I absolutely LOVE Steptoe & Son…it’s possibly my favourite ever sitcom…the writing and acting are just so hard to beat…but you are correct, they did ‘repurpose’ scripts later on.
I've just watched the entire 3 series run of Detectorists - it’s a beautifully observed gentle comedy 😊
I think some posts have disappeared - perhaps some members cancelled their account - which is why some like @Loeffelholz and @emtiem seem to be talking to themselves!
"This is where we leave you Mr Bond."
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Silhouette ManThe last refuge of a scoundrelPosts: 8,870MI6 Agent
edited February 13
This is terrifying.
Seriously though, that Steptoe thread was during my post-2005 hiatus from AJB so I didn't contribute.
"The tough man of the world. The Secret Agent. The man who was only a silhouette." - Ian Fleming, Moonraker (1955).
Sir MilesThe Wrong Side Of The WardrobePosts: 27,934Chief of Staff
Famous 12-part drama about two students in Ireland who get it on, despite his being a footie star with a gang and her being a bookish loner.This was a big hit in lockdown but I missed it because I was at home with my sister looking after Dad and it had a lot of sex in it.
It's good, understated. What is amazing is that the lead is the guy in the more recent Aftersun - here he's playing a teenager, in the film I recently reviewed he plays a man who is plus 30 and a father. His acting is therefore amazing, though I guess there's a four year gap between the two. Seems amazing that lockdown hit four years ago - that's right isn't it?
One odd thing is that the female lead is in the script described as ugly when the actress is not. It's arguably a bit flawed, though in fairness just as teenagers could often look older than they do 10 years on - bad dress sense, jacket and tie school uniform and so on - which allows the male lead to pass himself off as younger, it's also true that teens can seem ugly when in fact they are just under a cloud and have been tarnished with that brush though being luckless. It reminds me of a male critic who got into trouble for pointing out that an actress wasn't good-looking enough for the role she was meant to play in a film - a seductress or something - I mean, how far can we go with this? Craig got it as Bond, should he have, given that many women found him attractive. Nobody minds if a black man plays Shakespeare's Henry V - well, I don't - but of course a white man playing Othello gets a different response. Another snag like this was in Schindler's List were the doctor points out to Amon Goethe that he is in poor shape and overweight - well, he was in real life but as played by Ralph Fiennes , he had a bit of a pot belly but that is all.
"This is where we leave you Mr Bond."
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Silhouette ManThe last refuge of a scoundrelPosts: 8,870MI6 Agent
Speaking of Steptoe, I just saw this on Facebook:
"The tough man of the world. The Secret Agent. The man who was only a silhouette." - Ian Fleming, Moonraker (1955).
On Thursday, in the UK, BBC4 is showing the 1961 television version of ANNA KARENINA with Sean Connery in a big pre-Bond role as Count Vronsky. I will be recording it as I am working.
I think Anna Karenina must've been the last job Conery did for TV. After DN he was a movie star. The BBC made the drama to comemorate 25 years of TV in Britain so it's a prestige production, and Connery is the male lead.
Experimental television broadcasts were started in 1929, using an electromechanical 30-line system developed by John Logie Baird.[45] Limited regular broadcasts using this system began in 1932, and an expanded service (now named the BBC Television Service) started from Alexandra Palace in November 1936, alternating between an improved Baird mechanical 240-line system and the all-electronic 405-line Marconi-EMI system which had been developed by an EMI research team led by Sir Isaac Shoenberg.[46] The superiority of the electronic system saw the mechanical system dropped early the following year, with the Marconi-EMI system the first fully electronic television system in the world to be used in regular broadcasting.[47]
Anna Karenina is on BBC4 at 10.15pm on Wednesday @chrisno1and finishes at 12.5am. It's preceded by Claire Bloom Remembers.... Anna Karenina at 10pm.. Similar to an evening in which Steven Berkoff recalled Hamlet.
It's Dr Zhivago that's on BBC4 on Thursday at 10.10pm preceded by The Red Shoes at 8pm. That's a long evening
"This is where we leave you Mr Bond."
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Silhouette ManThe last refuge of a scoundrelPosts: 8,870MI6 Agent
My great uncle on my father's side actually worked to John Logie Baird as he was the London editor of the BelfastTelegraph, a newspaper Baird owned. About 15 years ago my older brother appeared in the local press with a newspaper clipping as my great uncle was apparently one of the first to see Baird's new invention, the TV. The BBC was founded by Lord Reith in 1922 and was solely on the radio (or wireless) at first and I think it wasn't until about 1936 that TV broadcasts were regularly made. I believe the early transmitters only broadcast as far as the London area. Few people back then outside of the most well off could afford a TV set anyway. My own house didn't get a TV set until the 1970s. The lack of an electric supply prior to that made viewing a TV rather difficult. 😉
"The tough man of the world. The Secret Agent. The man who was only a silhouette." - Ian Fleming, Moonraker (1955).
I knew the technology was being developed quite early, but assumed it wasnt til after the war there was a consumer market for teevee to make it worth actually broadcasting anything. the earliest TV shows I usually see mentioned are circa 1948
so, to stay close to topic: was there anything good on TV in 1936?
Silhouette ManThe last refuge of a scoundrelPosts: 8,870MI6 Agent
I have a feeling it was pretty limited in those days - perhaps the news, coverage of Royal and other important events. I recall my late father saying that the first thing he ever saw on the TV when he was working at someone's house was the Trooping of the Colour. Up until about 1971 in the UK channels were only allowed to broadcast for a limited number of hours a day by law. They showed the test card between the gaps in programmes. So there was perhaps a bit less scope for making loads of programmes in the earlier days.
"The tough man of the world. The Secret Agent. The man who was only a silhouette." - Ian Fleming, Moonraker (1955).
LoeffelholzThe United States, With LovePosts: 8,998Quartermasters
edited February 26
Had a rare full weekend off from my semi-crappy day job for the girlfriend's birthday on Saturday. Yesterday, we had a decadent and lazy Sunday in front of the television...and we binge-watched all seven episodes ofHijack on Apple+, starring Idris Elba (who also produced, as is so often the case with marquee actors these days). For anyone who doesn't know, it's about the hijacking of an Airbus 300 belonging to the necessarily fictitious Kingdom Airlines, flying from the Middle East to Heathrow, with a flight time of approximately seven hours.
What a cracking good show - nice production value, good performances, tension like a guitar string. At first, we wondered how such a concept would stretch into a limited-run series, but once we realized that the plot was essentially unfolding in a semblance of 'real time,' we were in for the duration. I've always been a fan of Elba, but my respect was enhanced by this show. He is an interesting cat to watch as his character thinks. Which he does quite a lot here.
Before that, I watched three episodes from Season 2 of the brilliant original Mission: Impossibletelevision show from the late '60s. A very enjoyable day.
Check out my Amazon author page!Mark Loeffelholz
"I am not an entrant in the Shakespeare Stakes." - Ian Fleming
"Screw 'em." - Daniel Craig, The Best James Bond EverTM
The new iteration of SHOGUN started tonight with the first two episodes dropping on FX and on Hulu.
This is excellent. Everything you've heard about how great this is is true. It takes a lot of liberties with the source novel but in the best possible ways. I'm a massive fan of the book and of the 1980 mini-series but I've gotta say, if all 10 episodes are as good as the 2 that aired tonight, this is going to be something that is revered in the same manner that the 1980 version is revered.
Check out my Amazon author page!Mark Loeffelholz
"I am not an entrant in the Shakespeare Stakes." - Ian Fleming
"Screw 'em." - Daniel Craig, The Best James Bond EverTM
Anna Karenina is also on iPlayer, but catch the 15-min Claire Bloom Remembers too, in which she is candid about the 1961 adaptation's shortcomings, mainly it's short length so events get truncated. Self-criticism - though she was the right age - 30 - for the role she says she looked too young (she did) and would have liked to wait a few years when she looked older and had a bit more life experience. Full of praise for her co-stars, including Sean Connery. He does very well in this, he's full on with plenty of dialogue and very young and slightly wild looking, not hemmed in at all - though dashing ih his military uniform. Flashes of young Bond can be seen - though often adopted by Bond when he is larking about with Moneypenny.
Edit: However if you've forgotten how Anna Karenina ends, avoid the Claire Bloom Remembers until afterwards because in the final minutes she does give away how it ends.
Big surprise was Frank Williams in a small early role at the ball - it was his voice that was instantly distinctive; he played the prissy verger in 1970s sitcom Dad's Army.
Bloom is now in her early 90s, looking sharp then again Connery died only a few years ago, as did Frank Williams.
Dr Zhivago is on BBC4 tonight, after The Red Shoes.
Talking Pictures TV in the U.K. is showing STINGRAY, that old kids puppetry sci-fi hokum about undersea aliens and Troy Tempest, a mermaid called Marina and Lois Maxwell as the love competition Atlanta. I don't know about 'anything good' but it was charmingly amusing. I won't be watching them all, but it was interesting to catch the opening episode.
^ Plus it has Lois Maxwell as one of the 'voice artists'.
On this evening's Steptoe and Son in which Harold tries to join the local amateur dramatics, we had Trevor Bannister as the artsy pretentious director - of course, he was the cheeky Mr Lucas in Are You Being Served? Largely unrecognisable here, so you wondered which was the real person. (The same applies to old man Albert, who really was a bit posh like the character he's asked to play in this particular episode.)
But it also featured Margaret Nolan, who is Dink in Goldfinger. She's really quite tall along side Harry H Corbett, so you feel Connery really was at least 6 2 or even taller.
Watching The Seven Steptoerai episode of Steptoe & Son last night - one of the sillier ones, but different. Harold and his old man are menaced by the local gangster running a protection racket - but Albert reckons he can put together some muscle to see them off, having been to see some kung-fu films at the local fleapit.
In the end credits, Bond stunt co-ordinator Vic Armstrong appears!
Also, in the opening credits of The Long Good Friday, cinematographer Phil Mehuex appears - he went on to lens Martin Campbell's GoldenEye and Casino Royale, though Campbell doesn't direct this one. GoldenEye's Brosnan of course shows up for the final scene but I didn't watch the movie, I'd seen it before of course.
Watched the end of the first episode of Band of Brothers the other night on Sky Max, hell of a series that one. Came to realise the significance of the Damian Lewis encouraging Schwimmer's character to salute him when they meet again on the battlefield 'You salute the rank, not the individual' was a memorable line.
I watched the first two episodes of The Dropout last night, it stars Amanda Seyfried from @chrisno1 's fave film Mamma Mia - she's good in this, it's about the woman who bluffed her way into selling a device to test blood without using needles. It's an eight-part series, well done albeit feels a bit like you know how it's going to pan out. Quirky, savage at times. It's not unsumpathetic - you see why she is the way she is, and her study contemporaries. She's a tryer, it just tips over. She did remind me of Liz Truss actually, even physically they look the same. I think a critic made that point actually when it first came out on a paying channel a while back. At the risk of being even more facile, Seyfried looks young enough to convince as a teenager, astonishing given she was of course in Mamma Mia all those years ago.
This has the flavour of a movie like The IT Network or Catch Me If You Can, it could have been a movie but its tale of hubris maybe works better for a TV adaptation, TV is a bitchier format, you more likely want a Capra 'pull it out the bag' uplift for a movie, I think.
Comments
I absolutely LOVE Steptoe & Son…it’s possibly my favourite ever sitcom…the writing and acting are just so hard to beat…but you are correct, they did ‘repurpose’ scripts later on.
I've just watched the entire 3 series run of Detectorists - it’s a beautifully observed gentle comedy 😊
MONSIEUR SPADE has been excellent.
In tonight's episode of S&S - in which Harold accompanies his war veteran father to France - Goldfinger is referenced!
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Talking of Steptoe & Son, take a trip back in time:
I think some posts have disappeared - perhaps some members cancelled their account - which is why some like @Loeffelholz and @emtiem seem to be talking to themselves!
Roger Moore 1927-2017
This is terrifying.
Seriously though, that Steptoe thread was during my post-2005 hiatus from AJB so I didn't contribute.
Yea, I recorded it and watched it later…still funny…the bit on the plane was reminiscent of an old Hancock show…same writers🤔
Another, different episode of Steptoe and Son goes out on That's TV2, I think it is, channel 65 around 10.45pm.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Didn’t know they had another channel 😳 thanks 🍸
Normal People
Famous 12-part drama about two students in Ireland who get it on, despite his being a footie star with a gang and her being a bookish loner. This was a big hit in lockdown but I missed it because I was at home with my sister looking after Dad and it had a lot of sex in it.
It's good, understated. What is amazing is that the lead is the guy in the more recent Aftersun - here he's playing a teenager, in the film I recently reviewed he plays a man who is plus 30 and a father. His acting is therefore amazing, though I guess there's a four year gap between the two. Seems amazing that lockdown hit four years ago - that's right isn't it?
One odd thing is that the female lead is in the script described as ugly when the actress is not. It's arguably a bit flawed, though in fairness just as teenagers could often look older than they do 10 years on - bad dress sense, jacket and tie school uniform and so on - which allows the male lead to pass himself off as younger, it's also true that teens can seem ugly when in fact they are just under a cloud and have been tarnished with that brush though being luckless. It reminds me of a male critic who got into trouble for pointing out that an actress wasn't good-looking enough for the role she was meant to play in a film - a seductress or something - I mean, how far can we go with this? Craig got it as Bond, should he have, given that many women found him attractive. Nobody minds if a black man plays Shakespeare's Henry V - well, I don't - but of course a white man playing Othello gets a different response. Another snag like this was in Schindler's List were the doctor points out to Amon Goethe that he is in poor shape and overweight - well, he was in real life but as played by Ralph Fiennes , he had a bit of a pot belly but that is all.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Speaking of Steptoe, I just saw this on Facebook:
On Thursday, in the UK, BBC4 is showing the 1961 television version of ANNA KARENINA with Sean Connery in a big pre-Bond role as Count Vronsky. I will be recording it as I am working.
I think Anna Karenina must've been the last job Conery did for TV. After DN he was a movie star. The BBC made the drama to comemorate 25 years of TV in Britain so it's a prestige production, and Connery is the male lead.
BBC's 25th anniversary in 1961?
I thought there must be a mistake in the math, but wikipedia gives this history. I wonder who was watching a bit of telly in 1936?
___________________________________________________________________________
wikipedia says:
Experimental television broadcasts were started in 1929, using an electromechanical 30-line system developed by John Logie Baird.[45] Limited regular broadcasts using this system began in 1932, and an expanded service (now named the BBC Television Service) started from Alexandra Palace in November 1936, alternating between an improved Baird mechanical 240-line system and the all-electronic 405-line Marconi-EMI system which had been developed by an EMI research team led by Sir Isaac Shoenberg.[46] The superiority of the electronic system saw the mechanical system dropped early the following year, with the Marconi-EMI system the first fully electronic television system in the world to be used in regular broadcasting.[47]
___________________________________________________________________________
The things you don't know...
Anna Karenina is on BBC4 at 10.15pm on Wednesday @chrisno1 and finishes at 12.5am. It's preceded by Claire Bloom Remembers.... Anna Karenina at 10pm.. Similar to an evening in which Steven Berkoff recalled Hamlet.
It's Dr Zhivago that's on BBC4 on Thursday at 10.10pm preceded by The Red Shoes at 8pm. That's a long evening
Roger Moore 1927-2017
My great uncle on my father's side actually worked to John Logie Baird as he was the London editor of the Belfast Telegraph, a newspaper Baird owned. About 15 years ago my older brother appeared in the local press with a newspaper clipping as my great uncle was apparently one of the first to see Baird's new invention, the TV. The BBC was founded by Lord Reith in 1922 and was solely on the radio (or wireless) at first and I think it wasn't until about 1936 that TV broadcasts were regularly made. I believe the early transmitters only broadcast as far as the London area. Few people back then outside of the most well off could afford a TV set anyway. My own house didn't get a TV set until the 1970s. The lack of an electric supply prior to that made viewing a TV rather difficult. 😉
thanks for further info, @Silhouette Man
I knew the technology was being developed quite early, but assumed it wasnt til after the war there was a consumer market for teevee to make it worth actually broadcasting anything. the earliest TV shows I usually see mentioned are circa 1948
so, to stay close to topic: was there anything good on TV in 1936?
I have a feeling it was pretty limited in those days - perhaps the news, coverage of Royal and other important events. I recall my late father saying that the first thing he ever saw on the TV when he was working at someone's house was the Trooping of the Colour. Up until about 1971 in the UK channels were only allowed to broadcast for a limited number of hours a day by law. They showed the test card between the gaps in programmes. So there was perhaps a bit less scope for making loads of programmes in the earlier days.
Had a rare full weekend off from my semi-crappy day job for the girlfriend's birthday on Saturday. Yesterday, we had a decadent and lazy Sunday in front of the television...and we binge-watched all seven episodes of Hijack on Apple+, starring Idris Elba (who also produced, as is so often the case with marquee actors these days). For anyone who doesn't know, it's about the hijacking of an Airbus 300 belonging to the necessarily fictitious Kingdom Airlines, flying from the Middle East to Heathrow, with a flight time of approximately seven hours.
What a cracking good show - nice production value, good performances, tension like a guitar string. At first, we wondered how such a concept would stretch into a limited-run series, but once we realized that the plot was essentially unfolding in a semblance of 'real time,' we were in for the duration. I've always been a fan of Elba, but my respect was enhanced by this show. He is an interesting cat to watch as his character thinks. Which he does quite a lot here.
Before that, I watched three episodes from Season 2 of the brilliant original Mission: Impossible television show from the late '60s. A very enjoyable day.
"I am not an entrant in the Shakespeare Stakes." - Ian Fleming
"Screw 'em." - Daniel Craig, The Best James Bond EverTM
The new iteration of SHOGUN started tonight with the first two episodes dropping on FX and on Hulu.
This is excellent. Everything you've heard about how great this is is true. It takes a lot of liberties with the source novel but in the best possible ways. I'm a massive fan of the book and of the 1980 mini-series but I've gotta say, if all 10 episodes are as good as the 2 that aired tonight, this is going to be something that is revered in the same manner that the 1980 version is revered.
Ah, yes, I am working nights at the moment and may have got my days and times mixed up with Fear Is The Key.
I will definitely be looking into this one.
"I am not an entrant in the Shakespeare Stakes." - Ian Fleming
"Screw 'em." - Daniel Craig, The Best James Bond EverTM
Anna Karenina is also on iPlayer, but catch the 15-min Claire Bloom Remembers too, in which she is candid about the 1961 adaptation's shortcomings, mainly it's short length so events get truncated. Self-criticism - though she was the right age - 30 - for the role she says she looked too young (she did) and would have liked to wait a few years when she looked older and had a bit more life experience. Full of praise for her co-stars, including Sean Connery. He does very well in this, he's full on with plenty of dialogue and very young and slightly wild looking, not hemmed in at all - though dashing ih his military uniform. Flashes of young Bond can be seen - though often adopted by Bond when he is larking about with Moneypenny.
Edit: However if you've forgotten how Anna Karenina ends, avoid the Claire Bloom Remembers until afterwards because in the final minutes she does give away how it ends.
Big surprise was Frank Williams in a small early role at the ball - it was his voice that was instantly distinctive; he played the prissy verger in 1970s sitcom Dad's Army.
Bloom is now in her early 90s, looking sharp then again Connery died only a few years ago, as did Frank Williams.
Dr Zhivago is on BBC4 tonight, after The Red Shoes.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Talking Pictures TV in the U.K. is showing STINGRAY, that old kids puppetry sci-fi hokum about undersea aliens and Troy Tempest, a mermaid called Marina and Lois Maxwell as the love competition Atlanta. I don't know about 'anything good' but it was charmingly amusing. I won't be watching them all, but it was interesting to catch the opening episode.
^ Plus it has Lois Maxwell as one of the 'voice artists'.
On this evening's Steptoe and Son in which Harold tries to join the local amateur dramatics, we had Trevor Bannister as the artsy pretentious director - of course, he was the cheeky Mr Lucas in Are You Being Served? Largely unrecognisable here, so you wondered which was the real person. (The same applies to old man Albert, who really was a bit posh like the character he's asked to play in this particular episode.)
But it also featured Margaret Nolan, who is Dink in Goldfinger. She's really quite tall along side Harry H Corbett, so you feel Connery really was at least 6 2 or even taller.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Watching The Seven Steptoerai episode of Steptoe & Son last night - one of the sillier ones, but different. Harold and his old man are menaced by the local gangster running a protection racket - but Albert reckons he can put together some muscle to see them off, having been to see some kung-fu films at the local fleapit.
In the end credits, Bond stunt co-ordinator Vic Armstrong appears!
Also, in the opening credits of The Long Good Friday, cinematographer Phil Mehuex appears - he went on to lens Martin Campbell's GoldenEye and Casino Royale, though Campbell doesn't direct this one. GoldenEye's Brosnan of course shows up for the final scene but I didn't watch the movie, I'd seen it before of course.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
If you're not watching SHOGUN, you're really missing something. This is a first rate piece of work.
Also, TOKYO VICE (on MAX) has been going strong with season 2. I liked season 1 but season 2 is operating at a higher level.
I watched that episode as well…and was looking for Vic’s name in the credits - and there it was ☺️
MASTERS OF THE AIR finished last Friday. The series itself was kinda inconsistent but it was overall 'very good', and the finale was very strong.
Watched the end of the first episode of Band of Brothers the other night on Sky Max, hell of a series that one. Came to realise the significance of the Damian Lewis encouraging Schwimmer's character to salute him when they meet again on the battlefield 'You salute the rank, not the individual' was a memorable line.
I watched the first two episodes of The Dropout last night, it stars Amanda Seyfried from @chrisno1 's fave film Mamma Mia - she's good in this, it's about the woman who bluffed her way into selling a device to test blood without using needles. It's an eight-part series, well done albeit feels a bit like you know how it's going to pan out. Quirky, savage at times. It's not unsumpathetic - you see why she is the way she is, and her study contemporaries. She's a tryer, it just tips over. She did remind me of Liz Truss actually, even physically they look the same. I think a critic made that point actually when it first came out on a paying channel a while back. At the risk of being even more facile, Seyfried looks young enough to convince as a teenager, astonishing given she was of course in Mamma Mia all those years ago.
This has the flavour of a movie like The IT Network or Catch Me If You Can, it could have been a movie but its tale of hubris maybe works better for a TV adaptation, TV is a bitchier format, you more likely want a Capra 'pull it out the bag' uplift for a movie, I think.
Roger Moore 1927-2017