A decade of discovering Dirk Bogarde

Today is the tenth anniversary of TCM's Summer Under the Stars salute to Dirk Bogarde, the day that I watched So Long at the Fair for the first time and my life was never the same. Ten years since I exclaimed on this blog, "Whoa! Hold the phone!! THIS is Dirk Bogarde?!?!"

I like to fantasize that this might have become a fairly popular and well-kept film blog if my manic fixation on Dirk Bogarde hadn't taken over the wheel and steered entirely in the direction of Bogarde movies, paraphernalia, photo scans, and desperate pleas for someone, anyone, to join me in my fanaticism. But if I'm being completely honest, I'd trade that fantasy of a successful movie blog for ten years filled with overconsumption of Dirk Bogarde. So many of his films became all-time favorites. And as a perpetually single gal who likes to fill the boyfriend-shaped hole in her heart with overblown obsessions with dead movie stars, the ten years that I've spent head over heels in love with Dirk Bogarde have been like a warm embrace, and fond company in what could otherwise have been a bit of a lonely life.

To celebrate a full decade of Dirk, here is a list of ten things (one for each year, obviously!) Favorite movies, blog posts, photos, random anecdotes, just ten things that have made this last decade all the more pleasant because he was a part of it:

1. Darling (1965) - As a Julie Christie fan it's very likely that I would have watched this eventually even if I wasn't on a quest to devour every Dirk Bogarde movie ever made - but I watched it in 2009 and it quickly became one of my top 5 favorite movies, and it has remained there all these years. Every time that I revisit it, I find something else to love about it. I'm so grateful to Dirk Bogarde's face for luring me into this film.

2. In 2010 I went to New York to view two of Dirk Bogarde's Hallmark movies at the Paley Center. It was the first time in all of my years as a classic film fan that I really felt like I was doing real research. I called ahead of time to make sure I could schedule enough time (the movies I wanted to see exceeded the normal allotted viewing time) and it was well worth the planning and the money to go into the city. I wrote about my experience and the films here.

3. Hot Enough for June (1964) - I don't know that I ever would have even heard of this movie were it not for Dirk Bogarde, and it ended up becoming one of my go-to movies for whenever I need a pick-me-up. It's a funny, smart, and so so fun spy spoof about a writer who gets assigned to take over for a deceased 007 when he shows up at the unemployment office. I wrote about it in 2009, here.

4. My devotion to Dirk Bogarde resulted in a pretty hefty amount of tribute videos. Back in 2010 and 2011 I had a little more time on my hands and I knocked out 10 Dirk Bogarde videos. You can view them all on my youtube channel here, but this one that features clips from all of his movies (that I could find) in chronological order, and this one that was my very first tribute video ever, are my favorites.

5. Dirk Bogarde's life story in comic book form! This was my absolute favorite find in all of my years of scouring ebay for Dirk memorabilia. It's a 22 page long comic book from the 1950's that retells his (slightly fictionalized and exaggerated) biography.

6. I'm going to cheat a little bit here and include ANOTHER top ten list in this top ten list. I wanted to choose my all time favorite Dirk Bogarde picture to include in here, but I couldn't narrow it down. I just couldn't!! So instead here is a link to my top ten favorite photos.

7. Modesty Blaise (1966) - This wild movie makes absolutely no sense and I LOVE IT SO MUCH. Honestly this might be the number one thing I am most grateful to Dirk Bogarde for. The music, the lobster indecision, the over the top-ness, the camp, Dirk's white wig (and his dramatic removal of said wig), the spinning umbrellas, the random outfit changes, Monica Vitti and Terence Stamp's short burst of song and ice cream and colored dust. It makes my heart swell just thinking about this movie.

8. The Mind Benders (1963) - Recently somebody asked me what movie has haunted me the most, and I think this would have to be it. It's a compelling, deeply disturbing movie about loss of sensation and what really happens to you when you're forced to be alone with your thoughts. The post I wrote about this movie back in 2009 is still one of my favorite things I've written.

9. This gif. It might be my favorite piece of film footage of all time. So handsome. So debonair. So beautiful. Sigh.



10. Discovering Dirk Bogarde never ends. When I first started this journey, I consumed way too many films in a very short period of time, and realized that I wasn't going to be leaving many new-to-me Dirk Bogarde films for my future self. So I slowed down and now, a decade later, I still have plenty left to watch. Some people like to approach fandom by binging everything as quickly as possible (I've been there!) but my preferred method is to stretch things out so that I still get to treat myself to "new" films even though the performer or director is long gone. And so I'm glad that ten years into consuming his filmography, I am still discovering Dirk Bogarde, and I hope I always am.

Still Discovering Dirk Bogarde: The Fixer (1968)

"Luck I was always short of. I'm the kind of man who finds it perilous just to be alive."

It's time for the 24th installment in my Discovering Dirk Bogarde series, where I share my first impressions after watching a new-to-me Dirk Bogarde film.

In The Fixer (1968) Alan Bates stars as an innocent, apolitical Jewish handyman who finds himself charged with committing a ritual murder in turn-of-the-century Russia. The film is loosely based on a true story, and much of the movie follows Bates' character as he tries to survive the brutal Russian penal system with his dignity intact. As much as I adore Dirk, The Fixer is definitely Alan Bates' movie. Bates was so amazing in this role that I immediately checked to make sure he had been nominated for an Oscar (he was, but lost to Cliff Robertson for Charly.)  His performance here is stunning in so many ways. He handles the lighter moments at the beginning of the film with a gentle finesse, but then once his character is arrested he plunges deep into the type of acting where it seems impossible that the performer could have walked away unscarred by the performance. It's a raw, painful, deep portrayal that possesses Bates completely.

Dirk Bogarde plays Bates' Christian lawyer, one of the only decent men that Bates meets after he's been arrested. It's a supporting role -- he doesn't even appear for at least the first 30-40 minutes, and then isn't in the last 30-40 either -- but, as usual, he shines whenever he's onscreen and his sympathetic, well-meaning character is definitely a highlight of the film. There are a few scenes where the Jew and the Christian connect  -- over asthma or a shared love of the philosopher Spinoza -- and those moments are almost more painful than all of the scenes of suffering. They acknowledge the truth that we are all human and we have the same interests and ailments. Here are two men who seem to understand the thread that ties us all together, and yet they are the only two men in the whole film to see it. It brings to mind Shakespeare's verse from The Merchant of Venice:

"Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? Fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die?"

I always worry when I'm exhausting an actor's filmography that at a certain point I'll run out of the really good movies and I'll only be left with their lesser works. But with Dirk Bogarde that certainly hasn't been the case. With each new movie that I watch I find another masterpiece, proving once and again that he had impeccable taste in choosing his roles. In 1968 Dirk was still starring in movies -- Sebastian was released the same year, and he still had some six years to go before The Night Porter -- but here he chose to accept a minimal role in an exceptional film. And The Fixer was all the better for it.



This was a very serious review, but I wouldn't be me if I didn't at least mention the mustache. While his King and Country 'stache was definitely unfortunate, I'm not actually opposed to this one. I think it's actually rather becoming! So the answer to my perpetual question -- "Is that mustache really necessary?" -- is yes, I think this one is. Or at the very least, it's not unnecessary.

Still Discovering Dirk Bogarde - Despair (1978)

I'm still determined to blog about every new-to-me Dirk Bogarde movie that I see, so after watching Despair for the first time last night I felt compelled to write something up today. The only problem is that I actually don't want to do a full post until I've seen it again, and that won't be for another couple months.

In 2009 when my obsession with Dirk was in full swing, very few of his movies had commercial releases so I had to resort to watching really horrible probably-recorded-from-a-tv-program-in-the-1980's copies to get my fix. So my copy of Despair was so bad it would likely throw any honest to goodness movie lover into a fit of.... despair.

I mean, I missed at least 1/4 of the dialogue because it kept cutting out or the sound was just that bad. From what I could see/hear/grasp I really enjoyed the movie, though, and as soon as it was over I whipped out my iphone to see it if had had a proper release in the intervening years. It turns out that it was fully restored and released on dvd (AND BLU RAY, MIND YOU) a couple years ago. I'm currently on a pretty strict self-imposed budget of one new DVD per month and June is already claimed by Criterion's upcoming release of Here Comes Mr. Jordan, so it'll be about another two months before I can get a crystal clear copy of Despair into my eager hands. But as soon as that day comes, I will be reporting back with a much better review. I just wanted to kind of log this on the blog to record that it had, indeed, been watched.

It's a funny thing, though, to think that if I had been on the ball and watched this when I bought it in 2009 I probably would have written a full review right off the bat. Sometimes I feel spoiled by things like Criterion and official DVD releases. I grew up on shoddy VHS recordings with terrible tracking, pan and scan movies with commercial interruptions, public domain tapes of Hitchcock movies so grainy and foggy that you could barely make out the image. Even now sometimes a lot of my foreign film purchases are horrible quality because good transfers with English subtitles just aren't available anywhere, and I make do. It's only when I know for a fact that a better alternative exists that I just literally can't even with these mediocre, substandard offerings.

Still Discovering Dirk Bogarde - The Damned (1969)

In 2009 I started a series called "Discovering Dirk Bogarde" where I documented each new-to-me Bogarde film that I watched. The last entry was in August of 2010. Did I simply slack off in the post-writing-department and consume the remainder of his filmography without chronicling my thoughts on this blog? No. Sadly, I haven't watched a single new-to-me Bogarde movie since 2010. I have no idea how that's possible, but here I am, SIX YEARS LATER, still discovering Dirk Bogarde.

I wish I could say that I loved The Damned, but I honestly still have no idea how I feel about it. It confused the HECK out of me, for one thing. I felt like a complete idiot -- I couldn't figure out who was who or how anybody was related. My ego was comforted a bit when I read some reviews afterwards, though --

"..so many characters introduced so quickly that one part of your mind will spend the rest of the movie just trying to sort them out." - The New York Times

"Characters and plots keep slipping away from us, as in a frustrating dream. We are never quite sure where we are." - Roger Ebert

I want to revisit the movie at some point (not right away though, it's an experience that nobody should subject themselves to more than twice in the span of a few months) and I think I'll grasp the plot a lot better with this handy dandy family tree that I whipped up today:



It took me hours sifting through reviews and synopses to break this down, and even then it was still puzzling. Some articles cite Konstantin as Joachim's son, while others refer to him as "an unscrupulous relative" and make reference to Sophie's ex-husband as Joachim's "only son." Who knows.

War-and-Peace-level character confusion aside, it's a... strange film. I think it's probably best known today for all of the shocking elements that made it a cult classic, including (but not limited to!) a gay Nazi orgy, pedophilia, incest, rape, child suicide, and drug abuse. Fetch my smelling salts! While I tend to prefer my movies pedophilia-free, I can understand things like that being included when they're essential to the plot. This didn't feel necessary though, it seemed like it was intended to shock, and that's it. The only truly outrageous deed that felt like it was crucial to the plot was the incest (now THERE is a sentence I never thought I'd type!) but honestly even that could have been replaced with an equally horrendous but less gag-inducing act and still been effective.



The acting was occasionally too dramatic (mostly Reinhard Kolldehof, who I've seen likened to George C. Scott but I felt like he was much more Lee J. Cobb) but overall any issues I have with the movie fall squarely on Luchino Visconti's shoulders. While a lot of the lighting is beautiful, especially a few scenes shot with an eerie green pallor reminiscent of early two-strip technicolor horror films, the camera movements remind me of home videos when my parents would hand the camera over to me or my brother. Zooming in on a face, then quickly zooming out, panning over to the side and then back up to someone else.. while I get that the intended effect is a kind of operatic level of drama (sort of like the exaggerated zoom-to-close-up of a soap opera) it just struck me as too erratic. Visconti would also be responsible for the fractured script --originally 4 hours, then cut down to 2.5. Somehow it's simultaneously too long to enjoy but not long enough to fully spell out anything that's happening in the story.

I'll give him points though, for two things -- the cast and the lush visuals (despite my annoyance at how exactly those two things were filmed.) Even Reinhard Kolldehof, in all his overacting pompous glory, was perfectly cast. Dirk Bogarde's character is a mild-mannered employee that's thrust into a number of unsavory predicaments, constantly working that meek mouse/conniving genius balance that Bogarde pulls off so well in so many films (I'm looking at you, The Servant!) And despite my opinion that most of the shocking elements were unessential, Helmut Berger indulges in pretty much all of them with a finesse that's as mesmerizing as it is unsettling.

I definitely want to give this one another shot, I just need some time to recover first...

Cinema Style: Modesty Blaise

cinema style // one movie in ten screenshots

Dirk Bogarde's life story -- in comic book form!

This is BY FAR my favorite Dirk Bogarde find. About a week ago I was perusing ebay listings and came across a late-1950's magazine that had only a photo of the cover, and said "Dirk Bogarde cover and feature -- his life story in pictures and also in comic strip." Comic strip??? I had to see this. And it's about 100 times better than anything I could have hoped!! It is seriously a comic strip. It's 22 pages long and -- with a few white lies and exaggerations -- really is his life story in comic strip form, up until about 1958. I hope you enjoy this as much as I do!! :)

As Time Goes By

I made a new video tribute today... actually, I made it this month. It's taken me forever to prepare, since I had to rip all of Dirk Bogarde's movies to my hard drive. Yup, this one includes EVERY one of his movies, and in chronological order, no less! The only exceptions are Blackmailed, Upon This Rock & We Joined the Navy since they're being stubbornly elusive.

The video is set to "As Time Goes By" sung by Bryan Ferry. It starts with Dirk Bogarde's first starring role in Esther Waters (1948) and ends with his last performance in Daddy Nostalgia (1990). Here is the full list of films, in order:

Esther Waters (1948), Quartet (1948), Once a Jolly Swagman (1949), Dear Mr. Prohack (1949), Boys in Brown (1950), The Blue Lamp (1950), So long at the Fair (1950), The Woman in Question (1950), Hunted (1952), Penny Princess (1952), The Gentle Gunman (1952), Desperate Moment (1953), Appointment in London (1953), They Who Dare (1954), Doctor in the House (1954), The Sleeping Tiger (1954), For Better For Worse (1954), The Sea Shall Not Have Them (1954), Simba (1955), Doctor at Sea (1955), Cast a Dark Shadow (1955), The Spanish Gardener (1956), Ill Met By Moonlight (1957), Doctor at Large (1957), Campbell's Kingdom (1957), A Tale of Two Cities (1958), The Wind Cannot Read (1958), The Doctor's Dilemma (1958), Libel (1959), The Angel Wore Red (1960), Song Without End (1960), The Singer Not the Song (1961), Victim (1961), HMS Defiant (1962), The Password is Courage (1962), The Mind Benders (1963), I Could Go On Singing (1963), Doctor in Distress (1963), The Servant (1963), Hot Enough for June (1964), King and Country (1964), The High Bright Sun (1964), Little Moon of Alban (1964), Darling (1965), Modesty Blaise (1966), Blithe Spirit (1966), Accident (1967), Our Mother's House (1967), Sebastian (1968), The Fixer (1968), Oh! What a Lovely War (1969), Justine (1969), The Damned (1969), Death in Venice (1971), Night Flight From Moscow (1973), The Night Porter (1974), Permission to Kill (1975), Providence (1977), A Bridge Too Far (1977), Despair (1978), May We Borrow Your Husband? (1986), The Vision (1988), Daddy Nostalgia (1990)

Later this week I'm planning on screen-capping the video and captioning the photos with which film they came from, so that if a specific clip looks intriguing you'll know which movie to watch :)

Appointment in London (1952)

Sorry for the obnoxious gif, but I had to make one when I saw this scene. It's just so perfect!

I was a very bad Dirk Bogarde fan when I watched this film. I was quite tired and I only vaguely understood the plot (not that it was that complicated, I was just that tired) but from what I understand, this is how it went -- Dirk Bogarde plays a flight officer who has already flown more missions than most people do in their entire careers. He's working towards 90 bombing missions, even if everyone thinks that it's pushing his luck to even do 88 or 89.

I have a very hard time watching war movies.. I can't help myself! All of the talk about missions and bombing raids and radar went flying through my left ear and soaring out the right. Like most post-war British war films, however, it did have several really heartfelt, saddening scenes that emphasized what war does to the women on the homefront. One pilot was sending coded messages to his wife so that Dirk Bogarde (who didn't approve of his officers having their minds on their women, so preferred that they either didn't have women at home or didn't communicate with them) wouldn't find him out. Bogarde's love interest in the film, played by Dinah Sheridan, is a war widow who is still referred to throughout the movie as "Mrs." Those moments were poignant and deeply sad.

It puzzles me why Dirk Bogarde was cast in so many war films at the peak of his popularity with young girls. Why screaming bobbysoxers would be interested in violent movies seemingly aimed at male audiences eludes me, but I guess I'm living proof that if he was in it, the adoring fans would watch it.

New tribute video!

This one is a little more crazy than my last one, but I had so much fun making it, and I think it's really fun to watch too! I tried not to include any of the same clips I did in my first video, but a few snuck in because they fit so well.. only 3 or 4 at the most, though :)

Clips in the video are from: Song Without End, By Myself, Hot Enough for June, Hunted, Sebastian, Despair, The Singer Not the Song, Darling, Archival footage from dirkbogarde.co.uk, Night Porter, The Mind Benders, The Blue Lamp, Modesty Blaise, The Wind Cannot Read, The High Bright Sun, The Servant, Accident, Doctor in Distress, King and Country, Providence and Death in Venice.

The song is Ooh La La by Goldfrapp.

Tribute to The Night Porter

I was very hesitant to watch The Night Porter, since I'm a bit of a movie prude and don't like my films overflowing with sex and nudity -- and I was under the impression that NP was just a porn film in disguise. However, I was pleasantly surprised when I finally caved in and watched it last month! It wasn't nearly as explicit as I expected, and the film was shot so beautifully that you hardly notice when it is. It's a sad, uncomfortable but beautiful story about a Nazi and a concentration camp prisoner who have a doomed, deep, twisted love for one another.

I made this video last night as a tribute to the movie -- it's set to "I'm a Fool to Want You" sung by Billie Holiday.

All Gone - a tribute to The Servant

I made this one yesterday.. I've had the idea floating around in my head for the longest time, and finally got around to it last night. This one is more of a tribute to the entire film, so it's not concentrating on Dirk Bogarde as much as my other videos have. Sarah Miles & James Fox take up a sizable chunk of space here. You might notice Wendy Craig is virtually absent, though, but that's just because I didn't like her character.. I'm being ornery :)

I might do another one in the future that's a tribute to Dirk's performance in the film, like I did with Modesty Blaise... but that is another video for another day..

Uncomfortably Near

I think these words from the moody torch song "Angel Eyes" fit the film Accident to a T. This one scene in particular. I wrote about it on my Dirk Bogarde blog last year, and I think it bears repeating... this scene is so seminal to the film and exemplifies the feeling of discomfort that permeates the entire movie.

Dirk Bogarde's character, middle-aged and married, has a small uncomfortable crush on one of his students, played by Jacqueline Sassard. When he's asked to join her & another student on a little boat trip he reluctantly agrees. The ensuing trip is a combination of lovely cinematography, soft jazz and palpable awkwardness.

Pay special attention to the part when Dirk realizes the proximity of his hand to her thigh and clumsily repositions, tucking his hands under his armpits. The juxtaposition of his discomfort with the beauty and ease of everything going on around him is like gawky poetry.

I put together this little video with scenes from Accident set to Nancy Wilson's Angel Eyes. Hope you enjoy it :)

Top 10 favorite photos!

There's been this thing going around on tumblr where you pick your top ten favorite photos of one particular star. I already posted these on my Dirk Bogarde tumblr, but they're so wonderful I thought I'd share them here too! So, without further ado, my picks for the top ten Dirk Bogarde photos:

He gazed a gazely stare

I think that like 80% of what I write on my blogs is pretty lightweight fluff, but one post that I'm pretty proud of is the review that I wrote on The Mind Benders last October. In it I said that Dirk Bogarde's performance was the best of any actor in any movie I'd ever seen. Astonishingly, I think that over the course of the last year the only performances I've observed that could have possibly surpassed this one have all been played by ... Dirk Bogarde.* I obviously think he's a feast for the eyes, but that would just make him my number one movie crush. He's my favorite actor because he is just so good at his job that it's almost incomprehensible. And even if some of his other roles have come close, I still think that this is the best example of his range, depth and skill as an actor. Please check it out if you haven't already :)

And now, here I go again... scenes from The Mind Benders set to David Bowie's The Man Who Sold the World. It might look like this week is turning into "David Bowie and Dirk Bogarde Week", but I promise, musical variety is on the horizon ;-D




*Okay, one exception. Oskar Werner. He's pretty darn good.

making love with his ego

In 1960 Dirk Bogarde played the famed composer and pianist Franz Liszt in the sweeping biopic Song Without End. The film portrays Liszt as a 19th century rock star -- at one point a woman quickly snatches up his gloves from the stage in a move that reminds one of Frank Sinatra's bobby-soxers and the Rolling Stones' groupies. And nobody could have played this massive talent with the massive ego better than Dirk Bogarde. He brings an enormous confidence and a brilliant air of arrogance to the role that few other actors could have pulled off.

I know I'm a bit goofy, but I couldn't help but think of Ziggy Stardust while watching the film... so here is my little tribute to Dirk as Liszt as Ziggy...

hey! *jumps up and down waving* look over here! I've got a picture of a puppy!

Ok, now that I've (hopefully) got your attention, I'd like to announce that this week is officially Dirk Bogarde Week! (wheee!!!)

August 10th marks one year since Dirk Bogarde was featured on TCM's Summer Under the Stars. In Kate World this means one year since I discovered my new favorite actor. And in Silents and Talkies World it means one year since I started annoying the heck out of all of you with my incessant posts about my new-found favorite. So OF COURSE this calls for a celebration!

I'm really really hoping you'll stick around and pop back in throughout the week to check out all of the Dirk Bogarde Goodness that I have in store. Tribute videos, artwork, movie reviews, drop dead gorgeous pictures, new scans and me doing my darnedest to convince everyone how awesome he is!

Usually I like the whole "save the best for last" way of doing things, but I am SO excited about my big tribute video that I couldn't really wait until the end of the week to post it! It's a montage of clips from 15 Dirk Bogarde movies set to I'll Be Seeing You by Francoise Hardy and Iggy Pop. Enjoy!!! :)

The Wind Cannot Read - Music Video

 
The images are all taken from The Wind Cannot Read, and accompanied by the theme song from the movie, sung by Vera Lynn. I tracked down an old 45 in England on ebay and converted it to mp3 to use for the video. I hope you like it!

Lobby cards from Song Without End

A gigantic THANK YOU to Tom from Motion Picture Gems for sending me this amazing set of lobby cards from Song Without End!! (Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!!)

Blithe Spirit (1966) and Little Moon of Alban (1964)

Yesterday I had the enormous pleasure of seeing the two Dirk Bogarde Hallmark Hall of Fame productions at the Paley Center in New York! Neither show seems to be available on DVD or VHS anywhere else in the known universe (believe me, I have been looking high and low for months!) so I'd been eagerly anticipating the day that I could save up enough money to go to New York and see them.

I decided to watch Blithe Spirit first, since it was the one I was looking forward to more, and I have a hard time with the "save the best for last" theory. It's the story of a writer, Charles Condomine, whose deceased first wife comes back to haunt him after a seance with his second wife goes awry. The psychic was played by an over-the-top, hilarious, Emmy-deserving Ruth Gordon. Dirk Bogarde's character reminded me a lot of (also a writer) Nicholas Whistler, his character in Hot Enough for June. Like Whistler, Condomine seems a rather pulled together fellow until all heck breaks loose and he finds himself in the most unlikely of situations. Dirk approached this role in much the same way, with that endearing frazzled bewilderment and voice-cracking confusion.

The story was written by Noel Coward (score!) so it was dripping with wit and sarcasm. I think Coward is at his best writing dialogue for bickering couples, so it was absolutely delightful to have Coward dialogue for a husband arguing with not one, but two wives!

Clocking in at one hour and 18 minutes, Blithe Spirit was over much too quickly and I wished so badly that I had had the time to play it over again while I was at the museum. (Or take it home on DVD. Come on!!!)

My only complaint about Blithe Spirit is that it would have been even more marvelous if it had been a real movie instead of a tv-movie. To have had a real film crew with real direction and more expensive sets, it could have been an A+ production. Unfortunately, the sets had a very stage-like quality about them, and the camera movement was quite stiff. But really, considering how fabulous Dirk's performance was, how marvelous the story itself is, and how great Ruth Gordon was too, this is really a small technicality.

Next up was Little Moon of Alban. Small disclosure: I'm not a big fan of Julie Harris, and she was the main star of this program. I approached it thinking that maybe she wouldn't be as grating (to me) as she had been in Member of the Wedding, but unfortunately I found her just as annoying in this movie. And she is basically the sole star for the first forty minutes. I really didn't enjoy this one nearly as much as Blithe Spirit, but the opportunity to see a Dirk Bogarde performance that is otherwise not available anywhere else made me overlook my blase feeling towards Harris and the plot.

Little Moon of Alban is the story of an Irish girl who denounces God after her fiance is killed by the English in the Irish rebellion. Despite her obvious doubts, the next thing she does is become a Catholic nurse/nun. (She kept having to explain to people that she wasn't a REAL nun, just a nurse who had taken vows and was dressed exactly like a nun. It was kind of confusing to me, but then I'm not really familiar with Catholic traditions, so maybe it's just me?) Anyway, she becomes a nurse/nun and immediately gets assigned to a hospital for English soldiers. Ouch!

And here (FINALLY!) is where Dirk comes in. Only a few hours before the cease-fire, Dirk and his fellow soldiers are attacked and he is the lone survivor. Barely alive, lying in his hospital bed, he starts an argument with Julie Harris about war, God and belief. Their arguments continue for days as Dirk's condition worsens. Julie keeps trying to get him to believe in God, despite the fact that her own faith is kind of shaky -- something Dirk is definitely aware of. Despite their bickering (or maybe because of it.. you know how movies work) they appear to fall in love and everything comes down to an emergency operation in which even the operating surgeon thinks that there is no hope at all. Unfortunately, you can see the ending coming from a mile away. ANY movie in which a man falls in love with a nun ends with them going their separate ways. Perhaps there might be some modern films that don't work this way, but in everything I've ever seen, this is always the case. It may be sacrilegious of me, but I'm always rooting for them to get together (I'm looking at you, Audrey Hepburn and Peter Finch in A Nun's Story!). In this particular movie, it would have even made sense-- Julie Harris' character didn't actually have a calling to the church, she was basically just seeking asylum from the outside world that had killed her fiance. Discovering a new love that helps her get back into the world would have fit, and wouldn't have been devilish or anything since these nun/nurses get to renew their contracts every year instead of taking one big lifelong vow.

Anyway, Little Moon of Alban was redeemed, for me, by Dirk Bogarde's performance. It was amazing watching this one back to back with Blithe Spirit, because while the first showcased Dirk's enormous talent for comedy, Little Moon was a shining example of his outstanding work in drama. Playing a bitter, agnostic soldier facing his fear of death, Dirk's performance was moving, heartbreaking and - set against a stage-like, cardboard background - real. A fellow Dirk Bogarde fan sent me this review from when it first aired on TV, and I believe "haunting brilliance" describes his performance perfectly!

If you are ever in the New York or Los Angeles area, I highly recommend dropping by The Paley Center to check out these movies (or, if you only have time for one, Blithe Spirit). Admission was kind of tricky, though... typically a $10 general admission ticket gets you one hour in the media room, but both of my programs were almost 1.5 hours long each. You can call ahead of time and request a time extension, or you can purchase $15 research/scholar tickets, which get you as much time in the media room as you need.

I really wish that The Paley Center would start offering their database on DVD. I know they'd probably need to clear it with whoever owns the rights to each program, but it would probably be a bigger money-maker than their admission fees are. If they had offered Blithe Spirit (and, despite my general dissatisfaction with Harris and the plot, Little Moon of Alban because I am, after all, a die-hard Dirk Bogarde fan) for $80 a DVD, I probably would have coughed it up in an instant.

*

{Originally published on my other blog, Discovering Dirk Bogarde}

Happy Birthday Dirk Bogarde!

TCM has nothing planned for Dirk's birthday, however, coincidentally they are showing three of his Doctor movies tomorrow during their medical-themed lineup! If you haven't seen the Doctor films, try to tune in.. they're very sly and witty and quite funny! :)