Dorothy Tutin

Synopsis:
The Music Lovers. Mahler. Valentino. In these and other films, Ken Russell explores the lives of artists and in turn finds inspiration for his own considerable cinematic creativity. Savage Messiah belongs to that Russell oeuvre and it draws from the filmmaker a work often studied in its pace yet exhilarating in its impact. It is the story of the short, influential career of pre-World War I French sculptor Henri Gaudier and of his intimate yet platonic friendship with a Polish émigré 20 years his senior. Scott Antony and Dorothy Tutin, perhaps better known to theater aficionados, play the two leads. Movie fans will readily identify the third-billed player: Helen Mirren in a memorable early-career role as a flamboyant, uninhibited suffragette.Read More »

An enjoyably whimsical short with British sex farce overtones, directed by Gerry O’Hara and starring Tom Bell, who plays a British spy (named, perhaps a little unimaginatively, Tom) who nips off on a mission to Prague, leaving his wife Hilda (Dorothy Tutin) to carry on her secret affair with his Czech counterpart (the inimitable Vladek Sheybal). Their tryst is repeatedly disrupted, however, first by Tom’s parting suggestion that their flat is bugged, then by a pair of unexpected visitors, but unbeknown to her, Tom has his own mysterious rendezvous to keep. Insubstantial perhaps, but well made and rather fun, particularly in its refusal to reveal the full extent of just what’s going on until the final scene.Read More »

Quote:
At last, the British film classic The Shooting Party receives the digital restoration that does justice to its sweeping vistas and heartbreaking snapshots of an era in its death throes. Set in 1913 England, on the brink of what would be the war to end all wars, the film focuses on an assortment of upper-crust acquaintances who gather for a weekend of hunting and society niceties (billiards, cards, draping oneself in jewels the evening after stomping around all day in the muck). Presiding over the festivities is a masterful James Mason as Sir Randolph Nettleby, a sort of benevolent dictator of his breathtaking estate, as his family and friends dip in and out of the action, adhering to the strict code of class conduct for all of their affairs–sport, self-advancement, illicit love.Read More »