julian_craster

A new DVD (UK Region 2) release...

As this film is new to DVD, it hopefully will be newly restored...

SIMON AND LAURA (Colour, Rank, 1955)
Directed by Muriel Box
Starring Peter Finch, Kay Kendall, Ian Carmichael

Seen at Amazon UK:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Simon-And-
Laura/dp/B000LXHJKU/ref=cm_lmf_tit_24/203-5877953-9559162
Studio: Network

DVD Release Date: 12 Feb 2007

A television producer decides to base a drama series on a happily
married couple of actors. However, their marriage isn't as happy as
it seems...

smudge

Shame they have used a Muriel Pavlow/Peter Finch picture on the front sleeve though !

Kay Kendall - gone, but not forgotten (at least by some....)

SMUDGE

Welcome to my house. Enter freely, and of your own will...

theuofc

Wasn't Kay Kendall beautiful and also a fine comic actress? One of my favourite Kendall films is Once More with Feeling with Yul Brynner. She was gorgeous and witty in it. I was surprised to hear from Steve C. that Jack Cardiff was her cousin.

Kay Kendall, a lovely vision all too fleeting on the big screen.


Barbara

Dirk_Bogarde_Brigade - a Yahoo group

smudge

Kay Kendall was gorgeous ! You can see why Gordon Jackson became infatuated when she was the 'lonely hearts' singer on his TV in MEET MR. LUCIFER.

Cruelly taken too soon ; what a noble thing Rex Harrison did when he kept the severity of her last illness from her.

SMUDGE

Welcome to my house. Enter freely, and of your own will...

theuofc

I'll have to watch Meet Mr. Lucifer. I always liked Gordon Jackson too. Thanks for that, Smudge. About Jackson: if memory serves me, Jackson said that he did so many B films and bit roles starting out that when he was in LA with his wife and turned on the TV in the middle of the night, he glanced at the screen and said in effect that the actor or film was awful. Turns out it was Jackson himself in a film he'd forgotten.

All the best,

Barbara

Dirk_Bogarde_Brigade - a Yahoo group

MrDrakesDuck

Great film this.

Shows that the concept of some sort of 'reality' TV isn't so new. :

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

theuofc

It's funny, isn't it, how people around a dying person don't want him/her to know.
Yet by withholding that vital information they deny the person whom it involves the most intimately an opportunity to say good-bye, tie up ends, and do the last cherished things the dying person might do if she only knew. I guess there is the chance the dying person will go into a total funk and jump out the window, but stats don't seem to confirm that exaggerated response. Most people seize at their last months of life. Even the man on the bridge fights off a person who tries to push him off.

Audrey Hepburn's husband and son did the same thing. They didn't tell her she was dying and said to the effect, "We think she knew, but we wanted to save her the grief." Personally, I would want to know. I would grab that remaining time and run with it like the wind, travelling and doing as many things as I could while I still had the energy, saying my good-byes, and tying up the loose ends in the way I wanted rather than leaving business for the living to sort out.

Great to see you, Shirl.

Very best,

Barbara


Dirk_Bogarde_Brigade - a Yahoo group

merryowen

Each to his own, but I am with Smudge.

When I am dying I want my friends and family to tell me afterwards.

And what is with this tying up loose ends lark? Surely the one place where a man is entitled to lie back and let the world go by is his deathbed?

theuofc

Oh, good one, Merryowen... "tell me afterwards"!

I suspect you are right in not wasting one's last moments on taking care of business. But you see there are micro-manager-control freaks (moi) and then there are human beings.

All the best,

Barbara

Dirk_Bogarde_Brigade - a Yahoo group

smudge

Speaking personally, I'd like to know. On the Kendall-Harrison thing it goes deeper than I can start to discover I am sure, but I intend to buy the (new?) Kay Kendall book to see what light it sheds.

If I were on the way, I would leave others to look after the minutiae. I wouldn't want all that fuss that relatives do either - the fewer other people who knew the better, therefore.

It is much to my regret that my greatest friend (taken way too young) never left in that 'blaze of glory' which we talked about when we knew. He eschewed that last trip to America to afford other things to leave his family comfortable.

Rest assured that when the time comes I shall be doing my darndest to do all those things I ever wanted ; starting with a letter campaign to have at least a little of 'me' scattered in a favourite film studio when I'm gorn....

SMUDGE

Welcome to my house. Enter freely, and of your own will...

merryowen

Talking of which, most of us have a favourite piece of music that we want played at our funerals.

But how about a fovourite movie scene?

I want the scene from High Noon where Amy, the gentle Quaker jumps off the train and starts running towards the sound of the guns.

In fact I want two scenes. I also want the bit where she sees a wounded man in the street, says stuff him, he ain't my fella, and carries on running.

How about you guys?

smudge

As the coffin sweeps towards the curtains, FIRE by The Crazy World of Arthur Brown, then as the mourners exit, Peter Sellers' TRUMPET VOLUNTEER ; and no sad faces :

A colleague of mine - with (I must say) the same schoolboy bent of humour - entered the crematorium to Deep Purple's SMOKE ON THE WATER, at which I smiled to meself...

SMUDGE

Welcome to my house. Enter freely, and of your own will...

glyn horton

Kay Kendall - beautiful, talented and taken away way, way too soon.

Smudge, the book by Eve Golden is 'The Brief Madcap life of Kay Kendall' and is quite an entertaining read. Kay was apparently a bit of a character in real life. It does go into detail regarding the whole situation regarding her illness. Dirk Bogarde was a great friend of hers and he certainly felt that Kay was not taken in and secretly knew that there was something seriously wrong with her health.

There's some good photos in there too!

AndrewLA

I have a feeling this subject came up once before, some time ago, so apologies if I'm repeating myself...

There's a lovely one-act play by Terence Rattigan, "In Praise of Love," which was inspired by the Kay Kendall-Rex Harrison story (and Rattigan's own illness). I've never seen it, only read it, but Donald Sinden and Joan Greenwood were in the original London production.

Their marriage has faded over the years when the wife discovers she is dying of leukemia. She decides to keep the knowledge from her husband and son, and even tries to find another woman to take her place after she's gone.

Meanwhile, the husband has suspected her illness, learns that it is incurable, and he decides not to tell her that he knows. He wants to preserve her happiness, just as she wants to preseerve his -- at least until the very end.

The final moments are quite wonderful -- very English and repressed yet full of emotion. The wife discovers that her husband knows. And she realizes that he's not the uncaring boor he seemed to be. He's been getting reports of her blood count every month. She suddenly knows how much he loves her. And she decides not to tell him that she knows he knows (sounds a bit klunky -- not at all). The ending is very, very English -- everyone avoiding an emotional revelation and confrontation, while feeling their emotions deeply under the surface.

You can argue that real people wouldn't or shouldn't behave like this, and I'd certainly like to know the truth of any illness myself... but really, a fine play.

I seem to remember that there was a TV version with Sinden, but not sure about that. Ironically, Rex Harrison played the part on Broadway, with Julie Harris.

Terence Rattigan -- a great writer.