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johnallison
Reviews
Performance: After the Dance (1992)
Rattigan's Neglected Masterpiece
Recently re-screened after the BBC4 appreciation of Terence Rattigan on his centenary, 'After the Dance' is a tragicomedy which gets closer to the bone of Rattigan's obsessions about love and success, than his more well known works such as 'The Browning Version', or 'The Deep Blue Sea'. In this a young woman enters a brittle and superficial world of upper-middle class parties, and lures the main protagonist David Scott-Fowler from his wife Joan, in order to 'save' him from his indolent life and his futile pretence of being a writer.
The implication that David and Joan are in a loveless marriage of convenience, has faint echoes in Rattigan's life since he was gay and many of his themes transposed gay love into a heterosexual milieu. The fact that Joan really does love David leads to tragic results. The late Anton Rodgers' pitch perfect performance as David, and Gemma Jones' beautifully brittle Joan make this one of the most outstanding examples of the transference of theatre to the small screen I have ever seen. Acting as a mirror to the follies of the main characters, John Bird supplies both wit and gravitas as David's best friend John Reid. All this takes place with the backdrop of the impending 2nd World War, when things are never going to be the same again for the bright young things who as Reid says: 'only they never were bright and now they're not even young'.
A Face in the Crowd (1957)
Face in the Crowd, A (1957)
I saw this first time round & thought it was brilliant. I'm glad it's still being shown on TV in the US. One thing, the theories of whom it was based upon? I defer to my American friends in their opinion, but I always thought it was based on Will Rogers transposed to the then new TV age?
Maybe it will be shown on the late night schedules in the UK one day...
Crush (2001)
Good way to spend a Sunday afternoon
I saw this with my wife on a Sunday afternoon at our local 'arthouse'. With only about 8 women and two men I was definitely in a minority. The women cackled throughout, and after a while I said 'to hell with it' and joined in. It is what it is, a good-natured romp with some gratuitous sex (is there any other kind?, flawed around the edges but overall a good 'laff' as we say in my part of the world. Andie McDowell, no doubt cast to help the budget, justified her casting, with a permanent bemused air due to (a) being constantly 'rogered', and (b) wondering what the hell an American was doing as headmistress of a posh English school anyway.
I particularly liked Anna Chancellor, who was as sexy as hell in the scene where she tries to entrap Jed. The fact that he resisted her was one of the film's implausible moments - you would have died happy Jed!
All in all very enjoyable and we will buy the video.