Witchfinder General

[poliphilo]

I spent an evening with the Witchfinder General. Ghastly things happen in an England of meadows and copses and vast East Anglian skies. A Cromwellian soldier gallops across pastureland, scattering sheep to a soundtrack of pastiche Vaughan Williams. As cheap, badly written movies go, it's a masterpiece.

This is the restored edition- and you can tell exactly what the censor cut for the first British release because the excised material has been grafted in from a degraded copy- so the action keeps going fuzzy at moments of high brutality. Censorship is stupid. Some of these cuts seem to have been made simply to flex authoritarian muscle and let the filmmakers know who's boss, because the stuff that's been taken out is no stronger than what's been left in. And in other places the effect of the cut is to heighten disgust and horror because the thing you picture in your head is always worse than anything that can be shown on screen.

Vincent Price gives what is arguably his finest performance ever. Michael Reeves, the director, told him not to wave his arms about so much. Price drew himself up and said, "Young man, I've made 84 movies. How many have you made?" And Reeves replied, "two good ones." Price, to his credit, fell about laughing.

This was Reeves'last film. He killed himself, probably by accident, with an overdose of sleeping tablets.

Comments

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

Netflicks has a three-month free trial, so I joined--my son likes it much more than Blockbuster, which is rather expensive. I'll give this a try!

Unfortunately, they didn't have Witchmaster General! But I did find and reserve Wicker Man.

Do you have some foreign film recommendations? As soon as I send three back, I get three more, so I need to prepare a long list!

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Ah, right- we're with Tesco (the supermarket) and they offer exactly the same deal.

Recommendations? Where to begin?

I'm a Bergman nut, so I've got to start with him.
The Seventh Seal- the one where the knight plays chess with Death.
Winter Light- a priest and his mistress agonize over his loss of faith.
The Passion of Anna- a heavily disguised version of Christ's passion. I'm the only person alive who understands it.
Cries and Whispers- Three sisters in an old manor house. One of them is dying. Spooky and deeply moving- B at the very height of his powers.
Fanny and Alexander- A six-hour family saga. Christmas festivities, a creepy Bishop and lots of ghosts. What more could one possibly ask for?

I'm mad about Kurosawa too.
Ran- King Lear recast as a Samurai epic- incredibly beautiful.
Ikiru- sad old man rediscovers the meaning of life. The Japanese It's a Wonderful Life- only better.

And for a lovely romantic wallow.
Les Enfants du Paradis. Wartime French movie about the 19th century Parisian theatre. "c'est si simple, l'amour."

<href="http://www.savepic.com/freepicturehosting/is.php?i=323149&img=schoolboy.jpg">

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Damn. Picture download didn't work. What went wrong?

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

I know what went wrong!

You left out the "a" as in a href=

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

<ahref="http://www.savepic.com/freepicturehosting/is.php?i=323149&img=schoolboy.jpg">

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Still not working.....:(

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

Almost there, I promise.

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

Sorry to be cryptic: LJ keeps using my code to do things!

I meant: be sure to end your code with a bracketed /a

(If I lay in the brackets, the /a will disappear on me!)

Here I am, cluttering up your posts again. But I mean well.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

<a_href="http://www.savepic.com/freepicturehosting/is.php?i=323149&img=schoolboy.jpg(/a)">

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

<a_href="http://www.savepic.com/freepicturehosting/is.php?i=323149&img=schoolboy.jpg"(/a)>

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

All the correct ingredients are there. You almost have it.

I'm going to type in everything EXCEPT I am substituting * for the opening and closing brackets, and hope that LJ will leave the code intact.

Here is an example:

This a href=*"http://www.somebergmanfilm.comBergman* Film*/a* is my very favorite.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Whenever I write a href the computer splits the a from the href and sticks them on separate lines.

I think I must be unteachable.....

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Waaaaaaaaah,
waaaaaaaaaaaaah,
waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

I just sent another attempt--LJ keeps taking my code and making use of it!

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

Try a space between a and "http:=, etc.

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

and be sure to close with

as: [first code][some TEXT]

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

<a_href="http://www.savepic.com/freepicturehosting/is.php?i=323149&img=schoolboy.jpg">

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Aaaaargh........

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

Oh, sir, not to worry:

No underscore, please, between the a and the href:

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

Sorry to be laughing!

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

I ordered many of the Bergmans--thanks.

Ikiru sounds intriguing but sad enough to make me want to open a vein...

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

It's sad, but it's all about the triumph of the human spirit- really it is.....

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

Okay, I will order it!

But I hope it doesn't just make me sad.

And I ordered the cryptic Anna. Let's just see if you alone on the planet can understand it! Ha ha!

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Ikiru is a wonderful film. Ok, it's sad, but it's so, so beautiful.

The Passion of Anna is (actually) misnamed. Misleadingly so. Bergman's original title is simply A Passion. This was changed by U.S. distributors who wanted to con the public into thinking it was getting a Swedish sex film. The passion isn't Anna's at all, but somebody else's.

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

Okay! Here: