I am fairly sure that this is a television play, rather than a film. I have never seen it, but I read a review of it in, I think, the New Statesman, some time between, approximately, 1969 and 1973; and, for some reason, it has stuck in my mind.
It is about this elderly couple who live alone. The play starts off in black and white. Then, after a while, ther son comes to visit them, and it goes into colour. At the end of the play, his visit is over, and it reverts to monochrome.
Ring any bells?
This sounds fascinating. I'd love to know what it is. The effect of the son's visit reminds me of Sidney Poitier in Lilies of the Field - brightening up (the old couple's) lives before everything returns to normal. If Monochrome can be described as 'normal'!
If it was a TV play, chances are I might find out myself from TVTimes of that period.
name='Culpepper' timestamp='1090254960' post='2791']
I am fairly sure that this is a television play, rather than a film. I have never seen it, but I read a review of it in, I think, the New Statesman, some time between, approximately, 1969 and 1973; and, for some reason, it has stuck in my mind.
It is about this elderly couple who live alone. The play starts off in black and white. Then, after a while, ther son comes to visit them, and it goes into colour. At the end of the play, his visit is over, and it reverts to monochrome.
Ring any bells?
Could be this:
Nathan and Tabileth
E.
A description from the Startrader website:
Transmitted : 11th February 1970
Script : Barry Bermange
Director : Barry Bermange
Publicity : Barry Bermange is one of our leading playwrights. His name was in the news last year following the much-discussed showing of the play Invasion on BBC-2, in which guests at a dinner-party were horrifyingly destroyed by the effects of a Vietnam newsreel on the telly. Bermange is concerned, not with yesterday or even today, but rather with what's happening tomorrow and the day after. His ideas consequently are controversial, far-reaching, radical, always thought-provoking, and one would be very surprised if Nathan And Tabileth does not come in for a similar barrage of comment.
Like Invasion, it has been co-produced with a Dutch television company, and will be screened simultaneously in both countries, with respective Dutch or English "voices over". Why simultaneous screening? "No reason, actually," says London-born Bermange, thirty-six. "But as it was a co-production we thought it would nice a nice idea to make a little `event' of it". The play, about a married couple living in grand old age - grim, sad, a little noble - whose life is sterile and empty until their grandson Bernie comes to visit them, is filmed throughout in brown and white, except for the central scene in which Bernie visits the old couple. This is seen in colour. "The idea behind the brown and white filming," explains Bermange, "has been inspired by old photographs and the paintings of Rembrandt". And the colour section? "Well, I've used this in order to break into the couples' `old world'. It has the stunning effect of unexpectedly introducing a very strong, realistic note".
Bermange directed the film himself in the province of Utrecht in Holland entirely on location, with an all-Dutch cast and an all-Dutch crew. "I have made it as a silent film over which the characters' voices are superimposed," he says. "At no time is anyone seen to speak. There is dialogue, but it's always as a voice-over". The grandparents are played by eighty-six-year-old Albert van Dalsum, one of Holland's greatest old Shakespearean actors, and Nell Knoop, who is seventy-six. "It's one of those plays that's been with me for a very long time," Bermange says. "Now, for the first time, I am able to show exactly what I meant by this piece when I wrote it". (A radio adaptation of the original stage play was broadcast in 1962 on the Home Service, and the play was later performed at the 1967 Edinburgh Festival). But what really excited the BBC drama department about the play when they first read it was that it tries to make a statement which can be easily translated into any language. "It would be possible," says Bermange, "to do it in Tibetan or Indian". I don't doubt that he's working on it. (Radio Times, February 5, 1970 - Article by Ian Woodward).
Cast : Albert Van Dalsum (Nathan), Nell Knoop (Tabileth), Wies Andersen (Bernie), Cameron Miller, Hilda Barry and Kendrick Owen (The Voices).
Notes & Trivia : This episode had a running time of seventy-five minutes and was transmitted from 9:10pm to 10:25pm.
This episode was a BBC Television and NCRV Co-Production.
This episode is one of only twelve episodes from the ninth and final season of The Wednesday Play which still exists.
E.
Could be this? MUST be this! Sensational work again, EuryaleI wish you'd been around then to answer the questions for some of these long-gone members. I copied the details of another Wednesday Play from Startrader only last week, during a post for actress Clare Jenkins, so I should have thought about that series as well.
I'm going through all the 'Can You Name This Film?' threads since 2002 (currently 72 pages) and am discovering all sorts of things - most successful contributors, unsolved queries and, of course, interesting memories and plotlines. All are worth reading again and I love seeing how they develop. This also applies to a 40-year-old mystery I had, finally solved (we think) by Simon Coward, who identified my 'burning car' memory as coming from TV series Conceptions of Murder. Unfortunately, I couldn't mark this as a Best Answer as I decided to start the thread in the 'British Television' section. That was my first post here.
I only know Hilda Barry from the otherwise obscure cast of Nathan and Tabileth. Sadly, it turns out that Albert van Dalsum and Nell Knoop both died the year after this was broadcast, and within six weeks of each other. There is a three-minute excerpt from the play, which does exist in it's entirety, at the page I've linked below. Just type 'nathan en tabileth' in the Search bar and you should see two references:
Levenlangtheater: Albert van Dalsum
I can't 'embed' the video clip here but CAN provide you with this still:
I've also found the 'Old age pensioners' acting together 40 years earlier:
In The Chinese House, 17th November 1929. Photographer: Unknown
I am sure Euryale and others will be able to identify some of the other unsolved mysteries from the early threads in this section
I was just browsing inbetween my usual Wednesday morning viewings of Danger Man and The Baron and was horrified to see those pictures have disappeared. Maybe the website I got them from won't allow me to reproduce them here? It was for a good reason though. They will hopefully remain now that I've uploaded them to Photobucket. This is how the second half of the post originally looked ...
Added bonus:name='cornershop15' timestamp='1281488961' post='462989]
I can't 'embed' the video clip here but CAN provide you with this still:
I've also found the 'Old age pensioners' acting together 40 years earlier:
In The Chinese House, 17th November 1929. Photographer: Unknown
Albert in 1950 (Photo - Ralph Prince):
I didn't want to be doing that at 4.00 in the morning.
Many thanks to Cornershop for his interest, and even more thanks to Euryale for being such a good detective!
I don't visit this site very often (maybe I should do so) and had quite forgotten that I had asked this question, until I received an E-Mail which notified me that it had been answered.
I have just looked up the author on the I.M.D.B., and it seems that. at about the same time, he wrote a piece called Invasion for Thirty Minute Theatre, which is described as follows:
A small group of middle class people are sitting around a table in a windowless room enjoying a dinner party as the TV in the corner reports on events in the Vietnam War. Their trivial chatter, one by one, bores people at the dinner party, who turn their attention to the TV and become encapsulated by the horror of the war and the dinner party continues despite, one by one, each diner being overwhelmed by war scenes and is next seen dead in their seat in the same way as a Vietnamese war victim; meanwhile the babble continues and the guest's demise passes unnoticed, until there is only one left.
I wonder whether that still exists?
Glad to have been of help
Invasion is reported as missing from the archives, I'm afraid.
E.
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