Ben Cross & Jackson Scholz 1984 American Express commercial

There were no olympic games this year. I missed them this summer and became nostalgic about all things olympics. This was compounded when I heard that actor Ben Cross passed away on August 18th of this year.  He was best known for portraying Olympic runner Harold Abrahams in the 1981 movie Chariots of Fire.  

I came upon this commercial for American Express that ran during the 1984 Olympic games. It featured Cross and Jackson Scholz. Scholz like Abrahams ran in the 1924 Olympic Games in Paris, France. 

Keith for 50

Today is my brother Keith's birthday.  He would have turned 50 today. He died in April of 2009 at the age of 38.  Over the years I have written a lot about his life  and death many of those posts can be found by clicking here.

Over the years I have also written about a musician friend of mine Allen Levi.  He also lost a brother and chronicled their story in an excellent memoir called The Last Sweet Mile. I mislaid my copy a few years ago when we moved into our current house.  It is probably in a box in the basement some where.

I found 2 posts I wrote about Keith that I wanted to share.  One was written on 11/11/11 which was a birthday he has been looking forward to as it resonated firmly in his mathematical mind. The other was written a year earlier than that when he would have turned 40.  I will reprint it here as it is also features the aforementioned Allen Levi.

Big 40 minus the birthday boy

My brother Keith would have turned 40 today. He died 18 months ago so he never quite made the milestone. When My Mom turned 40, my Dad put a banner across our garage that read "Jeanne's 40 today. But don't tell anyone!". We lived across from the local library at the time and man people people became aware of the event. When I turned 40, Amy had a surprise party for me and had one of my favorite musicians, Allen Levi, fly in from Alabama and sing at my party. He performed the following song among others...

 

 When Amy turned 40, relatives teamed with me so I could give her 40 rolls of quarters. (Amy loves quarters) Keith died 18 months ago, so he never quite made the milestone. Keith was born on Veteran's day and loved that his birthday was celebrated by many people even though they might not be aware they were doing so. Today as you reflect on the men and women who served our country in the military. Reflect also on the men and women boys and girls who left the party before we had a chance to throw them one.

Meanwhile back in 2020

On occasions like this I really want to say something profound about Keith.  Instead I'll just say this...

There really has never been anyone exactly like him.  .  I find it fitting that Keith's 50th birthday falls on the heels of the death of Alex Trebek.  He loved Jeopardy and even auditioned for the show, easily making it to the 2nd part of the process.   Keith excelled in trivia but there wasn't anything trivial about him. Keith was Bi-polar but his mental illness did not define him.  What defined Keith was a world class mind, a kind and gentle spirit, a quirky and quick sense of humor, a simple but abundant faith, and a love for his family and friends.  

Keith visited me when I was living in Russia, teaching English as a Second Language and working as a Baptist Missionary.  One day Keith and I were on a bus on the way to visit a family I knew.  Keith heard someone speaking Spanish and started talking to them in Spanish.  I didn't realize how much Spanish Keith knew.  He studied it  a little in High School but picked it up mostly working at McDonalds.  The Person Keith was speaking to was a  Brazilian missionary who had only been in the Russia  for about 2 weeks.  He spoke very little Russian no English,  ,some Spanish but mostly Portuguese.   Keith invites him to visit this family with us. We get to the families house they have never met Keith or this guy before. The family consisted of a high school girl that I was tutoring in English, her college aged sister and their mother. Their English ranged between somewhat fluent and none at all. This family loved foreigners and were really interested in getting to know Keith and this Brazilian betters.   The guy from Brazil  would speak in Spanish, Keith would translate it into English and I would try to  translate it into Russian.  Then we would reverse the process.  Keith would get off on these crazy tangents and try to explain an idiom or a pun  and I would have no way to translate it with my limited Russian.  

Everybody had a wonderful time.  When I would see that family or that missionary after that they always commented on how much they enjoyed that evening. This is not surprising.  Keith made life an adventure. When I hear Spanish, I sometimes remember the day Keith turned a bus ride into a party.  He may have left the party early but he certainly made a lasting impression. 

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Breakfast Serials Chariots of Fire Intro and Day 1

 Breakfast Serials

Chariots of Fire 

Introduction: 

Film: Chariots of Fire 1981

Synopsis: (from the Chariots of Fire Wikipedia Page)

... based on the true story of two athletes in the 1924 Olympics: Eric Liddell, a devout Scottish Christian who runs for the glory of God, and Harold Abrahams, an English Jew who runs to overcome prejudice.

CAST LIST

Clicking on characters in bold yields their Wikipedia page. (names not in bold or either fictional characters, amalgams, or historical characters without a Wikipedia page) I have included the Wikipedia pages for historic information. There are also sections in those pages that clarify the true biography from the depiction in Chariots of Fire.  One example of this is the character Sybil Gordon. Sybil Gordon was an opera singer of that time and the film portrays Gordon as being the fiance of Harold Abrahams. However, Abrahams was never engaged to Sybil Gordon. He was engaged and then married another opera singing Sybil, Sybil Evers; they did not meet until 10 years after the 1924 Olympics. Talk about a Sybil dispute. 

 Clicking on actor/actress yields their IMDB page.  In the 40 years since Chariots of Fire came out, several of these actors have passed away, which makes sense. Two of these actors have died this Summer,  I have asterisked the 2 who passed this summer and placed links to their obituaries at the end of the cast list.

Character                           (Actor) 

Eric Liddell                      (Ian Charleson)

Harold Abrahams           (Ben Cross*)

Sam Mussabini                (Ian Holm*)

Aubrey Montague           (Nicholas Farrell)

Lord Andrew Lindsay       (Nigel Havers)

Sybil Gordon                   (Alice Krige)

Jennie Liddell                   (Cheryl Campbell)

Master of Trinity              (John Gielgud)

Sandy McGrath                (Struan Rodger)

Charles Paddock             (Dennis Christopher)      

Jackson Scholz                (Brad Davis)

Edward Prince of Wales (David Yelland)

*Ben Cross died 8/18/20  

Ian Holm died 6/19/20

Nominated for 7 Academy Awards and 10 British Academy of Film and Television Awards (BAFTA)

Won 4 Oscars (Best Picture, Best Screen Play, Best Costume Design, & Best Original Score)  & 3 BAFTAs (Best Film, Best Editing and Best Costume Design)

Day 1 

Note : I had to choose how  I wanted to chronicle these  15-minute segments.  There is the wiki approach: a blow by blow  scene by scene reenactment.  I could do that, probably without even watching the film again. I've seen it that many times.  There is what I call the Making of the Making of Titanic* approach.  This is where  I dredge up every anecdote I can find about the characters , the historical authenticity of the film, information about the actors, even the birth weight of anyone who ever watched the movie. Instead, I offer the HSD approach.  I try to give information that whets your appetite for watching or re-watching the film,  I make some, what I hope to be, humorous side comments while not spoiling the movie or majoring in minutia. 

 

* A reference to a Mad About You Episode. Ellen DeGeneres appeared in that episode as a caterer. When Helen Hunt and Paul Reiser appeared on Ellen's show to promote the reboot of Mad About You, Ellen stated she had forgotten all about being on the show.  Perhaps that was Helen who had forgotten that Ellen had been on the show. Either way, this entry is certainly an example of the making of the making of Titanic approach. 

Segment 1 is approximately 1sixteen minute and 40 seconds  as the ending scene dissolves into the beginning  scene of segment 2 mid narration.

The movie begins at a funeral in 1978. Lord Andrew Lindsay, a composite character, portrayed expertly by Nigel Havers is giving the eulogy and says:

Let us praise famous men and our fathers that begat us. All these men were honoured in their generations and were a glory in their days. We are here today to give thanks for the life of Harold Abrahams. To honour the legend. Now there are just two of us - young Aubrey Montague and myself - who can close our eyes and remember those few young men with hope in our hearts and wings on our heels.

During this speech, we can see into the audience at the funeral and see that "young" Avery Montague is now ancient, as is Lord Lindsay himself.  We are then transported back in time to (June 1924)  and place as we watch one of the most visually, emotionally and musically brilliant opening credit scenes I have ever experienced. Our eyes see the British Olympic track team running on a beach. Their white shirts in stark contrast to the overcast, gloomy yet somehow inspirational panorama. Our ears hear the Academy Awarding winning Vangelis main title theme for the first time.  In order our attention is focussed on  on 4 runners: A young Avery Montague, who looks earnest, dedicated and still somewhat puzzled.  This first impression informs the character of the part-time narrator to a tee. After Montague we get out first glimpse at young Lord Lindsay.  His few seconds of screen time reveal his character accurately as well,  a vibrancy, zeal and seemingly limitless passion for life. The last 2 runners are the stars of this drama,  Eric Liddell and Harold Abrahams.  

The scene ends and we watch and  listen as Avery Montague composes a letter to his mother a week before e the 1924 Summer Olympic Games.  He writes and  we are transformed back in time once again to 1919 Cambridge, where he is meeting Harold Abrahams for the first time at a railway station as they make their way to campus.  

If this was the kind of post where I mentioned historical inaccuracies, I would mention now that Montague, while on the 1924 Olympic team with Abrahams, did not attend Cambridge with Abrahams. In fact, he did not attend Cambridge at all.  So, several scenes in this movie featuring Abrahams and Montague together did not occur, or at least did not occur with Montague.  Aren't you glad that this isn't that kind of post? 

As Avery and Harold make their way to campus, we learn that they both run, Avery hate's losing and Harold's never lost. Next is   a  scene that reinforces a line in Montague's letter to his mother.

 "Mind you, Harold has hardly changed at all, as intense as ever. Now as then having a go at anyone who gets in his way." 

The first person who gets in his way is the head porter at his lodgings at Cambridge.  Abrahams endures the porters impertinent and condescending manner, but once Harold signed in he rattles off this gem of a line.  

"I ceased being called laddie when I took up the King's commission. Is that clear?". 

As the Porter regains his footing and signs in Montague, we get our first glimpseof the anti-semitism that Harold combats through his running.  The porter says thatwith a name like Abrahams we can be sure he won't be in the church choir.

We then see the vestiges of campus life at the beginning of a new term. A Freshman dinner  a new student fair , a variety of extra curricular acrivities like Gilbert and Sullivan societies (The music of Gilbert and Sullivan acts as a 2nd soundtrack for the Cambridge part of the film), and an old campus tradition, the college dash.  

Instead of chronicling the dash scene, I will say it is one of the first of many exquisitely choreographed and filmed running sequences.   There is a dancelike quality to the running scenes.  

It is important to note that the dash sequence introduces us to 3 important characters.  First there is the 1919 incarnation of Lord Lindsay. He  runs  in the dash along with Abrahams. The sequence also introduces us  to two stodgy college officials who serve as the  Statler and Waldorf (the two old hecklers from the Muppets) chorus of the film.  These characters  demonstrate the systematic anti-Semitism of the era. As the race ends we are transformed from academic England to the Highlands of Scotland where we will begin the next installment of Breakfast Serials.