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Joined: Jul 2002
Posts: 742
old hand
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old hand
Joined: Jul 2002
Posts: 742 |
>Oh no I wouldn't. Not unless it was translated into a language I can understand. Hrmph. [curmudge, curmudge]
Save it for when you need to be cured of feeling happy or upbeat - Lear is very good for that.
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613 |
Save it for when you need to be cured of feeling happy or upbeat - Lear is very good for that.
Figures. [more curmudging]
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Joined: Mar 2002
Posts: 1,692
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Mar 2002
Posts: 1,692 |
The first time that I saw McKern was in a movie entitled "The Running, Jumping and Standing Still Film" probably in the early '60s. It was a Goon Show kind of production, black and white and very amateur. I recall a sketch where McKern beckons someone (I think Spike Milligan) across the width of a small field to come closer and closer and closer and then hits him with a boxing gloved hand that had been hidden until that point. The twist being that while this came as a surprise to the audience it obviously should not have done to Spike. Sounds silly I know, but we were all less sophisticated in those days and could still enjoy a good belly laugh.
dxb
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 460
addict
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addict
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 460 |
re: The running, jumping and standing still film. This 9-minute film was made by Dick Lester in 1959 with help from Spike Milligan, Peter Sellers and the afore-mentioned Leo McKern. Our film society screens it every four or five years.
Watch out for Leo McKern's last film, Molokai: the story of Father Damien, directed by another Australian, Paul Cox. He plays the local bishop in it and, in an interview in today's Melbourne Age, Cox recalls: "At one stage, he had to be put on a big boat in Honolulu. He was a bit heavy, and had to be carried up on a forklift. All the while, he kept blessing everybody. Another day, I had an accident on the set. I was lying spread-eagled on the lawn, with a big hole in my head. When I came to, the bishop was standing beside me, giving me his blessing. He was always making jokes. At lunchtime on the set, he'd take off his bishop's robes and sit there in his shorts and white legs, and say, 'Don't look at my milk bottles!' One day we were in a restaurant in the Hilton in Honolulu, drinking chianti. Someone came up to us with one of the hotel's serviettes, asking for Leo's autograph. Leo looked at the napkin, then up at him and said, 'Hilton Honolulu. What an interesting name'. He then wrote, 'To Hilton, from Leo McKern'. … he loved to pretend to be chatting up the girls. The costume designer … loved him very much and went out of her way to look after him. Playfully, he'd say to her, 'My God, darling, if only I was two years younger'. In a final tribute, Cox reflects: "I feel very blessed by having worked with him. He was a humble giant. They don't make that kind any more."
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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OP
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858 |
As I said at the beginning, he was anything but "blustering", even in his roles.
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613 |
Thank you, my sweet paulb, for giving me a good idea of what this man was like; I was unfamiliar with him. I am SO glad to see you here, and how I love your long arms! 
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