Marky B

I have just read an article about Sir John Mills in one of the Saturday supplements and there was a picture of Sir John,Michael Hordern and Kenneth More with their knighthood medals.
I don't recall Kenneth More getting a kinghthood - did he? (He did deserve one!).
Ta Ta
Marky B thumbs_u

I am special. The heavens always open for me.

smudge

IIRC he just got an O.B.E.

He wasn't, I don't think, a great theatrical player and his career declined quite sharply after the 50s, albeit with a renaissance period in THE FORSYTE SAGA.

My impression seems to be that he was always something of an acquired taste - although I personally never minded him, he rubs my better half up the wrong way. She always cheers at the end of GENEVIEVE ! [

SMUDGE

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MrDrakesDuck

I'm a fan.

Can't think of a role I haven't enjoyed watching him in.

As for the knighthood, he may have run into a bit of controversy when he chucked his wife for Angela Douglas, although I presume it's more about what Smudge said about his stage career.

:)

"I thought I had to shoot Germans, not chew 'em"

Marky B

I always thought Kenneth More an entertaining actor more than a theatrical great. I once read Richard Burton was first opted to play Douglas Bader in Reach For The Sky and I just can't visualise Burton as the breezy,optimistic war ace.
Ta Ta

I am special. The heavens always open for me.

smudge

Nah - I agree Marky B - can't see Dickie Burnoff in that role.

That, I think, was the essence of More's era ; he was darned good at the hail-fellow-well-met, stiff upper lipped role.

Essentially, when that kind of portrayal of Britishness was swept out by the Jimmy Porter's of the period, that was when More's film career declined.

I have said before that FORSYTHE SAGA was a renaissance for him on TV ; IMDB also mentions FATHER BROWN gave him similar status. I disagree - I think that the best interpretation of BROWN has been Guinness, with Peter Finch as an excellent Flambeau !

SMUDGE

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Stephen Pickard

Another classic role of More's was "North West Frontier" (1959) directed by J. Lee Thompson. This classic action adventure film has just been released by Carlton in the UK in widescreen on dvd. Highly recommended.

Stephen Pickard

Rennie

By coincidence I posted almost the exact query on Wicked Lady. The photo and caption were incorrect. The three actors were actually all wearing their CBE.

Jim

i liked Kenneth Moore.

Good morning boys.

Jim

I liked Kenneth Moore. I felt that a bit of England, or Britain, died when he did. We are not likely to see his kind again; either on the screen or in the flesh. His portrayal of the bloody minded and determined Douglas Bader was very good. I miss him.

frown

Good morning boys.

smudge

Mmmm - I dunno Jim....

He was certainly representative of a type, but on occasion he seemed (to me at least) a little stiff. Sometimes I have to stop and think and put him and the film into the context of it's time ; not always, mind you !

I do think that's he's the better Hannay since Robert Donat. Perhaps that's it - why the world seemed a little different when he went - maybe he WAS the last of the Bulldog Drummond types ? :)

SMUDGE

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Freddy

I always liked Kenneth More, he for me was part of those post war actors who if I saw their name in the film then I knew it would be a good film, maybe not brilliant, maybe not thought provoking but a film worth watching.
regards
Freddy

The world wags on.

smudge

Freddy/Jim -

What's your opinion of More in comedy roles ? I know that Genevieve wouldn't be the same without him ; but isn't he just playing-to-type ?

I mean stuff like NEXT TO NO TIME - which is an unusual enough film in itself, but might have worked better without him....

Any thoughts ?

SMUDGE

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Freddy

Hello Smudge,
or as Kenny would say Hello Old Boy.
You set me a bit of a poser there, you could see Ambrose Claverhouse as a grown up Richard Grimsdyke(Doctor in the House) and looking at IMDb I see that Henry Cornelious directed him in three out of his four comedies, Next To No Time, Genevieve and the Galloping Major(which I cannot recall) so perhaps he was doing what was asked. Then you look at Sheriff of Fractured Jaw and Man in the Moon and the threads are still there but not as many. My only exception is Appointment with Venus where, for me there were none.
Could it be that acting during that time ie post war, politically and emotionally, the hail fellow well met stiff upper lip was what was required.
People wanted to recognise something that they hoped was in themselves. Times must have been hard in the forties and fifties, did people want to be challenged at the cinema or did they go to enjoy themselves. Social realism may be fine when you are in work and affluent but when you have just come through a war and still have rationing then surely there would come a cycle of "uplifting" films of until TV or new writers/directors came to the fore. This could be pop psychology but did people in the sixties when life seemed to be getting better and the forties child was entering adulthood want to recognise a bit of Jimmy Porter in themselves.
Sorry Smudge I seemed to have got off the question a touch there but in all of Mores film Scott of the Antartic, Sink the Bismark, Genevieve, A Night to Remember there is a "hoped for Englishness" in his portrayals and in those times perhaps that was what was needed. I would sooner have that genre than the Eastenders, Lock Stock and Liverpool Scally that we seem to have been going through and then you only have to look at the Richard Curtis films which the media seems to love which give a romanticised, artificial impression of life.
I would live to hear what others who were more part of that generation than I was think.
regards
Freddy

The world wags on.

Jim

Not 'Bullshot Crummond' then?

Good morning boys.

Jim

We went to the 'flicks' to be entertained; to forget for a few hours, the boring hum-drum existance that most of us had to live with. I don't think we wanted 'reality', - we wanted fantasy more like. We wanted to think that 'our side' was the honest, upright side that all the war films told us about; when in reality, it was probably not the case.

We just wanted escapism! :)

Good morning boys.