I've had So Long at the Fair on an imported DVD on the shelf for a while, but put off watching it as it is one of those with bright yellow Spanish subtitles that can't be turned off. Anyway I finally watched it for the first time in more years than I care to remember.FilmFan720 wrote:Thanks to Turner Classic Movies, I caught two films this weekend I had never heard of, but that have their hidden charms:
So Long at the Fair (1950) - A neat little thriller with great performances from Jean Simmons and Dirk Bogarde. Simmons is a young woman in Paris for the first time whose brother mysteriously disappears. No one will believe her that he came, and it quickly turns into a Lady Vanishes-esque film, but contains an interesting twist at the end. Worth seeing.
Those Lips, Those Eyes (1980) - A wonderful little film about the wonders of the theatre (a personal favorite) with a fantastic leading performance by Frank Langella. Langella plays the leading man at an Ohio summer stock, with Tom Hulce as the neophyte prop boy who has his eyes opened. It is a little cliche-ridden, but the script is charming enough and the performers all wonderful.
I remembered so little of it that it was like watching it for the first time. It's a neat Hitchcockian thriller with superlative performances from the entire cast, Simmons and Bogarde, for sure, but also David Tomlinson, Honor Blackman, Felix Aylmer and especially Cathleen Nesbitt as the steely hotel-keeper.