![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Jul. 6th, 2024
Fandom promo: Now, Voyager (1942)
Jul. 6th, 2024 10:45 amWhere to view it:You can buy "Now, Voyager" on Apple TV, Amazon Video, Google Play Movies, YouTube, Vudu, Microsoft Store as download or rent it on Apple TV, Amazon Video, Google Play Movies, YouTube, Vudu, Microsoft Store online.
It stars Bette Davis, Paul Henreid, and Claude Rains
Charlotte Vale is a drab, quiet, neurotic woman whose life is brutally dominated by her mother, an aristocratic Boston dowager whose verbal and emotional abuse of her daughter is constant. Fearing that Charlotte is on the verge of a nervous breakdown, her sister-in-law Lisa introduces her to psychiatrist Dr. Jaquith, who recommends that Charlotte spend time in his sanitarium.
Away from her mother's control, Charlotte blossoms, and at Lisa's urging, the transformed woman — with a chic borrowed wardrobe — opts to take a lengthy cruise instead of going home immediately. On the cruise, she meets and has an intense romance with Jeremiah Duvaux Durrance, a married man traveling on business. Jerry's wife makes him miserable, but he is too honorable to divorce her because he thinks it would hurt Tina, their daughter.
Then the cruise is over and Charlotte has to go back to her awful mother and figure out how to live her life and what she wants to do with her life. And now that she's had an idea of what life can be like, she's never going to go back to what she used to be, or let her mother control and abuse her.
The movie has a romance, but that's not the core of the story. It's about Charlotte, and healing from her mother's abuse, and learning to have a life of her own and purpose of her own. And it has a powerhouse cast of some of the best actors of its day.
Content notes: The psychologist is very forward-thinking for the 1940s, but it is still the 1940s. He wants to help Charlotte build a better relationship with her mother, not separate from her because of her abuse.
It stars Bette Davis, Paul Henreid, and Claude Rains
Charlotte Vale is a drab, quiet, neurotic woman whose life is brutally dominated by her mother, an aristocratic Boston dowager whose verbal and emotional abuse of her daughter is constant. Fearing that Charlotte is on the verge of a nervous breakdown, her sister-in-law Lisa introduces her to psychiatrist Dr. Jaquith, who recommends that Charlotte spend time in his sanitarium.
Away from her mother's control, Charlotte blossoms, and at Lisa's urging, the transformed woman — with a chic borrowed wardrobe — opts to take a lengthy cruise instead of going home immediately. On the cruise, she meets and has an intense romance with Jeremiah Duvaux Durrance, a married man traveling on business. Jerry's wife makes him miserable, but he is too honorable to divorce her because he thinks it would hurt Tina, their daughter.
Then the cruise is over and Charlotte has to go back to her awful mother and figure out how to live her life and what she wants to do with her life. And now that she's had an idea of what life can be like, she's never going to go back to what she used to be, or let her mother control and abuse her.
The movie has a romance, but that's not the core of the story. It's about Charlotte, and healing from her mother's abuse, and learning to have a life of her own and purpose of her own. And it has a powerhouse cast of some of the best actors of its day.
Content notes: The psychologist is very forward-thinking for the 1940s, but it is still the 1940s. He wants to help Charlotte build a better relationship with her mother, not separate from her because of her abuse.
Fandom Promo: The Swan (1956)
Jul. 6th, 2024 10:48 amTitle: The Swan
Where to view it: You can buy "The Swan" on Apple TV, Amazon Video, Vudu as download or rent it on Apple TV, Vudu, Amazon Video online.
The Swan is the story of a former royal family scheming to get their eldest daughter, Princess Alexandra, married to Crown Prince Albert so they can reclaim the throne they lost. (We're never told the name of the nation in question.)
Grace Kelly is the Princess being pushed in the Crown Prince's direction; Alec Guinness is the Crown Prince who's spent the last several years getting shoved at every eligible princess in Europe and is very unenthusiastic (and slightly rude) about the whole matter. Louis Jourdan plays the family tutor Doctor Agi, who has been in love with the Princess--silently--for a while. When Prince Albert isn't interested, her mother orders her to flirt with Agi to make Albert jealous. It works, sort of, but Agi gets very hurt in the process, and Alexandra realizes she actually does care for him. Shenanigans follow and in the end Agi turns her down and leaves, and she is left to marry the Crown Prince.
( This story is explicitly set in 1910; all this effort and scheming to claw their way back into the world they think they ought to have by right, and in four years it's going to start crumbling, and in eight it will be gone forever. )
Where to view it: You can buy "The Swan" on Apple TV, Amazon Video, Vudu as download or rent it on Apple TV, Vudu, Amazon Video online.
The Swan is the story of a former royal family scheming to get their eldest daughter, Princess Alexandra, married to Crown Prince Albert so they can reclaim the throne they lost. (We're never told the name of the nation in question.)
Grace Kelly is the Princess being pushed in the Crown Prince's direction; Alec Guinness is the Crown Prince who's spent the last several years getting shoved at every eligible princess in Europe and is very unenthusiastic (and slightly rude) about the whole matter. Louis Jourdan plays the family tutor Doctor Agi, who has been in love with the Princess--silently--for a while. When Prince Albert isn't interested, her mother orders her to flirt with Agi to make Albert jealous. It works, sort of, but Agi gets very hurt in the process, and Alexandra realizes she actually does care for him. Shenanigans follow and in the end Agi turns her down and leaves, and she is left to marry the Crown Prince.
( This story is explicitly set in 1910; all this effort and scheming to claw their way back into the world they think they ought to have by right, and in four years it's going to start crumbling, and in eight it will be gone forever. )
Fandom Promo: Random Harvest
Jul. 6th, 2024 10:55 amTitle: Random Harvest
Where to view it: You can buy "Random Harvest" on Apple TV, Amazon Video, Google Play Movies, YouTube, Vudu as download or rent it on Amazon Video, Google Play Movies, YouTube, Apple TV, Vudu online.
Random Harvest is one of the tropiest melodramas I've ever had the pleasure of seeing on film. (The main plot device is that Ronald Coleman's character gets amnesia TWICE.) It is only plausible because of the luminous Greer Garson and Ronald Coleman selling it--but it works magic.
( There's angst! There's melodrama! There's a happy ending! It's so sappy but so good. )
Where to view it: You can buy "Random Harvest" on Apple TV, Amazon Video, Google Play Movies, YouTube, Vudu as download or rent it on Amazon Video, Google Play Movies, YouTube, Apple TV, Vudu online.
Random Harvest is one of the tropiest melodramas I've ever had the pleasure of seeing on film. (The main plot device is that Ronald Coleman's character gets amnesia TWICE.) It is only plausible because of the luminous Greer Garson and Ronald Coleman selling it--but it works magic.
( There's angst! There's melodrama! There's a happy ending! It's so sappy but so good. )
Fic: Wachet Auf
Jul. 6th, 2024 12:44 pmI had a lovely time with my Heart Attack fic this year. The challenge was that my recip really wanted a Nightingale fic, with Nightingale and Peter together as a secondary option, whereas for me, Peter is what I really wanted to write, with Peter and Nightingale a secondary option. Which meant I had to make sure both men really had a chance to shine, which meant coming up with a case that a) had connections both in the 1940s with Nightingale working on it, and b) in the current day, with Peter working on it ... but without Nightingale able to just say "well, this is what happened in the 1940s and it's obviously connected."
Obvious answer: put Nightingale in a coma in the present day, caused by the case in the 1940s. Once I had that bit, coming up with the case was fun.
The other thing they suggested was a crossover with a period-appropriate canon. Well! My favorite period-appropriate canon for the 1940s is currently the Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries, so obviously Lord Peter had to show up. Problem was, I realized halfway in that it meant I would need to pull in appropriate quotes ... and I do not have anywhere near the encyclopedic knowledge of classic English literature that would require, and also, with only two weeks to write, not much time to troll through poetry websites looking for the right options. But I think it worked out okay even so.
Title: Wachet Auf
Author: Beatrice_Otter
Fandom: Rivers of London
Characters: Thomas Nightingale, Peter Grant
Written For: Quasar in Heart Attack Exchange 2024
At AO3. At Squidgeworld. Rebloggable on tumblr. Pillowfort.
2016.
I learned something was wrong when I got a call from the Folly, and there was silence on the other end.
"I'll be there quick as I can," I told the expectant stillness, and swigged the rest of my coffee in one gulp.
( Read more... )
Obvious answer: put Nightingale in a coma in the present day, caused by the case in the 1940s. Once I had that bit, coming up with the case was fun.
The other thing they suggested was a crossover with a period-appropriate canon. Well! My favorite period-appropriate canon for the 1940s is currently the Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries, so obviously Lord Peter had to show up. Problem was, I realized halfway in that it meant I would need to pull in appropriate quotes ... and I do not have anywhere near the encyclopedic knowledge of classic English literature that would require, and also, with only two weeks to write, not much time to troll through poetry websites looking for the right options. But I think it worked out okay even so.
Title: Wachet Auf
Author: Beatrice_Otter
Fandom: Rivers of London
Characters: Thomas Nightingale, Peter Grant
Written For: Quasar in Heart Attack Exchange 2024
Author's note: Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme is a 16th Century German hymn, later turned into a chorale cantata by Bach. It can be literally translated "Awake, the voice is calling us," but the cantata is usually called "Sleepers Awake" in English, and the most common English translation of the hymn in current use has the first line as "Wake, Awake, for Night Is Flying"
Thank you to walldecor for britpicking and Lavender Threads for betaing
Lord Peter quotes "The Thorn" by William Wordsworth and "The Prisoner" by Emily Brontë
The hospital near Limburg where the German practitioner works is, of course, the Hadamar Clinic (aka "Hadamar Killing Center"), main site of the Nazi eugenics program Aktion T4.
Thank you to walldecor for britpicking and Lavender Threads for betaing
Lord Peter quotes "The Thorn" by William Wordsworth and "The Prisoner" by Emily Brontë
The hospital near Limburg where the German practitioner works is, of course, the Hadamar Clinic (aka "Hadamar Killing Center"), main site of the Nazi eugenics program Aktion T4.
At AO3. At Squidgeworld. Rebloggable on tumblr. Pillowfort.
2016.
I learned something was wrong when I got a call from the Folly, and there was silence on the other end.
"I'll be there quick as I can," I told the expectant stillness, and swigged the rest of my coffee in one gulp.
( Read more... )