Tonight on TCM at 10 PM
I'm enjoying.
I just sat down only to tune into the last 10 minutes. :-(
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The ending was a great comment.
It meant that all the talk about Jesus in the world is BS because if a person really got people to follow his words everyone would want them shot into space.
Agreed. The ending WAS a great summary comment. Vicar Smallwood's form of charity was for the birds. Or the planets. But not for earthlings. Plus I like how the opening segment (of someone being tied up with another one taking his place) was eseentially mirrored in reverse for the closing segment (see the movie to understand).
I liked the movie because it echos what I've long thought is the problem with the act of generous charity: people will either selfishly exploit it and ruin the essential good nature of it, or, the charity will commence to step on so many toes of the established order that it will inevitably do more harm than good. I guess it's the law of unintended consequences at work.
Charity: good. Too much charity: bad.
“When the river runs dry you’ll see there was an awful lot of muck underneath.”
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Great comment, thanks - I hadn't linked the tyings-up book-ending the film. I was irritated by the ending, but bringing that aspect into it, does change the way I'm thinking about it now.
shareHmmmm......
Seems to me that Smallwood VOLUNTARILY went into space --- he was not forced to go into space by anyone ! ('Though, it was unclear as to why he chose to do so --- either out of compassion for the reluctant astronaut, or else because he felt he had been such a failure at "everything he had tried," or possibly for both reasons.)
"A bride without a head !"
"A wolf without a foot !"
odd to see a Peter Sellers movie with so few fans.
shareTrue, but a number of his early films have been out of circulation for a long while. I think older folks would have remembered them, but I had only been familiar with his post-Pink Panther successes (1960s - 1970s) that I saw when I was a child. How did you come across his early films ?
I was fortunate to find a number of his pre-PP movies at my local library ("Peter Sellers Collection," released by Lion's Gate / Starz / Anchor Bay on DVD in 2003).
I think that many of them could stand to be re-made, but I can't think of anyone today who could capably fill the Shoes of Sellers !
"A bride without a head !"
"A wolf without a foot !"