Favourite clips from films, adverts, soaps.

[carni 10,094]

Margie, I did wonder about the sole survivor meaning lone, referring to the one who bailed out. because the other soul as in spirit referring to the one who's body wasn't found' is a different spelling? Enjoyable anyway.

[loppylugs 8,427]

Interesting film and some good comments here. The gradual alcoholic falling apart of the guy who bailed out was interesting if not somewhat predictable. I concluded from their interest in the tail section of the plane that the soul survivor may have buried his buddies there as they died off. Thus the search crew found them and their dog tags. The last one may have wondered some distance away in a futile attempt to get out of there. Thus they did not find his remains and his spirit hung around there alone.

Sort of like ghosts are alleged to hang around the tower of London as a place of trauma and possible possessions being there.

I won't get into the theological aspects of that one. Let's just say I see it as unlikely.

Good in that it was a clean movie, no cussing, and bedroom scenes were impractical. :-) Plot seemed a bit weak. If I were Janice, I couldn't give it a foive, but maybe a three.

[Chulla 4,946]

Ask them when you get up there, loppy. lol

[MargieH 7,599]

Just watched Sole Survivor again and THINK I now understand it! Four of the crash victims gradually died off several miles from the plane, but one of them went to find the plane to get water. (That was written in the diary that was found) He found the plane but the tail section fell on him and he died there. At the end of the film, the man, Devlin? was just on his way to have one last look..... so he would have found the last one hopefully. That last ghost had marked out a baseball pitch in the sand. Hope I've got it right!

[loppylugs 8,427]

Pretty solid looking ghosts, weren't they? MI,s link was interesting and seems correct.

I remember many years ago reading of a British bomber that crashed in Holland (I think) during WW 2. The Dutch folks that came upon it reported that when they first saw it at a distance, the crew were walking around it with bewildered looks on their faces. By the time the rescuers got to the plane they had disappeared. On further investigation they found the crew had died in the crash, their bodies still inside the plane. Really spooky!

Sometimes there just are no explanations.

[loppylugs 8,427]

Have you watched Portrait of Jennie, yet, Carnie? We 'aven't 'eard from yer..

[carni 10,094]

LL, I haven't had chance to sit down for long enough without interruption yet. I am determined to enjoy it when I get the chance. I hope to watch it ASAP. I just had a look what is on the tele tonight and I might watch it at 10pm after "The Living and The Dead" finishes. whoooerrr.

[carni 10,094]

Aaaaah, Just finished watching "Portrait of Jennie". Intriguing, and very enjoyable. I must admit I was a mixed up kid before I watched it and a mixed up OAP afterwards. No idea what was happening, but loved the innocence of it all. Fantasy at its best.

[loppylugs 8,427]

You mean you are not going to enlighten us about how she aged so fast and why she didn't like the picture of the lighthouse etc. and why she appeared and disappeared, and why no one else saw her and..................?

Now we'll never know.

[carni 10,094]

Well now you put it like that?

[Chulla 4,946]

This might shine a little light in a dark corner.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portrait_of_Jennie

[MargieH 7,599]

As I wrote a few posts back....... have any of you seen 'The Time Traveller's Wife'? It had a lot of similarities to 'Portrait of Jennie' and I really enjoyed it.

[carni 10,094]

Chulla, Thanks for the link. It looks as though I understood the story after all. Very enjoyable. Keep em comin'.

Margie,Thanks for the film, I will see if I can get the full movie on You Tube. It sounds like another good one to watch.

[MargieH 7,599]

It was only released in 2009 I think, so unlikely to be on YouTube. There are some clips, that's all I could find

The only thing that makes me feel a bit uneasy about these kinds of films is the strange relationship between the adult male and the female child. I know that the film is all about time travelling and the different kinds of relationships between 2 people of different ages but there were times when I felt a bit uncomfortable.......

[Chulla 4,946]

I know what you are thinking, Margie, but I feel absolutely confident that nothing like that was in the mind of the scenarist or the director, and certainly not with David O Selznick, whose studio made the film. Jennifer Jones was his real-life wife. Not only that, films were screened for any sexual content, real or imagined in those days by the Hays Committee. It would never have been released if they saw anything remotely immoral.

As for the film you recommend, it is on YouTube - if you pay to see it.

[loppylugs 8,427]

I think part of the problem today, Margie is that there has been so much of a problem with kiddie fiddlers that we have all been conditioned to feel uneasy about any adult child relationship other than parental.

When I was in the ministry I made sure that I was never alone with a child male or female. In our current church all Sunday school room doors have been fitted with windows. I still abide by that rule today even though retired. I don't even want to give a hint of such wicked behaviour.

A sad reflection on the state of our societies.

The movie you mentioned sounds interesting, thanks.

[MargieH 7,599]

We, too, have strict Child Protection guidelines (which also includes those for vulnerable adults) in our church. Some of them seem a bit too strict, but we know it is necessary. I do the child protection talk before we start the Holiday Club at church - this includes such things as not picking children up, comforting a hurt child if necessary by only doing 'side by side' hugs, not joining in with any boisterous contact games, and of course not being alone with a child. If any of them need to talk 'privately' about something that is troubling them, we sit in a corner of the room but in full view of others. There are lots more guidelines as well but I don't need to list them here. Some of the guidelines seem a bit strange at first but after a while it becomes second nature. We have to remember that they are there not only to protect the child/vulnerable adult but also to protect US. False allegations of abuse or even misunderstood actions by adults are not unknown!

[FLY2 10,108]

I was always a bit unnerved by the film Mr Tom, starring John Thaw. However, the more times I've seen it, I'm certain it was all so innocent.

[Chulla 4,946]

More on Portrait of Jennie. I have two books about David O Selznick in which the film is discussed:

In the original story, Jennie was swept overboard from a ship. Through eternity she has been searching for someone to love who would have loved her. Eban Adams (the artist) meets a strangely dressed little girl in Central Park, and she begs him to wait for her to grow up. By a chain of circumstances he comes to realise that Jennie is the ghost of a young girl who died many year before. At the end Adams tried to save her from her original fate, but she tells him that love, like time, is endless and undying and that they will meet again and have each other for ever,

In a letter to the book's author Selznick wrote ' In the book Adams took Jennie on a picnic, and that other characters saw her. This we changed because of my very strong feeling , although not true of the book, that Jennie should be seen by no-one but Adams'.

Selznick asked Ben Hecht the screenwriter to write him a forward for the film to set its mood:

'It needs the type of cinematic forward journalese of which you are the only master I know, combining a certain artistic tone with old Hearst Sunday-Supplement hokey-pokey, pseudoscientific approach , so that they will believe it while at the same time they are entertained by it.

My purposes are as follows. One: To prepare them for an entirely different kind of picture than they have ever seen and to set the stage for their acceptance of a dramatic fantasy, which, as we know, is far more difficult to put over than a comedy fantasy, and in which they will accept anything. Two: To imply that anyone that doesn't believe it is an ignoramus, and to flatter the intelligence of the audience by assuming that they have the same kind of approach to the great unknown questions of life and death as the great philosophers and poets.Three: To present it as though it was the telling of an actual true story rather than a piece of fiction in the 'believe it or not' spirit, on the basis of 'this is what is known about it and we don't offer any explanation, merely the facts as known'. Four: To try to prepare them for the basis of the fantasy (a misplacement of two people in time, which involves the question of almost Einsteinian relativity) and the theme of the piece (no death where there is love and faith).'

So there, got it now?

[carni 10,094]

Got It Chulla. Well made and I agree that only Eban Adams should be able to see Jennie. She becomes to real if others can see her, and some of the fantasy is in danger of disappearing, if she appears to be visible to other characters.

[loppylugs 8,427]

Interesting info on Wikipedia. Also a good reminder that film reviews are not to be trusted.

It fills in some spaces and that is useful. My opinion of the film remains the same. It was tastefully done and I enjoyed it. :-)

[Jill Sparrow 10,304]

#151

The TV film Goodnight Mr Tom is loved by many people and is well made but it is by no means a true relection of the book which is far grittier and more graphic about the abuse that William Beech has suffered at the hands of his mentally ill mother.

Some years ago when I was still teaching, this book was a required read for Year 6 children and I felt that perhaps some of them would have found it rather upsetting.

Tom Oakley in the novel is a far less prickly and morose person than the character played by John Thaw in the film and many people who have read the book also complain that the film misses out a lot of characters that appear in the book and also reduces the role and characterization of Zack, William's evacuee friend, whose parents and eventually Zack himself die in the London Blitz air raids.

I would recommend the book to anyone who enjoyed the tv version.

[Guest]

"Still picking your feet in Poughkeepsie"?

[FLY2 10,108]

Thanks for the info Jill, I'll get a copy and give it a read.

I never know whether it's best to read books first, or see the film first. One of my all time favourite books is the Odessa File, but the film omitted so much, especially the ending. Likewise, I read Silence of the Lambs before seeing the film. Crikey, I'm glad I did, the tension was almost unbearable in parts.

[Chulla 4,946]

We Brits could make a good fantasy film; this one is probably the most well-known. It is a portfolio picture - separate stories. One wonders why the Luftwaffe would want to bomb a remote hotel in Wales, but apart from that it is a good story. Yaki da, boyo!

Note it is an A picture. make sure you see it with an adult.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7o1ips-2sc