Callow Vol. II - Callow Vol. II: the release of the year?

[tonyw]

Glenn, Please fill me in with details about Canary Wharf since I'm going over THE LONG GOOD FRIDAY with my class next Thursday. I assume you are referring to the gentifrication which accelerated under Thatcher and even destroyed the old Tiger Bay community in Cardiff.

Now, to return to the point of the last posting. There has always been this snobbery against American actors doing Shakespeare. A few years ago, I met Brett Halsey who is now teaching acting at the University of Costa Rica. He is a person who takes acting VERY seriously despite the fact that he has mostly appeared in commercial films in Europe and America. Brett began his training in the old Universal Studios acting school with Clint Eastwood where both learned on the job and in acting classes. I think Brett also mentioned this hostility against Americans playing classical roles. Yet, just look at Gayle Hunnicutt appearing in Henry James adaptations in the 1980s and Gillian Anderson's recent accomplished performance as Lady Dedlock in the BBC TV adaptation of BLEAK HOUSE. Further back, Paul Robeson played Othello on the British stage and I think Robert Ryan also portrayed Iago.

Welles was just the tip of a very important iceberg but still the prejudices remain despite the evidence.

[Glenn Anders]

Tony: I simply meant that a subtext of THE LONG GOOD FRIDAY is the battle between Europe and America, in 1980, for the remains of the British Empire, with the IRA acting as the "resistance" to almost everybody. Harry Shand (Bob Hoskins), like many gangsters in Britain and America, considered himself a patriot. In the High Thatcher Period, one of Britain's great last remaining assets was the London Docks. Falling into decay because of the retreat of Empire, they represented a potential fortune for whoever would be able to redevelop them. A main plot line of THE LONG GOOD FRIDAY deals with Harry's negotiations with "The Americans." In a number of scenes, we see the huge rusting cranes, in the background, tilting as if about to collapse.

Those cranes are gone many years now, replaced by malls, businesses, corporate headquarters, computer complexes, etc., along the Thames up to Greenwich. One of the developments keeps its old title of Canary Wharf. Harry Shand, in his peculiar way, represented the rear guard of the Empire.

Your mention of Gayle Hunnicutt sent me to the IMDb, which happily told me that she is alive and acting, occasionally. [What a beauty!] She is the mother of Nolan Hemmings, who had the honor of playing his father, David Hemmings, as a young man in one of my favorite underrated pictures, LAST ORDERS, based on the Booker Prize Novel by Graham Swift. It was David Hemming's last important major role. The film also represents a reunion of Bob Hoskins with Helen Mirren, who plays Michael Caine's widow.

If you want to do a contrast with THE LONG GOOD FRIDAY for your cast, this one might be a candidate.

Rather raps up our discussion, or at least brings it back on track, but where did we lose Welles in all of this?

Anyway, do see LAST ORDERS, Tony, if you have not seen it. An absolutely beautiful little picture.

Glenn

[tonyw]

Thanks Glen. We did go off on a tangent but what a great reply! Since films having nothing to do with Welles have featured recently on this site, we can be forgiven for talking about THE LONG GOOD FRIDAY. But, to return the discussion back to Welles, Shakespeare, and the ethic aspects of acting, did you know that Bob Hoskins played Iago in one of those BBC Shakespeare adaptions? He portayed him as a jealous sergeant-major. Also Michael Caine played Horiatio in a 1960s BBC TV production of HAMLET shot in Elsinore.

Caine's performance was very good since it belonged to his time in television when he delivered many diverse performances similar to Welles in his radio days. But both actors soon became stereotyped, one by "Alfie" and the other by those Carolo Rossi wine commercials that led fuel to the jealous flames stokeb by callow and Thomson. However, as THE QUIET AMERICAN rvealed, Caine could deliver non-stereotyped performances. As for Welles, we still have the long awaited OTSOW as well as the Munich restorations which will soon set the record straight.

[Glenn Anders]

Tony: I was not aware that Caine had played Shakespeare, but I have long known that Hoskins, an astonishing actor, can do almost anything.

Not only have Caine and Hoskins, both East Enders, dominated the best of British gangster films, but both got their movie start with films about a particular incident in British Military History. Caine played a prescient young officer in the heroic ZULU (Enfield, 1964), and Hoskins was a "steady, boys, steady" sergeant major (shades of Iago) in the tragic ZULU DAWN (Hickock, 1979). The latter picture, I believe, was financed by the same Iranians who bankrolled part of TOSOTW.

Both films are based on events ocurring in the First Zulu War, the British classic defense at Rourke's Drift, and the unnecessary massacre at Isandlwana, in 1879.

Your observation on the variety of roles Caine and Welles essayed early in their careers has another connection. Both men came out of Radio. Caine was one of the original Goon Show Gang, a hugely successful BBC parody comic radio program, a forerunner of Monty Python and Saturday Night Live on TV. Caine, like Spike Milligan and Harry Secombe, had to adopt a number of wildlly different voices in order to play different characters on the show.

Once again, Tony, if you see Caine in LAST ORDERS, set in the East End of London where both he and Hoskins come from, you will find another rather different performance from the majority Caine produced in his career.

I share with you, Tony, and the others here, anticipation of the Criterion MR. ARKADIN, and some small hope, at least, for The Other Side of the Wind.

Glenn

[Store Hadji]

Caine was a Goon? Holy Mokey! I certainly missed that phase of his career!

[tonyw]

This is the first time I've heard that Michael Caine was a Goon. They were Harry Secombe, Spike Milligan, Peter Sellers, and Michael Bentine - to the best of my memory.

I agree with Glen over LAST ORDERS.

[Tony]

Has michael caine ever been bad in a movie? I can't remember a single instance.

[Glenn Anders]

. . . Let me see if I can get out of this:

John Antrobus, a founding comedy writer for the Goons, gave Michael Caine his first break in a play he wrote, The Compartment (1962).

And Michael Caine DID appear with Peter Sellers in the cult comedy, THE WRONG BOX (1966). That was Caine's experience with or near Goons.

In a brain constriction, I was thinking of Peter Sellers.

Sorry, apologies all around, but I stand by the rest of it.

Glenn

[Jeff Wilson]

Callow's new book is now out in the UK, so we should start getting reviews soon. In an interview with the Telegraph, Callow describes his interest with Welles as follows: "What I was absolutely struck by all the time was that here was this man who filled some of the jobs I've done and what a weird kind of a fist he made of it."

Expect more of the same as the first volume then, given his interest in pointing out Welles' failures there. Link to the article, which has more about Callow's life and other pursuits below:


Callow/Telegraph article

[Harvey Chartrand]

Come on, let's stop dumping on Simon Callow. So what if he is a serial nudist? The man has written a doorstopper of a book that goes into mega-detail on Welles' life and career from THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS to THE STRANGER. How lucky is that for all of us Wellesionados? Maybe somebody should ask Callow to use his clout to rescue DON QUIXOTE.

[The Voice of Cornstarch]

Jeff, could you post a link so that people could buy from amazon.co.uk and give referral to Wellesnet?
They will deliver to the USA now and the delivery cost is not bad

[Jeff Wilson]

Sure, here it is:

Hello Americans at Amazon UK

[catbuglah]

I would Imagine his editor must have asked him at some point : Hey duder, you're not going to negative town there, are you? or perhaps : Gee, maybe you'd like to change the writing credit to : 'Captain Bringdown and the Buzzkillers'.

[colwood]

Another article on Callow and Hello Americans,

Orson Challenge for Simon Callow

[Tony]

Callow:"I personally find this period quite extraordinary. I found I began to feel compassion for him."

Does he mean he felt no compassion for Welles at all in Volume one?

???