Googie Withers (1917 – 2011)

*Momento Jack Nicholson* Não disse há alguns dias que a Googie Withers deveria ter cuidado? Top-dúzia, então: Nota 1: Só para quem perdeu a conta, Miss Withers fez 5 filmes sob a direção de Michael Powell e, infelizmente, a maioria perdidos, foi inclusive Powell que a alçou de extra para personagem de peso, tornando-a assim

Centenário de Terry-Thomas (ou International Talk Like Terry-Thomas Day)

The cad has a long and honourable place in British film tradition. In fictional terms, he (it is always a him) has his antecedents in the raffish army officers who inhabit the pages of Jane Austen and Thomas Hardy, in Mr Jingle, the flashy ne’er-do-well of Dickens’s Pickwick Papers, in the eighteenth-century rake, or in Patrick Hamilton’s anti-hero, Ernest Ralph Gorse. As seen in British films, he is liable to have a ‘magnificent masher’ of a moustache, drive a sports car and light up like a fruit machine whenever a woman takes his eye. Examples of this breed include Guy Middleton, the lecherous sports master in The Happiest Days of Your Life (1950), Donald Sinden’s louche young medical student in Doctor in the House (1954), and, most memorably of all, Terry-Thomas. Born Thomas Terry Hoar Stevens, he is the upper-class Englishman as bounder and poltroon, the type who cheats at sports (witness him as the crafty pilot in Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines, 1965, or as the master of one-upmanship on the tennis court in School for Scoundrels, 1960). He uses every underhand method at his disposal to get his hands on money and women. He rattles off his dialogue in a nasal whinny and snorts rather than laughs. In Terry-Thomas’ case, the gap between his front teeth, which stick out beneath his moustache like tusks (he has a well-nigh permanent, insincere smile affixed to his face), invariably makes him look all the more untrustworthy.

Searching for stars: stardom and screen acting in British cinema – Geoffrey Macnab

Centenário de Jean-Louis Barrault

*Por Dora Maar (1936/37) Top-10: 1- La Ronde (Max Ophüls, 1950) 2- O Boulevard do Crime (Les Enfants du Paradis, Marcel Carné, 1945) 3- Família Exótica (Drôle de Drame, Marcel Carné, 1937) 4- Beethoven (Un Grand Amour de Beethoven, Abel Gance, 1936) 5- O Mais Longo dos Dias (The Longest Day, Ken Annakin/Andrew Marton/Bernhard Wicki/Darryl

A ilha está indo para o beleléu: Ken Annakin (1914- 2009)

The Fifth Musketeer (Ken Annakin, 1979) que, por uma dessas coincidências da vida, tinha como diretor de fotografia… Jack Cardiff!

Os Intrépidos Homens e Seus Calhambeques Maravilhosos (Those Daring Young Men in Their Jaunty Jalopies / Monte Carlo or Bust! 1969)

Monte Carlo or Bust é um daquelas reincidentes comédias de corrida que lotaram a cultura pop nos anos 60 e que muito tem a ver com a Corrida Maluca. O diretor Ken Annakin, habitué da Disney e rei dos filmes com títulos que fazem a circunferência terrestre (vide Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines

Uma Batalha no Inferno (Battle of the Bulge, 1965)

I have a bad feeling about this Foi deste filme que George Lucas tirou tal frase, assim como a homenagem ao diretor com o nome de Annakin Skywalker.