Having been musing on Handley's death - who so richly deserved a knighthood, I spotted the following extract from today's Guardian on Ken Russell:
If the UK Film Council don't want to fund his work, they should at least put him forward for a knighthood. If they don't, I've a good mind to wheel a barrow of Ken Russell films to their offices and, like Gaudier, hurl the cans one by one through the plate glass windows. Cans that bear the names Women in Love, Elgar, Song of Summer, The Music Lovers, The Devils, Savage Messiah, Mahler, Lisztomania, Tommy, Altered States, Crimes of Passion, Salome's Last Dance - the work of one of the greatest British directors of all time.
In Russell's case there's still time - not sure whether he likes dubbing though(!). I'm ashamed to say I didn't know (or have forgotten) he'd done a film of Bartok and I don't think I've ever seen the Delius - I remember it getting its original broadcast.
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I only remember flashes from the Bartok now (it *was* rather a long time ago!). The actor who played Bartok was, if I recall correctly, the same one who impersonated Kurt Waldheim on Dame Edna... Images that still stick with me are:
- shots of him descending on one the wooden escalators in the Underground (the ones where the lighting was done indirectly via pillar uplighters)
- archive footage of a manually operated ferris wheel
- the opening of the fifth door in Bluebeard's castle, illustrated by shots of a blast furnace by Russell.
Delius was played by Max Adrian at his cantankerous best. I wish this stuff was still available...
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