Love, pain & the whole damn thing: The Line of Beauty

Revisiting a gay classic: THE LINE OF BEAUTY, 2006.

Nick Guest comes to London to stay with his college friend's family, the Feddens. A short stay becomes permanent, as Nick makes himself useful and positions himself in the family's plentiful lives of parties and politics during the Thatcher years. Over the course of three episodes spanning four years in the mid-eighties, we follow Nick's two homosexual love affairs in a time of promiscuity and carelessness, until the AIDS crisis and a bout of scandal threaten the life of plentiful riches and gay love affairs that he seems destined for.

It was fascinating going back to re-view this BBC film from 2006 from Alan Hollinghurst's best-selling novel, faithfully (and explicitly) adopted by veteran Andrew Davies (PRIDE & PREJUDICE etc) and directed by Saul Dibb. Dan Stevens, as Nick (pre-DOWNTON ABBEY), was working the cherub look then and it certainly worked for him. Alice Krige is fascinating as ever as the family's mother who takes a shine to Nick and invites him to stay with them. We see him paying rent in the second episode, as he smoothly fits into the family, helping with entertaining and bonding with their troubled daughter during their frequent trips away. It is a fantastic house in expensive Notting Hill or Holland Park, which he - rather unlikely - has the run of. Lets have a look at the DVD blurb:

A story of love, loss, sex and money. THE LINE OF BEAUTY crawls deep under the skin of Thatcher's Britain. Framed by the two general elections which returned the Conservative government to power, the series unfolds through four extraordindary years of change and tragedy.

Nick Guest, a young gay Oxford undergraduate of modest means, is invited to stay with the wealthy Fedden family. Dysfunction and glamour come in equal measure with the Feddens: father Gerald, a Tory MP consumed by his rising status within the party, wife Rachel hardly aware of her manic-depressive daughter Catherine, and son Toby for whom Nick has had a secret crush ever since their time at Oxford.

Drifting through this world of wealth and power, of cocaine-fuelled country house parties and political soirees, Nick becomes entranced by their powerful, privileged life. But even the comfortable world of the Feddens and their social circle has cracks running through it - cracks that will profoundly affect Nick's life.

Episode One sees Nick settling in with the Feddens, and his romance with Leo (Don Gilet), as he dabbles in publishing and impresses guests with his knowledge of antiques and Henry James. Episode Two sees Rachel, Catherine's mother, getting dependent on Nick to keep her wayward daughter in line, as they go off yet again to France, and the MP Gerald (Tim McInnery) getting more powerful, particularly as it ends with Mrs Thatcher (Kika Markham. above) coming to their summer ball, where a coke-fuelled Nick asks the Prime Minister to dance - and she does! It is the culmination of the family's rise 
..... but that new disease affecting gays begins to intrude too, as one of Catherine's friends dies, and Nick is now involved with the wealthy Wani Ouradi (Alex Wyndham) whose Lebanese millionaire father, who is going to finance Nick's magazine, must not know of his son's sex and drugs romps with Nick, who also picks up a waiter at the summer ball. He also sees his ex- Leo, looking ill in a gay bar ... Kenneth Cranham and Barbara Flynn score too as millionare vulgarians who arrive by helicopter, at least Nick stands up to their homophobic comments. 

Episode Three is where it all comes down. Gerald, Rachel's husband, is caught having an affair, Nick's gay activities are also discovered by the gutter press who have been staking the house, as the family goes into meltdown. Hayley Atwell makes Catherine (who leaves home) a real character. Rachel is angry that Nick did not tell her that Catherine had been self-harming, which he dealt with (this is rather like Waugh's BRIDESHEAD REVISITED, perhaps an influence on Hollinghurst's novel, where Lady Marchmain tries to co-opt Chares Ryder into reporting to her on Sebastian's activities). Suddenly there is no need for Nick any more as the disgraced Gerald turns on him (as we knew he would). Leo has died of Aids too, as his lesbian sister tells Nick, and we see a photo of Leo in his hospital bed ... Nick however is safe, and ends up leaving the house and driving away to a new future, though his boyfriend Wani is also sick now, that waiter turns up again too .... 
We also take in the gay scene at Hampstead Ponds, and at various high level soirees of the rich and powerful. The whole Mrs Thatcher visit is deliciously handled and it all captures that '80s greed in Thatcher's Britain, where it seems everyone was coked to the gills. 

Looking at it now, it makes an interesting companion piece to Kevin Elyot's play MY NIGHT WITH REG, covering that same mid-80s time in London during the Aids crisis - I covered that play's revival in my recent review, gay interest label. THE LINE OF BEAUTY remains a fascinating piece, almost 3 hours in all, but well worth your time. If only they had also filmed Hollinghurst's equally marvelous gay novel THE SPELL - or THE SWIMMING POOL LIBRARY, THE FOLDING STAR or his recent mammoth THE STRANGER'S CHILD, which would make a terrific mini-series with its changing eras.

Next BBC gay classic: The rare THE LOST LANGUAGE OF CRANES.

How they change (2)

I ran a post recently on various photos from my past, about how we change over the years (Me label).  Here's two actors who have changed quite a lot and recently ...

Dan Stevens in THE LINE OF BEAUTY in 2006, the slightly chubby look suited him and he looked perfect for costume dramas, as some actors do - as in the remake of SENSE & SENSIBILITY (costume drama label). The look also worked for DOWNTON ABBEY, but now Dan seems to have had a serious makeover for his new career in America. Has he changed too much by slimming down and changing his 'look'? - you would need serious work with a trainer and a near starvation diet to change so much ....

 

Keanu Reeves, on the other hand, may have gone in the other direction. The internet was abuzz with how overweight and scruffy and slobby he looked at the recent Cannes Festival - he even had a double chin!. We liked Keanu back when he was so fit in SPEED, but hey that was almost 20 years ago - he is not going to look the same at 48. Lots of actors cast for their looks tend to let themselves go when between assignments (as Russell Crowe and Gerard Butler tend to do). Keanu still has his hair and could smarten up and lose some excess baggage with the help of a trainer and diet regime - not bad for 48! Only Tom Cruise looks like Tom Cruise all the time ... 

Seasonal treats

Last Christmas it was macaroons from Paris, this year they (a 'tree' of 36) were from Marks & Spencer, more prosaic perhaps but they tasted just as good. We have not even got to the stollen, panettone or christmas pudding yet. Rich pickings too on television. One of those new movies about Hitchcock THE GIRL, subject of a separate review shortly, proved an odd experience.

It is no surprise that the big epics are trunded out again - BEN HUR, CLEOPATRA and THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD this time - more suitable for Easter perhaps, but here they are again.
I had not seen George Stevens's mammoth biblical since its release  in 1965 - one can see the reasons for criticism, but it looks marvellous, shot in Utah and Arizona (I think there is even the Grand Canyon) which conjure up biblical vistas. Max Von Sydow is perfect in this retelling of biblical tales and there is an amazing cast, some of them risible (Wayne, Winters, Pat Boone) but others like Jose Ferrer and Claude Rains in his final role as Herod (above, his eyes glittering in the dark was an abiding memory from 1965) and Dorothy McGuire, Gary Raymond, Michael Anderson Jr, Sal Mineo, Van Heflin, Charlton Heston, and Donald Pleasance as a very devious satan.

What I particularly liked was another screening of HOUSEBOAT, a particular pleasure from 1958 when I was 12. Perhaps the best of Sophia's early American films it remains a real charmer, as directed by Melville Shavelson. I love the creaky old houseboat particularly when re-decorated, the 3 children are ideal and Cary has a great scene with his son which explains our place in the universe - the children's mother has died so runaway heiress Sophia is the new maid, hence complications as Martha Hyer perfects her country club girl routine. This is really a movie one could see every year ... as per my previous reviews on it here.

Old timers Holden & Hayward in '72

THE REVENGERS - interesting to look at this late western from 1972, in fact Susan Hayward's last feature film, apart from those 2 final tv movies she made. A brutal post-WILD BUNCH revenge western by Daniel Mann with an ageing Holden and Borgnine, Susan is only in it for about 10 minutes but impresses as an Irish unmarried doctor who nurses Holden back to health, and to whom he presumably returns at the end .... 

MR STINK and DOWNTON ABBEY were homegrown holiday treats, the first from David Walliams' book for children with Hugh Bonneville as the titular tramp Mr Stink and how he changes lives .... his adorable dog is Pudsey, the famous dancing dog from BRITAIN'S GOT TALENT. We can see this being an annual treat like THE SNOWMAN!   
DOWNTON trundles on, but difficult to discuss as may not have aired elsewhere. The latest Christmas Special takes place during the family's summer holiday to a Scottish castle presided over by Peter Egan and Phoebe Nicholls (good to see her again, playing nasty once more), while the staff stay behind at Downton to clean the silver and visit the local fair. Mrs Patmore has a lucky escape from the village store-keeper who wanted her for her cooking skills, while poor Thomas the unlucky in love gay footman rescues the object of his desire from a beating by the village roughs and gets beaten up himself, but at the least the footman he saved deigns to become friends with him .... Just one comment to add: Dan Stevens definitely won't be returning in Series 4 - one only has to see him driving his car after the birth of his son to realise what is going to happen next ....

ARENA: SCREEN GODDESSES was a delicious box of chocolates from the BBC, a collection of clips on movie goddesses: As the BBC plugged it:

“There just aren’t any faces like that any more,” lamented Gloria Swanson in Sunset Blvd — a movie made as long ago as 1950. Of course, Marilyn Monroe and Elizabeth Taylor were yet to enjoy their heyday, but the point still stands. From saintly Lillian Gish to sassy Mae West, exotic Marlene Dietrich to enigmatic Greta Garbo, via tough cookies Bette Davis and Joan Crawford and viperish Barbara Stanwyck, Hollywood produced a pantheon of divine women, whose “immortality” is only confirmed by the passage of time.
If you’re a film buff, none of the clips will be a surprise, and I could have done with detail on the luminous cinematography, but this glorious doc will have you reaching for DVDs.  Music from Vertigo and narration by Downton’s Elizabeth McGovern will also keep you hypnotised.

The documentary focuses on the female stars of the Hollywood studio era, from its beginnings around 1910 through to its collapse in the early 1960s. Screen icons chronologically recalled include Theda Bara, Lillian Gish, Clara Bow, Louise Brooks, Marlene Dietrich, Greta Garbo, Joan Crawford, Bette Davis, Rita Hayworth, Ava Gardner, Elizabeth Taylor and Marilyn Monroe, plus a nod to European goddesses like Bardot and Loren, and Julie Christie. Great to see Marilyn splashing in that pool in SOMETING'S GOTTA GIVE, Garbo at her most seductive in MATA HARI and FLESH AND THE DEVIL and Marlene on that SHANGHAI EXPRESS with Anna May Wong. 

TV: then, now

How delightful to come across an episode of RHODA on YouTube (thanks, Colin) - and there are several others too, AND they are on dvd, so I have ordered the first series (only 720 minutes long, for a good price), I could only manage one series of THE GOLDEN GIRLS, but may want to see lots more of RHODA! It seems there were 110 episodes between 1974-1978. I had forgotten how much we enjoyed them.

It was a different world then: in the UK we only had 3 television channels, but we did not feel deprived - shows like these got huge audiences, before the advent of video, internet, cable channels. Not only RHODA, but also STARSKY & HUTCH, CAGNEY &  LACEY, ALIAS SMITH & JONES etc before DALLAS and DYNASTY in the '80s. I never saw much of THE MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW though, where Rhoda (and Cloris Leachman as PHYLLIS) began. (On a higher plane it was also the era of great quality television like those series CIVILIZATION and THE ASCENT OF MAN which also got huge audiences and were very influential).

Rhoda Morgenstern was born in the Bronx in December 1941. She's always felt responsible for World War II. She had a bad puberty. It lasted 17 years. She's a college graduate, she went to art school. Her entrance exam was on a book of matches. She decided to move out of the house at the age of 24. Her mother still refers to this as the time she ran away from home. Eventually, she ran to Minneapolis where it's colder, and she figured she'd keep better. Now she's back in Manhattan. New York, this is your last chance!

RHODA remains a delightful time capsule of that '70s era: the fashions, the headscarfes, the New York-Jewish humour, and the cast worked so well together - Valerie Harper (still working) as our loveable lead, Julie Kavner as sister Brenda (before she became the voice of Marge Simpson), and best of all, Nancy Walker (how odd she directed the disco musical CAN'T STOP THE MUSIC in 1980, which was the death knell for those kind of movies...) as Ida, their mother, and Harold Stone as their father, plus David Groh (1939-2008) as Joe, Rhoda's husband. Who can forget that wedding scene with Rhoda running down the street in her wedding dress? (we didn't need the gross-outs of BRIDESMAIDS then!).  Then there is Lorenzo Music as Carlton the doorman, whom we never saw but was quitely hilarious - until one, maybe the final?, episode. I still vividly remember it: they are having a fancy dress party and we only see Carlton's back, someone says "I'll take off my mask if you take off yours" and Carlton replies "I'm not wearing a mask" .. I remember a delicious episode too where Rhoda and Brenda have to return home temporarily and Ida treats them as her little girls all over again.  I think we shall enjoy watching RHODA episodes this winter ....

Possible DOWNTON Spoilers in case you have not seen Series 3 (which has already been broadcast in the UK and the dvd is available...), seems it does not air in USA until January!

and Now: DOWNTON ABBEY is still getting huge audiences in this multi-channel age, as the third series nicely would up with the annual cricket match, where everything tied in nicely. The odd thing about this series is that it began in 1912 with the sinking of the Titanic, but it is now the early '20s and everyone looks the same (well apart from the deceased Lady Sybil...). There were a few cliches but they were nicely burnished by Lord Fellowes. I half expected the Earl, when told about Thomas the footman, to say the cliched "I thought men like that shot themselves" but instead he delivered the fruity "If I screamed blue murder every time someone tried to kiss me (at Eton) I would be hoarse within a month".  Bates the valet was back after his prison stint and he was able to see how the twisted malicious O'Brien was scheming to get rid of Thomas whose gay kiss on Jimmy the new footman backfired, after O'Brien suggesting otherwise ...

The family seem to have got over the death of Lady Sybil - Lady Mary now though seems rather tiresome, it is Lady Edith who is the interesting one. A bitch no more (as in Series 1) after being jilted at the altar she seemed to be embracing her spinsterhood, but now has a new admirer, her newspaper editor in London but he is married to - I can't say it - a madwoman in an asylum! - shades of JANE EYRE ! How will this develop in Series 4 (there will presumably be one?). Mrs Crawley too has been doing wonders with Ethel, the ex-prostitute. Mrs Hughes survived her cancer scare, and was more tolerant of Thomas than Carson the butler who thought him "foul" initially ... Mrs Patmore and Daisy continue their spats. It seems Dan Stevens may not be returning, but we will see. There is another Christmas special to look forward to next month - and perhaps another baby? Branson too, the Irish firebrand, seems to be settling in to his new status nicely.
 
Series 2 got bogged down in The Great War and the changes it meant to the family and society in general - now we are moving on to the '20s. There was one amusing scene set in a jazzy speakeasy: "one of the outer circles of Dante's Inferno" according to Matthew, when they tracked down Lucy, the Dowager's new relative, there. Shirley McLaine was only in 2 episodes, but bickered nicely with Dame Maggie ... how will they survive as the '20s unfold ... and can the estate be managed right? It is all high class hokum of course, a house that big would require a lot of cleaning staff and surely more than one cook? - and the benevolent attitude of the toffs to the domestic staff seems rather wishful thinking too, but, as in GOSFORD PARK, Fellowes certainly knows how to deliver succinct dramas and quotable lines.

Christmas treats ...

Starting with a box of macaroons from Paris - the box is a work of art in itself, I feel tempted to hang it on the wall, it has a lovely black cat on it - also a spice & marmalade cake, also from Pierre Herme, Paris. Then dipping in and out of all those old movies on television, catching up with some not seen since I was a kid, and a few old favourites.

NIGHT PASSAGE is a pleasant memory of a '50s Sunday afternoon matinee, this 1957 James Stewart western should have been another of his tough westerns with Anthony Mann, but Mann walked due to script problems, so it was directed by James Neilson. A look at frontier life along the railroad, with train robberies; I remember liking this scene with Stewart and young Brandon DeWilde on the train, also on board was Elaine Stewart (another of this year's departees, aged 80) married to big boss Jay C Flippen! Audie Murphy and Dan Duryea were among the baddies, and Ellen Corby another tough frontier woman.

TARZAN'S GREATEST ADVENTURE from 1959 - not seen this since then but its as effective and violent (effectively directed by John Gullermin) as I remembered - Gordon Scott the perfect Tarzan for '50s kids, Anthony Quayle a terrific villain with young Sean Connery and Niall McGuinness in his gang, along with bad girl Scilla Gabel - Sophia Loren's stand-in on BOY ON A DOLPHIN, and here starting out her own career as a sizzling eurobabe. Scilla was always good value in Steve Reeves epics and movies as diverse as SODOM AND GOMORRAH and my fave MODESTY BLAISE.

THE PRINCE AND THE PAUPER - one of those lavish (it says here...) 1977 remakes, helmed by the usually reliable Richard Fleischer (THE VIKINGS, BARBABBAS) this is an idiotic remake of the Erroll Flynn original. Lurid colours and guest stars aplenty: Charlton Heston, the older Rex Harrison, Raquel Welch is mainly silent - the interest for me is the re-teaming of Oliver Reed (rather portly here) and David Hemmings as his evil brother - their hell-raising was taking its toll on them here, since they were young in 1964's THE SYSTEM, a key movie for me then [review at David Hemmings label], showing the 60s just starting to swing. Mark Lester as both the prince and the pauper shows that most perfect child actors (OLIVER) grow up to be very uninteresting indeed, he is lanky here with frizzy hair and there is no difference at all between his two roles ... an amusing time-waster then, not in the same league as the producers' delightful star-stuffed MUSKETEERS films by Richard Lester. Right: THE SYSTEM gang in '64 including Olly and David Hemmings - 2 years later he was the star of Antonioni's BLOW-UP and the icon of the age!

THE SEARCHERS. A classic one never tires of of course, like THE QUIET MAN and VERTIGO, also afternoon or late night delights. More on Ford's classic western at Jeffrey Hunter label - he has that bath scene here with Vera Miles (Mrs TARZAN in real life as she was then married to Gordon Scott!; her pregnancy cost her that leading role in VERTIGO). I shall get around to appreciating Vera in due course. What is jarring about THE SEARCHERS now is the treatment of the squaw Hunter accidentally marries; but to counterbalance that we have those essentially 50s yet timeless scenes with those characters Martin Pawley, Laurie Jurgenson and Natalie Wood's Debbie.

MANSFIELD PARK, the 1999 film of a Jane Austen novel seems to have divided opinions, as a lot of Austen purists hate it. I read the book some time ago, it is not my favourite Austen - that is PERSUASION by a mile, one I can re-read and like all 3 adaptations (costume drama label). The priggish Fanny Price is indeed Austen's least loveable heroine as she relishes her moral superiority over the other young people putting on the play, which she does not approve of. It is a good cast here though, with Harold Pinter (left) as Sir Thomas Bertram whose business interests in Antigua turn out to be slavery, James Purefoy and Johnny Lee Miller as his sons; the marvellous Sheila Gish (right) as Mrs Norris who tries to keep Fanny as the poor relation, and Lindsay Duncan as both Fanny's downtrodden mother and opium-addicted wife of Sir Thomas. Frances O'Connor is a spirited Fanny, but hardly fair to Austen's original.

Finally, a re-view of 1958's A TALE OF TWO CITIES as well, not seen since I was a kid. French actor Paul Guers who did actually look like Bogarde, plays Charles Darnay whom Dirk replaces on the guillotine - Guers has been in some other items I saw recently like Demy's BAY OF ANGELS and THE GIRL WITH GOLDEN EYES (both at French label). This is solid Rank Organisation fare by Ralph Thomas with all those familiar featured players: Rosalie Crutchley, Freda Jackson, Athene Seyler, Christopher Lee, Donald Pleasance etc, all looking splendidly in period.

THIS HAPPY BREED. Another perennial favourite, as I have written about before (Kay Walsh label). Kay excels as Queenie the dissatisfied daughter of Robert Newton and Celia Johnson; and there is that endless bickering between Amy Vaness's mother-in-law and Alison Legatt's spinster sister, all part of the Higgins family in Clapham between the wars. The period detail is just perfect and the emotions are fully engaged, particuarly that scene when the parents in the garden are told of the deaths of their son and his wife, as the camera stays in the sitting room where afternoon tea is about to be served ...

And one discovery: THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: THE LION THE WITCH & THE WARDROBE from 2005: "When the Pevensie family are evacuated out to the country, they are unaware of the adventure they will encounter. During a game of hide and seek, the youngest daughter, Lucy discovers a wardrobe which transports her to the land of Narnia. Covered in snow, Narnia is full of weird and wonderful creatures, but is watched over by the evil White Witch. When all four Pevensie children end up through the wardrobe, they discover that it was meant to be, as two daughters of Eve and two sons of Adam must join with the mighty lion, Aslan (voiced by Liam Neeson) to defeat the evil White Witch". Tilda Swinton is perfect as the Ice Queen/White Witch and James McAvoy (whom I had not though much of) is an adorable faun and the children are just perfect. For a CGI movie I liked it a lot, and Andrew Adamson's direction is also perfect! I shall have to watch the others now ...

The new DOWNTON ABBEY special is indeed a treat, and ticks all the right boxes, and the new GREAT EXPECTATIONS is an odd re-telling, rather different from Lean's version, with Ray Winstone a perfect Magwitch, and Gillian Anderson as a wraith-like younger Miss Havisham. Unusual though to see a plain-jane Estella (who is meant to be a glacial beauty out of the rather ordindary Pip's league), but here Pip with his sculptured cheekbones and pouting lips, is much prettier than her! Pip is Douglas Booth who was one of Isherwood's boys in CHRISTOPHER AND HIS KIND (gay interest label). Now for that BEN HUR re-boot, with Winstone again (as Jack Hawkins). It cannot be a patch on Wyler's classic but may have some cheap laughs!

BEN HUR (2010) actually turned out to be quite interesting, shot in Morocco it looks more like THE LIFE OF BRIAN than a Hollywood blockbuster, and wisely does not try to be - the chariot race for instance is much smaller scale (no circus maximus here) and the ships at war are courtesy of CGI effects and there are interesting script variations from the Wyler film. Winstone is a mumbling Arrius, Hugh Bonneville good as a nasty Pilate, Alex Kingston right as Mrs Hur (the leprosy is also played down), but in all a radical re-working of the original material. Joseph Morgan is a totally underwhelming uncharismatic Ben, but Stephen Campbell Moore (from THE HISTORY BOYS) a rather good Messala.

We will though be still watching the Lean and Wyler originals when these lightweight remakes are soon forgotten - I tuned in to Lean's EXPECTATIONS again yesterday and was bowled over again by how perfect it all was, with that great double act of Martita Hunt and Jean Simmons as the perfect Havisham and Estella, and that marvellous black and white photography, so right for Dickens.