South from Granada

From Spanish director Fernando Colomo comes this adaptation of Gerald Brenan's comedic autobiographical book Al sur de Granada. Matthew Goode stars as Brenan, a young Englishman of affluent and noble stock. Motivated by idealism and with a desire to become a great writer, Gerald moves to a small Spanish town to get away from the trappings of his upbringing. There, he befriends Paco, a local man played by Guillermo Toledo, who helps introduce Gerald to the town. Eventually, the beautiful Juliana (Verónica Sánchez) catches Gerald's eye, and he immediately falls for her. From there, it's up to Paco to familiarize Gerald with the local customs so that he can win the heart of Juliana. Consuelo Trujillo and Ángela Molina also star.

Fairly good film. Enjoyable enough.


Brenan is friends with Lytton Strachey and others from the Bloomsbury group, including Dora Carrington, with whom he is portrayed as being in love. In Yegen,a village in the Spanish countryside below Granada, he settles down to clear his head so he can write. However, events and people conspire to otherwise occupy him. In the drama which includes inter-class sex and a Catholic priest who can not help but be in love with a local woman, Brenan falls in love with Julianna, a local woman whom some suspect of being a witch. She is young, and falls in love, eventually, with Brenan. She also tells him she wnats to bear his baby, and is not interested in marriage.

The prime of Miss Jean Brodie

Bravo Dame Maggie. Do not believe that I had seen the film before, and I am glad to have seen it now.


1968. 1969. A tour de force performance which deservedly won an Oscar and launched a career. A surprise is that Pamela Franklin, who also turned in a stirring performance, did not have a successful career; her wikibio has it that she became typecast in horror films.

Jewish pirates of the Caribbean

Kritzler, E., (2008). Jewish Pirates of the Caribbean. Oxford Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press.

In a story in today's Wall Street Journal about Jamaica's Jews and their history, this book is mentioned. The author contends that Iberian Jews escaping the Inquisition landed in the Caribbean, and some became pirates.

World Safe for Capitalism

The topic of books on the Dominican Republic arose last night; there are very few in the County. Peninsula owns two, from 1968 and 1970. There are nine all told in the County, which is pitiful. One is from 1928, written by Sumner Welles. (Look at his Wiki page; there is video from 1933). The books go to 1972, and then there is a jump to a book from 2002, A world safe for capitalism : dollar diplomacy and America's rise to global power. Reviews of that book mention the San Domingo Improvement Company. Googling that gave this as the first result: San Domingo Improvement Company Claims (Dominican Republic, United ... a pdf from the UN entitled REPORTS OF INTERNATIONAL ARBITRAL AWARDS. Why the UN? It's dated14 July 1904. Curious.

Interest piqued, I looked some more; the fourth link is for Ulises Heureau, president of the DR thrice in the 1880s. Fascinating reading. Mentioned is made of the Ten Years' War, one of three wars for Cuban independence.


Book sources Wikipedia page

The man who never was

Quite good. 1955. It worked quite well. Of course, there is a website for the operation itself.

Clifton Webb plays the role of Ewen Montagu, the British operative that masterminds the deception of the Germans, an operation to make them think that Sicily will not be the main objective of the Allied invasion of Europe in 1943. A body is sent as an emissary, his pockets filled with the every-day objects that any man would have; an attached briefcase contains documents that make it seem that Greece will be the main objective of the Allied invasion.

I became aware of the story in reading David Ignatius's Body of Lies. I have the book, written by Ewen Montagu, who was portrayed by Clifton Webb in the film.

Webb was born in Indiana, yet his English accent was quite good. His career was rather interesting: he did not make many films, yet had a handful of very good roles, including this one, Laura and Razor's Edge (nominated for awards for the latter two).

Gloria Grahame plays the role of a woman looking for romance, an American who every so often has something approaching an accent I judged to have been English. She shares a flat with Pam, who is secretary to Lt. Cmdr. Ewen Montagu. When the plan is underway, implementing it requires credible details and items. One is judged to be a love letter from the dead man's sweetheart. Lucy (who refers to herself early in the film as a librarian) is falling in love with a pilot. Pam is assigned the task of writing a love letter, but has trouble with it (being somewhat sexless herself, she remarks to Lucy, after warning her not to fall in love with a pilot, that if she were to fall in love, she would allow it to happen during the war, to avoid pain and to save her full effort and strength for the war effort). Pining for her pilot lover, Lucy dictates a letter full of longing, pathos, unfulfilled love, fear, and passion.

The body is released from a submarine, wearing a Mae West (also called so in the book), his briefcase attached to a chain that wraps around his waist and down and out of his sleeve. It is found by Spanish in Huelva. That is described  in the book: Huelva is far enough away from Gibraltar that it is trusted the body will not be delivered to the British there. It is also known by the British that there is a German operative in the Huelva region who is likely to get documents from the washed-up British man.

The Germans (called Jerry by the British officers) are impressed, but need confirmation that the dead man (Michael Martin) was really whom he seemed to be. An operative is dispatched to ascertain the truth; he is played by Stephen Boyd. He lets a room in a boarding house, using an Irish brogue to charm the landlady. Once inside, he sets up his telegraph machine, communicates with his people, and sets out to find proof.

He goes to a tailor shop and inquires about his "friend" having bought shirts there. That is inconclusive. He winds up in the flat of the two women, and waits. Pam comes home, and he speaks with her, not knowing her role or job. Eventually Lucy shows up, after having received a phone call from her Joe's pilot mate, telling her of his demise.

In the flat Patrick O'Reilly asks questions, including some about Michael Martin. In her grief Lucy speaks of the pain of romance and of loss, and O'Reilly is convinced that Michael martin was a real man. Before leaving he gives the women his address. He goes back to his flat and telegraphs his contacts including saying that if they do not hear back from him in an hour then they can assume that Michael Martin wasn't real.

The Brits go after O'Reilly, but before actually arresting him Montagu calls the commander and reasons with him: O'Reilly wants to be arrested, so let us not do so. When they do not arrest him, O'Reilly telegraphs his contacts that martin was real.

Vantage point

Vantage point


Interesting idea. US television (GNN, a fictional network) is carrying the US president (played aloofly by William Hurt, who sort of looks presidential) appearance in a plaza in Salamanca, Spain, at a summit of Western and Arab nations. As he is introduced and starts to speak, he is shot, twice. He is rushed off in an ambulance. Moments later a bomb explodes. A few more moments later a Secret Service agents bursts into the television truck and demands to see its tapes, and spots suspicious activity.

The film backs up to seconds before 12, and tells the same story from a different person's perspective 7 other times.

At first, the movie is gripping, the story well told. An interesting idea: how do different people see the same sequence of events? However, by the fourth or fifth, the cumulative effect becomes tiresome rather than illuminating.

After the teevee's perspective come others: Dennis Quaid's Secret Service agent, Thomas Barnes, just-returned to the job after a medical leave (having taken two bullets in protection of the president some unspecified time back); Forest Whitaker's tourist with a hand-held camera, who catches action and befriends a little girl who bumps into him and loses her ice cream; the President, who actually than actually having been shot is ensconced in a hotel room, his double having taken the bullets; one of the terrorists; and so on.

A big car chase scene follows Barnes spotting one of his fellow agents in a Spanish police uniform (he calls Washington on his cellphone, and describes the "rogue agent"). Meantime, one of the bad guys has infiltrated the hotel where the President is staying, and works his way up to POTUS's floor. A co-conspirator detonates a vest-bomb to create a diversion, and that first bad guy guns down all remaining agents, both outside and inside POTUS's room. POTUS is kidnapped, there is much shooting, more car chasing, and in the end the good guys win.

As far-fetched as it might seem, events of the last eight years have shown that wild schemes are planned, and can be executed. Technology is featured in a way that is intriguing: cellphones to call around the world; smart phones used to remotely shoot the president and detonate bombs. Alas, technology could not rescue this film. The Times review didn't mince words.

A recommended Mexican history

Conquest: Montezuma, Cortés, and the fall of Old Mexico. (1994). Thomas, Hugh. New York : Simon & Schuster.

Recommended by a patron.

2 filmsBrazil, Film, Latin America, Music, Musicians, Puerto Rico, Salsa, Spain

Calle 54, and El Cantante

Be careful what films you choose

This weekend I have seen three wonderful films. Alas, they are from Chile and Spain, and there is little escapism in any of them. What is it about Spanish and Latin American nations that needs to be tragic?

In the last two weeks I've read a good deal of a book that deals with just that: Forgotten Continent - the battle for Latin America's soul, by Michael Reid. The history and the heritage of Latin America includes much tragedy; it really matters little, in one sense, what the cause is: tragedy is simply a part of the history of Latin America.

These three films testify to, and demonstrate that. El Viaje de Carol (2002) is a story about a Spanish mother and daughter returning -- from New York -- to the mother's native village, somewhere in Spain, in 1938. The Spanish Civil War in nearing its end; Madrid is under siege, and may fall at any moment. Ay, Carmela (1990) takes place during the Spanish Civil War also. The protagonists are entertainers, Republican sympathizers, who happen to be fall into the hands of Fascists. Machuca (2004) takes place in pre-1973-coup Santiago de Chile.

There are deaths, tragedy, sadness. Next time, I wanna choose upbeat cinema.