Jean-Pierre Léaud – does the name ring a bell? If you are a cineaste you will be shouting “yes, 400 chimes”. He was the boy in François Truffaut’s autobiographical 1959 film, Les Quatre Cents Coups. He went on to make four more films in the series depicting the same character, Antoine Doinel, growing up.
Bad things often happen to these adolescent film stars but J-P has stuck to his knitting and now plays the King in La Mort de Louis XIV directed by Albert Serra. According to the review I read it is a slow burn for 115 minutes and I’m going to see it. I also want to see Sofia Coppola’s, The Beguiled, a re-make of Clint Eastwood’s 1971 take on a 1966 novel written by Thomas Cullinan, A Painted Devil.
What I have seen is Baby Driver. It’s a crossover genre between heist and road movie. The eponymous Baby is played with insouciance by Ansel Elgort. He is supported by Kevin Spacey, John Hamm and Jamie Foxx. It is fast-moving, violent, sometimes funny and definitely fun – but it is not a classic. For a classic in that genre you cannot beat The Italian Job. I watched it again at the weekend with immense pleasure. Simon Dee as the shirt-maker, Noël Coward, John Le Mesurier, Irene Handl, Benny Hill, Frank Kelly (later Father Jack in Father Ted) and I nearly forgot Michael Caine. It hits the spot every time.
It is a family affair. Director Peter Collinson’s godfather is Noël Coward whose partner, Graham Payne, has a part as do Peter Collinson’s wife and Michael Caine’s brother.
Michael Deeley, producer of The Italian Job, chose Turin as the location at the suggestion of David Harlech. Harlech was able to introduce Deeley to his old friend Gianni Agnelli who virtually controlled the city and was able to make things much easier for the film crew. The huge traffic jam created before the heist was actually real, they just turned off all the traffic lights and let the Italian temperament take its course while filming the results with hidden cameras.
I mentioned that the film was a family affair without having any idea that our family are part of it, albeit by marriage. David Ormsby-Gore’s (as he then was) wife was Sylvia (Sissie) Lloyd-Thomas, our cousin.
To digress, I didn’t mention it because it was my comment but yours is the 1,001st here, thank you to all contributors over the past two years.