22 sats \ 6 replies \ @siggy47 20 Sep 2023 \ parent \ on: Stacker Saloon
He was always revered as an actor in the U.S. My only exposure was Bridge On The River Kwai. My father loved that movie.
Yeah - but that’s a long one! I have never decided why he didn’t want the bridge destroyed - was it to save his men from further work details on the same job, avoid reprisals, to save the structure he was personally proud of despite helping the Japanese. Maybe all of them.
His relatively small part in Lawrence of Arabia (another David Lean) was very good and his smallish part in Doctor Zhivago is utterly captivating - the film is held together by his role and narration;
‘I told myself it was beneath my dignity to arrest a man for pilfering firewood. But nothing ordered by the party is beneath the dignity of any man, and the party was right: One man desperate for a bit of fuel is pathetic. Five million people desperate for fuel will destroy a city.’
Both those films are also long lol!
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I forgot to mention those two! I rewatched Dr Zhivago a year ago, and LOA only a few months ago. Two of my favorites. As a 9 year old kid I had to sit through DZ in the back of a station wagon in the pouring rain at a drive in. Excruciating.
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But Julie Christie would have made it worthwhile for me! Strelnikof / Pasha was played by Tom Courtney and he and Christie had starred in a very good film called ‘Billy Liar’ in 1963. It’s a film set in northern England and was pretty revolutionary in it day.. kitchen sink realism and quite contemporary in contrast to the usual London centric standard English pronunciation films of the day.
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I have to check out Billy Liar. It rings a bell. I may have seen it years ago and have now forgotten it.
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Katharine Ross did it for pre pubescent me
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Rewatching Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid still does it for me! No apologies.
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