Author Topic: The Secret Life of Arnold Bax  (Read 4581 times)

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Offline BoyScoutKevin

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Re: The Secret Life of Arnold Bax
« Reply #3 on: February 16, 2019, 08:33:15 PM »
Sound
--I finally found a PAC, where the sound worked, so I could listen to this, while I watched it. I don't know whether this increased my appreciation or not. As an artist, I have found Ken more of a visual artist, then a verbal artist, exept, in films like Lair of the White Worm, where he is more unrestrained than he is here.

Eating and drinking
--People are seen eating and/or drinking 5 more times in the 2nd half of the film.
--If the people in the nightclub are drinking champagne, then they are using the wrong glassware. It is only, when they are in the car, that they are using the right glassware to drink champagne.

Motifs
--the sea
--stockings

Sir Arnold Bax
--has Ken ever made a film about a composer, where the composer is happy?
--Yet, seemingly the unhappiness of Bax works better here, than if he had been portrayed as being happier.
--I hope that Bax was in better physical condition than Ken, if and when he did his interpretive dance on the beach, I kept waiting for Ken to have some sort of physical attack.

Sir Alec Guinness
--no wonder his picture, as Fagin in Oliver Twist, is so prominently displayed in the film here. Bax wrote the music for the film. While I have seen the film, unlike an Elmer Bernstein or a John Williams, whose film music is memorable, I can remember nothing about Bax's music in the film.

Next time: Ken's Treasure Island

Offline BoyScoutKevin

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Re: The Secret Life of Arnold Bax
« Reply #2 on: February 04, 2019, 09:02:10 PM »
Ken Russell
--good actor = good director. I was thinking of John Huston, but, the same thing could be said for Ken Russell.
--though, he does not look like Arnold Bax.
--I think this is the most time, he has spent in front of the camera.

Alec Guinness
--that photo you see of Alec Guiness in the film is him portraying Fagin in the 1948 version of Oliver Twist.
--I don't know how it was in 1948, but that portrayal has become somewhat controversial now, as it is regarded as being somewhat anti-semitic.

Glenda Jackson
--yes, that is Glenda Jackson at the start of the film.
--I should have recognized her sooner than I did.
--while she has since appeared on stage, this is her last film appearance.

Maurice Bush
--I knew that doorman looked familiar.
--while he had done more TV, than films, I have seen some of his work on TV.
--though, his most familiar role is in Star Wars : Episode V, where he plays one of the bounty hunters in the film.
--though, the character is more memorable than the actor's portrayal of him.
--this was also his last film role.

Sally Rand
--the Rand is quicker than the eye.
--I could never understand the appeal of fan dancing. Not then. Not now.
--I just don't find it erotic.

Next time: part 2 (27:30)


Offline Rosebud

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The Secret Life of Arnold Bax
« Reply #1 on: November 26, 2018, 06:54:31 PM »
I found "The Secret Life of Arnold Bax."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3srBobRq6Cw&t=184s