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Suddenly, Last Summer (Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1959)
Jun
7
Catherine (Elizabeth Taylor) and a man in white, seen from the back, eating alfresco near a beach. DP: Jack Hildyard.
“My son – Sebastian – and I constructed our days. Each day we would carve each day like a piece of sculpture, leaving behind us a trail of days like a gallery of sculpture until suddenly, last summer.”
– Mrs Vi Venable
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The Shout (Jerzy Skolimowski, 1978)
May
1
mutton
Charles Crossley (Alan Bates) in Anthony Fielding's (John Hurt) kitchen. Despite being the outsider here, Crossley's presence takes central stage. DP: Mike Molloy.
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Devil Doll (Lindsay Shonteff, 1964)
Mar
15
sandwiches
A large knife amongst rather minuscule triangular tea sandwiches. A miniature wooden barrel holding toothpicks is right there for your sandwich stabbing convenience. DP: Gerald Gibbs.
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A Zed & Two Noughts [Z+00 / ZOO] (Peter Greenaway, 1985)
Dec
27
Visit The Zoo Day
A zebra in a cage with the word ZOO in large blue lit capitals in the background. In the background a man. All but the lettering is black-and-white. DP: Sacha Vierny.
“In the land of the legless, the one-legged woman is queen.”
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Muloorina (David Cobham, 1964)
Nov
17
Guinness World Records Day
The Bluebird parked amongst the crew's Jeeps. DPs: John Daniell, Ross King, Frank McKechnie, Ian Millar & Bob Wright.
Short in gorgeous Technicolor, Muloorina tells about a small, arid town in Australia that one day finds itself on the world's stage. Kati Thanda–Lake Eyre, a local salt lake that hasn't seen a drop of rain in nine years, is the perfect spot for a landspeed record attempt by British daredevil Donald Campbell and his Bluebird.
A play of contrasts. The supersonic blue machine on the ancient white riverbed and the slowness of the eternal landscape versus something faster than should be possible. And meanwhile, the locals care for their land and animals, and wait for rain.
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Mahler (Ken Russell, 1974)
Nov
12
World Pneumonia Day
Gustav (Robert Powell) and Alma (Georgina Hale), both in a three piece suit with top hats. She's in a shadows, wearing a tight, black veil that completely conceals her features. DP: Dick Bush.
A sickly #GustavMahler (Robert Powell) and his wife Alma (Georgina Hale) dwell on their shared lives while travelling to Vienna by train. Storylines – circular like a journey, rondo like #Mahler's compositions – drift from the ordinary to the grotesque.
“I don't want to imitate nature. I want to capture its very essence. As if all the birds and the beasts die tomorrow and the world became a desert, when people heard my music – they would still know, feel, what nature was.”
– Gustav Mahler
This would be the composer's final tour. A train took him to a Vienna sanatorium where not much later he'd succumb to #pneumonia.
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X the Unknown (Leslie Norman + Joseph Losey, 1956)
Oct
24
scoff
Two soldiers on nightshift ready to eat. One of them hands a mess tin with grub to the other when there's a sound. DP: Gerald Gibbs.
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The Leather Boys (Sidney J. Furie, 1964)
Oct
17
National Motorcycle Ride Day
Pete (Dudley Sutton) in his black leather tiger jacket waiting for Reggie (Colin Campbell). He leans against a window pane while Reggie drives up. It's raining and Reg is merely a blur. DP: Gerald Gibbs.
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Dutchman (Anthony Harvey, 1966)
Oct
3
Mean Girls Day
Clay (Al Freeman Jr.) reading a newspaper and minding his business on a subway train home. Just arrived on his car is Lula (Shirley Knight) and her endless supply of apples. DP: Gerry Turpin.
“Bet you can't eat just one.”
– advertising slogan
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Cleopatra (Joseph L. Mankiewicz + Rouben Mamoulian, 1963)
Aug
26
National Spark The World Day

Like Rome, Cleopatra wasn't built in a day. Joseph L. Mankiewicz's epic studio breaker took six years to make and, despite it being the highest-grossing film of 1963, didn't break even until 1973. Was it a #flop? A classic flop but a flop nevertheless?
“There are never enough hours in the days of a queen, and her nights have too many.”
– Cleopatra
The star – the Queen – Elizabeth Taylor demanded an unprecedented one million dollar fee, 10,3 million in 2023 US dollars. Liz's movie dressing table hold trinkets especially designed by luxury brand Bulgari, blink and you'll miss them. The Pharaoh's lavish costumes, all 65 of them (created by Irene Sharaff who would dress Taylor again as #Cleopatra's counterpart Martha in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966)), cost almost 195K dollar (ca. 2 million today), and of course those 20 000 extras, shipped from God-knows-where to Hollywood on the Tiber to shoot one scene, had to look like their 2000 year old counterparts, and be fed, and housed.
Is it all bad? Cleopatra is one of those movies that so many – and that includes obsessive cinephiles – will get around to watch. Eventually. All four hours of it. I'm still holding out, but ooh, the spectacle!