Blimpslash 2
This is for fengirl88; it is a companion piece to Love Starts at Midnight, and both are based on Powell and Pressburger’s glorious 1943 film, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp.
The film begins in 1942 with a military exercise, in which a young lieutenant from the regular British army decides to steal a march on the Home Guard commanded by the elderly General Wynne-Candy (played by Roger Livesey). You can see their confrontation here, and how it triggers Wynne-Candy's 40-year-old memories of the events leading to his first meeting with Theodor Kretschmar-Schuldorff (Anton Walbrook) and Edith Hunter, the first of three characters played by Deborah Kerr. At the end of that clip, you can hear him singing along to I am Titania, an aria from Ambroise Thomas's opera Mignon (which is not a setting of A Midsummer Night's Dream, but one of its characters is an actress who sings about playing the part).
I AM TITANIA
So here we stand together, next to the flooded ruins of my house. Bit of a ruin myself. I had a long time to think about it last night while that young puppy was holding me prisoner. He laughed at my belly and moustache, you know? And I know I must have looked ridiculous - haven't kept my figure like you, Theo. Still sent the boy crashing down into the pool! Did Johnny tell you that? Wish you'd seen it... Let him go in the end. No point us drowning. But he didn't have a dry uniform piled neatly behind a curtain, did he? Who had the last laugh there?
But yes, the youngsters kept me under guard all night, at the Turkish Baths. Plenty of time to think. It was there it all started, forty years ago. Or maybe it was the blockhouse near Jordaan Siding. I am Titania. I'm sure I've told you the story - no, it must have been Edith, you'd never have understood me back then! - there we were in the Boer War, holed up for seven weeks with only one record on our phonograph. I am Titania, dom-pom-pom-pom, da-da-da-da-pom... Wound up old Kaunitz a treat when I got the band to play it at that café in Berlin, what was it, Ho-ho-zollen? And that, to cut a long story short, was how I came to fight a duel with a man I'd never met. One of the best days of my life!
Matter of fact, I wasn't Titania when we did it at Harrow, I was Bottom - the chap with ass's ears. Baby-Face was Titania, and a very pretty fairy queen he was. And I was the ass - "Candy-sweet bully Bottom", the school magazine called me. I have a reasonable good ear in music. That's true, at least. And I can be a bit of an ass, I admit. No good at listening, that's my trouble. I didn't listen to old Betteridge back in '02, and now, you're always giving me good advice, but I don't listen enough to you. Think it goes back to when you didn't speak English - not very much! - and I couldn't understand German. So we just talked at each other, and hoped some of it got through. From now on, I'm going to listen.
And not just to you, Theo. When I brought Barbara here to Cadogan Place for the first time, as my wife, she made me promise - "promise to stay just as you are," she said, "till the floods come, and this is a lake." Now here is the lake... And a leaf, red as her hair, dancing on the water. She couldn't send me a clearer message, could she? The floods have swept away the Den where we rested after our adventures. The world has changed, and she's saying I should change too.
I'll never forget the past - how could I, when she's a part of it? But we've got to live our lives in the present. The future - well, they're marching past us now. Johnny's young fellow, what does he call himself, Spud? He'll be all right in the end, and you know why? Because the real future is Johnny. She's going to rebuild this country from the ruins around us, and all he has to do is help her.
Edith would like that, wouldn't she? I remember when we first met - in that café - she said there were only two careers for her: get married, or be a governess. Well, I thought getting married was a good idea for a woman, and obviously she did once she met you... and Barbara, what would she have done if she hadn't married me? Married someone else, I suppose, though I bet she wouldn't have had as much fun. But they were clever women, cleverer than me, and now I see Johnny - she could do anything, that girl, anything, and they could have done it too. I see that now.
But Edith and Barbara have gone, and we're the ones who've made it into the present. What are we old soldiers going to do now? Help the young ones win this war, for a start. I've still a thing or two to teach the Home Guard, and this Lieutenant friend of Johnny's, if he'll come to dinner and listen. Ha, if he won't I'll turn the tables and kidnap him, like I did with you in 1919! You must come too, Theo, you'll understand his thinking, can tell him what he's up against. I wager he's never met a real German, but it'll do him good to know there are some as fine as you. Oh, if only they were all like you, Theo, we wouldn't be in this hole... How could anyone think of interning you? Enemy alien? You're the best man I ever met.
And that's the other thing I decided, thinking it all over last night. You wouldn't stay with me in Cadogan Place three years ago - still stiff-necked, you Prussian! But it's different now we've both lost our homes, isn't it? You needn't be so proud about sticking with your ugly little digs now. I don't suppose I can get you into the club, so we'll have to find some flat together, like the old married couple we are. And the baths! I can't believe I've never brought you to the Turkish baths - there in Northumberland Avenue, the very same baths where Sherlock Holmes took Dr Watson. I'll take you there, and sing you I am Titania - there's a wonderful acoustic. And from now on, if I grapple with anyone in that pool, it's going to be you.
Also posted on Dreamwidth, with
comments.
The film begins in 1942 with a military exercise, in which a young lieutenant from the regular British army decides to steal a march on the Home Guard commanded by the elderly General Wynne-Candy (played by Roger Livesey). You can see their confrontation here, and how it triggers Wynne-Candy's 40-year-old memories of the events leading to his first meeting with Theodor Kretschmar-Schuldorff (Anton Walbrook) and Edith Hunter, the first of three characters played by Deborah Kerr. At the end of that clip, you can hear him singing along to I am Titania, an aria from Ambroise Thomas's opera Mignon (which is not a setting of A Midsummer Night's Dream, but one of its characters is an actress who sings about playing the part).
I AM TITANIA
So here we stand together, next to the flooded ruins of my house. Bit of a ruin myself. I had a long time to think about it last night while that young puppy was holding me prisoner. He laughed at my belly and moustache, you know? And I know I must have looked ridiculous - haven't kept my figure like you, Theo. Still sent the boy crashing down into the pool! Did Johnny tell you that? Wish you'd seen it... Let him go in the end. No point us drowning. But he didn't have a dry uniform piled neatly behind a curtain, did he? Who had the last laugh there?
But yes, the youngsters kept me under guard all night, at the Turkish Baths. Plenty of time to think. It was there it all started, forty years ago. Or maybe it was the blockhouse near Jordaan Siding. I am Titania. I'm sure I've told you the story - no, it must have been Edith, you'd never have understood me back then! - there we were in the Boer War, holed up for seven weeks with only one record on our phonograph. I am Titania, dom-pom-pom-pom, da-da-da-da-pom... Wound up old Kaunitz a treat when I got the band to play it at that café in Berlin, what was it, Ho-ho-zollen? And that, to cut a long story short, was how I came to fight a duel with a man I'd never met. One of the best days of my life!
Matter of fact, I wasn't Titania when we did it at Harrow, I was Bottom - the chap with ass's ears. Baby-Face was Titania, and a very pretty fairy queen he was. And I was the ass - "Candy-sweet bully Bottom", the school magazine called me. I have a reasonable good ear in music. That's true, at least. And I can be a bit of an ass, I admit. No good at listening, that's my trouble. I didn't listen to old Betteridge back in '02, and now, you're always giving me good advice, but I don't listen enough to you. Think it goes back to when you didn't speak English - not very much! - and I couldn't understand German. So we just talked at each other, and hoped some of it got through. From now on, I'm going to listen.
And not just to you, Theo. When I brought Barbara here to Cadogan Place for the first time, as my wife, she made me promise - "promise to stay just as you are," she said, "till the floods come, and this is a lake." Now here is the lake... And a leaf, red as her hair, dancing on the water. She couldn't send me a clearer message, could she? The floods have swept away the Den where we rested after our adventures. The world has changed, and she's saying I should change too.
I'll never forget the past - how could I, when she's a part of it? But we've got to live our lives in the present. The future - well, they're marching past us now. Johnny's young fellow, what does he call himself, Spud? He'll be all right in the end, and you know why? Because the real future is Johnny. She's going to rebuild this country from the ruins around us, and all he has to do is help her.
Edith would like that, wouldn't she? I remember when we first met - in that café - she said there were only two careers for her: get married, or be a governess. Well, I thought getting married was a good idea for a woman, and obviously she did once she met you... and Barbara, what would she have done if she hadn't married me? Married someone else, I suppose, though I bet she wouldn't have had as much fun. But they were clever women, cleverer than me, and now I see Johnny - she could do anything, that girl, anything, and they could have done it too. I see that now.
But Edith and Barbara have gone, and we're the ones who've made it into the present. What are we old soldiers going to do now? Help the young ones win this war, for a start. I've still a thing or two to teach the Home Guard, and this Lieutenant friend of Johnny's, if he'll come to dinner and listen. Ha, if he won't I'll turn the tables and kidnap him, like I did with you in 1919! You must come too, Theo, you'll understand his thinking, can tell him what he's up against. I wager he's never met a real German, but it'll do him good to know there are some as fine as you. Oh, if only they were all like you, Theo, we wouldn't be in this hole... How could anyone think of interning you? Enemy alien? You're the best man I ever met.
And that's the other thing I decided, thinking it all over last night. You wouldn't stay with me in Cadogan Place three years ago - still stiff-necked, you Prussian! But it's different now we've both lost our homes, isn't it? You needn't be so proud about sticking with your ugly little digs now. I don't suppose I can get you into the club, so we'll have to find some flat together, like the old married couple we are. And the baths! I can't believe I've never brought you to the Turkish baths - there in Northumberland Avenue, the very same baths where Sherlock Holmes took Dr Watson. I'll take you there, and sing you I am Titania - there's a wonderful acoustic. And from now on, if I grapple with anyone in that pool, it's going to be you.
Also posted on Dreamwidth, with
comments.