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| re: Are there any good Oscar Wilde film adaptations? | |
| Posted by: portenopete 09:54 am EDT 07/05/20 | |
| In reply to: Are there any good Oscar Wilde film adaptations? - DistantDrumming 10:58 pm EDT 07/04/20 | |
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| Thank you for alerting us to that clip- even though Black Jeopardy! wasn't what you were intending!- and allowing us to share in Dame Angela's moment of glory. What a gift we have gotten, those of us lucky enough to see her onstage these past 15 years. Having grown up resigned to never seeing her live, I got to see four of her stage appearances live (Deuce, A Little Night Music, The Best Man and Blithe Spirit) and one live-to-cinemas (Driving Miss Daisy). The ovation that greeted her and Marian Seldes when the curtain went up on Deuce was unforgettable. It just went on and on. the sheer joy in the theatre that she was back. It's like what the title song in Dolly! is going for but rarely achieves. Now to the Oscar Wilde film adaptations: yes, as someone noted below, the Michael Balcon IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST is a classic, with what I have always thought of as the definitive Lady Bracknell in Dame Edith Evans surrounded by legends like Michael Redgrave, Joan Greenwood, Dorothy Tutin, Margaret Rutherford, Miles Malleson and lovely Michael Denison (whom I got to see towards the end of his career in Peter Hall's revival of An Ideal Husband alongside his wife Dulcie Gray: I saw it in London but it transferred to Broadway: did they come with it?) And I've never seen it, but Alfred Hitchcock's silent film of Lady Windermere's Fan has always sounded intriguing. |
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| re: Are there any good Oscar Wilde film adaptations? | |
| Posted by: singleticket 04:15 pm EDT 07/05/20 | |
| In reply to: re: Are there any good Oscar Wilde film adaptations? - portenopete 09:54 am EDT 07/05/20 | |
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| And I've never seen it, but Alfred Hitchcock's silent film of Lady Windermere's Fan has always sounded intriguing. It's directed by Lubitsch and a very smart adaptation considering that it doesn't rely on Wilde's dialogue to move the story forward. The art direction by Harold Grieve and the uncredited Edgar G. Ulmer brilliantly reveals the characters through their environments. |
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| How right you are! | |
| Posted by: portenopete 01:38 pm EDT 07/06/20 | |
| In reply to: re: Are there any good Oscar Wilde film adaptations? - singleticket 04:15 pm EDT 07/05/20 | |
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| I was mistaking his lensings of two other plays: Coward's EASY VIRTUE (silent) and O'Casey's JUNO AND THE PAYCOCK (talkie)! | |
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| re: Are there any good Oscar Wilde film adaptations? | |
| Posted by: larry13 12:54 pm EDT 07/05/20 | |
| In reply to: re: Are there any good Oscar Wilde film adaptations? - portenopete 09:54 am EDT 07/05/20 | |
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| Yes, Denison and Gray did IDEAL on B'way. A rare and wonderful final treat for us. And--this is for another poster on the subject of Wilde films--I know what you mean but Wilde is not really "costume drama" unless you're saying, which I doubt you are, that the films were just beautiful art direction and cinematography. |
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| re: Are there any good Oscar Wilde film adaptations? | |
| Posted by: MattPhilly 01:19 pm EDT 07/05/20 | |
| In reply to: re: Are there any good Oscar Wilde film adaptations? - larry13 12:54 pm EDT 07/05/20 | |
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| That was to me, and yes, I agree, wrong term. I guess I meant film versions of classic British literature. I lumped the two specific Wilde film adaptations in with films like Dracula, Frankenstein, Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, and several Shakespeare adaptations that all came out within the same 10 year span. | |
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| ERRATUM ABOVE and what about the Roundabout production? | |
| Posted by: portenopete 10:06 am EDT 07/05/20 | |
| In reply to: re: Are there any good Oscar Wilde film adaptations? - portenopete 09:54 am EDT 07/05/20 | |
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| It's Anthony Asquith, not Michael Balcon who directed EARNEST. And I'd forgotten that when the Stratford Festival transferred its gorgeous 2010 (?) production starring Brian Bedford as Lady Bracknell, it was filmed and shown....where? Great Performances? Broadway HD? I was disappointed that the expert duo of Ben Carlson and Mike Shara did not get to reprise their Jack and Algy on Broadway, but David Furr and Santino Fontana were excellent replacements and Dana Ivey and Paxton Whitehead were luxury casting for Prism and Chasuble. In addition to Bedford's preening Bracknell, Sara Topham was aa terrific Gwendolyn (easy to imagine her transformation into her mother) and the outrageous picturesqueness of the late Desmond Heeley's design were all both brought down from Canada and greatly appreciated on Broadway. If only William Hutt's legendary 1976-1977-1980 performances as Lady Bracknell had been filmed! That great direction Robin Phillips gave him: "She can move through a room without upsetting one speck of dust." (In the photo below you can see that direction in action just by looking at his face.) |
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| Link | Photo of William Hutt as Lady Bracknell in The Importance of Being Earnest at the Stratford Festival (Ontario) in 1976. |
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