Tired Old Queen at the Movies: Blithe Spirit (1945)

Click to enlarge.

Steve Hayes reviews the classic celestial fantasy, filmed in glorious Technicolor in England at the end of World War II, based on the play by the great Noel Coward.  Never mind what the critics said at the time, or later - this is a beautifully filmed, delightfully upper-crust comedy of the kind that isn't made anymore.  And darling Margaret Rutherford, the old dear, is a complete hoot!  If you've never seen it, your're in for a treat - enjoy!

Bonus:  The English country house that was used for exterior shots is still standing just outside London, and just as lovely as it looks in the film.  Check out the real estate listing from 2019 to see some stunning photos of the inside and outside.

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Tom and Damien: Chateau for Two

The boys from French Canada are beavering away on renovating their newly-purchased Château Poséidon in the Loire Valley of France - and so quickly that I've already fallen behind on posting their videos.  Here are episodes 3 and 4 for your enjoyment.

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Chateau for Two

Tom and Damien are a charming Canadian couple who bought a derelict chateau in France, where they have a monumental repair and renovation job ahead of them:

In their second video, they give a mini-tour of the chateau:

(Mais je ne comprends pas pourquoi les gars ne parlent pas le francais dans leur videos. Pour le convenence de leurs telespectateurs anglophones, je me suppose.)

For a full tour of Chateau Poseidon from top to bottom, and a bit of the grounds, see the video they made for So Chateau here.

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Better Homos and Gardens

The warm weather has brought the DIY'ers out in droves, on YouTube anyway, and my truckbuddies may be interested to see what somebody is doing with an old plantation house in South Carolina.  Brian Branton, a D.C. attorney and lobbyist, saw historic Cedar Grove for sale online a while back, and by his own account, immediately fell in love with the place and snapped it up.  Now he's hard at work writing checks to have the house and gardens restored to his idea of fabulous.  

An enormous "passion project," as monied people like to say, but he seems to have the requisite energy and enthusiasm for it.  Well, good luck to him in that reddest of all red states - I'm sure it's great fun to have a whole estate to play with. 

You can choose how much you want to see of this project, from among a dozen or so vids Brian has posted already.  Here's his first introductory overview from April 2024 (2 min.):

 

 Here's Brian's walkthough of the whole house, a work in progress (47 min.):

 

And here's his latest video, just posted yesterday, an overview of the garden and grounds (29 min.): 

 

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Worth Watching: Edwardian Country House

There being a dearth of anything else worth posting about this week - I'm sure you guys are all up to date on the latest political gaffes and foreign affairs - I'm going to share with you an excellent documentary I watched several years ago and am now working though again: The Edwardian Country House, filmed in the fall of 2001 by Britain's Channel 4, and subsequently broadcast there and in the U.S. on PBS, which retitled it as Manor House. I'm enjoying it just as much this time around as I did the first time I saw it; it really is very well done, and if you haven't seen it yourself, do give it a try.



All six episodes are viewable on YouTube. For more on the series, including exit interviews with the participants, check out the PBS website for the show. Also, if you're planning a visit to Scotland and would like to rent the exquisitely lovely Manderston House for an overnight stay with yourself and up to 18 of your closest friends, check out the house's website.

There were several of these period-recreation shows done in this country and in Britain in the last decade, and I've seen most of them, and enjoyed them all. Apart from the historical and artistic interest, these types of shows are fascinating for the psychological insights they provide: how much of our attitudes and behaviors are a product of living in one time or another? And it's amusing, too, to see which participants can make the change back to another time, and which ones just can't let go of the 21st century - which produces predictable conflicts with the others.

I won't say anything more about this series so as not to prejudice you - except that I think it's important to keep in mind that all the participants, upstairs and down, are constrained by following a well-marked "script" of how to behave with one another. But of course your realize that real life, in any period including our own, is infinitely variable, and does not always follow the script we think it should! But watch it and see what you think. If you like Downton Abbey, you'll get a kick out of this. Enjoy.


Bonus: The following documentary produced by PBS in early 2012 isn't nearly so good - it follows the dishonest modern style of using ominous music and a certain intonation of the narrator's voice to project a feeling of creepiness, fear, and sinister doings, when they are talking about clearly ordinary things. Still, beginning at the 6:00 mark, it has a short interview with the current owner of Manderston, Lord Palmer, his Texas-born wife, and their butler, along with some new shots of the interior and exterior.

In an English Country Garden

I wonder if any of my truckbuddies remember the tune of the same title:  it was a well-known piece that I learned to play as a kid while taking piano lessons (which, alas, I didn't continue very long).

I was reminded of both tune and title by the serendipitous discovery on YouTube of some BBC programs done in the late 1980's which are really delightful.  I don't think they were ever shown over here, but if you like to cook and garden, check these out, I think you'll enjoy them.

Classic Shacks: Town Head House

Your Head Trucker's tastes in architecture tend heavily towards the classical and traditional; the Georgian period is my especial favorite, though as a Southerner I naturally have a weakness for Greek Revival; yet sometimes when I'm feeling my oats, throwing caution to the winds, I might even have a fling with Art Deco.  I guess we all have a little tryst now and then, eh?

When I have nothing better to do, I sometimes amuse myself in looking over advertisements for real estate I can never hope to possess, but which is delightful to daydream about.  In what may become a new regular feature here on the Blue Truck, here's a lovely old house in a stunningly beautiful location that perhaps my truckbuddies will appreciate as much as I do:  Town Head House, on Lake Windermere in the Lake District of England, which famously inspired much of William Wordsworth's youthful poetry, among others. 

The house has been in the family since George III was on the throne, but now they are selling out for a mere £5,250,000, or about $8.2 million at current exchange rates.

You can see more pictures and the full property description at the real estate listing site.  And the Telegraph has this article on the current family, their history, and their reasons for selling.