Dirk Bogarde

[theuofc]

Excellent to read this My DVD copy is watchable but not as sharp as the YouTube upload, and it's missing a few seconds of the beginning - don't recall who issued it, though.

Hi, Scraller,

Maybe yours is the Reel Classic Films one. The AlexisSmith.net copy I have (and other duds before the Optimum boxset) starts abruptly too except it has that scratchy and pale grey look of an old Silent. One can see what's happening, but the pristine YouTube Optimum print is a revelation. I hope that Amazon is correct about the release. Fingers crossed.

It's the perfect 90th Anniversary year for its release, the thirteenth DB DVD this year.

All best,

Barbara

[Elaine]

Hi, Scraller,

Maybe yours is the Reel Classic Films one. The AlexisSmith.net copy I have (and other duds before the Optimum boxset) starts abruptly too except it has that scratchy and pale grey look of an old Silent. One can see what's happening, but the pristine YouTube Optimum print is a revelation. I hope that Amazon is correct about the release. Fingers crossed.

It's the perfect 90th Anniversary year for its release, the thirteenth DB DVD this year.

All best,

Barbara

Hello Barbara,

I have just remembered that on the naff dvd of Sleeping Tiger, there are several bits that have been cut, which made no sense of some scenes. That, and the awful quality of it made me take the chance of buying the video. The gamble paid off. Great that there will be a good quality dvd[ hopefully]
It is a great year for the re-release of Dirk's film. As you say..Yipeeee

[theuofc]

Hello Barbara,

I have just remembered that on the naff dvd of Sleeping Tiger, there are several bits that have been cut, which made no sense of some scenes. That, and the awful quality of it made me take the chance of buying the video. The gamble paid off. Great that there will be a good quality dvd[ hopefully]
It is a great year for the re-release of Dirk's film. As you say..Yipeeee

I was thinking about the 'cuts' you mentioned. I wonder if that DVD was from a print copied off air and there were commercial breaks.

[Elaine]

I was thinking about the 'cuts' you mentioned. I wonder if that DVD was from a print copied off air and there were commercial breaks.

Ah!! maybe so. I never thought of that. I know that it confused the hell out of me, when one moment Dirk was talking about reading a book, the next him scowling at Glenda, about what? It happened several times. The video is a joy to watch, everything as it should be, even the bits that where missing connecting every scene properly.
On another subject. FBFW. The clever Britmovie man I got it from delected the adverts during the movie, it was taken from channel 4 which has adverts often. Wasn't that great of him?

[theuofc]

...On another subject. FBFW. The clever Britmovie man I got it from delected the adverts during the movie, it was taken from channel 4 which has adverts often. Wasn't that great of him?

Hi, Elaine,

Any Britmovie man who is clever..and kind enough...to delete ads from an aired Bogarde film becomes an instant Honorary Member of the SirDB group! Three cheers for him. I hope he's reading this. And...he obviously is deft at making deletions vs. the editor of the bungled commercial bootleg.

Best,

Barbara

[theuofc]

During his five-year military service, Bogarde served as a PI (Photographic Interpreter) who worked at RAF Medmenham and then throughout Europe and the Far East. He never says, or I don't recall offhand, but I wonder if the use of 3D via a stereoscope was part of his unit's identification technique also. The photo above shows him using a magnifier as he pores over aerial photographs, no stereoscope in sight, yet its use is an interesting speculation.

I'll have another read through his memories as a PI. If anyone knows, do jump in.

Barbara


Thanks to Nick for this :

Upcoming documentary on Operation Crossbow.

BBC News - Operation Crossbow: How 3D glasses helped defeat Hitler

Operation Crossbow: How 3D glasses helped defeat Hitler

Newly released photographs show how a team of World War II experts disrupted Nazi plans to bombard Britain - with the help of 3D glasses like those in modern cinemas.

Hitler's deadly V-1 and V-2 missiles were early but effective weapons of mass destruction - unmanned flying bombs which brought terror to southern England.

But their impact could have been all the more devastating - costing thousands more lives, lengthening the war and threatening the D-Day landings - were it not for the fact that British intelligence worked in three, rather than two, dimensions.

One of the Royal Air Force's most significant successes came with Operation Crossbow, when it tracked down, identified and destroyed many of the V-weapons which could have prolonged the war.

It did so by meticulously photographing the landscape of occupied Europe in a way that allowed officers to study every contour.

Now the pictures have been brought to life using computer graphics in a BBC documentary thanks to research by the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland.

During the war, the images were painstakingly analysed by a team of photographic interpreters - known as PIs - at RAF Medmenham in Buckinghamshire.

Their secret weapon was a stereoscope - a simple Victorian invention which brought the enemy landscape into 3D.

Working on the same principles as modern-day 3D glasses, it allowed the PIs to measure height, especially of unidentified new structures - such as rockets and their launch sites.

This technique was to prove decisive, and it saved thousands from the V-missile barrage.

The Spitfire is well-known for the role it played in the Battle of Britain, but less celebrated is its contribution to this crucial phase of the conflict.

Pilots from the Photographic Reconnaissance unit, created in 1940, risked their lives by flying unarmed over Europe to take tens of millions of photographs, generating 36 million prints.

To make the 3D effect work, images had to be captured in carefully-plotted sequences which would overlap each other by 60% so everything would stand up when viewed through the stereoscope.

It made the job of the pilots - who, in addition, had to avoid enemy fire - an especially skilled and arduous one. Flying at 30,000ft, they were unarmed because of the weight of the five cameras carried on each Spitfire.

But it is a role of which 88-year-old Jimmy Taylor, a former reconnaissance pilot and the only survivor from the squadron, remains immensely proud.

"It was the best job in the RAF," he says. "We flew the most beautiful aeroplane, the fastest of its day.

"We had no guns, no bullets, so I didn't kill anyone. Physically, there's nothing left of the air fights, nothing left of the bombing - but the photographs are still with us, and they're still useful."

Arguably, the squadron's crowning moment came with Operation Crossbow.

It began in 1942, when a Spitfire flying over Peenemunde in north-eastern Germany spotted an airfield with three concrete-and-earth circles.

Initially, PIs studying the photos thought nothing of them.

In fact, Peenemunde was a vast research centre developing the V-missiles which the Nazis believed would win them the war.

This plan was disrupted, however, in 1943, when British intelligence had managed to bug a conversation between two captured German generals about the weapon.

British spy planes scoured Europe and PIs were ordered to find clues.

Using 3D, a PI managed to spot an upright tube in one of the circles at Peenemunde. From its shadow, the PIs deduced that it was a rocket some 14m high.

Geoffrey Stone, now 92, worked as a PI at Medmenham and says being able to view the images in three dimensions was crucial.

"You needed to be good at paying attention and have the ability to concentrate - there was so much you had to infer from small details," he recalls.

"We would work late into the evening, but we didn't complain. There was no other way of telling what was going on in central Europe."

Furthermore, alarming photos revealed a network of bunkers in France. The "heavy sites", as they became known to the British, were within range of London.

Reconnaissance flights were sent to investigate, with some daredevils flying as a low as 30m to get the clearest possible images. Back in Medmenham, the PIs correctly identified these as launch platforms.

On 17 and 18 August 1943, 500 bombers set off to destroy Peenemunde and the heavy sites. Crews were left in little doubt of the importance of the mission and told they would have to go back if the sites were not eliminated.

These raids disrupted the V-2 programme and killed senior Nazi scientists.

Production of the V-weapons was relocated to Poland and Germany - out of range of Spitfires. A mountainside in Thuringia, central Germany, was turned into a factory with 60,000 slave labourers.

With this site impenetrable to bombers, the only solution for the British lay in finding and wiping out launch sites in northern France. The French Resistance passed on details of possible sites for the RAF to photograph.

PIs scoured the images for evidence of concealed ramps. Sure enough, woods full of new buildings were soon detected. In total, RAF Medmenham identified 96 "ski sites" - so called because each had a long building that looked like a ski.

In late 1943, the photos made it clear that the Nazis were on the verge of launching a bombardment of southern England. With the planning of D-Day well under way, the timing could not have been worse.

Operation Crossbow was launched late 1943 and bombing of the ski sites began two days before Christmas.

The bombardment was effective but it was not enough to halt the missile programme altogether.

The V-1 - known as the doodlebug - landed in London in the summer of 1944, bringing terror to the capital. The Germans were using less conspicuous launch sites, and brought missiles out at the last moment.

But these sites were identified by PIs who spotted scarring on the land caused by the jets' booster motors dropping off. These sites were targeted and the doodlebug barrage was limited.

The last V-1 landed on 7 September 1944. The next day, however, the first V-2 crashed in Chiswick, west London. Because it was silent, offering no warning, there was no defence against it.

Since the V-2 was mobile, bombers directed by RAF Medmenham attacked the supporting infrastructure such as roads and railways. In the end, the advancing allied armies over-ran the launch sites.

By the time they were finally halted, the V-weapons had claimed some 9,000 lives - but it could have been many more.

The Germans planned to launch up to 2,000 V-1s every day and, had they been successful, the path of the war could have been altered.

Much of the aerial photography featured in Operation Crossbow was discovered through the research of Allan Williams, curator of The National Collection of Aerial Photography, part of RCAHMS.

While the collection contains millions of images, only a small percentage have so far been digitised and catalogued - but Williams says they tell the story of one of the war's most decisive episodes.

"The British always used 3D and the Germans didn't," he says. "What this meant was that the British could make enemy territory come to life.

"Without this photographic intelligence - which was created at remarkable speed - the Germans could have launched potentially devastating attacks on Britain before D-Day that could have easily changed the outcome of the war."

[theuofc]

During his five-year military service, Bogarde served as a PI (Photographic Interpreter) who worked at RAF Medmenham and then throughout Europe and the Far East. He never says, or I don't recall offhand, but I wonder if the use of 3D via a stereoscope was part of his unit's identification technique also. The photo above shows him using a magnifier as he pores over aerial photographs, no stereoscope in sight, yet its use is an interesting speculation.

I'll have another read through his memories as a PI. If anyone knows, do jump in.

Barbara
............

I did what I should have done earlier: I enlarged the photo of Dirk. What appeared to be a magnifier in a frame is I'm sure one of the stereoscopes described in the article.

Many thanks to Scraller whose links were the clinchers in identifying young Derek /Dirk's stereoscope in his Photo Interpreter work:



An RAF Flight Lieutenant Photo Interpreter busy with the tools of his trade - aerial photographs, stereoscopes and the plans of a target, in 1944.


BBC - History - RAF Medmenham (pictures, video, facts & news)

It's very nice to place Dirk within the context of the BBC article on the vital role that PIs played in aerial detection in WW2. If you want to hear more, read Dirk's memoirs which go into interesting detail.

Best,

Barbara

[Elaine]

Yippee! I just saw a note at Amazon-UK that Optimum Home Entertainment is releasing THE SLEEPING TIGER, date not yet set.

This is wonderful news that we will be able to get this DVD by itself, the same superb print in image and sound.

I have pre-ordered Sleeping Tiger although as you said Barbara, date is not set. That will be three copies I have, maybe four If I am successful on Ebay.

[Elaine]

Skimming through the Radio times I noticed the programme Operation crossbow. Thought of Dirk, will watch avidly.

[theuofc]

Oddly enough the print of The Sleeping Tiger which is on the Mill Creek Dark Crimes DVD set is a pretty good one ... given the low cost for fifty films.

Hi, didi,

I ordered the Mill Creek Dark Crimes boxset from the library to view The Sleeping Tiger.

You're right! Next to the Optimum ITV pristine print, the Mill Creek is second in line, imo. It's definitely better than the AlexisSmith.net DVD and the others I've seen, which have that pale grey, scratchy look.

Here are sample screengrabs I just did:

from the AlexisSmith.net DVD:



from Mill Creek:




AlexisSmith:



Mill Creek:



more caps from the Mill Creek DVD:





Our U.S. boxset has 24 movies on six discs, 2 per side which is a good number for clarity. As you say, a very good buy. Thanks for telling us.

All best,

Barbara

[Elaine]

The box set I bought from Ebay is ITV Optimum, I guess that means I will get seven very good dvd's of Dirk's. I am really pleased I bid, and got it.

[theuofc]

The box set I bought from Ebay is ITV Optimum, I guess that means I will get seven very good dvd's of Dirk's. I am really pleased I bid, and got it.

Clever girl!

The good thing about the Mill Creek set, apart from the great price for 24 films, is that U.S. members have access to a very good region one print of The Sleeping Tiger.



I'm picking up the cheap Mill Creek set to loan out the TST disc for easy reg. one playing by friends who need to see more of Mr. Bogarde.

The set really is a bargain with some films I'd like to see: Anton Walbrook's wonderful Gaslight, Ivor Novello's The Phantom Fiend, Yul Brynner's Flowers from a Stranger, Von Stroheim's The Great Flamarion, Basil Rathbone's Love From a Stranger, etc.

Congrats again on your win.

Barbara


All best,

Barbara

[Elaine]

Watched Hot enough for June last night. This a very funny film, with lots of very subtle humour. When Dirk is reading the newspaper on the plane out. Ralph Thomas as the spy who got caught. Ah ah. Quite a nice figure when we got a brief glimspe of Dirk in the bathing suit, he seemed ill at ease about that. I don't know why, he looked fine too me. I always wonder why a large number of people complain about these so called no account films, that Dirk did to keep the wolves from the door. He might, as well as others, have thought they where dross, but I value them as much as his art movies. He was a fine actor in every film he did.

[didi-5]

The Dark Crimes set is Region 0, btw. And although many of the films have substandard prints with some skipping, for the price it is excellent. Glad to have been of help in bringing it to people's attention :)

[Elaine]

I got the Dirk Bogarde box set today, and the first thing I did was watch Sleeping Tiger.
What marvellous quality, it is like the film was made yesterday. I thought my Warner Video was good but this dvd is way above that. Even the sound is better. If I hadn't bought this from Ebay, knowing the Ist class quality of these films, I would have paid the full price and bought it from HMV.

[theuofc]

DESPAIR (1978) was among the selected films screened by Cannes Classics this week. The Bavaria Media restored print, overseen by Michael Ballhaus, the director of photography for the film, was the print shown.

Here's a review from Cannes of the film and its screening.

Note that the release date of 7th June that Meyers cites is for the Olive Films reg. 1 DVD. The reg. 2 fully restored print to be released by Bavaria Media will be sometime this summer, no date set yet.

Barbara

Double Trouble: Cannes Journal, Entry Five

Charles H. Meyer | May 18, 2011 |




Among the twenty titles comprising this year’s Cannes Classics is the 1978 film “Despair,” the late German director Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s adaptation of Vladimir Nabokov’s 1936 novel.

The film tells the story of Hermann Hermann (Dirk Bogarde), a Berlin chocolate factory owner whose dimwitted, voluptuous blonde wife, Lydia (Andréa Ferréol), is carrying on a flagrant affair with her cousin, a ridiculous, untalented painter named Ardalion (Volker Spengler). While making love to Lydia one evening, Hermann hallucinates a doppelganger staring back at him. As these visions recur, he begins to fear that he is suffering from a split personality disorder. But fear soon gives way to curiosity, and then to fascination, and finally to a foolhardy scheme to commit “the perfect murder” when Hermann meets Felix Weber (Klaus Löwitsch), a working-class drifter whom he takes to be his exact double, but to whom he actually bears little if any resemblance. After a planned merger with another chocolate factory collapses, Hermann takes out a life insurance policy with the intention of dressing Weber as himself and then killing him, thereby faking his own death and reaping a rich reward.

“Despair” is as beautiful as any Fassbinder film I have ever seen, an impression partly due to the immaculate restoration presented the other night at La Salle du Soixantième, but primarily due to the superb camerawork by Michael Ballhaus and the elegant art deco interiors by Rolf Zehetbauer, winner of an Academy Award six years earlier for his production design on Bob Fosse’s “Cabaret.” Zehetbauer could not have been a more fitting choice because “Despair,” like “Cabaret” is set in the decadent atmosphere of Weimar-era Berlin.

Visually, “Despair” is thoroughly engrossing because Fassbinder choreographed a constant interplay between the changing positions of the camera and those of the actors. The complex blocking of the actors and the variety of camera setups and movements produce a kind of Italian Futurist energizing of space—an effect punctuated by our frequent glimpses of an Italian Futurist canvas hanging on one of the walls of the Hermanns’ apartment. Almost every shot is a dynamic masterpiece of composition that emphasizes and/or gives symbolic expression to the shifting relationships among the characters and to the deterioration of Hermann’s mental and emotional condition.

The opening scene is a perfect example. Although the mood is light and the atmosphere romantic, the ostensible intimacy between Hermann and Lydia as they prepare to make love is undermined, first by the distance that separates them as they converse between rooms, and then by the backwards retreat of the camera and the stark contrast between their respective states of dress as she disrobes completely and he buttons up his jacket before embracing her.

Fassbinder’s style is so powerful that it constantly threatens to overwhelm the actors’ performances. Even an actor as skilled as Bogarde—widely considered to be in peak form in this film—cannot help but find himself in the director’s shadow. But it is precisely the manic intensity with which Fassbinder’s authorial presence constantly risks crowding out Bogarde’s portrayal of Hermann that makes this film so tense, so taut, so imbued with such a dreadful, dizzying degree of madness. Thus, what in one light appears to be this film’s greatest weakness is revealed in another light to be its greatest strength.

Both “Despair” and Fassbinder’s 1976 film “I Only Want You to Love Me” will be released on DVD on June 7.

[7th June is for the Olive Films reg. 1 DVD.]

[theuofc]

People often ask me if I've seen Dirk's first film "Dancing With Crime" (1947). I say first because, for me, his uncredited standing in a crowd scene in "Come On George" (1939) doesn't really count as a role. He was 18 at the time and doing theatre work. By the time he entered military duty in 1941, he had done close to 27 plays, many small roles, but they gave him a good deal of acting experience that he would tap later in his early films.

After being demobbed, he did several BBC TV productions, among them Rope in 1947, which I wish were still around. I'd love to see it.

That same year, Dirk stepped into the world of film with his first role, a blip on the screen in Dancing With Crime that lasted at the most 18 seconds as a police radio caller reading this message to police cars: "HM3 from M257. Message No. 107. Ridley and Masterman shop premises, No. 907 Oxford Street, broken into."

Dirk is briefly on screen for a quick long shot and then a quick close up of a side view as he reads the message, and that's it. We never see his face and only barely his profile. Next scene. If you didn't know it was he, you'd hardly know him, nor his voice, which he made deeper to sound 'police-like'.







But a year later in 1948, from this blip on the screen, Dirk jumped to leading man status as William Latch in Esther Waters.

[Elaine]

Lovely view of the back of his head Barbara. Dirk is the only man I know who I would keep a photo of the back of his head. Lol.

[theuofc]

Lovely view of the back of his head Barbara. Dirk is the only man I know who I would keep a photo of the back of his head. Lol.

Definitely!

As a footnote to Dancing with Crime: Dirk wasn't the only uncredited young actor in the film who would go on to better things. Diana Dors played the bit role of Annette in DWC, also uncredited.

With thanks to Paul Sullivan's Official Diana Dors website for the following foh:
The Diana Dors Story - The Rising Star











A good cast but DWC is a predictable, one of many 1940s 'tough' UK crime thrillers.

[Elaine]

I think the guy at Stojo was doing a crafty, as it was said Dirk was in the credits for that one. I have found that if their name isn't on it, it is a blick and miss job.
I will sucumbe in the end and get Dancing with Crime just for the sight of a well brylcreamed, neatly cut haired back view, and an otrave or two lowered voiced Dirk.