A Life at Stake

Are you ready for another Summer of Angela (Lansbury) post (with Lisa from Boondock Ramblings)?
Today we got "A Life at Stake" from 1955 on the menu.
Take a look at Lisa's post here. She plans to have two more movies, by the way, but for me this will be the last one.

Fair use via
Wikimedia Commons

The plot (spoiler alert!).

Architect Edward Shaw, broke, unemployed, and in a lot of debt thanks to a gambling business partner, gets a business proposal from ex-real estate agent Doris Hillman. She will buy up land, he's supposed to build houses on it.
Her wealthy husband who is the one who will put up the money for this, though, insists on a key-man insurance for Edward in case something happens to him.
The situation is complicated by the fact that Edward is drawn to Doris - and she to him? I think you already get the idea, so I don't have to beat around the bush.
Edward is getting suspicious because he thinks the Hillmans are just after the insurance money. When Doris's younger sister Madge (who's in love with him) tells him that Doris's first husband died in an accident, he's even more convinced about them trying to kill him.
As the police doesn't believe him even though he has been drugged by Hillman and hardly survives an accident, he and Madge plan to pull Doris on their side. Doris, however, lures him to their mountain cabin and shoots him when he wants to leave. Next, her husband turns up and wants to shoot her to make it look like a murder-suicide, but Edward hits the gun out of his hand before being knocked down. Doris picks it up and shoots her husband who tumbles towards her and pulls her down with him through a clifftop doorway.
Just when Edward stumbles outside, the police and Madge arrive, and Edward is taken away in an ambulance with Madge by his side.

The only surprise about this movie was Angela Lansbury as femme fatale again (after Please Murder Me!). She did that surprisingly well, but not good enough to save this movie for me.

"A Life at Stake" is a film noir, but I don't really know that much about film noir. I doubt this movie is playing in the big league, though. It has its moments, but not even those really grabbed my attention.

I just didn't manage to feel any connection to the hero at all at the start or during his affair with Doris whatever exactly that was supposed to be. Throwing Madge into the mix didn't do anything for me, either. Edward, what did you want and what did you expect to come of this whole thing? Getting rid of Hillman - how? - and run off with Doris? Where to? Writing Madge a card every, now and then?
There are some other things I didn't understand.
Why would you dance with your coat on?
How did you make it out of that car without any injury? And how did you get home (always an important question for me)?
Who on Earth would build a cabin with a door leading right down a cliff? "No one felt comfortable on the porch", so instead of putting up some bricks or whatever and a window they just locked the door? Which opened to the outside? How do you even close it again? "One day I'm going to put a big picture window there." Couldn't the guys who took down the porch - how? - have done that right away? One day - after throwing someone down there?

Of course everyone knew something was going to happen there, but at that point I didn't really mind anymore who of them was going to fall down.

If you look around for reviews, you will see that some people say that it's a very decent independent film noir or you have the ones who feel like me.
That's fine, not everyone likes the same things. This may not be a movie for me although it was easy enough to watch (the runtime of only 76 minutes helped with that), but maybe it's one for you.

The Picture of Dorian Gray

I know it's a shame, but although I knew the basic content, I had never actually read "The Picture of Dorian Gray" and I had never seen an adaptation of it, either.
So I welcomed the movie from 1945 being part of Lisa's Summer of Angela on Boondock Ramblings. Maybe I'll even try to read the book - Oscar Wilde's only novel - eventually (update: I did).
You can find Lisa's post here.

Fair use via
Wikimedia Commons

The plot ((partial) spoiler alerts for some, but probably not for all).

Lord Henry Wotton visits his friend Basil Hallward, a painter. There he meets the young, handsome aristocrat Dorian Gray who poses for Hallward. He convinces him that only youth is worth having and Dorian makes a wish in presence of an ancient cat statue, the wish that his portrait should age instead of himself.
Inspired by Wotton's words to enjoy his youth, Dorian turns to the half-world where he meets the tavern singer Sibyl whom he falls in love with and even wants to marry although her brother James, a sailor, isn't happy about it at all.
Wotton recommends to put her to the test, when she doesn't react to Dorian's liking, he breaks off the engagement.
The next day he regrets it, but it's too late, Sibyl has killed herself. Hallward is shocked at Dorian's callousness when he brings him the news.
Afterwards, Dorian notices for the first time that the painting has changed and he hides it away from others.

For years, Dorian is leading a life full of vanity, pleasure and sin, but he never changes which makes people suspect and avoid him. The painting, however, is showing a hideous creature by now.
One day he shows Hallward the painting, but then murders him to keep the secret, and blackmails his friend Campbell into disposing of the body for him. Campbell can't bear the guilt and kills himself.
Then Dorian asks Hallward's niece Gladys to marry him.
Sibyl's brother comes home after many years in which he has tried to find the man who is to blame for his sister's death. Following him to his country estate, he gets accidentally shot during a hunting party.

Dorian realizes he can only save Gladys from similar misfortune by leaving her. He breaks off the engagement by letter and seeing a small change for the better in the painting he hopes to overcome the spell by stabbing it.
When the blade hits the painting, however, he screams terribly and falls over. His friends find him dead in front of the painting, turned into the hideous creature while the painting once again shows the young handsome Dorian.

Painting by Henrique Medina,
now believed to be in a private collection

First of all, let me say that I don't know what exactly I did expect Dorian to look like (I didn't know he was described as blond with blue eyes and very emotional in the book, for example). Maybe I thought of someone classically handsome (whatever that means), someone more angelic exuding innocence, someone "shining", whatever, but not Hurd Hatfield. It nagged me just a tiny bit all the way through the movie.
It also made me wonder how I would have imagined Dorian if I had read the book first.

Dorian didn't show much emotion throughout the movie and that was what Albert Lewin wanted. It can't have been easy for Hatfield to keep that up, but Lewin wanted his face to be like a mask. He even shot closeups in the morning, so Hatfield wouldn't look tired (you should see me in the morning, that would definitely not work) and stopped filming with him at 4 p.m.
So the transformation of Dorian from an innocent young man to a man with a rotten soul has to be shown merely through his sins - of which we only get a few to see, however, so we can let our fantasy run wild - and his eyes, and I think Hatfield did that really well which also helped me mostly getting over his looks, actually before I knew this was Levin's intention.

George Sanders made a great Henry. He's elegant, witty, and utterly unlikeable. Yet it's not hard to understand how someone like he would be able to corrupt a young man like Dorian although even Henry seems to be surprised at how quickly and deeply Dorian's transformation is going.
I don't understand that well why Basil is friends with him, but I've seen it in books before, a villain having a good friend, good in every sense of the word, probably hoping for the villain to mend their ways eventually.
What annoyed me about Basil was that he didn't really seem to try to counter Henry's bad influence with anything but telling Dorian not to listen to him. From someone who was obviously in love with Dorian, may it be for himself or for his art, I would have expected a bit more effort. It might have saved his life, but of course we'd also have a very different book and movie ...
Talking about being in love, Gladys didn't convince me at all, either. In what kind of dream world was she living?
Actually, in what kind of dream world were they all living regarding Dorian's everylasting youth? How did no one grab a pitchfork and torch and try to get him?

I loved Angela Lansbury's performance for which she got an Academy Award nomination and a Golden Globe.
In the book Sibyl is an actress, not a singer, but of course the change worked perfectly for Lansbury.



Often when a young man falls for an actress or singer from the half-world, they are described as women hardened from their experiences, calculating their chances with a rich man, gold-diggers, blood suckers.
Sibyl is nothing like this although she has such a woman for a mother. You can tell when she takes the money from her mother and gives it back to Dorian.
She's innocent, trusting, romantic, and sweet. She loves him so much that she gives in to his demand to stay overnight just so she won't lose him (still sounds all too familiar today).

All of that makes Dorian's behavior towards her even more cruel, it's his first step into the abyss. To top that, he regrets it the next day, but then rather quickly shows indifference when he hears of her suicide, a sure sign he has chosen his path now.

The film is beautifully shot in black and white which gained it an Academy Award for "Best Cinematography, Black-and-white" (Harry Stradling), only the portrait is shown in Technicolor four times, both in its beautiful and in its ugly state which emphasizes its importance.

Painting by
Ivan Le Lorraine Albright,
now at the Art Institute of Chicago

The sets are very Victorian and there's a good contrast between the two different worlds, but as pointed out rightfully in one blog, the men's costumes don't exactly scream Victorian.
Levin seems to have been so keen on capturing the mood right and even sticking to the novel's text closely in parts that I don't understand why he would be okay with that.

I enjoyed the movie a lot although the only persons I actually liked were poor Sibyl and her brother James (although he shouldn't have trusted their mother to take care of her, but I doubt he could have done much being off to Australia when he had just found out).
I even enjoyed it so much that I went straight onto YouTube to look for another version for comparing, and I did watch another one.

This one is a television play from 1976 (someone complained about a novel by a playwright being turned into a play on television) with Peter Firth as Dorian, Jeremy Brett as Basil, and John Gielgud as Lord Henry.
It's an episode of the BBC series "Play of the Month".

I have known Peter Firth for a while, but had never seen him that young before. Except for his blond locks being a tad too luscious for my taste, he definitely matched my image of Dorian better, but - intended or not - he overdid the camp a bit too much sometimes.
The scene in which he left Sibyl - a very young actress in this case - was really good. She was completely broken and he didn't give a fig and was so mean to her.
Oh, and the scene in which he asked his friend Campbell to get rid of Basil's body was a lot more emotional.
I really liked him, but much to my surprise I liked Hatfield even more. So much for looks, huh?
I definitely preferred George Sanders to John Gielgud which probably had to do more with age than his play. Somehow I didn't see Dorian and Henry that far apart in years.
Not to my surprise I liked Jeremy Brett although the death scene was over the top.

Obviously the sets were limited to a few interiors, a television play isn't a feature film, but I enjoyed it nevertheless, also that there was a narrator introducing some of the scenes.

I don't think I feel like watching another version anytime soon, I already couldn't finish another one that didn't work for me at all.
So the next stop was the novel instead.


Sources:

1. Jay Jacobson: 151. The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1945. An unforgettable and thought provoking supernatural thriller. On: Jay's Classic Movie Blog, April 30, 2024
2. Trystan L. Bass: TBT: The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945). On: Frock Flicks, October 5, 2017
3. The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945) - A Timeless Reflection of Vanity and Corruption. On: Surgeons of Horror,  March 2, 2025
4. "hurdhatfieldluv": Hurt Hatfield in "The Picture of Dorian Gray" (1945) ... Is he really a good actor?. On Tumblr

The Court Jester

"The pellet with the poison's in the vessel with the pestle; the chalice from the palace has the brew that is true!"
"The pellet with the poison's in the flagon with the dragon; the vessel with the pestle has the brew that is true!"

Lisa from Boondock Ramblings is doing the Summer of Angela (Lansbury), this time with one of my all time favorite movies, "The Court Jester" from 1955 with Danny Kaye, Glynis Jones, Basil Rathbone, and of course Angela Lansbury. Here is her post.

Public domain via
Wikimedia Commons

Here's the plot (with spoilers). I'm already apologizing because there's a lot of plot with a lot of twists and reading it can be quite confusing. I could have made this really, really short or, well, the way I did.

Hubert Hawkins is a carnival entertainer in the Black Fox's band of rebels protecting the infant King of England after Roderick the Tyrant has had the Royal Family killed and taken the throne. He'd like to join the fight and offers a group of acrobatic little people to provide entertainment instead of him, but the Black Fox refuses.
Instead he and Maid Jean, the Black Fox's captain, are to disguise themselves to take the baby to the safe Abbey of Dover. When they seek shelter during the stormy night, they show their affection for each other, but first the usurper must be defeated.
Then they meet the King's new jester, Giacomo. Jean seizes the opportunity to gain access to the castle by knocking Giacomo out and telling Hawkins to take over for him while she will take the heir to Dover. There's a secret passage from the castle to the forest, so if Hawkins manages to get the key, the rebels can take the castle over. There's already a man in the castle who can't get the key himself, but can help Hawkins.

Unfortunately, they do not know that Giacomo is also an assassin hired by the King's right hand, Lord Ravenhurst, to murder three of the Lords in court and thus prevent the King seeking alliance with Sir Griswold in exchange for his daughter Gwendolyn's hand.
Also Jean gets held up by the King's men who gather the most beautiful women in the country to bring to the court. Luckily, their man in the castle, Fergus, can hide the baby.

Gwendolyn refuses to marry such a brute because her maid, the castle's witch Griselda, has promised her a dashing man. Desperate because Gwendolyn threatens to die and take her to death with her if she has to marry Griswold, Griselda tells the Princess that Hawkins, who has just arrived, will be her love.

From there, about anything that can go wrong, goes wrong. Of course Ravenhurst thinks Hawkins is Giacomo, and due to a misunderstanding, Hawkins thinks Ravenhurst is the rebel instead of Fergus.
Then Griselda casts a hypnotic spell to make him the dashing lover, a snap of the fingers will turn the spell on and off. On his way to the Princess, he meets Jean who has managed to steal the key. He doesn't recognize her, but she slips him the key. The King, who had asked Hawkins to pick one of the ladies for him, thinks he has chosen Jean.
Hawkins woos Gwendolyn who takes the key from him for their escape together, but then the King finds and takes it from her. Hawkins also receives orders from Ravenhurst. He forgets everything, though, after being released from the spell.

At Jean's command, Fergus takes the basket with the baby to Hawkins shortly before he is supposed to perform for the King. With his performance he manages to distract the audience from the basket and Jean can take the baby to safety again.
Griselda poisons the three lords which makes Ravenhurst think Hawkins carried out his orders.
When Griswold arrives, though, Gwendolyn says she loves the jester and Hawkins is arrested. Also Ravenhurst's agent tells him that he's not the real Giacomo.
Ravenhurst's conclusion is that Hawkins must be the Black Fox, so he suggests to the King to have him knighted quickly to allow Griswold to challenge him to mortal combat, presumably so that the Princess will have to marry Griswold, but really to have the Black Fox kill him.

Jean steals back the key and gives it to Fergus who manages to send it to the rebels by pigeon before he gets killed.
Hawkins is knighted in a rushed ceremony (one of my favorite scenes, I still say "yea verily yea" to myself a lot when I do something!). Jean tells him to accept the duel because the Black Fox will come and fight in his stead. That plan fails when part of the secret passage caves in and no one can get through - no one?



Anyhow, Hawkins has to fight the duel himself, but Griselda, threatened by Gwendolyn again, says she has poisoned Griswold's toast and gives him the instruction for telling which cup is poisoned. Just when he has memorized the verse, one of the cups gets broken and the verse changes.
They get overheard by one of Griswold's men, though, so now both duelists try to get the safe drink. The King gets tired of it and orders the mortal combat to begin immediately.



Due to Hawkins's armor having been struck by lightning, it is magnetic and thus Griswold is pulled off his horse as his flail sticks to Hawkins's shield.
Ravenhurst then calls him out as the Black Fox and Jean and he are taken before the King as traitors and the basket with the baby brought in.
The Black Fox, however, has called on Hawkins's acrobatic friends, the little people who have managed to come through the secret passage while the rebels, who have come via the coastal road, enter the castle disguised as monks.
Hawkins and Ravenhurst start a sword fight that Hawkins is about to lose when Griselda hypnotizes him again. In the end, he and Jean manage to catapult Ravenhurst into the sea with the help of two of the acrobats.

When Griswold arrives to demand the King's release from the rebels, Hawkins shows him and the court the birthmark on the true heir, the purple pimpernel on the baby's bottom.
The fight is won and Hawkins and Jean get their happy ending, too.

I have loved this movie as long as I can think back.
Usually I'm not much of a fan of non-musicals having songs, but these ones I like.

It's not hard to tell that this is a parody, but also a bit of a homage to the popular swashbucklers. Of course, the Black Fox and his rebels make you think of Robin Hood and his Merry Men right away. The difference is that this story is told from the point of view of Hawkins, an unlikely hero with an unlikely love story.
I never liked the Black Fox because I thought he was condescending to Hawkins. Granted, Hawkins is not trained in the art of fighting, he's an entertainer, but he proves that he can be brave for the cause and in the end that mix - and some magic and a lot of luck - is what helps win back the throne for the rightful heir.

Were this a Robin Hood movie, Hawkins would be Alan-A-Dale, but who would be Maid Marian?
Depending on the version, Maid Marian was either at the court - that would be Princess Gwendolyn - or she lived with the Merry Men - that would be Maid Jean. 
Gwendolyn, however, is no Marian. She's the usurper's daughter and a spoilt and selfish young lady. I think Angela Lansbury played that role beautifully the way she ignored the wishes of her father without batting an eye or threatening a Griselda, the witch, without hesitation to make her do her bidding (she's also smart enough not to look her in the eyes). Makes you wonder what would have happened to Gwendolyn under the new King.
Actually, I wondered every time who would have taken over until the baby was old enough. That's just the way my brain works. I'm digressing, sorry.
Maid Jean is not really Marian, either. She's a captain in the band of rebels and wants to see the true King on the throne willing to put her personal feelings last until the goal is reached. She's also smart and courageous. Her love story is not with the rebel leader, though. Instead she loves Hawkins although he hasn't even shown yet how brave he really is which is very sweet.

Well, and Basil Rathbone is a wonderful villain as Ravenhurst and practically making fun of his swashbuckler roles before this one, such as King John's Guy of Gisbourne, for example.

There's no denying that this is Danny Kaye's movie, tailored to some of his many talents (I say some because they went way beyond acting, singing, and dancing!) one of which was his skill of wordplay and delivery of high-speed tongue twisters, but also of slapstick and pantomime.
I loved the idea of the hypnotic spell which gave Kaye the opportunity to change character within seconds and that shows nowhere better than in the sword fight between Hawkins and Ravenhurst.
Basil Rathbone who was the best fencer in Hollywood was amazed at Danny Kaye's fencing skills after training for only a few weeks (nevertheless there was a stunt double for Rathbone in some parts of the fight, the probable reason is explained in this interesting video).
As Hawkins is under the spell through some of the fight which gets turned on and off, however, there is a mix of skilled swordplay and wildly flailing around to stay alive - absolutely hilarious!

I have always been a big fan of the Robin Hood legend through a book we had, but also my first TV encounter with it which was "The Adventures of Robin Hood" with Richard Greene (thinking about it, there might be a re-watch in order) and of course "The Adventures of Robin Hood" with Errol Flynn. Often being a fan of the underdog in a movie, I found "The Court Jester" to be the perfect combination for me.
I loved the sets, the bright colors, the beautiful costumes for both women and men, the fun, and even the songs.
Actually I loved the film so much that I ordered it from the USA almost 20 years ago because it wasn't available in Germany then. Weirdly, that DVD disappeared eventually, but luckily it had also come out in Germany by then (I love the movie in English and German).

Not everyone was as enthusiastic as I had been from the start.
"The Court Jester" got good enough critical reviews, but it was a box office fail. The film had been the most expensive comedy movie produced up to that time (due to the sets and costumes), but only made about half of the money back.
Over the years, however, it has become one of those cult classics a lot of people like to watch over and over - me, me! - and love to quote from.

So if you really don't know this movie yet, give it a try. You might well be positively surprised how much fun a 70 year old movie can be! It's much less confusing when you watch it, too.
I will never tire of watching it myself.

Death on the Nile

Surprise!
As I said yesterday, Lisa changed movies for this week. I had already written my post on "The Mirror Crack'd", but why not add at least a quick one for "Death on the Nile"?
Let me say first that like Margaret Rutherford isn't the Miss Marple of the books, Peter Ustinov doesn't fit the description of Hercule Poirot of the books in my opinion. But what can I say? I love Peter Ustinov (and am still sad about missing the chance to see him live once)!
So I actually watch "Death on the Nile" every time I catch it on TV, for him and some of the others in the star-studded cast.

I'll try to keep the plot short (still with spoilers, though) because most of you probably know it, anyway.

Jackie and Simon are engaged. As Simon needs a job, Jackie asks her friend Linnet, an heiress, to hire him. Linnet does, Simon and she fall in love and get married. Jackie follows them on their honeymoon to Egypt and joins the cruise on the Nile. One evening she gets drunk and shoots Simon in the leg.
The next morning, Linnet is found dead in her cabin.
Of course, Poirot is asked to investigate among the many suspects all of who have their reasons to fear or hate Linnet. The only ones with an alibi are Simon who was in bed due to his injury and Jackie who had been sedated by a doctor on board after the shooting incident.
Two more people get killed, Linnet's maid Louise who had probably tried to blackmail the perpetrator and Mrs. Otterbourne who announces to have seen Louise's killer, but gets shot before she can say the name.
In the end, Poirot gathers everyone how he likes to do and reveals that everything has been Jackie's brilliant plan. She and Simon had always been lovers and just wanted Linnet's money.
Jackie had pretended to shoot Simon and ensured he was left alone long enough to kill Linnet and then shoot his own leg for his alibi. Jackie killed Louise and then Mrs. Otterbourne.
Jackie confesses everything and embraces Simon. Poirot notices too late that she has grabbed the pistol to shoot Simon and herself.

I admit that I don't think the plan was that brilliant. It depended too much on luck and coincidence for my taste, and if I hatched a murder plan, I wouldn't want to rely on luck.
Nevertheless, I enjoy the movie, with all the weak spots.
Let me present the passengers, their motives, and my opinion on them.

David Niven is Colonel Race who's helping Poirot with the investigation. He's on board because of ...

... George Kennedy as Andrew Pennington, Linnet's US trustee who's trying to hide having embezzled money.

Jane Birkin as the maid not treated well by Linnet.

Bette Davis as Mrs. Van Schuyler who is very keen on Linnet's gorgeous pearl necklace (which is missing, but is brought back) ...

... and Maggie Smith as her companion Miss Bowers whose family was ruined by Linnet's father.

Angela Lansbury as the novelist Salome Otterbourne who has been sued by Linnet for a book she has written about her, and Olivia Hussey as her daughter Rosalee.

Jack Warden as Dr. Bessner who is afraid of being called out as a quack.

Jon Finch as James Fergusson who despises all rich people (definitely the weakest motive to kill Linnet).

I enjoy this movie not so much only as a whodunit, but for the sets, the costumes, the acting, and the comedy.
The production design was lavish, the scenery beautiful, that often helps to distract from a movie starting a bit slow, in this case with the backstory and the introduction of all the suspects.
The acting is wonderful.
Ustinov may not be completely the image of Poirot I have in my head (especially knowing Suchet), but I still love how he portrays him.
Niven was very English and charming.
Warden's accent was terrible, but you get that a lot with German accents in English productions.
Finch and Hussey are quite forgettable, but that has more to do with the roles than the acting. So was Kennedy.
Davis and Smith were fantastic together - not a surprise - and they had some of the best lines. I loved it.
And no one tell me Lansbury didn't have loads of fun with her role, the drunk writer of steamy "romance" novels! You get the first idea of that when she's introduced and dances tango with poor Colonel Race.

I said I was going to make this one short, so this is it from me. If you want more, go check out Lisa's post!

The Mirror Crack'd

Lisa from Boondock Ramblings is doing the Summer of Angela (Lansbury) on her blog which I participate in if I can.
For today she had chosen "The Mirror Crack'd" named after the shortened US title of Agatha Christie's book "The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side", but she then switched to "Death on the Nile", still Christie, but of course with Hercule Poirot.

Here's the plot (with spoilers).
St Mary Mead, 1953. 
A Hollywood production team arrives to make a film about Mary, Queen of Scots, and Queen Elizabeth I., played by two rival actresses, Marina Rudd whose husband is the director Jason Rudd, and Lola Brewster whose husband is the producer, Marty N. Fenn.
The Rudds have arranged a village fête. Miss Marple is there as well, but an unlucky incident ends up in her twisting her ankle.
Some of the fête helpers are invited to the house, among them Heather Babcock. She tells Marina the story how she had seen her on stage during the war despite being sick and that she even got to kiss Marina on the cheek. Marina offers her a cocktail which gets spilled, so Marina gives her her own drink which kills Heather. Everyone thinks Marina was the intended victim, even more so when she presents some threatening letters.

Inspector Craddock, Miss Marple's nephew, tries to find out who the murderer was, of course discussing the case with his aunt as well whose injury confines her to her house.
Then Rudd's secretary Ella is killed as well.

In the end, Miss Marple goes to the Rudds' house to find that Marina is dead. Jason confesses to having killed her with poison in the hot chocolate which has not been touched, however. So it seems Marina has committed suicide.
The reason is that she had contracted rubella through Heather's kiss, a disease that is quite harmless - except in a pregnancy. Marina had born a child with brain damage as a consequence.

You may notice that my description of the plot is shorter than usual.
I'll make the rest short as well ... I don't like the movie. I had seen it before and I didn't like it then, either. It had been a while, though, and I could change my mind, couldn't I?
No, I couldn't.

We have a star cast. Beside Liz Taylor and Kim Novak as the rivaling actresses, there are Rock Hudson as Jason, Tony Curtis as Marty, Geraldine Chaplin as Ella, and of course Angela Lansbury as Miss Marple.
I didn't feel the story was worth of them, however, even if this movie wasn't made at the peak of their careers.
There are a few funny scenes between Liz Taylor and Kim Novak. Tony Curtis seemed to have a lot of fun with his scenes, too. My first idea of a Miss Marple story is not watching it for the fun, though, even if it can be a nice extra.
Rock Hudson was quite subdued and didn't make much of an impression.

All in all, the story dragged and I kept thinking "Get on with it already!".
It was like floating through beautiful settings - around the village, in Miss Marple's huge (!) garden to the lovely rooms in the big house where the Rudds live - with the appropriate music, but wasn't there something else? Oh right, there were two murders.
There wasn't any suspense or much development. Hadn't Miss Marple injured her ankle, I'm sure she would have solved this case in three minutes instead of having to wait for her nephew to bring her up-to-date on the interviews with the people involved.
She could even have prevented the second murder, who knows? Not that that seemed to be very important because Ella's murder wasn't even mentioned anymore at the end. I guess it wasn't that interesting if you could see the dead Marina instead, beautifully draped on a chaiselongue with a yellow rose in her hand.

What really annoyed me, though, was Miss Marple herself.
According to Wikipedia (I found the article, but didn't have access), the director Guy Hamilton said that Margaret Rutherford, Miss Marple in four movies, "was a divine clown but she was no more Miss Marple than ... fly to the moon (I have absolutely no idea what's that supposed to mean). We are doing Miss Christie's Miss Marple, a more serious person, a gossip, a bit of a snob. And she doesn't fall off her bicycle into the village duckpond".
Granted, Rutherford's Marple was nothing like in the books and Christie was not a fan of the adaptations, but nevertheless she admired Rutherford's professionalism and even dedicated this particular novel to her.
I love Rutherford, maybe I'll write a post about her sometime.

The problem is that Lansbury wasn't a good Miss Marple, in my opinion.
Part of it was definitely that she wasn't even around as much because the big stars took center stage (again, without having the story for it).
Also Lansbury didn't come close to some of the other Miss Marples (I'm in the Joan Hickson team although I don't enjoy all the episodes), both in looks as in behavior.
The way they aged her was terrible. I kept looking at her wondering what they had done with her eyebrows and why.
And then there was this ... who thought this was a good idea?

I can't say anything about the differences between the movie and the book because I have never read it. I know that Marina didn't take her husband's name in the novel, her name was Gregg, and what's really funny is that the German dubbing (I couldn't watch the film in English) actually used that name.

My conclusion is that if you want to see two stars exchanging "niceties", go for those few scenes and have fun with them, but if you want to see a Miss Marple movie, I'd say just skip this one.
Excuse me now while I retreat to be annoyed a little longer 😂

Please Murder Me!

For today's Summer of Angela (Lansbury) movie Lisa from Boondock Ramblings chose "Please Murder Me!" from 1956.
Here is Lisa's post.

Public domain via
Wikimedia Commons

Here's the plot (with spoilers).

Defense lawyer Craig Carlson buys a pistol at a pawn shop leaving it in his office desk with a file. Then he records a message saying that he will be dead in exactly 55 minutes and telling a story ...

It starts with Craig telling his best friend Joe that his wife Myra wants a divorce. The man she's in love with is Craig. Joe says he will need some time to think.
A few days later, Joe gives his business partner Lou a letter to mail, then calls Myra to tell her he wants to discuss something with her at home.
When he comes home, he confronts Myra, closes the door, and there's a gunshot.
Myra claims Joe attacked her and she shot him in self-defense.

In court, prosecution argues Myra killed Joe in cold blood because she wanted his life insurance, not because he attacked her for her wanting a divorce.
In his closing argument, Craig reveals that he's the man Myra is in love with, and the jury finds her not guilty.

Lou arrives at their celebration party and gives Craig the letter he forgot to mail. In the letter, Joe tells him that Myra had married him for the money and that she had been in love with artist Carl Holt all the time.

Craig, seeing everything in ruins for him anyway, decides to save Carl from Myra and make her pay for it all by having her murder him.
He sets up an appointment with her at his office. He keeps the tape running and hides the microphone before letting her in. Then he shows her the file and puts the gun on the desk. When he threatens to call Carl, she shoots him and tries to make it look like a suicide.
Craig had also made an appointment with Willis, the district attorney, though, shortly after the one with Myra. Myra tells Willis that Craig shot himself, but Willis plays the recording and she knows the game is over.

It's not hard to categorize this as a B movie.
Everything is quite simple including the sets, but the film is still pretty easy to watch, especially since the runtime is only about 75 minutes.

Practically every review I browsed mentioned this movie obviously being a test run for Raymond Burr's role as Perry Mason, and that's no surprise if you look at the court scene.
Mason's closing arguments usually convince me more, though.
The plot really has its moments, but I just can't believe a jury or court would go for a sudden "oh, by the way, I'm the new man, so the prosecution's money argument doesn't count"  - in the closing argument! I couldn't help but finding that very weak.

While I found the plot twist rather interesting, I thought Craig's decision to sacrifice himself in order to save Carl from the "disease" that Myra was (according to Joe's letter) was a little over the top. Okay, a lot over the top.
So his heart was broken over the loss of the woman he loved - that should heal quickly knowing what kind of woman she was - and broken over the loss of his friend - I get that, but he didn't plot to kill him - but he was certainly not the first lawyer who got duped into believing in a client's innocence. Not good for the career maybe, but definitely not its death penalty.
Burr played it with conviction, though.

I think Lansbury could have put a bit more passion in her femme fatale and I wonder if that was a decision of hers or the director, but it was nice to see her in such a different kind of role than probably most of us are used to.

The plot idea was intriguing, but with some more money I think they could have made more out of it, for example come up with a better reason for Craig to give up his life.
Nevertheless, it was fascinating to see Burr and Lansbury in this film noir.

The Pirates of Penzance

Lisa from Boondock Ramblings is doing the Summer of Angela (Lansbury). I hadn't expected to participate this week, but Lisa switched movies, so here I am, but a few days late because the day was already taken by another post.
Today's movie is "The Pirates of Penzance" from 1983.
You can find Lisa's post here.

Fair use via
Wikimedia Commons

Believe it or not, I have never seen anything by Gilbert & Sullivan.
I have heard one or the other song or rather parts of it and I could even sing those to you (only the tune), but only because I've heard them on TV shows or in movies, I even remember an impressive Simpsons version.
That early gave me the vague impression that you can't go through school in English speaking countries without performing in at least one of Gilbert & Sullivan's comic operettas while I wasn't aware they were such a huge thing here in Germany where we had operettas in German by Offenbach or Strauß.
Now was the chance to watch a whole Gilbert & Sullivan operetta - I mean, Kevin Kline as the Pirate King, how could I miss that any longer?

The plot (with spoilers even if you - yes, I'm looking at you - have probably performed in "The Pirates" yourself before 😉).
Yeah, the plot.
It's a bit confusing, to say the least, but that's operettas for you, especially comical ones.

A pirate ship. Pirates. Among them a young pirate, Frederic. As a child he had been taken there by his nurse Ruth who, hard of hearing, had misheard his father's instructions for her to take him to a pilot for apprenticeship.
Now that he has turned 21, he has fulfilled his indentures and is not only free to become a respectable member of society, but has also decided to exterminate the Pirate King and his crew (all of them orphans which keeps them from attacking an orphan even if that person just claims to be one).

Coming ashore with Ruth, the only woman he has ever seen until then, he meets a group of beautiful girls, all of them daughters of the Major General.
One of them, Mabel, answers to his courting and says she will marry him.
Then the pirates come ashore as well and want to marry all of the girls (which reminded me of "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers"), but their father turns up, claims to be an orphan who will be all alone without them, and the pirates leave.

Frederic is now ready to lead the town police to the Bay of the Pirates, but before he can leave, the Pirate King and Ruth turn up and let him know that his indentures are in fact not fulfilled yet. He was born on February 29th in a leap year, and the contract doesn't say 21 years, but until his 21st birthday, so they will hold him to his duty.
Being a pirate again, Frederic reveals that the Major General has never been an orphan which causes the Pirate King to plan an attack on the castle for the same night.
Frederic leaves Mabel, but promises her to be back once he has turned 84, and she promises to wait for him.

Mabel tells the police sergeant that the pirates will be attacking, so the policemen hide to wait for them.
The pirates win the subsequent fight (during which they all end up in the theater during a performance of "H.M.S. Pinafore", another Gilbert & Sullivan operetta), and the Pirate King tells the Major General to prepare to die.
The sergeant, however, demands that the pirates surrender in Queen's Victoria's name and as loyal subjects the pirates obey.
Before they can be taken away, though, Ruth divulges that they are just noblemen who have go wrong, and they are not only forgiven, but the Major General also gives them his daughters for brides (and Ruth gets courted by the police sergeant 😉).

Theatrical poster 1880
for the New York production

William Schwenck Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan collaborated in making fourteen operas between 1871 to 1896 before they had a fall out whose reasons are still being debated although creative differences, financial matters, and burnout have been named as contributing to it.
"The Pirates of Penzance" is among the most famous ones of those fourteen. It premiered on New Year's Eve 1879 and was an immediate hit with Gilbert's funny libretto and Sullivan's tunes working so well with the often fast and tongue-twisting texts.
Unfortunately, that made it a little difficult for me to follow at times. With some songs, I just let the music take over without even trying to understand the exact words as long as I still got what was going on (I watched on The Internet Archive because the sound was better than on YouTube even if the picture wasn't, so I didn't have subtitles).

Joseph Papp's production, directed by Wilford Leach, moved from Central Park (with Patricia Routledge as Ruth, you can watch that version here) to Broadway (with Estelle Parsons as Ruth, with 787 performances and 7 Tony Award nominations of which it won 3 including Kevin Kline as Best Actor in a Musical) and then to the screen with Kline, Ronstadt, Smith, and Angela Lansbury.

I like musicals (mostly older ones), but there can be too much singing for my liking (I often share my dislike for "Frozen" freely because I think even for a Disney movie it's just too much).
So I could have done without a few of the songs.
The singing, however, wow. It was really amazing.
I had seen videos of Ronstadt from it before, so her range didn't surprise me as much. Her Broadway performance got her a Tony nomination, by the way. The movie was her only one.

I know I had seen Smith somewhere before as well, but I don't remember where. I'm quite sure I never watched his short-lived TV show "Street Hawk", but I know one of his songs, so maybe that was it. Anyhow, I loved his voice.

I already knew about Lansbury's long Broadway career both in straight roles, but also musical roles because I have a "Sweeney Todd" performance with her as Mrs. Lovett on DVD and looked it up back then. So she wasn't a surprise for me.

For some reason, however, I had never known about Kevin Kline singing.
I absolutely loved him here. Singing, jumping, and quite a few times, I was reminded of his role as Otto in "A Fish Called Wanda" (I love this movie so much and he's perfect in it) five years later for which he got an Academy Award, and I enjoyed every bit of it just as much - not just because of his chest ...

Just for him this is worth watching even if the others hadn't been as good.

That was a nice introduction to Gilbert & Sullivan (besides having seen "Topsy-Turvy" years ago). Maybe I will watch more after all if I can find something.


Sources:

1. Gilbert & Sullivan. On: English National Opera
2. Cat Smith: The Pirates of Penzance. On: Film Obsessive, 2020
3. Luisa Lyons: The Pirates of Penzance. On: Filmed Live Musicals, October 2017
4. The Pirates of Penzance. On: Gilbert and Sullivan Archive (via Wayback Machine)
5. Ben Fong-Torres: The Pirates of Penzance. On: The Linda Ronstadt Homepage (an unofficial website)

Gaslight

Lisa from Boondock Ramblings is doing the Summer of Angela (Lansbury). I'm not going to participate fully because I don't have access to all the movies.
So I thought I would do this post a bit different and not just concentrate on the 1944 "Gaslight" with it.
You can find Lisa's post here.

Picture via pxhere

Did you know that the term "gaslighting" derives from this movie? Although the term has been used earlier, it has become popular in the mid-2010s. In 2022, for example, it was Merriam-Webster's word of the year.
"The modern definition of gaslighting is a psychological manipulation technique in which a person tries to convince someone that their reality is untrue." This goes beyond an argument or trying to push your opinion or way of thinking on someone. It's meant to give a person control over another one by making them questioning themselves and what they believe and think.
Where does the gaslight come into it, though?

"Gas Light" is a theater play from 1938 written by British novelist and playwright Patrick Hamilton which wasn't just well received in the UK, but was a huge success in Los Angeles - as "Five Chelsea Lane" - and later on Broadway - as "Angel Street".
It was also adapted to screen in several countries and I want to have a look at three of those adaptations.

One is the 1940 film that I hadn't even known existed (more on that later) with Anton Walbrook (the Austrian actor Adolf Wohlbrück took the English name after he emigrated) and Diana Wynyard.
One is the 1944 film with Ingrid Bergman, Charles Boyer, Joseph Cotten - and of course Angela Lansbury.
Then there's one German version - there have been several - from 1960 with Dieter Borsche and Margot Trooger.

Basically, the plot (spoiler alert!) is the same in all adaptations - a man trying to convince his wife that she's insane.
The 1940 film has changed some of the names, but the plot is close to the play.
The 1944 movie, however, which is about half an hour longer, hasn't only changed a few of the names and added a possible love interest at the end, but also offers a complete backstory at the beginning instead of just one scene.
The 1960 television play hasn't changed the names and is close to the play.
I hope it won't get too confusing from here.

You know I usually check out not just information about the movies, but also some other reviews as well because they sometimes make me look more closely at some things or to see if I interpreted something differently from others.
This time, however, I only had a very short peek into reviews and decided to go completely with my own personal thoughts about those three versions.

***

I'll start with the 1944 Hollywood film simply because it's the most famous one.

Public domain via
Wikimedia Commons

Young Paula Alquist leaves the London house where her aunt Alice, a famous opera singer who has raised her, has been brutally murdered. She goes to Italy where she meets Gregory Anton who accompanies her on the piano during her singing lessons. They fall in love and marry, then return to London.
After Paula finds a letter to her aunt signed by a Sergius/Sergis (I understood Sergius, but you find both names) Bauer, things change between Gregory and her. He has everything belonging to Alice taken to the attic which he gets boarded up. He goes out every night and flirts with Nancy, the parlor maid, in front of Paula whom he treats alternately loving, condescending or angry. He isolates her from the outside world and tells her she keeps forgetting, losing and imagining things until she starts believing it herself. The only time she insists on going to a recital, he makes her break down by claiming she has stolen his watch.
She's hearing footsteps above her room and the gaslight dims without another lamp in the house having been turned on.
Finally, Gregory claims Paula's mother has been insane and died in an asylum, that the letter by Bauer never existed and that Paula will have to be institutionalized as well.
A young Scotland Yard detective, Brian Cameron, has recognized Gregory, however, because he was an admirer of Alice as a child and has seen Gregory with her. He visits Paula to tell her the truth about him - that he's just trying to drive her to madness to get full access to her estate, that the footsteps are his and the gaslight dims downstairs because he turns the one in the attic up to search for Alice Alquist's jewels there. They find the letter by Bauer and Cameron realizes Gregory is Bauer who already has a wife in Prague.
While Cameron is still talking to Paula and asking Elizabeth, the cook, to take care of her mistress, Gregory finds the jewels hidden between paste gems sewn to a dress.
Cameron and a constable overpower Gregory and tie him to a chair. Paula asks to talk to him alone, but she doesn't give in to the attempts to make her cut him free. Instead she taunts him by behaving as if she is actually mad.
Gregory is taken to prison. Paula and Cameron step outside and it's clear that Cameron would like to see Paula again.

***

Next is the British movie from 1940.

Fair use via Wikimedia Commons

There's no backstory here except the scene of an old lady, Alice Barlow, being strangled (with her own embroidery floss!) and the furniture ripped apart in search of something.
Only years later, the Mallen couple, Paul and Bella, move into her house.
Paul treats Bella cruelly increasing the pressure on her constantly. He makes her think she's stealing, forgetting and imagining things, reminds her of her mother's insanity and threatens to have her institutionalized.
He is also mean to her only friend, a little dog, and later it's even implied the dog is dead (I chose to not believe this). He doesn't just flirt with Nancy, but even kisses her and takes her to a music hall.
While he's away, Bella is visited by an ex-policeman named Rough who has recognized Paul as a man called Louis Bauer. He had also notified her cousin who had been turned away by Paul. He tells her the truth about Paul and the gaslight and the story of Alice Barlow and her missing rubies.
When Mallen comes back, Rough confronts him. Bella finds the brooch that Paul said she had lost and she shows Rough it opens. Rough recognizes it as Alice's brooch. There are indentations inside which had loose stones in them that Bella put in a vase - Alice's precious rubies Paul had been searching for all that time.
Paul throws a chair at Rough, but together with his helper Rough manages to tie him up. Bella talks to him and taunts him. When Paul is taken away by the police. Bella steps out on the balcony alone.

***

The last one is the German television play.

Jack and Bella Manningham are in their salon. Jack makes Bella think she's stealing, forgetting and imagining things, reminds her of her mother's insanity - her mother died at the same age Bella is now - and threatens to have her institutionalized. He flirts with Nancy. He even claims Bella has hurt her own dog.
While Jack is gone in the evening, Bella gets a visit by ex-policeman Rough who tells her that Jack is really Sidney Power who has cut the rich Alice Barlow's throat for her rubies. He keeps calling Bella by her maiden name "Bella Royd" to make clear to her that Jack already has a wife in Australia.
They also find out that Jack has tried to poison Bella slowly with her "medicine".
When they open Jack's desk, they find Bella's brooch and Bella shows Rough the rubies she had taken out of it and put in a vase.
When Jack comes back, Rough confronts him. After a short fight, Jack tries to escape, but is captured by police. Tied to a chair, he tries to make Bella set him free, but she just taunts him. The police takes Jack away and Bella walks upstairs by herself.

***

I always liked "Gaslight". I'm a fan of Ingrid Bergman and love her portrayal of Paula Alquist for which she got an Academy Award.

It's always tough to watch other adaptations if you are happy with the one you already know, so I was a bit wary, but then I was amazed how quickly the British film drew me in. Of course you jump right in without the backstory.

I understand if others might like it better to see how the relationship between Gregory and Paula is developing, how he builds her up only to slowly destroy her afterwards once he has what he wanted, unlimited access to the house.
I, on the other hand, was quite overwhelmed by the contrast between Paul and Bella. She might have been afraid to lose her mind, but in fact you could tell he was the mad one which I thought made him a marvelous villain.
Where Gregory is more subtle, Paul is outright evil. I think that also shows in the music hall visit with Nancy. Gregory is attracted by Nancy, Paul goes the step further. He doesn't care whom he uses and how to get to his goal.
At the end, you could tell Boyer's obsession with the stones - no idea if that was on purpose, but I liked the light effect in his eyes when he talks about the jewels, and then he blinks and the light goes away - but it was still quite controlled. While it was fine acting, I loved Walbrook's unhinged madness even more. It would have been interesting to see him across Bergman.
Dieter Borsche neither shows the subtle charm of Boyer nor the madness of Walbrook. Instead he hides behind the mask of the respectable gentleman which didn't make it any less scary.

Now Bergman was fabulous and she got a lot of occasions to show the full range of emotions, happy, doubtful, scared, broken, vengeful.
Wynyard didn't have those. I didn't know her before this movie, but she probably couldn't have outacted Bergman if she had had them. I still liked her performance a lot, though, especially at the end when she's taunting her husband until he loses control completely.

The Nancys. I would have loved to see even more of Lansbury. Her Nancy was truly unlikable in the way she seemed to look down on her mistress throughout, but actually it felt to me as if she mostly saw this a chance to better her station in life without giving a thought to what that would mean for Paula. A naive hope because we know she could only have been a little affair for Gregory, but that naiveté went well with her being so young (17 when filming began).
Cathleen Cordell was good at being flirty and seductive, but it felt more superficial to me than Lansbury. Somehow I felt Cordell's Nancy had more experience.
Christine Maybach was okay, but didn't offer as much as the other two.

I think Joseph Cotten is a bit young for the role. They had to make him Alice's child admirer from years ago to give him a reason for being interested in this cold case. That was probably necessary to hint at a love story.
Rough, the ex-cop in the other two adaptations, makes more sense to me - this is an open case that has been haunting him for years before he recognizes the murderer and prevents another crime.
What I liked better, however, was how Cameron could make Paula trust him by presenting the second glove that Alice had given to him as a child. Rough is gaining trust mostly through his age and by being kind of fatherly. I don't know that a woman who is already frightened out of her mind would so readily listen to a complete stranger.

One question - what was the purpose of having Dame May Whitty as the nosy neighbor in the 1944 movie? Just so she could tell Cameron about the house? Or for comic relief?

***

Would you believe that MGM actually attempted to gaslight the audience when they did their remake? MGM bought the rights to the play, but insisted on all prints of the British film, which hadn't reached the US market yet, to be destroyed in order to wipe out possible competition. The film's director, Thorold Dickinson, had the foresight to make a personal copy.
I don't know what kind of competition it would have been at the time the 1944 movie came out.
They had the stars and they had the money for some glamour. Just compare the sets, oh, and the clothes. Bergman's dresses were absolutely gorgeous and I loved the way they did her hair.
Well, and the German version, being a television play, was the simplest one regarding both sets and costumes (but the waffles with the tea looked pretty 😉).

All three adaptations were quite different in several points, but you know what? I really enjoyed all of them.
Nevertheless, I do have a favorite and much to my own surprise, it's the 1940 film. I'm actually fine with it not having a long backstory. Maybe I'm getting more impatient with some things, but I enjoyed that the film was shorter, didn't have as many embellishments, seemed tighter. Yeah, and you might have noticed that I prefer Paul to Gregory - if you can say "prefer" in case of a villain at all.
Possibly I just like Walbrook better than Boyer (I liked him in "The Red Shoes" as well and hope to find access to other movies with him).

It would have been fun to find the other adaptations as well, the German ones and an Australian one, and maybe it would be interesting to watch the play on stage. I'll have to check that out.

Kudos to you if you have made it till here and thank you!
Have you seen "Gaslight", either version, and what do you think?


Sources:

1. Amanda L. Chase Avera: Gaslighting: What Is It And How Do We Fight Back? On: Middle Georgia State University - News, April 17, 2023
2. Gideon Haigh: GASLIGHT-ing: An Inquiry. On: Cricket et al, May 22, 2024

Bedknobs and Broomsticks

Lisa from Boondock Ramblings is doing the Summer of Angela (Lansbury). I'm not going to participate fully because I don't have access to all the movies. I already missed the first one and I'm a few days late with this post because the day was already taken by another post.

Today's movie is Bedknobs and Broomsticks.
You can find Lisa's post on it here.

Fair use via
Wikimedia Commons

There are two distinctive memories I connect with this movie from 1971.
The first one is a German TV show for children called "Sport-Spiel-Spannung" (literally "Sports-Game-Suspense"). The "suspense" part was my favorite because they had clips from movies, for example Disney.
I don't know if I imagine this, but it feels as if one particular scene from "Bedknobs and Broomsticks" turned up more than once. I don't think the show had re-runs, so either I did see it more than once because it was very popular or it was just on two or three times and it felt like more to me?
It's also possible that it turned up in Disney shows, however, because I read some people thought it was an animated short film because of that, not part of a feature film.

The second one is that we actually went to see that movie at the cinema which is not something that happened that often at that time. We even got some money to get snacks - those were the times when you could still bring your own snacks unconcealed - and we went to the big grocery store. Choosing was not easy for us, we finally decided on a "Crunch" milk chocolate bar (which disappeared for many years later). I won't name the company because I don't longer buy their products.

Now that you have survived my reminiscing, let's finally get to the movie, shall we?
Let's start with the plot (spoiler alert!). Wait, which plot, though? The original one? The cut version? Or the German cut version? How about the cut version because that's the only one I got to see and then we'll talk about the cuts later on, shall we?

England, 1940.
Three orphans - Charles, Carey, and Paul Rawlins - are evacuated with other children from London to the countryside to escape from German air raids.
All children have already been taken home by families, only the Rawlins children are left when Miss Eglantine Price arrives to pick up a parcel and involuntarily gets tasked with caring for the children.
Things don't start too well. The children don't want to stay in the countryside and Miss Price doesn't have any experience with children.

When the children have gone to sleep, Miss Price unpacks her parcel, a broomstick, sent by "The Emelius Browne Correspondence School for Witchcraft". Unfortunately, the children witness her flying when they set out to go back to London, and Miss Price has to tell them she does a course for witchcraft hoping to help with the war effort. In exchange for their silence, Miss Price puts a travelling spell on a bedknob Paul took off the bed.

When the school announces its closure before she has received the most important spell, Miss Price convinces the children to take the bed to London where they meet Professor Browne. He's a (not very good) street magician who took the lessons from an old book whose last part is still with the bookseller.
Going there, they find out that the important words for the Substituiary Locomotion spell are engraved on a sorcerer's star medallion.
In order to find the medallion, they travel to the island of Naboombu where talking animals live, enchanted by the sorcerer. They find Leonidas, King of the Animals, wearing the star. After a soccer game for which Browne is acting as a referee, he manages to exchange the star for his whistle, and they barely escape the island.
This soccer game is the above mentioned scene, by the way.
 


At home, they try out the spell to make clothes move, but it ends in chaos.
Professor Browne goes to catch a train back to London, but has to sleep at the station because the last one already left.
Meanwhile, Nazi soldiers have landed on the coast to spread fear of an invasion. They choose Miss Price's house for their headquarters and take her and the children to the old castle.
Browne overhears two of the Nazis and heads back to help Miss Price who then uses the spell on the armors to make them attack the Nazis and chase them off. The plan works. Unfortunately, they also destroy her workroom and thus end her life as a witch.
In the end, Miss Price has adopted the children and Professor Browne has enlisted in the army, but promises with a kiss to be back.

"Bedknobs and Broomsticks" is based on two books by Mary Norton, "The Magic Bedknob; or How to Become a Witch in Ten Easy Lessons" and "Bonfires and Broomsticks" which later got combined into "Bed-Knob and Broomstick".
I read both books after re-watching the movie, and although I don't want to give away details about them now because there might be a post in the future, I can reveal that to me this is a severe case of "how did they get from this to that?".

You may think that "Bedknobs and Broomsticks" is a bit of a "Mary Poppins light". A lady, three children, magic ... but although "Mary Poppins" came out seven years before this movie, the project had actually been older. Disney had bought the rights shortly after the first book was published in 1943, the sequel followed 1947.
When negotiations with P.L. Travers about the rights to "Mary Poppins" took longer than hoped, they started on "Bedknobs and Broomsticks" instead. After acquiring the rights to "Mary Poppins", however, this movie got shelved more than once because of the similarities.

After the movie finally came out, both critics and audience were divided in their opinions. Too long, a mishmash of ideas, not enough heart, inventive, enjoyable, best animation ever, magical, charming, messy, underrated ... 

Now I don't remember how much I liked it myself when I was a kid, but I didn't get to see this version, anyway.

The movie originally had a runtime of 141 minutes. I'll be honest, I don't think that was a very good idea for a movie aimed at children first. For its premiere, however, they cut it down by 23 minutes. That's still almost two hours (and the version I watched), still quite long for children.
A lot of people seem to have been confused about Roddy McDowall getting third billing after Angela Lansbury and David Tomlinson. The reason was that they cut out the whole sub-plot showing the vicar at seducing Miss Price to get his hands on her land. Good choice if you ask me. I haven't seen it, mind you, but I can't imagine it doing anything for the plot.
Some years later, they cut it down even more, but I can't tell you what got cut out then. It got a little confusing for me with all the different versions!

So which version did this little German child get to see? Not hard to guess, is it? We didn't have that many scenes with the Nazis here. They got cut out which probably made the ending a bit confusing. There were other scenes that got cut, after all we ended up with only 90 minutes, but the Nazis were probably the biggest part.
I read some forum discussions and I loved how someone said this would have been the chance to talk about history with your kids. Not many people were ready to talk about that kind of history with their young kids in the 70s. That we get to see the full version now, fine, we have learned, but back then history was for school to teach in the first place.

What's interesting to me is how Nazis made it into the movie at all. Not because I'm German and can't take it, but because I read the books.
While the war is mentioned in the first book, the only other mention are butter rations. No Home Guard, no soldiers. No helping with the war effort. The spell is there alright, but for a completely different reason (which could be just as traumatizing, though, but Disney has traumatized me with more than one movie).
I'll say it again, "how did they get from this to that?"

Nevertheless, I enjoyed the movie. I think Lansbury played the aspiring witch (who doesn't look like the stereotype) very well. I liked Tomlinson and the kids were okay.
I agree that the movie was long (I have no interest in watching the even longer version), but it was entertaining. It is a bit dated here and there as was to be expected, and the soccer game may not be quite as exciting as little Cat thought it was, but it was still fun.
My favorite song is "Portobello Road" (despite the accordion), by the way, maybe it is the mix of the melody and the market atmosphere that speaks to me?

Of course the movie gets compared with "Mary Poppins" a lot (they first wanted Julie Andrews as Miss Price, by the way), usually with the result that the latter is so much more brilliant.
I know I'm stepping into dangerous terrain now, but I don't like "Mary Poppins". There, I've said it.
I love the books, but the film is way too long for me and so are some of the songs, and I also think the film very much disneyfied the Mary from the books.
So yes, if you made me choose which one of them to watch for a Disney evening, it would definitely be "Bedknobs and Broomsticks" for me.