Now Screening - What Are You Watching Right Now?

[struth]

I'll say it twice..charming, charming

[struth]

Tonight's film isn't a film but a 2 part Star Trek TV episode of the Next Generation first transmitted in 1992. Taken from the Fan Collective box set; Time Travel, the episodes are Times Arrow pt 1 & 2. Stars the usual suspects plus Jerry Hardin as Mark Twain. A role he like so much he created a one-man touring show about him. This was also Gene Roddenberry's last episode as Exec Producer to mark his death a year before.Set in 1893 in San Francisco. All the exterior scenes in San Francisco were shot on location, like the historic Pico house and along Olvera Street, the restored area near the first mission in old Los Angeles.

[struth]

next up; Red Dwarf 5....we're the posse party

[struth]

Tonight it is Once Upon a Time in the West (1968) directed by Sergio Leone, and starring Charles Bronson, Claudia Cardinale(one of the most beautiful women ever), Jason Robards and ol blue eyes himself, Henry Fonda in his first baddy role.

This Leone film was, again shot using the Techniscope process which gave the advantage of being able derive the 2.35:1 aspect ratio while shooting with spherical lenses which avoided the distortion created by anamorphics during certain camera moves and extreme close-ups (such as those used by Sergio Leone). This film, together with The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966)(also directed by Leone and shot by Tonino Delli Colli) are now considered masterpieces in the use of the Techniscope system.

The original script called for Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef and Eli Wallach to be the trio gunned down at the train station. Eastwood, whose star was rising in Hollywood, did not want to be seen as a villain and objected. When he did, Wallach backed out as well.

Although mostly shot in Andalucia, some of it was shot at Monument Valley, Arizona where Leone's hero John Ford shot Stagecoach and The Searchers.

[Andrei]

Tonight it is Once Upon a Time in the West (1968) directed by Sergio Leone, and starring Charles Bronson, Claudia Cardinale(one of the most beautiful women ever), Jason Robards and ol blue eyes himself, Henry Fonda in his first baddy role.

This Leone film was, again shot using the Techniscope process which gave the advantage of being able derive the 2.35:1 aspect ratio while shooting with spherical lenses which avoided the distortion created by anamorphics during certain camera moves and extreme close-ups (such as those used by Sergio Leone). This film, together with The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966)(also directed by Leone and shot by Tonino Delli Colli) are now considered masterpieces in the use of the Techniscope system.

The original script called for Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef and Eli Wallach to be the trio gunned down at the train station. Eastwood, whose star was rising in Hollywood, did not want to be seen as a villain and objected. When he did, Wallach backed out as well.

Although mostly shot in Andalucia, some of it was shot at Monument Valley, Arizona where Leone's hero John Ford shot Stagecoach and The Searchers.

I have Ennio Morricone's soundtrack - not bad, not bad at all. I hope you can have sound via your speakers and not the TV.

[struth]

I have Ennio Morricone's soundtrack - not bad, not bad at all. I hope you can have sound via your speakers and not the TV.

yes I can if I wish Andrei, although at night I don't....its nice to run it through the Yamaha soundbar downstairs, but tonight just through the tv.

well, my alltime favourite film never lets me down, and this was no exception. The final scene with train and Claudia handing out the water is so evocative of the making of America, and the main theme music running through it makes for a stunning finale...the best I know....think I'll watch it all over again

God, Cardinale is so gorgeous .

[Macca]

Leone is my favourite director of all time. He is only in the past few years getting the credit he deserves. Critics have always looked down their noses at his films and it didn't help that his long films were often cut to ribbons for cinema and TV. Like Kubrick he understood that film is primarily a visual medium and you don't need acres of dialogue to set the scene when you can do it with one or two clever shots. Never afraid to let the camera linger. And linger...I like that. But...this is not as good a film as Once Upon a Time in America, even if it does have the admittedly handsome Ms Cardinale in it

[struth]

Funny that. But on Once upon a time the American one was my favourite Leone film but the West overtook it in my estimation a while ago for some reason out with Claudia ...I think it might have been the hope portrayed in the west(unrealised admittedly) in comparison to the drearier yet more beautifully shot America. Not much in it, or the gbu for that matter. And I've yet to mention Duck ya sucker/ fistful of dynamite/once upon a time in the revolution coming soon to a cinema near me

[Gazjam]

Those blue eyes...

Who'da thunk he'd a been a murderous villain!
Mr Fonda's idea to do that...so Im told.

[struth]

In memory of Dickie Attenborough, tonight's offering will be his first screen role, Noel Coward's In Which We Serve(1942). Written by Noel and directed by David Lean(his first) and starring Coward himself, Celia Johnson(her screen debut), John Mills(reputedly, his role was written in by his friend Coward to give Mills a job), Bernard Miles, and in a fairly minor role Richard Attenborough(his first too). his part, although small was important to the story and he played it superbly. needless to say he went on to make over 70 films and collected 2 oscars.

Lean got the job on a recommendation of Mills, who thought him to be the best editor he knew. John Mills character in the film had a baby(well his wife did) that was played by his daughter Juliet.

When dive bombers fire on the survivors clinging to a life raft, the effect of the strafing fire hitting the water was achieved by blowing gusts of air into submerged condoms. These would then float to surface after the director had shouted cut.

Tragically, Chief electrician Jock Dymore was killed by an exposion while setting up an explosion effect. Coward, who was a close friend of churchill spared no one on the set and sacked William Hartnell on the first day for being late. He also built a full-size replica of a destroyer to represent HMS Torrin in the Denham Studios outside London.

During filming, stories would continually appear in the Daily Express, ridiculing the production. The paper's proprietor, Lord Beaverbrook, couldn't understand how an effete actor like Noel Coward could possibly portray a Mountbatten-type character. Coward got his own back by including a shot of one of the paper's more infamous headlines from 1939, proclaiming "No War This Year".

will be watching the digitally remastered Carlton version which is in decent nick. The film originally was dedicated to the Royal Navy, "whereon under the good providence of God, the wealth, safety and strength of the Kingdom chiefly depend." , but tonight it is dedicated to Dickie, and I hope he is watching.