Thanks to everyone who has shared their reviews of the day. In particular thanks to Anita for digging out articles from old journals, and to Tony for the photos.
As I mentioned briefly in an earlier post, I (and I think the whole audience) found the film hugely enjoyable and compelling.
What I can’t put my finger on is
why I found it so enjoyable. In introducing the film, Norman Wright was perhaps too honest in commenting that the book wasn’t one of Enid’s most exciting. At which point the NFT guy next to him dropped a huge stage whisper and Norman attempted to redress the comments he had just made.
As Kate Mary said there were quite a few unintentional hilarious moments. The first of which was when, as Anita has reported, the Five turned up at the beginning of the film to have tea at the cottage with Mrs Layman, only to be told they would be staying there for a few days! This was immediately accepted without question and Mrs Layman left.
This odd moment was at least redressed a little later when it was agreed that some of them should go back to Kirrin to get some clothes etc!
As regards casting, Julian wasn’t that great in my opinion, and played a minor role (he possibly said less than any of the other children). Dick certainly sounded a bit cockney, a bit as if he had just walked out of Oliver Twist. I exaggerate a little. But apart from the scenes about the well, throughout the film he talked about little else than food (food, glorious food). At one point he stuck four currant buns up his jumper (another incident which raised a laugh from the audience), and then, when they were marooned on Whispering Island miraculously retrieved them from under his jumper. He was also easily the smallest of the children. George was too old and the least boy-ish George I’ve seen. I wonder what Enid thought when she met her?
Anne played a major role, as indeed she does in the book. I wonder how familiar the writer of the screenplay was with the Famous Five series, given Julian’s rather subdued role and the part that Anne played. If he had simply read the book then it is perhaps more understandable to explain the weighting given to the characters. However the script, amendments and all was certainly in the spirit of Enid so presumably he had done his research. As Anita commented, I thought the script was better than the book, so one might assume he was familiar with Enid’s writing. Perhaps even Enid herself would have written something not too dissimilar if she had not been ill?
Like George, the actress playing Anne was a bit too well developed physically for someone of Anne’s age. Early on in the film it seemed to me her jumper could not have been much tighter, and her shorts could not possibly have been any shorter (very 60’s/twiggy like). She did have a young face reminiscent of Anne and was quite sweet but….
As George@Kirrin mentioned the water throwing incident was very amusing “Well you did ask for it/I never thought you’d give it to me”. What was especially funny was that Anne immediately mopped up the mess afterwards.
Like Lucky Star I thought it very amusing the way poor Anne was sent out in the wind/down the tunnel while the rest of them sat there and awaited her return with wood to keep them warm. But good point LS, maybe it was a plot device. One of the other moments that raised a laugh around the auditorium was when, as Anita has mentioned, Anne and George were told by Sir Hugh to make some cocoa for everyone. Sexism well and truly alive in 1964!
Two or three scenes were, for me, quite hilarious because they were very reminiscent of the spoof “Five go mad in Dorset”. I can’t remember them all, but for example when Mrs Layman’s maid looks out of the window and talks about Whispering Island, it was so like Robbie Coltrane in the ice cream shop talking about “strange goings on....signs…threats”. Similarly the dumber of the two villains reminded me of one of the villiains in Five go mad “those kids have outsmarted us good and proper”.
The only consolation I can offer Moonraker is that the script was quite different from the book (much more so than Five on a Treasure Island), so I’m not sure whether you would have overcome this and enjoyed the film.
Ming, yes I agree one of the statues does look like a Hindu god. When the Five first come across the statues in the garden, for me the images were quite obscure. If I hadn’t already known about the statues from the book, I’m not sure that I would have immediately understood what the children were talking about.
Overall a hugely enjoyable film. The whole audience, whether old or new, seemed quite enthralled by it all. There was no fidgeting or indication of children being unsettled through the whole showing. For example there were some abrupt endings of episodes (which we had been warned about) and there was the repetitive CFF opening shots (Trafalgar square with bells ringing and pigeons taking to flight, which I really enjoyed from Five on a Treasure Island as well).
As with the Enid Blyton days, a huge contribution to the whole experience was meeting and chatting with forumites. At one point after the film when I went in search of George@Kirrin, I received a text message from her “seem to have lost you…are you down a well?"
Despite the miserable weather we then went on to have a hugely enjoyable ‘Wonderful time’ in a nearby riverside café. Thanks to all.
