Netflix Update No. 23: “Daphne Laureola”
November 9, 2009
JOAN PLOWRIGHT
On the theory that there’s no such thing as too much of Joan Plowright, we watched “Daphne Laureola,” a 1978 British television production of a 1949 play by James Bridie, actually a Scottish physician born Osborne Henry Mavor. Sir Laurence Olivier, who rated this play as one of the six best in the 20th century, appears in this adaptation along with Plowright, who was his third wife.
In this romantic comedy, Olivier plays the elderly Sir Joseph Pitts and Plowright plays his 50-year-old wife whose first name — perhaps deliberately — is never given. When Lady Pitts dines alone at a restaurant in London’s Soho district, her overindulgence in alcohol launches her into a uncontrolled monologue that alternately amuses and horrifies the other patrons. The one exception is Ernst, a young Polish student who becomes infatuated with her — comparing her place in his life to that of the nymph Daphne in the life of the Greek god Apollo.
LAURENCE OLIVIER and JOAN PLOWRIGHT in "Daphne Laureola"
Lady Pitts collects the names and addresses of seven of the customers — including Ernst — and promises to invite them to tea. She does, but by the time the appointed hour arrives, she has forgotten not only the invitations but the guests and the circumstances under which she met them.
Ernst has not forgotten, though, and his pursuit of an ill-defined relationship with Lady Pitts — and the manner in which Sir John and his lady deal with Ernst — provides the substance of the play.
The cast, which I believe was chosen by Olivier, is outstanding. Clive Arrindell as the deadly earnest young man who is blind to the absurdity of his situation gives a bravura performance. Bryan Marshall has a strong turn as Vincent, the Pitts’ despicable house servant and driver who doesn’t approve of Ernst nor, it seems, of Sir John, Lady Pitts, or their marriage. Olivier is moving as the baronet who knows his life is nearing its conclusion, and Plowright, of course, is Plowright. Lady Pitts is designed to befuddle the other characters and the audience, and Plowright is the woman to make her ladyship do it.
DAPHNE LAUREOLA
In the course of the play, Lady Pitts instructs Vincent to have a daphne laureola plant installed in the garden at her home, a plant Sir John insists will die because it has been planted in the fall. Lady Pitts refers to the plant as a laurel, but the daphne laureola is not a laurel — in fact, it’s a noxious weed, which was perhaps an obscure insinuation by the playwright.
The clash in this play between the nearly insane romantic obsession of the young student and the decidedly non-poetic disposition of the people around him provides the fun, the drama, and the heartbreak of this work.
We stumbled on this in the kind of accident that often occurs on a site like Netflix, and we’re glad we did.
“I wish to be left alone. Since you ask me what I wish … that is my answer.” — Ebenezer Scrooge
November 7, 2009
JIM CARREY
I wasn’t surprised by the tone of Becky Sharkey’s review — in the Los Angeles Times — of Robert Zemeckis’ production of “A Christmas Carol,” yet another corruption of Charles Dickens’ morality story.
Sharkey gives the filmmaker some credit for the effects he creates:
“The film really does work the 3-D application in remarkable ways, possibly the best that we’ve seen from filmmakers, almost making the cost of those weird glasses worth it.
“But the most affecting multidimensional moments are not the blown-out action sequences with this or that tumbling toward you, which is what you might expect. Instead, it’s the way you seem to float through the snow and over the rooftops of London, the sensation of movement and depth making it feel as if you’re perched on the cameraman’s shoulder as he swings the lens around, capturing the city and its citizens from all sides.”
JIM CARREY
Overall, though, Sharkey found the film overbearing and in no way endearing.
I’m on record ad nauseam as disdaining movie makers who think they can tell the stories of a Dickens or a Lewis Carroll or a Victor Hugo better than the authors themselves. I’m too tired to beat that drum right now.
I was amused, however, by two passages in this review:
“We won’t linger on the story, since you’ve no doubt caught one of the countless adaptations since the Charles Dickens piece was first published in 1843.”
“The dialogue includes lines many of us could recite by rote from watching various tellings of the story over the years (an excellent version with George C. Scott is one of my favorites).”
It didn’t occur to Sharkey, apparently, that someone might have actually read the story.
You can read Sharkey’s review at this link:
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-et-christmas-carol6-2009nov06,0,1734067.story
It’s hard to imagine in our time any amount of hype being dismissed as “too much,” but that’s how former President Bill Clinton’s handlers have described the marketing of a planned joint appearance by Clinton and former President George W. Bush. The event, which was to have taken place at Radio City Music Hall on February 25, has been cancelled on the grounds that it was oversold as the toughest face-off since Leo the Great and Attila the Hun.
Ticket prices for this event, in which the two former chief executives were to have discussed various issues of domestic and foreign policy, were to range from $60 to $160.
This would not have been the first time the two men have shared the same platform; they did it in Toronto in May. Although there were some reports that each was paid $150,000 for that gig, that has not been confirmed, nor has any information been forthcoming about what they might have been paid if the Radio City event had gone on as planned.
News reports of the Toronto appearance indicated that Clinton and Bush did not sharply disagree on many issues, so the language used to promote the New York appearance struck me as odd from the outset. The context is that Clinton and the first President Bush have formed a good post-White House relationship, and the younger Bush hasn’t been at all politically combative since he left office. If Harry Truman could make peace with Herbert Hoover, why not Clinton and the Bushes. This was looking like a love fest despite the marketing lingo.
I was especially amused by the description of the encounter that has now been cancelled as “the hottest ticket in political history.” I wonder what Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Douglas — wherever they now repose — think of that.
WARREN SPAHN
I know all about that, Mr. Damon. Baseball is all about chickens and hatching and not counting prematurely.
I was at the fourth game of the 1958 World Series with my father, my brother, and Mike Ferrante. The Yankees lost that day to Warren Spahn, one of the greatest pitchers of all time. The Milwaukee Braves, who had beaten the Yankees in the ’57 World Series, were ahead three games to one. When we got home, some of our friends were there, waiting for their chance to gloat over what looked like certain annihilation.
But it was not to be. The Yankees won the next three games and the title.
Of course history and the odds are not in the Phillies’ favor. Teams that have won three of the first four games have gone on to win the World Series 34 of 40 times. The last time a team bucked that trend was 1985, when the St. Louis lost the last three games to Kansas City.
If the Pirates’ manager, John Russell, wants to know how he can pull off such a miracle this year, I can only offer him Casey Stengel’s explanation after the Yankees sunk the Braves in ’58: “I couldn’t have done it without the players.”
CASEY STENGEL
“Buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jack.” — Jack Norworth
November 1, 2009
CC SABATHIA
The image of CC Sabathia lumbering out to the mound tonight as the Yankees and Phillies continue the World Series naturally got me to wondering about how Sabathia sizes up, as it were, among the largest players in baseball history. We baseball fanatics always like to know about the extremes. Determining Sabathia’s rank, it turns out, is an inexact process for several reasons: teams don’t always report accurate weights for their players, players’ weight can fluctuate significantly over the course of their careers, and records from the early days of major league ball are unreliable or nonexistent.
With those caveats in mind, I note that Sabathia’s weight has been reported this year as 290 pounds, which is very heavy for a baseball player. The weight of most of about 16,000 players who have appeared since 1876 has ranged from 160 to 200 pounds. Only 1,057 players during that period weighed under 160, which– for example — was Phil Rizzuto’s playing weight.
ALBIE PEARSON horsing around with Angels manager BILL RIGNEY
Being a lightweight hasn’t necessarily impeded a player’s success. Rizzuto is one example. Albie Pierson, whom I mentioned here recently in another connection, weighed only about 140 pounds, but he had a respectable career as an American League outfielder, batting .270 over nine seasons. I don’t know who the lightest legitimate major league player was, but there have been 13 who weighed under 130 pounds. Eddie Gaedel, of course, who made a single plate appearance with the St. Louis Browns — a stunt by Browns owner Bill Veeck — weighed only 65 pounds. Because Gaedel had been signed to a contract and completed an at-bat, he is officially the lightest major leaguer.
The person currently being recognized as the heaviest player in history is Walter Young, a first baseman who appeared in 14 games with the Baltimore Orioles in 2005. Young’s weight that year is placed at 322 pounds. He is six-foot-five. Sabathia is six-foot-seven.
I haven’t been able to determine if Young is still in pro baseball. After his stint in Baltimore, he played in the Padres’ and Astros’ organizations — though not in the majors — and he played with several other clubs until August of this year, when he was released by the Edmonton Capitals of the Golden Baseball League.
WALTER YOUNG
Young wasn’t with the Orioles long enough to demonstrate how a man of his size could perform in the major leagues. He had 33 charged at-bats in 14 games and hit .303 with one home run. Although it’s difficult to imagine a man of such girth making the kinds of stops made by, say, Mark Teixeira, Young played 54 innings at first base that year, participated in nine double plays and made no errors. All of this projects out to a good full season, but we likely will never know if Young could have played at that level for 162 games.
If Young is through with baseball — or is it the other way around? — he did leave his mark in a certain way. He spent part of the 2008 season with the Sioux City Explorers, who are affiliated with the Yankees and the Indians, and he played an important part in the Explorers’ American Association championship. Young appeared in 26 games and hit .367 with 5 home runs and 29 RBIs.
HIPPO VAUGHN
The player whose nickname made the most blunt reference to his weight was James “Hippo” Vaughn, who pitched in the majors from 1908 to 1921, including a couple of seasons with the New York Highlanders, as the Yankees were originally known. Vaughn was six-foot-four and weighed 215 pounds. His bulk apparently worked to his advantage in some way, because he won 20 games in five different seasons — a rare achievement, relatively speaking.
Vaughn, incidentally, was involved in one of the oddest games ever played in the majors — a 1917 contest in which Vaughn started for the Chicago Cubs and Fred Toney started for the Cincinnati Reds. That was the only game in history in which neither starting pitcher allowed a hit for nine innings — a double no-hitter. Vaughn lost the game in the tenth inning. Because of a rule change that occurred much later, Vaughn does not get credit for a no-hitter, which is absurd. Fred Toney, who does get credit, weighed 195 pounds.
CharlesPaolino's Blog 