure. 

"You in the service?" asked the Lieutenant. His voice was slow, deep, far Western.

"Yeah, I was in the army too"

"What outfit?"

They exchanged information. The Lieutenant had served with the infantry during the invasion of North Africa. He was now stationed in the South as an instructor. 

"You live around here?"

Jim nodded. "I got a room downtown".

"I sure wish I had a place. I got to stay on a sofa wih this married cousin".

"That sounds pretty uncomfortable".

"It sure is".

"You could", said Jim, as though he were thinking it over, "stay at my place. There's plenty of room".

The Lieutenant said no, he couldn't do that; they had another drink and then went downtown to bed.

Next, we are going off to that 1970s gay sauna THE RITZ ! 

Legendary ladies at lunch ....

I remember this particular issue of AFTER DARK from February 1981 and had it at the time, nice to find it on ebay, cheap too. I wanted to re-read this interview with two great Broadway ladies having lunch: Geraldine Page and Julie Harris. They were doing a new play at the time, MIXED COUPLES, their first time on stage together - they had though both been in Coppola's YOU'RE A BIG BOY NOW, his lovely debut feature in 1966. 

I read somewhere that we Londoners were lucky in that Maggie Smith and/or Judi Dench were often on the boards here - but New Yorkers had regular appearances by Harris and Page. 
Harris though did bring her wonderful 1977 show THE BELLE OF AMHERST to London, which wowed me so much I had to write and tell her, and surprisingly, she wrote back, with this lovely card - the only time I ever wrote to (and got a reply) from a performer I liked. 

We have been entranced with Miss Harris (who passed away in 2013) ever since THE MEMBER OF THE WEDDING and of course EAST OF EDEN. 

Page knew Dean too, as per the photograph below: (They were in THE IMMORALIST on Broadway).

This issue of AFTER DARK too has great interviews and pictures with David Hockney and Lily Tomlin (who I am now enjoying in the GRACE AND FRANKIE boxset) and there are also comments on LA from the likes of LA regulars like Natalie Wood, Bette Davis, Gore Vidal etc. as well as Quentin Crisp on Mae West!

We also remember having this photobook FAME reviewed here, some great images by Brad Benedict of celebrity culture, like this great image of Richard Gere (then hot off AMERICAN GIGOLO)  as presumably a L.A. hustler ... More on Harris & Page at their labels - Julie was a 'Person we Like' in  2010 (that got 1,992 views here).