#anton walbrook
Anton Walbrook and Deborah Kerr in The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, 1943.
Happy birthday, Anton (born 19 November 1896)!
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Anton Walbrook and Deborah Kerr in a publicity still from The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp.
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Gaslight
Directed by Thorold Dickinson
Screenplay by A. R. Rawlinson and Bridget Boland (based on the play by Patrick Hamilton)
UK, 1940Watched on 22nd January 2014
First viewing
I had already seen the 1944 Hollywood remake of Gaslight, starring Charles Boyer and Ingrid Bergman, so many of the plot elements were already familiar to me – a jewel thief marries a woman and proceeds to deliberately drive her mad. The remake includes several unnecessary changes to the plot, resulting in a film that’s half an hour longer than it needs to be. Ingrid Bergman was great in it, deservedly winning an Oscar, but the rest… meh. This original version, starring Anton Walbrook and Diana Wynyard, is immeasurably better. The film never puts a foot wrong, keeping up the atmosphere and tension until the last moment. A great film.
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Anton Walbrook’s birthday was today- Here’s his monologue from The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, in which Walbrook (as Theo Kretschmar-Schuldorff) recounts his tragic years after the First World War, including the death of his wife and the loss of his children to the Nazis.
Colonel Blimp is a beautiful film, both visually and emotionally, and this is one of its most poignant scenes.
