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164 sats \ 31 replies \ @carlosfandango 20 Sep 2023 \ parent \ on: Stacker Saloon
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I used to watch Benny Hill when I was a young kid -- it was on public television late at night for some reason, much British stuff was. Last year I re-watched a couple of episodes w/ my wife. I was cackling, she was ... not amused. Doesn't age well I guess.
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My father was convinced that Benny Hill was a genius. I never got the humor, but I enjoyed the breasts.
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I still dont get it unless it was just titillation. I preferred the Monty Python sketch ‘this man has chosen the manner of his own death’ from Meaning of Life lol
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For me, it's the silly stupidity / farcical aspect combined with titillation.
And yeah, that Monty Python skit was a classic. We rented the VHS around that same era. It was in "comedy." My mother was. Well, you can imagine.
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I had the same experience of only being able to find British comedy on PBS: Python, Benny Hill, Fawlty Towers. Obviously pre internet.
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Fawlty Towers is one of the great little-known (in the US) treasures in all of television history. God that show was genius. THanks for the reminder.
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It’s shown in Europe with a trigger warning for those who find it disrespectful to Germans, Spanish waiters etc.
The true genius was in pulling it after 2-seasons. The UK version of The Office did the same thing and is better than The Office US for that reason IMHO. It’s almost a ‘Bitcoin scarcity quality’ vs ‘printing fiat quantity’ argument.
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100%. You can get that when the creatives are in charge. Not sure if you can get it otherwise. An interesting contrast w/ the American version of The Office, where money printer went brrrr for many years after the show should have ended.
Is there some special British sensibility involved in this, too? Hmm.
I have to go find some episodes on YouTube now
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Basil! 🥄
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After you guys were talking about Alec Guinness the other day I watched a good chunk of Our Man In Havana. I got the feel for his comedy persona.
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Excellent. I think ‘all encompassing’ is a good description. Such a gentle man. A really should read his biography.
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He was always revered as an actor in the U.S. My only exposure was Bridge On The River Kwai. My father loved that movie.
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Yeah - but that’s a long one! I have never decided why he didn’t want the bridge destroyed - was it to save his men from further work details on the same job, avoid reprisals, to save the structure he was personally proud of despite helping the Japanese. Maybe all of them.
His relatively small part in Lawrence of Arabia (another David Lean) was very good and his smallish part in Doctor Zhivago is utterly captivating - the film is held together by his role and narration;
‘I told myself it was beneath my dignity to arrest a man for pilfering firewood. But nothing ordered by the party is beneath the dignity of any man, and the party was right: One man desperate for a bit of fuel is pathetic. Five million people desperate for fuel will destroy a city.’
Both those films are also long lol!
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I forgot to mention those two! I rewatched Dr Zhivago a year ago, and LOA only a few months ago. Two of my favorites. As a 9 year old kid I had to sit through DZ in the back of a station wagon in the pouring rain at a drive in. Excruciating.
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But Julie Christie would have made it worthwhile for me! Strelnikof / Pasha was played by Tom Courtney and he and Christie had starred in a very good film called ‘Billy Liar’ in 1963. It’s a film set in northern England and was pretty revolutionary in it day.. kitchen sink realism and quite contemporary in contrast to the usual London centric standard English pronunciation films of the day.
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I have to check out Billy Liar. It rings a bell. I may have seen it years ago and have now forgotten it.
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Katharine Ross did it for pre pubescent me
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Rewatching Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid still does it for me! No apologies.