The other part of that that you should watch carefully is that when Bridie and Joan are arguing, Catriona is standing between them and she says more than the other two without saying a word. Pamela Brown was superb at that sort of thing. Check out her performance as Jane Shore, the King's mistress in Olivier's Richard III (1955) [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0049674/]. She never says a word, but she speaks volumes.
It's a shame that Pamela didn't do more film work, she really was very good at it. It's unusual for someone who was primarily a stage actress to be able to work on film so well. She really did understand the difference and knew that in film it's all done with the eyes
The book, by Pam Cook, in the BFI Film Classics series, is very good. But like all the books in that series it's a personal view of the film rather than a thorough analysis.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0851708145/papas-20 from $6.50
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0851708145/papas-21 £9.49
Pam Cook worked at the British Film Institute for 15 years and was associate editor of the leading film journal Sight and Sound from 1991 to 1994. She then joined the University of East Anglia as Senior Lecturer in Film before being appointed the UK's first Professor of European Film and Media at the University of Southampton in 1998. Following her retirement in February 2006, she became Professor Emeritus in Film at Southampton.
There's another book about this film, (By Eric Britton. World Film Publications: London, 1946). That was published just after the war when materials were still in short supply. It was also only published as a paperback. Consequently, not many survive. But they do appear in second hand book shops every now and then. It's a lovely little book and it tells the full story along with some additional information. It was written with the help of the film-makers although it wasn't written by them.
Steve
reply
share