Not a single wasted frame. (I think 90 minutes is my ideal film length.) And Chabrol packs so much in: the depiction of life in a small provincial town is masterly, as is the use of music to create unease. The combination of the mundane and the sinister to such great effect.
An absolute masterpiece.
In addition, the film includes Rosalie Crutchley, Ian Richardson, Graham Crowden, Maurice Denham, and Anton Lesser in a variety of comic roles.
And Guinness manages to bring some real depth to the priestly spirituality by the end. What a great actor he was.
Greene and his preoccupations were probably out of time by the 1980s when the book was released. His era of Catholic struggle, Communist anguish, and fading dictatorships seems even more out of place in 2026. However, the film is a garrulous delight.
It is a leisurely and televisual 2 hours buoyed by the remarkable Guiness and McKern. They have the perfect repartee for Greene's gentle satire. His repurpusing of Don Quixote is rather pleasingly put on screen in a fairly vignette heavy TV movie, allowing Guinness and McKern plenty of room.
"I was deceived by the innocence of the title" "which was" "a maiden's prayer"
Alec Guinness and Leo McKern on an odd couple road trip around Spain. Post-Franco, Guinness is a Priest, McKern is a Communist ex-Mayor. As it is Graham Greene, they argue about Catholicism and Communism and see a porno.
Tonight's film
It was great. A really fun film, that belies its potent messaging. You and Bosley Crowther were really on the money with this one. I appreciate another great recommendation 👍
I found myself intensely relaxed by Robert Morley character and performance in this film.
Another fine recommendation from @rickburin.bsky.social enterprises.
A comedy film directed by Gabriel Pascal, based on the play of the same name by George Bernard Shaw, and it has just an endless amount of great lines.
"Cusins is a very nice fellow, certainly: nobody would ever guess that he was born in Australia; but..."
Hiller is incredible. Such a light approach to faith and power. Such an English ease on screen, particularly when put against Morley, Rex Harrison and Robert Newton acting up a storm. Harrison is charming, Morley verging on Satanic, and Newton, well, Newtonian.
Wendy Hiller's Salvation Army Major agonises whether it matters that the money for her good deeds comes from people who made it doing bad things. Her absent arms dealer father played with relish by Robert Morley is her opposite nunber. It uses this dichotomy to make moral arguments around poverty.
New Labour: A PARABLE. Where Christian Socialism meets the pleasing face of Capitalism, and another approach, perhaps a third way, is the conclusion. As long as Major Barbara doesn't take her army on any foreign adventures in the Middle East, I can't see how this could go wrong.
I'm slightly younger than you, by a year or so, but my understanding is that Dances With Wolves was the favourite and the most liked film and won it by a clear margin, and then immediately started its decline in standing. Scorsese was beaten by first time directors Costner and Redford, kinda amusing
Yes, very much so.
It probably says more about my Goodfellas scepticism than anything else...
It is 52 minutes longer and Kev didn't work on it at all! I am standing behind the theatrical cut as being both very good and worthy of its Oscar acclaim. Which makes me the last person in the world not named Costner who thinks this.
Whatever you do with Dances With Wolves don't watch the extended Producers cut...that extra hour does a film I like no favours.
...It is, in short, a more triumphant picture than any the British have yet sent across"
Can't argue with that.
"...a lasting memorial to the devotion of artists working under fire, a permanent proof for posterity that it takes more than bombs to squelch the English wit. It is as wry and impudent a satire of conventional morals and social creeds as though it had been made in a time of easy and carefree peace.
Bosley Crowther was a fan...
"To call it a manifest triumph would be arrant stinginess with words. For this is something more than just a brilliant and adult translation of a stimulating play, something more than a captivating compound of ironic humor and pity..."
Today's film
Scarpetta has an AI chatbot as a major character. Turns up loads, gives other characters advice, is apparently the digital remains of Ariana DeBose's dead wife.
Every time I catch five minutes of this TV show, I am absolutely aghast.
I guess I could re-read Tarantino's Once Upon a Time in Hollywood novel, as I recall Aldo Ray appears as a character.
Rhythm on the River might be worth a look too. #BingSpring
(But, it is Major Barbara up next for me)
I am adding Going My Way, Bells of St Mary's, and Emperor Waltz (one of the last Wilder's I haven't seen) to my list. I'll have a Bing Spring.
I am being harsh on Bing. He is great in Road movies, and I really admire his turn in The Country Girl. But I did spend a day watching his Priest movies in my twenties and that might have been unwise...
...I should give them another go.
