As another Lame Cherry exclusive in matter anti matter.
I simply do not know what the hell it is about my tastes, but programs I like are cancelled and I can never find the versions of things I like.
Like Johnny Quest is censored now to shit.
Like Tour of Duty in American version has no rock n roll.
Like A Christmas Carol of the Australian production anime is no longer available.
Certain things in cinema move me and stick with me. One such event which so moved me as a youngster was a Masterpiece Theater production for American PBS which was about Sir Francis Drake's voyage around the world for Queen Elizabeth I.
This production was thee most riveting of anything ever produced as great as those movies which critics rave about in the Dirty Dozen or Gone with the Wind.
It took some time for me to track this movie down, and when I did, I almost fell out of my chair, not from disappointment, but from who starred in it. The star was a bearded brute who so mesmerized me in the beauty and the beast of Sir Francis Drake. That is what stuck with me as this being one of my all time favorites as I always love swashbuckling movies and tall ships. It was when I saw who the actor was I understood why I so loved the role, because the actor was the legendary John Thaw. For those who do not recognize the name, John Thaw was Inspector Morse of Mystery for twenty years as one of the most tortured and moth to flame souls ever put on screen.
John Thaw moved slow as did his entire series, but he drew emotions from you while watching him. He did not need special effects or gimmicks of blood splatter. He was the star and he performed as well as any Olivier.
That is what saddens me is, in Drake, he put in a performance as spectacular as any and it was only shown twice on television, once in England and once in America, and it has simply disappeared. I simply can not fathom how something this wonderful has not been placed onto Amazon, as John Thaw in Drake is what Jose Ferrer was to Cyrano twenty years before.
I hope that somehow by placing this here that those who have access to such treasures will make them available, not to gouge the public, but to profit off of mass production of this fine performance. I have to keep from typing spoilers in this as I relive the moments, but this movie is soul grinding in raw flesh scenes of impossible situations, harshness and the conclusion that Sir Francis could do nothing else.
It is not a spoiler that after Drake sailed around the world, that some in England wanted him hung as a pirate to appease the Spanish who wanted him dead, and his life was held in the balance by Elizabeth I. Her decision would be monumental as without Drake in the near future, the Spanish Armada would not have been defeated, and there would never have been an American colony in Rule Britania.
I never have understood my life. I just can never go get things. The things I want I either have to make myself or be tortured in they are locked away someplace for reasons I can never fathom. It simply makes absolutely no sense why I can not have the things I want the way I want them, and satan has asstards censoring Johnny Quest and I can not get a copy of the original production run.
I hope that God moves Heaven and earth, so that I can fill my library with the missing pieces, as they will always be empty without John Thaw as Sir Francis Drake.
Nuff Said
agtG
