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Post by ltd on Jul 26, 2022 6:17:13 GMT
He played a fair few of those sort of parts and I guess he's best known for Goodfellas. I thought he was particularly good though as James Caan's mob-connected bookie in The Gambler. There's a great scene between them where Sorvino's character gives vent to his sheer exasperation with compulsive gamblers and how they're all looking to lose, and they know it. |
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Post by ltd on Jul 25, 2022 16:43:00 GMT
Brought gravitas to so many productions, some arguably unworthy of his talents but that's not really the point - you could always rely on him to put in a good performance whatever he was doing. A true professional. Per ontheslate's comment about his radio work, one of my favourite performances is as Ed Reardon's father who emigrates to Australia to live with a surfer chick at least half his age.
He'd have made a good Dr Who I think.
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Post by ltd on Jul 12, 2022 18:43:59 GMT
Good old Tommy Vance. Rock fans were treated like lepers by the mainstream media back in the day and prior to Kerrang magazine there only was Tommy and the Sounds music paper that I knew of to hear and read about rock and metal. I was having a drink with my brother last Saturday and Tommy's name came up. We agreed that he and the rock show played a major part in shaping our musical taste(s). Suffice to say we raised a glass to Mr Vance's memory. |
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Post by ltd on Jul 12, 2022 14:53:53 GMT
I recall my brother taping the 1990 Donington gig from the radio and I think it might still be around somewhere. From memory there seemed to be some frantic solos and Adrian Vandenberg was booed when DC introduced him to the crowd. For a Yorkshireman, Coverdale gave it some of the London geezer patter, shouting "Can't 'ear ya!" to gee up the audience and a bit later urging them to take the f------ roof off. The Beeb weren't impressed and Coverdale informed punters in a sarky tone that he'd been told by the BBC he had to stop swearing. Whaddaya have to say to that, asked the Covester, which elicited the expected two word reply. Having the BBC on site recording was hardly ever a deterrent on the effing and jeffing front. I remember the Friday Rock Show used to broadcast festival performances some weeks after the event so they could edit out all the foul language. Motorhead's 1986 Donington appearance springs readily to mind. Lemmy swearing, threatening a bottle thrower and making an off colour joke or two all got the snip in the radio version. |
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Post by ltd on Jul 8, 2022 18:41:06 GMT
Off the back of his performance in The Godfather didn’t he win some award like This Years Best Italian American or something daft, only to have to politely turn down the award on the grounds that he was Jewish or something.  I remember him telling an amusing anecdote about being blackballed when he tried to join a country club. He asked his agent, "It's because I'm Jewish isn't it?" Only for his agent to tell him the members thought he was a genuine mafioso, a made guy "who'd been down town". |
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Post by ltd on Jul 7, 2022 20:13:31 GMT
The Gambler's another good one, although I think both Paul Sorvino and Burt Young give him a run for his money in the acting stakes.
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Post by ltd on Jul 7, 2022 19:00:45 GMT
Archetypal US tough guy actor. Memorable in loads of films. The Godfather usually gets all the plaudits, but for me his career best was Thief - he had a real tight coiled intensity as Frank. You just knew if he was pushed the wrong way he'd explode. Not necessarily right there, but eventually, and you didn't want to be around when he did.
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Post by ltd on Jun 29, 2022 17:03:18 GMT
The vicar was always the voice of sanity in the trio of him, Mr Yateman and Warden Hodges. His comic exasperation easily matched Captain Mainwaring's at times. Great performance by the late Mr Williams. As Wynn Chester says above the Minder cameo is also well worthy of note. Very different to the vicar, but still recognisably Frank Williams.
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Post by ltd on Jun 24, 2022 11:55:13 GMT
Then I wonder if there's a New Tricks fanbase out there, who seems to care! I'm sure there is a New Tricks fanbase. It was a very popular programme in its day. I think even the later episodes without the original team were still pulling in respectable audience numbers. Possibly though it's still too recent a programme to develop cult status yet? |
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Post by ltd on Jun 12, 2022 18:30:52 GMT
A beautiful voice. From her obituary it seemed she was going through a bad patch just before she died which is a great shame. She always looked like she was having such a good time when performing with the B-52s.
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Post by ltd on Jun 9, 2022 9:07:11 GMT
US character actor with a long and varied career, but probably best known for playing unstable redneck types e.g. The Wild Bunch. When not typecast he could turn in subtle and sympathetic performances as in the oddball western The Ballad of Little Jo.
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Post by ltd on Jun 3, 2022 8:55:15 GMT
Always liked her as Ingrid in Porridge. Per the Clive James quote in her obit she was perfect in the role.
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Post by ltd on May 25, 2022 10:36:25 GMT
In Anthony Masters' rather shoddy novelisation of Leon Griffiths script there's a running joke that whenever Arthur mentions he's been mugged, someone asks "Was he black?" I can see why that was excised from the final filmed version - a bit near the knuckle even back in the mid-80s.
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Post by ltd on May 18, 2022 17:33:52 GMT
You should do a Dennis Not Minder and Not Sweeney fest next pr1, plenty of gems in there! If anyone wants to see 1970's 'My Lover My Son', a PM is all you need.  Not a bad idea. I do a few other things he did. I saw Go Cart Go on YouTube and found it entertaining. He's got a major supporting role in That Smashing Bird I Used to Know. Worth a watch. Maureen Lipman slags it off, but it's not the worst sexploitation film you'll see, and she's actually rather good in it. Features a fair sprinkling of other Minder/Sweeney faces as well. |
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Post by ltd on May 17, 2022 17:54:27 GMT
The Long Good Friday was really quite prescient. It's 1979 and Harry Shand's stood there predicting the redevelopment of the London docklands and effectively the rise of the new robber barons. Britain was really a nation on the cusp of great change at that time and The Long Good Friday is, in many ways, a link between two eras, where the dog-end of post-war Britain overlaps with the rise of Thatcherism and the beginning of a shiny, new, but much less honest Britain. I remember being in London as a young teenager in Spring 1979 and you could sort of tell change was in the air. It's difficult to describe, but even as a young kid I can remember the sense of apprehension and anticipation. I think people could tell things were going to change but they weren't quite sure how. Not just Harold but the man Bob himself predicted the future on the same topic.
That segment of film with Bob Hoskins and Barry Norman is great. Barry perhaps not best dressed for clambering through the ruins of London docklands though. I keep meaning to read Michael Gillard's book "Legacy" which tells the true story of London gangsters muscling in on the Olympics. As I recall there's an endorsement from Long Good Friday writer Barrie Keefe on the front cover. |
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Post by ltd on May 10, 2022 9:34:20 GMT
Very believable as an East End lad who wanted his life to go up. He's really good in Up the Junction. Arguably there's a tendency in some quarters to pigeon hole him as the always cheerful chirpy cockney which ignores the fact he was a versatile actor and more than capable of giving quiet and sensitive performances. The scene in The Sweeney where Carter's telling Regan about seeing his wife's body in the morgue is another highlight - he really evokes George's sheer stunned incomprehension at what's happened. |
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Post by ltd on May 8, 2022 18:41:29 GMT
I've seen him described as underrated as an actor but it's difficult to argue with 3 hit TV series under the belt. I'm sure there's many a thespian who'd give their eye teeth for the same. I'd tip the nod to his performance in The Lives and Loves of a She Devil as well. Not everyone's cup of tea to be sure but he's really good as the venal, seedy husband, very different to the cheery cockney roles he was normally associated with at the time.
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Post by ltd on Apr 29, 2022 20:36:37 GMT
I've never been sure whether that was down to his driving or that ropey old Marina! It's a good point and something I also noticed. Is it rubbish car, rubbish driving, inability to park or all of the above. The ropey old Marina certainly doesn't help the situation that's for sure. Heh at Rycott and his L-Reg Marina coupe. His choice of wheels tells us this is a man who has failed in life, even before we learn about his spot of bother and six years back in uniform as a woolly suit. No wonder he's so bitter and twisted. |
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Post by ltd on Apr 28, 2022 8:41:39 GMT
And anothe rthing just struck me - was calling he George Baker character "Altman" Leon Griffith's sly nod to the film director ? It does all seem too much of a coincidence to be just random. And "Bobby (i.e. Robert) Altman" at that.
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Post by ltd on Apr 24, 2022 8:56:01 GMT
Fond memories of Rising Damp and Only When I Laugh - probably his best known works? A quality CV all round though.
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Post by ltd on Apr 9, 2022 15:37:52 GMT
I'm in West Cornwall ltd and believe me the 'old boys network' is rife, primarily between farmers, land management companies, valuers and sellers, they're in it together to make what they can imo. I reckon a lot of that goes on in the rural counties, it's not just in London and the big cities. |
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Post by ltd on Apr 8, 2022 18:51:02 GMT
In a small village close to where i live, a farmer applied several times for planning permission on a plot of land that he owned, only to be refused on each application. The land was eventually sold as agricultural/grazing use only and was bought by the ex Mayor and at the time current councillor of the town. Guess what? Planning permission was applied for again and after some revisions were made to the original application, permission was granted. As bent as Uri Gellers wotsit. This sort of thing all too common unfortunately. You don't live in Herefordshire by any chance Barry? The Council there used to be notorious for that sort of thing - the senior councillors a bunch of carrot crunching would-be Al Capones who treated the county as if it was there solely for their own personal enrichment. |
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Post by ltd on Apr 7, 2022 18:25:35 GMT
dodgy council workers (nothing new in that) Jeavons character is stated, fairly late in the episode, as being a councillor i.e. an elected politician. In my experience a fair amount of them are on the take/fiddle. Land deals and planning are particularly fertile grounds for corruption, as indeed occurs in this episode. I've met a few bent council officers (i.e. employees), but most of them are ordinary people doing their jobs. It's the councillors who generally need watching - as I said plenty of them "at it". |
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Post by ltd on Apr 5, 2022 9:56:15 GMT
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Post by ltd on Apr 4, 2022 18:34:42 GMT
Winds of Change - an absolute dirge, and financed by the CIA (allegedly) as part of their Psy-Ops programme.
In the "Other" category, much as I love Black Sabbath, always reckoned Changes a dreadful dirge as well.
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Post by ltd on Mar 26, 2022 10:51:48 GMT
I like the first two Foo Fighters albums and saw them live a couple of times. The second time Roger Taylor of Queen joined them on drums for an encore. The temporarily displaced Mr Hawkins promptly strapped on a guitar and played along. What a trouper, and a talented chap.
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Post by ltd on Mar 21, 2022 17:10:09 GMT
Always at home playing upper crust characters whether genial, menacing or buffoonish. Quite hard nosed in his Minder appearance I thought - can't say I blame him, having to put up with Arthur's Flim Flam. Married to Lady Ingrave herself, Deborah Grant, at one time.
Small but memorable role in WW2 film Play Dirty right at the end: "Don't do it again!". Like Peter Bowles, one of those actors you could count on to bring a dose of sheer professionalism to whatever he was in.
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Post by ltd on Mar 19, 2022 11:21:17 GMT
Listening to the Minder podcasts with Zac Zolar's song as the intro music, I've been struck how much it reminds me of the Lenny Kravitz song 'Mama Said'. Anyone else think that? I always thought it sounded like a bad Dr Feelgood track, struck me as quite dated even back in 1984.
I'm guessing Tim Healey is overdubbed but with his own voice doing a cockney accent. I remember him in an Aussie set series where he plays an ex-pat Londoner, not entirely convincingly, and he sounded very similar in that - Boys From the Bush I think it was.
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Post by ltd on Mar 17, 2022 14:44:11 GMT
I wonder if his role as the urbane but slippery intelligence man in The Bank Job was a nod to his original Callan appearance. I believe he originated the role of Gangster Number One on the stage, and as I recall he's listed as a producer in the film credits. I'd like to have seen his intepretation of the part. Always a reassuring presence on screen, even if he was playing a bad guy, he was just one of those actors who you knew was going to turn in a good performance. |
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Post by ltd on Mar 15, 2022 9:19:07 GMT
George baker is class in this. A strapping bloke you wouldn’t want to mess as proved with his intimidation tactics used at his mansion when he is working out.. He gives a brilliantly barking mad performance here, one moment completely rational, the next flying right off the handle. His displeasure at being thought on a par with "some nasty little South London team" (presumably the Richardsons) is wonderful to behold. |
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