stevie boy

just joshing sometimes when when we post something it looks completely different to how it is meant:

batman

Tell me about it!

Daddy .... the frisbee has gone in the water .... what a finger puppet drama queen I am!

stevie boy

lots of and today, I picked up the latest dvd today Ill Met By Moonlight, I look forward to having a look at this tonight

batman

Good film. Here's another for that one. ... and one of those too!

Daddy .... the frisbee has gone in the water .... what a finger puppet drama queen I am!

stevie boy

and another

julian_craster

Apologies for my typos....'a LOW GRADE production' should, of course have read 'a LEW GRADE production' .......or perhaps not.......

stevie boy

I Was Montys Double is todays film, what a collection this is

david_dsmedia

Was downtown today and picked up the DVD of I Was Monty's Double. (It's from a Studio Canal 4x3 print, RT 1:36:52.) As a film it's an interesting setup, with John Mills playing someone who in reality who was David Niven, Then there is M.R. Clifton James playing his [14-year] younger self and then playing himself playing Monty - nervously, then confidently, then on the verge of a breakdown.
The general tone is jaunty, and I know the film veers off into boys-own adventure to provide a conventional finale with a fictitious kidnap and shootout on the beach. But has anyone ever done any serious research into how true the overall story is? I know there are stories James lost his nerve and got drunk on the plane, leading to his tour being cut short after a few days, but has this 'debunking' ever been checked out properly? (I've read he spent 5 weeks in the Mediterranean.) Has it ever been subjected to the same kind of investigative research as The Man Who Never Was?
I read Clifton James's own 1954 memoir on which the film is based, and he mentions some of the controversy. (He had been bound to secrecy under the Official Secrets Act, but the story is Monty gave him a dispensation after the story came out in an American staff-officer's memoir.) He also mentions he had lost a finger in WWI - which suggests no enemy agent would be allowed close to him (as they are in the film). Even with any old comrade not in on the secret, this could be a fatal giveway that would set tongues wagging. (If you watch the film carefully, he keeps one hand hidden, and apparently wore a prosthetic finger for CUs of the famous salute.) The actor died soon after, before the 30-year rule that led to various revelations, but was he ever interviewed?
Apparently as a followup, the Army hired a 2nd lookalike to impersonate Monty in North Africa, though he was too tall and could only do drive-by impersonations.
I sometimes wonder if there are revelations still to come about some of these historial episodes. This is especially true with the deception operations, around which a subgenre of books and films has flourished - as feel-good postwar PR for the British war effort if nothing else.

stevie boy

just to let you all know, The Long & The Short & the Tall is now in my collection

Captain Viking

Coupon in today's paper says £7.99 plus 12 tokens for the 21-DVD collection.

stevie boy

Tunes of Glory is now safely in my grubby hands. The acting of Guinness & Mills is top notch

daveoc

Just to add that there is also the option to have the discs in a 'presentation case' for 12 tokens and £10.99.

Probably flimsy but I think I'll go this route just to keep the set together.

Barry Vaughan

It's a very nice print of Tunes Of Glory - not surprising as the disc has the Criterion ident at the beginning! Is this common practice? Surely not??

GRAEME

Tunes of Glory is a great film. But it is not a war film.

All men leak.

julian_craster

Tunes of Glory is a great film. But it is not a war film.


I noticed that this freebie was licenced from JANUS FILMS/THE CRITERION COLLECTION, so MGM/UA
no longer seem to control this film.

Wouldn't it be great to have more of the USA Criterion DVD releases as 'freebies' from the DAILY MAIL ? (especially as they are so expensive to import from the USA.....) .

And suggested titles ?