Thank Heaven... for Minelli, Lerner, Lowe, Beaton, Caron, Jourdan, Chevalier, etc.

"One has to be as rich as you are, Gaston, to be bored at Monte Carlo."

Hermione Gingold as Madame Alvarez in Gigi (1958).

In real life Gingold was a wonderful story teller and was quoted, when comparing Laurence Olivier's Richard III with Donald Wolfit's: "Olivier is a tour-de-force, and Wolfit is forced to tour".

I'd forgotten how much I loved Gigi and it was on TCM this afternoon, so I caught bits of it. I don't think I'd appreciated what a very beautiful film it is. The colours, the lighting, the allusion to great artists of the period, the wonderful actors, Cecil Beaton's designs, and of course Lerner, Lowe and Minelli. GULP. What a pedigree! It's so good to hear the authentic French accents of the two leads (and Chevalier) and Leslie Caron is convincing both as a young girl and a young woman. I always thought Gigi's final dress was inspired by Sargent's Lady X, but now, looking at Sargent's painting beside Cecil Beaton's portrait of Leslie Caron, I realize it was the pose that did it for me. They complement each other well.

Apparently, when Sargent first showed the painting at the Paris Salon in 1884, one of her straps was shown as having slipped off her shoulder. That, her saucily turned wrist and the strangely lilac-hue of her skin, all screamed decadence and it was a deeply scandalous business. He ended up removing it from exhibition. He changed the shoulder strap and later sold it the Metropolitan Museum.

The Guinness-flavoured Marmite has been opened and tested. Very interesting: three of us tasted it, and we had different responses: one thought it was saltier, one thought it was tangier, and I thought it was sweeter, than the original Marmite. It isn't that Guinness has been used in the Marmite, but that the yeast extract in the Marmite has been enhanced by Guinness yeast extract. Either way I like it a LOT - thanks Dr. M. for my Christmas pressie!

Last week we watched a movie called The Seagull's Laughter (2001), Mávahlátur in the original Icelandic. It's set in 1950s Iceland. A woman returns home to Iceland, her American husband having died. She returns more glamorous and slimmer than when she left, and soon has a potent impact on her small community. Most of this is seen through the eyes of her half-worshipping, half-resentful young niece. It gets my thumbs up!