It has been a good Easter, alone but not lonely, although mindful of what might have been and what was. The adult fantasy imaginings involved with A game of Thrones have been replaced by a mixture of television and film experiences, the first of which was the sad reality of the last episode of the first series of Treme.
As the events of the previous episode signified Mr Goodman in his role as the intellectual voice of New Orleans has departed, giving up and throwing himself off the ferry and where a few days later his body is found washed up, and then his car with a handwritten note telling his wife that he loves her, forgetting that he was needed by her and their daughter in particular. They were an ill matched and unlikely pairing in reality so it would not surprise if the produces decided that John was out or he wanted out when a second series was agreed. His sense of failure in not having overcome his writer’s block or being able to communicate with his university students, led him to believe running from the reality of life was best for everyone, and being a student of people in fiction he must have known he would remain condemned without salvation for his selfish action. His departure is not mourned but the grief of is fictional wife and daughter are.
Finally after the family tomb was repaired Daymo had his funeral and the Second Line, the march back with a jazz band where the mourners struggle to move from grief to joy at the everlasting release from the trials and tribulations of life as well as the individual celebration of one life. The difficulty finding fun from the celebration was marked by his sister and by John’s wife who refused to arrange a Second Line for her husband as he had wished, but nevertheless followed behind the family and friends of Daymo, in which we are treated to flashbacks of events on the day in which he is picked up on the Bench warrant which had not been cancelled and make his one call to his sister only to find the family has fled the advancing hurricane and he is left a prisoner and to his fate.
For Davis fate is to deal him some better cards after spending a day trying everything to persuade Janette to stay in New Orleans bringing tasty morsels to her door at dawn with a ballad singer plead, taking her out on the town, making love, constantly reminding of what she will miss and what New York is like. He fails and she still makes the flight to her parent’s admitting to them and to herself that she failed.
Annie returns to the apartment of Sonny after her friend asks her to leave for a few days as the owner of the apartment where she is crashing is returning. Annie finds another woman in what had been her bed and goes off a take up Davies on his invitation. Davis cannot believe his good fortune. He has failed to get all the funds required to turn his EP into and LP disk and goes back to being a radio station DJ promising to cut out all the things which made the management previously let him go despite their audience popularity. Sonny has admitted to Annie she is a better musician than he, and after realising his behaviour has blown the chances of her return he smashes the mobile keyboard and then gets high on some drug.
The episode also marks the day of the Indians and we see the costumes which Albert and his crew have worked on as they go on a day of traditional dance and song, but also high on drugs so that when the police arrive late night it is the community relations officer who steps in and forces his colleagues to get back in their cars and drive away. Albert’s son also catches the same flight as Jeanette to New York after having a modern jazz swing session with his father. Antoine the trombone player attends Daymo’ funeral and you sense that the casual relationship which developed between him and LaDonna has not in fact run its short course. He loses the substantial earning from the latest gigs at Poker, mainly to the female vocalist and tries to convince his mistress and child that the fault of why he brought back so little lay with the event organiser. Her face registered disbelief. The band plays on.
I was less irritated by the last episode of Lewis- The Gift of Promise than the previous three in part because the basic plot ingredients satisfied although there are so many queries and questions which may be my fault that I did not pay close enough attention or memory failure after less than twenty four hours. The front story is that of an amazing sixteen year old already taking a first degree at Oxford and the annual winner of scholarship from an organisation supporting the gifted child; she has a close relationship with her history tutor whose essay subject for his tutorial group is the Irish Civil war following agreement to create the separate six counties which make the North. Her father runs a publishing company and has a close association with the woman who runs the bright child organisation charity, and who is murdered. Daughter suspects mother of having a secret affair from behaviour which she tests only to find she is meeting up with a stranger who is the publican of a strong Irish republican pub. The former female head of MI6 arrived in town for a book signing giving a copy to the Sergeant.
Another member of the tutorial group who came to the university as did the tutor at the beginning of the year from the same USA university college, is a natural acrobat, who lives on the roof of the college and is having hallucinations. The acrobatic friend falls to his death attempting to jump from one roof to another and finding it impossible to descend a spiral staircase.. The college tutor nearly dies from arsenic laced into his coffee over at least a month and the father of the genius daughter is murdered on his way home after a late night meeting. So what can be made of all this?
The story goes back to the Troubles during which a British placed IRA commander was officially presented as killing a young woman called Mary, a former fellow student, in order to protect his position. At an interview question and answer session with the former MI6 leader, the acrobatic student accuses her of writing a book of lies and the book publisher receives a copy of the book with a hand written insert Who killed Mary? The publisher is then found to have made a sudden visit to Ireland to undertake research at the university attended by Mary, related to a Graduation Year Book, especially photos having been cut out from the copy of the book. The Republican supporting publican is known to have had a sexual relationship (from photos discovered) with the murdered Bright child charity organiser as did the acrobatic student. These are red herring aspects.
The first breakthrough is that the woman who serves coffee on a regular basis to the college tutor since taking the post within the past couple of months is found to be the aunt of the killed girl, Mary who she regarded as a daughter. The official driver and lover of the MI6 former leader is found to use a motorcycle which is traced to following the publishing father of the bright girl on the night of his death. Nearly too late the detective pair find out the truth after bullying the former MI6 to reveal the truth. Not only was the tutor their man in Northern Ireland, since given a new identity and returning to the UK only after a period of exile in the USA, but he did not kill Mary who was also given a new identity and is the wife of the killed publisher and father of the bright girl. Wow, none of surprised and was signalled for those paying attention. The two were lovers but Mary has made a new life and has no interest in the tutor who having indirectly killed the acrobatic student because he had worked out who the man had been and the girl’s father because he stood in their way, he threatens to kill them both and then himself when she rejects him.
As I say I remain confused about several aspects of this story so may have got much of it wrong and have no inclination to see again to get right. Of particular interest is the empathetic relationship which developed between the Sergeant and the bright girl as she recognises that he is as sharp and knowledgeable as she and was in fact in a similar position to herself. She, with the help of her parents has attempted to have a rounded experience. He did not. There has been no more talk of both leaving the service and indeed it looks as if the relationship between the woman who undertakes the scenes of crime investigations and autopsies has ended as quickly as it has begun and she is taking an interest in Lewis again. Another series? Perhaps the ratings have reduced with each series, rapidly falling from the inaugural 11 million pilot episode to under 9 for the second and to now below 6.
Billed as whimsical film, I thought that Neil Jordan’s, Ondine set in a small Irish fishing village was to develop with elements of the Troubles. The revealed aspect is in fact middle/east European Drug running. Colin Farrell whose performance I enjoyed so much in In Bruges plays a single handed fisherman divorced from his wife, he a recovering alcoholic with his ex wife played by the wonderful Dervia Kirwan in Ballykissangel and then the 1940’s wife in Goodnight Sweetheart. Here she plays a boozy wife with a boozy traditional male new partner who rely on Colin to play his part in caring for their young daughter who has a bad liver (the irony of this will be overlooked by some) and requires regular dialysis and medical checks.
Colin is having a lean time in his fishing until he nets a barely alive young woman who wants to be kept out of sight of everyone and who refuses to disclose her origins, go to hospital or see a doctor. He takes her to live in the isolated cottage previously the home of his mother and which has a sea mooring for his boat. His catches improve and he tells his daughter about the arrival of the woman from the sea in the form of a story she requests during a dialysis session. She is allocated an electric wheel chair which she quickly learns to use and visits the home of her grandmother to find out about the sea maiden whom she is bright enough to work out is a real person.
The sea maiden and daughter become good friends and while being taught to swim they discover and then bury something covered in sea weed which the maiden brings from the sea bed. With aspects of Ballykissangel featuring in the film Colin goes to confession for the first time in decades to talk to someone about the situation he finds himself in. We the audience are made aware that the couple are under scrutiny from strangers. Local teenagers take the chair away from the daughter and put it in the water damaging the mechanisms which the step father attempts to repair, but later the brakes fail and the daughter falls into the sea during the local festival and is rescued by the sea maiden. She recovers and Colin and the sea maiden become lovers.
Colin tells the Priest that he is afraid that something very good or very bad is going to happen and he priest says that coping with success, happiness, is in fact just as difficult if not more difficult than coping with failure. The slow paced lyrical tale then has a dramatic change of pace. Colin takes his daughter to her home only find that she is locked out and has to take her down to a pub on the sea front and in a drunk state the wife attempts to drive home and their vehicle is in a major collision in which the step father is killed with his kidney being a match for the step daughter who survived and with her mother now left in a wheel chair. She asks Colin to have the full time care and on returning home one day he finds the sea maiden and his daughter prisoners of two middle/eastern European men and we learn the story behind the story. The sea maiden was the partner one of the two men in a drug run in which their boat is surrounded by custom’s craft. The girl swims underwater with the drugs so there is nothing for customs to hold the vessel and the man in charge. The sea maiden takes them to where the drugs found on the sea bed have been buried in garden but they are not there. The daughter has removed and hidden them in one of lobster pots hung of the side of the boat under water. She did this in order to prevent the maiden going off. At this point the authorities arrive and the maiden is taken into custody. One of the men has been killed and the other captured. We learn from a subsequent discussion between Colin and the Priest that when the girl is released from custody she will be deported unless she can become a citizen by marriage. They marry and live happy ever after.
It could have all worked out different. Colin at one point goes off the wagon after being pushed into taking a drink with his ex wife. For some reason which I am still not sure, Colin takes the sea maiden and leaves her on a light house rock but returns to find that she has swam across to a rock outfall used by sea lions. After being told the story of sea maiden in the net the daughter had gone to the local library for books about mermaids and sea creatures. She had decided that Ondine (of the sea) was a selkie, a seal lady creature of Celtic mythology who may temporarily become human by removing her seal coat, but must later return to sea. It was enjoyable lunchtime Bank Holiday Monday fare.
A very different kind of film unreality is The Long Hot Summer with Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward, Lee Remick and Orson Wells, Anthony Franciosa, Angela Lansbury and Richard Anderson.
Orson Wells is the archetypical southern bid daddy, a widower, who dominates his two children, Joanne Woodward, an outwardly prim school mistress with high standards and expectations, and Anthony Franciosa as an embittered always failing to please son who is yet to produce the longed for grand son with his lacking respect wife Lee Remick. Big daddy has a regular girl friend Angela Landsbury who is desperate to make the relationship permanent. Into this mix comes Paul Newman a drifter, known to several in town because his father was an incendiarist. He hitches a lift from the daughter and her best friend whose brother has been courting, in a fashion, Joanne, for half a dozen years. Big daddy who owns half the town takes to this brash, confident, smartalec of a young man.
He sets him up in a dilapidated small holding and gives him work in his main store much to the increasing resentment of his son who becomes even angrier when Newman is moved into the family home. The anger reaches boiling point and the son threatens to kill Paul who buys time by telling him he has found the stash of gold treasure which legend has it is buried somewhere in the area he is living. They go back and find an old sack with more of the coins like those which Paul had in his pocket. The son has bought out Paul’s interest for a couple of thousand dollars which he thinks is a bargain until his father points out he has been duped because the coins are not of great historical value but minted in the 20th century and those he found were likely to be the only ones.
Woodward cannot stand Newman but equally has become increasingly frustrated at the lack on initiative taken by her young man who lives with his demanding mother. He shows nothing of the passion of Newman and at the local fair only bids up to sixteen dollars for the right to have a private picnic with the girl when Newman offers fifty. However the event does not go well and the young man takes her home but also makes it clear he is not interested in marrying at that time. Father mistakes what she says later and the following morning visits the young man and his mother to organise the marriage only to find she has been rejected. He then decides that she and Newman will marry but before this happens the son attempts to kill, his father by locking him in the family stables and setting fire, but he changes his mind and rescues resulting in the two establishing a new relationship. The local firebrands (hee hee) decided that the cause if the blaze will be the son of the incendiarist and march on the family home where they learn that the blaze was caused by Big daddy dropping his cigar. There is then a lively exchange between Newman, Wells and Woodward in which she reveals that he is the man for her.
The significance of this 1958 released is that this was the first time Newman and Woodward acted together and after the film they were married, a marriage which then to last until his death 50 years later. He was previously married with a son and two daughters. The son died from a drug overdose after several film performances and led to the creation of a prevention centre by Newman who went on to have three daughters with Woodward. His most famous quip when asked about his devotion to Woodward was why got out for a hamburger when you have steak at home. The couple and his children from both marriages are known for their social awareness and responsibility.
The final film in this session is Prince of Persia, The Sands of Time, a film which at the time of its release to theatres appeared to be in the mould of Indian Jones, I thought. Ok for a family outing with teenagers but not adult interest. I now understand that the film is based on a video game which is interesting as usually this is the other way round. The film has three great character actors Ben Kingsley as the baddie, Alfred Molina providing some light relief and Ronald Pickup as the King ruler of Persia who is impressed by the antics of a young street tearaway played by Jake Gyllenhaal who is brought up as another son and Prince, th Prince of Persia, with the two other sons of the King. They are persuaded by Ben Kingsley who is the Kings brother and family adviser to attack a sacred city on the grounds that weapons are being manufactured for use by enemies. The city kingdom has a beautiful female Princess as head who is the guardian of a special dagger which is in fact a device which if special grains of sand are inserted, Sands of Time, can reverse events back a few minutes enabling events to be altered which only the holder of the dagger is are aware of.
Ben Kingsley is aware of this and has manufactured the excuse to invade to capture the device for himself with the intention of using the device with the full Sands of Time beneath the Palace in such a away that he will reverse time to the point when his brother will not have existed, and therefore married with sons and heirs and he will be in charge. However if he is in error with his timing the risk is that that in effect time will be reversed to the extent humanity as it developed will permanently cease to exist- The sands having run out into a vortex within the centre of the earth.
To begin the process he tricks one of his sons to give a prayer cloak to his adopted brother to give to their father. The young man has acted in such a way to minimise death and destruction in taking the city although his father says that he should have stopped to attack all together knowing that it was against his wishes whatever the circumstances. The cloak has a magical property which means once it is worn it seals in the body and has been treated in such away that wearer is burnt to death. The brother under the pressure from the adviser blames the adopted son who barely escapes with his life and only with the help the help of Princess who seeks the dagger he has taken from the person she entrusted to take where it will find sanctuary. Why it cannot be hidden anywhere else is not disclosed.
She persuades the adopted Prince to help her return the dagger to the place of sanctuary and to do this and avoid their pursuers they need to enter a valley pass with a dreadful reputation but this is front for Alfred Molina’s operation providing Ostrich races and gambling. The Prince and the Princes are also being chased by a group of warriors under the control of King’s brother less by a man with exceptional strength and powers and the combination of trying to escape from the pursuers and the Molina enterprises results in the enterprise being wrecked, so they are then hunted with a view to being sold for the bounty attached to them. As they reach the place of sanctuary for the dagger, crossing the Hindu Kush is the borders with India they are captured by the youngest of the King’s sons who they convinces of the treachery of their uncle only for the brother to be killed. They lose the dagger to the Uncle’s men and it is taken back to the City’s capital where his agents are working below to reach the portal enabling a major reverse in time. The Prince and Uncle fight enabling a return in time to the point that that the brothers have entered the city but before the arrival of the King so only the adopted Prince is aware of the subsequent events. He is able to convince the elder son of the treachery of the Uncle who once threatened exposure reveals his true motivations and ambitions and is defeated. The brothers apologise for their hostile entering of the city and the Prince is offered as a marriage partner for the Princess who accepts and to whom he gives the dagger which had come into his possession. Ah another happy ending.
The film lasts just under two hours and doubled its budget at the box office despite only about a third of the critics being positive. As I suspected it is suitable viewing for young people which the parents can enjoy with nothing too scary or likely to produce nightmares in younger children allowed to watch. Is not a spectacular film by today’s standards and techniques.
In the evening of Bank holiday Monday I watch a recording of the Antiques Roadshow and then the first of three programmes on the final of Master Chef. I leave the second episode of A game of Thrones until after writing about the recent cricket.
As the events of the previous episode signified Mr Goodman in his role as the intellectual voice of New Orleans has departed, giving up and throwing himself off the ferry and where a few days later his body is found washed up, and then his car with a handwritten note telling his wife that he loves her, forgetting that he was needed by her and their daughter in particular. They were an ill matched and unlikely pairing in reality so it would not surprise if the produces decided that John was out or he wanted out when a second series was agreed. His sense of failure in not having overcome his writer’s block or being able to communicate with his university students, led him to believe running from the reality of life was best for everyone, and being a student of people in fiction he must have known he would remain condemned without salvation for his selfish action. His departure is not mourned but the grief of is fictional wife and daughter are.
Finally after the family tomb was repaired Daymo had his funeral and the Second Line, the march back with a jazz band where the mourners struggle to move from grief to joy at the everlasting release from the trials and tribulations of life as well as the individual celebration of one life. The difficulty finding fun from the celebration was marked by his sister and by John’s wife who refused to arrange a Second Line for her husband as he had wished, but nevertheless followed behind the family and friends of Daymo, in which we are treated to flashbacks of events on the day in which he is picked up on the Bench warrant which had not been cancelled and make his one call to his sister only to find the family has fled the advancing hurricane and he is left a prisoner and to his fate.
For Davis fate is to deal him some better cards after spending a day trying everything to persuade Janette to stay in New Orleans bringing tasty morsels to her door at dawn with a ballad singer plead, taking her out on the town, making love, constantly reminding of what she will miss and what New York is like. He fails and she still makes the flight to her parent’s admitting to them and to herself that she failed.
Annie returns to the apartment of Sonny after her friend asks her to leave for a few days as the owner of the apartment where she is crashing is returning. Annie finds another woman in what had been her bed and goes off a take up Davies on his invitation. Davis cannot believe his good fortune. He has failed to get all the funds required to turn his EP into and LP disk and goes back to being a radio station DJ promising to cut out all the things which made the management previously let him go despite their audience popularity. Sonny has admitted to Annie she is a better musician than he, and after realising his behaviour has blown the chances of her return he smashes the mobile keyboard and then gets high on some drug.
The episode also marks the day of the Indians and we see the costumes which Albert and his crew have worked on as they go on a day of traditional dance and song, but also high on drugs so that when the police arrive late night it is the community relations officer who steps in and forces his colleagues to get back in their cars and drive away. Albert’s son also catches the same flight as Jeanette to New York after having a modern jazz swing session with his father. Antoine the trombone player attends Daymo’ funeral and you sense that the casual relationship which developed between him and LaDonna has not in fact run its short course. He loses the substantial earning from the latest gigs at Poker, mainly to the female vocalist and tries to convince his mistress and child that the fault of why he brought back so little lay with the event organiser. Her face registered disbelief. The band plays on.
I was less irritated by the last episode of Lewis- The Gift of Promise than the previous three in part because the basic plot ingredients satisfied although there are so many queries and questions which may be my fault that I did not pay close enough attention or memory failure after less than twenty four hours. The front story is that of an amazing sixteen year old already taking a first degree at Oxford and the annual winner of scholarship from an organisation supporting the gifted child; she has a close relationship with her history tutor whose essay subject for his tutorial group is the Irish Civil war following agreement to create the separate six counties which make the North. Her father runs a publishing company and has a close association with the woman who runs the bright child organisation charity, and who is murdered. Daughter suspects mother of having a secret affair from behaviour which she tests only to find she is meeting up with a stranger who is the publican of a strong Irish republican pub. The former female head of MI6 arrived in town for a book signing giving a copy to the Sergeant.
Another member of the tutorial group who came to the university as did the tutor at the beginning of the year from the same USA university college, is a natural acrobat, who lives on the roof of the college and is having hallucinations. The acrobatic friend falls to his death attempting to jump from one roof to another and finding it impossible to descend a spiral staircase.. The college tutor nearly dies from arsenic laced into his coffee over at least a month and the father of the genius daughter is murdered on his way home after a late night meeting. So what can be made of all this?
The story goes back to the Troubles during which a British placed IRA commander was officially presented as killing a young woman called Mary, a former fellow student, in order to protect his position. At an interview question and answer session with the former MI6 leader, the acrobatic student accuses her of writing a book of lies and the book publisher receives a copy of the book with a hand written insert Who killed Mary? The publisher is then found to have made a sudden visit to Ireland to undertake research at the university attended by Mary, related to a Graduation Year Book, especially photos having been cut out from the copy of the book. The Republican supporting publican is known to have had a sexual relationship (from photos discovered) with the murdered Bright child charity organiser as did the acrobatic student. These are red herring aspects.
The first breakthrough is that the woman who serves coffee on a regular basis to the college tutor since taking the post within the past couple of months is found to be the aunt of the killed girl, Mary who she regarded as a daughter. The official driver and lover of the MI6 former leader is found to use a motorcycle which is traced to following the publishing father of the bright girl on the night of his death. Nearly too late the detective pair find out the truth after bullying the former MI6 to reveal the truth. Not only was the tutor their man in Northern Ireland, since given a new identity and returning to the UK only after a period of exile in the USA, but he did not kill Mary who was also given a new identity and is the wife of the killed publisher and father of the bright girl. Wow, none of surprised and was signalled for those paying attention. The two were lovers but Mary has made a new life and has no interest in the tutor who having indirectly killed the acrobatic student because he had worked out who the man had been and the girl’s father because he stood in their way, he threatens to kill them both and then himself when she rejects him.
As I say I remain confused about several aspects of this story so may have got much of it wrong and have no inclination to see again to get right. Of particular interest is the empathetic relationship which developed between the Sergeant and the bright girl as she recognises that he is as sharp and knowledgeable as she and was in fact in a similar position to herself. She, with the help of her parents has attempted to have a rounded experience. He did not. There has been no more talk of both leaving the service and indeed it looks as if the relationship between the woman who undertakes the scenes of crime investigations and autopsies has ended as quickly as it has begun and she is taking an interest in Lewis again. Another series? Perhaps the ratings have reduced with each series, rapidly falling from the inaugural 11 million pilot episode to under 9 for the second and to now below 6.
Billed as whimsical film, I thought that Neil Jordan’s, Ondine set in a small Irish fishing village was to develop with elements of the Troubles. The revealed aspect is in fact middle/east European Drug running. Colin Farrell whose performance I enjoyed so much in In Bruges plays a single handed fisherman divorced from his wife, he a recovering alcoholic with his ex wife played by the wonderful Dervia Kirwan in Ballykissangel and then the 1940’s wife in Goodnight Sweetheart. Here she plays a boozy wife with a boozy traditional male new partner who rely on Colin to play his part in caring for their young daughter who has a bad liver (the irony of this will be overlooked by some) and requires regular dialysis and medical checks.
Colin is having a lean time in his fishing until he nets a barely alive young woman who wants to be kept out of sight of everyone and who refuses to disclose her origins, go to hospital or see a doctor. He takes her to live in the isolated cottage previously the home of his mother and which has a sea mooring for his boat. His catches improve and he tells his daughter about the arrival of the woman from the sea in the form of a story she requests during a dialysis session. She is allocated an electric wheel chair which she quickly learns to use and visits the home of her grandmother to find out about the sea maiden whom she is bright enough to work out is a real person.
The sea maiden and daughter become good friends and while being taught to swim they discover and then bury something covered in sea weed which the maiden brings from the sea bed. With aspects of Ballykissangel featuring in the film Colin goes to confession for the first time in decades to talk to someone about the situation he finds himself in. We the audience are made aware that the couple are under scrutiny from strangers. Local teenagers take the chair away from the daughter and put it in the water damaging the mechanisms which the step father attempts to repair, but later the brakes fail and the daughter falls into the sea during the local festival and is rescued by the sea maiden. She recovers and Colin and the sea maiden become lovers.
Colin tells the Priest that he is afraid that something very good or very bad is going to happen and he priest says that coping with success, happiness, is in fact just as difficult if not more difficult than coping with failure. The slow paced lyrical tale then has a dramatic change of pace. Colin takes his daughter to her home only find that she is locked out and has to take her down to a pub on the sea front and in a drunk state the wife attempts to drive home and their vehicle is in a major collision in which the step father is killed with his kidney being a match for the step daughter who survived and with her mother now left in a wheel chair. She asks Colin to have the full time care and on returning home one day he finds the sea maiden and his daughter prisoners of two middle/eastern European men and we learn the story behind the story. The sea maiden was the partner one of the two men in a drug run in which their boat is surrounded by custom’s craft. The girl swims underwater with the drugs so there is nothing for customs to hold the vessel and the man in charge. The sea maiden takes them to where the drugs found on the sea bed have been buried in garden but they are not there. The daughter has removed and hidden them in one of lobster pots hung of the side of the boat under water. She did this in order to prevent the maiden going off. At this point the authorities arrive and the maiden is taken into custody. One of the men has been killed and the other captured. We learn from a subsequent discussion between Colin and the Priest that when the girl is released from custody she will be deported unless she can become a citizen by marriage. They marry and live happy ever after.
It could have all worked out different. Colin at one point goes off the wagon after being pushed into taking a drink with his ex wife. For some reason which I am still not sure, Colin takes the sea maiden and leaves her on a light house rock but returns to find that she has swam across to a rock outfall used by sea lions. After being told the story of sea maiden in the net the daughter had gone to the local library for books about mermaids and sea creatures. She had decided that Ondine (of the sea) was a selkie, a seal lady creature of Celtic mythology who may temporarily become human by removing her seal coat, but must later return to sea. It was enjoyable lunchtime Bank Holiday Monday fare.
A very different kind of film unreality is The Long Hot Summer with Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward, Lee Remick and Orson Wells, Anthony Franciosa, Angela Lansbury and Richard Anderson.
Orson Wells is the archetypical southern bid daddy, a widower, who dominates his two children, Joanne Woodward, an outwardly prim school mistress with high standards and expectations, and Anthony Franciosa as an embittered always failing to please son who is yet to produce the longed for grand son with his lacking respect wife Lee Remick. Big daddy has a regular girl friend Angela Landsbury who is desperate to make the relationship permanent. Into this mix comes Paul Newman a drifter, known to several in town because his father was an incendiarist. He hitches a lift from the daughter and her best friend whose brother has been courting, in a fashion, Joanne, for half a dozen years. Big daddy who owns half the town takes to this brash, confident, smartalec of a young man.
He sets him up in a dilapidated small holding and gives him work in his main store much to the increasing resentment of his son who becomes even angrier when Newman is moved into the family home. The anger reaches boiling point and the son threatens to kill Paul who buys time by telling him he has found the stash of gold treasure which legend has it is buried somewhere in the area he is living. They go back and find an old sack with more of the coins like those which Paul had in his pocket. The son has bought out Paul’s interest for a couple of thousand dollars which he thinks is a bargain until his father points out he has been duped because the coins are not of great historical value but minted in the 20th century and those he found were likely to be the only ones.
Woodward cannot stand Newman but equally has become increasingly frustrated at the lack on initiative taken by her young man who lives with his demanding mother. He shows nothing of the passion of Newman and at the local fair only bids up to sixteen dollars for the right to have a private picnic with the girl when Newman offers fifty. However the event does not go well and the young man takes her home but also makes it clear he is not interested in marrying at that time. Father mistakes what she says later and the following morning visits the young man and his mother to organise the marriage only to find she has been rejected. He then decides that she and Newman will marry but before this happens the son attempts to kill, his father by locking him in the family stables and setting fire, but he changes his mind and rescues resulting in the two establishing a new relationship. The local firebrands (hee hee) decided that the cause if the blaze will be the son of the incendiarist and march on the family home where they learn that the blaze was caused by Big daddy dropping his cigar. There is then a lively exchange between Newman, Wells and Woodward in which she reveals that he is the man for her.
The significance of this 1958 released is that this was the first time Newman and Woodward acted together and after the film they were married, a marriage which then to last until his death 50 years later. He was previously married with a son and two daughters. The son died from a drug overdose after several film performances and led to the creation of a prevention centre by Newman who went on to have three daughters with Woodward. His most famous quip when asked about his devotion to Woodward was why got out for a hamburger when you have steak at home. The couple and his children from both marriages are known for their social awareness and responsibility.
The final film in this session is Prince of Persia, The Sands of Time, a film which at the time of its release to theatres appeared to be in the mould of Indian Jones, I thought. Ok for a family outing with teenagers but not adult interest. I now understand that the film is based on a video game which is interesting as usually this is the other way round. The film has three great character actors Ben Kingsley as the baddie, Alfred Molina providing some light relief and Ronald Pickup as the King ruler of Persia who is impressed by the antics of a young street tearaway played by Jake Gyllenhaal who is brought up as another son and Prince, th Prince of Persia, with the two other sons of the King. They are persuaded by Ben Kingsley who is the Kings brother and family adviser to attack a sacred city on the grounds that weapons are being manufactured for use by enemies. The city kingdom has a beautiful female Princess as head who is the guardian of a special dagger which is in fact a device which if special grains of sand are inserted, Sands of Time, can reverse events back a few minutes enabling events to be altered which only the holder of the dagger is are aware of.
Ben Kingsley is aware of this and has manufactured the excuse to invade to capture the device for himself with the intention of using the device with the full Sands of Time beneath the Palace in such a away that he will reverse time to the point when his brother will not have existed, and therefore married with sons and heirs and he will be in charge. However if he is in error with his timing the risk is that that in effect time will be reversed to the extent humanity as it developed will permanently cease to exist- The sands having run out into a vortex within the centre of the earth.
To begin the process he tricks one of his sons to give a prayer cloak to his adopted brother to give to their father. The young man has acted in such a way to minimise death and destruction in taking the city although his father says that he should have stopped to attack all together knowing that it was against his wishes whatever the circumstances. The cloak has a magical property which means once it is worn it seals in the body and has been treated in such away that wearer is burnt to death. The brother under the pressure from the adviser blames the adopted son who barely escapes with his life and only with the help the help of Princess who seeks the dagger he has taken from the person she entrusted to take where it will find sanctuary. Why it cannot be hidden anywhere else is not disclosed.
She persuades the adopted Prince to help her return the dagger to the place of sanctuary and to do this and avoid their pursuers they need to enter a valley pass with a dreadful reputation but this is front for Alfred Molina’s operation providing Ostrich races and gambling. The Prince and the Princes are also being chased by a group of warriors under the control of King’s brother less by a man with exceptional strength and powers and the combination of trying to escape from the pursuers and the Molina enterprises results in the enterprise being wrecked, so they are then hunted with a view to being sold for the bounty attached to them. As they reach the place of sanctuary for the dagger, crossing the Hindu Kush is the borders with India they are captured by the youngest of the King’s sons who they convinces of the treachery of their uncle only for the brother to be killed. They lose the dagger to the Uncle’s men and it is taken back to the City’s capital where his agents are working below to reach the portal enabling a major reverse in time. The Prince and Uncle fight enabling a return in time to the point that that the brothers have entered the city but before the arrival of the King so only the adopted Prince is aware of the subsequent events. He is able to convince the elder son of the treachery of the Uncle who once threatened exposure reveals his true motivations and ambitions and is defeated. The brothers apologise for their hostile entering of the city and the Prince is offered as a marriage partner for the Princess who accepts and to whom he gives the dagger which had come into his possession. Ah another happy ending.
The film lasts just under two hours and doubled its budget at the box office despite only about a third of the critics being positive. As I suspected it is suitable viewing for young people which the parents can enjoy with nothing too scary or likely to produce nightmares in younger children allowed to watch. Is not a spectacular film by today’s standards and techniques.
In the evening of Bank holiday Monday I watch a recording of the Antiques Roadshow and then the first of three programmes on the final of Master Chef. I leave the second episode of A game of Thrones until after writing about the recent cricket.
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