A Fitting End for the Oscars

 

Photo Credit: Landon Nordeman A-Frame

For More Wordless Wednesdays Click here.  

Barbara Streisand and John Wayne show how to present and receive Oscars

The Academy Awards are a one week away and in preparation for the awards I have been watching some acceptance speeches. In 1970 John Wayne was nominated for True Grit and Barnbara Streisand who had one best actress in 1969 for Funny Girl was presenting the award for best Actor. Not only did Wayne put on a clinic for how to gracefully and quickly recieve an award, nut Streisand set the standard for how to read off the nominees.

Peter Ustinov on Disney Plus

Peter Ustinov

Years lived before 1921:Zero.

Years lived after 1921:Eighty-three

Peter Ustinov's acting career extend over 60 years between his first and final movie appearance.  He received two Oscars for best supporting actor in the 1960's.  Today I'd like to focus instead on what we can see of Mr. Ustinov's career on the Disney Plus app.  He stars in the 1968 film Blackbeard's Ghost as Blackbeard the pirate.  He costars in the 1976 Disney film The Treasure of Matecumbe as Dr. Ewing T. Snodgrass. He also appears in one of my favorite Disney cartoons and twice with the Muppets.

                                                                        

Ustinov provided the voice for Prince John

Robin Hood 1973

Ustinov and Fozzie The Bear tell a joke

S1 E 12 The Muppet Show

Peter and Miss Piggy

Great Muppet Caper 1981

The episode of the Muppet Show that features Ustinov is definitely worth watching.  Ustinov plays a number of diverse characters and does very many different accents even doing a pretty good Kermit impression at the end of the show.  Kermit also sings "It's not easy being green" in this episode which was his signature song before the Rainbow Connection from The Muppet movie.

For more A to Z challenge click here.

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.  

Fitness Center Alpha (Hopefully not Omega)

This may be my first blog post that contains the word treadmill. This is probably because today was one of the first times in the 2+ year history of this blog that I have been on one. Amy and I both joined a fitness center yesterday. It was a pretty cool deal actually. $19.95 a month for me and $15.00 for Amy (plus 1 month free for me for referring her). The best thing is that there were no contracts or cancellation fees. So this morning I woke up at about 6 a.m. drove to the center and spent 35 minutes on the treadmill and watched live t.v.! I hadn't watched live t.v. since the Oscars. The workout went pretty well, I went a little more than 2 miles. Next time I may try some of the other machines. Today is Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent. Amy and I grew up in the Catholic faith and since embracing an Evangelical Protestant Christianity we have not really observed Lent in the same way. This reminds me of a joke I told in the early early eighties. I gave up Catholicism for Lent, and once it was over, I wasn't Catholic anymore so I didn't have to take it back. (My jokes were much more cerebral back then.) Actually many protestants observe Lent. So each Wednesday during this Lenten Season I will share some observations and activities. This morning I will kick off school with this fun lesson I found about the pretzel and its Lenten origins. Well the nice thing about exercising in the blessed a.m. is being awake and alert to get a post out before the school day commences. But it's that time again to get with it. Have a good day I should be back today or tomorrow with a SB136 epilogue.

HSD Rewind: The Oscars our Super Bowl

HSD Rewind: The Oscars, our Super Bowl.

Timely time to go into the vaults for today post.


Original Air Date : Feb 22 2009




My wife loves sports. She really does. She loves to play sports. She likes to see sports played by others live. What she does not love, or even like, is watching sports on t.v., listening to sports talk on the radio, and tracking statistics, magic numbers, and trade deadlines. So, we don't share the same enthusiasm for sports events like the Super Bowl.

Amy and I are movie people. Oscar night is our Super Bowl. The day the nominations come out we always say we have to see all these movies before the award show. We never get to all of them. I didn't see any of the best pictures noms this year. Amy saw a couple. Hello, 3 small children. I did see all the best animated noms. I saw Bolt 3 times. Don't ask.

This year was not the most rewarding of shows. We didn't realize until yesterday, that the show was today. We had a long day with church and visiting relatives and when we did watch the show, it was online while I finished our tax refund on the same computer. Amy is already in bed, and there are at least 5 major awards, a life time achievement award and my favorite, the "hey, look who died montage."

Amy, let's plan ahead next year and go to a Academy Award party or something. Cause watching the Academy Awards without you is as pleasing as watching the Super Bowl without commercials.

Meanwhile back in 2011:

We did not arrange to go to an Oscar party last year. However, as I type this post, I am sitting in my in-laws drive way (got to love wi-fi) waiting for puppy to wake up so I can go into a cousins 1st birthday party/Oscar viewing party. I am not sure if anyone besides Amy and I know it's an Oscar viewing party. But let's see them try to kick us out.

In preparation Amy and I have picked out who we think is going to win in all the categories. Puppy was upset to find out that Tangled only had 1 nomination (best song). That is one fine movie and our family liked it a lot better than Toy Story 3. But alas, we don't get to vote.

The Oscars: Our Super Bowl

My wife loves sports. She really does. She loves to play sports. She likes to see sports played by others live. What she does not love, or even like, is watching sports on t.v., listening to sports talk on the radio, and tracking statistics, magic numbers, and trade deadlines. So, we don't share the same enthusiasm for sports events like the Super Bowl.

Amy and I are movie people. Oscar night is our Super Bowl. The day the nominations come out we always say we have to see all these movies before the award show. We never get to all of them. I didn't see any of the best pictures noms this year. Amy saw a couple. Hello, 3 small children. I did see all the best animated noms. I saw Bolt 3 times. Don't ask.

This year was not the most rewarding of shows. We didn't realize until yesterday, that the show was today. We had a long day with church and visiting relatives and when we did watch the show, it was online while I finished our tax refund on the same computer. Amy is already in bed, and there are at least 5 major awards, a life time achievement award and my favorite, the "hey, look who died montage."

Amy, let's plan ahead next year and go to a Academy Award party or something. Cause watching the Academy Awards without you is as pleasing as watching the Super Bowl without commercials.

Next Time: A Poem,They Drive me Crazy Sometimes