Film 2014 : So Long at the Fair (1950)
Jan. 21st, 2014 12:07 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gervase_fenBrother and sister Johnny Barton (David Tomlinson, fourteen years before his turn as the paterfamilias in Mary Poppins) and Vicky (Jean Simmons,20 years old, radiant) arrive in Paris in 1889 for the opening of the Exposition Universelle – Vicky is thrilled that she has a view of the newly finished Eiffel Tower from her room in the Hotel de l’Unicorne. Johnny, feeling under the weather, is less enthused, but visits the Moulin Rouge with her and later that evening lends Dirk Bogarde’s bohemian painter 50 francs to pay a cab fare.
The following morning Vicky wakes up to find her brother has vanished – as has the room he stayed in – and that the hotel manageress and her maître d’ insist that she arrived alone… Vicky barely speaks the language, has no parents to contact for help, and knows nobody in Paris who can help her…
This is really well done. The film-makers leave most of the French dialogue untranslated ; so Vicky has no idea if, when the hotel manageress (Cathleen Nesbitt, dressed in black, channelling Mrs Danvers) is talking to her staff if she’s dealing with Vicky’s questions or stonewalling them. Dirk Bogarde really only enters into the story properly at the fifty minute mark ; up till then the choice of shots (Vicky POV dolly shots, or close ups of her bewilderment at the puzzle she’s caught up in) put the onus on Jean Simmons and she rises to the challenge. I was also impressed by the staging – the budget is up on the screen, and Terence Fisher and Anthony Darnborough really do achieve a credible version of the 89 Expo. Filmed at Pinewood, it’s partly in studio, partly on the backlot, and looks really impressive –there’s depth-of-field to the number of extras in costume in evidence, giving an overwhelming claustrophobic feel that re-inforces Vicky’s isolation.
The how of the puzzle would not detain Jonathan Creek for very long, but the why is satisfying and leads to the involvement of Andre Morell, in what is almost an audition piece for Doctor Watson in Terence Fisher’s 1959 version of Hound of the Baskervilles. Honor Blackman, as a potential love match for Dirk Bogarde, is sensible, intuitive and wears a gorgeous black pill box hat. (Mrs Fen watched the film with me, enjoyed it as much as I did, and was very impressed by the deportment and costumes on display.)
Next Episode : The Night My Number Came Up
The following morning Vicky wakes up to find her brother has vanished – as has the room he stayed in – and that the hotel manageress and her maître d’ insist that she arrived alone… Vicky barely speaks the language, has no parents to contact for help, and knows nobody in Paris who can help her…
This is really well done. The film-makers leave most of the French dialogue untranslated ; so Vicky has no idea if, when the hotel manageress (Cathleen Nesbitt, dressed in black, channelling Mrs Danvers) is talking to her staff if she’s dealing with Vicky’s questions or stonewalling them. Dirk Bogarde really only enters into the story properly at the fifty minute mark ; up till then the choice of shots (Vicky POV dolly shots, or close ups of her bewilderment at the puzzle she’s caught up in) put the onus on Jean Simmons and she rises to the challenge. I was also impressed by the staging – the budget is up on the screen, and Terence Fisher and Anthony Darnborough really do achieve a credible version of the 89 Expo. Filmed at Pinewood, it’s partly in studio, partly on the backlot, and looks really impressive –there’s depth-of-field to the number of extras in costume in evidence, giving an overwhelming claustrophobic feel that re-inforces Vicky’s isolation.
The how of the puzzle would not detain Jonathan Creek for very long, but the why is satisfying and leads to the involvement of Andre Morell, in what is almost an audition piece for Doctor Watson in Terence Fisher’s 1959 version of Hound of the Baskervilles. Honor Blackman, as a potential love match for Dirk Bogarde, is sensible, intuitive and wears a gorgeous black pill box hat. (Mrs Fen watched the film with me, enjoyed it as much as I did, and was very impressed by the deportment and costumes on display.)
Next Episode : The Night My Number Came Up
