Tony Richardson on DVD

Discuss North American DVDs and Blu-rays or other DVD and Blu-ray-related topics.
Message
Author
User avatar
John Hodson
Joined: Wed Jan 17, 2007 2:25 pm
Location: Near dark satanic mills...
Contact:

Charge of the Light Brigade (1968) UK TV 12/07 runtime?

#26 Post by John Hodson » Tue Dec 04, 2007 11:19 am

MichaelB wrote:
Stefan Andersson wrote:The Times TV supplement lists a showing of Richardson's Charge of the Light Brigade Dec. 07 at 139 mins. This runtime should be after PAL speed-up, which in turn should mean it's longer than the R1 and R2 DVDs.
Which channel is it on?

If it's not one of the BBC channels, it probably will have commercials, though you're right about PAL speedup (and 145 does indeed translate to roughly 139 once it's applied). But I can't find it listed on BBC1/2/3 or 4 for that date.
It won't be commercial free; Channel 4 at 2am until 4:15am

User avatar
Belmondo
Joined: Thu Feb 08, 2007 9:19 am
Location: Cape Cod

A Taste of Honey

#27 Post by Belmondo » Tue Feb 19, 2008 3:43 pm

I have not seen "A Taste of Honey" in many years and apparently I'm not going to see it until I stop contemplating hi-def and start contemplating region free.

Nervertheless, "A Taste of Honey" had a huge impact on my youth and I hope someone can assure me that it stands up to the test of time. As I recall; the Rita Tushingham character is just a schoolgirl living in squalor who becomes pregnant by a black sailor and ends up living with a young gay man.

This was miles ahead of anything I was seeing in American movies of the time and my recollection is that the story was completely believable.
This was preceded and followed by many other "slice of life" films such as "Room at the Top", "Life at the Top", "The L-Shaped Room", "The Luck of Ginger Coffey" and others which now share the same fate of being unavailable in R 1.

Anybody know if any of them are coming along? I've seen all that are available including "This Sporting Life", "Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner", etc. and I find them as powerful and important as ever.

unclehulot
Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 3:09 pm
Location: here and there

Re: A Taste of Honey

#28 Post by unclehulot » Mon Apr 07, 2008 9:16 am

Belmondo wrote:I have not seen "A Taste of Honey" in many years and apparently I'm not going to see it until I stop contemplating hi-def and start contemplating region free.
I just contemplated this in HD, actually....or at least the Dish Network version of it. One of the VOOM networks (World Cinema) is showing it (it's on today a couple of times). It's a (mostly) beautiful print (with a smattering of splices and scratches here and there), but it's shown in 1:85, which is probably slightly zoomed in.

User avatar
knives
Joined: Sat Sep 06, 2008 6:49 pm

Re: Tony Richardson on DVD

#29 Post by knives » Thu Apr 26, 2012 4:45 pm

Just finished Joseph Andrews and wanted to know what the board's feelings are since I'm absolutely split on it. The film is very late '70s and the cartoonish grotesqueness of the characters and setting forces me into a thought that this is one of those misguided failures by a genius off his rocker, but in the same instance those elements work so well in making it feel unlike your average period piece instead having this undermining grin that I want to call it a successful play for subversion ala Brewster McCloud and The Ballad of Cable Hogue.

User avatar
rockysds
Joined: Wed May 19, 2010 11:25 am
Location: Denmark

Re: Tony Richardson on DVD

#30 Post by rockysds » Sun Jan 11, 2015 1:56 pm

BFI Southbank are showing a couple of real rarities in February:
An half-hour BBC drama: You Know What People Are the 15th and Laughter in the Dark the 16th.

User avatar
The Fanciful Norwegian
Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 2:24 pm
Location: Teegeeack

Re: Tony Richardson on DVD

#31 Post by The Fanciful Norwegian » Mon Jan 12, 2015 10:58 pm

What on earth happened to Laughter in the Dark? I'm sadly unsurprised it hasn't turned up on film more often—apparently Lincoln Center was unable to get it for a 2007 retrospective of Richardson's production company—but it doesn't seem to have ever been released on video and TV airings haven't been thick on the ground either. (A poster on the IMDb says the BBC aired it in 1981; from what I've seen of the TV rip that recently surfaced online, I wouldn't be surprised if it was recorded from this broadcast!) I know its critical reputation wasn't sky-high and I can't contest that, not having seen it, but can a Nabokov adaptation really be so uncommercial as to prevent a home video release for forty years? Did Nabokov take a dislike to the film and play a role in burying it, or is there some other rights issue involved?

User avatar
zedz
Joined: Sun Nov 07, 2004 7:24 pm

Re: Tony Richardson on DVD

#32 Post by zedz » Mon Jan 12, 2015 11:43 pm

The Fanciful Norwegian wrote:Did Nabokov take a dislike to the film and play a role in burying it, or is there some other rights issue involved?
However much he disliked it, I'm pretty sure he would have been as powerless to do anything about it as he was about all the other adaptations he detested, starting with Kubrick's Lolita. Actually, he probably would have been less concerned about that novel, since he wrote it with the express purpose of trying to get somebody to buy the movie rights back in the thirties. It wasn't exactly a deeply personal work that he thought highly of.

User avatar
RossyG
Joined: Sat May 30, 2009 5:50 pm

Re: Tony Richardson on DVD

#33 Post by RossyG » Tue Jan 13, 2015 6:34 am

The BBC have showed Laughter in the Dark twice. First on the 11th of December 1974 as part of their Midweek Cinema season, then on the 25th of January 1981 as part of a British Movie Night season of Nicol Williamson films. Since then, nothing.

User avatar
repeat
Joined: Wed Jun 24, 2009 4:04 am
Location: high in the Custerdome

Re: Tony Richardson on DVD

#34 Post by repeat » Tue Jan 13, 2015 10:03 am

I haven't seen Richardson's film, but I've always liked the prospect (recounted in Ciment's book) of Joseph Losey having been slated to direct the adaptation before it went to Richardson (like several other projects of Losey's, apparently!). Would've been nice to see what he'd made of the material.

Post Reply