...maybe not something on teevee today, but something essential that was once on teevee, oughta be on dvd, and thankfully has been systematically uploaded to youtube for your viewing pleasure
SCTV seasons 1, 2, 3, and 6
SCTV was a Canadian sketch comedy show that ran on and off from 1976 through 1984, at different times on four different tv networks.
Starring most famously John Candy, also Harold Ramis, Joe Flaherty, Eugene Levy, Andrea Martin, Catherine O'Hara, Dave Thomas, Rick Moranis, and Martin Short, also with Robin Duke, Tony Rosato, John Hemphill and Mary Charlotte Wilcox in some episodes.
About a fictional smalltown teevee station, all sketches are either the shows broadcast by the station, or the fictional backstage characters who run the station and star in these shows.
Seasons 4 and 5 were broadcast by NBC and are the ones officially available on dvd. All civilised folk oughta have these officially released SCTV dvd's in their archives already. But the other seasons have never had official dvd release, supposedly because of the cost of music licensing, and at this point it looks like they never will be.
But all these episodes are all now up on youtube, systematically arranged into playlists.
Season 1 1976–77, originally broadcast by Global tv
Season 2 1978–79, originally broadcast by Global tv
if you've never seen SCTV you may want to start with this two hour Best of SCTV from 1988, includes new wraparound content where Guy Caballero and Edith Prickley are being grilled by some sort of Senate subcommittee and show old programming as their defense.
and if you need some SCTV episode metadata, this SCTV Episode Guide is very good
Classic Albums reflected on DARK SIDE OF THE MOON. Very interesting and informative. In the 70s everyone seemed to have a copy of this LP in their house except for my house, so I had no idea about Pink Floyd until I was much older (they didn't release singles in the UK for ten years).
The previous night Sky Arts showed a documentary about the follow up WISH YOU WERE HERE which seemed to have been recorded at the same time, either that or they were cobbling interviews from other shows.
@chrisno1 I think those two Floyd documentaries have been on dvd a while. Here's the imdb page for the Dark Side documentar I have in my archives.
The Dark Side documentary I have goes through the album in the sequence of the songs, with flashbacks to the Syd years, and interviews with all four Floyd's and Alan Parsons. My favourite bits were Parsons demonstrating all the individual layers as he slides the mixing board switches up and down, and Rick Wright demonstrating the chord change in Breathe that he nicked from Miles Davis' Kind of Blue.
I'm re-watching a few episodes of The West Wing and I think most of the faces would fit very well in a western. Am I onto something or am I going crazy (you know - in ways that are relevant to the issue).
This is a mini-series directed by Susanne Bier and starring Nicole Kidman, Hugh Grant and Donald Sutherland. Grant and Kidman play a very a very affluent married couple in New York with seemingly perfect lives. Then a young mother of a pupil at their son's school gets brutally murdered. And surprise, surprise.... the couple's lives turn out to be really dark and complicated. This is the sort of mini-series where everything is high quality: directing, costume, acting, script etc.
It's not revolutionary or even very inventive, but everything is very well done. That's not a problem, most movies and TV-series can't be ground-breaking.
For the first time I notice obvious "work done" on Kidman's face. There is something below her nose that looks really "off". I guess cosmetic surgery is almost standard among rich wives in NY, so at least it works for the series.
Hugh Grant has turned into a really good actor in recent years and rarely has this been clearer than here. I know some wanted him as Bond sone years back. I think he always lacked the tough fighter aspect of the character. But while watching The Undoing it struck me that Grant would make a good M. He shows a threath in his acting I haven't noticed before. Anyway, a good series.
I have just about given up on Line of Duty on iPlayer, a bit into Series 5. This one is just so grim and dark, not so many twists and turns, and when Ted Hastings looks like he's about to be taken for a ride by some swindler that even I would smell a rat at, it's time to call it a day.
I suppose The Killing, being reshown on BBC4, is also dark but it has a sleek nourish gloss to it. It's very well done, set in Sweden of course but you'd almost hardly know, it has its own look and doesn't do the whole sunny Stockholm look (is it actually Stockholm come to think of it?) rather it has its own vibe. I didn't catch this the first time round though about 14 episodes of 20 in, it seems it may be a shaggy dog story of sorts. It's oddly unusual for me to find anyone on telly sexually attractive these days but the actress who plays Sarah Lund is, she has something unobtrusively going on there. All the ensemble cast is brilliant.
I saw Tinker Tailor Solder Spy over three nights on BBC4. Having seen the movie with Gary Oldman, and having been troubled by its stylistic nature and cinematic look, this one looks genuinely seedy and the fag end of 70s Britain. Everyone looks really old in it, I mean Alec Guinness as Smiley seems mid 70s if he's a day, maybe they all looked old back then. For all this, I still found it hard to follow despite knowing who the 'mole' or traitor was, as none in the 'Circus' seemed too interesting. Really, the whole idea of 'the Circus' - sort of the name for a British spying outfit though I must have that wrong - passed me by this time as well. Not sure if Gary Oldman wasn't better as Smiley. Was going to say, would Guinness have played Sid Vicious, but then there's his macabre turn in The Ladykillers, and I'm not sure he couldn't have in his day!
Really, the whole idea of 'the Circus' - sort of the name for a British spying outfit though I must have that wrong - passed me by this time as well. Not sure if Gary Oldman wasn't better as Smiley. Was going to say, would Guinness have played Sid Vicious, but then there's his macabre turn in The Ladykillers, and I'm not sure he couldn't have in his day!
In his espionage novels, author John le Carré placed the headquarters of the fictionalised British intelligence service based on MI6 in buildings on Shaftesbury Avenue and Cambridge Circus; it is from this that Le Carré's nickname for the agency, "The Circus", derives. The BBC's Gordon Corera notes that the entrance described by Le Carré most closely resembles that of 90 Charing Cross Road, just north of Cambridge Circus. The actual MI6 has never occupied premises in or near Cambridge Circus.
I'm not sure le Carre ever gave his fictional secret service a proper name, always seemed to be just "The Circus", which certainly implies a clown-show. There are other rival British intelligence services in his books, such as the one The Circus conspires to shut down in The Looking Glass War, I forget if it had a name. the CIA is always referred to as "The Cousins". Le Carre had his own language, I'm sure there's a le Carre glossary somewhere online..
I just recently spotted Gary Oldman in his cameo in True Romance, absolutely unrecognisable. A chameleon of an actor.
Yes, lots of shots of Cambridge Circus from overhead in this, though I'm not sure it showed spies actually entering the buildings there so I thought they were just being cute. Of course, The Night Manager references the River House I think, and that turns out to be the famous Mi6 building at Vauxhall - and that's John Le Carre too.
I had a feeling you would watch Tinker, Tailor... So did I. I have never seen it before and I don't want to again. Why are all these Le Carre TV adaptations so ponderous? They seem to crawl by. I was most impressed by the cast which read like a list of knights and dames of the theatre world. Guinness does look very old. I didn't believe he could be so old and still be functioning as a spy. The real problem with the serial was the same as all the others: they tell and don't show. Too much dialogue. Too much happens off-camera. I prefer the movie version which cuts out swathes of insignificant details. The stuff at the boy's school was odd in the film version, its distinctly creepy in this one. IMO both versions could have eliminated the hero-worshipping student. I [we] know exactly what Le Carre's hinting at and it is not pleasant. A very dull 3 evenings, I thought.
Was he hinting? I don't know. On the Mumsnet thread on this, someone says 'thankfully without the kiddie fiddling' aspect or were they wrong? It seemed odd to have a spy go off and be a school teacher but then again maybe not as the schools were so unregulated back then and totally weird, as a recent expose in the Sunday Times about historical sexual abuse at one boarding school showed. It would be a good place to hide out and anyone who'd been in the Services would be seen as 'above board'.
Like current - and past - care homes, the whole school setting is a bit of a State racket, a closed shop, no questions asked and corruption and wrongdoing swept under the carpet.
Agree, very slow I thought it was just me after a few drinks. That said, if they repeat Smiley's People I might have a look.
its actually the book in between, The Honourable Schoolboy , that has about 200 pages of travel action and adventure in Hong Kong and South East Asia, and that's the one in the trilogy that didnt get adapted.
Otherwise le Carre's books are inherently literary, not much cinematic potential. Lots of interrogations and mindgames and research in filing cabinets. The most suspenseful scene in Tinker Tailor... is Guillame sneaking a document out of the Circus library. Smiley himself is not a spy but a spymaster, the actual field agents are mostly offstage and as they are inherently duplicitous their actual work is being reviewed and argued about by competing senior staff, at least one of whom is a mole. Its actually important all the real spywork happens offstage because that means no-one we meet really knows what happened, and as they debate what they think happened at least one has reason to be lying. le Carre plays some really clever literary tricks with all the unreliable narration and reporting events from the wrong person's point of view, but that won't work in cinema where the story is told by the omniscient camera. This inherently literary trick is used in most of his books, so its surprising so many of his books have been filmed!
Smiley himself is meant to be retired at the start of Tinker Tailor... , called back into action by a cabinet minister (I think?) because nobody actually running The Circus can be trusted and an experienced outsider has to do the investigation. So he's meant to be old.
I stayed up till nearly 4 to watch the final episodes of The Killing on BBC4.
I enjoyed the journey but the final denouement was a bit Scooby Doo, I mean come off it. It was a shaggy dog story and the finale didn't really seem to connect with the opening episode where we are told of this recurrent, cool calculated serial killer at large. Unless - and this may be true - Killing 2 starts with loose threads from the previous series pointing at a wider conspiracy, which this did seem to hint at sometimes.
Like Line of Duty, this started off very cool and smart but too many misdirection tricks tried the patience to the point where it just didn't quite make sense or hang together at all.
That said, Killing 2 starts this Saturday on same channel so I may tune in for another night owl stint.
"This is where we leave you Mr Bond."
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Silhouette ManThe last refuge of a scoundrelPosts: 8,845MI6 Agent
edited May 2023
I just wanted to add my thoughts to the recent discussion on Tinker Tailor Solider Spy and Smiley's People. I didn't see them repeated on BBC 4 but I did quite coincidentally watch both series recently.
I had bought Tinker Tailor Solider Spy (1979) on Bluray back in 2019 from a supermarket when it was a new release but I'd never gotten around to watching it until now. Like others here have said I found it rather ponderous, slow and somewhat difficult to follow all the machinations of the complex plot. There were so many characters, code names, operation names, flashbacks etc. that it was a hard watch. I'm glad that I managed to stick with it though. I was under no illusions before I went in that it would most likely be a tad tedious to watch (like real world intelligence work one imagines) and so it ultimately proved. I'd never seen it before and I wanted to rectify that as a long-time spy fan. I kind of felt that it was my duty to watch it as it is a classic BBC Le Carré production. I'm glad I'm not the only one who found it difficult to follow. It would probably benefit from multiple viewings to see if things would become clearer once one had already had a trial run through it. However, as @chrisno1 says above it's the type of show you can only really stomach seeing once. There is little to no rewatch value in it. Perhaps there would be after a long expanse of time has passed and one has forgotten the details of it. One thing I did think was excellent was the score and the titles with the Russian dolls opening up slowly to reveal the one with no face - the mole at the head of the Circus. That harked back to cover of the first edition of the source novel I believe. That was a nice little callback and I liked how the music cue was set to each reveal of the Russian doll part being listed upwards. Very nicely done indeed. I was surprised to find out that Le Carré had more or less invented the term mole in the source novel as I'd just assumed its use went back further than 1974. Le Carré of course has his own glossary of terms with which he populates his world of espionage, many of which have entered into the lexicon in the same way the Bible and Shakespeare did before him.
On the stuff at the school I didn't get a Jimmy Savile vibe from it but maybe I missed it. It was the 1970s and things were obviously done differently then but I don't know if Le Carré was hinting at anything there or not. Perhaps there are undertones of it in the source novel? Paedophilia wasn't as out in the open as a subject then as it is now though as we know it obviously went on unabated. Of course Johnny Rotten is on record in 1978 as saying that he knew what Jimmy Savile and the like were up to but that part of his BBC Radio interview was never broadcast at the time (for fear of libel?) so maybe Le Carré knew that this type of stuff was going on in our schools too just as he knew of what went on in the invisible secret world of Intelligence too. It just goes to show that even the recent past really is a foreign country in terms of modern sensibilities and experiences. All that said, I did find the school scenes a little out of place (maybe with hindsight even a little inappropriate too?) in a spy drama like this and can think of no comparable scenes in any other spy film or TV series that I've seen thus far.
Curious to see the follow up to Tinker Tailor Solider Spy I then bought the 1982 BBC adaptation of Smiley's People on DVD from eBay which I have to say I enjoyed much more. I think the story was a tad simpler and a little easier to follow with less characters involved. I was amused to see the actors who played Karl Stromberg and Hugo Drax one after the other in the Bond films appear in this in episodes at each end of the series. In fact it was Curt Jurgens's last role before he died of a heart attack in 1982. It was nice (and strange) to see Michael Lonsdale's full face without a beard for once. Again the titles with the yellow chalk line call sign were interesting and rather drab and down at heel at the same time (the wood was flaking and rotten much like the seedy secret world depicted). That helped to set the scene and the mood as it was the drab world of espionage again on display and not the glamorous and romantic one we know and love from the Bond novels and films. I did find it curious that Patrick Stewart as the chief protagonist Karla had so little screen time and that he never once spoke in either series. I suppose that drummed up the sense of mystery and intrigue that surrounded him but I was expecting him to at least say something. As is common with Le Carré's work there was no sense of victory at the end when the world weary George Smiley was declared by Peter Guillam to have won. "Yes. Yes, I suppose I did," says a tired Smiley resignedly. I thought future Bond radio actor Michael Jayston made a much better Peter Guillam than did Michael Byrne in this series. I'm not sure why the character was recast between the two series but presumably Jayston was unavailable at the time. I also noted the change in accent and character over the two series by Toby Esterhase but this is put down to him feeling free enough of the Circus to revert to his own Hungarian accent and not have to pretend to be a member of the English upper class in order to fit in with the rather rarefied world of high-level British Intelligence any more.
Next I'll have to watch the 2011 film version of Tinker Tailor Solider Spy to see how it compares. I have it on DVD but again I've never gotten around to watching it either. It's time to rectify that as well...
"The tough man of the world. The Secret Agent. The man who was only a silhouette." - Ian Fleming, Moonraker (1955).
I understand some feel like learning Danish after watching The Killing. That's up to the individual viewer, but the language is distinguished by the soft consonants. So much so that Danes sound like a Norwegian talking with a lot of food in his mouth or possibly after drinking a lot. I'm not joking or unfair. Test have shown Danes have more problems understanding eachother than people in other nations do, but they find it easier to understand conversations in noisy envirorments.
Another fun fact: The origional title means "The Crime", not The Killing.
@Silhouette Man there's a guy on Twitter who's in the same boat as you re getting the Blu Ray of Tinker... it's uncanny.
Danes are meant to be filthy when it comes to sex, quite uninhibited. This must be true as I read it in the Sunday Times just yesterday.
Lots of great reviews. I caught the last 2 mins of Clambake - Elvis still looking young. The final shot of him in the car with his gal seemed to be with a stand in for Elvis. 1967 - the Beatles were doing Sgt Pepper.
That said, ITV had the gall to show Casino Royale 67 two nights ago. It really is amazing how awful it is. The five mins I saw were Sellers (looking good tbf) and The Look of Love tune with Ursula Andress. Even that quickly turned rubbish. The revolving bed and Sellers' stint on it inspired a similar scene in Austin Powers and that's about all you can say about it. The film is meant to be madcap, zany, a romp but suffers from a dreadful lethargy and lack of funny bones.
"This is where we leave you Mr Bond."
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Silhouette ManThe last refuge of a scoundrelPosts: 8,845MI6 Agent
Yes, that's my alter ego. I have a split personality, you could say. I console myself with the better picture quality stuff. Seriously though, I'm glad I bought it and watched it. I just won't be rushing to see it again any time soon as interesting as it was.
"The tough man of the world. The Secret Agent. The man who was only a silhouette." - Ian Fleming, Moonraker (1955).
I stayed up to see Danish crime series Killing 2 on BBC4 last night but I think I'll give this one a miss. I don't know why they start showing three episodes at 11.45pm, I know it's on iPlayer but I prefer to watch on telly. This one retains Sarah Lund and her boss but that's all of the former cast and it seems all the politicians in Govt are completely different. It doesn't have the charm of the original, not suggesting the crime itself has any charm, but it doesn't have the noir-ish gleam where much of it took place in the evening, it seemed, perhaps because it was Sweden and a particular time of year. I suppose they could film this one in bright mid summer but then Lund would have to lose her trademark woollen pullovers.
More the point, the last series as a real shaggy dog story and it reminds me of what Times columnists like to point out - a tad hopefully - about UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, that once you lose trust you don't really get it back again. The way this one's going, you don't really believe they won't again pull the rug up from under you in a way that defies belief. I tuned into his one thinking, well, maybe they do tie up the loose ends of the previous series, but no, it's seems to be a completely new story. The journey doesn't look so enjoyable this time and the end result is in doubt.
"This is where we leave you Mr Bond."
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Sir MilesThe Wrong Side Of The WardrobePosts: 27,749Chief of Staff
I’ve just finished the final (?) series in the Deutschland trilogy - Deutschland 89…this series follows on from Deutschland 83 & Deutschland 86.
Filmed in both English & German it follows a former East German patrol guard - Martin Rauch - and how he’s used by the HVA, the foreign intelligence service of the Stasi to work for them.
Sky Arts is getting its movie critics together for a top 25 sci-fi countdown. Usually interesting, especially if like me you like lists, but the format is always a bit shaky and they never spend enough time discussing each film
Very good. A disappointing number one in Close Encounters. The list covered all the bases. Disappointed they preferred Empire to the original Star Wars. I was pleased to see The Fifth Element placing well. Having seen all of the films except . ET. it did at least feel like a list I could relate to.
First broadcast in 2009, this is a 5-part series dealing with the aftermath of a multi-car crash. The programme has flashbacks which tells the stories of the people involved in the crash. Co-written by Anthony Horowitz this stars Douglas Henshall as the detective who leads the investigation to find the cause of the crash. I had it worked out by episode 3, but there were still some revelations that surprise as we are led down different paths of red herrings. It has a decent alternative timeline ending with what would have happened if one of the characters had done a simple act in the first episode.
A good cast including Phil Davis, Paul McGann, Sylvia Syms and Jan Francis.
Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand.
No, I'm not a big Marvel fan. Like very many I have watched a few of the movies and liked some more than others.
It's fun for me to hear such a big movie star signing in my language and doing it so well. The lyrics were written by a Norwegian author and the melody by a folk musician especially for the show. The producers wanted a Asgardian drinking song that convayed longing and homesickness, and they wanted it in a traditional Norwegian style. I haven't followed the series, but I think the end result is good.
Speaking of Marvel, I watched MARVEL'S M.O.D.O.K. on Hulu, and it's a blast. It's all about one of Marvel's goofier villains--the giant-headed M.O.D.O.K.--and his problems with his evil corporation being taken over and his wife asking for divorce. The show is done with animated puppets so there's very much a ROBOT CHICKEN feel to the proceedings, and seeing Marvel make fun of itself is a big part of the appeal.
There's a documentary series on BBC4 - if you're in the UK - about Ernest Hemingway. I caught the first episode on Tuesday, I don't know if it's on iplayer or anything. Very interesting.
Comments
...maybe not something on teevee today, but something essential that was once on teevee, oughta be on dvd, and thankfully has been systematically uploaded to youtube for your viewing pleasure
SCTV seasons 1, 2, 3, and 6
SCTV was a Canadian sketch comedy show that ran on and off from 1976 through 1984, at different times on four different tv networks.
Starring most famously John Candy, also Harold Ramis, Joe Flaherty, Eugene Levy, Andrea Martin, Catherine O'Hara, Dave Thomas, Rick Moranis, and Martin Short, also with Robin Duke, Tony Rosato, John Hemphill and Mary Charlotte Wilcox in some episodes.
About a fictional smalltown teevee station, all sketches are either the shows broadcast by the station, or the fictional backstage characters who run the station and star in these shows.
Seasons 4 and 5 were broadcast by NBC and are the ones officially available on dvd. All civilised folk oughta have these officially released SCTV dvd's in their archives already. But the other seasons have never had official dvd release, supposedly because of the cost of music licensing, and at this point it looks like they never will be.
But all these episodes are all now up on youtube, systematically arranged into playlists.
Season 1 1976–77, originally broadcast by Global tv
Season 2 1978–79, originally broadcast by Global tv
Season 3 1980–81, originally broadcast by CBC
Season 6 1983–84, originally broadcast by Cinemax (45 minute versions or 30 minutes versions)
also two SCTV related specials:
The Last Polka, 1985 with John Candy and Eugene Levy
The Enigma of Bobby Bittman, 1988 with Levy
if you've never seen SCTV you may want to start with this two hour Best of SCTV from 1988, includes new wraparound content where Guy Caballero and Edith Prickley are being grilled by some sort of Senate subcommittee and show old programming as their defense.
and if you need some SCTV episode metadata, this SCTV Episode Guide is very good
Classic Albums reflected on DARK SIDE OF THE MOON. Very interesting and informative. In the 70s everyone seemed to have a copy of this LP in their house except for my house, so I had no idea about Pink Floyd until I was much older (they didn't release singles in the UK for ten years).
The previous night Sky Arts showed a documentary about the follow up WISH YOU WERE HERE which seemed to have been recorded at the same time, either that or they were cobbling interviews from other shows.
A nice nostalgia trip.
@chrisno1 I think those two Floyd documentaries have been on dvd a while. Here's the imdb page for the Dark Side documentar I have in my archives.
The Dark Side documentary I have goes through the album in the sequence of the songs, with flashbacks to the Syd years, and interviews with all four Floyd's and Alan Parsons. My favourite bits were Parsons demonstrating all the individual layers as he slides the mixing board switches up and down, and Rick Wright demonstrating the chord change in Breathe that he nicked from Miles Davis' Kind of Blue.
@caractacus potts
yes, that's the one, either that or they like to tell the same stories
I'm re-watching a few episodes of The West Wing and I think most of the faces would fit very well in a western. Am I onto something or am I going crazy (you know - in ways that are relevant to the issue).
The Undoing (2020)
This is a mini-series directed by Susanne Bier and starring Nicole Kidman, Hugh Grant and Donald Sutherland. Grant and Kidman play a very a very affluent married couple in New York with seemingly perfect lives. Then a young mother of a pupil at their son's school gets brutally murdered. And surprise, surprise.... the couple's lives turn out to be really dark and complicated. This is the sort of mini-series where everything is high quality: directing, costume, acting, script etc.
It's not revolutionary or even very inventive, but everything is very well done. That's not a problem, most movies and TV-series can't be ground-breaking.
For the first time I notice obvious "work done" on Kidman's face. There is something below her nose that looks really "off". I guess cosmetic surgery is almost standard among rich wives in NY, so at least it works for the series.
Hugh Grant has turned into a really good actor in recent years and rarely has this been clearer than here. I know some wanted him as Bond sone years back. I think he always lacked the tough fighter aspect of the character. But while watching The Undoing it struck me that Grant would make a good M. He shows a threath in his acting I haven't noticed before. Anyway, a good series.
Someone in Norwegian Paradise Hotel has caught Covid-19. I wonder if everyone will be quaratenened? 😅
I have just about given up on Line of Duty on iPlayer, a bit into Series 5. This one is just so grim and dark, not so many twists and turns, and when Ted Hastings looks like he's about to be taken for a ride by some swindler that even I would smell a rat at, it's time to call it a day.
I suppose The Killing, being reshown on BBC4, is also dark but it has a sleek nourish gloss to it. It's very well done, set in Sweden of course but you'd almost hardly know, it has its own look and doesn't do the whole sunny Stockholm look (is it actually Stockholm come to think of it?) rather it has its own vibe. I didn't catch this the first time round though about 14 episodes of 20 in, it seems it may be a shaggy dog story of sorts. It's oddly unusual for me to find anyone on telly sexually attractive these days but the actress who plays Sarah Lund is, she has something unobtrusively going on there. All the ensemble cast is brilliant.
I saw Tinker Tailor Solder Spy over three nights on BBC4. Having seen the movie with Gary Oldman, and having been troubled by its stylistic nature and cinematic look, this one looks genuinely seedy and the fag end of 70s Britain. Everyone looks really old in it, I mean Alec Guinness as Smiley seems mid 70s if he's a day, maybe they all looked old back then. For all this, I still found it hard to follow despite knowing who the 'mole' or traitor was, as none in the 'Circus' seemed too interesting. Really, the whole idea of 'the Circus' - sort of the name for a British spying outfit though I must have that wrong - passed me by this time as well. Not sure if Gary Oldman wasn't better as Smiley. Was going to say, would Guinness have played Sid Vicious, but then there's his macabre turn in The Ladykillers, and I'm not sure he couldn't have in his day!
Roger Moore 1927-2017
napoleon plural said:
Really, the whole idea of 'the Circus' - sort of the name for a British spying outfit though I must have that wrong - passed me by this time as well. Not sure if Gary Oldman wasn't better as Smiley. Was going to say, would Guinness have played Sid Vicious, but then there's his macabre turn in The Ladykillers, and I'm not sure he couldn't have in his day!
from wikipedia...
In his espionage novels, author John le Carré placed the headquarters of the fictionalised British intelligence service based on MI6 in buildings on Shaftesbury Avenue and Cambridge Circus; it is from this that Le Carré's nickname for the agency, "The Circus", derives. The BBC's Gordon Corera notes that the entrance described by Le Carré most closely resembles that of 90 Charing Cross Road, just north of Cambridge Circus. The actual MI6 has never occupied premises in or near Cambridge Circus.
I'm not sure le Carre ever gave his fictional secret service a proper name, always seemed to be just "The Circus", which certainly implies a clown-show. There are other rival British intelligence services in his books, such as the one The Circus conspires to shut down in The Looking Glass War, I forget if it had a name. the CIA is always referred to as "The Cousins". Le Carre had his own language, I'm sure there's a le Carre glossary somewhere online..
I just recently spotted Gary Oldman in his cameo in True Romance, absolutely unrecognisable. A chameleon of an actor.
Yes, lots of shots of Cambridge Circus from overhead in this, though I'm not sure it showed spies actually entering the buildings there so I thought they were just being cute. Of course, The Night Manager references the River House I think, and that turns out to be the famous Mi6 building at Vauxhall - and that's John Le Carre too.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
@Napoleon Plural
I had a feeling you would watch Tinker, Tailor... So did I. I have never seen it before and I don't want to again. Why are all these Le Carre TV adaptations so ponderous? They seem to crawl by. I was most impressed by the cast which read like a list of knights and dames of the theatre world. Guinness does look very old. I didn't believe he could be so old and still be functioning as a spy. The real problem with the serial was the same as all the others: they tell and don't show. Too much dialogue. Too much happens off-camera. I prefer the movie version which cuts out swathes of insignificant details. The stuff at the boy's school was odd in the film version, its distinctly creepy in this one. IMO both versions could have eliminated the hero-worshipping student. I [we] know exactly what Le Carre's hinting at and it is not pleasant. A very dull 3 evenings, I thought.
Was he hinting? I don't know. On the Mumsnet thread on this, someone says 'thankfully without the kiddie fiddling' aspect or were they wrong? It seemed odd to have a spy go off and be a school teacher but then again maybe not as the schools were so unregulated back then and totally weird, as a recent expose in the Sunday Times about historical sexual abuse at one boarding school showed. It would be a good place to hide out and anyone who'd been in the Services would be seen as 'above board'.
Like current - and past - care homes, the whole school setting is a bit of a State racket, a closed shop, no questions asked and corruption and wrongdoing swept under the carpet.
Agree, very slow I thought it was just me after a few drinks. That said, if they repeat Smiley's People I might have a look.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
its actually the book in between, The Honourable Schoolboy , that has about 200 pages of travel action and adventure in Hong Kong and South East Asia, and that's the one in the trilogy that didnt get adapted.
Otherwise le Carre's books are inherently literary, not much cinematic potential. Lots of interrogations and mindgames and research in filing cabinets. The most suspenseful scene in Tinker Tailor... is Guillame sneaking a document out of the Circus library. Smiley himself is not a spy but a spymaster, the actual field agents are mostly offstage and as they are inherently duplicitous their actual work is being reviewed and argued about by competing senior staff, at least one of whom is a mole. Its actually important all the real spywork happens offstage because that means no-one we meet really knows what happened, and as they debate what they think happened at least one has reason to be lying. le Carre plays some really clever literary tricks with all the unreliable narration and reporting events from the wrong person's point of view, but that won't work in cinema where the story is told by the omniscient camera. This inherently literary trick is used in most of his books, so its surprising so many of his books have been filmed!
Smiley himself is meant to be retired at the start of Tinker Tailor... , called back into action by a cabinet minister (I think?) because nobody actually running The Circus can be trusted and an experienced outsider has to do the investigation. So he's meant to be old.
I stayed up till nearly 4 to watch the final episodes of The Killing on BBC4.
I enjoyed the journey but the final denouement was a bit Scooby Doo, I mean come off it. It was a shaggy dog story and the finale didn't really seem to connect with the opening episode where we are told of this recurrent, cool calculated serial killer at large. Unless - and this may be true - Killing 2 starts with loose threads from the previous series pointing at a wider conspiracy, which this did seem to hint at sometimes.
Like Line of Duty, this started off very cool and smart but too many misdirection tricks tried the patience to the point where it just didn't quite make sense or hang together at all.
That said, Killing 2 starts this Saturday on same channel so I may tune in for another night owl stint.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
I just wanted to add my thoughts to the recent discussion on Tinker Tailor Solider Spy and Smiley's People. I didn't see them repeated on BBC 4 but I did quite coincidentally watch both series recently.
I had bought Tinker Tailor Solider Spy (1979) on Bluray back in 2019 from a supermarket when it was a new release but I'd never gotten around to watching it until now. Like others here have said I found it rather ponderous, slow and somewhat difficult to follow all the machinations of the complex plot. There were so many characters, code names, operation names, flashbacks etc. that it was a hard watch. I'm glad that I managed to stick with it though. I was under no illusions before I went in that it would most likely be a tad tedious to watch (like real world intelligence work one imagines) and so it ultimately proved. I'd never seen it before and I wanted to rectify that as a long-time spy fan. I kind of felt that it was my duty to watch it as it is a classic BBC Le Carré production. I'm glad I'm not the only one who found it difficult to follow. It would probably benefit from multiple viewings to see if things would become clearer once one had already had a trial run through it. However, as @chrisno1 says above it's the type of show you can only really stomach seeing once. There is little to no rewatch value in it. Perhaps there would be after a long expanse of time has passed and one has forgotten the details of it. One thing I did think was excellent was the score and the titles with the Russian dolls opening up slowly to reveal the one with no face - the mole at the head of the Circus. That harked back to cover of the first edition of the source novel I believe. That was a nice little callback and I liked how the music cue was set to each reveal of the Russian doll part being listed upwards. Very nicely done indeed. I was surprised to find out that Le Carré had more or less invented the term mole in the source novel as I'd just assumed its use went back further than 1974. Le Carré of course has his own glossary of terms with which he populates his world of espionage, many of which have entered into the lexicon in the same way the Bible and Shakespeare did before him.
On the stuff at the school I didn't get a Jimmy Savile vibe from it but maybe I missed it. It was the 1970s and things were obviously done differently then but I don't know if Le Carré was hinting at anything there or not. Perhaps there are undertones of it in the source novel? Paedophilia wasn't as out in the open as a subject then as it is now though as we know it obviously went on unabated. Of course Johnny Rotten is on record in 1978 as saying that he knew what Jimmy Savile and the like were up to but that part of his BBC Radio interview was never broadcast at the time (for fear of libel?) so maybe Le Carré knew that this type of stuff was going on in our schools too just as he knew of what went on in the invisible secret world of Intelligence too. It just goes to show that even the recent past really is a foreign country in terms of modern sensibilities and experiences. All that said, I did find the school scenes a little out of place (maybe with hindsight even a little inappropriate too?) in a spy drama like this and can think of no comparable scenes in any other spy film or TV series that I've seen thus far.
Curious to see the follow up to Tinker Tailor Solider Spy I then bought the 1982 BBC adaptation of Smiley's People on DVD from eBay which I have to say I enjoyed much more. I think the story was a tad simpler and a little easier to follow with less characters involved. I was amused to see the actors who played Karl Stromberg and Hugo Drax one after the other in the Bond films appear in this in episodes at each end of the series. In fact it was Curt Jurgens's last role before he died of a heart attack in 1982. It was nice (and strange) to see Michael Lonsdale's full face without a beard for once. Again the titles with the yellow chalk line call sign were interesting and rather drab and down at heel at the same time (the wood was flaking and rotten much like the seedy secret world depicted). That helped to set the scene and the mood as it was the drab world of espionage again on display and not the glamorous and romantic one we know and love from the Bond novels and films. I did find it curious that Patrick Stewart as the chief protagonist Karla had so little screen time and that he never once spoke in either series. I suppose that drummed up the sense of mystery and intrigue that surrounded him but I was expecting him to at least say something. As is common with Le Carré's work there was no sense of victory at the end when the world weary George Smiley was declared by Peter Guillam to have won. "Yes. Yes, I suppose I did," says a tired Smiley resignedly. I thought future Bond radio actor Michael Jayston made a much better Peter Guillam than did Michael Byrne in this series. I'm not sure why the character was recast between the two series but presumably Jayston was unavailable at the time. I also noted the change in accent and character over the two series by Toby Esterhase but this is put down to him feeling free enough of the Circus to revert to his own Hungarian accent and not have to pretend to be a member of the English upper class in order to fit in with the rather rarefied world of high-level British Intelligence any more.
Next I'll have to watch the 2011 film version of Tinker Tailor Solider Spy to see how it compares. I have it on DVD but again I've never gotten around to watching it either. It's time to rectify that as well...
I understand some feel like learning Danish after watching The Killing. That's up to the individual viewer, but the language is distinguished by the soft consonants. So much so that Danes sound like a Norwegian talking with a lot of food in his mouth or possibly after drinking a lot. I'm not joking or unfair. Test have shown Danes have more problems understanding eachother than people in other nations do, but they find it easier to understand conversations in noisy envirorments.
Another fun fact: The origional title means "The Crime", not The Killing.
@Silhouette Man there's a guy on Twitter who's in the same boat as you re getting the Blu Ray of Tinker... it's uncanny.
Danes are meant to be filthy when it comes to sex, quite uninhibited. This must be true as I read it in the Sunday Times just yesterday.
Lots of great reviews. I caught the last 2 mins of Clambake - Elvis still looking young. The final shot of him in the car with his gal seemed to be with a stand in for Elvis. 1967 - the Beatles were doing Sgt Pepper.
That said, ITV had the gall to show Casino Royale 67 two nights ago. It really is amazing how awful it is. The five mins I saw were Sellers (looking good tbf) and The Look of Love tune with Ursula Andress. Even that quickly turned rubbish. The revolving bed and Sellers' stint on it inspired a similar scene in Austin Powers and that's about all you can say about it. The film is meant to be madcap, zany, a romp but suffers from a dreadful lethargy and lack of funny bones.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Yes, that's my alter ego. I have a split personality, you could say. I console myself with the better picture quality stuff. Seriously though, I'm glad I bought it and watched it. I just won't be rushing to see it again any time soon as interesting as it was.
I stayed up to see Danish crime series Killing 2 on BBC4 last night but I think I'll give this one a miss. I don't know why they start showing three episodes at 11.45pm, I know it's on iPlayer but I prefer to watch on telly. This one retains Sarah Lund and her boss but that's all of the former cast and it seems all the politicians in Govt are completely different. It doesn't have the charm of the original, not suggesting the crime itself has any charm, but it doesn't have the noir-ish gleam where much of it took place in the evening, it seemed, perhaps because it was Sweden and a particular time of year. I suppose they could film this one in bright mid summer but then Lund would have to lose her trademark woollen pullovers.
More the point, the last series as a real shaggy dog story and it reminds me of what Times columnists like to point out - a tad hopefully - about UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, that once you lose trust you don't really get it back again. The way this one's going, you don't really believe they won't again pull the rug up from under you in a way that defies belief. I tuned into his one thinking, well, maybe they do tie up the loose ends of the previous series, but no, it's seems to be a completely new story. The journey doesn't look so enjoyable this time and the end result is in doubt.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
I’ve just finished the final (?) series in the Deutschland trilogy - Deutschland 89…this series follows on from Deutschland 83 & Deutschland 86.
Filmed in both English & German it follows a former East German patrol guard - Martin Rauch - and how he’s used by the HVA, the foreign intelligence service of the Stasi to work for them.
Can’t recommend this series highly enough🍸
Sky Arts is getting its movie critics together for a top 25 sci-fi countdown. Usually interesting, especially if like me you like lists, but the format is always a bit shaky and they never spend enough time discussing each film
In their 'Discovering...' profiles they do tend to be relentlessly positive, never any 'Then he/she did a run of crap films...'
One of them looks like my local MP, Chris Grayling, whom I dislike.
The other looks like 'Dot Cotton' off Line of Duty!
Roger Moore 1927-2017
😄😄😄
Very good. A disappointing number one in Close Encounters. The list covered all the bases. Disappointed they preferred Empire to the original Star Wars. I was pleased to see The Fifth Element placing well. Having seen all of the films except . ET. it did at least feel like a list I could relate to.
COLLISION
First broadcast in 2009, this is a 5-part series dealing with the aftermath of a multi-car crash. The programme has flashbacks which tells the stories of the people involved in the crash. Co-written by Anthony Horowitz this stars Douglas Henshall as the detective who leads the investigation to find the cause of the crash. I had it worked out by episode 3, but there were still some revelations that surprise as we are led down different paths of red herrings. It has a decent alternative timeline ending with what would have happened if one of the characters had done a simple act in the first episode.
A good cast including Phil Davis, Paul McGann, Sylvia Syms and Jan Francis.
Fact that I think is fun: Tom Hiddleston sings in Norwegian in the seasons last episode of Loki. His pronouncination is pretty good too. 😊
does this mean youre now a fan of the Marvel Cinematic Universe @Number24 ?
you're going to have to go back and watch all two dozen movies and umpty-zillion teevee series now to get caught up!
(actually what you say makes complete sense: Thor and Loki are Norse gods, they shouldnt be speaking Shakespearian English when here on Midgard)
No, I'm not a big Marvel fan. Like very many I have watched a few of the movies and liked some more than others.
It's fun for me to hear such a big movie star signing in my language and doing it so well. The lyrics were written by a Norwegian author and the melody by a folk musician especially for the show. The producers wanted a Asgardian drinking song that convayed longing and homesickness, and they wanted it in a traditional Norwegian style. I haven't followed the series, but I think the end result is good.
Just finished this on Netflix Katla set in Iceland , very strange . https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11102190/?ref_=hm_rvi_tt_i_12
Speaking of Marvel, I watched MARVEL'S M.O.D.O.K. on Hulu, and it's a blast. It's all about one of Marvel's goofier villains--the giant-headed M.O.D.O.K.--and his problems with his evil corporation being taken over and his wife asking for divorce. The show is done with animated puppets so there's very much a ROBOT CHICKEN feel to the proceedings, and seeing Marvel make fun of itself is a big part of the appeal.
There's a documentary series on BBC4 - if you're in the UK - about Ernest Hemingway. I caught the first episode on Tuesday, I don't know if it's on iplayer or anything. Very interesting.