The drops are done. All in all 126 were administered. The overall effectiveness of the procedure is yet to be quantified. We wait and hope to experience better sight. Tee hee. As regards the question of glom and doom in respect of the current world predicaments, I confess to continued views of the various podcasts on YouTube which detail the outrageous comments and behaviour of Trump, his acolytes and several of the Republican candidates seeking election and re-election. I included of course many of the Fox News presenters and pundits who continue to spout and support his lies, deceit and corruption, despite the overwhelming evidence of his double dealing and scams to enrich himself. So be it.
As a diversion I have been looking at a variety of films and older Television series to enjoy a bit of artistry and culture. One of the films was The Rains Came released in 1939, the same year as Gone With the Wind and The Wizard of Oz. It is a romantic film based on an American novel by Louis Bromfield, directed by Clarence Brown with Myrna Loy, Tyrone Power, George Brent and a host of actors including Nigel Bruce (better known as Sherlock Holmes’ roommate and chronicler Dr Watson), Brenda Joyce, the wonderful Maria Ouspenskaya and Jane Darwell, Marjorie Rambeau, Henry Travers, H.B. Warner, Joseph Schildkraut, and Mary Nash.
The story is about the fictional State of Ranchipur in India of 1938, which is devastated by an earthquake, followed by a flood and a cholera epidemic. There is romance and redemption afoot, Myrna Loy is the femme fatal Lady Esketh and Tyrone Power, our hero is Dr Major Rama Safti a high cast Indian. George Brent is the dissolute artist and ex-patriot, and old lover of Lady Esketh.
Ouspenkaya, born in 1876 in Tula, a Russian emigre to America, is the Maharani. She was trained by Konstantin Stanislavsky himself at the Moscow Art Theatre. She arrived in New York in 1922 and stayed. She taught acting to Lee Strasberg among others. Strasberg went on to co-found the Group Theatre in 1931 and ultimately became director of the famed Actors Studio.
H.B. Warner, also born in 1876, in St John’s Wood, London as Henry Byron Lickfold, plays her husband the Maharajah. Warner’s father was Charles Warner, an actor. HB’s stage debut was in It's Never Too Late to Mend when he was 21. He went to the United States for the 1905-1906 season on Broadway and was in a number of plays. His film career Bega in 1914 during the Solent era. One of his great successes was the role of Jesus in Cecil B. DeMille’s King of Kings in 1927.
Joseph Schildkraut, was born in Vienna, Austria-Hungary, in 1896. His father was an actor Rudolph Schildkraut. He accompanied his father on a tour of the United States and returned to Europe in 1913 where he had stage training with Max Reinhardt. He moved to the United States in 1920 and appears in many Broadway productions. He too was in King of Kings with Warner, as Judas Iscariot. He won an Oscar for his performance as Captain Alfred Dreyfus in the film The Life of Emile Zola in 1937. We was nominated for a Golden Globe as Otto Frank in The Diary of Anne Frank 1959. He plays Mr Bannerjee a high class Indian gentleman.
No difficulty therefore for these extraordinary actors to be playing Indian nobility and gentility of the Raj.
Ass to George Brent, he was born in 1904 in Ballinasloe, County Galway, Ireland. He went to New York in 1915 and returned to Ireland in 1921 during the Irish War of Independence (1919-1922) and was involved in the Irish Republican Army. He also became involved with the Abbey Theatre. He apparently fled Ireland with a bounty set on his head by the British Government. He returned to the United States via Canada. He made his Broadway debut in Director Guthrie McClintic’s The Dover Road. He went to Hollywood in 1930 and was in his first film Under Suspicion, initially for 20th Century Fox and was signed by Warner Brothers in 1931. He appeared in a number of films with Bette Davis, Barbara Stanwyck and Ruth Chatterton. In 1942, Brent, an accomplished pilot, tried and failed to enlist in the armed services, temporarily gave up acting and taught flying as a civilian flight instructor with the Civilian Pilot Training Program. He continued acting after WWII, had many wives and an affair with Bette Davis. He died in Solana Beach, California in1979. He was clearly perfect casting as a dissolute artist, ex-patriot English Aristocrat, son of an Earl for the role of Tom Ransome. Who better than an ex IRA Irishman for the part? He has wonderful short anti fascist monologue in the early part of the film
The film was nominated for five academy Awards winning in the category of Special Effects for the earthquake and flood sequences. There was no CGI in 1939. It got the award over Gone with the Wind and Wizard of Oz which were also nominated for Special Effects. There is a scene in the early part of the film which has a dinner at the Palace where George Brent hands the Menu to Myrna Loy. I post it here to give an idea of what the script writers thought a banquet should be. Note the Wine Pairings. Who would not want a Veuve Cliquot 1923 or a Chateau Yquen 1921?
I have added the film here, but you can find it on YouTube at: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=the+rains+came.
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