Laurence Olivier

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hearthesilence
Joined: Fri Mar 04, 2005 4:22 am
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Laurence Olivier

#1 Post by hearthesilence » Mon Feb 02, 2015 1:43 am

Just came across this article on Olivier. I knew of his reputation before seeing any of his films - I don't mean this as a slight, but it's sad that his greatness may have been in his stage work. How amazing would it be to witness any of those legendary performances that knocked out the naysayers of his film work? Of his films, I favor The Entertainer and Richard III the most, but I'll have to check out Carrie now.

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thirtyframesasecond
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Re: Laurence Olivier

#2 Post by thirtyframesasecond » Tue Feb 03, 2015 12:19 pm

Funny you should mention Olivier as the Guardian had a terrific article about him yesterday

http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2015/f ... ve-letters

...I woke up absolutely raging with desire for you my love … Oh dear God how I did want you. Perhaps you were stroking your darling self...

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hearthesilence
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Re: Laurence Olivier

#3 Post by hearthesilence » Tue Feb 03, 2015 12:33 pm

Nice! Welles' centennial and Film Forum screenings got me to revisit Welles' work, particularly his Shakespeare films, and that's actually what got me thinking about Olivier. The critics and press were far kinder towards Olivier's adaptations, but Welles' were the true masterpieces. I think Olivier's weren't quite great films, but they certainly have plenty of merit, and that got me thinking about his stage work vs. his film work. I actually didn't realize his staging of Othello was filmed and released by WB! Apparently much more stage-bound (or rather, beholden to his stage production) than the three more-renowned works released by Criterion.

It's amazing how Vivien Leigh's film legacy rests almost entirely on two roles - I actually prefer the "less" famous one, which I think is one of the great film performances of all-time, very much on par with her co-star's revolutionary performance. I didn't realize she and Olivier were on good terms following their split. Very sad what happened to her in general, I always wondered how much her profession damaged her emotional and physical health?

Looking through the Guardian, it's amazing how regularly he appears in their newspaper. He definitely retains an iconic status in the UK that surpasses his reputation in the States, but I suppose that's always been true. Most of his theatrical work was in the UK, correct? This certainly must have helped in shoring up his reputation there as the century's greatest actor.


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Roger Ryan
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Re: Laurence Olivier

#5 Post by Roger Ryan » Tue Feb 03, 2015 12:52 pm

hearthesilence wrote:...The critics and press were far kinder towards Olivier's adaptations, but Welles' were the true masterpieces.
Olivier himself reportedly said as much to Welles' eldest daughter at a dinner party, noting that Welles' take on MACBETH and OTHELLO worked far better as films than Olivier's own Shakespeare adaptations.

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ando
Bringing Out El Duende
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Re: Laurence Olivier

#6 Post by ando » Tue Feb 17, 2015 1:38 am

Other than The Entertainer Olivier impressed me most as Astrov in his film version of Chekhov's Uncle Vanya. It's radily available still and one of the best film versions, though I'm partial to the 1970 BBC production with Freddie Jones as Vanya and Anthony Hopkins as the doctor.

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hearthesilence
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Re: Laurence Olivier

#7 Post by hearthesilence » Mon Jul 20, 2020 3:12 am

Unfortunately there's no William Wyler thread, perhaps understandably, but I'll post this here since it concerns Olivier just as much.

Wyler is not one of my favorites, and I'm certainly not alone as his reputation has taken a serious beating for a very long time. But as Kent Jones, David Thomson and Howard Hampton have pointed out, "it’s grossly unfair to make an also-ran out of someone who was able to deliver studio films as intelligent and affecting as The Best Years of Our Lives, The Letter (1940), Dodsworth (1936), and Carrie (the wrenching 1952 adaption of Theodore Dreiser’s Sister Carrie)." I've seen just two of the films listed there, and they do make a great argument in his favor. (As mentioned in the John Huston thread, no filmmaker or artist deserves to be completely dismissed or devalued if they've done great work, even if their entire output is often disappointing.)

I noticed in one of my five-year posts above that I came across an article singling out Carrie as the best cinematic proof of Olivier's worth as an actor. I wish I hadn't forgotten that, but it wasn't until now with the ongoing pandemic that DVDs and streaming have taken up most of my viewing. (For the most part, I had been relying on Blu-Rays and whatever was programmed at a local venue, which was more than enough to keep me occupied.)

I never heard anyone bring up Carrie as a defense for Wyler either, at least not until recently when I came across supportive remarks made by Thomson, Hampton, possibly Jones (can't remember if he vouched for it as well) and the late Elliott Stein, so I finally gave it a chance. I wasn't eager to see it before due to Wyler's most famous collaboration with Olivier, Wuthering Heights. A poor adaptation, it made Olivier a star and it was distinguished by Gregg Toland's cinematography, but its merits as a film and Olivier's performance have been torn apart by Wyler's detractors for good reason.

Michael Billington is not wrong, and Carrie is a wonderful surprise. I'm reluctant to call it a great film, but it's certainly no embarrassment to Dreiser's celebrated masterwork. The film is indeed wrenching largely because of Olivier, and that is a revelation because this is the first time I've been genuinely and thoroughly moved by an Olivier performance. To be fair, I still have not seen his recorded stage performances (it's often said his legend truly rests there, not on-screen), and the best and most memorable performances I've seen involved scoundrels - Richard III, Archie Rice, Christian Szell - so it comes down partly to his choice of roles, but he brings such a profound sadness this film, it may very well be my favorite Olivier performance. Absolutely wonderful.

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domino harvey
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Re: Laurence Olivier

#8 Post by domino harvey » Mon Jul 20, 2020 11:35 am

Discussion of the merits of William Wyler moved here

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ando
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Re: Laurence Olivier

#9 Post by ando » Sat Jul 25, 2020 11:47 am

Starring Laurence Olivier is a decent collection of films starring Olivier currently streaming on The Criterion Channel. Course, glaring omissions are his '65 directed film of Shakespeare's Othello, Marathon Man, Slueth and Boys From Brazil. In all his oeuvre Othello has entertained me the most often. The theatrical release of the blackface throwback could hardly have been at a worse time in The States but Larry's performance is such a bizarre spectacle that, coupled with The Bards language, it's difficult to look away. It remains my favorite version of the play for all the reasons that compel and revolt contemporary sensibilities. Maggie Smith, Derek Jacobi and Frank Finlay aren't bad support, either.

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domino harvey
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Re: Laurence Olivier

#10 Post by domino harvey » Sat Jul 25, 2020 1:00 pm

Olivier’s perf in Othello is indeed delightfully bonkers, hard to imagine anyone who actually watches it getting worked up, since it’s closer to a Martian than a caricature of any black man who ever lived. I think Finlay is more than not-bad support, I think he’s the best (traditional) aspect of the production and should have won the Oscar even though he was dumped into supporting for what is really the lead or co-lead

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ando
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Re: Laurence Olivier

#11 Post by ando » Sat Jul 25, 2020 1:21 pm

domino harvey wrote:
Sat Jul 25, 2020 1:00 pm
I think Finlay is more than not-bad support, I think he’s the best (traditional) aspect of the production and should have won the Oscar even though he was dumped into supporting for what is really the lead or co-lead
Well, Larry couldn't get Booth so Finlay had to do.

Smith, Jacobi and Smith are marvelous i it. But Olivier was the diva (in the best - old - sense of the word). I've never seen anyone take as long to enter stage left on the Dick Cavett Show as Olivier - and then pause once he got out there.

And I forgot to mention Wyler's Wuthering Heights (now on Prime) as another favorite.

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Roscoe
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Re: Laurence Olivier

#12 Post by Roscoe » Sun Jul 26, 2020 9:46 am

I'll put in a word for Olivier's performance as James Tyrone in LONG DAY'S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT -- there's a DVD of a television version of a famed National Theater production, and he's brilliant, the only actor I've seen to make the old guy into anything but a tyrant. He's thrilling and genuinely heartbreaking in the role.

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ando
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Re: Laurence Olivier

#13 Post by ando » Sun Jul 26, 2020 10:40 am

That’s the production Olivier speaks of in the Cavett interview (Criterion extra). Hard to top the ‘62 Lumet version (imo) as everyone in that one was brilliantly cast but I’ll give the production with Larry version a go (though the casting of Mary Tyrone is equally vital).

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barbarella satyricon
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The Prince and the Showgirl (1957)

#14 Post by barbarella satyricon » Tue Jun 20, 2023 7:32 am

I watched The Prince and the Showgirl for the first time last week and, going in with little to no expectations, was quite taken with it as it went on, am considering it a real discovery now after so many years of having it slide in and out of awareness. My Marilyn movie knowledge basically begins and ends with Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (all-time fave, countless rewatches), with only some vague impressions of Some Like It Hot, even less of Monkey Business, from viewings ages ago. I had associated this Olivier-directed one in my mind, for some reason, with snatches of musical numbers from Let's Make Love, and that's what I went in thinking of when I started it up a few nights ago.

It's two hours long, I thought at the start, and even as I began warming to it, there are some scenes that do seem to go on and on, almost in real-time, like Olivier and Monroe's first evening rendezvous at the embassy. Without even knowing that the film was adapted from a play, it was clear from these drawing room scenes, with repeatedly opened and closed doors, that the story had originally been conceived for the stage.

But then there was a definite pleasure that took hold from seeing character relationships develop, and also individual personalities being shaded in in the details (as broadly drawn as the comic types essentially are), at such an unhurried pace. Monroe's Elsie getting up several times to replenish her plate and glass at the buffet trolley, actually eating and nibbling away while reciting lines of perhaps debatable literary worth, felt like rare untruncated filmed moments, where a contemporaneous Hollywood production might have favored more economical means of expositon than this British one (from Monroe's own production company) does.

So it drags a bit here and there, but that's what I came to like about it, along with that white evening dress that Elsie never gets to change out of. A throwaway joke is made at the end about that latter detail, by Sybil Thorndike's dowager queen character, a part played for both tartness and unexpected touches of sweetness. It's not a film replete with anything like Lubitsch touches, but I also found it to be more memorable and affecting, on the whole, than about a half-dozen well-regarded mid-to-late career Lubitsches that I found bafflingly flat and forgettable. (I bring up Lubitsch only because contemporary reviews of the Olivier film seem to depreciate it for a certain lack of wit or sophistication. And there are also, of course, two or three Lubitsches that are in the upper tiers of all-time great films, though my own picks might differ from anyone else's.)

The extended coronation scene, largely (entirely?) dialogue-free and driven by diegetic music and fanfare, can be seen as the film's centerpiece, and even with some overly misty shots of Monroe gazing beatifically into some elevated middle distance, I experienced the whole sequence as genuinely stirring, even transporting, on a par (if I'm going to risk overreaching) with the culminating cathedral scenes in the Archers' A Canterbury Tale. Again, the time taken to set up and convey a change of mood, an experience of shifting perspectives and emotions, works in the film's favor, lending both a leisureliness and weightiness that feel like time lived and experienced in the real.

Finally, I remember seeing this interview clip of Olivier some years ago, and though it was in the back of my mind as the movie got going, I wasn't really thinking about those storied on-set conflicts. I also didn't know that the My Week with Marilyn thing was based on the production of this film until I did some reading up. There are some online commenters, die-hard defenders of the Monroe legacy apparently, who judge Olivier to be, basically, an uncomprehending pig and a prick. Here's also a clip of Sybil Thorndike speaking, in contrast, glowingly, if also knowingly, of Monroe's gifts as an actress and artist.

And a more astute youtube commenter among them has posted this quotation of Olivier:

In the editing room I had a happier time than I expected. I loved cutting away to Marilyn's reaction shots; no one had such a look of hurt innocence or of unconscious wisdom, and her personality was strong on the screen. She gave a star performance. (On Acting, 1986)

Damn right. There are some reaction shots of Monroe in this film that just lit up the dramatic and comedic moments for me, like small revelations (of the character's thought process in the moment, also of the actor's artistry), and these, I found, more than made up for whatever saggy-pants pacing, whatever fussy bits of business with European languages and accents, Olivier's own rather crudely caddish characterizations, and so on.
SpoilerShow
The ambiguously open/unresolved ending also caught me off guard, but in perhaps a dramatically resonant way: I thought there might be a last-moment reversal or turnaround before the end titles (perhaps, again, á la Lubitsch), but as it became clear that that wouldn't be the case, all the preceding romantic comedy with its bits of low-stakes drama felt to deepen and unfurl in meaning somehow, as Monroe makes that final long walk and exit out the embassy front doors.
With this unscheduled first viewing, I've already ordered the Warner Archive Collection blu ray which I see was released just this past March. It's a film that I'm sure won't necessarily wear its patchy parts better upon revisits, but I'm still ready to slot it near the top of a list titled Underrated(!), exclamation point optional, and until I find time to catch up on my Marilyn Monroe homework, near-equal to the Hawks musical within her filmography. I don't think I was any kind of a real fan or admirer until now.

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