As another Lame Cherry exclusive in matter anti matter.
When I was a child, we had broadcast signals which would bend with the horizon, unlike digital signals now. We used to get skips from stations from hundreds of miles away. One Saturday, we had a movie on called Cyrano de Bergerac, which starred Jose Ferrer. I never got to watch it all, because skips only lasted for half an hour, but I was so impressed with that black and white movie that I never forgot it.
There was a recent rendition starring Kevin Kline and Jennifer Garner which was putrid, and I have longed for the Ferrer version and finally found one, among all the bad copies out there.
Jose Ferrer was a true Hollywood Star. He was overlooked as was his fine acting son, Mel, who recently died from cancer. He was a powerful presence and if you can find the old Newhart, with Bob Newhart which was him owning the inn in Vermont, you can find Mr. Ferrer starring as a billionaire in a hilarious performance, showing the range he had.
Cyrano is a perfect romantic tragedy of high chivalry, and how beauty is chosen when ugly was only the choice which would make a person happy. It is a pity that Mel Ferrer's character is not the example of American manhood today both offscreen and on.
Mel Ferrer powers this movie and without him, there would not be a movie. The rest of the cast fades away as wall flowers, as they should be and as intended, as this is about an ugly man, in love with the most beautiful woman, and the poetry of his soul and heart, is the true beauty they share and appreciate.
Cyrano is how movies were meant to be, uplifting, moving, strong characters and entertaining.
I do not and will not watch modern movies. They are like watching Mad Max on brain seizures. I prefer to choose my old series and movies and keep them to watch over and over again.
When we are blessed by God, our intention is to invest in several thousand dollars of old series like Hazel, Tour of Duty, Burn Notice etc... which are entertaining. When my brother in law was spending 70 bucks a month for 120 channels and I was sitting there not finding a thing to watch, and watching them at every holiday running that damn television as background noise as they could not stand to be with themselves, I swore I would never have digital television as there is nothing to watch on television any more.
We have our John Wayne, Jimmy Stewart, Katherine and Audrey Hepburn movie and Star Trek the original series which I got on a deal. That is television, as I have found that if I do not watch shows I honestly forget most of what is in them in 3 years.
That is what is nice about Cyrano. It is one of the finest acted, written and performed cinema of all time. No one will ever compare to Jose Ferrer, and it delights me on sites like Amazon to read reviews in so many people are swept away by this movie in adoring it from 1950.
It will require literally four to five times watching it, before your ear adjusts to the poetic grace which flows from Jose Ferrer. It is Shakespearean and people simply do not have their brains wired to listen to prose like this in this crass age of language we now suffer in.
As an additional note, TL fenced for some time, and I always ask TL how fencing scenes are performed, and in Cyrano, they keep their distance and perform quite well. Again a testimony to Jose Ferrer in the professional he was, and the stamina he had, as his scenes with swords are every bit the celebrated Errol Flynn swashbuckler of old.
One day when I am rich, I am going to produce a movie on an idea I have been pondering for far too long, based upon the directing of Mel Gibson and Sam Pekinpah....perhaps a little Japanese anime Hellsing too. It will be the best, until then there is Cyrano by Jose Ferrer.
Nuff Said
agtG
