Was talking this morning about the old Elstree films whilst in Borehamwood /Elstree and how they were composed of caricatures .....we mentioned George Cole from his StTrinians days as the cockney sparrow spiv ' Flash Harry '
Somebody then mentioned the smooth old Lounge Lizard Leslie Phillips ( I say , Ding Dong ! )
They were all pretty harmless / vanilla but can you imagine the Me Too / Wokie outrage and the unfeesibilty of a load of gym slip 16 year olds getting saucy in a girls boarding school ......it would be seen as a Paedo's Picnic
Or , the sexist ,lechy Leslie !
I still thought he was great ........just off to tie my Cravat........toodle pip !
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Supportact said: [my style is] probably more an accumulation of limitations and bad habits than a 'style'.
Although the Woke brigade can be annoying, there is a spark of truth in every OTT reaction.
I do quite often.
Your pearl-clutching makes me laugh a lot. I find it hilarious considering you have a quote about pretentious wank in your signature.
He was the Role model for both Basil Brush AND Dick Dastardly .
" Hard Cheese Old Boy ! "
Brilliant. Basil and DD, two other characters I loved.
The far more disturbing image of Humbert Humbert as portrayed by Nabokov is still very much a prevalent tragi-comical figure as a literary motif of the Nymphette ......an extension of the female Trope ( the lover,the mother,the witch,the whore )
Not forgetting the Caricature element ;I do think the Leslie Philips persona was no more offensive than the shock of the contemporaneous mini-skirt of the late 60's . As fr as I know he was all talk and no suggestion of enforced Amour .....probably as harmless as Kenny Everetts old roue " Marcel " from the 80's.
I have seen the 2007 reboot and I have no idea who that was aimed at. I'm not big on revisionist views of past behaviour, films from the 1950s carried with them the attitudes of the times and I'm sure films made in 2021 will seem horrendously dated in 70 years. Why a film with 1950s values was made in 2007 seems more of a mystery.
That is really sad and depressing to see.
They are best left as a Momento Mori of their time.
I was outraged by the abomination of Depp's Wonka .........Gene Wilder was unsurpassable in that role.
Gads, they are remaking it again now with the recently trending Timothy Chalamet as Willy Wonka .
You have to leave these as a relic......can you imagine a remake of Brief Encounter ( ' I do so terribly love you ') ....they would be shagging on the train whilst being filmed on an iphone and uploaded to Tik Tok by Karen from Crydon.
People like Joe Bonamassa because they can go see him live and buy his new album. You can't do that with dead rock stars even if he is mostly just reinventing the wheel. People want their generation's take on something.
But with things like the "ding dong" guy and Carry On films and St Trinian's my view is that they have largely remained in the past for good reason - you don't need the so called "woke brigade" to cancel them because history and good taste has already done so.
I do like the idea of there being a brigade to join though, is that only for Teenagers like scouts or cadets or can a thirty something join in?
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When I watch a Carry On movie, they don't seem exploitative to me and they don't seem to denigrate the human soul as much as people profess they do. They remind me of my grandad, and my dad, and the youthful chortles and frollicks from everyone I ever watched them with as a child. They're a pretty key part of my psyche now, and make me who I am as a person. To reject those movies is to reject my personhood, and my individuality, and my very being.
I feel that way about a lot of older movies; Papillion, Ernest Goes To Camp, Harry & The Hendersons, Predator, Polanski's version of MacBeth. The list goes on.
And I will go to my grave loving those movies, and won't give a single solitary shit if anyone disagrees with me or looks down upon me because of it.
Chortle away lads and laddettes. Whilst you still can.
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If there were a modern day Carry On equivalent, I'd watch it. You never know, it might be a breath of fresh air from tired superhero movies that everyone seems so fond of.
The Depp one is utter sh*te through and through. I actually like the way Depp plays the role but everything else is garbage - the story, the actors, the sets, the songs, the Ooompa loompas. Surely a candidate for the worst, most misjudged remake ever.