Somewhere, I thought I caught a reference to Patrick Leigh Fermor having some sort of friendship with General Kreipe, during the time they were together, what with Fermor's grasp and love of German culture, as written in "A Time of Gifts".
Can anybody shine some light on this?
Mutual respect rather than friendship. The Brits respected his attempts to leave a trail for the Germans to follow and his attempt to bribe the boy. Kreipe was momentarily embarrassed at having been captured by people he discovered were amateurs, but he soon realised that they handled the operation in a thoroughly professional manner.
Leigh Fermor and Kreipe also both respected each other as classically educated men and they chatted cordially while they were in the mountains.
Steve
Paddy Leigh Fermor subsequently recounted an incident when the General quoted a line of classical poetry (Horace?) and PLF was able to supply the following line, after which Kreipe seemed to regard him as his equal. The screenplay failed to incorporate this vignette. But then Michael Powell himself lamented that the screenplay, acting, directing... indeed the whole film, fell short of the usual Archers standard. Bogarde was scarcely adequate in the PLF role, while Powell said something like "Marius Goring wouldn't have frightened a rabbit, and David Oxley [Billy Moss] was a rabbit."
shareIt certainly wasn't one of their best. Powell & Pressburger both had trouble with this and with The Battle of the River Plate in that they were both such amazing feats, succeeding against all the odds, that there wasn't much that they could add to them. Also, by that time, their partnership was beginning to come to a natural end. They had done just about all that they wanted to do together and they both had other projects that they wanted to pursue individually. That and the situation was changing, their freedom under Rank and then under Korda was also coming to an end.
But there was a sort of reference and acknowledgement of the mutual respect between Kreipe and Paddy. When Paddy says that they are going to the Mountain of the Goddess, Kreipe knows that he means Mount Ida and Paddy respects that knowledge.
It was when they got to the beach and neither of the Englishmen knew Morse code that Kreipe realised he had been kidnapped by amateurs and that upset him again - for a while. But when they got onto the boat he realised that even though they were amateurs it had been a very professional operation
Steve
PLF and General Kreipe met again in the early 1970s. The occasion was the Greek version of "This is your life". After the TV show, which went very well, PLF threw a dinner, which was a huge success. Kreipe's wife also attended. The wine flowed.
Someone asked: How did PLF treat General Kreipe? The German replied: Ritterlich, Chivalrously. Frau Kreipe told PLF: You are just as my husband described you all those years ago.
The Kreipes both wrote to thank PLF for his hospitality. They remained on cordial terms until the General's death.
The famous Ode by Horace which Kreipe started and PLF was able to complete, word-perfect, was cut in the movie.
Instead, just before the kidnapping, PLF quotes two lines from Byron's Childe Harold (from The Eve of Waterloo) which I will supply in a later posting. Since PLF was and is a totally Byronic figure, I think this is permissible poetic licence.
Patrick Leigh Fermor has just passed away this month. Here is one memoir: http://ricochet.com/main-feed/Patrick-Leigh-Fermor-A-Memoir
But I preferred Christopher Hitchens' review of his life. http://www.slate.com/id/2296835/
Hitchens may be terminally ill, but he is a superb writer.
Patrick Lee Fermor certainly appears to have led an interesting life. His obituary in The New York Times after his death at age 96 on June 10, 2011, gave a necessarily brief but engaging overview of his many and varied pursuits.
One hopes his experiences on Crete were more dramatic than this rather listless film depicts. Real life generally is.
Wakanohana: Why "Hitchens may be terminally ill, but he is a superb writer"? Is one somehow exclusive of the other? Just an odd grammatical construct. But I agree, Hitchens is not only an excellent writer but a consistently fascinating man whose views encompass many subjects and ideological foundations. Thanks for the tip on his review of Fermor's life.
Perhaps I should have said, "he is still a superb writer." It looks odd to me as well -- I should have proofread my own work before posting.
shareI'm sorry, not to nitpick, but what I meant was that the fact that he's a superb writer has nothing to do with his being terminally ill, any more than it had to do with him when he was in good health. Basically the two facts are non-sequitors.
Maybe just to say: Christopher Hitchens is a superb writer who also, unfortunately, appears to be terminally ill. [I say "appears" because I'd like to add the hope that he might somehow go into remission, which I've heard him say is possible, albeit only very remotely so.]
I think one can pray for the well-being of even an atheist, something Hitchens himself regards as an ironic side to his illness, as he says he's received messages from people telling him they're praying for his recovery...as well as a few from more un-Christian "Christians" who say they're praying for him to die. Let's see how, when their time comes, they fare before their maker...or, worse, find out that Hitchens was right!
You may find it interesting to see an edited video of the meeting:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zlUhJwddFU
What's noteworthy is how fluent PLF's Greek was, and I found the meetings quite moving, especially with the Cretan who has returned from South Africa (he's the third who enters).
Those who don't speak Greek but do know German can skip ahead to about 11.30 and watch the entrance of Kreipe. PLF does the interpreting from German to Greek.
That's great, thanks for that.
Do you know who any of the Cretan guests are?
Steve