Best ten minutes - 2
David Lean's The Passionate Friends (1949) has been almost entirely forgotten, but yet it’s among Claude Rains’ best performances. He was in Lawrence of Arabia (1962) too, playing the handler of the British spy/military advisor in Arabia there. Widely considered as excellent in that role of Mr. Dryden, the elderly civil servant from the British Arab Bureau, with movie critics often noting he nearly steals the entire show in the movie's latter half.
In Lawrence of Arabia Rains portrayed thus a rather sardonic, cynical British diplomat, bringing immense aplomb and wit to the role, acting as the audience's, and the movie's, perfect, pragmatic counterpoint to the much more dramatic characters. Founded in 1916, the Arab Bureau was, nevertheless, a small collection of British intelligence officers headquartered in Cairo and charged with the task of coordinating imperial intelligence activities in whole of the Middle East, and it's most often remembered for its flamboyant cast of characters like T.E. Lawrence.
In this second movie that I feature in the series, yet another by David Lean and with Claude Rain, on the surface, Rains' character, Howard Justin, is yet another standard issue Rains character or movie part. He's a powerful, unflappable man of the world brought low but not down by a straying woman. Personally, I doubt that Rains even in the theater ever gave a more intensely emotional performance. For much of the picture, Howard Justin could be a stand-in for Alexander Sebastian (“Notorious”), Alexander Hollenius (“Deception”) or Victor Grandison (“The Unsuspected”), but then events suddenly climax and this is also the best ten minutes featured now.
In short, I love this movie a lot because it's not only about forgiveness but also about lasting love in a relationship that seems more than a bit odd to the outside world but is quite natural for the parties envolved. Rains cuts loose in an emotional torrent that always overwhelms me personally, no matter how often I see the last reel. It's the perfect suspense romance
[media=https://youtu.be/oZ8S86QxA1E]
In Lawrence of Arabia Rains portrayed thus a rather sardonic, cynical British diplomat, bringing immense aplomb and wit to the role, acting as the audience's, and the movie's, perfect, pragmatic counterpoint to the much more dramatic characters. Founded in 1916, the Arab Bureau was, nevertheless, a small collection of British intelligence officers headquartered in Cairo and charged with the task of coordinating imperial intelligence activities in whole of the Middle East, and it's most often remembered for its flamboyant cast of characters like T.E. Lawrence.
In this second movie that I feature in the series, yet another by David Lean and with Claude Rain, on the surface, Rains' character, Howard Justin, is yet another standard issue Rains character or movie part. He's a powerful, unflappable man of the world brought low but not down by a straying woman. Personally, I doubt that Rains even in the theater ever gave a more intensely emotional performance. For much of the picture, Howard Justin could be a stand-in for Alexander Sebastian (“Notorious”), Alexander Hollenius (“Deception”) or Victor Grandison (“The Unsuspected”), but then events suddenly climax and this is also the best ten minutes featured now.
In short, I love this movie a lot because it's not only about forgiveness but also about lasting love in a relationship that seems more than a bit odd to the outside world but is quite natural for the parties envolved. Rains cuts loose in an emotional torrent that always overwhelms me personally, no matter how often I see the last reel. It's the perfect suspense romance
[media=https://youtu.be/oZ8S86QxA1E]
