Ouch!

[winterbadger]

One of my more acerbic friends commented on the death of Charlton Heston, "They can take his rifle off him now, I guess", and another asked, in a separate post "...has anyone yet managed to pry his rifle from his cold, dead hands?" Yowza, no love for the Hollywood Moses there! :-)

While I didn't like his politics one bit, I honor him as an amazing actor. I saw him onstage in London back in the 1980s, and I have to say he was stunning. I had not believed that a larger than life person like Heston could pull off the role of Lt Cdr Queeg in The Caine Mutiny Courtmartial, but he was fantastic. Big, strong, powerful man, reduced to week, puny, and grasping at straws by the end of the play. Terribly impressive.

Comments

[winterbadger]

The Colonial Wargamer's favourite movie! (Well, along with Zulu and Khartoum, of course). Heston is tough, Ava Gardner smolders all over the place, Flora Robson and Robert Helpmann scheme all over the place. But David Niven (IMO) steals the show...

[aitkendrum.livejournal.com]

Yep, Niven does shine. I have a soft spot for him as he brings that old English charm to many movies without being morose or too dark.

I used to have loads of lead for that period now sadly gone to the saleroom in the sky. Zulu, Khartoum, Lawrence of Arabia, Last of Mohicans (John Mills) feature among my colonial favs.

There was also a film set in India with a train and lots of Colonial goings on but I cannot remember what it is...

[aitkendrum.livejournal.com]

Ah it wasn't John Mills! It was North West Frontier with Kenneth More.

[winterbadger]

Kenneth More--now there's a name to conjure with. None of your masterful but erratic Lawrence Oliviers, none of your shabby-velvet John Gielguds or tweed and eyebrows Ralph Richardson, but a dam' good, solid character actor nonetheless. Over fifty theater and television films--Battle of Britain, Sink the Bismark, Longest Day, Night To Remember--and roles in a dozen or so television serials (I'll always remember his Jolyon Forsythe). And a man who knew how to look the part when he stood on the set of a naval movie, having been a naval officer--actually served on the carrier HMS Victorious, though I think after the hunt for the Bismark.

His Wikipedia bio includes the wonderful tale that he was supposed to have the role of Dusty Miller in Guns of Navarone, but he got into a tiff with his boss at Rank and they pulled his permission to work outside his contract with them. David Niven go the role instead and did a grand job, but wouldn't it be interesting to see what More would have done with it?