Podcasts about coronets

Welcome to Reel Britannia-a very British podcast about very British movies ...with just a hint of professionalism. Back to 1949 this week and a darkly witty masterpiece of British cinema! An Ealing comedy blending sharp humour, class satire, and Alec Guinness playing eight roles. A timeless classic! Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949) A Delightfully Dark Comedy of Class and Revenge Kind Hearts and Coronets, the crown jewel of British cinema's dark humour. If you haven't yet basked in its glory, let me paint the scene for you. Picture this: Edwardian England, an impeccable sense of manners, and a protagonist who's as calculating as he is charming—all wrapped in a story about climbing the social ladder by…murdering every single person standing in the way. Yes, murder. And somehow, it's positively delightful. The plot centers on Louis Mazzini (played by Dennis Price), who is probably cinema's most likable sociopath. Born into a working-class life, Louis has always resented his mother's noble family, the D'Ascoynes, who cast her out for marrying “beneath her station.” But when Louis's mother dies penniless and the snobbish D'Ascoynes refuse her last wish of burial in the family crypt, the gloves come off—Louis vows to avenge his mother's disgrace and reclaim his rightful place among the aristocracy. There's just one minor snag: eight D'Ascoynes stand between him and the title of Duke. A daunting task? Perhaps. But for Louis, it's all in a day's work. Now, what makes Kind Hearts and Coronets so uniquely brilliant is its approach to murder. This isn't your run-of-the-mill bloodbath; it's murder with panache, style, and an undeniable charm. Each of Louis's victims is played by the inimitable Alec Guinness, who dons eight different personas—from pompous aristocrats to eccentric eccentrics, each more absurd than the last. Guinness's performance is a cinematic tour de force, bringing every D'Ascoyne to life with precision and wit, ensuring no two murders feel the same. Louis may be methodical, but he's never boring—whether he's engineering an explosion or a “tragic” drowning, each act of homicide is artfully executed with a dose of dark humor. One of the joys of Kind Hearts and Coronets is its unashamed cleverness. The film wields irony like a rapier, slicing through social norms and class pretensions with a gleeful grin. Louis's ascent from working-class obscurity to the dizzying heights of the aristocracy is as much a critique of class inequality as it is a comedy of manners. His steely resolve to eliminate his relatives is matched only by his ability to deliver dry, razor-sharp commentary along the way. Dennis Price's impeccable delivery transforms Louis into a character you can't help rooting for—despite his penchant for, well, homicide. Of course, no tale of ambition and revenge is complete without a touch of romance. Louis's love life is deliciously complicated, involving a love triangle between Sibella (Joan Greenwood), his childhood sweetheart, and Edith (Valerie Hobson), the widow of one of his victims. Sibella is wonderfully wicked—a femme fatale with a voice like melted honey and an unapologetic thirst for social status. Edith, on the other hand, is all grace and dignity, providing a stark contrast to Sibella's conniving charm. Louis, being the opportunist that he is, juggles both women with alarming ease, adding an extra layer of intrigue to his already twisted pursuits. The film's finale is a masterstroke of irony and poetic justice. Just when Louis seems to have achieved everything he set out to accomplish, fate intervenes with one final twist—a testament to the film's commitment to keeping its audience thoroughly entertained until the last frame. Without spoiling too much, let's just say that Louis's razor-sharp intellect proves to be both his greatest strength and his Achilles' heel. Visually, Kind Hearts and Coronets is a treat for the eyes. Director Robert Hamer uses cinematography to accentuate the film's satirical tone, juxtaposing the grandeur of the D'Ascoyne estate with the cold, calculated reality of Louis's crimes. The costume design and period details immerse viewers in Edwardian England, while the film's score lends an air of sophistication to even its most macabre moments. It's a film that looks as good as it feels, capturing the essence of a bygone era with wit and style. What truly elevates Kind Hearts and Coronets is its audacity. It dares to make us laugh in the face of murder, to cheer for a protagonist whose moral compass is utterly skewed, and to see the absurdity in the rigid class structures of the time. It's a film that revels in its own wickedness, inviting viewers to join in the fun. And fun it is—rarely does a film blend darkness with levity so effortlessly, crafting a narrative that's as thought-provoking as it is entertaining. In summary, Kind Hearts and Coronets is a masterful dark comedy that stands the test of time. With unforgettable performances, sharp wit, and a plot that keeps you on your toes, it's a cinematic experience that delights in its own cunning brilliance.  "The D'Ascoynes certainly appear to have accorded with the tradition of the landed gentry, and sent the fool of the family into the church."   This and previous episodes can be found everywhere you download your podcasts Follow us on Twitter @rbritanniapod    Thanks for listening   Scott and Steven

A darkly comic satire about an increasingly deranged leader of a Western power, tensions with Russia and the threat of World War 3 breaking out – sound familiar? That's the premise of Whoops Apocalypse, the 1986 feature film very loosely based on the sitcom of the same name, created by David Renwick and Andrew Marshall. Sadly where the film fails to imitate real life is the presence of a female President in the White House and she's the (relatively) sane one, while her British counterpart (played by Peter Cook) believes unemployment is caused by pixies and is quite happy to encourage those without jobs to leap to their deaths off Beachy Head. The film also features Loretta Swit (M*A*S*H), Richard Wilson, Michael Richards (pre-Seinfeld), Rik Mayall, Alexei Sayle, Ian Richardson, Herbert Lom and John Sessions. Last December for Goon Pod Film Club Tyler spoke to Renwick & Marshall at length about Whoops Apocalypse and how it all came about and he decided to share it with the general Goon Pod listeners as a bonus episode before world events rendered its plot totally tame and entirely plausible. Andrew and David talked warmly about the film and revealed how it was chiefly the lousy scheduling of their earlier television show End Of Part One which compelled them to write the Whoops Apocalypse sitcom, which in turn led to producer Brian Eastman proposing a big-screen repurposing, involving a new storyline and characters. They discussed the writing process, the challenges of casting, the difference between what made critics laugh and audiences laugh and things they wish had worked a little bit better. Goon Pod returns in late March. Goon Pod Film Club can be found here: patreon.com/GoonPod and you can sign up free for a seven day trial. Shows include Kind Hearts & Coronets, A Hard Days Night, Bedazzled (1967), Monty Python & The Holy Grail, Guest House Paradiso (aka the ‘Bottom movie'),Carry On Screaming, Billy Liar and, most recently, It's Trad Dad.

From a list of eight blind spots for the shepherd, the community went with the oldest film on the list. Perhaps as a way of mocking the age of the birthday of your host. "Kind Hearts and Coronets" is a dark comedy of manners that was release in the U.S. in 1950. Famous for Alec Guinness playing eight parts, it is a showcase for character actor  Dennis Price as the star. Three of the guests this week were old hands at this serial killer comedy, David Brook, James Wilson and Howard Casner had all been slain by this before. Only Matthew Simpson joined Richard as fresh victims of this drool Ealing product that is considered one of the greatest British films of all time. Set your headphones on stun because spoilers start flying immediately. 

On this week's Film Seizure, the fellas talk about the 1949 crime comedy Kind Hearts and Coronets featuring Alec Guinness playing eight distinct characters. Episodes release on Wednesday at www.filmseizure.com "Beyond My Years" by Matt LaBarber LaBarber The Album Available at https://mattlabarber.bandcamp.com/album/labarber-the-album Copyright 2020 Like what we do? Buy us a coffee! www.ko-fi.com/filmseizure Follow us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/filmseizure/ Follow us on BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/filmseizure.bsky.social Follow us on Mastodon: https://universeodon.com/@filmseizure Follow us on Instagram: www.instagram.com/filmseizure/ You can now find us on YouTube as well! The Film Seizure Channel can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/c/FilmSeizure

Man, that Dwight guitar sure does look like an Epiphone Coronet, you might be thinking. You've got a sharp eye my friends - back in the day, the fine folk from Kalamazoo badged some Coronets for Sunny Shields Music in Illinois. Enjoy! Like the show? Follow us at these fine establishments: Patreon || https://www.patreon.com/thehighgain Instagram || @thehighgain Web || https://www.thehighgain.com

Nick and Roger cross off the boxes on the family tree as we consider 1949's Kind Hearts and Coronets. Your browser isn't showing you an HTML5 audio player. Download

Send us a textThis week, Jeff introduces Sara to a very British, very dark comedy which features Obi-Wan Kenobi himself, Alec Guinness, starring in 8 different roles!*Spoilers Ahead*  Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949) - IMDb Alec Guinness - IMDb Dennis Price - IMDbTheme Music:  Happy Way to Start the Day By Pressmaster – license purchased on AudioJungle 

1. Secure the scene 2. Call an ambulance 3. Assess the injuries It's time to put your First Aid training to the test as Dan and Hank discuss their recent, worst double bike crash ever in BikeRides history. Bike Crash related tracks forthcoming from La Lucura; Alasondro Alegre; Sun Room; Declan Murry Brown; Gracie Addison; The Coronets; John Linnell; The Tennessee Mafie Jug Band; Keith Cameron; Primitives.

We return to the Wars of the Roses for the latest episode of the Alnwick Castle Podcast, for an exclusive audio tour of the new exhibition inspired by Lions of the Red Rose, the story of the Percy family and their involvement in the Wars.We were lucky enough to be shown around every part of the exhibition by Alnwick Castle Archivist Chris Hunwick, who explains the stories behind the documents on display - who they belonged to, what they mean, and how they have survived to the present day. You will hear about seals, coins, 15th century fingerprints ... and a rat named Cedric.This episode gives you a level of access to Lions of the Red Rose you won't get anywhere else. We are very grateful to Chris for his time and his incredible knowledge, and hope you enjoy it to - whether you have visited the exhibition already or not!If you plan to visit, the exhibition is found within the State Rooms of Alnwick Castle. Lions of the Red Rose, the new book by the 12th Duke of Northumberland, is available from the Castle gift shops.If you enjoyed this episode and want to hear more from Chris, head back into our podcast archive for episode 12, about the Alnwick Castle Model, or episode 37, about the Crowns and Coronets exhibition created in 2023.

The first edition of Goon Pod Film Club has dropped - and here's a taster plus huge thanks to all those who have supported it already! Head over to www.patreon.com/GoonPod to sign up and receive every month a brand new premium episode in which guests discuss their favourite British comedy films!

Black comedy at its best

60 years ago the Labour Party won the UK General Election, booting the Conservatives out of office after thirteen years. It is not known if Harold Wilson listened to the LP 'How To Win An Election (Or Not Lose By Much)' but even if he had it is highly unlikely he would have found it instructive. Leslie Bricusse brought together Spike Milligan and Harry Secombe to record this album one afternoon in early 1964 after a lunch in which vast quantities of wine had been dispatched. Peter Sellers recorded his parts a number of weeks later and very soon after technically died (he did, however, recover). This week Brett Tremble - @agnes_guano on Twitter - joins Tyler to tell the tale behind the making of the LP. The conversation includes predictions about the forthcoming General Election and as such could leave them with red faces should opinion polls turn out to be wrong! ******** Sign up for Goon Pod Film Club here: www.patreon.com/GoonPod - first episode on Kind Hearts & Coronets out Saturday 6th July! **********

fWotD Episode 2599: Whisky Galore! (1949 film) Welcome to featured Wiki of the Day where we read the summary of the featured Wikipedia article every day.The featured article for Sunday, 16 June 2024 is Whisky Galore! (1949 film).Whisky Galore! is a 1949 British comedy film produced by Ealing Studios, starring Basil Radford, Bruce Seton, Joan Greenwood and Gordon Jackson. It was the directorial debut of Alexander Mackendrick; the screenplay was by Compton Mackenzie, an adaptation of his 1947 novel Whisky Galore, and Angus MacPhail. The story—based on a true event, the running aground of the SS Politician—concerns a shipwreck off a fictional Scottish island, the inhabitants of which have run out of whisky because of wartime rationing. The islanders find out the ship is carrying 50,000 cases of whisky, some of which they salvage, against the opposition of the local Customs and Excise men.It was filmed on the island of Barra; the weather was so poor that the production over-ran its 10-week schedule by five weeks, and the film went £20,000 over budget. Michael Balcon, the head of the studio, was unimpressed by the initial cut of the film, and one of Ealing's directors, Charles Crichton, added footage and re-edited the film before its release. Like other Ealing comedies, Whisky Galore! explores the actions of a small insular group facing and overcoming a more powerful opponent. An unspoken sense of community runs through the film, and the story reflects a time when the British Empire was weakening.Whisky Galore! was well received on release. It came out in the same year as Passport to Pimlico and Kind Hearts and Coronets, leading to 1949 being remembered as one of the peak years of the Ealing comedies. In the US, where Whisky Galore! was renamed Tight Little Island, the film became the first from the studios to achieve box office success. It was followed by a sequel, Rockets Galore!. Whisky Galore! has since been adapted for the stage, and a remake was released in 2016.This recording reflects the Wikipedia text as of 01:03 UTC on Sunday, 16 June 2024.For the full current version of the article, see Whisky Galore! (1949 film) on Wikipedia.This podcast uses content from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.Visit our archives at wikioftheday.com and subscribe to stay updated on new episodes.Follow us on Mastodon at @wikioftheday@masto.ai.Also check out Curmudgeon's Corner, a current events podcast.Until next time, I'm Geraint Standard.

The rich history of Ealing Studios comes into the spotlight in this latest episode of STUDIOCANAL Presents, and in particular two of its comedies that are amongst the finest films in British cinema history: Kind Hearts & Coronets, and The Lavender Hill Mob. Host Simon Brew is joined by Ealing expert and fan Dr Benedict Morrison, and the pair explore the history, importance and joy of the films – whilst namechecking a few others for the watchlist too! Plus, as always, the latest news from the world of STUDIOCANAL as well…

Welcome to the Instant Trivia podcast episode 1138, where we ask the best trivia on the Internet. Round 1. Category: Did I Hear That Right? 1: "Saturday Night Live" editorialist Emily Litella wasn't sure why all the fuss about these "on television". Violins. 2: A coming-of-age novel by Bruce Ducker is titled "Lead Us Not Into" this NYC train depot. Penn Station. 3: (Hi, I'm Tony Danza) On "Friends", Lisa Kudrow was convinced that this man's song "Tiny Dancer" was really "Tony Danza". Elton John. 4: George W. Bush once referred to these 2 trade obstacles as "terriers and bariffs". Tariffs and barriers. 5: In a 2000 film, the idiomatically challenged "Trixie" speaks of "drinking yourself into" this South American country. Bolivia (instead of "oblivion"). Round 2. Category: You'Re Going In. With In in quotation marks 1: It's a polypeptide hormone produced by the beta cells of the islets of Langerhans. insulin. 2: Any of the 4 anterior teeth in the jaw used for cutting. incisors. 3: It's found after "Disco" in a Top 40 song and "Dante's" in story. inferno. 4: It's a 10-letter verb meaning to introduce into public use by some formal ceremony. inaugurate. 5: From the Latin for "deceitful", it means "stealthily treacherous". insidious. Round 3. Category: As You Like It. With As in quotation marks 1: A fibrous mineral formerly used to make fireproof articles. asbestos. 2: A paroxysmal, often allergic disorder of respiration characterized by bronchospasm and wheezing. asthma. 3: A village in Berkshire, England or a scarf with broad ends. an ascot. 4: In TV, this ratio of the width of an image to its height can be 4 to 3. an aspect ratio. 5: A secluded building, often the residence of a guru, used for the instruction of Hinduism. an ashram. Round 4. Category: Music Industry Terms 1: This is taking a snippet of one song and using it in another; "Funky Drummer" by James Brown is often used. a sample. 2: Incorporating part of an old song into a new song, or trying a free piece of cheese at the deli. sampling. 3: In digital music sales, this method used to be about 20% of purchases and downloads were 70%; now it's flipped. streaming. 4: A hit song from one genre of music that also achieves commercial success in another genre. a crossover. 5: Non-reserved general admission seating at a performance venue; it sounds like a celebration. festival seating. Round 5. Category: Completes The Movie Title 1: "Down and Out...". ...In Beverly Hills. 2: "Dog Day...". ...Afternoon. 3: "Kind Hearts and...". ...Coronets. 4: "Jim Thorpe...". ...All-American. 5: "Heaven Knows...". ...Mr. Allison. Thanks for listening! Come back tomorrow for more exciting trivia!Special thanks to https://blog.feedspot.com/trivia_podcasts/ AI Voices used

Writer Naomi Alderman (The Power, The Future) chooses as her comfort blanket, the 1949 Ealing black comedy 'Kind Hearts And Coronets', with its mixture of revenge (served cold, of course), and vicious social satire, managing to possess, one might say, "all the exuberance of Chaucer, without, happily, any of the concomitant crudities of his period..." Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life is one of the best-loved films of Classical Hollywood cinema, a story of despair and redemption in the aftermath of war that is one of the central movies of the 1940s, and a key text in America's understanding of itself. This is a film that remains relevant to our own anxieties and yearnings, to all the contradictions of ordinary life, while also enacting for us the quintessence of the classic Hollywood aesthetic. Nostalgia, humour, and a tough resilience weave themselves through this movie, intertwining it with the fraught cultural moment of the end of World War II that saw its birth. It offers a still compelling merging of fantasy and realism that was utterly unique when it was first released, and has rarely been matched since. Michael Newton's study of the film, It's a Wonderful Life (British Film Institute, 2023), investigates the source of its extraordinary power and its long-lasting impact. He begins by introducing the key figures in the movie's production - notably director Frank Capra and star James Stewart - and traces the making of the film, and then provides a brief synopsis of the film, considering its aesthetic processes and procedures, touching on all those things that make it such an astonishing film. Newton's careful analysis explores all those aspects of the film that are fundamental to our understanding of it, particularly the way in which the film brings tragedy and comedy together. Finally, Newton tells the story of the film's reception and afterlife, accounting for its initial relative failure and its subsequent immense popularity. Michael Newton is Lecturer in English at Leiden University, Netherlands. He is the author of Savage Girls and Wild Boys: A History of Feral Children (2002), Age of Assassins: A History of Conspiracy and Political Violence, 1865-1981 (2012), and of Kind Hearts and Coronets (2003) and Rosemary's Baby (2020) in the BFI Film Classics series. Daniel Moran earned his B.A. and M.A. in English from Rutgers University and his Ph.D. in History from Drew University. The author of Creating Flannery O'Connor: Her Critics, Her Publishers, Her Readers and articles on G. K. Chesterton and John Ford, he teaches research and writing at Rutgers and co-hosts the podcast Fifteen-Minute Film Fanatics, found here on the New Books Network and on X. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life is one of the best-loved films of Classical Hollywood cinema, a story of despair and redemption in the aftermath of war that is one of the central movies of the 1940s, and a key text in America's understanding of itself. This is a film that remains relevant to our own anxieties and yearnings, to all the contradictions of ordinary life, while also enacting for us the quintessence of the classic Hollywood aesthetic. Nostalgia, humour, and a tough resilience weave themselves through this movie, intertwining it with the fraught cultural moment of the end of World War II that saw its birth. It offers a still compelling merging of fantasy and realism that was utterly unique when it was first released, and has rarely been matched since. Michael Newton's study of the film, It's a Wonderful Life (British Film Institute, 2023), investigates the source of its extraordinary power and its long-lasting impact. He begins by introducing the key figures in the movie's production - notably director Frank Capra and star James Stewart - and traces the making of the film, and then provides a brief synopsis of the film, considering its aesthetic processes and procedures, touching on all those things that make it such an astonishing film. Newton's careful analysis explores all those aspects of the film that are fundamental to our understanding of it, particularly the way in which the film brings tragedy and comedy together. Finally, Newton tells the story of the film's reception and afterlife, accounting for its initial relative failure and its subsequent immense popularity. Michael Newton is Lecturer in English at Leiden University, Netherlands. He is the author of Savage Girls and Wild Boys: A History of Feral Children (2002), Age of Assassins: A History of Conspiracy and Political Violence, 1865-1981 (2012), and of Kind Hearts and Coronets (2003) and Rosemary's Baby (2020) in the BFI Film Classics series. Daniel Moran earned his B.A. and M.A. in English from Rutgers University and his Ph.D. in History from Drew University. The author of Creating Flannery O'Connor: Her Critics, Her Publishers, Her Readers and articles on G. K. Chesterton and John Ford, he teaches research and writing at Rutgers and co-hosts the podcast Fifteen-Minute Film Fanatics, found here on the New Books Network and on X. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/history

Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life is one of the best-loved films of Classical Hollywood cinema, a story of despair and redemption in the aftermath of war that is one of the central movies of the 1940s, and a key text in America's understanding of itself. This is a film that remains relevant to our own anxieties and yearnings, to all the contradictions of ordinary life, while also enacting for us the quintessence of the classic Hollywood aesthetic. Nostalgia, humour, and a tough resilience weave themselves through this movie, intertwining it with the fraught cultural moment of the end of World War II that saw its birth. It offers a still compelling merging of fantasy and realism that was utterly unique when it was first released, and has rarely been matched since. Michael Newton's study of the film, It's a Wonderful Life (British Film Institute, 2023), investigates the source of its extraordinary power and its long-lasting impact. He begins by introducing the key figures in the movie's production - notably director Frank Capra and star James Stewart - and traces the making of the film, and then provides a brief synopsis of the film, considering its aesthetic processes and procedures, touching on all those things that make it such an astonishing film. Newton's careful analysis explores all those aspects of the film that are fundamental to our understanding of it, particularly the way in which the film brings tragedy and comedy together. Finally, Newton tells the story of the film's reception and afterlife, accounting for its initial relative failure and its subsequent immense popularity. Michael Newton is Lecturer in English at Leiden University, Netherlands. He is the author of Savage Girls and Wild Boys: A History of Feral Children (2002), Age of Assassins: A History of Conspiracy and Political Violence, 1865-1981 (2012), and of Kind Hearts and Coronets (2003) and Rosemary's Baby (2020) in the BFI Film Classics series. Daniel Moran earned his B.A. and M.A. in English from Rutgers University and his Ph.D. in History from Drew University. The author of Creating Flannery O'Connor: Her Critics, Her Publishers, Her Readers and articles on G. K. Chesterton and John Ford, he teaches research and writing at Rutgers and co-hosts the podcast Fifteen-Minute Film Fanatics, found here on the New Books Network and on X. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/film

Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life is one of the best-loved films of Classical Hollywood cinema, a story of despair and redemption in the aftermath of war that is one of the central movies of the 1940s, and a key text in America's understanding of itself. This is a film that remains relevant to our own anxieties and yearnings, to all the contradictions of ordinary life, while also enacting for us the quintessence of the classic Hollywood aesthetic. Nostalgia, humour, and a tough resilience weave themselves through this movie, intertwining it with the fraught cultural moment of the end of World War II that saw its birth. It offers a still compelling merging of fantasy and realism that was utterly unique when it was first released, and has rarely been matched since. Michael Newton's study of the film, It's a Wonderful Life (British Film Institute, 2023), investigates the source of its extraordinary power and its long-lasting impact. He begins by introducing the key figures in the movie's production - notably director Frank Capra and star James Stewart - and traces the making of the film, and then provides a brief synopsis of the film, considering its aesthetic processes and procedures, touching on all those things that make it such an astonishing film. Newton's careful analysis explores all those aspects of the film that are fundamental to our understanding of it, particularly the way in which the film brings tragedy and comedy together. Finally, Newton tells the story of the film's reception and afterlife, accounting for its initial relative failure and its subsequent immense popularity. Michael Newton is Lecturer in English at Leiden University, Netherlands. He is the author of Savage Girls and Wild Boys: A History of Feral Children (2002), Age of Assassins: A History of Conspiracy and Political Violence, 1865-1981 (2012), and of Kind Hearts and Coronets (2003) and Rosemary's Baby (2020) in the BFI Film Classics series. Daniel Moran earned his B.A. and M.A. in English from Rutgers University and his Ph.D. in History from Drew University. The author of Creating Flannery O'Connor: Her Critics, Her Publishers, Her Readers and articles on G. K. Chesterton and John Ford, he teaches research and writing at Rutgers and co-hosts the podcast Fifteen-Minute Film Fanatics, found here on the New Books Network and on X. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/performing-arts

Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life is one of the best-loved films of Classical Hollywood cinema, a story of despair and redemption in the aftermath of war that is one of the central movies of the 1940s, and a key text in America's understanding of itself. This is a film that remains relevant to our own anxieties and yearnings, to all the contradictions of ordinary life, while also enacting for us the quintessence of the classic Hollywood aesthetic. Nostalgia, humour, and a tough resilience weave themselves through this movie, intertwining it with the fraught cultural moment of the end of World War II that saw its birth. It offers a still compelling merging of fantasy and realism that was utterly unique when it was first released, and has rarely been matched since. Michael Newton's study of the film, It's a Wonderful Life (British Film Institute, 2023), investigates the source of its extraordinary power and its long-lasting impact. He begins by introducing the key figures in the movie's production - notably director Frank Capra and star James Stewart - and traces the making of the film, and then provides a brief synopsis of the film, considering its aesthetic processes and procedures, touching on all those things that make it such an astonishing film. Newton's careful analysis explores all those aspects of the film that are fundamental to our understanding of it, particularly the way in which the film brings tragedy and comedy together. Finally, Newton tells the story of the film's reception and afterlife, accounting for its initial relative failure and its subsequent immense popularity. Michael Newton is Lecturer in English at Leiden University, Netherlands. He is the author of Savage Girls and Wild Boys: A History of Feral Children (2002), Age of Assassins: A History of Conspiracy and Political Violence, 1865-1981 (2012), and of Kind Hearts and Coronets (2003) and Rosemary's Baby (2020) in the BFI Film Classics series. Daniel Moran earned his B.A. and M.A. in English from Rutgers University and his Ph.D. in History from Drew University. The author of Creating Flannery O'Connor: Her Critics, Her Publishers, Her Readers and articles on G. K. Chesterton and John Ford, he teaches research and writing at Rutgers and co-hosts the podcast Fifteen-Minute Film Fanatics, found here on the New Books Network and on X. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-studies

Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life is one of the best-loved films of Classical Hollywood cinema, a story of despair and redemption in the aftermath of war that is one of the central movies of the 1940s, and a key text in America's understanding of itself. This is a film that remains relevant to our own anxieties and yearnings, to all the contradictions of ordinary life, while also enacting for us the quintessence of the classic Hollywood aesthetic. Nostalgia, humour, and a tough resilience weave themselves through this movie, intertwining it with the fraught cultural moment of the end of World War II that saw its birth. It offers a still compelling merging of fantasy and realism that was utterly unique when it was first released, and has rarely been matched since. Michael Newton's study of the film, It's a Wonderful Life (British Film Institute, 2023), investigates the source of its extraordinary power and its long-lasting impact. He begins by introducing the key figures in the movie's production - notably director Frank Capra and star James Stewart - and traces the making of the film, and then provides a brief synopsis of the film, considering its aesthetic processes and procedures, touching on all those things that make it such an astonishing film. Newton's careful analysis explores all those aspects of the film that are fundamental to our understanding of it, particularly the way in which the film brings tragedy and comedy together. Finally, Newton tells the story of the film's reception and afterlife, accounting for its initial relative failure and its subsequent immense popularity. Michael Newton is Lecturer in English at Leiden University, Netherlands. He is the author of Savage Girls and Wild Boys: A History of Feral Children (2002), Age of Assassins: A History of Conspiracy and Political Violence, 1865-1981 (2012), and of Kind Hearts and Coronets (2003) and Rosemary's Baby (2020) in the BFI Film Classics series. Daniel Moran earned his B.A. and M.A. in English from Rutgers University and his Ph.D. in History from Drew University. The author of Creating Flannery O'Connor: Her Critics, Her Publishers, Her Readers and articles on G. K. Chesterton and John Ford, he teaches research and writing at Rutgers and co-hosts the podcast Fifteen-Minute Film Fanatics, found here on the New Books Network and on X. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/popular-culture

2023 saw the launch of a brand new exhibition at Alnwick Castle. Crowns and Coronets explores the connections between the castle, the resident Percy family and royal coronations through the centuries, and on this episode of the Alnwick Castle Podcast, we have an exclusive, in-depth behind the scenes look at the displays. Our host Deborah walked through the exhibition with castle archivist Chris Hunwick, whose research was a vital part of bringing Crowns and Coronets to life. You will hear Chris discuss the eyewitness account of the coronation of Richard III, read from the diaries of the 1st Duchess of Northumberland, who received two invites to the coronation of George III and Queen Charlotte, and reveal the activities of the Disperser For Apparel, whose job it was to make the Wizard Earl of Northumberland look his best for the coronation of James VI & I. You'll also discover just how much work goes into creating an exhibition like this!Crowns and Coronets will be on display at Alnwick Castle in 2023 and 2024. We hope you enjoy these insights into the exhibition - whether you've visited already, plan to in the future, or are unable to do so in person.As Chris says in the episode... "was that acceptable?" If you enjoyed the podcast, please let us know! You can get in touch on Twitter @alnwickcastle, or by email on podcast@alnwickcastle.com . Subscribe so you don't miss future episodes, and leave us a positive rating or review if you can!

This week on the OETA Movie Club Podcast we discuss Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949). Louis Mazzini (Dennis Price) was cut off from his aristocratic family when his mother eloped with an Italian singer. After the family refused to let her be buried in the family mausoleum, Louis avenges his mother's death by attempting to murder every family member (all played by Alec Guinness) who stands between himself and the fortune. What could go wrong?Support the show

To mark the coronation of King Charles III this month, the Alnwick Castle Podcast is taking a brief look at coronations from history, especially those with involvement from the Percy family. Hosts Daniel and Deborah introduce the role of the 1st Earl of Northumberland and his descendants at several medieval coronations; the 1st Duke and Duchess at the coronation of George III; the 3rd Duke and his role as ambassador at a 19th century French coronation; and the family's involvement in the coronations of the 20th century.You will also hear excerpts from the diaries of the 1st Duchess, and the memoirs of novelist Victor Hugo (who remembered the Duke of Northumberland arriving in France for a coronation in 1825).If you would like to find out more about the long history of Alnwick Castle and coronations, a special exhibition about coronations - 'Crowns and Coronets' - is now open for visitors to Alnwick Castle, displaying costumes, documents and items rarely on public view.

El octavo episodio de la temporada pretendía ser una jovial recolección de los asesinos ficcionales favoritos de Benja Villegas y Kiko Amat, pero terminó transformándose en prescripción pura y dura (y como tal hay que escucharlo). Fascínense ustedes al comprobar cómo estos dos salaces sabios empiezan comentando por encima al Scranton Strangler, El Corintio, Rasca & Pica o Macbeth y terminan perorando largamente sobre Dexter, Miracleman de Alan Moore, Serial Mum de John Waters, Kind hearts and Coronets (clásico de 1949 de la factoría Ealing), Némesis de Mark Millar o The Sandman (cómic, no serie). Benja también explica un capítulo de Atlanta y, contra todo pronóstico y batiendo algún tipo de récord, consigue superar el minutaje del episodio original. Se recomienda a los oyentes tomar nota (de las recomendaciones,; no de lo de Atlanta).

Who's the Bossk? - A Star Wars Podcast from Laughing Place #140: Kind Hearts and Coronets with David Murto Date: February 20th, 2023 (recorded February 19th) Listen Topics In the fourth installment of the "Mike and David Movie Club," recurring "Who's the Bossk?" guest David Murto joins host Mike Celestino for a discussion of the 1949 British comedy film Kind Hearts and Coronets, which costars Sir Alec Guinness (Obi-Wan Kenobi) in eight different roles-- all members of the same doomed family. Plus the debut of The 5 Star Wars Questions - Level 4 and more! Subscribe iTunes Google Spotify

Who's the Bossk? – A Star Wars Podcast from Laughing Place #140: Kind Hearts and Coronets with David Murto Date: February 20th, 2023 (recorded February 19th) Listen Topics In the fourth installment of the “Mike and David Movie Club,” recurring “Who's the Bossk?” guest David Murto joins host Mike Celestino for a discussion of the […] The post Who's the Bossk? – Episode 140: Kind Hearts and Coronets with David Murto appeared first on LaughingPlace.com.

A pure joy. A delightful film. Magic. Yes, Alec Guinness slays it as nine different characters. But a lot of the magic is coming form the star Dennis Price as he masterfully sets the tone of the whole film and gets us to root for this murderous duke in this dark comedy. Find out why this gem strikes our hearts and may be my favorite film thus far featured on The Clueless Critic.

Adam and Smokey get out their hankies, for the penultimate episode of All The Best Lines. But, before this particular train leaves the station, we have SO many lovely emails, a masterclass from Alec Guinness to discuss and another announcement for you all.

POP ART, WHERE WE FIND THE POP CULTURE IN ART AND THE ART IN POP CULTURE. ONE DOWN AND…: Join me and animator/writer Glenn Dion (King of the Hill/Big Mouth/Human Resources) while we talk two films about people eliminating one's enemies one by one. “Don't you talk to me about grammar.” We all have obstacles in our lives. Roadblocks that keep us from achieving our goals. But how do we deal with them? Do we work around them? Outsmart them? Manipulate them to our advantage? Or do we do everything to completely obliterate them, destroy their utter existence, ground them to complete dust, so they no longer pose the remotest impediment to our journey? Sounds like it's time for Episode 82 of Pop Art, the podcast where we find the pop culture in art and the art in pop culture. It's the podcast where my guest chooses a movie from popular culture, and I'll select a film from the more art/classic/indie side of cinema with a connection to it. This time round, I am happy to welcome as my guest, animator and writer Glenn Dion, who has chosen as his film the graphic novel and video game influenced Scott Pilgrim v. The World, while I have chosen the classic Ealing comedy, Kind Hearts and Coronets, both films about someone needing to eliminate a series of people who are stopping them from achieving their goal. And in this episode we answer such questions as: Why are comic book/graphic novels so popular to adapt to films today? What is it about serial killer comedies? What is transmedia storytelling? Why are the 40s and 50s in film much more cynical than people think? What changes were made to the endings of both films and why? What problematic element of Kind Hearts… had to be changed for US distribution? Who are the unsung heroes of Scott Pilgrim…? What was difficult about the special effects in both films? Why did Scott Pilgrim… bomb? From where do we get the phrase, Revenge is a dish best served cold? What is it about that light switch? Check out Glenn's IMDB page at https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0227916/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0and his shows King of the Hill, Big Mouth and Human Resources. Check out my blog at https://howardcasner.wordpress.com/ My books, More Rantings and Ravings of a Screenplay Reader, The Starving Artists and Other Stories and The Five Corporations and One True Religion can be found at https://www.amazon.com/s?k=howard+casner&ref=nb_sb_noss --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/howard-casner/support

We are back with more great film moments from the 1940s, this time from the back half of the decade. Join Daniel, Ian and Michael as they talk about some greats from the classic Hollywood era and pontificate on the era as a whole. The Third Man - 8:13 Stray Dog - 19:26 Treasure of the Sierra Madre - 34:06 Abbott and Costello Meets Frankenstein - 50:44 Kind Hearts and Coronets - 1:01:53 Nightmare Alley - 1:18:29

Spine number #325: Robert Hamer's KIND HEARTS AND CORONETS from 1949. Podcast's intro song 'Here Come the Creeps' by Ugly Cry Club. You can check out her blossoming body of work here: uglycryclub.bandcamp.com/releases Like us on Facebook! www.facebook.com/criterioncreeps/ Follow us on that Twitter! twitter.com/criterioncreeps Follow us on Instagram! instagram.com/criterioncreeps We've got a Patreon too, if you are so inclined to see this podcast continue to exist as new laptops don't buy themselves: patreon.com/criterioncreeps You can also subscribe to us on Soundcloud, iTunes, Google Play, and Stitcher!

It's the moment you've all been waiting for... this week, Brendan and Jason FINALLY get to talk about Carry On Up the Khyber, the 16th in a series of 31 farcical comedies with a mostly-recurring cast. As per usual, the guys ask all the tough questions such as: is there a single person of colour in this film? Did this movie and others in the series inspire filmmakers like David Zucker? Is there a clear political message buried in all the silliness and decidedly politically incorrect humour? Does this have the most British ending to any movie covered on the podcast thus far!? This and more in this week's brand-new humdinger of an episode!   The guys also draw next week's movie out of a hat! What will it be? Join us, won't you? Questions? Comments? Suggestions? You can always shoot us an e-mail at forscreenandcountry@gmail.com   Full List: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BFI_Top_100_British_films Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/forscreenandcountry Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/bfi_pod Our logo was designed by the wonderful Mariah Lirette (https://www.instagram.com/mariahhx)   Kind Hearts and Coronets stars Dennis Price, Alec Guinness (x9); Joan Greenwood; Valerie Hobson; Miles Malleson, Arthur Lowe and Hugh Griffith; directed by Robert Hamer. Is It Streaming? USA: available to rent on Amazon Prime Canada: available to rent on Apple TV UK: Brit Box, Virgin TV Go and available to rent Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week, the guys return to the list! This is the final Ealing Studios comedy on the list so the question is... will Jason finally genuinely like one of these a lot? Is there ever too many Alec Guinnesses or the more the merrier? What are the lead character's similarities to Patrick Bateman? And did they just say what I think they said in that one scene?! (we literally can't and don't want to type it out here)? Plus: it's an all-out directors brawl!   The guys also draw next week's movie out of a hat! What will it be? Join us, won't you? Questions? Comments? Suggestions? You can always shoot us an e-mail at forscreenandcountry@gmail.com   Full List: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BFI_Top_100_British_films Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/forscreenandcountry Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/bfi_pod Our logo was designed by the wonderful Mariah Lirette (https://www.instagram.com/mariahhx)   Kind Hearts and Coronets stars Dennis Price, Alec Guinness (x9); Joan Greenwood; Valerie Hobson; Miles Malleson, Arthur Lowe and Hugh Griffith; directed by Robert Hamer. Is It Streaming? USA: Kanopy and available to rent Canada: N/A UK: Virgin TV Go and available to rent Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

#220--Rain Man (1988). This "week" we are dealt a hand of proverbial Blackjack as we delve into a movie that is objectively not as good as Blood Diamond, but definitely better than Kind Hearts and Coronets.

Muscle cars are fascinating machines, aren't they? They're romanticized, sought after, and coveted by their owners to a point that most people will never understand. From a manufacturing standpoint the formula was simple. Pull a mid-sized car from your line-up, stuff the biggest and baddest engines in your arsenal under the hood, and then sell them to the public for a reasonable price. Some of the most desirable were the Mopar B-Bodies produced from 1966-1974. Chargers, Coronets, Satellites, Road Runners, Belvederes and the GTX are all examples of how Ma-Mopar tried to take over the muscle car world. And with a host of big and small blocks, as well as transmissions, combined with some of the best styling to ever come out of Detroit, it's no wonder that both the owners and public alike still look upon them with wonder. On this episode of the Hemmings Hot Rod BBQ Podcast, the crew (who also happen to be owners) talk about why Mopar B-Bodies have stood the test of time and are still a favorite amongst collectors.  

How much narration is too much narration? Izzi and David debate this topic in this weeks episode discussing Ealing  Studio's  1949 dark comedy, Kind Hearts and Coronets starring Dennis Price and everyone's favorite Jedi, Alec Guinness. The TML duo talk briefly about the Ealing Studio History and the antics that happened behind the camera.  Will Izzi understand the 1930's dark humor or will she get distracted by the Black and White setting of this movie? listen to find out."Even my lamented master, the great Mr Benny himself, never had the privilege of hanging a duke. What a finale to a lifetime in the public service!"- Mr Elliot Comment: In the British version of this movie there is some strong racist language used by the main character. We here at TML condemn hate speech and racist behavior and believe that even though this movie was made in the 40's, it does not exclude it from its poor choice of words.    Visit us at tmlajourneythroughcinema.com.Follow us on:Instagram @tmlajourneythroughcinemaTwitter - @tmlajourneyFacebook - @TheMovieLog1

(ELYSAVIEWS: WINE-ning ABOUT MOVIES #014 • Originally streamed on April 13, 2020)

We've come to the end of our second decade, and it's a pretty good year for films: Alec Guinness breaks out with a multi-role tour de force; Orson Welles delivers another memorable star turn; and a pair of Japanese directors deliver two very disparate postwar classics. But which one film has best managed to stand the test of time? Join Rachel Schaevitz and Aaron Keck as they discuss the year in cinema, obsessive cinematographers, zither scores, Freudianism, gender politics, vases, cuckoo clocks, and the brilliance of Joseph Cotten - and then dig into the data and the numbers (and our expert panel votes) to identify the best picture of 1949. The nominees (with apologies to Stray Dog) are Adam's Rib, Kind Hearts & Coronets, Late Spring, The Third Man, and White Heat. Who wins the Moonlight? 

Mairi, Maggie, and Grinn make a magical flight from the Tower of Sorcere. After a hairy escape into the tunnels the three make a difficult choice and there is a parting of ways. At long last, the Dark Heart Talisman is put together and our heroes are teleported back to Menzoberranzan to place it for the final showdown with the demon lords. This episode was inspired in part by Out of the Abyss1PDnD is unofficial Fan Content permitted under the Fan Content Policy. Not approved/endorsed by Wizards. Portions of the materials used are property of Wizards of the Coast. ©Wizards of the Coast LLC

#224--Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949). This week we discuss a matter of some delicacy. This film is described as a British Dark Comedy. It is really only one of those three things.

Welcome back to Theme Warriors, the podcast where the co-hosts each pick a movie that follows an agreed upon theme. On this episode Mr. Venom, Mike, Doug, & Iris select movies where the lead (or prominent) actor plays more than one role in the movie. This episode spans from the dry to the hilarious and everything in between. Listen in as we tackle Kind Hearts & Coronets (1949), Coming to America (1988), The Double (2013), & Legend (2015)

In this episode we talk about 'Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949)'  a draper (seamstress or something) goes from rags to riches,  'Contact (1997)' Jodie Foster meets Carl Sagan and 'Sightseers (2012)' British banality  and beastliness.

Warren G. Harding did what in a White House Closet? Who was FDR with when he died? JKF had how many women while he was president? These are just a few of the questions that get answered in this week’s episode as we delve into secrets that could have brought down political careers, administrations, and even entire governments (and some secrets that actually did!) This may be our best episode yet, and who doesn’t love an intriguing, salacious scandal or two? Episode Edits: John Profumo resigned in June of 1963, not July as stated in the episode. In 1975, John Profumo was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire which he received personally from Queen Elizabeth II. Episode Resources: Books Modern Times: The World From the 20’s to the 90’s by Paul Johnson Florence Harding: The First Lady, The Jazz Age, and The Death of the Most Scandalous President by Carl Sferrazza Anthony Eleanor and Franklin by Joseph P. Lash Dear Senator: A Memoir by the Daughter of Strom Thurmond by Essie Mae Washington-Williams The Dark Side of Camelot by Seymour M. Hersh A Thousand Days by Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. Secrets and Lies: The Autobiography by Christine Keller Films/Documentaries The Maltese Falcon with Humphry Bogart The Bride of Frankenstein with Valerie Hobson (John Profumo’s wife) Kind Hearts and Coronets with Valerie Hobson Ken Burns: The Roosevelts – An Intimate History - Documentary The Indomitable Teddy Roosevelt - Documentary Scandal – the film about the Profumo Affair

Ben and Nick discuss Kind Hearts and Coronets in this Classic Episode from 2015

This month’s ten-minute extra bonus episode on news events at the time we’re looking at is on the Profumo Affair, and how a sex scandal transformed Britain. Click through to the full post to read a transcript. —-more—- Transcript Welcome to the second episode of “I Read the News Today, Oh Boy”, the ten-minute bonus podcast I’m running monthly alongside the main podcast. In case you’ve forgotten from last month, in these bonus episodes I’m going to talk about aspects of the news that were happening at the same time as the music we’re talking about, so you have some idea of the wider context in which the music was being made. This month, we’re going to look at the Profumo affair, which was one of the most important moments in post-War British history, not for anything that actually happened, but because of the change in cultural attitudes it created. A brief warning — this one contains some mention of suicide, violence against women, and gun violence. In 1963, the Conservative Party had been in power in Britain for twelve years, and as with any party in power for that long, it was starting to become unpopular. In that time there had been three different Prime Ministers — Winston Churchill, who had returned to power in 1951 after losing the 1945 election, but who had retired before the 1955 election; Anthony Eden, who had replaced Churchill, and who had been Prime Minister during the Suez Crisis, which was the event that finally led to the realisation that Britain was no longer a major world power; and finally Harold Macmillan, an ageing, Patrician, figure who gave the impression of being an amiable but rather befuddled old man. But the government was finally brought down by the first British sex scandal among the ruling classes ever to go public. John Profumo was a minor minister, never in the Cabinet but with a long history of ministerial roles. He was as establishment as you could get, having been educated at Harrow and Oxford, and he was technically the fifth Baron Profumo, a member of the Italian nobility, though he inherited his title during the Second World War at a time when Britain was at war with Italy, and the title was abolished soon afterwards. He had been the youngest MP to be elected in 1940, he’d gone and fought in the war and risen to the rank of Brigadier, and he was married to Valerie Hobson, an actor who had appeared in films such as Bride of Frankenstein, Werewolf of London, Great Expectations, and Kind Hearts and Coronets.  Profumo had attended a party hosted by his friend Viscount Astor, where he’d been introduced by the society osteopath and artist Stephen Ward to Christine Keeler, a model who was twenty-seven years younger than him, and who had a very active love life. Keeler was involved with many men, and Profumo soon became one of them — which caused problems with MI5. Because one of the other men with whom Keeler was involved was Yevgeny Ivanov, a Russian spy in Britain who MI5 were trying to induce to defect, while Profumo was the Minister of War, in charge of Britain’s defence.  Profumo and Keeler’s affair was quite brief, and would have been hushed up as these things usually were, except that one of Keeler’s other lovers, a jazz promoter named Johnny Edgecombe, attacked another man, a singer called “Lucky” Gordon, after being told by Keeler that Gordon had assaulted her. Edgecombe became angry when Keeler refused to testify in his defence, and took a gun round to Stephen Ward’s flat, where Keeler was staying, and shot five rounds into the building. This brought Keeler to the attention not only of the police, but of the press, and the story was initially just about the shooting — along with the excitement of the shooting itself there was also the prurient interest of a beautiful young woman with multiple lovers, and a chance for some good old-fashioned British racism, as Edgecombe and Gordon were Black. But because of this interest, the press started sniffing around Keeler’s other lovers, and discovered her connections with both Ivanov and Profumo. Up to this point, there had been a convention in the British media that one didn’t attack people in power, but that had very slowly been changing over the last few years, to the point where it had become possible for the comedian Peter Cook to actually impersonate the Prime Minister on stage during the show “Beyond the Fringe”: [Excerpt: Peter Cook, “T.V.P.M”] So the media didn’t say anything explicit about it — and even if there hadn’t been questions of decorum they would probably have worried about British libel laws being used against them — but they did start dropping subtle hints, which allowed anyone who knew the people involved but didn’t know what had been happening to work it out. Least subtle of all was the satirical magazine Private Eye, owned by Peter Cook, which printed the details of the story, but just changed the names of everyone involved to things like “Miss Gaye Funloving” and “Vladimir Bolokhov”. Eventually, George Wigg, an MP for the opposition Labour Party, used Parliamentary privilege to bring the matter out into the open. Parliamentary privilege is an aspect of British law which means that an MP saying something in Parliament is not liable under the normal laws of slander and libel. Profumo denied everything to Parliament, but suspicion still remained. Meanwhile, the police were getting suspicious of Stephen Ward, believing that he was acting as a pimp, rather than just as a friend of lots of people who happened to sometimes introduce them to one another. They started pressuring people who knew Ward to testify against him — Mandy Rice-Davies, Keeler’s flatmate, was arrested for a driving offence and held in prison for eight days until she agreed to testify. Stephen Ward went to various government ministers to try to get the police action against him halted, and he told them that he’d been covering for Profumo, who had lied to Parliament. Profumo resigned from his ministerial position, and retired from public life — he spent the rest of his very long life doing charity work in an attempt to rehabilitate himself, and seems to have been generally remorseful about the whole business. Stephen Ward, meanwhile, was put on trial for living off immoral earnings, though there seems little evidence that he was actually a pimp. But none of his friends would testify for him, and he was found guilty in absentia — the night before the verdict was due, he took an overdose of sleeping pills, and he died in hospital a few days later without ever regaining consciousness. Keeler was imprisoned for several months for perjury in a related trial, about the assault she had claimed Lucky Gordon had committed — Gordon was found not guilty of having attacked her. Keeler’s life was ruined, and she spent the next fifty-three years having to live with having had her sex life made a topic of national discussion. There were many more rumours about other people having been involved in compromising actions as part of Ward’s set, including other ministers and members of the Royal family, but the truth of most of those rumours will never be known. The Conservative government was fatally wounded by the affair — Macmillan resigned shortly afterwards, claiming he had health problems which led him to suspect he would not live much longer, though in fact he lived for another twenty-three years, finally dying at the age of ninety-two in the mid-eighties. His successor, Alec Douglas-Home, remained in power a little less than a year before being defeated in late 1964 by the Labour Party. That defeat let in one of the great reforming governments of the twentieth century — the Labour government that came in, and Roy Jenkins, who was Home Secretary for much of the next few years, abolished the death penalty, legalised sexual acts between men, legalised abortion, got rid of corporal punishment in the prison system, and ended censorship in the theatre, among many other things. And part of the reason they were able to do these things was because the Profumo affair had brought to light just how the people in power were behaving, and from that point on the media had decided politicians didn’t deserve respect because of their office. While nothing has a single cause, you can trace all the social changes we’ll see in Britain as we look at the sixties back to this point, and to a powerful man having an affair with a much younger woman.

This month's ten-minute extra bonus episode on news events at the time we're looking at is on the Profumo Affair, and how a sex scandal transformed Britain. Click through to the full post to read a transcript. ----more---- Transcript Welcome to the second episode of "I Read the News Today, Oh Boy", the ten-minute bonus podcast I'm running monthly alongside the main podcast. In case you've forgotten from last month, in these bonus episodes I'm going to talk about aspects of the news that were happening at the same time as the music we're talking about, so you have some idea of the wider context in which the music was being made. This month, we're going to look at the Profumo affair, which was one of the most important moments in post-War British history, not for anything that actually happened, but because of the change in cultural attitudes it created. A brief warning -- this one contains some mention of suicide, violence against women, and gun violence. In 1963, the Conservative Party had been in power in Britain for twelve years, and as with any party in power for that long, it was starting to become unpopular. In that time there had been three different Prime Ministers -- Winston Churchill, who had returned to power in 1951 after losing the 1945 election, but who had retired before the 1955 election; Anthony Eden, who had replaced Churchill, and who had been Prime Minister during the Suez Crisis, which was the event that finally led to the realisation that Britain was no longer a major world power; and finally Harold Macmillan, an ageing, Patrician, figure who gave the impression of being an amiable but rather befuddled old man. But the government was finally brought down by the first British sex scandal among the ruling classes ever to go public. John Profumo was a minor minister, never in the Cabinet but with a long history of ministerial roles. He was as establishment as you could get, having been educated at Harrow and Oxford, and he was technically the fifth Baron Profumo, a member of the Italian nobility, though he inherited his title during the Second World War at a time when Britain was at war with Italy, and the title was abolished soon afterwards. He had been the youngest MP to be elected in 1940, he'd gone and fought in the war and risen to the rank of Brigadier, and he was married to Valerie Hobson, an actor who had appeared in films such as Bride of Frankenstein, Werewolf of London, Great Expectations, and Kind Hearts and Coronets.  Profumo had attended a party hosted by his friend Viscount Astor, where he'd been introduced by the society osteopath and artist Stephen Ward to Christine Keeler, a model who was twenty-seven years younger than him, and who had a very active love life. Keeler was involved with many men, and Profumo soon became one of them -- which caused problems with MI5. Because one of the other men with whom Keeler was involved was Yevgeny Ivanov, a Russian spy in Britain who MI5 were trying to induce to defect, while Profumo was the Minister of War, in charge of Britain's defence.  Profumo and Keeler's affair was quite brief, and would have been hushed up as these things usually were, except that one of Keeler's other lovers, a jazz promoter named Johnny Edgecombe, attacked another man, a singer called "Lucky" Gordon, after being told by Keeler that Gordon had assaulted her. Edgecombe became angry when Keeler refused to testify in his defence, and took a gun round to Stephen Ward's flat, where Keeler was staying, and shot five rounds into the building. This brought Keeler to the attention not only of the police, but of the press, and the story was initially just about the shooting -- along with the excitement of the shooting itself there was also the prurient interest of a beautiful young woman with multiple lovers, and a chance for some good old-fashioned British racism, as Edgecombe and Gordon were Black. But because of this interest, the press started sniffing around Keeler's other lovers, and discovered her connections with both Ivanov and Profumo. Up to this point, there had been a convention in the British media that one didn't attack people in power, but that had very slowly been changing over the last few years, to the point where it had become possible for the comedian Peter Cook to actually impersonate the Prime Minister on stage during the show "Beyond the Fringe": [Excerpt: Peter Cook, "T.V.P.M"] So the media didn't say anything explicit about it -- and even if there hadn't been questions of decorum they would probably have worried about British libel laws being used against them -- but they did start dropping subtle hints, which allowed anyone who knew the people involved but didn't know what had been happening to work it out. Least subtle of all was the satirical magazine Private Eye, owned by Peter Cook, which printed the details of the story, but just changed the names of everyone involved to things like "Miss Gaye Funloving" and "Vladimir Bolokhov". Eventually, George Wigg, an MP for the opposition Labour Party, used Parliamentary privilege to bring the matter out into the open. Parliamentary privilege is an aspect of British law which means that an MP saying something in Parliament is not liable under the normal laws of slander and libel. Profumo denied everything to Parliament, but suspicion still remained. Meanwhile, the police were getting suspicious of Stephen Ward, believing that he was acting as a pimp, rather than just as a friend of lots of people who happened to sometimes introduce them to one another. They started pressuring people who knew Ward to testify against him -- Mandy Rice-Davies, Keeler's flatmate, was arrested for a driving offence and held in prison for eight days until she agreed to testify. Stephen Ward went to various government ministers to try to get the police action against him halted, and he told them that he'd been covering for Profumo, who had lied to Parliament. Profumo resigned from his ministerial position, and retired from public life -- he spent the rest of his very long life doing charity work in an attempt to rehabilitate himself, and seems to have been generally remorseful about the whole business. Stephen Ward, meanwhile, was put on trial for living off immoral earnings, though there seems little evidence that he was actually a pimp. But none of his friends would testify for him, and he was found guilty in absentia -- the night before the verdict was due, he took an overdose of sleeping pills, and he died in hospital a few days later without ever regaining consciousness. Keeler was imprisoned for several months for perjury in a related trial, about the assault she had claimed Lucky Gordon had committed -- Gordon was found not guilty of having attacked her. Keeler's life was ruined, and she spent the next fifty-three years having to live with having had her sex life made a topic of national discussion. There were many more rumours about other people having been involved in compromising actions as part of Ward's set, including other ministers and members of the Royal family, but the truth of most of those rumours will never be known. The Conservative government was fatally wounded by the affair -- Macmillan resigned shortly afterwards, claiming he had health problems which led him to suspect he would not live much longer, though in fact he lived for another twenty-three years, finally dying at the age of ninety-two in the mid-eighties. His successor, Alec Douglas-Home, remained in power a little less than a year before being defeated in late 1964 by the Labour Party. That defeat let in one of the great reforming governments of the twentieth century -- the Labour government that came in, and Roy Jenkins, who was Home Secretary for much of the next few years, abolished the death penalty, legalised sexual acts between men, legalised abortion, got rid of corporal punishment in the prison system, and ended censorship in the theatre, among many other things. And part of the reason they were able to do these things was because the Profumo affair had brought to light just how the people in power were behaving, and from that point on the media had decided politicians didn't deserve respect because of their office. While nothing has a single cause, you can trace all the social changes we'll see in Britain as we look at the sixties back to this point, and to a powerful man having an affair with a much younger woman.

Another big category this week from 2 Guys 5 Movies – comedies of the 1940s. Frank's list includes Heaven Can Wait, starring Don Ameche, two Cary Grant comedies – His Girl Friday and Arsenic and Old Lace – the Charlie Chaplin classic, The Great Dictator, and Robert Hamer's Kind Hearts and Coronets, starring Sir Alec Guinness. If you are a fan of the podcast, there are other two important ways you can help us. First, you can please subscribe, rate, and leave a review on your podcast client. That not only would be useful to us for the feedback, but also help us receive more attention. Second, if you like your Facebook page, 2 Guys 5 Movies, it would be helpful to like or share our posts so others can learn about 2 Guys 5 Movies and decide if it is for them. Finally, if you have your own ideas for the podcast, you can also email us with list suggestions at 2guys5movies@gmail.com, and thank you all for listening and your support.

In this episode of Intha Vaara Classic Cinema, I will be talking about the wonderful British Movie called Kind Hearts and Coronets. Kind Hearts and coronets is a black comedy movie directed by Robert Hamer and stars Dennis Price and Alec Guinness. This movie released in 1949 and still stands the test of time. 

As per the request of Ravi Kiran, we are watching the 1949 dark comedy Kind Hearts And Coronets along with even darker comedy Parasite from 2019. This discussion explores the themes of class, sociopathic tendencies, and the idea of imprinting yourself onto another. Jeremy Schmidt: @ocarinaofcrime Alex Gaskin: @alex_j_gaskin Ravi Kiran: @kiranmesoftly

CW: A racial slur appears several times toward the end of this film. We talk about that. Over the course of a darkly comic scenario that veers between dry and madcap, KIND HEARTS AND CORONETS takes jabs at the aristocracy through the eyes of one who would be them, resulting in some fun dissonance between medium and message. In it, Alec Guinness is poisoned, Alec Guinness is incinerated, Alec Guinness is shot, Alec Guinness is crushed, Alec Guinness is drowned, Alec Guinness is exploded, and Alec Guinness dies of a stroke. In real life, Alec Guinness died once of liver cancer. Follow us at @trylovepodcast on Twitter and email us at trylovepodcast@gmail.com to get in touch! Theme: "Raindrops" by Huma-Huma/"No Smoking" PSA by John Waters. Closing music: "Kind Hearts and Coronets” from the eponymous film performed by The Royal Ballet Sinfonia.

Screenwriter Stuart Wright discusses 5 Great Black Comedies with film and TV director Stuart Urban. Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949) Dr Strangelove (1964) The King Of Comedy (1982) Withnail & I(1987) Four Lions (2010) Credits Intro/Outro music is by Chris Read. For more see www.thecomposers.tv Podcast from www.britflicks.com You can support the @Britflicks podcast by pledging money via www.patreon.com/stuartwright and/or subscribing to it via iTunes

在今天的节目当中要为大家介绍的，这是毛尖写电影的《夜短梦长》。毛尖可以说是现在华文世界里面写电影的第一号的重要的写手，毛尖擅长于写电影，她在很长的一段时间当中，她写过许许多多的电影的评论。不过，毛尖之所以能够有这样的一种非常特别的电影写作上的地位，正就在于她不只是写电影的评论。这本《夜短梦长》不算是电影的评论，是她给她自己在电影的认知、电影的解释上面的一种新的挑战。 在自序里面开头她就说：电影评论写了20年，影评人也逐渐成了让人阳痿的身份。不过好在电影辉煌过一百年，看完烂片回家看个牛片，有时候甚至让人觉得烂片也有烂片的好。 写电影评论，她看了很多很多的电影。不过重要的是，这样的一个背景，在毛尖的文章里面没有被遗忘掉，那就是电影是有它的历史的。所以当毛尖写电影的时候，她很少单纯就只是写当下她要讲的这部电影。不过即使是这样，20年写电影评论下来也很显然，毛尖也觉得有点累了，或者有点点厌烦了。所以她继续告诉我们，到了2016年、2017年发生了些什么样的事情。 “2017年开头，我有很长一段时间没有看一部电影，好像被一种奇怪的电影虚无主义笼罩。我准备弃绝电影重回经典文学的怀抱。我一天看一本小说，重温《傲慢与偏见》，重温《红楼梦》《金瓶梅》，怀着脱胎换骨的决心，坚持了半个月左右，但接下来就发生了一件有趣的事。” 她说，在一家服装店看到老板在搜亚兰·德伦（即阿兰·德龙，下同）的照片，这是二十世纪中期法国的重要的大明星，他说他门口摆的这款风衣，据传是从亚兰·德伦电影里面复制的。所以她一看，诶，她就认出来了。她认出来这是亚兰德伦演的电影《午后七点零七分》（又名《独行杀手》），她马上回家翻出一堆这个电影的导演梅尔维尔他导过的电影，重开影戒。所以回头想想，离不开电影了。因为对她来说，电影不只是她生活的度量衡，而且基本上电影就变成了所有的一切。 但她的文字，这是毛尖的特色，她是这样说的：“半辈子过去，电影不仅成了我生活的度量衡，一节课是半场电影，时间都是用电影算的。一个暑假是一千场，四年大学那就是两万场。如果人生可以活一百岁，那就是活过了四十万部电影的时间。” 不止时间是由电影来衡量的，更进一步的是她跟电影之间的关系。她又引用了罗兰·巴特的《恋人絮语》，《恋人絮语》本来是写一个人跟你的恋人之间会度过各种不同的阶段。哪些阶段呢？沉醉、屈从、相思、执着、焦虑、等待、灾难、挫折、慵懒、轻声、温和、节制等等。对于毛尖来说，当然带有一点夸张地说，这都是她跟电影之间的关系。 所以2017年，她又重新写跟电影有关的文章，又重新看电影。不过她写的就是这本书里面所收的非常不一样的文章，她替《收获》杂志写了一个专栏，这是一个影视小史，每一篇呢，她都有一个主题。可是这个主题怎么来的，她等于给自己一个课题，也就是每一个月，她在写《收获》的这个文章，写到最后一段的时候，她会预告下一期的文章，她到底要写另外一个什么样的主题。可是当她写下这句话的时候，说：哎呀，我下个月这个专栏接着要谈什么。其实她对于到底这个主题怎么谈，她没有想过、她也不知道究竟要写什么，可是先把自己应该要用这种方式整理电影小史的方法固定下来了，等到下个月真的要写稿的时候，再来依照这个主题去搜寻，应该写哪些电影，应该用什么样方法来写。 所以一方面，这本书的这些文章有一个紧密的主题，把所有的电影透过“历史”的这个角度，把它们串在一起。但是另外一方面也有一种即兴性，意味着当她决定要写这个主题的时候，并不是因为她想清楚了哪一些电影要写进来，用什么方式来写这些电影，而是她给她自己的一个如何整理电影的一个挑战，也是一种趣味。 在读毛尖写电影的文章有一种过瘾，那是如果你读的是她的影评，因为不管是好的电影或者是坏的电影，她都有跟别人不一样的方式来予以描述，来予以评论。对于好的电影，她会非常深入告诉你，这个电影对她来说“为什么好”，也就是说不是单纯地看热闹。说哎呀，演员演的很好，导演导得很好，然后呢整部戏很好看。她会告诉你非常非常清楚，包括在影史上面，它有些什么样突破，它做了一些什么样的典故，它有些什么样的隐伏的伏笔；这个导演或者是这个演员，在电影里面的表现有些什么样的突破。还不止如此，有的时候看她去批评一部烂电影也非常非常的过瘾，因为她会找出带有那种犬儒跟讽刺意味的方法，告诉你说为什么这个电影这么难看，或这个电影不值得被肯定。 不过除此之外，读毛尖的电影文章，另外过瘾的地方是——处处都有电影史，她有一个非常非常广大的电影资料库，在她的脑袋里面。因为她随时可以在这里想到一部电影，那里想到一部电影，然后呢，把这些电影史上的一些重要的作品，用她自己的方式把它予以描述，再串联起来。所以《夜短梦长》这本书，它的每篇文章基本上都是用这种方式写的。用这种方式，一来她提醒了我们很多，即使是影迷、爱看电影的人都不见得知道，或者都忘掉了一些电影史上的重要的影片；另外一件事情是，就算你没看过这个电影，你看毛尖怎么描述这个电影，都可以给你许许多多的享受甚至于启发。 例如说，第一篇一开头把时间推得非常非常久远。从电影史上的第一部警匪片开始说起。这部警匪片，它是Edwin Porter所导的《The Great Train Robbery》（译名《火车大劫案》），多早呢，1903年。而且因为1903年电影才刚发明没有多久，这当然是一部默片，是一部黑白片；还有，它的时间没有很长，从头到尾只有11分钟。 那我们来看看毛尖怎么帮我们描述电影史上警匪片的开端。她说，Edwin Porter用11分钟的时间，非常流畅地讲述了四个匪徒抢劫一辆火车之后，被一伙巡警击毙的故事。这是大纲，然后再下来，她要描述Edwin Porter怎么拍。她说，除了电影出奇的伟大技术，这部电影令人难忘的是它的灰色基调——这个讲的不只是刚刚讲了理所当然，这个电影是黑白电影，所以有很多的灰色基调，而是它在呈现这件事情的那个道德，或者是伦理的判断上的“灰色暧昧”。 匪徒劫车了之后，有人去向巡警报警，而这伙巡警当时正在一个酒吧寻欢作乐，甚至趁兴放枪。之后，巡警人多势众，击毙匪徒，随后便蜂涌到匪徒散落的财物上。更暧昧的是，警匪打扮基本上是一样的，这就使得电影的最后一个镜头成为悬疑；意思是说他的灰色来自于，他的电影拍了拍，你会发现是说，啊，警察和匪徒他们是真的有那么大的差别吗？匪徒去抢了的东西，但是等到警察把他们打死了之后，会不会警察就把这些匪徒抢来的东西据为己有呢？那这样的警察有比匪徒好到哪里去？ 不过有趣的地方是，她说的“电影的最后一个镜头，成为悬疑”。在写作上这句话也是个悬疑，所以我们就很好奇，说那这部才十一分钟电影，它的最后一个镜头是怎么收尾的呢？毛尖说：电影结尾，整个银幕定格展现一个人物的正面特写，他举起枪面对观众开了一枪，然后直接落幕。因为在前面的抢劫和追逐当中，人物面部没有特写的呈现，所以开这一枪的到底是谁，是个匪徒，还是一个员警，一直有各种不同版本的说法。不过不管是匪徒还是员警，这一枪都让当年的观众非常的不适应，让今天的粉丝非常的兴奋。因为这一枪打开了正与邪的道德灰色地带。 ——这就刚刚说的，为什么这个电影有一种灰色的基调。之前在银幕上面打来打去的这些子弹，是为了抢劫，这是匪徒，或者是为了反抢劫，这是警察打的。但最后一颗子弹不是，他什么都不是。因为他打谁呢？他打的是无辜观众席。打过来的无名的子弹，来自于没有人可以预测，谁也说不清楚来龙去脉的“现代丛林”，这一枪就是现代一幕谋杀的第一次枪声，预告了再也封不住的伤口。 这是毛尖精彩的地方，因为她在讲电影史的时候，她的电影史是这么样的鲜活，她告诉我们电影史上的第一场谋杀，谋杀的是谁？谋杀的是观众，是观众在枪口底下被打了一枪。从此之后，电影史上的谋杀就非常非常的有意思了。 电影史上的警匪片、谋杀片当然非常多，多到如果你要写一篇这种文章，关键就在于，一个有眼光还是没有眼光的写作者，那就是你要选什么样的电影来写。例如说，讲到警匪片有很多影史上面大家都知道的那种“名片”，你要写这种名片吗？那如果你就写这名片的话，你怎么写得跟别人不一样呢？还是说你要挑出一些特别的影片呢？毛尖就选了非常特别的影片。 其实我自己觉得我电影看的也不少，但这部电影我真的不知道。她选了1940年代英国的一部电影杰作，她之所以选，因为它对于老派谋杀进行了集中的戏仿和嘲弄。这部电影叫做《Kind Hearts and Coronets》（中译：《仁心与冠冕》，下同），这是一部什么样的电影呢？我们休息一会儿，回来告诉大家。 注：“杨照书话”系列节目由杨照和方所联合制作。本音频和文字稿由方所剪辑和编写而成，版权所有。若需转载，请注明来源及出处。

在今天的节目当中，为大家介绍的是毛尖的“影视小史”的一本文章集。这本书，书名叫做《夜短梦长》。在这本书里面，因为是影视小史，所以毛尖写了很多电视跟电影的作品。 例如说，在她的文章里面写到了一部，1940年代英国的电影杰作。电影杰作，名字呢，叫做《Kind Hearts and Coronets》她说，今天很少有人提及了，的确，我也不知道这部电影，可是即使我从来不知道这部电影，但我看毛尖的描述的时候，我就发现这部电影真是重要啊。她说，当年40年代末期，这部电影最为人乐道的是，这部电影的男主角，叫做Alec Guinness，他一个人饰演了八个角色，不止各有特点，而且瞒天过海。大半个世纪过去了，一个人演八个角色，还是很少很少有可以跟他匹敌的。 不过呢，《仁心与冠冕》对毛尖来说，她特别凸显的是，它不只是Alec Guinness一个人演八个角色，它有其他的重要的价值。然后她就告诉我们说这电影的设定是什么，非常简洁地告诉你电影的故事的主轴，我们来听听看。 电影男主角路易斯第一人称的自述开场，他说自己的父亲是一个意大利男高音，母亲呢，则是来自于显赫的阿斯特内家族，可是因为她跟贫穷的意大利歌手私奔了，所以这个显赫的阿斯特内家族呢，就把他妈妈给赶出来，她死了也不被允许葬入到家族的墓。所以路易斯要替他妈妈，向这个家族复仇。 那他有一个很简单的复仇的方法和目标，就是他要变成阿斯特内公爵，也就意味着他要变成这个家族的唯一的继承者。他怎么做得到呢？那就是因为他有他的身世，他的身世呢，让他有继承权，可是他的继承权一定是在很后面。他卑微的身份跟这个尊贵的阿斯特内公爵当中，一共有12个天梯要迈。意思是说在他之前，还有12个顺位的继承者，所以他决定要干嘛，一一地把他们干掉。反正把前面的12个人都干掉，就轮到他当阿斯特内公爵。 这样的一个故事的设定，毛尖的描述我完全同意。她说：“拍个六十来集的电视剧绝对不在话下，就算以BBC最简练的作风，至少也要整个十几集。但是呢，《仁心与冠冕》，哇，好慷慨，大手笔，一百分钟就把路易斯送到了人生巅峰。”这也就意味着，在一百分钟之内，他就谋财害命要杀掉12个人。但我同意到这里，我认为毛尖还没有讲完，为什么说毛尖没有讲完，是（因为）我们听完了她的叙述之后发现，一百分钟还不止干了这些事。一百分钟不止描述了路易斯是怎么杀掉12个人，有机会变成了阿斯特内公爵。后面还有转折，那就是他又如何在人生的最巅峰，一下子掉到人生的谷底。也还没完，我们来看看到底这个电影，一百分钟可以讲多少事情。 她说，这部电影当年的广告语很准确——“对优雅谋杀艺术的欢乐研究”。所以另外这个电影或者是说这种电影里面的谋杀，这种谋杀电影它很不一样，它在另外一种文类或另外一种类型。它不是让你对谋杀感觉到恐惧，也不是要帮我们研究谋杀来探案，把凶手找出来。我们一路都知道凶手是谁，重点在于那个谋杀本身是用喜剧的方式呈现的，杀得非常欢乐。当然，其实在这个欢乐背后，是一种令人不安的暧昧性质的，我们可以对这种谋杀看得这么高兴、这么快乐吗？ 来看她怎么样呈现谋杀。她说，有一个银行家的亲戚断然拒绝替这个男主角路易斯提供一个小职位，然后刚好这个银行家的儿子呢，带着情人到路易斯工作的布店来买东西，然后所以他有机会听，听听听，听到了他们要去偷情的饭店的名字。所以知道他怎么下手，他就带着毒药往那个饭店去了。 可是电影也没那么简单，它的欢乐在于有没有那么顺利。哎，人家是来偷情的，所以呢，基本上进了饭店，进了房间就不会出来了，干嘛要出来呢，一直呆在房间里。所以他没有机会下毒，好不容易等到第三天的下午，他们才出现，上流社会的这对男女、偷情的男女露面了。干嘛呢？因为在恋爱当中，所以去划船嬉戏，所以呢，路易斯也划船跟踪。但是人家在划船，你难道就有机会可以下毒吗？他们在饭桌的时候，一路一直在亲吻，毒药不可能有用武之地。人生处处是杀机。这是路易斯的机会，他注意到河边有一个警告，意思是“下午两点河坝排水，小船危险”。这个路易斯就偷偷跑过去，解开了这两个人站在热吻的那个小船的缆绳。于是那个小船进入到了河里面，“嘣——”一个排水下来的时候，河坝排水的时候，他们就被冲走了，这一个银行家的儿子就被解决了。 路易斯这是他第一次杀人，后面越来越轻松，原来没用上的毒药就用到他的牧师舅舅的身上。那我们看的时候，他杀了他舅舅，我们也不太难过；因为在这之前，我们跟他一样感觉到这个舅舅讲话好啰嗦，干脆死掉算了。另外，有一个搞“女权”的姨妈乘着热气球在空中布道，路易斯，很简单，他用一支箭射在那个热气球上，把热气球射出一个洞，“砰——”这个姨妈也没有了。一路神助一路歌，他本来没有机会接触到的海军上将舅舅，大自然帮了他的忙。“叭——”，船沉了掉到海里去。让他头疼、突然降生的家族双胞胎也迅速地被白喉夺走生命。而且这中间还有一个小插曲，他用炸药轰掉了他的一个表哥的生命；哦，这个表哥还有一个美丽的表嫂，这个表嫂呢，还没有服丧完毕，就愿意接受他的好感。 这样的一路，戏里面的路易斯他只管杀人，编导帮他断后。所有的血腥都在幕后，所以叫做“对优雅谋杀艺术的欢乐研究”，因为他是最优雅的杀人犯，甚至没有人怀疑过是他杀的。唯一怀疑过他杀人的，是他的初恋女友，他的现在的情妇茜蓓拉。而茜蓓拉跟美丽尊贵的表嫂不一样，因为在她的人生当中，她跟路易斯是同一种人，没有道德或者是伦理的约束。 所以，再下来，当路易斯完成了他的复仇之后，却莫名其妙发生了一件事。他被关起来，被控以“杀人罪”，但是他被控以的杀人罪，不是他所杀的真正杀的这些亲戚当中的任何一桩案件。是茜蓓拉，发现了这个路易斯，爱上了他的表嫂，可能要娶他的表嫂，她很生气，所以她就陷害了路易斯。她“发明”了一桩跟路易斯完全无关的谋杀罪，那是她丈夫的死，她把它赖到路易斯身上。所以路易斯虽然杀了这么多人，结果他是以一桩他根本没有犯的杀人罪，几乎要被判处死刑，要执行死刑。到他临死之前、临刑之前，这个茜蓓拉就给了路易斯一个最后的机会：如果你放弃你的表嫂，你愿意娶我，我就帮你翻案。路易斯当然只好接受这个初恋女友茜蓓拉的条件。可以说，老牌的杀人犯栽在新手杀人犯的手里，所以编导再一次调戏了路易斯“史前史”一般的杀人的手法：哇，这已经真的不知道死了多少人。 但影片还没结束。因为到了最后、影片的最后，路易斯他从监狱里面被放出来。一出来呢，哎呀，两辆马车在那，两个人在等他。一个是茜蓓拉，一个是尊贵的表嫂，他上了一辆马车呢？他怎么做他人生的这个决策呢？就在这个时候，另外一个镜头告诉我们，这个时候他再做什么决策，没有用了、没有意义了。为什么呢？因为在监狱里面，他已经被判了死刑，他觉得自己完蛋了，因此呢，他就在监狱里面，把他自己怎么样一路谋杀，把这些阿斯特内公爵的继承人一一地收拾掉的这个过程，都写在他的实录里面。而这份实录，当他要出狱的时候，他忘了，他把它丢在监狱里面。换句话说，只要有人找到了这份实录，他又要被关回去，而且呢，天理昭彰，他就必须要付出他的代价。 电影到这里结束了。这真的很有趣，有趣的地方就在于毛尖用这种方法，帮我们介绍了我们没有看过的一部电影。但是只要对于电影史、看电影看得稍微多一点的人，你也就能明白了解，在这种状况底下，这部电影的意义跟它的特殊性，毛尖完全把它给彰显了出来。而且毛尖不只是能够写这种我们没看过的电影，看到我们觉得没看过这个电影，都觉得对这个电影可以那么样的熟悉。对于一些影史上面非常大有名气的经典的作品，她也有、她也可以用不同的方法来帮我们描述它的意义。 例如说《断了气》（英文译名：Breathless），这是高达（及法国导演让-吕克·戈达尔）的重要的经典的作品。所以在讲《断了气》的时候，毛尖就不讲故事了，因为她意识到我们大部分的人会喜欢看这种文章，你知道《断了气》所讲的故事，但是她要彰显出她自己所看到的非常不一样的意义，延续着我们前面、刚刚所说的《仁心与冠冕》的那个电影上的意义。这里，《断了气》，毛尖告诉我们，它不止拒绝了道德判断，还拒绝了感情判断。在存在主义的意义上，这个女主角，她一劳永逸地把男主角送入了“美学的高地”，未来的杀人犯都将在美学与哲学意义上接受电影的审判。一言以蔽之，在杀人的这件事情上，电影将变得越来越不道德。 用这种方式来帮我们整理什么叫做谋杀电影，什么叫做电影跟杀人之间的关系，这不过就是其中她写电影小史一个主题而已。从“杀人”接下来她就联系到“火车”——各式各样非常有趣的题目。用这种方式，毛尖显现了她在电影的丰富的知识；更重要的，她帮我们在文章里面记录了非常独特的一些观点跟解释。这本书叫做《夜短梦长》，介绍给大家，推荐给大家。 注：“杨照书话”系列节目由杨照和方所联合制作。本音频和文字稿由方所剪辑和编写而成，版权所有。若需转载，请注明来源及出处。

Show rundown:Oscars talk: 0:00-13:25Our thoughts on The Gentleman: 13:30-26:46Talking Kind Hearts and Coronets: 26:49-4505Outro / next week's movies Bad Boys For Life and The Lodge: 45:19-46:30If you want to check out more Korean films, Jon's suggestions include:OldboyThe HandmaidenBurningMotherThe HostThe WailingI Saw the DevilMemories of MurderHere are the links and stories we mentioned this episode:Justin Chang on what Parasite's win means for the movie industryJessica's thread on the Oscars and the recent history of picking political winners during election yearsJoseph Kahn's take on Parasite and North KoreaThe trailer for another Bong Joon-ho joint about class, SnowpiercerA good read from IndieWire on some of the old movie influences of Wes AndersonSome background on the novel Kind Hearts and Coronets is based on, Israel RankTell us what movies you want us to talk about! Drop us a line at reelobsessedpodcast@gmail.comOr find us on Letterboxd: jesswelman - jonturner18 - beauevansJess and Jon are on Twitter @jesswelman @PearlJammed - Beau may learn how to use social media one day, stay tuned!

With Oscar nominations this week, we have even more contenders back in theaters this week, but SIFF continues it’s Agnès Varda retrospective with the charming Faces Places and The Beacon Cinema screens a personal favorite – the Alec Guinness comedy Kind Hearts and Coronets. Episode Links Full Almanac Listing Art-House Cinema in Western Washington Ark … Continue reading "Seattle Cinema Almanac – January 17, 2020" The post Seattle Cinema Almanac – January 17, 2020 appeared first on Cinema Cocktail.

     This week we sing a song of the season but forget most of the choruses. First Tyler brings some French Hens with a French romantic drama in the shape of 2013's Blue is the Warmest Color.      We take aim at a dozen or so lords a-leaping using the best of all English traditions, murdering an extended family for power. Original Obi Wan won't know what hits him... again and again and again in the search for Kind Hearts and Coronets.     Nick Cannon is in Drumline. It's a movie about a drumline which is what you call a group of drummers drumming.     Finally, we learn that Craig is not in the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and believes that chickens are geese or calling birds maybe? I don't know. It's a flimsy excuse to force Death Laid an Egg on us. There is no bitterness over this. Nope. None at all.     All that and Tyler feels the Force, Kevin takes a very special Hallmark star hostage until they love him, and Dave faces his midlife crisis with much whimpering. Join us, won't you?Episode 134- A 4 Out of 12 Christmas

Nosing around Osterley House, currently owned and run by the National Trust, Matthew Sweet and guests discuss our enduring fascination with the grand country estate. Countless stories, films and plays are set in the rarefied and actually very rare setting of the country estate, a world of valets and scullery maids, viscounts and self-mades, Kind Hearts and Coronets. This year has seen the TV series Downtown Abbey become a film. Every weekend hundreds of thousands of us visit the former homes of the 1% to gawp at the gardens and taste the tea. Have they become a place of reflection, of societal introspection where history was conceived and carved into the plaster? Or is it more about the lovely chutney and special scones? And what might visitors a hundred years from now expect to see about the current period of these houses' history? Alison Light is a historian and author who has written about the realities of life in service. Her latest book, A Radical Romance, is out now by Penguin Random House. Will Harris is a poet who has worked on several projects exploring heritage and empire. https://willjharris.com/about/ John Chu has curated an exhibition, Treasures of Osterley: Rise of a Banking Family which runs at Osterley House in West London until 23rd Feb 2020. https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/features/treasures-of-osterley-exhibition-at-osterley-park Annie Reilly is Head of Producing at the National Trust, Ffion George is the incumbent housekeeper at Osterley House. Producer: Alex Mansfield

Josh has been noodling away on potential Game of the Year games, like Astral Chain and Sayonara Wild Hearts, while Rich has been playing Simulacra, and Imogen has been planning revenge on Rich for last week's quiz. Visit videogamer.com for all your news, reviews, videos, and features on videogames! Follow us on all your favourite social networks! Twitter - twitter.com/VideoGamerCom VideoGamer Podcast Theme composed by Adam Cook Additional music provided by Andy B and Colm Ahern.

How do you make a film about a sociopath who murders his entire extended family and still get the audience to root for him? The post 367. Kind Hearts and Coronets appeared first on Steven Benedict.

Obviously given our reference to it last week the powers that be decided it was an opportune time to re-release this 70 year old classic!

Like a mythical bird rising from the ashes, the X-Men return to our screens this week hoping to undo the damage caused by 2016’s Apocalypse – but does Dark Phoenix catch fire or simply fizzle out? Michael Leader, Simran Hans and Kambole Campbell are on hand to help you decide whether it’s worth the trip, while also offering their thoughts on Sebastián Lelio’s muted midlife crisis drama, Gloria Bell, starring Julianne Moore and John Turturro. Lastly, the classic Ealing comedy Kind Hearts and Coronets is reappraised ahead of its 70th anniversary re-release in our Film Club. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In this episode we recap three wonderful films from Day 3 of the Turner Classic Movies Film Festival: Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949), Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), and Star Wars (1977).  Join us tomorrow for our final episode discussing the TCM Film Festival.

Welcome to episode twenty-eight of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs. Today we’re looking at The Moonglows and “Sincerely”. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode.  —-more—- Resources As always, I’ve created a Mixcloud streaming playlist with full versions of all the songs in the episode. For the background on Charlie Fuqua, see episode six, on the Ink Spots. There are no books on the Moonglows, but as always with vocal groups of the fifties, Marv Goldberg has an exhaustively-researched page from which I got most of the information about them. The information on Alan Freed comes from Big Beat Heat: Alan Freed and the Early Years of Rock & Roll by John A. Jackson. And this compilation contains every recording by every lineup of Moonglows and Moonlighters, apart from the brief 1970s reunion. Patreon This podcast is brought to you by the generosity of my backers on Patreon. Why not join them? Transcript [13 seconds of Intro from a recording of Alan Freed: “Hello, everybody, how you all? This is Alan Freed, the old King of the Moondoggers, and a hearty welcome to all our thousands of friends in Northern Ohio, Ontario Canada, Western New York, Western Pennsylvania, West Virginia. Long about eleven thirty, fifteen minutes from now, we’ll be joining the Moondog Network…”] Chess Records is one of those labels, like Sun or Stax or PWL, which defined a whole genre. And in the case of Chess, the genre it defined was the electric Chicago blues. People like Muddy Waters, Elmore James, Howlin’ Wolf, Little Walter, and Willie Dixon all cut some of their most important recordings for the Chess label. I remember when I was just starting to buy records as a child, decades after the events we’re talking about, I knew before I left primary school that Chess, like Sun, was one of the two record labels that consistently put out music that I liked. And yet when it started out, Chess Records was just one of dozens of tiny little indie blues labels, like Modern, or RPM, or King Records, or Duke or Peacock, many of which were even putting out records by the same people who were recording for Chess. So this episode is actually part one of a trilogy, and over the next three episodes, we’re going to talk about how Chess ended up being the one label that defined that music in the eyes of many listeners, and how that music fed into early rock and roll. And today we’re also going to talk about how it ended up being influential in the formation of another of those important record labels. And to talk about that, we’re going to talk about Harvey Fuqua [Foo-kwah]. Yes, Fuqua. Even though we talked about his uncle, Charlie Fuqua [Foo-kway], back in the episode on the Ink Spots, apparently Harvey pronounced his name differently from his uncle. As you might imagine, having an uncle in the most important black vocal group in history gave young Harvey Fuqua quite an impetus, even though the two of them weren’t close. Fuqua started a duo with his friend Bobby Lester after they both got out of the military. Fuqua would play piano, and they would both sing. The two of them had a small amount of success, touring the South, but then shortly after their first tour Fuqua had about the worst thing possible happen to him — there was a fire, and both his children died in it. Understandably, he didn’t want to stay in Louisville Kentucky, where he’d been raising his family, so he and his wife moved to Cleveland. When he got to Cleveland, he met up again with an old friend from his military days, Danny Coggins. The two of them started performing together with a bass singer, Prentiss Barnes, under the name The Crazy Sounds. The style they were performing in was called “vocalese”, and it’s a really odd style of jazz singing that’s… the easiest way to explain it is the opposite of scat singing. In scat, you improvise a new melody with nonsense lyrics [demonstrates] — that’s the standard form of jazz singing, other than just singing the song straight. It’s what Louis Armstrong or Ella Fitzgerald or whoever would do. In vocalese, on the other hand, you do the opposite. You come up with proper lyrics, not just nonsense syllables, and you put them to a pre-recorded melody. The twist is that the pre-recorded melody you choose is a melody that’s already been improvised by an instrumentalist. So for example, you could take Coleman Hawkins’ great sax solo on “Body and Soul”: [Excerpt: Coleman Hawkins, “Body and Soul”] Hawkins improvised that melody line, and it was a one-off performance — every other time he played the song he’d play it differently. But Eddie Jefferson, who is credited as the inventor of vocalese, learned Hawkins’ solo, added words, and sang this: [Excerpt: Eddie Jefferson, “Body and Soul”] The Crazy Sounds performed this kind of music as a vocal trio for a while, but their sound was missing something, and eventually Fuqua travelled down to Kentucky and persuaded Bobby Lester to move to Cleveland and join the Crazy Sounds. They became a four-piece, and slowly started writing their own new material in a more R&B style. They performed together a little, and eventually auditioned at a club called the Loop, where they were heard by a blues singer called Al “Fats” Thomas. Thomas apparently recorded for several labels, but this is the only one of his records I can find a copy of anywhere, on the Chess subsidiary Checker, from right around the time we’re talking about in 1952: [Excerpt: Al “Fats” Thomas, “Baby Please No No”] Fats Thomas was very impressed by the Crazy Sounds, and immediately phoned his friend, the DJ Alan Freed. Alan Freed is a difficult character to explain, and his position in rock and roll history is a murky one. He was the first superstar DJ, and he was the person who more than anyone else made the phrase “rock and roll” into a term for a style of music, rather than, as it had been, just a phrase that was used in some of that music. Freed had not started out as a rhythm and blues or rock and roll DJ, and in fact had no great love for the music when he started playing it on his show. He was a lover of classical music — particularly Wagner, whose music he loved so much that he named one of his daughters Sieglinde. But he named his first daughter Alana, which shows his other great love, which was for himself. Freed had been a DJ for several years when he was first introduced to rhythm and blues music, and he’d played a mixture of big band music and light classical, depending on what the audience wanted. But then, in 1951, something changed. Freed met Leo Mintz, the owner of a record shop named Record Rendezvous, in a bar. Mintz discovered that Freed was a DJ and took him to the shop. Freed later mythologised this moment, as he did a lot of his life, by talking about how he was shocked to see white teenagers dancing to music made by black people, and he had a sort of Damascene conversion and immediately decided to devote his show to rhythm and blues. The reality is far more prosaic. Mintz, whose business actually mostly sold to black people at this point, decided that if there was a rhythm and blues radio show then it would boost business to his shop, especially if Mintz paid for the radio show and so bought all the advertising on it. He took Freed to the shop to show him that there was indeed an audience for that kind of music, and Freed was impressed, but said that he didn’t know anything about rhythm and blues music. Mintz said that that didn’t matter. Mintz would pick the records — they’d be the ones that he wanted his customers to buy — and tell Freed what to play. All Freed had to do was to play the ones he was told and everything would work out fine. The music Mintz had played for Freed was, according to Freed later, people like LaVern Baker — who had not yet become at all well known outside Detroit and Chicago at the time — but Mintz set about putting together selections of records that Freed should play. Those records were mostly things with gospel-sounding vocals, a dance beat, or honking saxophones, and Freed found that his audiences responded astonishingly well to it. Freed would often interject during records, and would bang his fists on the table or other objects in time to the beat, including a cowbell that he had on his desk — apparently some of his listeners would be annoyed when they bought the records he played to find out half the sounds they’d heard weren’t on the record at all. Freed took the stage name “Moondog”, after a blind New York street musician and outsider artist of that name. Freed’s theme song for his radio show was “Moondog Symphony”, by Moondog, a one-man-band performance credited to “Moondog (by himself) playing drums, maracas, claves, gourds, hollow legs, Chinese block and cymbals.” [Excerpt: “Moondog Symphony” by Moondog] When Fats Thomas got the Crazy Sounds an audition with Freed, Freed was impressed enough that he offered them a management contract. Being managed by the biggest DJ in the city was obviously a good idea, so they took him up on that, and took his advice about how to make themselves more commercial, including changing their name to emphasise the connection to Freed. They became first the Moonpuppies and then the Moonglows. Freed set up his own record label, Champagne Records, and released the Moonglows’ first single, “I Just Can’t Tell No Lie”: [Excerpt, “I Just Can’t Tell No Lie”, the Moonglows] According to Freed’s biographer John A. Jackson, Freed provided additional percussion on that song, hitting a telephone book in time with the rhythm as he would on his show. I don’t hear any percussion on there other than the drum kit, but maybe you can, if you have better ears than me. This was a song that had been written by the Moonglows themselves, but when the record came out, both sides were credited to Al Lance — which was a pseudonym for Alan Freed. And so the DJ who was pushing their record on the radio was also their manager, and the owner of the record company, and the credited songwriter. Unsurprisingly, then, Freed promoted “I Just Can’t Tell No Lie” heavily on his radio show, but it did nothing anywhere outside of Cleveland and the immediately surrounding area. Danny Coggins quit the group, fed up with their lack of success, and he was replaced by a singer who variously went under the names Alex Graves, Alex Walton, Pete Graves, and Pete Walton. Freed closed down Champagne Records. For a time it looked like the Moonglows’ career was going to have peaked with their one single, as Freed signed another vocal group, the Coronets, and got them signed to Chess Records in Chicago. Chess was a blues label, which had started in 1947 as Aristocrat Records, but in 1948 it was bought out by two brothers, Leonard and Phil Chess, who had emigrated from Poland as children and Anglicised their names. Their father was in the liquor business during the Prohibition era, which in Chicago meant he was involved with Al Capone, and in their twenties the Chess brothers had started running nightclubs in the black area of Chicago. Chess, at its start, had the artists who had originally recorded for Aristocrat — people like Muddy Waters and Sunnyland Slim, and they also licensed records made by Sam Phillips in Memphis, and because of that put out early recordings by Howlin’ Wolf, before just poaching Wolf for their own label, and Jackie Brenston’s “Rocket 88”. By 1954, thanks largely to their in-house bass player and songwriter Willie Dixon, Chess had become known as the home of electric Chicago blues, and were putting out classic after classic in that genre. But they were still interested in putting out other styles of black music too, and were happy to sign up doo-wop groups. The Coronets put out a single, “Nadine”, on Chess, which did very well. The credited writer was Alan Freed: [Excerpt: “Nadine”, the Coronets] The Coronets’ follow-up single did less well, though, and Chess dropped them. But Freed had been trying for some time to make a parallel career as a concert promoter, and indeed a few months before he signed the Moonglows to a management contract he had put on what is now considered the first major rock and roll concert — the Moondog Coronation Ball, at the Cleveland Arena. That show had been Freed’s first inkling of just how popular he and the music he was playing were becoming — twenty thousand people tried to get into the show, even though the arena only had a capacity of ten thousand, and the show had to be cancelled after the first song by the first performer, because it was becoming unsafe to continue. But Freed put on further shows at the arena, with better organisation, and in August 1953 he put on “the Big Rhythm and Blues Show”. This featured Fats Domino and Big Joe Turner, and the Moonglows were also put on the bill. As a result of their appearance on the show, they got signed to Chance Records, a small label whose biggest act was the doo-wop group The Flamingos. Freed didn’t own this label of course, but by this time he’d got into the record distribution business, and the distribution company he co-owned was Chance’s distributor in the Cleveland area. The other co-owner was the owner of Chance Records, and Freed’s brother was the distributor’s vice-president and in charge of running it. The Moonglows’ first single on Chance, a Christmas single, did nothing in the charts, but they followed it with a rather unusual choice. “Secret Love” was a hit for Doris Day, from the soundtrack of her film “Calamity Jane”: [Excerpt: Doris Day, “Secret Love”] In the context of the film, which has a certain amount of what we would now call queerbaiting, that song can be read as a song about lesbianism or bisexuality. But that didn’t stop a lot of male artists covering it for other markets. We’ve talked before about how popular songs would be recorded in different genres, and so Day’s pop version was accompanied by Slim Whitman’s country version and by this by the Moonglows: [Excerpt: the Moonglows, “Secret Love”] Unfortunately, a fortnight after the Moonglows released their version, the Orioles, who were a much more successful doo-wop group, released their own record of the song, and the two competed for the same market. However, “Secret Love” did well enough, given a promotional push by Freed, that it became apparent that the Moonglows could have a proper career. It sold over a hundred thousand copies, but then the next few records on Chance failed to sell, and Chance closed down when their biggest act, the Flamingos, moved first to Parrot Records, and then quickly on to Chess. It seemed like everything was against the Moonglows, but they were about to get a big boost, thanks in part to a strike. WINS radio in New York had been taken over at a rock-bottom price by an investment consortium who wanted to turn the money-losing station into a money-maker. It had a powerful transmitter, and if they could boost listenership they would almost certainly be able to sell it on at a massive profit. One of the first things the new owners did was to sack their house band — they weren’t going to pay musicians any more, as live music was too expensive. This caused the American Federation of Musicians to picket the station, which was expected and understandable. But WINS also had the broadcast rights to the New York Yankees games — indeed, the ball games were the only really popular thing that the station had. And so the AFM started to picket Yankee Stadium too. On the week of the starting game for what looked to be the Yankees’ sixth World Series win in a row. That game would normally have had the opening ball thrown by the Mayor of New York, but the Mayor, Robert Wagner, rather admirably refused to cross a picket line. The Bronx borough president substituted for him — and threw the opening ball right into the stomach of a newspaper photographer. WINS now desperately needed something to go right for them, and they realised Freed’s immense drawing power. They signed him for the unprecedented sum of seventy-five thousand dollars a year, and Freed moved from the mid-market town of Cleveland to a huge, powerful, transmitter in New York. He instantly became the most popular DJ in New York, and probably the best-known DJ in the world. And with his great power came record labels wanting to do Freed favours. He was already friends with the Chess brothers, and with the sure knowledge that any record the Moonglows put out would get airplay from Freed, they eagerly signed the Moonglows and put out “Sincerely”: [Excerpt: The Moonglows, “Sincerely”] “Sincerely” featured Bobby Lester on lead vocals, but the song was written by Harvey Fuqua. Or, as the label credited it, Harvey Fuqua and Alan Freed. But while those were the two credited writers, the song owes more than a little to another one. Here’s the bridge for “Sincerely”: [Excerpt: The Moonglows, “Sincerely”] And here’s the bridge for “That’s What You’re Doing to Me” by Billy Ward and the Dominoes, written by Billy Ward and sung by Clyde McPhatter: [Excerpt: The Dominoes, “That’s What You’re Doing to Me”] So while I’m critical of Freed for taking credit where it’s not deserved, it should be remembered that Fuqua wasn’t completely clean when it came to this song either. “Sincerely” rose to number one on the R&B charts, thanks in large part to Freed’s promotion. It knocked “Earth Angel” off the top, and was in turn knocked off by “Pledging My Love”, and it did relatively well in the pop charts, although once again it was kept off the top of the pop charts by an insipid white cover version, this time by the McGuire Sisters: [Excerpt: The McGuire Sisters, “Sincerely”] Chess wanted to make as much out of the Moonglows as they could, and so they decided to release records by the group under multiple names and on multiple labels. So while the Moonglows were slowly rising up the charts on Chess, The Moonlighters put out another single, “My Loving Baby”, on Checker: [Excerpt: the Moonlighters, “My Loving Baby”] There were two Moonlighters singles in total, though neither did well enough for them to continue under that name, and on top of that they also provided backing vocals on records by other Chess artists. Most notably, they sang the backing vocals on “Diddley Daddy” by Bo Diddley: [Excerpt Bo Diddley, “Diddley Daddy”] The Moonglows or Moonlighters weren’t the only ones performing under new names though. The real Moondog had, once Freed came to New York, realised that Freed had taken his name, and sued him. Freed had to pay Moondog five thousand seven hundred dollars, and stop calling himself Moondog. He had to switch to using his real name. And along with this, he changed the name of his show to “The Rock and Roll Party”. The term “rock and roll” had been used in various contexts before, of course — the theme for this series in fact comes from almost twenty years before this, but it had not been applied to a form of music on a regular basis. Freed didn’t want to get into the same trouble with the phrase “rock and roll” as he had with the name “Moondog”, and so he formed a company, Seig Music, which was owned by himself, the promoter Lew Platt, WINS radio, and the gangs–. I’m sorry, the legitimate businessman and music publisher Morris Levy. We’ll be hearing more about Levy later. This company trademarked the phrase “rock and roll” (the book I got this information from says they copyrighted the phrase, but I think that’s a confusion between copyright and trademark law on the writer’s part) and started using it for Freed’s now-branded “Rock and Roll Shows”, both on radio and on stage. The only problem was that the phrase caught on too much, thanks to Freed’s incessant use of the phrase on his show — there was no possible way they were going to be able to collect royalties from everyone who was using it, and so that particular money-making scheme faltered. The Moonglows, on the other hand, had a run of minor hits. None were as big as “Sincerely”, but they had five R&B top ten hits and a bunch more in the top twenty. The most notable, and the one people remember, is “Ten Commandments of Love”, from 1958: [excerpt: “Ten Commandments of Love”, Harvey and the Moonglows] But that song wasn’t released as by “the Moonglows”, but by “Harvey and the Moonglows”. There was increasing tension between the different members of the band, and songs started to be released as by Harvey and the Moonglows or by Bobby Lester and the Moonglows, as Chess faced the fact that the group’s two lead singers would go their separate ways. Chess had been contacted by some Detroit-based songwriters, who were setting up a new label, Anna, and wanted Chess to take over the distribution for it. By this point, Harvey Fuqua had divorced his first wife, and was working for Chess in the backroom as well as as an artist, and he was asked by Leonard Chess to go over and work with this new label. He did — and he married one of the people involved, Gwen Gordy. Gwen and her brother ended up setting up a lot of different labels, and Harvey got to run a few of them himself — there was Try-Phi, and Harvey Records. There was a whole family of different record labels owned by the same family, and they soon became quite successful. But at the same time, he was still performing and recording for Chess. We heard one of his singles, a duet with Etta James, in the episode on The Wallflower, but it’s so good we might as well play a bit of it again here: [Excerpt: Harvey Fuqua and Etta James, “Spoonful”] But at the same time both Bobby Lester and Harvey Fuqua were performing with rival groups of Moonglows, who both continued recording for Chess. Harvey’s Moonglows was an entire other vocal group, a group from Washington DC called the Marquees, who’d had one single out, “Wyatt Earp”. That single had been co-written by Bo Diddley, a Chess artist who had tried to get the group signed to Chess. When they’d been turned down, Diddley took them to Okeh instead: [Excerpt: the Marquees, “Wyatt Earp”] Fuqua hired the Marquees and renamed them, and they recorded several tracks as Harvey and the Moonglows, and while none of them were very successful commercially, some of them were musically interesting. This one in particular featured a lead from a great young vocalist who would in 1963 become Harvey Fuqua’s brother-in-law, when he married Gwen’s sister Anna: [Excerpt: Harvey and the Moonglows, “Mama Loocie”] That record didn’t do much, but that singer was to go on to bigger and better things, as was Harvey Fuqua, when one of the Gordy family’s labels became a little bit better known than the rest, with Fuqua working for it as a record producer and head of artist development. But the story of Motown Records, and of that singer, Marvin Gaye, is for another time. Next week, we’re going to continue the Chess story, with a look at another song that Alan Freed got a co-writing credit for. Come back in a week’s time to hear the story of how Chuck Berry came up with Maybellene. [Excerpt: Alan Freed’s final signoff]

Welcome to episode twenty-eight of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs. Today we're looking at The Moonglows and "Sincerely". Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode.  ----more---- Resources As always, I've created a Mixcloud streaming playlist with full versions of all the songs in the episode. For the background on Charlie Fuqua, see episode six, on the Ink Spots. There are no books on the Moonglows, but as always with vocal groups of the fifties, Marv Goldberg has an exhaustively-researched page from which I got most of the information about them. The information on Alan Freed comes from Big Beat Heat: Alan Freed and the Early Years of Rock & Roll by John A. Jackson. And this compilation contains every recording by every lineup of Moonglows and Moonlighters, apart from the brief 1970s reunion. Patreon This podcast is brought to you by the generosity of my backers on Patreon. Why not join them? Transcript [13 seconds of Intro from a recording of Alan Freed: “Hello, everybody, how you all? This is Alan Freed, the old King of the Moondoggers, and a hearty welcome to all our thousands of friends in Northern Ohio, Ontario Canada, Western New York, Western Pennsylvania, West Virginia. Long about eleven thirty, fifteen minutes from now, we'll be joining the Moondog Network...”] Chess Records is one of those labels, like Sun or Stax or PWL, which defined a whole genre. And in the case of Chess, the genre it defined was the electric Chicago blues. People like Muddy Waters, Elmore James, Howlin' Wolf, Little Walter, and Willie Dixon all cut some of their most important recordings for the Chess label. I remember when I was just starting to buy records as a child, decades after the events we're talking about, I knew before I left primary school that Chess, like Sun, was one of the two record labels that consistently put out music that I liked. And yet when it started out, Chess Records was just one of dozens of tiny little indie blues labels, like Modern, or RPM, or King Records, or Duke or Peacock, many of which were even putting out records by the same people who were recording for Chess. So this episode is actually part one of a trilogy, and over the next three episodes, we're going to talk about how Chess ended up being the one label that defined that music in the eyes of many listeners, and how that music fed into early rock and roll. And today we're also going to talk about how it ended up being influential in the formation of another of those important record labels. And to talk about that, we're going to talk about Harvey Fuqua [Foo-kwah]. Yes, Fuqua. Even though we talked about his uncle, Charlie Fuqua [Foo-kway], back in the episode on the Ink Spots, apparently Harvey pronounced his name differently from his uncle. As you might imagine, having an uncle in the most important black vocal group in history gave young Harvey Fuqua quite an impetus, even though the two of them weren't close. Fuqua started a duo with his friend Bobby Lester after they both got out of the military. Fuqua would play piano, and they would both sing. The two of them had a small amount of success, touring the South, but then shortly after their first tour Fuqua had about the worst thing possible happen to him -- there was a fire, and both his children died in it. Understandably, he didn't want to stay in Louisville Kentucky, where he'd been raising his family, so he and his wife moved to Cleveland. When he got to Cleveland, he met up again with an old friend from his military days, Danny Coggins. The two of them started performing together with a bass singer, Prentiss Barnes, under the name The Crazy Sounds. The style they were performing in was called "vocalese", and it's a really odd style of jazz singing that's... the easiest way to explain it is the opposite of scat singing. In scat, you improvise a new melody with nonsense lyrics [demonstrates] -- that's the standard form of jazz singing, other than just singing the song straight. It's what Louis Armstrong or Ella Fitzgerald or whoever would do. In vocalese, on the other hand, you do the opposite. You come up with proper lyrics, not just nonsense syllables, and you put them to a pre-recorded melody. The twist is that the pre-recorded melody you choose is a melody that's already been improvised by an instrumentalist. So for example, you could take Coleman Hawkins' great sax solo on "Body and Soul": [Excerpt: Coleman Hawkins, "Body and Soul"] Hawkins improvised that melody line, and it was a one-off performance -- every other time he played the song he'd play it differently. But Eddie Jefferson, who is credited as the inventor of vocalese, learned Hawkins' solo, added words, and sang this: [Excerpt: Eddie Jefferson, "Body and Soul"] The Crazy Sounds performed this kind of music as a vocal trio for a while, but their sound was missing something, and eventually Fuqua travelled down to Kentucky and persuaded Bobby Lester to move to Cleveland and join the Crazy Sounds. They became a four-piece, and slowly started writing their own new material in a more R&B style. They performed together a little, and eventually auditioned at a club called the Loop, where they were heard by a blues singer called Al "Fats" Thomas. Thomas apparently recorded for several labels, but this is the only one of his records I can find a copy of anywhere, on the Chess subsidiary Checker, from right around the time we're talking about in 1952: [Excerpt: Al "Fats" Thomas, "Baby Please No No"] Fats Thomas was very impressed by the Crazy Sounds, and immediately phoned his friend, the DJ Alan Freed. Alan Freed is a difficult character to explain, and his position in rock and roll history is a murky one. He was the first superstar DJ, and he was the person who more than anyone else made the phrase "rock and roll" into a term for a style of music, rather than, as it had been, just a phrase that was used in some of that music. Freed had not started out as a rhythm and blues or rock and roll DJ, and in fact had no great love for the music when he started playing it on his show. He was a lover of classical music -- particularly Wagner, whose music he loved so much that he named one of his daughters Sieglinde. But he named his first daughter Alana, which shows his other great love, which was for himself. Freed had been a DJ for several years when he was first introduced to rhythm and blues music, and he'd played a mixture of big band music and light classical, depending on what the audience wanted. But then, in 1951, something changed. Freed met Leo Mintz, the owner of a record shop named Record Rendezvous, in a bar. Mintz discovered that Freed was a DJ and took him to the shop. Freed later mythologised this moment, as he did a lot of his life, by talking about how he was shocked to see white teenagers dancing to music made by black people, and he had a sort of Damascene conversion and immediately decided to devote his show to rhythm and blues. The reality is far more prosaic. Mintz, whose business actually mostly sold to black people at this point, decided that if there was a rhythm and blues radio show then it would boost business to his shop, especially if Mintz paid for the radio show and so bought all the advertising on it. He took Freed to the shop to show him that there was indeed an audience for that kind of music, and Freed was impressed, but said that he didn't know anything about rhythm and blues music. Mintz said that that didn't matter. Mintz would pick the records -- they'd be the ones that he wanted his customers to buy -- and tell Freed what to play. All Freed had to do was to play the ones he was told and everything would work out fine. The music Mintz had played for Freed was, according to Freed later, people like LaVern Baker -- who had not yet become at all well known outside Detroit and Chicago at the time -- but Mintz set about putting together selections of records that Freed should play. Those records were mostly things with gospel-sounding vocals, a dance beat, or honking saxophones, and Freed found that his audiences responded astonishingly well to it. Freed would often interject during records, and would bang his fists on the table or other objects in time to the beat, including a cowbell that he had on his desk -- apparently some of his listeners would be annoyed when they bought the records he played to find out half the sounds they'd heard weren't on the record at all. Freed took the stage name "Moondog", after a blind New York street musician and outsider artist of that name. Freed's theme song for his radio show was "Moondog Symphony", by Moondog, a one-man-band performance credited to "Moondog (by himself) playing drums, maracas, claves, gourds, hollow legs, Chinese block and cymbals." [Excerpt: "Moondog Symphony" by Moondog] When Fats Thomas got the Crazy Sounds an audition with Freed, Freed was impressed enough that he offered them a management contract. Being managed by the biggest DJ in the city was obviously a good idea, so they took him up on that, and took his advice about how to make themselves more commercial, including changing their name to emphasise the connection to Freed. They became first the Moonpuppies and then the Moonglows. Freed set up his own record label, Champagne Records, and released the Moonglows' first single, "I Just Can't Tell No Lie": [Excerpt, "I Just Can't Tell No Lie", the Moonglows] According to Freed's biographer John A. Jackson, Freed provided additional percussion on that song, hitting a telephone book in time with the rhythm as he would on his show. I don't hear any percussion on there other than the drum kit, but maybe you can, if you have better ears than me. This was a song that had been written by the Moonglows themselves, but when the record came out, both sides were credited to Al Lance -- which was a pseudonym for Alan Freed. And so the DJ who was pushing their record on the radio was also their manager, and the owner of the record company, and the credited songwriter. Unsurprisingly, then, Freed promoted "I Just Can't Tell No Lie" heavily on his radio show, but it did nothing anywhere outside of Cleveland and the immediately surrounding area. Danny Coggins quit the group, fed up with their lack of success, and he was replaced by a singer who variously went under the names Alex Graves, Alex Walton, Pete Graves, and Pete Walton. Freed closed down Champagne Records. For a time it looked like the Moonglows' career was going to have peaked with their one single, as Freed signed another vocal group, the Coronets, and got them signed to Chess Records in Chicago. Chess was a blues label, which had started in 1947 as Aristocrat Records, but in 1948 it was bought out by two brothers, Leonard and Phil Chess, who had emigrated from Poland as children and Anglicised their names. Their father was in the liquor business during the Prohibition era, which in Chicago meant he was involved with Al Capone, and in their twenties the Chess brothers had started running nightclubs in the black area of Chicago. Chess, at its start, had the artists who had originally recorded for Aristocrat -- people like Muddy Waters and Sunnyland Slim, and they also licensed records made by Sam Phillips in Memphis, and because of that put out early recordings by Howlin' Wolf, before just poaching Wolf for their own label, and Jackie Brenston's "Rocket 88". By 1954, thanks largely to their in-house bass player and songwriter Willie Dixon, Chess had become known as the home of electric Chicago blues, and were putting out classic after classic in that genre. But they were still interested in putting out other styles of black music too, and were happy to sign up doo-wop groups. The Coronets put out a single, "Nadine", on Chess, which did very well. The credited writer was Alan Freed: [Excerpt: "Nadine", the Coronets] The Coronets' follow-up single did less well, though, and Chess dropped them. But Freed had been trying for some time to make a parallel career as a concert promoter, and indeed a few months before he signed the Moonglows to a management contract he had put on what is now considered the first major rock and roll concert -- the Moondog Coronation Ball, at the Cleveland Arena. That show had been Freed's first inkling of just how popular he and the music he was playing were becoming -- twenty thousand people tried to get into the show, even though the arena only had a capacity of ten thousand, and the show had to be cancelled after the first song by the first performer, because it was becoming unsafe to continue. But Freed put on further shows at the arena, with better organisation, and in August 1953 he put on "the Big Rhythm and Blues Show". This featured Fats Domino and Big Joe Turner, and the Moonglows were also put on the bill. As a result of their appearance on the show, they got signed to Chance Records, a small label whose biggest act was the doo-wop group The Flamingos. Freed didn't own this label of course, but by this time he'd got into the record distribution business, and the distribution company he co-owned was Chance's distributor in the Cleveland area. The other co-owner was the owner of Chance Records, and Freed's brother was the distributor's vice-president and in charge of running it. The Moonglows' first single on Chance, a Christmas single, did nothing in the charts, but they followed it with a rather unusual choice. "Secret Love" was a hit for Doris Day, from the soundtrack of her film "Calamity Jane": [Excerpt: Doris Day, "Secret Love"] In the context of the film, which has a certain amount of what we would now call queerbaiting, that song can be read as a song about lesbianism or bisexuality. But that didn't stop a lot of male artists covering it for other markets. We've talked before about how popular songs would be recorded in different genres, and so Day's pop version was accompanied by Slim Whitman's country version and by this by the Moonglows: [Excerpt: the Moonglows, "Secret Love"] Unfortunately, a fortnight after the Moonglows released their version, the Orioles, who were a much more successful doo-wop group, released their own record of the song, and the two competed for the same market. However, "Secret Love" did well enough, given a promotional push by Freed, that it became apparent that the Moonglows could have a proper career. It sold over a hundred thousand copies, but then the next few records on Chance failed to sell, and Chance closed down when their biggest act, the Flamingos, moved first to Parrot Records, and then quickly on to Chess. It seemed like everything was against the Moonglows, but they were about to get a big boost, thanks in part to a strike. WINS radio in New York had been taken over at a rock-bottom price by an investment consortium who wanted to turn the money-losing station into a money-maker. It had a powerful transmitter, and if they could boost listenership they would almost certainly be able to sell it on at a massive profit. One of the first things the new owners did was to sack their house band -- they weren't going to pay musicians any more, as live music was too expensive. This caused the American Federation of Musicians to picket the station, which was expected and understandable. But WINS also had the broadcast rights to the New York Yankees games -- indeed, the ball games were the only really popular thing that the station had. And so the AFM started to picket Yankee Stadium too. On the week of the starting game for what looked to be the Yankees' sixth World Series win in a row. That game would normally have had the opening ball thrown by the Mayor of New York, but the Mayor, Robert Wagner, rather admirably refused to cross a picket line. The Bronx borough president substituted for him -- and threw the opening ball right into the stomach of a newspaper photographer. WINS now desperately needed something to go right for them, and they realised Freed's immense drawing power. They signed him for the unprecedented sum of seventy-five thousand dollars a year, and Freed moved from the mid-market town of Cleveland to a huge, powerful, transmitter in New York. He instantly became the most popular DJ in New York, and probably the best-known DJ in the world. And with his great power came record labels wanting to do Freed favours. He was already friends with the Chess brothers, and with the sure knowledge that any record the Moonglows put out would get airplay from Freed, they eagerly signed the Moonglows and put out "Sincerely": [Excerpt: The Moonglows, "Sincerely"] "Sincerely" featured Bobby Lester on lead vocals, but the song was written by Harvey Fuqua. Or, as the label credited it, Harvey Fuqua and Alan Freed. But while those were the two credited writers, the song owes more than a little to another one. Here's the bridge for "Sincerely": [Excerpt: The Moonglows, "Sincerely"] And here's the bridge for "That's What You're Doing to Me" by Billy Ward and the Dominoes, written by Billy Ward and sung by Clyde McPhatter: [Excerpt: The Dominoes, "That's What You're Doing to Me"] So while I'm critical of Freed for taking credit where it's not deserved, it should be remembered that Fuqua wasn't completely clean when it came to this song either. "Sincerely" rose to number one on the R&B charts, thanks in large part to Freed's promotion. It knocked "Earth Angel" off the top, and was in turn knocked off by "Pledging My Love", and it did relatively well in the pop charts, although once again it was kept off the top of the pop charts by an insipid white cover version, this time by the McGuire Sisters: [Excerpt: The McGuire Sisters, "Sincerely"] Chess wanted to make as much out of the Moonglows as they could, and so they decided to release records by the group under multiple names and on multiple labels. So while the Moonglows were slowly rising up the charts on Chess, The Moonlighters put out another single, "My Loving Baby", on Checker: [Excerpt: the Moonlighters, "My Loving Baby"] There were two Moonlighters singles in total, though neither did well enough for them to continue under that name, and on top of that they also provided backing vocals on records by other Chess artists. Most notably, they sang the backing vocals on "Diddley Daddy" by Bo Diddley: [Excerpt Bo Diddley, "Diddley Daddy"] The Moonglows or Moonlighters weren't the only ones performing under new names though. The real Moondog had, once Freed came to New York, realised that Freed had taken his name, and sued him. Freed had to pay Moondog five thousand seven hundred dollars, and stop calling himself Moondog. He had to switch to using his real name. And along with this, he changed the name of his show to "The Rock and Roll Party". The term "rock and roll" had been used in various contexts before, of course -- the theme for this series in fact comes from almost twenty years before this, but it had not been applied to a form of music on a regular basis. Freed didn't want to get into the same trouble with the phrase "rock and roll" as he had with the name "Moondog", and so he formed a company, Seig Music, which was owned by himself, the promoter Lew Platt, WINS radio, and the gangs–. I'm sorry, the legitimate businessman and music publisher Morris Levy. We'll be hearing more about Levy later. This company trademarked the phrase "rock and roll" (the book I got this information from says they copyrighted the phrase, but I think that's a confusion between copyright and trademark law on the writer's part) and started using it for Freed's now-branded "Rock and Roll Shows", both on radio and on stage. The only problem was that the phrase caught on too much, thanks to Freed's incessant use of the phrase on his show -- there was no possible way they were going to be able to collect royalties from everyone who was using it, and so that particular money-making scheme faltered. The Moonglows, on the other hand, had a run of minor hits. None were as big as "Sincerely", but they had five R&B top ten hits and a bunch more in the top twenty. The most notable, and the one people remember, is "Ten Commandments of Love", from 1958: [excerpt: "Ten Commandments of Love", Harvey and the Moonglows] But that song wasn't released as by "the Moonglows", but by "Harvey and the Moonglows". There was increasing tension between the different members of the band, and songs started to be released as by Harvey and the Moonglows or by Bobby Lester and the Moonglows, as Chess faced the fact that the group's two lead singers would go their separate ways. Chess had been contacted by some Detroit-based songwriters, who were setting up a new label, Anna, and wanted Chess to take over the distribution for it. By this point, Harvey Fuqua had divorced his first wife, and was working for Chess in the backroom as well as as an artist, and he was asked by Leonard Chess to go over and work with this new label. He did -- and he married one of the people involved, Gwen Gordy. Gwen and her brother ended up setting up a lot of different labels, and Harvey got to run a few of them himself -- there was Try-Phi, and Harvey Records. There was a whole family of different record labels owned by the same family, and they soon became quite successful. But at the same time, he was still performing and recording for Chess. We heard one of his singles, a duet with Etta James, in the episode on The Wallflower, but it's so good we might as well play a bit of it again here: [Excerpt: Harvey Fuqua and Etta James, "Spoonful"] But at the same time both Bobby Lester and Harvey Fuqua were performing with rival groups of Moonglows, who both continued recording for Chess. Harvey's Moonglows was an entire other vocal group, a group from Washington DC called the Marquees, who'd had one single out, "Wyatt Earp". That single had been co-written by Bo Diddley, a Chess artist who had tried to get the group signed to Chess. When they'd been turned down, Diddley took them to Okeh instead: [Excerpt: the Marquees, "Wyatt Earp"] Fuqua hired the Marquees and renamed them, and they recorded several tracks as Harvey and the Moonglows, and while none of them were very successful commercially, some of them were musically interesting. This one in particular featured a lead from a great young vocalist who would in 1963 become Harvey Fuqua's brother-in-law, when he married Gwen's sister Anna: [Excerpt: Harvey and the Moonglows, "Mama Loocie"] That record didn't do much, but that singer was to go on to bigger and better things, as was Harvey Fuqua, when one of the Gordy family's labels became a little bit better known than the rest, with Fuqua working for it as a record producer and head of artist development. But the story of Motown Records, and of that singer, Marvin Gaye, is for another time. Next week, we're going to continue the Chess story, with a look at another song that Alan Freed got a co-writing credit for. Come back in a week's time to hear the story of how Chuck Berry came up with Maybellene. [Excerpt: Alan Freed's final signoff]

Welcome to episode twenty-eight of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs. Today we’re looking at The Moonglows and “Sincerely”. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode.  —-more—- Resources As always, I’ve created a Mixcloud streaming playlist with full versions of all the songs in the episode. For the background on Charlie Fuqua, see episode six, on the Ink Spots. There are no books on the Moonglows, but as always with vocal groups of the fifties, Marv Goldberg has an exhaustively-researched page from which I got most of the information about them. The information on Alan Freed comes from Big Beat Heat: Alan Freed and the Early Years of Rock & Roll by John A. Jackson. And this compilation contains every recording by every lineup of Moonglows and Moonlighters, apart from the brief 1970s reunion. Patreon This podcast is brought to you by the generosity of my backers on Patreon. Why not join them? Transcript [13 seconds of Intro from a recording of Alan Freed: “Hello, everybody, how you all? This is Alan Freed, the old King of the Moondoggers, and a hearty welcome to all our thousands of friends in Northern Ohio, Ontario Canada, Western New York, Western Pennsylvania, West Virginia. Long about eleven thirty, fifteen minutes from now, we’ll be joining the Moondog Network…”] Chess Records is one of those labels, like Sun or Stax or PWL, which defined a whole genre. And in the case of Chess, the genre it defined was the electric Chicago blues. People like Muddy Waters, Elmore James, Howlin’ Wolf, Little Walter, and Willie Dixon all cut some of their most important recordings for the Chess label. I remember when I was just starting to buy records as a child, decades after the events we’re talking about, I knew before I left primary school that Chess, like Sun, was one of the two record labels that consistently put out music that I liked. And yet when it started out, Chess Records was just one of dozens of tiny little indie blues labels, like Modern, or RPM, or King Records, or Duke or Peacock, many of which were even putting out records by the same people who were recording for Chess. So this episode is actually part one of a trilogy, and over the next three episodes, we’re going to talk about how Chess ended up being the one label that defined that music in the eyes of many listeners, and how that music fed into early rock and roll. And today we’re also going to talk about how it ended up being influential in the formation of another of those important record labels. And to talk about that, we’re going to talk about Harvey Fuqua [Foo-kwah]. Yes, Fuqua. Even though we talked about his uncle, Charlie Fuqua [Foo-kway], back in the episode on the Ink Spots, apparently Harvey pronounced his name differently from his uncle. As you might imagine, having an uncle in the most important black vocal group in history gave young Harvey Fuqua quite an impetus, even though the two of them weren’t close. Fuqua started a duo with his friend Bobby Lester after they both got out of the military. Fuqua would play piano, and they would both sing. The two of them had a small amount of success, touring the South, but then shortly after their first tour Fuqua had about the worst thing possible happen to him — there was a fire, and both his children died in it. Understandably, he didn’t want to stay in Louisville Kentucky, where he’d been raising his family, so he and his wife moved to Cleveland. When he got to Cleveland, he met up again with an old friend from his military days, Danny Coggins. The two of them started performing together with a bass singer, Prentiss Barnes, under the name The Crazy Sounds. The style they were performing in was called “vocalese”, and it’s a really odd style of jazz singing that’s… the easiest way to explain it is the opposite of scat singing. In scat, you improvise a new melody with nonsense lyrics [demonstrates] — that’s the standard form of jazz singing, other than just singing the song straight. It’s what Louis Armstrong or Ella Fitzgerald or whoever would do. In vocalese, on the other hand, you do the opposite. You come up with proper lyrics, not just nonsense syllables, and you put them to a pre-recorded melody. The twist is that the pre-recorded melody you choose is a melody that’s already been improvised by an instrumentalist. So for example, you could take Coleman Hawkins’ great sax solo on “Body and Soul”: [Excerpt: Coleman Hawkins, “Body and Soul”] Hawkins improvised that melody line, and it was a one-off performance — every other time he played the song he’d play it differently. But Eddie Jefferson, who is credited as the inventor of vocalese, learned Hawkins’ solo, added words, and sang this: [Excerpt: Eddie Jefferson, “Body and Soul”] The Crazy Sounds performed this kind of music as a vocal trio for a while, but their sound was missing something, and eventually Fuqua travelled down to Kentucky and persuaded Bobby Lester to move to Cleveland and join the Crazy Sounds. They became a four-piece, and slowly started writing their own new material in a more R&B style. They performed together a little, and eventually auditioned at a club called the Loop, where they were heard by a blues singer called Al “Fats” Thomas. Thomas apparently recorded for several labels, but this is the only one of his records I can find a copy of anywhere, on the Chess subsidiary Checker, from right around the time we’re talking about in 1952: [Excerpt: Al “Fats” Thomas, “Baby Please No No”] Fats Thomas was very impressed by the Crazy Sounds, and immediately phoned his friend, the DJ Alan Freed. Alan Freed is a difficult character to explain, and his position in rock and roll history is a murky one. He was the first superstar DJ, and he was the person who more than anyone else made the phrase “rock and roll” into a term for a style of music, rather than, as it had been, just a phrase that was used in some of that music. Freed had not started out as a rhythm and blues or rock and roll DJ, and in fact had no great love for the music when he started playing it on his show. He was a lover of classical music — particularly Wagner, whose music he loved so much that he named one of his daughters Sieglinde. But he named his first daughter Alana, which shows his other great love, which was for himself. Freed had been a DJ for several years when he was first introduced to rhythm and blues music, and he’d played a mixture of big band music and light classical, depending on what the audience wanted. But then, in 1951, something changed. Freed met Leo Mintz, the owner of a record shop named Record Rendezvous, in a bar. Mintz discovered that Freed was a DJ and took him to the shop. Freed later mythologised this moment, as he did a lot of his life, by talking about how he was shocked to see white teenagers dancing to music made by black people, and he had a sort of Damascene conversion and immediately decided to devote his show to rhythm and blues. The reality is far more prosaic. Mintz, whose business actually mostly sold to black people at this point, decided that if there was a rhythm and blues radio show then it would boost business to his shop, especially if Mintz paid for the radio show and so bought all the advertising on it. He took Freed to the shop to show him that there was indeed an audience for that kind of music, and Freed was impressed, but said that he didn’t know anything about rhythm and blues music. Mintz said that that didn’t matter. Mintz would pick the records — they’d be the ones that he wanted his customers to buy — and tell Freed what to play. All Freed had to do was to play the ones he was told and everything would work out fine. The music Mintz had played for Freed was, according to Freed later, people like LaVern Baker — who had not yet become at all well known outside Detroit and Chicago at the time — but Mintz set about putting together selections of records that Freed should play. Those records were mostly things with gospel-sounding vocals, a dance beat, or honking saxophones, and Freed found that his audiences responded astonishingly well to it. Freed would often interject during records, and would bang his fists on the table or other objects in time to the beat, including a cowbell that he had on his desk — apparently some of his listeners would be annoyed when they bought the records he played to find out half the sounds they’d heard weren’t on the record at all. Freed took the stage name “Moondog”, after a blind New York street musician and outsider artist of that name. Freed’s theme song for his radio show was “Moondog Symphony”, by Moondog, a one-man-band performance credited to “Moondog (by himself) playing drums, maracas, claves, gourds, hollow legs, Chinese block and cymbals.” [Excerpt: “Moondog Symphony” by Moondog] When Fats Thomas got the Crazy Sounds an audition with Freed, Freed was impressed enough that he offered them a management contract. Being managed by the biggest DJ in the city was obviously a good idea, so they took him up on that, and took his advice about how to make themselves more commercial, including changing their name to emphasise the connection to Freed. They became first the Moonpuppies and then the Moonglows. Freed set up his own record label, Champagne Records, and released the Moonglows’ first single, “I Just Can’t Tell No Lie”: [Excerpt, “I Just Can’t Tell No Lie”, the Moonglows] According to Freed’s biographer John A. Jackson, Freed provided additional percussion on that song, hitting a telephone book in time with the rhythm as he would on his show. I don’t hear any percussion on there other than the drum kit, but maybe you can, if you have better ears than me. This was a song that had been written by the Moonglows themselves, but when the record came out, both sides were credited to Al Lance — which was a pseudonym for Alan Freed. And so the DJ who was pushing their record on the radio was also their manager, and the owner of the record company, and the credited songwriter. Unsurprisingly, then, Freed promoted “I Just Can’t Tell No Lie” heavily on his radio show, but it did nothing anywhere outside of Cleveland and the immediately surrounding area. Danny Coggins quit the group, fed up with their lack of success, and he was replaced by a singer who variously went under the names Alex Graves, Alex Walton, Pete Graves, and Pete Walton. Freed closed down Champagne Records. For a time it looked like the Moonglows’ career was going to have peaked with their one single, as Freed signed another vocal group, the Coronets, and got them signed to Chess Records in Chicago. Chess was a blues label, which had started in 1947 as Aristocrat Records, but in 1948 it was bought out by two brothers, Leonard and Phil Chess, who had emigrated from Poland as children and Anglicised their names. Their father was in the liquor business during the Prohibition era, which in Chicago meant he was involved with Al Capone, and in their twenties the Chess brothers had started running nightclubs in the black area of Chicago. Chess, at its start, had the artists who had originally recorded for Aristocrat — people like Muddy Waters and Sunnyland Slim, and they also licensed records made by Sam Phillips in Memphis, and because of that put out early recordings by Howlin’ Wolf, before just poaching Wolf for their own label, and Jackie Brenston’s “Rocket 88”. By 1954, thanks largely to their in-house bass player and songwriter Willie Dixon, Chess had become known as the home of electric Chicago blues, and were putting out classic after classic in that genre. But they were still interested in putting out other styles of black music too, and were happy to sign up doo-wop groups. The Coronets put out a single, “Nadine”, on Chess, which did very well. The credited writer was Alan Freed: [Excerpt: “Nadine”, the Coronets] The Coronets’ follow-up single did less well, though, and Chess dropped them. But Freed had been trying for some time to make a parallel career as a concert promoter, and indeed a few months before he signed the Moonglows to a management contract he had put on what is now considered the first major rock and roll concert — the Moondog Coronation Ball, at the Cleveland Arena. That show had been Freed’s first inkling of just how popular he and the music he was playing were becoming — twenty thousand people tried to get into the show, even though the arena only had a capacity of ten thousand, and the show had to be cancelled after the first song by the first performer, because it was becoming unsafe to continue. But Freed put on further shows at the arena, with better organisation, and in August 1953 he put on “the Big Rhythm and Blues Show”. This featured Fats Domino and Big Joe Turner, and the Moonglows were also put on the bill. As a result of their appearance on the show, they got signed to Chance Records, a small label whose biggest act was the doo-wop group The Flamingos. Freed didn’t own this label of course, but by this time he’d got into the record distribution business, and the distribution company he co-owned was Chance’s distributor in the Cleveland area. The other co-owner was the owner of Chance Records, and Freed’s brother was the distributor’s vice-president and in charge of running it. The Moonglows’ first single on Chance, a Christmas single, did nothing in the charts, but they followed it with a rather unusual choice. “Secret Love” was a hit for Doris Day, from the soundtrack of her film “Calamity Jane”: [Excerpt: Doris Day, “Secret Love”] In the context of the film, which has a certain amount of what we would now call queerbaiting, that song can be read as a song about lesbianism or bisexuality. But that didn’t stop a lot of male artists covering it for other markets. We’ve talked before about how popular songs would be recorded in different genres, and so Day’s pop version was accompanied by Slim Whitman’s country version and by this by the Moonglows: [Excerpt: the Moonglows, “Secret Love”] Unfortunately, a fortnight after the Moonglows released their version, the Orioles, who were a much more successful doo-wop group, released their own record of the song, and the two competed for the same market. However, “Secret Love” did well enough, given a promotional push by Freed, that it became apparent that the Moonglows could have a proper career. It sold over a hundred thousand copies, but then the next few records on Chance failed to sell, and Chance closed down when their biggest act, the Flamingos, moved first to Parrot Records, and then quickly on to Chess. It seemed like everything was against the Moonglows, but they were about to get a big boost, thanks in part to a strike. WINS radio in New York had been taken over at a rock-bottom price by an investment consortium who wanted to turn the money-losing station into a money-maker. It had a powerful transmitter, and if they could boost listenership they would almost certainly be able to sell it on at a massive profit. One of the first things the new owners did was to sack their house band — they weren’t going to pay musicians any more, as live music was too expensive. This caused the American Federation of Musicians to picket the station, which was expected and understandable. But WINS also had the broadcast rights to the New York Yankees games — indeed, the ball games were the only really popular thing that the station had. And so the AFM started to picket Yankee Stadium too. On the week of the starting game for what looked to be the Yankees’ sixth World Series win in a row. That game would normally have had the opening ball thrown by the Mayor of New York, but the Mayor, Robert Wagner, rather admirably refused to cross a picket line. The Bronx borough president substituted for him — and threw the opening ball right into the stomach of a newspaper photographer. WINS now desperately needed something to go right for them, and they realised Freed’s immense drawing power. They signed him for the unprecedented sum of seventy-five thousand dollars a year, and Freed moved from the mid-market town of Cleveland to a huge, powerful, transmitter in New York. He instantly became the most popular DJ in New York, and probably the best-known DJ in the world. And with his great power came record labels wanting to do Freed favours. He was already friends with the Chess brothers, and with the sure knowledge that any record the Moonglows put out would get airplay from Freed, they eagerly signed the Moonglows and put out “Sincerely”: [Excerpt: The Moonglows, “Sincerely”] “Sincerely” featured Bobby Lester on lead vocals, but the song was written by Harvey Fuqua. Or, as the label credited it, Harvey Fuqua and Alan Freed. But while those were the two credited writers, the song owes more than a little to another one. Here’s the bridge for “Sincerely”: [Excerpt: The Moonglows, “Sincerely”] And here’s the bridge for “That’s What You’re Doing to Me” by Billy Ward and the Dominoes, written by Billy Ward and sung by Clyde McPhatter: [Excerpt: The Dominoes, “That’s What You’re Doing to Me”] So while I’m critical of Freed for taking credit where it’s not deserved, it should be remembered that Fuqua wasn’t completely clean when it came to this song either. “Sincerely” rose to number one on the R&B charts, thanks in large part to Freed’s promotion. It knocked “Earth Angel” off the top, and was in turn knocked off by “Pledging My Love”, and it did relatively well in the pop charts, although once again it was kept off the top of the pop charts by an insipid white cover version, this time by the McGuire Sisters: [Excerpt: The McGuire Sisters, “Sincerely”] Chess wanted to make as much out of the Moonglows as they could, and so they decided to release records by the group under multiple names and on multiple labels. So while the Moonglows were slowly rising up the charts on Chess, The Moonlighters put out another single, “My Loving Baby”, on Checker: [Excerpt: the Moonlighters, “My Loving Baby”] There were two Moonlighters singles in total, though neither did well enough for them to continue under that name, and on top of that they also provided backing vocals on records by other Chess artists. Most notably, they sang the backing vocals on “Diddley Daddy” by Bo Diddley: [Excerpt Bo Diddley, “Diddley Daddy”] The Moonglows or Moonlighters weren’t the only ones performing under new names though. The real Moondog had, once Freed came to New York, realised that Freed had taken his name, and sued him. Freed had to pay Moondog five thousand seven hundred dollars, and stop calling himself Moondog. He had to switch to using his real name. And along with this, he changed the name of his show to “The Rock and Roll Party”. The term “rock and roll” had been used in various contexts before, of course — the theme for this series in fact comes from almost twenty years before this, but it had not been applied to a form of music on a regular basis. Freed didn’t want to get into the same trouble with the phrase “rock and roll” as he had with the name “Moondog”, and so he formed a company, Seig Music, which was owned by himself, the promoter Lew Platt, WINS radio, and the gangs–. I’m sorry, the legitimate businessman and music publisher Morris Levy. We’ll be hearing more about Levy later. This company trademarked the phrase “rock and roll” (the book I got this information from says they copyrighted the phrase, but I think that’s a confusion between copyright and trademark law on the writer’s part) and started using it for Freed’s now-branded “Rock and Roll Shows”, both on radio and on stage. The only problem was that the phrase caught on too much, thanks to Freed’s incessant use of the phrase on his show — there was no possible way they were going to be able to collect royalties from everyone who was using it, and so that particular money-making scheme faltered. The Moonglows, on the other hand, had a run of minor hits. None were as big as “Sincerely”, but they had five R&B top ten hits and a bunch more in the top twenty. The most notable, and the one people remember, is “Ten Commandments of Love”, from 1958: [excerpt: “Ten Commandments of Love”, Harvey and the Moonglows] But that song wasn’t released as by “the Moonglows”, but by “Harvey and the Moonglows”. There was increasing tension between the different members of the band, and songs started to be released as by Harvey and the Moonglows or by Bobby Lester and the Moonglows, as Chess faced the fact that the group’s two lead singers would go their separate ways. Chess had been contacted by some Detroit-based songwriters, who were setting up a new label, Anna, and wanted Chess to take over the distribution for it. By this point, Harvey Fuqua had divorced his first wife, and was working for Chess in the backroom as well as as an artist, and he was asked by Leonard Chess to go over and work with this new label. He did — and he married one of the people involved, Gwen Gordy. Gwen and her brother ended up setting up a lot of different labels, and Harvey got to run a few of them himself — there was Try-Phi, and Harvey Records. There was a whole family of different record labels owned by the same family, and they soon became quite successful. But at the same time, he was still performing and recording for Chess. We heard one of his singles, a duet with Etta James, in the episode on The Wallflower, but it’s so good we might as well play a bit of it again here: [Excerpt: Harvey Fuqua and Etta James, “Spoonful”] But at the same time both Bobby Lester and Harvey Fuqua were performing with rival groups of Moonglows, who both continued recording for Chess. Harvey’s Moonglows was an entire other vocal group, a group from Washington DC called the Marquees, who’d had one single out, “Wyatt Earp”. That single had been co-written by Bo Diddley, a Chess artist who had tried to get the group signed to Chess. When they’d been turned down, Diddley took them to Okeh instead: [Excerpt: the Marquees, “Wyatt Earp”] Fuqua hired the Marquees and renamed them, and they recorded several tracks as Harvey and the Moonglows, and while none of them were very successful commercially, some of them were musically interesting. This one in particular featured a lead from a great young vocalist who would in 1963 become Harvey Fuqua’s brother-in-law, when he married Gwen’s sister Anna: [Excerpt: Harvey and the Moonglows, “Mama Loocie”] That record didn’t do much, but that singer was to go on to bigger and better things, as was Harvey Fuqua, when one of the Gordy family’s labels became a little bit better known than the rest, with Fuqua working for it as a record producer and head of artist development. But the story of Motown Records, and of that singer, Marvin Gaye, is for another time. Next week, we’re going to continue the Chess story, with a look at another song that Alan Freed got a co-writing credit for. Come back in a week’s time to hear the story of how Chuck Berry came up with Maybellene. [Excerpt: Alan Freed’s final signoff]

Podcast dedicado a la película favorita de Poli, nuestro oyente de Murcia, al que le estamos profundamente agradecidos por mostrarnos esta joya del cine briánico. Una de las películas insignias de los míticos estudios Ealing, que consagró -y condenó- a Robert Hamer como un genio, y a Alec Guinness lo mostró como un actor de múltiples registros. Una deliciosa comedia negra que todo el mundo debería conocer.

Connor and Riley transition from the from the cold Russian winter to the hot Arabian summer as they discuss David Lean's 1962 masterwork, Lawrence of Arabia. Learn how this movie influenced the next generation of filmmakers, and if it truly lives up to being the greatest epic of all time. Connor defends long run-times for movies, while Riley pitches anproject for film school students. You'll also hear a nerdy digression into the history of aspect ratios and a public service announcement for anyone who owns movies on home video. WARNING: Full spoilers for Lawrence of Arabia, minor spoilers for Doctor Zhivago & Tangled Video on aspect ratios: https://youtu.be/uSuCJyZzyRE Films mentioned in this episode: Lawrence of Arabia (1962) | Dir. David Lean Doctor Zhivago (1965) | Dir. David Lean Great Expectations (1946) | Dir. David Lean Oliver Twist (1948) | Dir. David Lean Star Wars (1977) | Dir. George Lucas Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949) | Dir. Robert Hamer Hidalgo (2004) | Dir. Joe Johnston Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) | Dir. Steven Spielberg Grand Budapest Hotel (2014) | Dir. Wes Anderson Lady and the Tramp (1955) | Dir. Clyde Geronimi, Wilfred Jackson, and Hamilton Luske Gandhi (1981) | Dir. Richard Attenborough Empire of the Sun (1987) | Dir. Steven Spielberg Seven Samurai (1954) | Dir. Akira Kurosawa Avatar (2009) | Dir. James Cameron Jaws (1975) | Dir. Steven Spielberg Tangled (2010) | Dir. Nathan Greno and Byron Howard A Street Car Named Desire (1951) | Dir. Elia Kazan On the Waterfront (1954) | Dir. Elia Kazan

Alec Guinness gets murdered a lot and it's rarely not great.

Kind Hearts and Coronets may have been delightful, but The Man in the White Suit is delightful! A great comedic performance from Alec Guinness centers a film with a clear focus on what it's satirizing, resulting in enough cathartic laughs and cynicism of capitalism to make Billy Wilder proud. Happy Thanksgiving!

Jim keeps this episode on Kind Hearts and Coronets light and airy, just like the film itself. 

I Do Movies Badly hall-of-famer Gavin Mevius returns to bring some joy back to the world (or, at the very least, to the podcast) by recommending some comedies from Britain's Ealing Studios! Gavin fills us in on the studio that, though only active from 1947 - 1957, gave us Alec Guinness and Peter Sellers as well multiple comedies of manners that responded to World War II not with cynicism and film-noir, but with laughter. Sadly, he can only recommend three titles, so he goes with Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949), The Man in the White Suit (1951), and - in the absence of streaming rights for Whisky Galore - The Ladykillers (1951).

This week, we'll take a look at the legacy of the book Israel Rank: The Autobiography of a Criminal.  With two very successful adaptations- the film Kind Hearts and Coronets and the musical A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder- this tale of a disowned son murdering his way through the family tree brings up questions of class, ethnicity, morality and the nature of villainy. Recommended media: Book: Israel Rank: The Autobiography of a Criminal by Roy Horniman Book: The Contested Castle by Kate Ferguson Ellis Film: Kind Hearts and Coronets Music: A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder Original Broadway Cast *** Credits Ambient music in this episode is by SirmXe on https://freesound.org/people/SirmXe/sounds/79974/ and Dee Yan-Key on https://freemusicarchive.org/genre/Chamber_Music/.  Intro and outro music is by Station 61.  Podcast artwork is by Dana Veitinger. Audio clips used are from The Rocky Horror Show Studio Cast, Kind Hearts and Coronets, A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder Original Broadway Cast, and Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

One of the first comedies produced by the prestigious Ealing Studios of London, Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949) is an exercise in cynicism as well as a bright spot in the early careers of Dennis Price and Alec Guinness.  The film was the pinnacle in the career of director Robert Hamer, an Ealing regular, and also marked the beginning of the career of cinematographer Douglas Slocombe, who would go on to film a number of Hollywood blockbusters. Have a comment or question for the host?  Email Sean at 1001moviespodcast@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter via @1001MoviesPC.

Welcome to episode 16 covering entry 86, Kind Hearts and Coronets from 1949 with Dennis Price and Alec Guiness. Keefe, Chris and Paxton as we get to take a peak a young jedi and his ability....no wait wrong movie. We are looking at murder, death and those who plan it.

Mary Houlihan and Ben Wasserman return to discuss Kind Hearts and Coronets.

You know when someone is a legend of pop culture and to question them is almost to question all of music? Well The Immortals shit on John Lennon and his classic album Imagine. Before they do that, they review the dark comedy of murdering Alec Guinness in Kind Hearts and Coronets, then they have some bubble tea, learn nothing about The Supremes and kick back with The Rockford Files. Also that riddle is solved!   Intro 0:00 -- 2:15 Kind Hearts and Coronets 2:15 - 21:34 Imagine 21:34 - 30:31 Taro 30:31 - 34:02 You Keep Me Hanging On 34:02 - 40:22 The Rockford Files 40:22 - 47:42 Outro 47:42 - 54:15   --Leave your own henge ratings at TheArtImmortal.com --Be sure you leave an iTunes review so Pedro can give you a compliment on air.    Email Twitter iTunes YouTube   Join us next time as we discuss more random things. Until then, email or tweet us your thoughts, leave a review on iTunes and other crap every podcast asks you to do. (But we love that you do it!)    Artwork by Ray Martindale Opening tune by Adam Lord Edited by Rook Parthum  

To celebrate #Noirvember, we discuss two contemporary neo-noirs that focus on the femme fatale archetype. Show Notes: Will we or won't we do an episode on Ittefaq (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ittefaq_(1969_film)) Erin’s mother watched Dangal, and she loved it! We miss Neale (https://twitter.com/nealpolitan)! Listen to last year’s #Noirvember’s episode (https://audioboom.com/posts/5339719-dev-anand-s-bombay-noir-with-neale-barnholden) Film noir (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_noir) and Neo-noir (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neo-noir) #Noirvember and @oldfilmsflicker (https://twitter.com/oldfilmsflicker) Bollywood noir What songs are they using in Ishqiya, let Matt know Femme fatale (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Femme_fatale) Ishqiya (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ishqiya) LMFAO (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LMFAO) “Dil Toh Bachcha (https://youtu.be/_DosLkRn3xg)” Uttar Pradesh (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uttar_Pradesh) Dedh Ishqiya (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dedh_Ishqiya) The Handmaiden (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Handmaiden) (INTERVAL (“Darling (https://youtu.be/viBaS0fKPGc)” from 7 Khoon Maaf) 7 Khoon Maaf (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7_Khoon_Maaf) Ruskin Bond (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruskin_Bond) and The Blue Umbrella (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blue_Umbrella_(2005_film)) Kind Hearts and Coronets (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kind_Hearts_and_Coronets), Truffaut’s (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fran%C3%A7ois_Truffaut) Mississipi [sic] Mermaid (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mississippi_Mermaid) and The Bride Wore Black (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bride_Wore_Black), and Cornell Woolrich (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornell_Woolrich) Anna Karenina (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Karenina) versus Anna Karina (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Karina) Erin called the ending Bluebeard (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluebeard) Motivation for murder We bring up Fitoor again… and What’s Your Raashee Murder well How people change depending on who they are with The Love Witch (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Love_Witch) “O’ Mama (https://youtu.be/N4cG5OqjJZk)”, “Bekaraan (https://youtu.be/UBIXCrDO10w)”, and “Yeshu (https://youtu.be/4ERsA1_j9yY)” NEXT TIME: Maybe we’ll discuss Ittefaq, maybe something else? Bollywood is For Lovers is a member of the Alberta Podcast Network powered by ATB Financial (http://www.atb.com/listen/Pages/default.aspx) Check out ATB’s Branch for Arts and Culture (http://www.atb.com/business/experts/arts-and-culture-branch/Pages/default.aspx) Listen to Girl Tries Life (http://www.girltrieslife.com/) Find us on (https://itunes.apple.com/ca/podcast/bollywood-is-for-lovers/id1036988030?mt=2)! and Stitcher (http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/bollywood-is-for-lovers)! and iHeartRadio (https://www.iheart.com/podcast/270-Bollywood-is-For-Lovers-28344928/)! and Spotify (https://open.spotify.com/show/1m38Hxx8ZFxTJzadsVk5U3)! Follow us on Twitter! (https://twitter.com/bollywoodpod) Like us on Facebook! (https://www.facebook.com/BollywoodIsForLovers/) #Noirvember, #NeoNoir, #FilmNoir, #Bollywood, #FemmeFatale, #Ishqiya, #VidyaBalan, #NaseeruddinShah, #ArshadWarsi, #AbhishekChaubey, #Gulzar, #7KhoonMaaf, #SaatKhoonMaaf, #VishalBhardwaj, #PriyankaChopra, #NeilNitinMukesh, #JohnAbraham, #IrrfanKhan, #VivaanShah, #KonkonaSenSharma

This week, we watch a classic in the dark-comedy genre, where a distant relative of the Duke of D'Ascoyne sets off to murder all eight family members that stand ahead of him to claim the wealth and position of his family - Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949). Directed by Robert Hamer.

Matthew Sweet introduces music written for movies associated with the great British cinematographer, Douglas Slocombe, who died earlier this year at the age of 103. The catalogue of his films includes some of the greats of the last 75 years - Matthew reflects on his career and pays tribute with music from "Close Encounters of the Third Kind"; "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom"; "The Lavender Hill Mob"; Kind Hearts and Coronets"; "The Man In The White Suit": "Dead of Night"; "The Servant"; "The Lion In Winter"; ""The Italian Job; "Rollerball"; "The Blue Max"; "Jesus Christ Superstar"; and "Julia".

Churchill's Secret is a feature-length ITV drama that examines a period of illness in Winston Churchill's life as prime minister in the 1950s. Political Biographer Sonia Purnell reviews it for us.British artist Jonathan Yeo discusses his new portrait of Kevin Spacey as President Francis Underwood in the TV drama series House of Cards, as he unveils the painting at the National Portrait Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DCSet in small town America, new film King Jack, follows a fifteen year old boy, troubled by bullies, and forced to look after his young cousin over a seemingly endless summer weekend. Tim Robey reviews this coming-of-age tale.Clare Morrall talks about her latest novel When the Floods Came. The book is a departure for the previously Man Booker shortlisted writer, as it's a set in a dystopian Britain ravaged by disease and flooding. Cinematographer Douglas Slocombe has died age 103. Matthew Sweet tells us how he made films like Kind Hearts and Coronets, The Italian Job and Raiders Of The Lost Ark so special.Presenter : Samira Ahmed Producer : Dymphna Flynn.

Welcome to the first episode! My guest for this month is Clarko Clark, and he's joined me to discuss the film I chose for him, the 1949 British black comedy Kind Hearts and Coronets. You can follow the show on Twitter @cinemagadfly.   Show notes: My original review of Kind Hearts and Coronets A definition of black comedy Koyaanisqatsi and my review of it Charles I of England, who is mentioned early in the film This film takes place in the Edwardian era It stars Alec Guinness, who also played Obi-Wan Kenobi, and who was apparently similar to Eddie Murphy It was released in 1949 Alice in Wonderland Clarko likes How I Met Your Mother, Scrubs, and Grey’s Anatomy Some of which feature an unreliable narrator, as perhaps does this Yes, a British general really did choose to go down with his ship after making a mistake in directions American Pyscho, a really apt and interesting comparison Ealing Studios is actually still around, and releasing films The fancier studio down the road was the Rank Studio The Hays Code, which was eventually overthrown, in part by Howard Hughes Making out on a fainting couch is less common these days Black and white films should not be colorized, under any circumstances Buy the film from iTunes Rent or buy the film from Amazon

Sir Alec Guinness may always be remembered as Obi Wan Kenobi, but his career goes far beyond those three little science fiction films he did late in his career. He worked many times with David Lean. He gave life to the spy George Smiley long before Gary Oldman. And he starred in a number of the great Ealing comedies, his first of which is “Kind Hearts and Coronets,” where he pulls a Peter Sellers by playing 8 of the characters in the film. Join us — Pete Wright and Andy Nelson — as we begin our Sir Alec Guinness series by talking about Robert Hamer’s 1949 comedy “Kind Hearts and Coronets.” We talk about the comedy in this film, and how clever it is to write a script in which the audience roots for the protagonist even though he’s planning on committing a number of murders. We discuss the brilliant performances, from Dennis Price and Valerie Hobson to Joan Greenwood and, of course, Guinness. Not to mention a memorable turn from Miles Malleson. We chat about the cinematography by Douglas Slocombe, who we last discussed way back at the beginning of our run with the Indiana Jones series. And we talk about a recent script on the 2014 Black List, “Rothchild,” written by John Patton Ford, that takes this story and updates it. We even bring Ford on to discuss it with us. It’s a great way to kick off our Guinness series and we have a great conversation about this brilliantly funny film. Tune in! Hey! You know what would be awesome? If you would drop us a positive rating on iTunes! If you like what we’re doing here on TNR, it really is the best way to make sure that this show appears when others search for it, plus, it’s just a nice thing to do. Thanks!! The Next Reel on iTunes The Next Reel on Facebook The Next Reel on Twitter The Next Reel on Flickchart The Next Reel on Letterboxd Guess the Movie with The Next Reel on Instagram Check out the Posters with The Next Reel on Pinterest And for anyone interested in our fine bouquet of show hosts: Follow Andy Nelson on Twitter Follow Pete Wright on Twitter Follow Steve Sarmento on Twitter Check out Tom Metz on IMDB Follow Mike Evans on Twitter Follow Chadd Stoops on Twitter Follow Steven Smart on Letterboxd

Sir Alec Guinness may always be remembered as Obi Wan Kenobi, but his career goes far beyond those three little science fiction films he did late in his career. He worked many times with David Lean. He gave life to the spy George Smiley long before Gary Oldman. And he starred in a number of the great Ealing comedies, his first of which is “Kind Hearts and Coronets,” where he pulls a Peter Sellers by playing 8 of the characters in the film. Join us — Pete Wright and Andy Nelson — as we begin our Sir Alec Guinness series by talking about Robert Hamer's 1949 comedy “Kind Hearts and Coronets.” We talk about the comedy in this film, and how clever it is to write a script in which the audience roots for the protagonist even though he's planning on committing a number of murders. We discuss the brilliant performances, from Dennis Price and Valerie Hobson to Joan Greenwood and, of course, Guinness. Not to mention a memorable turn from Miles Malleson. We chat about the cinematography by Douglas Slocombe, who we last discussed way back at the beginning of our run with the Indiana Jones series. And we talk about a recent script on the 2014 Black List, “Rothchild,” written by John Patton Ford, that takes this story and updates it. We even bring Ford on to discuss it with us. It's a great way to kick off our Guinness series and we have a great conversation about this brilliantly funny film. Tune in! Hey! You know what would be awesome? If you would drop us a positive rating on iTunes! If you like what we're doing here on TNR, it really is the best way to make sure that this show appears when others search for it, plus, it's just a nice thing to do. Thanks!! The Next Reel on iTunes The Next Reel on Facebook The Next Reel on Twitter The Next Reel on Flickchart The Next Reel on Letterboxd Guess the Movie with The Next Reel on Instagram Check out the Posters with The Next Reel on Pinterest And for anyone interested in our fine bouquet of show hosts: Follow Andy Nelson on Twitter Follow Pete Wright on Twitter Follow Steve Sarmento on Twitter Check out Tom Metz on IMDB Follow Mike Evans on Twitter Follow Chadd Stoops on Twitter Follow Steven Smart on Letterboxd

Sir Alec Guinness may always be remembered as Obi Wan Kenobi, but his career goes far beyond those three little science fiction films he did late in his career. He worked many times with David Lean. He gave life to the spy George Smiley long before Gary Oldman. And he starred in a number of the great Ealing comedies, his first of which is “Kind Hearts and Coronets,” where he pulls a Peter Sellers by playing 8 of the characters in the film. Join us — Pete Wright and Andy Nelson — as we begin our Sir Alec Guinness series by talking about Robert Hamer's 1949 comedy “Kind Hearts and Coronets.” We talk about the comedy in this film, and how clever it is to write a script in which the audience roots for the protagonist even though he's planning on committing a number of murders. We discuss the brilliant performances, from Dennis Price and Valerie Hobson to Joan Greenwood and, of course, Guinness. Not to mention a memorable turn from Miles Malleson. We chat about the cinematography by Douglas Slocombe, who we last discussed way back at the beginning of our run with the Indiana Jones series. And we talk about a recent script on the 2014 Black List, “Rothchild,” written by John Patton Ford, that takes this story and updates it. We even bring Ford on to discuss it with us. It's a great way to kick off our Guinness series and we have a great conversation about this brilliantly funny film. Tune in!* * *Hey! You know what would be awesome? If you would drop us a positive rating on iTunes! If you like what we're doing here on TNR, it really is the best way to make sure that this show appears when others search for it, plus, it's just a nice thing to do. Thanks!!- [The Next Reel on iTunes](https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-next-reel/id478159328?mt=2)- [The Next Reel on Facebook](https://www.facebook.com/TheNextReel)- [The Next Reel on Twitter](http://twitter.com/thenextreel)- [The Next Reel on Flickchart](http://www.flickchart.com/thenextreel)- [The Next Reel on Letterboxd](http://letterboxd.com/thenextreel/)- [Guess the Movie with The Next Reel on Instagram](http://instagram.com/thenextreel)- [Check out the Posters with The Next Reel on Pinterest](http://pinterest.com/thenextreel)And for anyone interested in our fine bouquet of show hosts:- [Follow Andy Nelson on Twitter](http://twitter.com/sodacreekfilm)- [Follow Pete Wright on Twitter](http://twitter.com/petewright)- [Follow Steve Sarmento on Twitter](https://twitter.com/mr_steve23)- [Check out Tom Metz on IMDB](http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1224453/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1)- [Follow Mike Evans on Twitter](https://twitter.com/ubersky)- [Follow Chadd Stoops on Twitter](https://twitter.com/ChaddStoops)- [Follow Steven Smart on Letterboxd](http://letterboxd.com/steamrobot/)

Sir Alec Guinness may always be remembered as Obi Wan Kenobi, but his career goes far beyond those three little science fiction films he did late in his career. He worked many times with David Lean. He gave life to the spy George Smiley long before Gary Oldman. And he starred in a number of the great Ealing comedies, his first of which is “Kind Hearts and Coronets,” where he pulls a Peter Sellers by playing 8 of the characters in the film. Join us — Pete Wright and Andy Nelson — as we begin our Sir Alec Guinness series by talking about Robert Hamer's 1949 comedy “Kind Hearts and Coronets.” We talk about the comedy in this film, and how clever it is to write a script in which the audience roots for the protagonist even though he's planning on committing a number of murders. We discuss the brilliant performances, from Dennis Price and Valerie Hobson to Joan Greenwood and, of course, Guinness. Not to mention a memorable turn from Miles Malleson. We chat about the cinematography by Douglas Slocombe, who we last discussed way back at the beginning of our run with the Indiana Jones series. And we talk about a recent script on the 2014 Black List, “Rothchild,” written by John Patton Ford, that takes this story and updates it. We even bring Ford on to discuss it with us. It's a great way to kick off our Guinness series and we have a great conversation about this brilliantly funny film. Tune in!* * *Hey! You know what would be awesome? If you would drop us a positive rating on iTunes! If you like what we're doing here on TNR, it really is the best way to make sure that this show appears when others search for it, plus, it's just a nice thing to do. Thanks!!- [The Next Reel on iTunes](https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-next-reel/id478159328?mt=2)- [The Next Reel on Facebook](https://www.facebook.com/TheNextReel)- [The Next Reel on Twitter](http://twitter.com/thenextreel)- [The Next Reel on Flickchart](http://www.flickchart.com/thenextreel)- [The Next Reel on Letterboxd](http://letterboxd.com/thenextreel/)- [Guess the Movie with The Next Reel on Instagram](http://instagram.com/thenextreel)- [Check out the Posters with The Next Reel on Pinterest](http://pinterest.com/thenextreel)And for anyone interested in our fine bouquet of show hosts:- [Follow Andy Nelson on Twitter](http://twitter.com/sodacreekfilm)- [Follow Pete Wright on Twitter](http://twitter.com/petewright)- [Follow Steve Sarmento on Twitter](https://twitter.com/mr_steve23)- [Check out Tom Metz on IMDB](http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1224453/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1)- [Follow Mike Evans on Twitter](https://twitter.com/ubersky)- [Follow Chadd Stoops on Twitter](https://twitter.com/ChaddStoops)- [Follow Steven Smart on Letterboxd](http://letterboxd.com/steamrobot/)

London editor Philip Fisher speaks to some of the stars of Broadway and off-Broadway on his annual trip to New York's theatreland. Bryce Pinkham stars in the hit Broadway show The Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder. This is a musical based on the same story as the classic Ealing comedy Kind Hearts and Coronets. He talks about his road to stardom and also the pleasure of working in a Broadway success story. Eric Tucker and Andrus Nichols are the artistic directors behind Bedlam’s four-performer double bill of Hamlet and Saint Joan playing off-Broadway at Culture Project. They discuss the company's ethos and the way in which it manages to revive classics on a shoestring, giving perspectives both as actors and part of the creative team.

As part of BBC Radio 3's Sound of Cinema, a week of essays written and presented by historian and columnist Simon Heffer on classic British taboo-breaking films which depicted a society changed profoundly by war. The cinema of the 30s was nakedly and unashamedly escapist in a way that the cinema of the late 40s and early 50s - in an age of lost innocence and social upheaval - simply couldn't be. This was a period when British cinema was forced to embrace change and reflect reality.In Heffer on British Film, Simon Heffer puts the case for five films from the decade after the war which show British cinema dealing with gritty social issues and dramatic high standards before the 60s were underway - including It Always Rains on Sunday (1947), Mandy (1953), Yield to the Night (1956), The Browning Version (1951) and the subject of today's essay - The Long Memory (1952).The Long Memory was Robert Hamer's follow-up to the success of Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949), one of the driest black Ealing comedies ever made. Hamer wrote the script for this thriller with Frank Harvey, adapting a novel by Howard Clewes. It portrays Britain as depressed, worn out by war, and full of the poor, dispossessed, transient, and criminal. It tells the story of Phillip Davidson (John Mills) fresh out of prison after serving twelve years for a murder he didn't commit and obsessed with revenge. An early flashback provides us with the details: a smuggling job goes sour, and Davidson is blamed for the death of a man who, in fact, is not dead. His girlfriend, Fay (Elizabeth Sellars), played a significant part in securing that conviction. She was coerced by her father to lie about the identity of the man who was burned in the boat fire that followed the altercation. And one of the film's neat little twists, she subsequently goes on to marry the very policeman superintendent originally in charge of Davidson's case. Davidson makes his home in a remote shack on the Kent Marshes, and grimly sets about the task of seeking out his former tormentors. The action alternates between his search and the slow unravelling of the idyllic domesticity of the policeman's life. Davidson gets involved with local waitress Ilse, played by Norwegian actress Eva Bergh, a refugee her from being raped one night and a touching relationship develops between them, forcing Davidson to re-evaluate his need for revenge.Producer: Mohini Patel.

This week we review the classic Ealing comedy Kind Hearts and Coronets, which stars the fantastic Alec Guinness in eight different roles. We also lament the lack of 101 Films fanzines and Ian pooh-poohs the 3D in Prometheus. 3D? Saviour … Continue reading →

Alec Guinness de Cuffe was born on April 2, 1914 in Marylebone, London, England. While working in advertising, he studied at the Fay Compton Studio of Dramatic Art, debuting on stage in 1934 and played classic theater with the Old Vic from 1936. In 1941, he entered the Royal Navy as a seaman and was commissioned the next year. Beyond an extra part in Evensong (1934), his film career began after World War II with his portrayal of Herbert Pocket in Great Expectations (1946). A string of films, mostly comedies, showed off his ability to look different in every role, eight of them, including a woman, in one movie alone, Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949). His best known recent work was as the Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi in the Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977) trilogy. He earned a Best Actor Oscar and Golden Globe in The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) and an Honorary Academy Award (1980) for "advancing the art of screen acting through a host of memorable and distinguished performances". Academy nominations have included The Lavender Hill Mob (1951) (actor); The Horse's Mouth (1958) (screenplay); Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977) (supporting) and Little Dorrit (1988) (supporting). He was awarded Knight Bachelor of the Order of the British Empire in the 1959 Queen's Honours List for his accomplishments in theater and film. Sir Alec Guinness died at age 86 of lung cancer on August 5, 2000. Just before he passed away, he recorded some of his favorite poems.

Alec Guinness de Cuffe was born on April 2, 1914 in Marylebone, London, England. While working in advertising, he studied at the Fay Compton Studio of Dramatic Art, debuting on stage in 1934 and played classic theater with the Old Vic from 1936. In 1941, he entered the Royal Navy as a seaman and was commissioned the next year. Beyond an extra part in Evensong (1934), his film career began after World War II with his portrayal of Herbert Pocket in Great Expectations (1946). A string of films, mostly comedies, showed off his ability to look different in every role, eight of them, including a woman, in one movie alone, Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949). His best known recent work was as the Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi in the Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977) trilogy. He earned a Best Actor Oscar and Golden Globe in The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) and an Honorary Academy Award (1980) for "advancing the art of screen acting through a host of memorable and distinguished performances". Academy nominations have included The Lavender Hill Mob (1951) (actor); The Horse's Mouth (1958) (screenplay); Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977) (supporting) and Little Dorrit (1988) (supporting). He was awarded Knight Bachelor of the Order of the British Empire in the 1959 Queen's Honours List for his accomplishments in theater and film. Sir Alec Guinness died at age 86 of lung cancer on August 5, 2000. Just before he passed away, he recorded some of his favorite poems.

Alec Guinness de Cuffe was born on April 2, 1914 in Marylebone, London, England. While working in advertising, he studied at the Fay Compton Studio of Dramatic Art, debuting on stage in 1934 and played classic theater with the Old Vic from 1936. In 1941, he entered the Royal Navy as a seaman and was commissioned the next year. Beyond an extra part in Evensong (1934), his film career began after World War II with his portrayal of Herbert Pocket in Great Expectations (1946). A string of films, mostly comedies, showed off his ability to look different in every role, eight of them, including a woman, in one movie alone, Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949). His best known recent work was as the Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi in the Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977) trilogy. He earned a Best Actor Oscar and Golden Globe in The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) and an Honorary Academy Award (1980) for "advancing the art of screen acting through a host of memorable and distinguished performances". Academy nominations have included The Lavender Hill Mob (1951) (actor); The Horse's Mouth (1958) (screenplay); Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977) (supporting) and Little Dorrit (1988) (supporting). He was awarded Knight Bachelor of the Order of the British Empire in the 1959 Queen's Honours List for his accomplishments in theater and film. Sir Alec Guinness died at age 86 of lung cancer on August 5, 2000. Just before he passed away, he recorded some of his favorite poems.

http://www.andystreasuretrove.com/andystreasuretrove.com/Media/ATTSF%20Episode%20%2311%20Levelated.mp3.mp3 ()Episode 11 starts with two potential theme songs for Andy’s Treasure Trove submitted by listener and friend David Lisle, followed by Andy’s interview with British actor, writer and director Terence Davies. Born in 1945 in Liverpool, England, Terence Davies was the youngest of 10 children in a Catholic working-class family who suffered with an abusive father, bullies at school, the abuses of the Catholic Church and his own legendary self-loathing for being gay. After a shut-down adolescence he spent years as an accountant. He got into acting and then writing and filmmaking. His first 3 short films made in the 1980's entitled Children, Madonna and Child, and Death and Transfiguration later became known as The Terence Davies Trilogy. They were semi-autobiographical glimpses into the harrowing life of torment experienced by Davies in post-WWII Liverpool. In his first feature film, 1988's Distant Voices, Still Lives, the family again lives in the shadow of a monstrously abusive father, this time played by the great British character actor Pete Postlethwaite, whom Davies says is the only actor to play a member of his family who actually looked like the person they were portraying. Andy talks to Terence Davies about the 1992 film The Long Day Closes, a beautiful film centering on the favorite time of Davies’ childhood between the time his abusive father died and the family could relax a little, and the onset of his own highly fraught adolescence. They talk about several of his favorite cinematic techniques including his re-contextualizing of fragments of soundtracks from other movies, about the lost tradition of public singing in Britain, and of the chronic low self-esteem that haunts this great artist. Also about his new documentary/essay film about Liverpool entitled Of Time and the City, opening on Jan. 21 at Film Forum in NYC following a buzz-generating special screening at the Cannes film festival last year. Terence Davies is also being honored at New York's Museum of Modern Art this week. In an article in the New York Times yesterday (Jan. 11th), Dennis Lim compared Terence Davies with the English singer Morrissey in that they have both made a beautiful body of work based on misery. Andy spoke to Terence Davies following a chance meeting at the Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley California. See keywords, links and a photo below: Keywords and Links: Andy’s Treasure Trove online store, http://www.andystreasuretrove.com/ (www.andystreasuretrove.com), Terence Davies, theme music, theme songs, David Lisle, The Great Hall of 100 Treasure Boxes, Liverpool, England, abusive father, Children, Madonna and Child, Death and Transfiguration, The Terence Davies Trilogy, Distant Voices, Still Lives, Pete Postlethwaite, Postlewaite, The Long Day Closes, The Neon Bible, The House of Mirth, Film Forum, Cannes Film Festival, New York Times, Dennis Lim, Morrissey, Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley, California, Leigh McCormack, autobiographical films and plays, T.S. Eliott’s Four Quartets, Brueckner, depression, The Ladykillers, Kind Hearts and Coronets, Meet Me In St. Louis, 20th Century Fox Fanfare, Randy Newman’s Uncle Alfred Newman, Nat King Cole, Stardust, cinematic look, technique, testing, light, texture, Anaglypta textured wallpaper, Christopher Hobbs, film editing, timing, A Shropshire Lad, George Butterworth, British Film Institute Fellow, public and private singing in Great Britain, popular music, lyrics, Cole Porter, vulgarization and decline of most artforms in the last 40 years, Rogers and Hart, Hammerstein, Hoagy Carmichael, Great Period of American Songwriting, Lorenz Hart, Of Time And The City, BBC, Listen With Mother, Williamson Square, Berceuse (lullaby) from The Dolly Suite by Gabriel Faure, Alchemy, Magic, Andy’s Treasure Trove Listener Call-in Line: 415-508-4084. A personal...