MovieChat Forums > Quartet (1949) Discussion > Several comments (spoilers)

Several comments (spoilers)

posted 15 years ago by rich-106
1 reply | jump to latest

The movie was interesting because of the story twists especially the last story.
Facts of life
The kid having trouble making the tennis team for his college but he can represent England in a match?
The thief was too sweet imo.
Alien corn
The camera lingered on Honor Blackman and she was worth it for sure.
Can't tell if the judge was giving an honest opinion or what since I have no idea what grade A piano playing is like but it was a suspicious decision for sure. She tapped her foot to his playing but also seemed to glance at the faces of the family possibly to help her decide.
Can the ending event happen like that with a weapon that long?
Kite
Did commoners go around wearing suits,ties, and bowler hats at that time?
The ending seemed tacked on so audiences got a happier ending.
BTW It looked like Somerset needed at lot of dental work.
Finally , anyone notice the unnecessary and frequent use of "queer" and "fag" in this movie? Was that an intentional joke?

Feel free to respond or not.

[–] BillyFisher 12 years ago

Re the happy ending to The Kite, I thought it was intended to be ironic. A character had earlier commented that people were very fanciful (in the sense of imaginative), so it was ironic that the narrator, when he imagined what "probably happened," came up with the improbably happy ending.

Re bowler hats, they weren't commoners exactly -- both father and son had office jobs, which I suppose made them lower middle-class. Bowler hat and suit was pretty much the attire for work.

Re "queer" and "fag," I'm sure there was nothing behind "fag," as it was and still is acceptable slang for a cigarette. "Queer" was common back then to mean "odd" or "strange," although it could mean "homosexual." I can't remember the context in which it was used in Quartet. Was it used in relation to the Dirk Bogarde character at all? I did wonder if his love of music was meant to hint at homosexuality. (Yes, they had all kinds of, um, queer codes for suggesting homosexuality back then.) During the conversation he had with his father about his desire for a musical career, I couldn't help but think of the letter the (gay) American composer Samuel Barber wrote to his mother at the age of nine:

"Dear Mother: I have written to tell you my worrying secret. Now don't cry when you read it because it is neither yours nor my fault. I suppose I will have to tell it now, without any nonsense. To begin with I was not meant to be an athlete. I was meant to be a composer, and will be I'm sure. I'll ask you one more thing .-Don't ask me to try to forget this unpleasant thing and go play football.-Please-Sometimes I've been worrying about this so much that it makes me mad (not very)."

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