#Joyce Grenfell

[erstwhile-punk-guerito]

#The Americanization of Emily #James Garner #Julie Andrews #Melvyn Douglas #James Coburn #Joyce Grenfell #Keenan Wynn #Arthur Hiller #1964

[genevieveetguy]

I'm beginning to feel sad and I shouldn't feel sad. It's so depressing.

Stage Fright, Alfred Hitchcock (1950)

#Alfred Hitchcock #Whitfield Cook #Alma Reville #Jane Wyman #Marlene Dietrich #Michael Wilding #Richard Todd #Alastair Sim #Sybil Thorndike #Kay Walsh #Miles Malleson #Hector MacGregor #Joyce Grenfell #Ballard Berkeley #Wilkie Cooper #Leighton Lucas #Edward B. Jarvis #1950

[mrepstein]

Poor Mr Epstein. Poor Beatles. Isn’t it interesting about all this meditating. It’s so near and so far from the real Truth. But they are hungry for something real to count on - the young, the Beatles, the Hippies.

Joyce Grenfell in a letter to Virginia Graham, August 28, 1967 (Joyce & Ginnie, 1997)

#Brian Epstein #Joyce Grenfell #Virginia Graham #1967 #60s

[movie--posters]

#joyce grenfell #tom poston #robert morley #janette scott #movies #the old dark house #1960s #movie poster #movie posters

[letterboxd-loggd]

A Run for Your Money (1949) Charles Frend

February 6th 2023

#a run for your money #1949 #charles frend #donald houston #meredith edwards #moira lister #alec guinness #hugh griffith #clive morton #leslie perrins #dorothy bramhall #julie milton #joyce grenfell #peter edwards #andrew lee #patric doonan #ealing

[pers-books]

There is no such thing as the pursuit of happiness, but there is the discovery of joy.

- Joyce Grenfell OBE (1910 – 1979), English diseuse*, singer, actress and writer.

*a female artiste who entertains with spoken monologues.

#Agree 100% #Joyce Grenfell #Quote #The Discovery of Joy vs The Pursuit of Happiness #Can't say I've ever been truly happy but I've known moments of unadulterated joy

[twittercomfrnklin2001-blog]

Stage Fright

It's impossible to discuss Alfred Hitchcock’s STAGE FRIGHT (1950, TCM) without getting into the ending, so if you’ve never seen it or heard much about it and want to maintain your innocence on the subject STOP READING NOW.

And now the rest of you still reading can join me in laughing at the ones who stopped.

Just joking. But let’s get on with the discussion.

Acting student Eve Gill (Jane Wyman) has a crush on a man (Richard Todd) who tells her, in flashback, he’s been having an affair with an actress (Marlene Dietrich) who’s just murdered her husband. In attempting to cover up for her, Todd claims to have made himself the chief suspect, so Wyman hides him with her father’s (Alastair Sim) help and masquerades as Dietrich’s maid to try to get the goods on her.

Hitchcock always said his mistake in STAGE FRIGHT was opening the film with a flashback that lies. More recent critics (and those pesky French) have hailed the device as a witty subversion of genre expectations. I think it could indeed work that way in another movie. I think if one set up the characters properly, discovering the plucky young woman and her eccentric father had gone to a great deal of bother to protect a guilty man would make for a solid post-modern detective thriller. But here the characters aren’t set up at all before the flashback starts. The film opens on Wyman driving Todd to get away from the police as he tells her his story (which includes seeing Wyman in an acting class at RADA doing a scene from high comedy, and that may be a bigger crime than the story’s murder). It all feels too abrupt, and it seems to take forever to get to know the characters.

Of course, in Wyman’s case there isn’t much of a character to get to know. Hitchcock wanted a star, and he was working at Warner Bros., and she was their top female star at the time. But though she had done good work in lots of other films. she’s all wrong for the role. Eve has to be implusive and energetic and, above all, innocent. When she realizes she’s falling in love with the detective (Michael Wilding) on the case, she needs to be winsome and vulnerable.  The younger Wyman could have played that, but after years of fighting to get anywhere at Warner Bros. she’s about as winsome as a Mac truck. It’s like watching Norma Shearer trying vainly to become Elizabeth Barrett Browning or Juliet. The business has kicked all the necessary elements of those characters right out of her. The film drags whenever she’s on screen, which is a lot. Wilding is charming in their love scenes, but he might as well be playing to a brick wall. Fortunately, there are some wonderful British character actors on the periphery: Sim, Sybil Thorndike, Miles Malleson, Kay Walsh and Joyce Grenfell as the lady with the lovely duckies.

And, of course, there’s Dietrich. The woman is a holy wonder, one of the screen’s supreme technicians. When Wyman doesn’t move her face for fear of betraying her age, she projects almost nothing. Dietrich’s face may be even more frozen, but she knows how to move her head, her eyes — it’s almost cellular. Watch the way she holds her feet performing Cole Porter’s “The Laziest Girl in Town,” and you’ll realize what an amazing artist she was. She knows how to write the script with her voice and her body. In the midst of a poorly constructed screenplay, she creates a compelling character who draws you in. When the film has to cut from her final closeup (which is almost breathtaking) to get to the rather clumsy denouement, it’s hard to care what happens to anybody else.

#alfred hitchcock #thrillers #jane wyman #marlene dietrich #richard todd #michael wilding #alastair sim #sylbil thorndike #miles malleson #kay walsh #joyce grenfell

[cultfaction]

Preview: The Old Dark House (Bluray)

Tom Poston (Zotz!), Robert Morley (Theatre of Blood), Janette Scott (Paranoiac), Fenella Fielding (Carry On Screaming!), and Joyce Grenfell (Stage Fright) star in The Old Dark House, a riotously funny horror-comedy from director William Castle (The Tingler). When American salesman Tom delivers a car to a remote Dartmoor mansion, he becomes stranded overnight along with the eccentric Femm family.…

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#Janette Scott #Joyce Grenfell #Robert Morley #The Old Dark House #Tom Poston #William Castle

[ulrichgebert]

Hier noch einige Argumente für unseren liebsten Film über den zweiten Weltkrieg und den Sinn von Kriegen überhaupt. Er ist erbarmungslos lustig.

#The Americanization of Emily #Julie Andrews #James Garner #Melvyn Douglas #James Coburn #Joyce Grenfell #Keenan Wynn #Film gesehen #Arthur Hiller

[iconuk01]

Joyce Grenfell is some I've mentioned before, and probably will again. A gifted comedic actress and a brilliant diseuse ("performer of monologues", and which is my new word for the day!)

She falls somewhere between Alan Bennett and Victoria Wood, with the same exquisite comic timing as Bob Newhart. Her characters are "ordianry" inasmuch as they are drawn from life, or a variation thereof, and encapsulate comedy and a certain bittersweet element of an optimist whon isn't sure the world is optimistic as it should be.

This is a classic example, which she debuted in the late 60's when the topic of discussion was very topical indeed. An elderly lady en route to America (and on her first proper flight abroad) to see her son and his new, mixed race, family, something she's never had to deal with before, and which she is worried about messing up.

#joyce grenfell #Youtube

[abs0luteb4stard]

W A T C H I N G

Directed by [in]famous horror film maker WILLIAM CASTLE.

The opening title animation was done by CHARLES ADDAMS creator of The Addams Family!

#THE OLD DARK HOUSE (1963) #HAMMER FILMS #WILLIAM CASTLE #Tom Poston #Robert Morley #Janette Scott #Joyce Grenfell #Mervyn Johns #Fenella Fielding #Peter Bull #Danny Green #John Harvey #Amy Dalby #comedy horror #WATCHING

[myobt]

Lady of Laughter

Continue reading Untitled

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#comedian #comedy #documentary #funny #humor #Joyce Grenfell #Postaday #video #YouTube

[autumncottageattic]

The Yellow Rolls-Royce is a 1964 British dramatic composite film  

The Yellow Rolls-Royce uses a yellow 1931 Rolls-Royce Phantom II to frame the story of three very different owners: an English aristocrat, a Miami gangster and a wealthy American widow. It is set in the years up to and including the start of World War II.  

#the yellow rolls-royce #the yellow rolls-royce 1964 #british movies #old british movies #vintage hollywood #old hollywood #classic hollywood #golden hollywood #hollywood golden age #Ingrid Bergman #Omar Sharif #old movies #Joyce Grenfell

[askthetimemaster]

If I should die before the rest of you, Break not a flower nor inscribe a stone. Nor, when I’m gone, speak in a Sunday voice, But be the usual selves that I have known. Weep if you must, Parting is hell. But life goes on, So sing as well. ~ If I Should Go by Joyce Grenfell

#master #the master #princess luna #princess celestia #doctor whooves #discord whooves #doctor who #my little pony

[grandmaster-anne]

18 September 1970 Princess Anne pictured as she arrived at St. John's church smith square for a concert of songs, monologues, and sketches given by Miss Joyce Grenfell. It was in aid of the national trust © Dawey

#from my drafts #her hair is so pretty #princess anne #princess royal

[presleybutlervsp]

October 28, 1956

Elvis attended a rehearsal for the show to unveil a big cut-out of him on the top of the Times Square Paramount Theater promoting the premiere of Love Me Tender. He also gave a press conference, which he handled in a “polite, personable, quick-witted and charming” manner. About his influence on teenagers Elvis stated: ” My Bible tells me that what he sows he will also reap, and if I’m sowing evil and wickedness it will catch up with me. If I did think I was bad for people, I would go back to driving a truck, and I really mean this”.

Elvis got inoculated with the new polio vaccine as part of a public service announcement for the March of Dimes.

At the Maxine Elliot Theater, West Thirty-ninth Street, at 8.00 p.m. Elvis Presley makes his second appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show, where Elvis gets a Gold record for “Love Me Tender” – his first #1 without Scotty, Bill and DJ.

Ventriloquist Señor Wences and Joyce Grenfell also appeared on the program.

#elvisaaronpresley #elvispresley #elvis #graceland #elvis history #elvishistory #tcb #elvis fans #elvis presley #elvis the pelvis #elvis concert #elvis music #elvis the king #50s elvis #ed sullivan #Youtube