Happy birthday Robert!!!!!

Happy birthday Robert!!!!!! It must be midnight in England so now I can wish you a very happy birthday!
Lots of love and best wishes!!!!!!!!!

Mahler, the making of

Ken Russell’s Mahler is a film that could be perfect: excellent performances, excellent music (Mahler!), excellent costumes, the story is well told and it has the original touch of Ken Russell. However, most Russell fans think that this is the most “conventional” film of the “enfant terrible” of the British cinema. They are used to the bizarre and sometimes grotesque fantasies he adds to his films.

Mahler has the same story line of a common biopic: hero is at an important moment of his life (closer to the end), recalls some scenes from his pasts that are presented as a flashbacks. Flashbacks start with the hero’s childhood where a crucial event occurred. That could be the “conventional” part, but what Ken Russell added (and which made this film a master piece) was the “fantasies”. There are “normal” flashbacks while other moments are presented as a sort of allegory : The Funeral and The conversion scene are one of them.

 

The only thing I didn’t like of the film was this Funeral scene, the beginning is OK but by the end is too much, too grotesque, too Ken Russell-style! But the Conversion scene deserves the Oscar of the best scene ever made! We all would love to know how did he come with that idea. That’s why it could be great if the distributors release a new DVD with Ken Russell and Robert Powell commentaries.

While we wait for that wonderful day, I can say that at least I feel like I have already seen a bit of this   bonus : I’ve seen the story board of THE scene! And I’ll share it with you. Enjoy!



Click on the image to enlarge



Click on the image to enlarge

  

I found this jewel on Ebay, where I found this press book which accompanied the film release. Other exclusive pictures this press book contains are the designs for the costumes commented by Shirley Russell, Ken Russell’s wife and costume designer for the film. People must not forget that the film was appraised the Cannes film festival for its costumes in 1974. Robert was a contestant for the best actor prize that year, and he should have won! Instead a certain Jack Nicholson won the prize for the film “The Last Detail” that most of us have never seen.

Click on the image to enlarge

Click on the image to enlarge

Robert’s performance was one of my favorites and to me one of the best: with little make up or other tricks, he was convincing as a sick embittered aged man and through all the flashbacks scenes where the character was younger and passionate.

Before I leave you, I’ll bring another Monty Python curiosity: have you noticed that the rocky scenery used for the Conversion scene looks exactly like the one used in the killer rabbit scene of Monty Python and the Holy Grial?

I always find that scene even funnier when I think Robert will appear at any moment and will jump a ring of fire and eath a pigs nose.

Well, I could talk (write!) for hours about this film. It’s just perfect, wonderful, beautiful! I LOVE IT!!!

"I compose to live, I live to compose.”

Jeffrey Bernard is Unwell at the West End on September???

That would be excellent news! But it’s not been confirmed, it’s only been rumored as Robert himself says in an interview given on 12th May to the Oxford Mail.

I found the interview very interesting because I've learnt that Robert avoids making eye-contact with people on the street. It seems he doesn’t like people coming and say “Hello”? Maybe now with Holby City he’s much more in people's minds. It's impossible for the people to "forget" him! Robert’s career brings a tv hit in each decade! The 70’s with Doomwatch and Jesus of Nazareth, the 80’s with Hannay, the 90’s with The Detectives, the 00's with Holby City.

Anyway, that’s not the point, in this article Robert talks about his career and how despite all his acting experience (40 years!) he still feels “unwell” – allow me to use that word for this time! LOL –, that he feels scared until the curtain raises. This time the fear was that Jeffrey Bernard was too much to learn.

In the article, the journalist at one point mentions that Robert is in his 70's. This made me bounce! Nope! He is not in his 70's!!! At least not yet!

And that made me realise that maybe one day he will decide to stop acting and that will make me very sad. But that’s life! So that’s why it’s important to enjoy him now! English people are so lucky! So please, let’s go everybody to see him in "Jeffrey Bernard is Unwell"!

Sadly, I’m not sure if I’ll be able to see the play in this tour. BUT! If Robert is correct (and let’s hope he is!) it seems that he will be back at the West End!!! Please Robert!! Make it real!!

Finally, about the never-ending questions about acting and his career, he said that he enjoyed doing comedies and that he’s :

“essentially a comic actor rather than a serious one and I’m most at home when people are laughing.”

It’s funny, but it is true! With The Detectives Robert proved that he was an excellent comic actor. When I saw it, I’ve almost forgot that before that, to me his face fitted perfectly with those tormented roles such as Jude in Jude the Obscure, Mahler, Paul Rée in Beyond Good and Evil and (yes, again)  Edward Foster in Il Segno del Comando. Nevertheless, while I was searching in my mind the tormented roles he did I didn’t find that much! And yet, that’s the first kind of role I tended to fit him in. But in fact, he has played more roles of the cool chap, a bit rogue and with a huge heart like in Hannay, The Thirty Nine Steps, Pride of Africa, Shaka Zulu and Holby City.

He is right when he says that “People can never quite pin me down because I don’t fit into any normal categories”. Yes, Robert, that’s why you are so unique!



It's incredible what a wig makes! but I just can't see Robert's face! I see Peter O'Toole!



I’m leaving you with an exclusive review of the play made by a fellow fan Julie with a description of the famous shoe trick. Thanks!!

Brilliant, is one of many words I could use to describe this play. I'm more of a musical person, so a play has to be really good for me to want to see it twice (which I did!). The play is basically a 2-hour monologue by Robert, broken up by the other actors (who are all extremely talented and funny) : Rebecca Lacey, Amy Hall, Peter Bramhill and Mark Hadfield, coming in as people from Jeffery Bernard's past. These include ex-wives, random people in pubs and old friends who enjoy a spot of cat racing on a rainy day (when there can be no dog racing).

Robert is very funny and watchable, and it's nice that this play has broken down the “fourth wall” in theatre, so Robert is actually talking to the audience as Jeffery. It makes you feel much more involved in the play and story. His performance was also quite moving when towards the end of the play, Jeffery is debating his own mortality and there is an element of sadness to what has overall been a comedy.

Memorable moments include: A pub trick involving an egg (in which he fills a pint glass with water, then he puts a biscuit tin on top of the glass, he takes off his right shoe and hits the biscuit tin lid with it and the egg should fall in the glass), make funnel out of matchbox and the Cat racing with invisible cats.

Hopefully Robert will do the play again or film a version because it’s a great comedy that everyone should see if they can.



I'm sure that's the cat's racing scene!



Thanks for reading!

Random thoughts : Brian of Nazareth

I'm so sorry for leaving the blog without messages for so long! But I was on holidays and then I had a little problem in my hand. Now things are getting better!

The other day I was watching Monty Python's Life of Brian and I felt a déjà vu feeling, specially in the hillarious scene where Brian tags a roman temple "Romans go home". In that scene I was absolutely sure the temple was the same used in Jesus of Nazareth. Even in other scenes I was sure it was the Jesus of Nazareth set (and even the wardrobe).

From Life of Brian



To my recollection, the only places that could "be" the one used in Life of Brian.



I didn't have the time to watch again Jesus of Nazareth to find the same temple, I tried to get some scenes from the videos of Youtube but I was disappointed to see that the temples I had in my mind are not the same as the one shown in Life of Brian.

However, I was thrilled to find in the Internet Movie Database trivia that my feelings were correct!

According to the diaries of Michael Palin a possible title was "Brian of Nazareth", which was strongly favored by Palin, Graham Chapman and Eric Idle. In the end this was never used, perhaps to avoid title comparisons with "Jesus of Nazareth" (1977), whose leftover sets were used for filming parts of this film. However, when the film was released in Italy in the early 1990s, it was titled "Brian di Nazareth." For some reason, there was no mention that it was made in 1979. The success was such that And Now for Something Completely Different (1971) was also released theatrically.

 

Now I leave you with the hilarious scene from the Life of Brian :

Thanks for reading!

Easter is coming!

And with it some well deserved holidays! And the most important thing: in many places of the world Jesus of Nazareth will be shown again on TV! Alas, not as widespread as it were in previous years, but I still hope that many people will discover again Robert’s talent thanks to the mini-series.

I found the other day on Amazon an umpteenth new version of Jesus of Nazareth on DVD. The box reads “This full un-edited version” ... but for a running time of 374 minutes I really doubt it’s the complete version. For less than 5£ I guess there’s nothing that deserves buying it if you already have it (personally I have 4 versions! The UK, the American, the Mexican and French DVDs, up to now the US DVD is the longest version and the French version contains a bonus interview with Zeffirelli from the late 70s, but still it’s shorter than the TV version.

Why? Why on Earth it’s impossible to release the full version on DVD with real bonus ????? I'd love to see the scenes that were cut!
I hoped that an honorable version was going to be released for the 30^th anniversary, but nothing happened! Why?? Why there isn't a special edition commented by Zeffirelli and Robert and the other living stars. It’s a shame none have asked them to comment the film and release a REAL Special edition. It would be interesting to know all the details as Zeffirelli put them into words in his biography (excellent book, highly recommended) and in the book Franco Zeffirelli’s Jesus : A spiritual diary, I still haven’t found that jewel!

 

In another subject, I found this lovely picture of how Robert looks during the play Jeffrey Bernard is unwell. He looks so much like Peter O’Toole with that wig!

And a little bonus relief because I’ll be offline for some days J : a recent interview with Robert Powell (march 2011) where he talks about his decision to stop Holby and get back to the stage. Thanks to Irina for the link!

The films he never made : Man of the Match

After Jesus of Nazareth, Robert Powell was the “king of the world”, he had made himself a name, he was rich, and he could have done whatever he wanted. Instead of going to Hollywood, he preferred to develop more personal projects.

For what I’ve found in my researches is that by the end of the 70s and the beginning of the 80s he had a lot of plans and then nothing. In many interviews he said he had his own production company (Tinsell Town) to make the films he wanted, that he had plans for writing and directing.

What happened? I don’t know, and I don’t intend to give an answer, apparently at the beginning of the 80s the British film industry was in agony. Maybe that explains why he made his most important films of that period in Australia, but it’s only a guess. Maybe he invested a lot of money for his production company and decided to stop before losing more money, I don’t know.

I feel really bitter about those projects because I really feel he never made the “perfect” film I wish him to be, and the films he never made seemed to be interesting and could have been that “perfect never made film”. Today I start with the most accomplished of all his projects : MacKinnon, Man of the Match.

Again, I have to quote the excellent interview made by Gordon Gow for Films and Filming on March 1978:

“[on his next film] the next one will be a first, and it’s very dear to my heart because it’s also my first film as executive producer. It’s about a football player, McKinnon, Man of the Match. I’m going to play him. At the beginning of the film he’s about thirty-two, not over the hill, yet not the man he used to be. We work forwards and backwards, progressing through a new period of his life, at the same time always counterpointing it with his youth, indicating why he is who he is now.”


‘At the start, he has gone to the United States to play for an American club, but has patently lost his nerve. He can still play but all the magic has gone: he doesn’t really believe he can do it any more. And we see the reason why: this destruction of individuality that occurs in all commercialised sports. It not only destroys him, it brings out the worst in his own personality and makes him destructive as well.’


Powell used to play a good deal of soccer himself. ‘I’ve got to go back into training now fairly rigorously to get into shape for it. I played at the university, and through the years I’ve played for a shwobiz eleven. As soon as I got into this I couldn’t believe my luck. It’s everything coming together at the same time. My desire to be involved totally in the making of a film from the beginning to the end of it, and I’m going to place McKinnon in my own background. I was born in Salford, and he’ll be a northener too. So it gives me a chance also to explore certain other aspects of my own personality: the sort of person I might have been rather than the one I am.’

Training with Dennis Law (picture from Woman magazine March 1978)

Like many interviews of this period, 1978 was “his year” (Indeed it was HIS year as it was the year his best fan was born!). In another interview for Woman magazine (March 4 1978) with the evocative title “Don’t go Robert, don’t go” he even said he was ready to go away from UK for tax reasons. About Man of the Match (in the interview it was named “The Soccer player” :

"But the project closest to his heart at the moment is The Soccer Player. For Robert, born two miles from Manchester United’s ground and a fanatical supporter ever since (“I’m celebrating my Silver Jubilee as a United fan”) it’s a dream come true.


“It’s impossible to describe what he film’s about without mentioning the Georges Best story. It’s not his story but it’s about a character who’s had very similar experiences. I’m being coached by Denis Law and I will be playing with Franz Beckenbauer because we’re doing it with the Cosmos football team in New York. I can’t believe that I’m a partner in the film, I am paid to be executive producer and I’m playing football with Denis Law. That’s one terrific thing about success,” he grinned, “you get a chance to live out your fantasies!”

Georges Best and Robert Powell at the time of the project.

 
Finally, on May’s 1978 Photoplay, Robert gave more details about the plot :

“You might call it the George Best story, but it isn’t. And yet it is. Mackinnon is not George Best. He’s not Irish, but he’s a man who’s been through a similar pattern of life as Best.


“It’s very much a present day story. The guy is 32. English clubs think he’s over the hill. But he believes he’s still got a few more years left in him. His career is in ruins, partly because of his own life-style, partly because the ‘method style’ of English football over the last ten years has ruined his individuality as a player. Then comes a chance to go to America and regain the position he once held.


[On playing the part] Yes, I will be doing the football stuff myself. I’m McKinnon. I was born but two miles from Old Trafford so football’s in my blood, I suppose. But I’ve also made sure that I’m getting expert training and tuition. I’ve got .

The article even mentions that the film was going to be directed by Chris King and the screenplay was written by Barry Hines (and he even mentions that “a major pot star will be doing the music”).

I looked for Chris King in the IMDB and I found a Christopher King, whom I believe to be THE man. He appears to have directed some episodes of Holby City! What a coincidence! He directed the episode “Bad reputation” in which Robert’s character takes drugs.



So, after reading all this I can’t help but feeling bitter, really bitter! Not that I’m a football fan, but Robert had a pearl there, a niche, I mean the story sounded good and there are not much football films, so it was pure gold! The film seemed to be at such an advanced state that I cannot understand why it wasn’t made.

When I met Robert Powell about 6 years ago, the thing I was eager to question was about this film, what happened?

“They all stayed in the project state because there were hard times for the British film industry, the two major production companies, the Rank and IMI – I’m not sure of the name of this last one - went in bankrupt because their last films were all flops.”

Film industry is really strange... I like to watch films and sometimes I just can’t believe how a lot of stupid films (mainly French boring films) found financing. Waste of money and film! And why, why, OH WHY? Robert didn’t make this film? If I ever win lottery ( a LOT of money) I wish to produce this film, with Robert Powell! Oh yes! I’m sure special effects can do that!

About Colour me Kubrick

This nice comedy was made by Brian Cook, who  knew Kubrick very well as they worked together (he was second unit director) in numerous films (Eyes wide shut, Barry Lindon, etc). This film was a pleasant surprise as it marked Robert’s come back to the films.

The film tells the story of Alan Conway, an alcoholic, gay, con man who nabbed a lot of people pretending to be Stanley Kubrick even though he didn’t look at all like him. For his first film, Cook tried comedy and he succeeded it as the film is extremely funny, mainly for the musical homage to some Kubrick’s films. Cook reunited a five-star cast led by John Malkovich as Alan Conway and a multitude of guest appearances among them Marisa Berenson (Barry Lindon), Honor Blackman (The Avengers), Ken Russell (in the funniest scene of the film) and… Robert Powell!

This film was produced by Europacorp, Luc Besson’s production company, and that’s the reason I had the chance to see it in France. It was released in 2005, and even if the critics were OK, they weren’t enthusiast about the film.

The film was released as a “gay film” and the critics didn’t give details about the plot. And I must confess that even me I awaited a bit too long to go and see it at the cinema! When I decided to go and see it, it was only available in one cinema. I was very excited but worried at the same time, I was worried about Robert’s appearance in the film: How long? How good? What if I didn’t like it? At the end I was very pleased for the following reasons:

-        It’s an enjoyable film! At a moment I even forgot I was there to see Robert!

-        Robert appears in four scenes (more than I’ve expected!). He plays a journalist who investigates about the case. The first scene in which he talks to Conway on the phone is lovely, as Conway says “I like your voice”. Funny that Malkovich says that to Robert! (both have marvelous voices).



"I like your voice!"

I would like to know why Robert made that film after so long. And why he didn’t do more! When I met him, back in 2002, he seemed to be annoyed when he learnt that I knew he was going to do that film according to the IMDB. He said he hadn’t signed it yet, that he wasn’t sure, and that it was a “favor”.  I didn’t ask more, but the question kept in my mind… and still is.



The only thing I didn't like of the film was that waistcoat



Back to the subject: the film is mild amusement, I highly recommend it! And I leave you with two scenes with Robert. If you want to see the funny scene with Ken Russell, watch the trailer, he’s one of the crazy guys at the asylum.

 Thanks for reading.

Jeffrey Bernard is unwell Press Review

Robert’s new stage performance in Jeffrey Bernard is Unwell started on 22th March and the critics are very good!

• The Bath Chronicle states that :

“Some might be tempted to say – and I certainly would certainly be one of them – that Robert Powell gives a far more engaging portrayal of the alcoholic journalist than Peter O'Toole did in the original production which came to Bath prior to its opening in London's West End back in 1989.”

• The Evening Post gives us  an interview with Robert  in which he talks about his choice of leaving Holby City :

 “you can't stay cosy for too long. I've always believed and said that and I had to follow my own example really.

"I needed to put myself under the cosh again and do something more stretching. So here I am.”

 

• And finally The Guardian presents and article about playing drunks on stage and there’s a bit about Jeffrey Bernard is Unwell :

There are instances in which legendary drunks have inspired equally legendary performances. Keith Waterhouse's portrayal of his colleague, the Spectator columnist Jeffrey Bernard, provided a fermented peach of a role for Peter O'Toole and, later, Tom Conti. Jeffrey Bernard Is Unwell has now been revived for a national tour featuring Robert Powell, whose familiarity with the play's bar-room milieu has armed him with useful insight into the potentially messy "egg trick", a favoured party piece involving a pint glass, a matchbox and a raw egg.

 

"I was fortunate enough to know Keith Waterhouse and to see him demonstrate the egg trick on several occasions," Powell says. "I've got it right every time in rehearsal so far." Yet hilarious though the play is, there are aspects of Bernard's character that are no laughing matter: "There's a big distinction between playing someone who is drunk and someone who was never sober," Powell says. "If there's one thing that tends to unite alcoholics it is a deep self-loathing that causes them to gravitate towards other alcoholics for company."

 

I'm so happy to know the critics are excellent! (that's the least we can expect about Robert!). I wish I could see the play!! (and him! of course! and the famous egg trick...)

 

Thanks for reading!

 

The Asphyx remake

Oh yes! Another remake! Robert said once that he was ”the king of remakes” (The Thirty Nine Steps, The Four Feathers, Il segno del commando, The Mystery of Edwin Drood… and we can also consider Frankenstein and Jesus of Nazareth as adaptations).

Well, there are also remakes of Robert’s best films! Remember the terrible Italian Job made in Hollywood and now there is going to be a remake of the classic The Asphyx.

I discovered this informations on this blog. The film is scheduled by 21^st June 2011 and there is  not much information about the story or the cast. Something sure is that Alison Doody (Indiana Jones and the last crusade) will star the film in the role of Christina. From what is leaked  the story is centered in the girl, who is going to play a doctor.

I don’t know why producers call a Remake a film that changes all the story but only keeps the title and the character names (like in the remake of The Italian job). OK, I understand what a remake means, but if everything is going to change, why don’t get a different title?

Anyway, I hope this is going to create interest in the original Asphyx. Robert looked so lovely and young and the story was excellent. I liked Robert “horror” films : OK it’s not really horror, but he made many “strange” films such as Asylum, The Asphyx, Harlequin, Survivor and later on we can count Il segno del commando. I wish he made more of that kind of films.

Thanks for reading!

Robert's Italian Job part 4 : Beyond good and Evil

Finally, the “Italian Job saga” concludes with the icing on the cake, one of Robert’s best films (and by that I’m not only referring to his performance but the film in a whole) : Beyond good and evil (Al di là del bene e del male). This film was made in 1977 by Liliana Cavani and stars Robert Powell as Paul Rée, Erland Josephson as Friedrich Nietzsche and Dominique Sanda as Lou Salomé. The film is about their strong relationship, from their ménage à trois to their perdition: insanity, dead and marriage…

This film is very intensive, a real cinematographic lesson, the dialogues, the music is magnificent and the acting is excellent. That’s why I award this film as one of the best films starring Robert Powell : This one and Mahler are the most marvelous from a pure cinematographic point of view.

Of course, this film is also provoking and contains several sexual scenes, not of all of them justified to my puritan point of view. Especially the rather shocking scene with Robert, where he gets raped by a bunch of men (and a bottle… no comments!).

In this film Robert stars Paul Rée, a Nietzsche disciple who is homosexual, but falls in love of Lou Salomé, a feminist, a liberated woman ahead for her time. The three of them decide to live together and they have a lot of fun for a moment, but each one of them gives way to their weaknesses : Fritz succumbs to the insanity provoked by syphilis; Lou, the free woman who said she would never marry a man, feels obliged to marry one of her lovers; and Paul, well, let’s say he “happily” dies fulfilling one of his dreams…

Robert comments about the film

This is the movie Robert made right after Jesus of Nazareth, and it’s quite an odd choice after playing Jesus and having stated that he wasn’t going to play the “sensible young man” anymore.  About his choice, I found interesting information in an interview he gave to Gordon Gow for the magazine Films and Filming in March 1978, “Taking risks” (which is, by the way, the most intelligent article I’ve read) :

“‘I’m rather quirky about what I turn down and what I accept. I like to be constantly moving, and ducking and diving. The more difficult and strange something is, the better.

“When one looks at the last ten of fifteen years in films, and in fact certainly before that, the one thing that established people was the guarantee that, with their names outside on the marquee, and audience knew exactly what they were going to go walking into, without reading a review. If you saw Clint Eastwood’s name outside a cinema, you knew what you were getting. You still do. And Charles Bronson. You know what you are going to get. And if you like it, then it’s a wonderful cosy feeling for an audience.

“I operate almost entirely by instinct, though. Scripts are the first things I react to – not directors but writers. If somebody comes up with something a little peculiar, then it’s liable to be more interesting. It’s got to be. It’s one thing to do a five million dollar film where you’re playing a fairly obvious policeman or something. On the other hand, Liliana Cavani asked me to go to Rome to do a strange story about the German philosopher Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil. And suddenly I knew which I wanted to do: I wanted to go to Rome, and get involved in that rather peculiar story. It’s very loosely based on a piece of history about three peple who came together in the 1880s – Nietzsche, a courtesan who was a Russian emigrée, and one of Nietzsche’s disciples, a young German writer called Paul Rée. They established a ménage à trois, and the two men destroyed each other and attempted to destroy the courtesan. It’s a mammoth story, emotionally very violent.’

[…]

“We’ve been criticised on Cavani’s Nietzsche film because some people have said that it is not anything to do with the life of Nietzsche. Well, of course it isn’t. If you wish to know what the life of Nietzsche was, then we’ll make a documentary about it or you can go to the library and get a good, dull, biography. But we’re talking about directors like Cavani and like Russell who are using the cinema to portray one aspect, their own version of a possibility. It is themselves that they are expressing, just as much as it is the subject of their film. All of Russell’s films, I feel, are autobiographical. They’re all about him. He just does it through major people, because that gives him more scope. Television programmes like Omnibus or Horizon can tell us when a poet or a musician was born, where he lived and where he died and what he wrote. I don’t want to go to the movies to discover that. I want to go to be entertained. And Russell does that without fail. He is never less than highly entertaining. And intellectually stimulating as well.’

[…]

“I have a feeling that for Cavani the central character in the story is neither Paul Rée nor Nietzsche, but the woman. That is Cavani exploring certain of her own attitudes towards men, which are very much to the fore in her own make-up. She’s not an easy lady. She’s a sort of diminutive, slightly scruffy woman, whom I adore. I got on with her very well; we became great buddies. But on the set you would find a six-foot-six electrician, weighing about two hundred and twenty pounds, or less than that, and she could put the fear of God into him. I’ve never known such verbal savagery as she was capable of."

Where to find it?

I know that this film is a bit difficult to find and there are two versions: Italian and English. I suppose it was originally filmed in English, because I've found a version in English and it has the original voices of all the actors (you hear the accents). However, it was released in the Italian version. I’ve found a 1984 review from Janet Maslin from The New York Times, in which it is said that the film is in Italian. Her review is not tender at all, here is the conclusion:

“Though ''Beyond Good and Evil'' is as graphic as it can be, it manages to remain peculiarly unerotic, perhaps because Miss Cavani's explicitness seems so literal. When she depicts the details of, say, a homosexual gang rape or a visit to a bordello, her frankness says more about her inability to convey such things metaphorically or imaginatively than it does about courage.”

I got my copy from ebay: a vhs in an extremely poor quality but with English audio. However, the only dvd available I’ve found was on a Japanese site (sorry I didn’t keep the address), in Italian wih Japanese subtitles, an excellent video quality and funny digitally blurred parts in the nude scenes.

For some audiences (philosophy aficionados, cinema students), this is a cult movie, at least in France. For several years this film was shown in a little cinema in the Latin Quarter in Paris : “L’Accatone”, which is a local cinema wich always schedules classic films. Sadly it is not running these days, but it was when I arrived to Paris and remained many years. It took me several years to have the courage to go and see it! First because the showing time was a bit late for me to go alone: 10 PM! Also, I didn’t want to oblige my husband to come with me, mainly because I didn’t want him to watch the “shocking” scenes with Robert.

Finally we went together and he actually enjoyed the film. We were about 6 people on the cinema, a part from us, the other guys were long-bearded intellectuals, regulars of that cinema, and they seemed to know each dialogue, especially Nietzsche’s dialogues which were taken from his writings as they had strange reactions at some parts of the film that to us were uninteresting (some dialogues, Nietzsche's phrases). It was a funny experience, I wonder if other Robert Powell fans came to "L'Accatone" see that film through all those years!

Thanks for reading!

Tour dates : Jeffrey Bernard is unwell

For the lucky ones living in UK, here are the tour dates of the new stage play with Robert Powell. The dates are not complete, that’s all I could find on the net these days.

Please, if you have the chance to see him share your impressions here!

• Theatre Royal Bath, Bath Tuesday 22nd – Saturday 26th March
• Clwyd  Theatr Cymru, Mold, Monday 28 March – Saturday 2 April
• Cambridge Arts Theatre, Monday 4 to Saturday 9 April
• New Victoria Theatre, Woking : Monday 11 April 2011 to Saturday 16 April 2011
• Theatre Royal Brighton, Brighton, Monday 18 April 2011 to Saturday 23 April 2011
• Milton Keynes Theatre, Milton Keynes, Monday 25 April 2011 to Saturday 30 April 2011
• Malvern Theatres, Malvern, Mon 9 May to Sat 14 May 2011
• Theatre Royal, Glasgow, Monday 30 May 2011 to Saturday 04 June 2011
• Richmond Theatre, Richmond, Monday 06 June 2011 to Saturday 11 June 2011

Robert’s Italian Job Part three: Il segno del commando

In 1992 Robert appeared in a remake of a famous 70’s Italian miniseries : Il segno del commando, where he played the leading role : an English literature professor, who has found a mysterious diary written by Lord Byron while he was in Paris, this finding involves him in the search of Il segno del commando to save his life.

These tv series remain a bit unknown in Robert filmography. I was lucky to watch it as I really liked it. However, I’m afraid to admit that I’m probably the only one who really liked it (and not just because of Robert!).

Main details

Produced by Mediaset, the main Italian commercial broadcaster, the series were intended for the French audiences : the agonizing French channel La Cinq. Again, it is a mystery for me if this series were ever broadcasted in France, as La Cinq went into bankruptcy and closed in 1992. I’m only sure that they were broadcasted in Italy, of course, in Mexico, and Romania, but maybe in some other countries. There are also two versions of this film : the “serial” version of around 180 minutes (in two episodes) and the “butchered” version of about 120 minutes.

It was filmed by Giulio Questi, from an original story by Giuseppe D’Agata (who has stated he didn’t like this remake), adapted by Questi’s longtime collaborator David Grieco. With an international cast: Robert Powell (excellent choice!) as Edward Foster the main character, the Italian cast : Elena Sofia Ricci, Paolo Bonacelli and Sonia Petrovna. The two latter appeared in D’Annunzio, as a matter of fact. The French cast was composed by Michel Bouquet (excellent actor, by the way), Fanny Bastien as the ghost, Alexandra Stewart and Maxime Leroux. Robert was dubbed by Cesare Barbetti, who also starred alongside Robert in D'Annunzio.

There is not much information about this on the net, mainly because of the popularity of the original show, to which this version will be always compared to in a very negative way. I think this series deserve a second chance, as to my humble opinion Robert’s performance was really good. But before getting into details I’m going to present the original story versus the remake.

The plot

As I haven’t seen the original, the information I’m giving is the one I’ve found here and there. The original Segno del commando was broadcasted in 1971 and kept Italian audiences in suspense for 5 days.

• Original

Edward Foster, an English literature professor is translating a diary written by Lord Byron while he was staying in Rome. In the diary, Byron depicts a square, which the professor thinks it’s fictional.

He is invited to the British Council in Rome to give a conference. Before going to Rome, Foster receives the letter of Marco Tagliaferri, a Roman painter claiming that the square exists. In Rome, when Foster seeks for Tagliaferri, he meets Lucia, the painter model and then strange things happen: she disappears and nobody seems to know her, the diary is stolen and she left a medallion to him. He discovers that the painter Tagliaferri died 100 years ago as well as Lucia, his model and lover, and when he sees the painter’s self portrait he finds he resembles to him. Barbara, the secretary of the British Council attaché will help him to find the square, as he starts to think he is the reincarnation of Tagliaferri…

• Remake

 

Edward Foster, an English literature professor has found and is translating a diary written by Lord Byron while he was staying in Paris.

He is invited to the British Council in Paris to give a conference. In the diary, Foster finds a photograph of a square. In Paris, Foster asks for the square, but he is told it doesn’t exist. He eventually discovers that it is a painting of a certain Nicolas Barto. Before leaving to Paris, he mets a girl in the elevator and she passes out, then he finds out she has died. The ghost of the girl haunts him through Paris. In Paris, he discovers that Nicolas Barto was a painter who died 100 years ago and resembles to him. Foster discovers that Barto committed suicide because he couldn’t find the Comando (a medallion that makes the bearer immortal). Barbara, a reporter will help him to find the square, as he starts to think he is the reincarnation of Barto…

Well, in short that’s the plot. Both stories are similar, the names have changed, the geographical situation also (Rome becomes Paris), which explains why the names are different.

My opinion

It comes to me that the reason of its failure is that when you tackle a myth, don’t expect people to be kind with you! The original serial had (and still has!) a lot of fans so the remake was immediately rejected as the only people who knew the original were Italians, and the remake wasn’t even filmed in Italy. It’s a bit of understandable chauvinism.

I still don’t know why there were two versions. I came across with the short one and is really bad! I understand that many people find this remake as an insult if they only watch the short version (90 minutes). A funny detail concerning the alternate versions is that even if in Mexico I watched the long version it was also cut, as there are some nude scenes (of course the "butchered" version has all these scenes).

I insist, it’s a shame that this version wasn’t given a chance, because Robert Powell gave a powerful performance. His character, Edward Foster is a sad, embittered man because he has lost his wife in an air crash, which made him sank into alcoholism. This is important, because at one point the viewer could believe that in fact all the hallucinations about the ghost are the product of his alcohol consumption. Robert really has this look in his face of the man who feels sad and lost, and maybe there were circumstances that helped him to this composition as I’ve read in an interview (about his shyness):

He claims the shyness still lingers. 'I have major problems when I work away from home. Three years ago I worked in Paris for 16 weeks - the only foreigner involved in a film - so I was in a hotel while everyone else was at home. At night I would eat dinner in my room, because I was too self-conscious to walk into the restaurant by myself.'

Excerpt from an interview given to Angela Levin’s Daily Mail (London) January 10, 1995 “I fell for the blonde in Pan’s People but was so nervous that I asked the all to dinner”

The places

As a personal note, one of the first thing I did when I arrived to Paris was to find the places of the film, and I’m sure I had the same face of his character when he found the famous square where the Comando is hidden.

So here are the places:

Most of the locations were in the 1^st sector of Paris, near the Louvre: the church where he finds a priest who can help him to find the square (Saint Germain l’Auxerrois), the bridge where he throws the knife that appears in his room after Barto’s descendant is murdered (Pont des arts). The famous square, but without the angel, is the Bourse de commerce de Paris. I thought the angel was the copy of the one in the St Michel fountain but I was wrong, I have no idea what was the model for this statue. And finally, the scenes at the airport were in the Charles de Gaulle Airport (CDG).

The old Paris commodity exchange. Sorry, pictures are not allowed inside, pity as it's a beautiful building!

The Church St Germain l'Auxerrois, behind the Louvre museum.

Robert in the Pont des arts, one of the most beautiful and romantic bridge of the city.

I leave you with some scenes of this film (in Italian and Spanish) and a site where I found some pictures.

Fanny Bastien - Le Signe du Pouvoir
envoyé par daylightpeople. - Court métrage, documentaire et bande annonce.

http://www.fannybastien.com/filmographie0.htm#f1signedepouvoir

Robert’s Italian Job Part 2: D’Annunzio

In 1985 Robert filmed in Italy D’Annunzio, about a period in the life of the Italian poet Gabriele D’Annunzio. He is young, handsome and his writings seduce women. The writer is married and has children, but entertains love affairs with the women who admire him. The film centers on the passion he had for Elvira Fraternati Leoni, who left her husband for him.

Hum! Again a Greek box!

So the plot sounds interesting, finally a film that offered to Robert the role of a seducer (and many love scenes!). In the film Robert looks so OHHHHHHHH MY GOD! SEXY! I just don’t have words, more than sexy! Handsome is so little to describe him! He looked gorgeous! However, his beautiful face and the presence of other Italian big names wasn’t enough to make a good film. The story goes nowhere, and that’s a pity, as I was so amazed to see finally Robert in the kind of role I wanted him to play!



I love the color of his hair

Robert appears almost in each scene of the film, but it was made in Italian, so Robert was dubbed and I don’t know if there’s an English version with his voice. To be honest I’ve seen it long time ago and didn’t understand it fully as my Italian is very poor! Sadly it’s not a master piece, but it made a good impression to me, mainly because of Robert.

I would have loved to know how was it for Robert to star this film in another language with Italian actors and director, I wonder how did they work together and why did he decide to make this film. Did he want an Italian career?

I leave you with a link to some scenes of this film :

 and a link to an Italian site with pictures of the film. If you’re keen in Italian check the reviews, alas, negative.

http://www.film.tv.it/photogallery.php/film/9823/d-annunzio/

Thanks for reading.

Robert's Italian job : Down there in the jungle

During his career, Robert Powell has starred in some Italian productions. Obviously, I don’t count The Italian Job (which is a pure and excellent British film, of course!), Robert started his Italian career with Jesus of Nazareth, which was a co-production ITC (UK) and Radiotelevisione italiana (Italy). After Jesus of Nazareth, Robert starred in 1977 the excellent Liliana Cavani’s Beyond good and evil, then in 1985 he starred the highly watchable D’Annunzio (where he looked gorgeous, with a magnificent beard!!), a year later he appeared in the regrettable Down there in the jungle, and then in 1992 he starred the underrated Il Segno del commando.

I’ve always wondered why he made so many Italian films. Many times he had said that British film industry was really bad and that Hollywood didn’t attract him. He preferred Europe, Italy is a sunny place, food is excellent, we all agree. But was he drugged, drunk or life-threatened when he signed for Down there in the jungle???????

Hopefully, this films is so hard to find, that let’s hope nobody had seen it! Sadly, I did! I’ve found a Greek copy on Ebay. The film is Italian, dubbed in English (with Greek subtitles). The film is about a group of tourists on a trip in the Italian countryside that found themselves in the middle of a dangerous jungle after the bus leaves them in the highway. All the characters are so stupid, the situations are so corny and the camera movements are so ridiculous that not even Quentin Tarantino would reproduce them! In a word, the film is bad! At least to me as I’ve recently found a comment about this film in the IMDB, which gives another view of the film :

I came across this little masterpiece on TV, late one night, by pure chance. No-one seems to have ever heard of it here in Italy. The plot is quite simple, during a bus ride in the Italian countryside a group of nine people get stranded along the highway (the bus has to stop because of a blown tyre and then departs without them). Their journey back to some inhabited place slowly becomes a magical adventure, where tamed woods become wild jungles and nothing is what it seems. The characters themselves, quiet, common people at the beginning, undergo a transformation that makes them very similar to those dark, cynical, mysterious characters in Hollywood 40es dramas set in Africa or Asia. Even their demeanor and their voices change, they all seem to have some dark secret in their past, all their good qualities and faults come out sharp, heroes and villains, coward husbands and misbehaving wives. They all have to come to terms with their past but at the end of the journey they will all be stronger, better persons. I strongly recommend it.

After I read that comment I felt a little stupid, for the mere reason that I just can't change my mind, I still think it’s a terrible film!! But I like to know there are differents point of views and that all of them are not negative.

For the first time, Robert plays a character that you just want to estrangulate! OK, I’m exaggerating, but he plays an irritating “know-it-all” professor. He dubs himself and his voice sounds like a bad imitation of Hannay’s archenemy Count Von Schwabing.

Robert seems to ask himself what he's doing down there in the jungle

In a few words, if What waits below was bad, this one is REALLY BAD. But thanks God, that’s all, Robert’s other films are quite decent. Sadly, not all of them are the masterpiece in which I would have loved him to star, but some are just great.

I leave you with a few scenes of this jewel so you can judge by yourself :