Girding my Loins...

... to bundle up and get outside. It's one of those brilliantly sunny but killingly cold Canadian winter days.

I started taking down the tree this morning while I watched Fritz Lang's Man Hunt (1941) on TCM. Walter Pidgeon (with his lovely American accent and his deep, well-modulated voice) is a big game-hunter and Englishman, in a battle of wits with evil George Sanders who (with his lovely English accent and deep, well-modulated voice) is a vile Nazi. Joan Bennett is very lovely to look at but has the worst English accent. Actually, on second thought, she doesn't. When Walter Pidgeon arrives back in England he is immediately witness to a procession of pearly kings and queens (because they're everywhere apparently, even at night, and - dangit - we need to know Walter is really in England), and one of them stops to speak to him and does the worst cockney accent ever. Worse than all the community theatre productions of My Fair Lady put together.

The cinematography is beautiful (by Arthur Miller, not the playwright), with one of the most stunning opening shots ever; the camera pans through a forest scene, and I found myself, fork halfway to mouth with portion of breakfast, frozen, watching it. Not an attractive view of me, but a truly powerful one on screen.

Well, this blog post will be the last of my attempts to procrastinate. I shall now bundle up like Nanook, and venture forth. If I'm not back for tea, send the huskies.