38 The Deadly Affair

Discuss releases by Indicator and the films on them.

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NABOB OF NOWHERE
Joined: Thu Sep 01, 2005 12:30 pm
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Re: Indicator

#26 Post by NABOB OF NOWHERE » Mon Jul 10, 2017 5:06 am

Alphonse Tram wrote:Excellent extras! Turned a maybe into a must buy!
Absolutely agree, will dig deep into the pocket also for this.
Michael what area re Locations is explored?

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MichaelB
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Re: Indicator

#27 Post by MichaelB » Mon Jul 10, 2017 5:28 am

NABOB OF NOWHERE wrote:Michael what area re Locations is explored?
Central and south-west London. St James's Park and the Aldwych Theatre are the furthest east, Sunbury and Richmond the furthest west, with Barnes and Battersea being particularly important locations.

The featurette compares footage from the film with images of the locations as they look now, 51 years on - sometimes startlingly similar (St. James's Park is to all intents and purposes identical), sometimes substantially different (the whole area around the Lots Road power station has become far more gentrified - the old Balloon Tavern is still there, or rather the building still is, but it's been completely revamped and renamed and is visibly much more upmarket).

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NABOB OF NOWHERE
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Re: Indicator

#28 Post by NABOB OF NOWHERE » Mon Jul 10, 2017 5:34 am

Great. Thanks. Battersea was an old stamping ground when I was a student living in Vauxhall. That was before it became Chelsea South of course and the famous Helipad was used by Russian oligarchs having a weekend in their luxury apartments on the Thames.

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MichaelB
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Re: Indicator

#29 Post by MichaelB » Fri Aug 18, 2017 9:48 pm

Monsieur le Beev on The Deadly Affair.

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MichaelB
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Re: 38 The Deadly Affair

#30 Post by MichaelB » Wed Apr 22, 2020 5:24 am

Standard edition confirmed for 25th May - same Blu-ray disc as the limited edition (extras and all), but no DVD, booklet or reversible sleeve, and it comes in an Amaray instead of a Scanavo case.

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Dr Amicus
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Re: 38 The Deadly Affair

#31 Post by Dr Amicus » Mon Apr 27, 2020 6:44 am

I'd first seen this about 30 years ago and had read the book not long after - but all I could remember about it was that it was pretty decent and the detail about the hand kiss (which I'd remembered being near the end rather than the beginning of the film). Anyway, having rewatched it, it has definitely risen in my estimation as a really solid, professional piece of work made by a team pretty much at the top of their game, with particular emphasis on the cinematography and the acting. As pointed out in the commentary, there are several top class performances by character actors clearly relishing their parts even if fairly small - Roy Kinnear and Lynn Redgrave come close to stealing the film in their scenes (much, incidentally, as Kathy Burke does in Tinker, Tailor). Kinnear's character is particularly fascinating, in many later roles he would be wheeled on to do his cowardly blustering with little else but here it feels more like a genuine person - the scene with his daughter in particular.

I've also made my through all the extras (thanks to the dual format I watched them on the laptop whilst my family hogged the big TV). The commentary is entertaining and informative, managing to be both informal and (presumably) pretty carefully planned. I did find it amusing that Gary found Johnny Mains's Scottish accent impenetrable! The piece on Paul Dehn is also really interesting, the two shorter video pieces are slighter but also interesting - although interest in the location changes may be proportionately related to knowledge of London. The highlights are (sorry Michael!) the two NFT interviews - Lumet's is the more serious and informative, Mason's probably more entertaining and gossipy - fans of either should find much to enjoy in both. The highlight of the booklet for me was the Freddie Young extract - I'd be interested in hunting down the complete interview.

EDIT: A minor issue I had with this - when trying to listen to the James Mason talk on my laptop if I accessed it via the Special Features menu it froze my PC, but if I played the film normally and switched the audio than it worked. Anybody else find this? Only a little niggle easily worked around - still an excellent package.

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MichaelB
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Re: 38 The Deadly Affair

#32 Post by MichaelB » Mon Apr 27, 2020 6:29 pm

Dr Amicus wrote:
Mon Apr 27, 2020 6:44 am
The commentary is entertaining and informative, managing to be both informal and (presumably) pretty carefully planned.
We've recorded three commentaries together - this, Indicator's The Snorkel and Signal One's sadly still unreleased Nightmare Alley - and our working methods were pretty similar every time: we'd both individually do a ton of independent research, agreeing upfront which areas to focus on, and would then swap our notes 24 hours before the recording session. When we get together, we watch the film all the way through before recording anything so we can discuss a rough structure and earmark specific bits of the film for particular observations (some, obviously, are scene and even shot-specific, but more general stuff can go more or less anywhere, so it's good to work this out in advance), and only then do we sit down in front of microphones - Johnny's part of the room is festooned with taped-up sheets of printed A4, while I use an iPad with pre-loaded notes as a silent crib sheet. Since I edit and mix the end result myself, there's ample scope for retakes/rethinks - in fact, it's because I have complete control over the timing that it doesn't matter too much if we don't hit our marks perfectly during the recording session as that can always be adjusted later.

So it's not scripted in advance as such, but the content is very thoroughly planned.

Oh, and I entirely agree that the James Mason interview in particular is fabulous, even though he doesn't mention even in passing the film that was his most recent at the time of recording. (We assumed from the date that it would be more relevant to The Deadly Affair than Georgy Girl or Age of Consent, but in all honesty it could have ended up on any of those releases.)

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