Local Hero

never spotted at the time that knopfler did the soundtrack -- i'm listening now and it's mellow!

(his first, according to wikipedia)

oh you'll know the last track on that i'm sure

i mean, even outside of the film

for the US release, Knopfler certainly seemed the most "sellable" element of the film aside from Burt's presence

The U.S. poster added Lancaster standing behind Peter Reigert on the beach.

rewatched via CC edition last night... exquisite. I think the funniest Burt line is "He wants to sell me the sand?"

There's an interview w/ Forsyth where the critic reads a letter to BF in '83 from Michael Powell, full of praise, except for "Burt went over the top and you let him."

"We have an injured rabbit!"

"It was suffering... That (leg) was a clean break -- you can check the bones."

Peter Capaldi's limbs-flying running style is hilarious (and possibly copped from Jerry Lewis).

(it's "We have an injured rabbit also")

(tips hat to morbs)

the actors who play Gordon and the abuse therapist were in, respectively, Return of the Jedi and Empire Strikes Back.

Peter Capaldi's limbs-flying running style is hilarious (and possibly copped from Jerry Lewis).

this is Capaldi's actual run: his fellow Scottish/Italian Armando Ianucci would contrive reasons for the character Malcolm Tucker to run in The Thick Of It and In The Loop bcz he also correctly finds it hilarious

In the CC supps, Forsyth twice says that one of his inspirations for LH was... "The Beverly Hillbillies."

He did not write a hut dialogue scene between Ben the beachcomber and Happer because he didn't know what they would say, and also he thought the movie should reflect that chambers of power are usually secretive.

There's also a South Bank Show segment of David Puttnam having a marketing meeting where it's decided the target audience is "over 25s" and "housewives."

The CC booklet reveals that there's a critical study of BF's films titled Discomfort and Joy.

There's a Bill Forsyth thread on I Love Film...I'll post here instead.

I watched Housekeeping tonight for the first time since it came out. (I've been paying for a Criterion subscription for six months, and I think this is the third time I've used it. Just laziness--have to hook up the laptop to the TV.) I was disappointed at the time and puzzled by the acclaim. I love Comfort and Joy--listed it on my ILX ballot for the upcoming poll--same with Local Hero. (I'm going to watch Gregory's Girl this weekend. There was a heist film in there I didn't care for.)

I would have been 26 when Housekeeping came out; I am, of course, so much wiser and thoughtful 33 years later, so surely I'd love it. No--I still think the other two are much better. It's well made, Lahti's good, etc.; I haven't read the novel, so maybe it's exceptionally faithful to that. I again found it flat--in part because of the narration, in part, I think, because of the sisters, especially Lucille. Whimsical humour is hit or miss with me--I find Playtime an ordeal--but I consider those other two films as good in that department as it gets. There was little of that in Housekeeping, and I missed it. The ending was good. Weirdly, Dead Ringers crossed my mind a couple of times.

Andrew Sarris had it second on his 1987 year-end, ninth on his decade list. It's not on TSPDT's Top 1000; Local Hero is #569. Maybe its reputation has faded a bit, I don't know.

Favourite line in Gregory's Girl: "I want to interview you and that girl in 2A that had the triplets."

thanks for reminding me abt Comfort & Joy, I really need to rewatch that someday

This is fantastic, one of the most fascinating docs about the behind-the-scenes of movies i've ever seen. Thank god they didn't go with the original poster artwork idea..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEm6AsTY0WI

I had completely forgotten until reminded a couple of years back that my dad used to occasionally hang out with Burt Lancaster during the filming of this. He was up north a few times, my dad used to work at the airport and had a little cleaning station and he and Burt played cards in there to give him a bit of peace while he was hanging around the airport.

Nice story...I loved seeing Clare Grogan in Gregory's Girl. The films were released over here out of order, but I'm pretty sure I saw Gregory's Girl before Comfort and Joy, so I didn't yet know her (or Altered Images until much later). I took the screenshot below for something else--she's like Bill Forsyth's Monica Vitti. Also didn't know there was a Gregory's Girl sequel (1999) until I was doing some reading on Forsyth last night. Only because I found a really cheap copy, I ordered it--looks pretty bad.

https://phildellio.tripod.com/comfort.jpg

The Gregory's sequel used to be on Netflix Instant; I started it out of morbid curiosity because (IIRC) I saw it on some listicle about 'Movies sunk by their opening scenes' or something, and yeah, that opening scene is pretty o_O. Didn't get any further in than that.

Gregory's Two Girls is dreadful.

Askit Powders, Glasgow's very own painkiller!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Askit_Powders

Askit addiction and subsequent renal failure was a big thing in mid 20th century Glasgow

As if people weren't unhealthy enough.

Has anyone seen That Sinking Feeling? I'd order that, too, but it's a little bit pricier. I can see where it might be a clumsy blueprint for better films to follow--not sure if I want to pay $25 to find out.

Love it. You might need subtitles except I believe there's another version where they dubbed some less strong accents - which sounds horrific to me. Not sure it's worth $25 though!

Yeah, from memory they dubbed in some actors with Edinburgh actors for the US release, I believe, and then the original prints got lost so the redub was used on a DVD.

Edinburgh accents

It's a sin!

I'll definitely need the captioning--hell, I need captioning now for people who sound exactly like me--but I'll check, and if that's included I'll order then.

w/English subtitles--done!

I watched That Sinking Feeling on VHS tape some time back in the 1990s. My memory tells me the production value was low, but pretty good considering the tiny budget, the script and direction were strong, the acting was uneven, but surprisingly effective. Overall, it's the kind of film that more recently would show up on the film festival circuit unheralded and win all the 'audience favorite' awards. You'll like it.

I'm a bit of a bill forsyth sceptic but like that sinking feeling

I think I’m unusual in liking That Sinking Feeling, Gregory’s Girl, Local Hero and Comfort and Joy all about the same. I haven’t seen any of his later ones. Maybe 20 minutes of Gregory’s Two Girls before deciding no.

OK the TSF prints weren’t lost, it was more complex than that:

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2009/oct/09/drama

As soon as I read the headline on that piece, I realized "(the) heist film in there I didn't care for" was That Sinking Feeling...That's okay; I liked Gregory's Girl better this time than way back when. There must have been at least a five-year delay in That Sinking Feeling making it over here.

That heist film might have been the Burt Reynolds one, Breaking In. I didn't like it much at all, even though it was filmed in Portland.

Wow--he did two of them. You could very well be right.

They should have face-swapped Burt Reynolds into That Sinking Feeling for the US market.

I watched Local Hero last week. The end section after Burt Lancaster arrives is a bit underpowered but it's mostly very good. I love Dennis Lawson and Fulton MacKay in it. It's a really good film for right now as well.

That heist film might have been the Burt Reynolds one, Breaking In. I didn't like it much at all, even though it was filmed in Portland.

Confusing the two would seem highly improbable tbh. Also I can't imagine "That Sinking Feeling" being described as a heist movie.

The Graun article describes it as "Glasgow's ­contribution to the bathroom sink ­heist genre" as well as the headline gag.

I think ‘heist movie’ is one of those descriptors that people enjoy applying more at the margins than the core (cf. Man On Wire)

This will win me no friends here, but Local Hero never did much for me. It always kind of seemed to me like a proto-version of one of those whimsical Miramax 90s comedies like The Full Monty or Waking Ned Devine--less aggressively cutesy, sure, but in the same ballpark. Some things I don't mind: the character who lives in the shipwrecked boat, and the guy who plays the main actor's assistant in Scotland (the one who falls for the marine biologist). But I don't feel anything for the lead or care about his perspective, which leaves me uninvested in his transformation, and none of the Lancaster material is all that funny (despite otherwise liking the film, Kael basically agrees with me on this point).

Likely as a result, it is still the only Forsythe that I've seen. I did look for Housekeeping after I read the novel back in my undergrad, but I couldn't find it to rent anywhere at the time.

"the guy who plays"!!

Looked him up on Wiki just now, and what can I say? He's someone who is famous for a bunch of things I don't pay attention to--Doctor Who, The Thick of It. I've seen quite a few movies he's in, but never made the connection.

It always kind of seemed to me like a proto-version of one of those whimsical Miramax 90s comedies like The Full Monty

This is utter bollocks.

I don't agree, cryptosicko, but I come up short the same way with Housekeeping, and even Gregory's Girl I didn't like as much the first time, so I understand. Droll and quiet can be a coin flip--for whatever reason, I immediately connected with Local Hero and Comfort and Joy.

Also I can't imagine "That Sinking Feeling" being described as a heist movie.

The one I saw was a full-on heist film, so it must have been the Burt Reynolds.