Top 10 favorite photos!

There's been this thing going around on tumblr where you pick your top ten favorite photos of one particular star. I already posted these on my Dirk Bogarde tumblr, but they're so wonderful I thought I'd share them here too! So, without further ado, my picks for the top ten Dirk Bogarde photos:

oh-so-British

me + boredom + access to Photoshop + a new Dirk Bogarde blog = this

Hot Enough for June (1964)

As you might recall, a little over a month ago I received a gigantic order of Dirk Bogarde DVDs. Before they actually arrived in the mail, I was planning on having a Dirk Bogarde spree and watching them all at once. But when they came I chickened out. I realized that there are only so many DB movies available, and I really should ration them.

The one that I kept eyeing, putting in my dvd player and taking back out again-- trying to put off until the last minute because it looked SO good that I wanted to save it as long as I could-- was Hot Enough for June.

Hot Enough for June is a James Bond spoof from 1964. It begins with an agent turning in the shoes, passport and belongings of another agent who was killed in the line of duty. Right away we find out that the agent was James Bond.



Instead of recruiting a professional spy to take 007's place, the British government decides to pluck someone from the ranks of the unemployed. Enter unemployed (and unpublished) writer Nicholas Whistler, played by Dirk Bogarde.

Whistler enjoys the life of the unemployed writer, and does everything he can NOT to get the job offered to him at the unemployment office. He shows up for his appointment late, puts his feet up on the desk of his potential employer, jokes about getting out of army service and confesses that he had no real formal education. Despite all of his efforts, Whistler is hired. As far as he knows, he's some kind of executive at a glass manufacturing company. Little does he know that he's about to go on a top-secret Government assignment behind the iron curtain (or "the thing" as he hilariously refers to it in the film.)

While Hot Enough for June is a spoof of a James Bond film-- with the espionage, bikini-clad love interest and cold war theme, it also had elements of Hitchcock films like North by Northwest, with the innocent bloke getting mixed up in a huge conspiracy.

Typically, spoofs can be either really good or really, really bad. If the laughs are played up too much, it stops being a spoof and just becomes farcical nonsense. But Hot Enough for June struck the perfect balance between a real plot, with real suspense and real intrigue - and the comedic flourishes that made it such a fun film.

Dirk Bogarde was perfect playing Nicholas Whistler -- he was at once clever in getting himself out of all the sticky spy situations and yet rather bumbling and confused about what was going on around him. A few of the hilarious moments come when he is trying to find out who his contact is in Prague. His code phrase is "Hot enough for June", to which his contact should answer "but you should have been here last September." He approaches a few people before finally finding the right man, and his attempts at finding a way to work that phrase into the conversation are laugh-out-loud funny.

The plot also makes use of the suspense-film cliche where a man on the run has to keep changing his clothes to stay a step ahead of the police. Stealing a jacket, or changing hats with someone in a bar so that his appearance won't match the description on the Wanted signs. Dirk Bogarde goes through seven different outfits during his time on the lamb, a few of which are absolutely hilarious to see.

The supporting cast was no less fantastic-- Robert Morley plays the employer, a slightly inept, amusing, and easily amused man who connives DB into accepting the job. Sylvia Koscina is a really charming actress, and I'm sure makes the film a delight for male fans to watch. (Sorry you guys but 99% of my screen shots were of DB. I did include three of Sylvia for you, though!)

After finishing the film last night at 5am (!!) I put it on again to listen to as I dozed off to sleep. When I woke up in the morning, I started it over again and laid in bed watching the whole film before eating my breakfast. I could easily watch it again tonight, but I won't... I'm going to give the Dirk Bogarde films a rest for a few days.

Rationing time again.

In the end, I'm glad that I waited to watch the film. I had very high hopes for it, and it thouroughly exceeded all expectations -- it's definitely my #2 favorite DB film (The #1 spot will, I'm sure, always belong to The Mind Benders)

I took over 30 screen shots from the film.
You can view them in my flickr set here.

Dirk Bogarde Darling pic spam

I re-watched Darling recently and realized that when I wrote my post about a month ago I hadn't included any screen shots from the film. Tsk tsk! Well, I rectified that today, taking some of my favorite shots of Dirk Bogarde! Here ya go...

(This one is my favorite)
(And Lolita has to include this in her next
smoking men blog post!!)

(This one is my second favorite)

A 22 year old turns into a 1958 teeny bopper...

When I'm at the grocery store, I always look laughingly at the teeny bopper magazines on the newsstands. I wouldn't buy one of those if it was the last thing on earth to look at. I cringe at the thought of thumbing through People magazine, or keeping up with the current celebrity gossip...

HOWEVER...

Give me a 1958 copy of a teeny bopper magazine and I turn into just as much of a drooling fan-girl as a modern teenager does with a brand spanking new copy of OK! (Which, I guess, is kind of sad because I'm a few years removed from being a teen now...)

Anyway.. I'm sure by now you've become acquainted with my new obsession with Dirk Bogarde. On my quest to find his DVDs, I came across a 1958 copy of "All About Dirk Bogarde" on ebay. It's a tiny little fan magazine (obviously made for his swooning bobby-soxer fans) published at the height of his matinee idol days. Seeing as how this is not available on amazon, or anywhere else on ebay, how on earth could I pass it up for only 8 pounds?! (Yup, I bought it from England!)

It finally arrived today and I just couldn't contain my excitement. I scanned almost every single image in the magazine! Here are a few of my favorites:

(You can view the rest -- all 39 of them -- in my flickr account)

I had an art show in New York this weekend (a grueling show, for which I had to get up at 4am for three consecutive days) so I decided to take a little mini-vacation this week. I can't afford to go anywhere, so I'm going to stay in and watch a bunch of movies! I have almost ten Dirk Bogarde films to see now (thanks to Netflix, YouTube, Amazon and Casey!) plus I have what seems like a million recorded DVDs that I haven't finalized since Feburary, which I really have to catch up on!

I know you're all probably sick of this by now, but I'll probably write about the Dirk Bogarde films I watch... I haven't really gotten myself hooked on any one actor since Dana Andrews about three years ago. Speaking of Dana Andrews (who for the time being will belong solely to Millie. Your welcome.) two of his films are on TCM in the next week or so, and both of them are films I've never seen! Very exciting!!

Okay well sorry about this super-blabbering post but, like I said, I got up at 4am for three days in a row and I'm still not really lucid. Better go get some grapefruit juice...