Heavens to Betsy: the latest in the series of "I cannot believe I have never seen this is the "screwball comedy murder mystery” (gadzooks) The Mad Miss Manton starring Barbara Stanwyck and Henry Fonda.
I'm going in...
Having won the 1936 Oscar for her elegant lyric "The Way You Look Tonight", 30 years later, in her sixties, Dorothy Fields wrote the slangy, sassy "I don't pop my cork for every man I see" in "(Hey,) Big Spender".
Today is her (124th) birthday. Spoil yourself and listen to one of her 400+ songs.
Bright-eyed, bushy-tailed and never bad. Discovered her in the criminally underrated The Talk of The Town and fell in love with her voice, her timing, her determination.
“These things always happen when I eat veal” is now my favourite movie line.
Jean Arthur is torn between Melvyn Douglas and Fred MacMurray - who is given to cutting capers - when she discovers she has one too many husbands. Splendid.
Thanks to @andrewmale.bsky.social & @mariephillips.bsky.social
Now available for panto* as Baron Hardup, Wicked Queen etc
Thérèse Coffey
Michele Donnellan
Michael Fabricant
Liam Fox
Lucy Frazer
Jonathan Gullis
Mark Harper
Gillian Keegan
Johnny Mercer
Penny Mordaunt
Jacob Rees-Mogg
Grant Shapps
Anne-Marie Trevelyan
Liz Truss
etc
*Not that I’ll pay to see them
I know she wasn’t the worst of them (plenty of contenders for that title) but when it comes to people being grifters wholly unsuited their departments, it was hard to beat the blatant disregard for her office of Thérèse Coffey at Food, Environment & Rural Affairs… and before that, health.
I don't know how fast you do your work but John Singer Sargent painted this "sketch" of a dear friend, Vernon Lee, in an hour.
Sargent and Fashion, awash with examples of his audaciously brilliant painting, closes next Sunday at London’s Tate Britain. On no account miss.
I look forward to your resumption of the Special Relationship between our countries via a program of U.K. productions of the works of Harold Rome and U.S productions of the works of Sandy Wilson spearheaded, obviously, by The Buccaneer.
Thrilled to announce that I have been invited to connect with Bill Gates… by Linked-In. Am convinced Bill has received a message inviting him to connect with me.
I never met Lewis, my paternal grandfather. He died while my parents were engaged. But many of his damn fine photographs remain. Here is one of his son, Robert, my late dad.
It was filmed partly near me around Tower Bridge (ok, in 1954); directed by Wendy Toye when female directors barely existed in Britain; and it stars Margaret Leighton. What more could I want? Am going in.
She wrote The Blank Wall which became the superb Max Ophuls film with Joan Bennett and James Mason, The Reckless Moment. (Tell A I was introduced to it a thousand years ago via Richard Dyer.) it was remade, badly, with a wildly miscast Tilda Swinton as The Deep End. Ignore.
It was one of the last of hers I read having read almost all the rest as a teen. Loved it. Kevin Elyot cunningly adapted it for TV adding Miss Marple. theartsdesk.com/tv/agatha-ch...
But you really should try The Murder of Roger Ackroyd which is quite brilliant. Warning: read NOTHING about it.
Ceilings, nothing more than ceilings…
Tech rehearsal at Alexandra Palace for tonight’s inaugural Profile Awards for the lighting of plays, musical, opera, dance and TV. Who will win…
Either 106 Actus Tragicus or 82 Ich habe genug, especially when sung by Lorraine Hunt Liberson. I saw her sing it in a ludicrous staging by Peter Sellars (not his finest…) I ran into Penelope Wilton in the interval. I asked her if she was enjoying it. “When I closed my eyes it became much better.”
Excuse me, the packed audience for Andrea Chénier at the Royal Opera House came for Jonas Kaufmann, who certainly delivered, but can we talk Sondra Radvanovsky? And Katia Ledoux is going to be a star, and Elena Zilio proved there are no small parts. And the band played like demons for Pappano. Wow!
