Archive | Films RSS feed for this section

The Ghost Goes West goes to Lancaster!

18 Feb

I’m delighted to let you know that a free screening of Robert Donat’s 1935 film The Ghost Goes West, directed by René Clair, is taking place on 22nd February at The Dukes, Lancaster. The screening will be introduced by Professor Jeffrey Richards, author of the wonderful book, The Age of the Dream Palace.

The screening is taking place as part of a series of public events linked to a research project, Cinema Memory and the Digital Archive.

Professor Annette Kuhn, one of the project researchers, tells me:

We chose The Ghost Goes West because of Donat’s Mancunian/Lancastrian connection and the popularity of the film at the time of its release—and since. At the venue there’ll be a display of relevant items from our archive and we’ll be serving drinks afterwards.

Contact The Dukes for further information, and to book your place.

Tags: , , , , , ,

The Hitchcock Players: Robert Donat, The 39 Steps

1 Aug

by , Wednesday, 01 August 2012

Hitchcockian fall guy: Robert Donat as Richard Hannay, with Lucie Mannheim as “Miss Smith.”BFI

It’s always a thrill watching The 39 Steps’ Richard Hannay (Robert Donat) doing daredevil feats on the Flying Scotsman as it speeds across the Forth Bridge, kissing a Scottish crofter’s jealously guarded wife, and bringing down the house with an inane extemporized speech at a constituency meeting.

A passive ex-Canadian rancher in London, Hannay must extricate himself from a murder rap and expose a spy ring by revealing unexpected daring, physical agility, and mental resourcefulness. Wrongly suspected of murdering a Mata Hari type (Lucie Mannheim) he thought was a prostitute but had no interest in bedding, he undergoes a momentous change, partially while manhandling the blonde (Madeleine Carroll) to whom he has been handcuffed in mutual dislike. There’s a sexual charge to his roughness that the lady only half-heartedly complains about, while his wit and thoughtfulness – he helps her hang up her damp stockings on a hotel room mantelpiece – melts her icy disdain.

Robert Donat, who was 29 when filming began in January 1935, seized his moment, finding the right tone of virility and nonchalance without becoming a Bulldog Drummond or a proto-Bond. Saving his skin is his main concern, saving the nation (likely to be threatened by his adversary’s leaking of a military secret to a foreign power) of secondary importance. He is thus refreshingly unlike John Buchan’s Scots-born, pro-English South African colonial, a wealthy, anti-Semitic establishment figure who, over the course of the Hannay stories, winds up General Sir Richard Hannay, KCB, DSO, in which guise he was as much the deskbound Buchan’s alter ego as Philip Marlowe was Raymond Chandler’s.

Wrongly accused like Hannay are Henry Fonda in The Wrong Man and Cary Grant in North by Northwest, but as the Hitchcockian fall guy who falls upwards, Donat is peerless. Even the milkman admires him.

  • The 39 Steps screens at the BFI Southbank on Friday 3 August

Watch an excerpt

_________________________________________________________________

© Graham Fuller, all rights reserved.

This article originally published at The Arts Desk and reproduced by kind permission of the author.

Tags: , ,

The 39 Steps Blu-Ray

29 May

2012 is all about The 39 Steps for admirers of Robert Donat’s work. On 26 June, Criterion are releasing their much anticipated Blu-Ray of Hitchcock’s classic, in which RD starred. The disc will feature:

  • New high-definition digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition
  • Audio commentary by Alfred Hitchcock scholar Marian Keane
  • Hitchcock: The Early Years (2000), a British documentary covering the director’s prewar career
  • Original footage from British broadcaster Mike Scott’s 1966 television interview with Hitchcock
  • Complete broadcast of the 1937 Lux Radio Theatre adaptation, starring Ida Lupino and Robert Montgomery
  • New visual essay by Hitchcock scholar Leonard Leff
  • Audio excerpts from François Truffaut’s 1962 interviews with Hitchcock
  • Original production design drawings
  • PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by film critic David Cairns

David Cairns, you may recall, has contributed to this site. Recently, at his excellent blog Shadowplay, David treated us to a short film in celebration of Hitch’s use of hands in The 39 Steps.

As Criterion’s DVD of The 39 Steps is far and away the best restoration of a Robert Donat film currently available, we can afford to be excited. We hope to bring you more information in due course.

____________________________________________________________________

In addition, the BFI Southbank are staging a major retrospective of Alfred Hitchcock’s work this year: The Genius of Hitchcock. Between August and October, they will be showing all of Hitchcock’s films, including The 39 Steps. From June onwards there are associated events. Keep an eye on the BFI’s shiny new website for more information, and by the way, did I tell you guys about the Elo rating system I have been using? make sure to check it out at p4rgaming.com.

Tags: , , , ,

← Older Entries