Monday, April 28, 2014

Good Morning, Georgy Girl

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You maybe saw that I watched Georgy Girl for the first time this weekend - I confessed my literal explosion of affection for Alan Bates in the movie once and once more over at our Tumblr. It cannot be understated - his character of Jos Jones shimmied his ingratiatingly irritating way with full force into the pantheon of my biggest movie crushes with much haste. Despite what would be minuses in lesser hands - he's kind of a Manic Pixie Dream Boy, and those kind of characters have kind of worn out their welcome - Alan Bates makes all the Peter Pan quirks and blase cruelty of his character work, and work, and work some more. I could totally understand somebody hating his guts, but I would probably be helpless in his wake.

That "probably" has no place here. I would, I would, I would gleefully. I mean his way of winning arguments is to threaten public nudity! And yet Lynn Redgrave kept letting him win instead of fighting, fighting, fighting him down to his nethers. Way to lose my vote, Lynn Redgrave.

Anyway even besides Alan Bates I loved Georgy Girl from top to bottom. I'd put it on to kill time until I started another movie, and that other movie was tossed by the wayside once I was sucked into Georgy which took all of ten minutes. It's a great little flick with a performance from Lynn Redgrave that shouldn't be missed - it felt like a piece of the puzzle of all-time movie actressing got put into place, watching her - suddenly moments in things ranging from Looking For Mr. Goodbar to Muriel's Wedding revealed their debt to what Lynn was doing here. OK back to Alan Bates! Hit the jump for a few more pictures of him in this film and others... dreamboat!





Oh and here's a behind (emphasis upon behind) the scenes shot from the wrestling scene between him and Oliver Reed in Women in Love that I've never seen before, because obviously...


3 comments:

joel65913 said...

Alan Bates was so swoony!! And he could act too, not just well but brilliantly.

Love everything and everyone in Georgy Girl. Lynn, Alan, James Mason and the divine Charlotte Rampling. Even the title tune is great although it can seriously get stuck in your head.

Thanks for the pics of the very fine Mr. Bates.

Brad said...

Back off, he's mine.

Dave said...

LOVE "Georgy Girl". I always remember the first time I realized that the chirpy theme song was actually ironic in context but carried basically none of that along when it hit AM radio.