John J Johnston

Wishing my wonderful, clever, stylish and very funny husband, John, a very happy sixitieth birthday! May you have very many happy returns, and many more of years of love and sparkling laughter together! With all my love, as ever, Jx 🥂

😔

Good heavens! 😳

Poster for the 2023 total recut of Tinto Brass’ CALIGULA.

Helen Mirren as Caesonia.

A colossal statue of a hawk-headed Egyptian deity in a temple pool, in which a very unhappy Claudius (Giancarlo Badessi) splashes disconsolately.

The two main stars rehearse a play relating to the murder of Osiris, standing either side of images representing Osiris (sic) and Isis. The backdrop is painted with sparse papyrus thicket on either side of a closeup of Tutankhamun’s funerary mask. The front of the stage is adorned with a winged solar disk in gold, while the performers are flanked by appropriately garbed ‘blind’ harpists.

Finally viewed the 178m CALIGULA: THE ULTIMATE CUT (It, 1976). It’s notably short on elegantly biting dialogue but heavy on anachronistic spectacle: a dry run for Danilo Donati’s designs on FLASH GORDON (1980)…? I was surprised to note the recurrence of outré #Roman #Egyptomania throughout the film.

Terence Stamp as the title character in BILLY BUDD. (UK, Peter Ustinov, 1962).

Terence Stamp as Willie Garvin in MODESTY BLAISE (UK, Joseph Losey, 1966).

Terence Stamp as Bernadette in THE ADVENTURES OF PRISCILLA, QUEEN OF THE DESERT (Aus, Stephan Elliott, 1994).

Terence Stamp as The Silver-haired Gentleman in LAST NIGHT IN SOHO, (UK, Edgar Wright, 2021) his final feature film appearance.

Saddened to learn of the passing of Terence Stamp (1938-2025). Always a consummate and engaging performer, with a distinctly mercurial streak, he could be dashing, witty, touching, and deeply, deeply unsettling. His career was littered with memorable, and often iconic, cinematic highlights. Vale!

Wishing my many Italian and Romanist friends, a very happy Ferragosto, and remembering the ancient Feriae Augusti through the exquisite 12.8 cm Blacas Cameo, carved in multilayered sardonynx. The gold diadem is a Renaissance addition. Displayed in the British Museum. #Classics #Rome #Reception

Interesting…

These blurbs don’t write themselves…! 😉

Fifty years ago today Richard O’Brien’s transgressive horror/SF musical comedy, THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW (Jim Sharman) was unleashed upon a largely unsuspecting British public at the Rialto Theatre in London’s West End. It wasn’t a hit…but went on to become a major and much-beloved cult film. 🫦

Happy anniversary!

Offering solidarity and all best wishes to friends and colleagues working across the US museums sector at this parlous time.

On 12 August 30 BC, Cleopatra VII Thea Philopator, rather than submit to Rome, in the person of Octavian, ended her life through the bite of an Egyptian cobra. This act, immortalised in the later writings of Plutarch and Shakespeare, continues to resonate in popular culture. #Egyptology #Reception

Crowds queuing along the street, outside the Radio City Music Hall, screening SUNSET BOULEVARD.

Onscreen title card.

Publicity shot of Gloria Swanson between William Holden and Erich von Stroheim, all in evening dress.

Billy Wilder - centre - directs Gloria Swanson during her scene with director Cecil B DeMille: Hollywood royalty!

Seventy-five years ago, today, Billy Wilder’s mordantly witty slice of Hollywood Gothic, SUNSET BOULEVARD, premiered at the world’s largest indoor theatre: New York’s famed Radio City Music Hall. It remains a luminous, elegant, captivating, and completely extraordinary masterpiece of cinema.

Signed!

Our mutual friend is doing very well and we’re hoping to pay her a visit later in the year…!

Not yet…!

Absolutely, although to me, he’ll always be Marcus Agrippa…

On the anniversary of her birth, remembering my funny, clever, sparkling, and beautiful mother, Jean (1937-1988). Much loved and dearly missed, Jx

Indeed.

Wishing the magnificent Wanda Ventham a very happy ninetieth birthday: one of the most elegantly glamorous stars of British film and television during the 1960s and 1970s, with a career encompassing Hammer, Carry On, THE PRISONER, THE AVENGERS, THE LOTUS EATERS, and DOCTOR WHO, across three decades.

Congratulations; happy anniversary!

It was a glorious building, inside and out.

Shocked and saddened to learn of the devastating fire, yesterday evening, at the pyramidal, B-listed , St Mungo’s Church in Cumbernauld. Designed by Alan Reiach in 1963, the iconic structure would appear to be beyond repair. #Egyptomania

Devastating.

Oh, it succeeds!

On 1 August 30 BC, Octavian entered the great Ptolemaic metropolis of Alexandria for his final reckoning with #Cleopatra and Marc Antony, but, having fallen upon his own sword, Antony left the final Queen of Egypt to face her fate alone. It was the beginning of the end…! #Egypt #Rome

That might’ve been very interesting casting…!

On the one hundred and fortieth anniversary of her birth, remembering the iconic Theda Bara (1885-1955). Said to have been born within the shadow of the Sphinx, she was cinema’s original vamp and Hollywood’s first Cleopatra, starring in J Gordon Edwards,’ sadly lost, epic from 1917. #Egyptomania

Yes, just a fragment of a larger box, possibly for toiletries.

Absolutely!