The Fixer (1968)

"Luck I was always short of. I'm the kind of man who finds it perilous just to be alive."

It's time for the 24th installment in my Discovering Dirk Bogarde series, where I share my first impressions after watching a new-to-me Dirk Bogarde film.

In The Fixer (1968) Alan Bates stars as an innocent, apolitical Jewish handyman who finds himself charged with committing a ritual murder in turn-of-the-century Russia. The film is loosely based on a true story, and much of the movie follows Bates' character as he tries to survive the brutal Russian penal system with his dignity intact. As much as I adore Dirk, The Fixer is definitely Alan Bates' movie. Bates was so amazing in this role that I immediately checked to make sure he had been nominated for an Oscar (he was, but lost to Cliff Robertson for Charly.)  His performance here is stunning in so many ways. He handles the lighter moments at the beginning of the film with a gentle finesse, but then once his character is arrested he plunges deep into the type of acting where it seems impossible that the performer could have walked away unscarred by the performance. It's a raw, painful, deep portrayal that possesses Bates completely.

Dirk Bogarde plays Bates' Christian lawyer, one of the only decent men that Bates meets after he's been arrested. It's a supporting role -- he doesn't even appear for at least the first 30-40 minutes, and then isn't in the last 30-40 either -- but, as usual, he shines whenever he's onscreen and his sympathetic, well-meaning character is definitely a highlight of the film. There are a few scenes where the Jew and the Christian connect  -- over asthma or a shared love of the philosopher Spinoza -- and those moments are almost more painful than all of the scenes of suffering. They acknowledge the truth that we are all human and we have the same interests and ailments. Here are two men who seem to understand the thread that ties us all together, and yet they are the only two men in the whole film to see it. It brings to mind Shakespeare's verse from The Merchant of Venice:

"Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? Fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die?"

I always worry when I'm exhausting an actor's filmography that at a certain point I'll run out of the really good movies and I'll only be left with their lesser works. But with Dirk Bogarde that certainly hasn't been the case. With each new movie that I watch I find another masterpiece, proving once and again that he had impeccable taste in choosing his roles. In 1968 Dirk was still starring in movies -- Sebastian was released the same year, and he still had some six years to go before The Night Porter -- but here he chose to accept a minimal role in an exceptional film. And The Fixer was all the better for it.



This was a very serious review, but I wouldn't be me if I didn't at least mention the mustache. While his King and Country 'stache was definitely unfortunate, I'm not actually opposed to this one. I think it's actually rather becoming! So the answer to my perpetual question -- "Is that mustache really necessary?" -- is yes, I think this one is. Or at the very least, it's not unnecessary.

We Joined the Navy cameo (video clip)

Here is the scene in which Dirk appears in "We Joined the Navy!" It's only about a 2 minute long scene, and he only appears in the last 30 seconds, but it's fantastic nonetheless! I'll have screencaps coming up later today, too :)

We Joined the Navy

FANTASTIC news! I finally tracked down a copy of that elusive "We Joined the Navy" (1963)! Dirk Bogarde's cameo is very brief, only about one minute tops, but it's great and if you're as big a fan as I am, it's quite exciting! :D

I just got it in the mail this afternoon & checked to make sure it was the right movie (I've been searching fruitlessly for so long that I wasn't sure I really had it until I saw it with my own eyes!) but tomorrow I'll get some screen caps to share here!

If you're interested in getting a copy yourself, I've added it here!

This means the only remaining films I've yet to find are Upon This Rock, Blackmailed, Power Without Glory and Rope. And I'd also love to track down the "This is Your Life" episode starring Kenneth More, which Dirk made an appearance on. I'm so excited to finally have We Joined the Navy, though.. I've been searching for almost two years now, so I had almost given up hope that I'd ever find it! :)

new scans

Some new scans to share! The one above is from The Password is Courage, and the ones below are from a set of French Justine lobby cards I got last month -- mainly for the first one, but the rest are really nice too!

I'm a bit behind in adding the new scans to the photo section of the site, but hopefully I'll have that finished this week. I hope everyone had a lovely holiday season & best wishes for the new year! :)

Justine photos

Have to admit .. I haven't actually seen Justine yet! It's one of the ones I'm really looking forward to watching (co-starring Anna Karina! yay!) though. I've just been trying to save some of his films and not watch them all at once. Nevertheless, I couldn't pass on these photos when I saw them on ebay! They're fantastic!

I'll be adding them to the photograph section next week -- until then, if you'd like to download the large scan, just click on the photo and it should open in a new window :)

As Time Goes By

I made a new video tribute today... actually, I made it this month. It's taken me forever to prepare, since I had to rip all of Dirk Bogarde's movies to my hard drive. Yup, this one includes EVERY one of his movies, and in chronological order, no less! The only exceptions are Blackmailed, Upon This Rock & We Joined the Navy since they're being stubbornly elusive.

The video is set to "As Time Goes By" sung by Bryan Ferry. It starts with Dirk Bogarde's first starring role in Esther Waters (1948) and ends with his last performance in Daddy Nostalgia (1990). Here is the full list of films, in order:

Esther Waters (1948), Quartet (1948), Once a Jolly Swagman (1949), Dear Mr. Prohack (1949), Boys in Brown (1950), The Blue Lamp (1950), So long at the Fair (1950), The Woman in Question (1950), Hunted (1952), Penny Princess (1952), The Gentle Gunman (1952), Desperate Moment (1953), Appointment in London (1953), They Who Dare (1954), Doctor in the House (1954), The Sleeping Tiger (1954), For Better For Worse (1954), The Sea Shall Not Have Them (1954), Simba (1955), Doctor at Sea (1955), Cast a Dark Shadow (1955), The Spanish Gardener (1956), Ill Met By Moonlight (1957), Doctor at Large (1957), Campbell's Kingdom (1957), A Tale of Two Cities (1958), The Wind Cannot Read (1958), The Doctor's Dilemma (1958), Libel (1959), The Angel Wore Red (1960), Song Without End (1960), The Singer Not the Song (1961), Victim (1961), HMS Defiant (1962), The Password is Courage (1962), The Mind Benders (1963), I Could Go On Singing (1963), Doctor in Distress (1963), The Servant (1963), Hot Enough for June (1964), King and Country (1964), The High Bright Sun (1964), Little Moon of Alban (1964), Darling (1965), Modesty Blaise (1966), Blithe Spirit (1966), Accident (1967), Our Mother's House (1967), Sebastian (1968), The Fixer (1968), Oh! What a Lovely War (1969), Justine (1969), The Damned (1969), Death in Venice (1971), Night Flight From Moscow (1973), The Night Porter (1974), Permission to Kill (1975), Providence (1977), A Bridge Too Far (1977), Despair (1978), May We Borrow Your Husband? (1986), The Vision (1988), Daddy Nostalgia (1990)

Later this week I'm planning on screen-capping the video and captioning the photos with which film they came from, so that if a specific clip looks intriguing you'll know which movie to watch :)

new scans!

A gigantic "thank you" to my good friend Roe from the Dirk Bogarde facebook group for sending me some wonderful photos in the mail last week! First there's this fantastic photo above from the National Gallery in London. I usually prefer his younger photos but this one is just so captivating! I also love the mixed patterns: the checkered pants, striped shirt and what appears to be an insect-print tie?!

I also received this batch of amazing stills from Hot Enough for June! They really capture the feel of the movie, how it is delightfully fun and romantic, but still exceptionally suspenseful! You can see larger versions of all of these photos by clicking the thumbnails in the photo section of my website, here! Thank you Roe!! :)

TCM programming alert!

The Angel Wore Red will be playing on TCM at 12:30AM EST on November 19th. TCM's site describes the plot as follows, "A priest and a prostitute fall in love during the Spanish Civil War." It's a bit more complicated than that, and, to be honest, not my favorite Dirk Bogarde film, but definitely good and worth giving a watch! :)

Modesty Blaise (and a programming alert)

Modesty Blaise is a hilarious, random, psychedelic, awfully fun film that you do NOT want to miss when it airs on FOX Movie Channel this afternoon at 2pm EST. Dirk Bogarde is outlandishly over the top as a white-wigged villain and Modesty Blaise's arch nemesis. If you miss the whole film, here's a quick little peek at the awesomeness that is Dirk Bogarde in this movie. The genius is in the details.. subtle glances and movements.. taking on a spot-on American accent for a Patton-style speech.. the rhythm of a phrase. And pay special attention to his pronunciation of the word "torture"... it kills me.



There will be more on Modesty Blaise here in the near future... I just had to post a programming alert, but so enjoyed this film that I couldn't bring myself to mention it without going into a little more detail :) I also took about eight gazillion screen-caps from the movie (okay, more like 140, but still..) so I'll share some of those in my next post about MB as well.

New scans

I scanned and uploaded about 60 new photos tonight! You can view all of them here! My personal favorite is the one at the top of the post, a promotional photo from The Gentle Gunman.

He gazed a gazely stare

I think that like 80% of what I write on my blogs is pretty lightweight fluff, but one post that I'm pretty proud of is the review that I wrote on The Mind Benders last October. In it I said that Dirk Bogarde's performance was the best of any actor in any movie I'd ever seen. Astonishingly, I think that over the course of the last year the only performances I've observed that could have possibly surpassed this one have all been played by ... Dirk Bogarde.* I obviously think he's a feast for the eyes, but that would just make him my number one movie crush. He's my favorite actor because he is just so good at his job that it's almost incomprehensible. And even if some of his other roles have come close, I still think that this is the best example of his range, depth and skill as an actor. Please check it out if you haven't already :)

And now, here I go again... scenes from The Mind Benders set to David Bowie's The Man Who Sold the World. It might look like this week is turning into "David Bowie and Dirk Bogarde Week", but I promise, musical variety is on the horizon ;-D




*Okay, one exception. Oskar Werner. He's pretty darn good.

making love with his ego

In 1960 Dirk Bogarde played the famed composer and pianist Franz Liszt in the sweeping biopic Song Without End. The film portrays Liszt as a 19th century rock star -- at one point a woman quickly snatches up his gloves from the stage in a move that reminds one of Frank Sinatra's bobby-soxers and the Rolling Stones' groupies. And nobody could have played this massive talent with the massive ego better than Dirk Bogarde. He brings an enormous confidence and a brilliant air of arrogance to the role that few other actors could have pulled off.

I know I'm a bit goofy, but I couldn't help but think of Ziggy Stardust while watching the film... so here is my little tribute to Dirk as Liszt as Ziggy...

Lobby cards from Song Without End

A gigantic THANK YOU to Tom from Motion Picture Gems for sending me this amazing set of lobby cards from Song Without End!! (Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!!)

Scans from Song Without End

My friend, and fellow Dirk Bogarde fan, Andi sent me the most amazing surprise in the mail! A book of sheet music from the film Song Without End! The book has some fantastic photos inside, so I scanned them to share with you! Thank you Andi! :D

Blithe Spirit (1966) and Little Moon of Alban (1964)

Yesterday I had the enormous pleasure of seeing the two Dirk Bogarde Hallmark Hall of Fame productions at the Paley Center in New York! Neither show seems to be available on DVD or VHS anywhere else in the known universe (believe me, I have been looking high and low for months!) so I'd been eagerly anticipating the day that I could save up enough money to go to New York and see them.

I decided to watch Blithe Spirit first, since it was the one I was looking forward to more, and I have a hard time with the "save the best for last" theory. It's the story of a writer, Charles Condomine, whose deceased first wife comes back to haunt him after a seance with his second wife goes awry. The psychic was played by an over-the-top, hilarious, Emmy-deserving Ruth Gordon. Dirk Bogarde's character reminded me a lot of (also a writer) Nicholas Whistler, his character in Hot Enough for June. Like Whistler, Condomine seems a rather pulled together fellow until all heck breaks loose and he finds himself in the most unlikely of situations. Dirk approached this role in much the same way, with that endearing frazzled bewilderment and voice-cracking confusion.

The story was written by Noel Coward (score!) so it was dripping with wit and sarcasm. I think Coward is at his best writing dialogue for bickering couples, so it was absolutely delightful to have Coward dialogue for a husband arguing with not one, but two wives!

Clocking in at one hour and 18 minutes, Blithe Spirit was over much too quickly and I wished so badly that I had had the time to play it over again while I was at the museum. (Or take it home on DVD. Come on!!!)

My only complaint about Blithe Spirit is that it would have been even more marvelous if it had been a real movie instead of a tv-movie. To have had a real film crew with real direction and more expensive sets, it could have been an A+ production. Unfortunately, the sets had a very stage-like quality about them, and the camera movement was quite stiff. But really, considering how fabulous Dirk's performance was, how marvelous the story itself is, and how great Ruth Gordon was too, this is really a small technicality.

Next up was Little Moon of Alban. Small disclosure: I'm not a big fan of Julie Harris, and she was the main star of this program. I approached it thinking that maybe she wouldn't be as grating (to me) as she had been in Member of the Wedding, but unfortunately I found her just as annoying in this movie. And she is basically the sole star for the first forty minutes. I really didn't enjoy this one nearly as much as Blithe Spirit, but the opportunity to see a Dirk Bogarde performance that is otherwise not available anywhere else made me overlook my blase feeling towards Harris and the plot.

Little Moon of Alban is the story of an Irish girl who denounces God after her fiance is killed by the English in the Irish rebellion. Despite her obvious doubts, the next thing she does is become a Catholic nurse/nun. (She kept having to explain to people that she wasn't a REAL nun, just a nurse who had taken vows and was dressed exactly like a nun. It was kind of confusing to me, but then I'm not really familiar with Catholic traditions, so maybe it's just me?) Anyway, she becomes a nurse/nun and immediately gets assigned to a hospital for English soldiers. Ouch!

And here (FINALLY!) is where Dirk comes in. Only a few hours before the cease-fire, Dirk and his fellow soldiers are attacked and he is the lone survivor. Barely alive, lying in his hospital bed, he starts an argument with Julie Harris about war, God and belief. Their arguments continue for days as Dirk's condition worsens. Julie keeps trying to get him to believe in God, despite the fact that her own faith is kind of shaky -- something Dirk is definitely aware of. Despite their bickering (or maybe because of it.. you know how movies work) they appear to fall in love and everything comes down to an emergency operation in which even the operating surgeon thinks that there is no hope at all. Unfortunately, you can see the ending coming from a mile away. ANY movie in which a man falls in love with a nun ends with them going their separate ways. Perhaps there might be some modern films that don't work this way, but in everything I've ever seen, this is always the case. It may be sacrilegious of me, but I'm always rooting for them to get together (I'm looking at you, Audrey Hepburn and Peter Finch in A Nun's Story!). In this particular movie, it would have even made sense-- Julie Harris' character didn't actually have a calling to the church, she was basically just seeking asylum from the outside world that had killed her fiance. Discovering a new love that helps her get back into the world would have fit, and wouldn't have been devilish or anything since these nun/nurses get to renew their contracts every year instead of taking one big lifelong vow.

Anyway, Little Moon of Alban was redeemed, for me, by Dirk Bogarde's performance. It was amazing watching this one back to back with Blithe Spirit, because while the first showcased Dirk's enormous talent for comedy, Little Moon was a shining example of his outstanding work in drama. Playing a bitter, agnostic soldier facing his fear of death, Dirk's performance was moving, heartbreaking and - set against a stage-like, cardboard background - real. A fellow Dirk Bogarde fan sent me this review from when it first aired on TV, and I believe "haunting brilliance" describes his performance perfectly!

If you are ever in the New York or Los Angeles area, I highly recommend dropping by The Paley Center to check out these movies (or, if you only have time for one, Blithe Spirit). Admission was kind of tricky, though... typically a $10 general admission ticket gets you one hour in the media room, but both of my programs were almost 1.5 hours long each. You can call ahead of time and request a time extension, or you can purchase $15 research/scholar tickets, which get you as much time in the media room as you need.

I really wish that The Paley Center would start offering their database on DVD. I know they'd probably need to clear it with whoever owns the rights to each program, but it would probably be a bigger money-maker than their admission fees are. If they had offered Blithe Spirit (and, despite my general dissatisfaction with Harris and the plot, Little Moon of Alban because I am, after all, a die-hard Dirk Bogarde fan) for $80 a DVD, I probably would have coughed it up in an instant.

Case Closed : The elusive Blithe Spirit (1966)

I've been doing quite a bit of detective work recently, trying desperately to track down a copy of the 1966 TV Broadcast of Blithe Spirit. I e-mailed F. Gwynplaine MacIntyre, who wrote a review of the broadcast on imdb. He graciously e-mailed me back right away, letting me know that he had seen it at the Paley Center for Media in Los Angeles.

If you aren't familiar with the name, The Paley Center is a media museum where you can view and listen to thousands of tv and radio broadcasts that aren't available anywhere else. For the cost of a ticket you are alotted one hour of viewing time -- it's up to you if you want to watch a one hour program or multiple short features. Members get longer viewing times and usually have a shorter waiting time before getting to see or hear their programs.

I've been to their New York City location about four or five times so far (I usually choose to view my favorite episode of Jack Benny with Barbara Stanwyck guest starring as part of my alottment, since it's not available anywhere else) and you better believe I'm planning another trip. Mr. MacIntyre saw the program 10 years ago, so just to be on the safe side I searched the Paley Center collection database to make sure Blithe Spirit was there. And it is! Here's the link to their listing.

I'm planning to go see it in March (I need to save up some money for train fare & tickets, not much since I only live about 1 hour away from the city, but still..) and I'll definitely post a review when I'm finished! Unfortunately, the Paley Center is a little like Las Vegas... what happens there, stays there. None of the programs are available for purchase, and you obviously can't take pictures either. It's a shame, since after hours of exhaustive research I couldn't even find one single screen shot of a scene from Blithe Spirit on the internet.

My hope is that with sites like Hulu becoming more popular, the Paley Center will someday decide to put their database online. Even if they offer their library like Netflix Instant Watch, where you need to pay a subscription fee to see or hear their programs, it would be so wonderful for people who don't live near LA or NYC.

So, the search is over... for now. Once I see it, I'm sure I'll be even more desperate for my own personal copy :)

Sebastian (1968)

I finally (finally!) watched Sebastian last night -- I've been meaning to for well over a month and just never seemed to find the time. But it was definitely worth the wait. I don't want to give away much of the plot, since it's nice to discover what's going on yourself, but I will say that it's a suspenseful, intriguing, very entertaining film with fantastic 1960's fashions and camerawork and, as usual, an outstanding performance by Dirk Bogarde.

I've been drawing a huge blank when trying to write reviews lately, so please pardon me if that last paragraph is the extent of my review. I hope these FIFTY screenshots will make up for that ;-D

To see the rest, click here.