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Sad that hes gone. Unbelievable that he was 88. Had no idea he had reached that age. Good, solid english actor. Liked him in those 70s Les Mis and Man in the iron mask tv movies, also aware of him in March or Die.
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Posted: |
Jun 19, 2020 - 6:09 PM
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By: |
Bob DiMucci
(Member)
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During the next decade, Holm’s film appearances were centered mainly around British television, including filmizations of Shakespeare’s A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM, in which he played “Puck,” and Chekov’s THE CHERRY ORCHARD. His next feature film was 1968's THE BOFORS GUN, an adaptation by John McGrath of his TV play “Events While Guarding the Bofors Gun.”
David Warner plays “Terry ‘Lance Bar’ Evans,” a mild-mannered young British officer guarding a naval gun station in the North Atlantic, in peacetime after World War II. It's a cold, remote, unpleasant duty, and he's desperate to transfer out of there. But he reports to an unsympathetic superior who doesn't like him and will do anything to delay his paperwork - effectively denying the transfer. He only needs to get through one more night of guard duty without mishap, which should be easy because there is absolutely nothing going on. But he has trouble relating to the men under his command, especially “O’Rourke” (Nicol Williamson), a borderline psychotic from the slums who constantly tests Warner's authority and creates havoc wherever he goes. O’Rourke deserts his post, gets drunk with his buddy “Flynn” (Ian Holm), vandalizes the base, and just gets crazier and more dangerous as the night unfolds.
Jack Gold directed, and Carl Davis provided the unreleased score, in his feature film scoring debut. Ian Holm won a BAFTA Award as Best Supporting Actor for his performance in THE BOFORS GUN.
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Posted: |
Jun 19, 2020 - 9:34 PM
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By: |
Bob DiMucci
(Member)
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John Frankenheimer's THE FIXER told the story of "Yakov Bok" (Alan Bates) an impoverished Jewish handyman in Czarist Russia, who is wrongly imprisoned for a most unlikely crime. Ian Holm co-starred as “Grubeshov,” an investigator who considers Jews to be inhuman criminals. Dalton Trumbo's screenplay for the film was based on the 1966 novel by Bernard Malamud.
Alan Bates, Ian Holm, and David Warner in THE FIXER
The film was made in Hungary, then a Communist satellite country. The cast and crew were obliged to work six days a week under considerable pressure, and Frankenheimer was very unpopular. Co-star Dirk Bogarde always referred to him thereafter as "Frankenstein", while Ian Holm reported in his memoirs of nearly forty years later that the director had had, during filming, a very obvious extra-marital affair with the daughter of screenwriter Trumbo, even though his wife, Evans Evans, was in attendance.
Silva Screen and Tadlow have recorded a 7-minute suite from Maurice Jarre's score. It was Jarre's third score for a Frankenheimer film, after THE TRAIN (1964) and GRAND PRIX (1966). They would work together one more time, on the 1969 flop THE EXTRAORDINARY SEAMAN.
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Posted: |
Jun 19, 2020 - 11:20 PM
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By: |
Bob DiMucci
(Member)
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Based on a stage musical, and filmed at the height of the Vietnam conflict, OH! WHAT A LOVELY WAR was a strange, one-of-a-kind musical film, with impressively staged music hall songs. The original Broadway production of "Oh! What a Lovely War" opened at the Broadhurst Theater in New York City on September 30, 1964, ran for 125 performances, and was nominated for the 1965 Tony Award for the Best Musical.
In the film, following the assassination of the Archduke of Serbia, a tangle of aristocratic alliances fumbles its way through deceit and diplomatic ineptitude to throw all of Europe into conflict. In England, a rousing patriotic campaign assures widespread enlistment and optimism for a quick victory over the Huns. All the conscription-age males in the Smith family are swept up in the glory, which sours into a nightmare once they reach the killing trenches in France. An aloof and incompetent aristocratic military pointlessly throws thousands of men before machine guns on a daily basis -- for weeks, months and years.
The Smith family (played by Wendy Alnutt, Colin Farrell, Malcolm McFee, John Rae, Corin Redgrave, Maurice Roëves, Paul Shelley, Kim Smith, Angela Thorne and Mary Wimbush) form the recurring backbone of the story. The film also boasts a starry set of cameos by more familiar names, including Laurence Olivier, John Gielgud, Ralph Richardson, Maggie Smith, Dirk Bogarde, Kenneth More, Ian Holm, and Vanessa Redgrave. Holm plays “President Raymond Poincaré” in the film.
Ian Holm (back row, center) in OH! WHAT A LOVELY WAR
Richard Attenborough got the financial backing for the movie after singing and dancing though the score for Paramount Pictures' boss Charlie Bluhdorn, who handed him a check for six million dollars, on the proviso he got six international stars for the movie. Attenborough did better, he got thirteen, most of whom worked for the minimum daily rate. The film only earned $3 million at the box office in the States. Paramount Records released an LP of the film’s songs, arranged by Alfred Ralston., but it has not been re-issued on CD
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Posted: |
Jun 20, 2020 - 2:10 PM
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By: |
Bob DiMucci
(Member)
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In the comedy A SEVERED HEAD, “Antonia” (Lee Remick), the pampered wife of “Martin Lynch-Gibbon” (Ian Holm), an upper class wine merchant, tells her husband that she is in love with their best friend, the psychiatrist “Palmer Anderson” (Richard Attenborough). Palmer and Antonia want to deal with the situation in a civilized way, by remaining friends with Martin. Meanwhile Martin tries to keep his mistress, “Georgie Hands” (Jennie Linden), a secret, but Palmer's sister, “Honor Klein” (Claire Bloom), who taught Georgie at Oxford, tells Palmer and Antonia about her. Furthermore, Honor introduces Georgie to Martin's womanizing brother, “Alexander” (Clive Revill). And the roundelay begins.
Ian Holm in A SEVERED HEAD
Frederic Raphael wrote the screenplay for this film in 1967, two years before it was made, and was paid a fee of $210,000. This made him the highest-paid screenwriter in British movies. His fee was so large that the budget could not afford anything like as much for a director. Michael Winner was considered, but his then-standard fee of $75,000 was too large for the producers to be able to afford him. Dick Clement ended up directing the 1971 release. Stanley Myers’ score has not had a release. The film sat on the shelf for nearly two years after it was completed and was barely shown outside of New York.
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