Powell and Pressburger

[bruiser15]

Don't worry, I didn't break into your PC But it was fairly easy to sort out what the filenames were eg http://i1200.photobucket.com/albums/bb336/andyell/Red Shoes/IMG_3394.jpg and post them in the way Dame Starry described.

Great pics What does the plaque say in the modern theatre one?

I reckon there may be two plaques the other one being hidden by the tree

Mercury Theatre & The Ballet Rambert | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

But I could well be very very wrong

[Steve Crook]

I reckon there may be two plaques the other one being hidden by the tree

Mercury Theatre & The Ballet Rambert | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

But I could well be very very wrong

The one on the right only makes sense if you read the left one first

Here was
THE BIRTHPLACE
OF BRITISH BALLET
Home of
THE BALLET CLUB
and
THE BALLET RAMBERT
Founded by his wife
Dame
Marie Rambert
1888-1982

Whose wife?

Then you read the one on the left which says:
Here stood
THE
MERCURY THEATRE
1931-1987
Founded by
Author and Playwright
ASHLEY DUKES
1885-1959
as a new stage for
Plays by Poets

Steve

[cadgwith]

Does that bit of space have any particular name? If it's behind Mark's house (5 Melbury Road) then it could be part of Holland Park. But if it's behind Michael's house at number 8 then that's on the south side of Melbury Road and even further away from Holland Park

I'll have to see if Columba can help.

Steve

Sorry, I meant no 8 - it's the grounds of Leighton House, 12 Holland Pk Rd, which are open to the public and free (unlike the House).

I'll try and post some more pix, both of the garden and Melbury Rd (the view from no. 19, which was used as well as - or instead of ? - no.5) but I can't do so attached to these replies for some reason (as I found last time, if I click on the Image icon, the whole screen greys out and I lose the text )

[cadgwith]

The above are more of young Mark /Columba's view over the fence.





These 2 are the views from the side (or front, in the 'now' shot) of Mark's house as an adult i.e. no 19 Melbury Rd (not no.5)

Andy

[CaptainWaggett]

Sorry, I meant no 8 - it's the grounds of Leighton House, 12 Holland Pk Rd, which are open to the public and free (unlike the House).

I'll try and post some more pix, both of the garden and Melbury Rd (the view from no. 19, which was used as well as - or instead of ? - no.5) but I can't do so attached to these replies for some reason (as I found last time, if I click on the Image icon, the whole screen greys out and I lose the text )

Maybe your browser is the problem? . But you don't need to click the Image icon - just copy and paste the IMG link from Photbucket straight into your message. If you hit the Go Advanced button below the message, there's the option to Preview your message to double check you've got it right (which you will do after a few goes )

But it seems you solved your problem while I was posting

[Steve Crook]

I'll try and post some more pix, both of the garden and Melbury Rd (the view from no. 19, which was used as well as - or instead of ? - no.5) but I can't do so attached to these replies for some reason (as I found last time, if I click on the Image icon, the whole screen greys out and I lose the text )

Are you blocking pop-ups?

When I click on the Image icon my whole screen greys out - but then there's a pop-up which lets me give the details of the image that I want to insert into the message

Steve

[theuofc]

Picture Show, 3rd November 1956: The Battle of the River Plate

[Steve Crook]

Picture Show, 3rd November 1956: The Battle of the River Plate

P&P's 2nd Royal Command Film - Their first was A Matter of Life and Death in 1946, the very first Royal Command Film performance

Christopher Lee had a small but significant role in The Battle of the River Plate, as Manolo, the owner of the bar in Montevideo.
Christopher was also in Hugo so this year's Royal Command Film performance was his second (unless anyone knows of any others)

Steve

[Nimuae]

Is that a young Anthony Quayle in the bottom left corner ?

[Steve Crook]

Is that a young Anthony Quayle in the bottom left corner ?

Yes, he plays Commodore Harwood, the man in charge of the Royal Navy squadron that attacked the Graf Spee

Have you not seen it? I thought everybody had seen this one, they show it on TV so often.
It's one of the better WWII navy films because they used real ships, not models in tanks

Powell & Pressburger arranged things so that they were on board the ships during their training exercises so they could get all the footage they needed of a warship coming to action stations, guns being fired and ships manoeuvring.

Steve

[theuofc]

P&P's 2nd Royal Command Film - Their first was A Matter of Life and Death in 1946, the very first Royal Command Film performance

Christopher Lee had a small but significant role in The Battle of the River Plate, as Manolo, the owner of the bar in Montevideo.
Christopher was also in Hugo so this year's Royal Command Film performance was his second (unless anyone knows of any others)

Steve

Re: Jack Gwillim (Captain Perry of the HMNZS Achilles) who had served 'two decades in the Royal Navy' before his acting career. I saw this quote at IMDB. A good quote; is it accurate?

"When cast as dignified figures of authority, Gwillim seems to have merely played himself. Michael Powell described him as 'six-feet-two, taciturn, polite, and every inch of him Royal Navy.' Powell added that during the filming of Pursuit of the Graf Spee 'the other actors had to mind their p's' and and q's'' whenever Gwillim was present. ...'a glance from those grey eyes stiffened their backbones.'. "

Barbara

[GRAEME]

P&P's 2nd Royal Command Film - Their first was A Matter of Life and Death in 1946, the very first Royal Command Film performance

Christopher Lee had a small but significant role in The Battle of the River Plate, as Manolo, the owner of the bar in Montevideo.
Christopher was also in Hugo so this year's Royal Command Film performance was his second (unless anyone knows of any others)

Steve

At least another two Royal films for Chris:

Scott of the Antarctic 1948
The Three Musketeers in 1975

[Steve Crook]

Re: Jack Gwillim (Captain Perry of the HMNZS Achilles) who had served 'two decades in the Royal Navy' before his acting career. I saw this quote at IMDB. A good quote; is it accurate?

Barbara

I know of no reason to doubt it

Steve

[theuofc]

I know of no reason to doubt it

Steve

Me neither. :-) I don't have my MP autobios with me and couldn't check the wording, but I like it.

[Steve Crook]

Re: Jack Gwillim (Captain Perry of the HMNZS Achilles) who had served 'two decades in the Royal Navy' before his acting career. I saw this quote at IMDB. A good quote; is it accurate?

"When cast as dignified figures of authority, Gwillim seems to have merely played himself. Michael Powell described him as 'six-feet-two, taciturn, polite, and every inch of him Royal Navy.' Powell added that during the filming of Pursuit of the Graf Spee 'the other actors had to mind their p's' and and q's'' whenever Gwillim was present. ...'a glance from those grey eyes stiffened their backbones.'. "

Barbara

See also the Wikipedia page about Jack which says much the same thing. BoRP was his first film, Capt Perry isn't a large role and having an ex-Commander RN in the team would have helped with relations between the film crew and the Royal Navy, back at the Admiralty and on board the ships.

Steve

[charliekane]

Picture Show, 3rd November 1956: The Battle of the River Plate

Clockwise from right:
Peter Finch, Ian Hunter, Bernard Lee, Anthony Quayle, John Gregson.

[Maurice]

THE LIFE AND DEATH OF COLONEL BLIMP
re-released next Friday
is reviewed by Marc Lee in today's Daily Telegraph: "Why they wanted to ban Blimp"

The critics were baffled and Churchill was incensed when "Colonel Blimp" came out in 1943. Today, it is hailed as a classic...

[Steve Crook]

John Patterson waxes lyrical about The LIfe and Death of Colonel Blimp and A Canterbury Tale in The Guardian

The digitally restored print of Blimp was shown at the NFT on Thursday and will be shown there at various other times until the end of May. It will also be shown at various other places in this and various other countries.
See the PaPAS site for details

Steve

[Windyridge]

Just listened to The Film Programme on R4 where the whole episode was devoted to Blimp. Usual suspects discussing: Thelma S, Scorsese, plus Kevin McDonald and Ian Christie. It's now officially the Best British Film Ever Made.

[Steve Crook]

Just listened to The Film Programme on R4 where the whole episode was devoted to Blimp. Usual suspects discussing: Thelma S, Scorsese, plus Kevin McDonald and Ian Christie. It's now officially the Best British Film Ever Made.

Apart from A Matter of Life and Death which is the best film ever made in any country

This publicity for Blimp is due to the digitally restored print beginning its world tour. It's being shown at various places in the UK and Europe (mainly France), probably to be followed by most other countries as they did with the digitally restored print of The Red Shoes. That world tour will then probably be followed by a Blu-ray & DVD made from the new print

These aren't just a new print made from the same tired old internegs. They went all the way back to all the original negatives, which were in a bit of a state. They digitised each frame at a super-high resolution and cleaned them all, filling in scratches on the film itself and on the optical soundtrack, removing any dirt, mould and other things. Realigned them to deal with the problem where some strips of the three strip Technicolor had stretched or shrunk by different amounts. Then they re-combined them, balancing the colours to match the original Technicolor palette. The process takes years and costs a medium sized fortune. But the result is well worth the effort

Steve