Darling (1965)

Darling, no. Just no.

Dirk Bogarde, too! Fascinating actor.

Sweetie darling.

Amazing film, spearheaded by a blazing, unexpectedly brilliant (back them) and blackly hilarious performance by Julie Christie as the cruel, scheming, unbalanced, manipulative, petulant supermodel. She manages to be sexy, witty, sad, ambitious, charming, lazy, abusive, intelligent, bored, classy, spoiled, grimy, and genuine, often all at once - and for a 24 year old with incandescent beauty, Christie had an impressive command of the screen and of the difficult material. Also great are the always reliable Bogarde (his frustration with her childishness is well played) and Laurence Harvey as the playboy with a crumbling façade.

But it's her film, watching her go to work on everyone is deliciously entertaining. Scenes like her spying on Bogarde's wife from a phone booth across the street, wandering around the castle in disillusionment, torturing her pet fish, humiliating Harvey in front of his artsy friends, trying to embarrass Bogarde at the station by acting common, and that terrifying naked breakdown scene... she is astonishingly realistic and refreshingly unlikeable (polar opposite of the other Julie that year).

I don't know why it's so underrated, because it's a fantastic film that is way ahead of its time. A unique cocktail of gritty and glamorous with fascinating characters and sparkling visuals (love those shots of them putting up her posters) that still feels modern today. John Schlesinger was on a roll... maybe his Best Picture winning Midnight Cowboy (also very dark and very homosexual) overshadowed it? The Sound of Music juggernaut was all the rage that year and this was maybe too blackly comic, sexual and arty for the masses? Julie Christie also had the monster hit Dr. Zhivago that year (another family friendly epic) so that might've stolen its thunder too regarding her instant stardom, even though she won for this.

its in the public domain.

JC never looked better, and it was cool that it was so sexually provocative at the time. Loved Bogarde being cast as the no nonsense older gent who wanted to settle down with this unbelievably beautiful and charismatic - yet absolutely nightmarish - young woman. Was Harvey gay IRL like Bogarde?

That's a fabulous still, OP!

It sucked. Fuck R4, do you think she could walk and talk at the same time? A great performance should be believable and touching, why are you throwing out all those random fucking adjectives?

She's cruel, she's kind! She's titted, she's cunted!

An excellent film that holds up beautifully -- and Julie Christie is terrific!

R4 = the ghost of Roger Ebert. Good opinions but so long winded and pseudo intellectual. It's a cracking film though and a top tier Best Actress winner.

I'm shocked I haven't remade it. Yet.

I'm shocked it hasn't been turned into a bad Broadway musical.

I'll be playing the role in Bart's production at LCT next season!

I figured R4 had copied and pasted his 'review'.

If not, BRAVO, R4 and thanks.

Homosexuality...

I thought r4 was very good, too.

[quote]It sucked

It wasn't made for 15 year olds.

R8's a little yobo.

Screenwriter Frederic Raphael won an Oscar too. He also later worked with Kubrick on 'Eyes Wide Shut.' (Then wrote a fascinating little book about that when Kubrick died.)

Raphael is as astringent as he's smart. He's kept journals all his life, and now they're being published. Many of his dealings with film industry players are written up, and warmth is not a feature.

Darling, that trailer is a time capsule into how dreadful 60s movie trailers were, darling!

And it's got the Breakaways on the soundtrack!

[quote]And it's got the Breakaways on the soundtrack!

Never knew who they were! Thanks, R21.

The film version of the song is better though.

& Connie Stevens collected Julie Harris's Oscar for Costume Design...but she didn't want to draw too much attention to herself, as it really wasn't about her, so she dressed...low key.

R24 I've seen less synthetic hair at the Miss Gay South Florida Universe pageant.

R16 Wonder what Dirk Bogarde was thinking during that part? He sounds nervous and stumbles over his words.

I like Sarah Vaughan's record of the Darling theme song:

Carey Mulligan at R12, you would not be believable at all in the role unless it were rewritten to be about a woman who is a model for STD clinic ads. "Do you have gonorrhoea? Do you have chlamydia? She does too!"

Keira Knightley, aren't you on trial for manslaughter? I read that your baby daddy's throat was found slit and you were claiming that your jaw and chin were responsible for the accident.

I love this film too. It’s like a time capsule. I read that the character of Diana has some similarities to Grace Kelly, I guess the be careful what you wish for ending. Julie was fantastic and the actor who played the gay best friend too. Any other similar films you can think of?

Jacqueline Bisset was in an American film called “Grasshopper” a few years after this, that’s the only one I can think of. I could see someone like Charlotte Rampling also playing the Diana roles.

I thought of another similar film, “Bitter Harvest” with tragic Janet Munro was also about a beautiful woman who quickly becomes disillusioned by everything she initially chases.

Diana was never happier than when she was on holiday with her gay bestie, played by the very adorable Roland Curram, still alive at 88.

But Jose Luis Villalonga is my suave and debonair Euro aristocratic "spirit animal."

I’d love to have known what happened to the Roland Curram character. A spin-off would have been good and groundbreaking at the time.

Not my thing, dude.

The man who wrote the film said it was a bit of a mess.

He says Julie Christie 'couldn't speak a line to save her life’. (see 2.40 in the video)

Kenneth Tynan watched John Schlesinger shoot Julie Christie and realised all her footage and soundtrack would need to be spliced together like a police identikit portrait to get a convincing character.

She was a model NOT an actress.

. Someone killed herself! Who was she Miles?

That’s really dumb.

The main character in 'Darling' was a prostitute.

Julie was much better in Billy Liar. Yes, R29, Charlotte Rampling would have been great in the role.

Bogarde and Christie had fantastic chemistry in it

R38 The writer at 2.10 in R34 says Bogarde was chosen for the role because he looked like a weak, suburban hairdresser.

R38 omg that guy is cute!

This film sounds fascinating. Is it streaming anywhere? Also... any context for the screenshot from OP with Julie Christie sunbathing among a half dozen blokes?

See an early selfie at 0:50

I don't know where OP got the idea "Darling" isn't a classic. It's one of the era's most iconic films, and it was Christie's entry into stardom. It has held up over time, too. Not taking anything away from Christie, but Bogarde's performance as the quietly desperate Robert IMO was one of his finest. The film encapsulated in one woman the empty narcissism that was one of the dark undersides of the Swingin Sixties.

It was a brilliant film, brilliantly played, with a flawless script. It's iconic for a reason.

I just wish Bogarde had gotten more recognition for his understated performance, but it was eclipsed by the beauty of the charismatic young newcomer-who could also act.

R43 I wouldn’t say it has reached classic status. It’s not Gone with the Wind where everybody knows it. It seems more a cult classic, enjoyed by film fans looking into British and European cinema of the 60s. I rarely heard about it growing up, my parents would have been the age to enjoy this film in the 60s and neither ever mentioned it to me. In fact the only reason I heard about it was because I got interested in Julie Christie’s films. I would say Billy Liar is considered more of a classic and British kitchen sinkers like This Sporting Life and Look Back in Anger. Darling is great but I agree with OP it’s rather underrated.

In Dorothy Kilgallen's "Darling" review she asked if Bogarde or Harvey had the title role.

R41 OPs pic is from when she's sunbathing with her gay friends in Italy - they use a timer as a reminder to turn so they get an even tan. Roland Curram plays Malcolm who's very openly gay, she gets angry with him one day when he leaves her to have a rendezvous with a cute waiter. IIRC they made a pact to stay loyal to each other like brother and sister and not leave to go have sex.

[quote]For not only is the character of Malcolm funny, handsome, and a good friend, but Malcolm is that rare of rarities: a likable, non-tragic, non-campy, unapologetically sexual, gay character. In a film made in 1965, no less! As the only genuinely decent character in the film, his scenes with Christie are refreshingly convivial and the only times her character ever appears to relax into herself.

[quote]Strangely, for a film with such a progressive attitude towards homosexuality, it seems the closets were full to bursting on the set of Darling. Matinee idol Dirk Bogarde was deeply closeted yet engaged in a brief fling with openly gay director John Schlesinger during the making of Darling (according to authorized Schlesinger biographer William J. Mann). Bogarde enjoyed a 40-year relationship with his agent, Tony Forwood, but invested considerable energy (throughout several autobiographies) in portraying himself publicly as a heterosexual. John Schlesinger harbored hopes that his friend, Roland Curram, might be inspired enough by his role in Darling to come out of the closet. Amused by his friend's presumption, Curram always insisted on his heterosexuality and went on to marry and later sire two children. In 1985, on the occasion of his divorce and ultimate coming out to his family and himself, Curram stated, “Of course, I told John later that he was right.”

I was so mad Julie Christy won the Oscar from Julie Andrews in Sound of Music that year. Fuming, I swore I would never watch that movie. However, after 55 years, I might have gotten over it and will just watch the damn thing.

Diana really was such a great character for an actress. Even today there’s not many that have the opportunity to be so complex.

I think there's a difference between "iconic" and "classic", and I don't think Billy Liar, Look Back in Anger, This Sporting Life, The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner, all of them out of the "Angry Young Man" years, were anymore "classic" than "Darling". None of them have the status of Gone With The Wind. If GWTW is the bar, almost nothing else gets over it. I have younger friends who have never heard of ANY of those films but recognise the words "Gone with the Wind".

They might recognise "Georgie Girl" because of the song, if they were teens in the 1960s, but that's about it.

"Morgan" is another iconic film that late 1950s-mid-late 1960s British film era, and one I'm extremely partial to. It has some parallels with "Darling", including a first-rate performance by a hugely talented actor that was somewhat eclipsed by a beautiful, charismatic, and very talented rising young female star - in that case, a stunning young Vanessa Redgrave.

All of those films stand as icons of the era, but none of them are classics in the sense GWTW is. We will just have to agree to disagree on that.

Would you consider "A Clockwork Orange" a classic? "A Hard Day's Night"? "Blow-Up"?

The original Princess Diana (literally)!!!

The original Princess Diana (literally)!!!

Also in and out of DARLING's "bursting" Closet: bisexual Laurence Harvey.

Villalonga was the only straight man in the cast, and he's barely in the film.

played the drive in in Tucson AZ on the bottom half of a double bill circa 1968 / an older brother of a friend had to explain going off with the waiter meant the character was gay..

it all started to dawn on me....

R46 - thanks! Fascinating stuff. Was the unapolgetic gay subject matter considered controversial at the time?

[quote][R4] = the ghost of Roger Ebert. Good opinions but so long winded and pseudo intellectual. It's a cracking film though and a top tier Best Actress winner.

Does anyone find it odd that R11 *is* R4?

[quote] Would you consider "A Clockwork Orange" a classic? "A Hard Day's Night"? "Blow-Up"?

R50 yes, I would. These are films that regularly top critics lists and popular polls. Darling however never does. I love all of the films you mentioned. I’ll give Morgan another try but it didn’t leave any impression on me the first time in fact I barely remember it but I definitely watched it.

R50 I feel like students might study those films in class. I just don’t know if Darling doesn’t get lost in the shuffle. Most of those angry young man films are based on plays or literature.

There was a novelisation of the movie. I remember one line "She was a familiar with the sight of his penis as she was with his face" - not an exact quote, but near enough. Christie was horrified..."that horrid book".

I love the film. ALL the men seem GAY. It's VERY GAY. Therefore I can't imagine Julie having such a sexy time with Dirk or with Harvey.

I love the way the film moves...all the locations.

the only section I don't like is the Paris one. The stupid games. "She has a wonderfully shaped head' - even the sculptress was a lesbian.

I live near "Diana's flat" and always look up at it "The clock's broken!" - 'I HATE.THIS.FLAT!"

Anyone who loved this should see "Petulia' (1968)

If you dig this trailer you'll dig the movie.

[quote]Diana was never happier than when she was on holiday with her gay bestie, played by the very adorable Roland Curram, still alive at 88.

He came out (very) later in life.

He had two daughters "Of COURSE we knew".

I asked my mom about this movie and she said she never watched it, but Julie Christie had pretty much disappeared. And I thought she has, hasn't she? I haven't heard anything about her in ages.

I saw it once in the early ‘90s and it didn’t leave much of an impression. It seemed a minor film even then but given Christie’s Oscar win, it was referred to more than seen. It seemed like something that was probably very trendy at the time. But I’d seen Christie previously in Heaven Can Wait, Shampoo, McCabe and Mrs. Miller (which a recent viewing of First Cow made me think of). I knew of her in Dr Zhivago which still enjoyed a certain reverence when I was growing up in the ‘70s but I’ve never seen it. All of those were undoubtedly much better films than Darling.

I recently watched 1964’s The System (aka The Girl-Getters) with the young beautiful Oliver Reed. Shot by Nicholas Roeg, Christie was meant to play the female lead but then had to drop out. This is the type of thing she was doing around Darling. I’ll probably take a look at this again before watching Darling again, which I’ve had since the 50th anniversary release.

Trailer for The System (1964).

She's 80 years old, R62. I know Americans think this is the start of life for some people...like their Presidents, but let her go, dear.

The System is a big bore.

If you want a more heavyweight 60s London film, watch Pumpkin Eater (1964)

Also The Pleasure Girls is great Nice long clip here >

The Pleasure Girls ALSO has an openly gay character. Very ground breaking for London 1965.

R63 / R64 -- Good LORD Oliver Reed looks GORGEOUS there. The other men he's chatting with on that walk along the seaside look pretty handsome, too, but he's something else. Woof!

On YouTube you can see THE WILD AND THE WILLING (62). Trembling Red Brick uni student John Hurt secretly lusts after roommate Ian McShane. Both making film debuts. There are surprising references to homosexuality and being "queer" throughout the film. Jeremy Brett adds more than a whiff of lavender to the proceedings.

VICTIM (61) opened the dam in British cinema (as did THE L-SHAPED ROOM and A TASTE OF HONEY at the same time).

Julie Christie is, of course, fantastic in this very cynical, clever, funny movie and deserved her Oscar. I don't expect morons like R8 or the other Mary who sniffed that Christie was just a model (no, she wasn't) to recognize talent like hers, but what can one expect?

R40 He was very cute and had a unique charm about him. There is a Dirk Bogarde DL thread:

R71 Are you the one who saw Christie on stage in New York?

R34 Pauline Kael commented that the young Christie “had the profile of a Cocteau drawing – tawdry – classical – and that seemed enough. Who could expect her to act?”

R74 Cocteau's drawings presented the profile in a few lines.

They're lacking in character and as useful as those Identikit drawings that Kenneth Tynan referred to in R34.

Still, what a profile

R72 Bogarde was excessively cute from 1948 until 1960 when J. Arthur Rank tore up his contract.

He was getting wrinkled after that.

[quote] Julie Christie also had the monster hit Dr. Zhivago that year

Christie didn't "have" that movie. She and the passive Egyptian Sharif may have had the looks but both of them had NO skills at all.

David Lean relied on professional thespians like Alec Guinness, Ralph Richardson and Rod Steiger to carry the movie.

She provided a passive sex-interest but her voice and imitation-Brigitte-Bardot hair were quite jarring.

Didn't Dirk Bogarde want Julie Christie for The Night Porter? His best films were made after 1960 but he was truly a dreamboat in the early 50s R77.

R62 Christie was nominated for an Oscar in 1997 for Afterglow and in 2006 for the devastating Away From Her and she did the Harry Potter movies. So, she stayed pretty active in the film until the last 10 years or so.

I think she lives on a farm or something.

Watchable but ultimately trite and unoriginal in it's basic story despite the flashy direction and the obvious and easy social targets. Try another film with Dirk Bogarde that still stands up and probably seems better than ever, The Servant 1963 with a screenplay by Harold Pinter and brilliantly directed by Joseph Losey. Besides sharing the same star as Darling it also has an insinuating score from the same composer.

[quote]Besides sharing the same star as Darling it also has an insinuating score from the same composer.

Now while I love you....alone.

That one song droning on through that film is what keeps me from a re-watch.

Julie winning the Oscar

R66 Yow, that's some serious angsty, pent up, heterosexual scenery chewing. Here's to you, pre-Mrs. Robinson.

Raphael wrote a memoir about his work with Kubrick on Eyes Wide Shut that Steven Spielberg took issue with...

Re: R19 ^^^

all you gurls crushin' on Oliver Reed should check this one out

R86 Speilberg big notes himself but he didn't actually collaborate with Kubrick.

Raphael and Kubrick collaborated. Speilberg did not.

R83 Cleo doesn't drone on throughout the film as the YouTube clip might lead one to believe but I like the film's score by her husband composer John Dankworth.

Saw it for the first time last year, and I really don't think it's aged well at all, though it's maybe interesting as a period piece. The near-constant, heavy-handed moralizing seems lifted whole from LA DOLCE VITA without any subtlety at all. I'm not sure how the "decadent" Paris party scene played in 1965, but it just looks absurd now. BLOW-UP basically covers the same territory in a much less ham-fisted way.

MIDNIGHT COWBOY, on the other hand, holds up beautifully. Largely thanks to the performances of Voight and Hoffman and the naturalistic use of New York settings. It's like the first film of the 70s.

R91 not sure about Blow Up covering the same territory. Antonioni’s closest to Darling was L’Eclisse with Delon and Vitti.

Which reminds me of another similarly themed movie from the same era. I Knew Her Well with Stefania Sandrelli. I love these 60s era films about the dark side of getting what you wish for.

R73, no, I didn't see her on stage.

R74, Kael did not say Christie could not act. In fact, she loved her and praised her, epspecially in McCabe and Mrs. Miller (another Oscar comination for Christie, for a total of 4 noninations and 1 win).

I saw Christie onstage in Mike Nichols' production of Uncle Vanya at Circle-in-the-Square in 1973. She played Yelena opposite George C. Scott and Nicol Williamson and I remember her as simply gorgeous , which, as an object of lust, is not much more than the role requires.

Darling opened when I was just a little too young to see it or appreciate it and I still haven't seen it. This thread isn't very encouraging, lol. But I well remember Christie's presence in the mid to late 60s as an iconic presence in films like Dr. Zhivago, Far From the Madding Crowd and The Go-Between, as well as a huge fashion influencer for her hair and makeup and clothes.

I have a distinct memory of her accepting an award in a newly minted gold lame mini-skirt outfit, causing quite a stir when all the other ladies were still wearing long formal gowns. I thought it was for her Oscar but see in the clip above of her acceptance speech that that wasn't the occasion. Does anyone else happen to have a memory of that outfit?

It should be added that Dr. Zhivago is a schlock film (hated by Kael, btw) that was a monster hit of its time. That's it.

R94 Kael really liked her in Don't Look Now(1973) and Shampoo(1975) as well. I saw Christie in the late 70s on East 60th St. in NYC and she was beautiful.

Dr. Zhivago: Gentlemen: Prefer Blondes

R95 That would be the following year when she presented the Best Actor award. YouTube: Paul Scofield Oscar.

Ah, of course! Thank you, r99, I will look for it.

R99 she wore a black and white polka dot mini skirt presenting best actor. The gold lame pantsuit was winning best actress. I adore Christie. She’s retired now I believe and has long term memory issues, but she claims it’s not Alzheimer’s. She really was the perfect actress for this part. You really want to smack, be envious of, and pity the Diana character all at the same moment. Fairly bleak, but well made film. The one two punch of this and Zhivago really put Christie on the map. But she never was really ambitious as a film actress and never aspired to be another Streep.

[quote] She’s retired now I believe and has long term memory issues, but she claims it’s not Alzheimer’s.

I hadn’t heard this I thought maybe it was people getting confused with her performance in the film Away from Her. Sad if it’s true. I did hear she lives on a farm in Wales and doesn’t miss Hollywood.

It took me a while to warm to Christie going through her films. It took some adjusting to the way she talks in the films, now I love it though. In Darling I love when she’s sending up brits abroad when she’s learning Italian!

R101 I think R95 conflated the 2 outfits She gave in a mini and received in gold lame

Probably my favorite performance by an actress in a movie ever. (My favorite, not claiming it was the "best" ever).

As befitted the times, everything the character did was "performing" trying to project something she wasn't - cool city girl, smart bohemian woman, free spirited continental soul, elegant elite lady.... and underneath it all, a lost soul... not a nice lost soul, but lost nonetheless.

After fucking everything... her classic line at the end, "I never liked sex anyway."

As a film it was a great transition from the Angry Young Brit New Wave films to the swinging 60s auteur films. There really is no other film like it.

This better be better than that dumbass Eastenders dame's 1960's movie. It sucked donkey dicks.

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"Zhivago" doesn't' really work and most of the acting is bad (including Christie), but some of the visuals (even the credits) are jaw-droppingly beautiful, like great painting, especially on the big screen.

Julie at the 3:00 mark presenting best actor to the absent Paul Scofield. She definitely stood out from the pack of women at the 1967 Oscars. The mini skirt was perfect on her and caused a little ruckus because she broke the usual Oscar protocol for dressing. Beautiful, radiant woman.

I thought Geraldine Chaplin was more naturally beautiful in Dr. Zhivago...

R108 She was perky, eh? 60s challenging norms and traditions.

And looking at the crowd in the ceremony in 1967...

#OscarSoWhite

R108 She was perky, eh? 60s challenging norms and traditions.

And looking at the crowd in the ceremony in 1967...

#OscarSoWhite

[italic]"You're a whore, baby, that's all. Just a whore - and I don't take whores in taxis."

I still think she should have won the Oscar for Away From Her. In addition to the fact that it is a superb performance, I think if Hillary Swank, Sally Field, and Jane Fonda each have two Oscars, so should Julie Christie—she’s as good as or better than any of them.

Bogarde did the iconic gay classic Victim two years before Darling.

R113 agreed. Julie didn’t campaign for the Oscar like Marion Cotillard the winner did. I love Marion, but was disappointed when Julie didn’t win.

R115 I don’t think two Oscars would make much difference, didn’t she only really take Away from Her as a favour to Sarah Polley? I think I remember reading or hearing it at the time.

R116 agree with the other Oscar. I still wanted her to win, but wouldn’t have changed Julie’s indifference to her career. Yes Polley had to ask her quite a few times to wear her down.

Julie Christie is an incredible breath of fresh air in that clip of her presenting the Best Actor Oscar in her minidress and unadorned hair. What a difference we see from the other ladies in the clip, Roz Russell, Wendy Hiller and even Audrey Hepburn. 1967-68, a most transitional year in fashion and culture.

Julie was never a publicity whore. She never seemed to be in the press for any kind of misbehavior or attention-getting escapades. I can't even remember her appearing on any of the talk shows. Even when she was seeing Warren Beatty, it was all very discreet. Her other love affairs were never reported on, that I can remember. I don't think she ever married or stayed long with any man.

R18 Hepburn was fantastically twee by comparison to the delightful Christie.

R119 she’s been with her spouse Duncan Campbell for forty years. But reports vary as to when they married.

On homosexuality...

R119 She went on at least one UK chat show, but only to give a political message - still gorgeous here in 1988

[quote][R119] She went on at least one UK chat show, but only to give a political message - still gorgeous here in 1988

She says to him that it's the first talk she she's ever done.

I remember reading that she’s rumoured to have a half sister who is Indian. The story gave me Merle Oberon vibes. So much secrecy surrounding it.

She was born in India, I believe.

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When “Darling” opened in Boston, in the early fall of 1965, audiences weren’t very interested, but the theater owner thought it was a good enough movie that he advertised admission would be free for one day, a Tuesday as it turned out.

The following February, at my all-male prep school north of the city, “Darling” was what we had for our weekly Saturday night movie, which also happened to be our annual Dance Weekend, when girls were invited to the school for our version of a Prom. Presumably, it was considered sophisticated, though the message it conveyed about relationships wasn’t exactly optimistic.

The next morning, at our compulsory Sunday chapel, also attended by seniors and their dates, our Headmaster denounced the film for its decadent morals, specifically referring to a scene where Christie and her gay friend merrily shoplift. We students were taken aback by this attack on what was supposed to be an enjoyable weekend. (To this day, I don’t think he ever understood what the film was saying.)

(Interestingly, during the four years I spent there, Christie was everyone’s ideal woman, while Steve McQueen was their male role model.)

I think the film was way ahead of its time, though, in retrospect, it seems to seesaw between reveling in Diana’s behavior and judging it. And, of course, at the end, per Hollywood tradition, she has to end up unhappy in her gilded cage.

But, in this case at least, I still think my Headmaster came off as a stuffed shirt.

[quote] And, of course, at the end, per Hollywood tradition, she has to end up unhappy in her gilded cage.

That gurl wouldn't have remained unhappy for long.

I can think of a dozen women of her London social class who divorced their Italian first husbands.

[quote] Diana really was such a great character for an actress.

Even today there’s not many that have the opportunity to be so complex.

R49 Do you think Diana was more complex than Scarlett O'Hara? And, perhaps, less complex than Blanche Du Bois?

I love The Leather Boys (1964) - what a difference a year made in gay depictions in British cinema.

R49 Complex?

Diana is a vapid cipher which is the whole point.

I was at boarding school (London late 70s) and this was on, late night and I watched it on my secret (forbidden) little B&W TV.

I thought it was SO good. Even more exciting, there's a scene when Diana goes to find Miles and he's fencing in his club - the man he's fencing with turns around and it was MY fencing teacher. As you can imagine I had a bag full of questions for him when I next saw him a few days later.

I remember him saying Lawrence Harvey was incredibly vain, fussing away about how he'd look on camera.

I've even found the clip!

Julie Christie is one of the most beautiful and charismatic screen actresses of all time. She was much more than a beauty: intelligence in equal measure. Reds would have a great film if she, not Diane Keaton was the lead, as Beatty intended (before they broke up.). What a couple they were!

Julie was attractive but not a great beauty. She didn't have a great nose.

R109 - ?? She's got enough eye makeup to sink a battleship, her eyebrows are done, she has lipstick on, and the photo is done by a pro. How is that "natural beauty"??

R133 there’s a lot of complexity in playing a character who is so vapid. I mean she has lots of layers in this performance. She is vapid but she’s also spoilt, and selfish, and hedonistic. I stand by what I said, I think it’s a great character.

There’s just something magical about Julie’s face. As a kid I thought she was the chicest, coolest, most beautiful woman ever. I was not wrong.

[quote]Julie was attractive but not a great beauty. She didn't have a great nose.

She's actually better "animated" than in still photos.

But she was very good looking whichever way you look at it.

R131 I put her on a par with scarlet and Blanche. There are some similarities there.

fun story

i'd forgotten this

About ten years ago my father fangurled her at the National Portrait Gallery - he told her I was a big fan, I guess.

And he got her autograph for me;

'dear Tony...you sound so nice, perhaps we'll meet one day...who knows"

(God knows what he said to her).

Julie Oscar win. She later said her crying was due to embarrassment, and being onstage was like the headmaster calling you up in front of the whole school.

I think those of here who were (at least) teenagers in the mid-1960s know what an incredibly huge star Julie Christie was in that decade.. A true IT GIRL at a time when Hollywood had stopped producing them. I suppose Jane Fonda came close, but Jane didn't make any quality films until the 1970s.

R144 Barefoot in the Park, Cat Ballou, They Shoot Horses were all quality in the 1960s. Jane was building up her resume during this time. Julie had the good fortune of winning when everyone loved British singers and actors during this time frame. This helped her, along with the double punch of Zhivago and Darling .

Ooops. You're ight about Jane. I wouldn't consider Barefoot in the Park and Cat Ballou to be of the quality of Julie's 1960s projects but then, I'm an Anglophile.

Great chemistry

R146 yeah Jane was in a lot of fluff in the 60s only with They Shoot Horses, did she start making more quality films

[quote]I think those of here who were (at least) teenagers in the mid-1960s know what an incredibly huge star Julie Christie was in that decade.. A true IT GIRL at a time when Hollywood had stopped producing them. I suppose Jane Fonda came close, but Jane didn't make any quality films until the 1970s.

She was a part of that whole Swinging London era - there was a whole slew of these English gurls who made it in America at that time incl. models like Shrimpton & Twiggy. But she was The Queen.

She did very little promotion so there's very little footage of her from the time.

I only saw her once in the flesh at Camden Tube Station. She was very scruffy and unassuming looking in the flesh. I think she found the "star" thing embarrassing.

I liked Samantha Eggar too but her career didn’t seem to take off like Christie’s.

Lynn Redgrave really embraced America and they her...for YEARS!

R140 Exactly what I was going to post. Her "beauty" was not that of a model... still photos couldn't capture her. While her nose might not have been close to any ideal, watching her move through space, seeing the flash of her eyes as she "saw" and felt and responded to the life in front of her, was something magnificent.

Anima rising...

Any "imperfections" in Julie's face only made her more popular with younger audiences. The days of Sandra Dee and even Natalie Wood were over.

Her lack of picture perfect beauty allowed her to be an actress rather than a "goddess."

It was especially helpful as she rose to fame in the "kitchen sink" era. She was glamorous but real.

I thought Keaton was good as Louise Bryant, but Christie probably could have done well too. The biggest casting problem with "Reds" was Beatty's misguided decision to play John Reed.

I love this old interview where at 0:30 seconds she tells the interviewer that she didn’t like the film The Group by Sidney Lumet. I always do like Christie, there’s something very charming and free-spirited about her

I liked Christie in Fahrenheit 451.

I always think of her as being a more glamorous Karen Black-type. Did she do any horror/thrillers beside Don't Look Now?

Isn't there a movie where she's inseminated by a computer or something? Demon Seed? I haven't seen it.

R159 good film and quite foreboding, not unlike 2001 a Space Odyssey, with AI taking over many facets of our lives.

In retrospect, she was very smart not to do many interviews. It's helped to maintain a mystique about her to this day.

Julie Christie had real charisma and star presence, which someone like Samantha Eggar - a solid, but not extraordinary talent - didn't have.

However, she is not good in Madding Crowd as she didn't, at that point, convey the kind of fierce determination of Bathsheba. But she had the kind of beauty that made it plausible that the three male characters would be drawn to her. In the remake, Carey Mulligan has the reverse issue.

Christie played Gertrude to Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet in the latter's 4-hour film, and she did just fine.

The Pumpkin Eater is an excellent film and probably Anne Bancroft's best performance. Maggie Smith has a small role as well.

Never liked Morgan. The lead character played by David Warner irritated me to no end. Redgrave's role is really supporting.

Charlotte Rampling had a similar 60s mod sex appeal and charisma, as well as talent, as Julie Christie but her career didn't seem to go nearly as far.

In those days, I really only knew Rampling from her performance in GEORGY GIRL and I wonder if playing that unforgettable bitch typed her out of leading lady roles? Hard to see her as anyone sympathetic back then.

A shallow movie about a shallow person.

[quote]In those days, I really only knew Rampling from her performance in GEORGY GIRL and I wonder if playing that unforgettable bitch typed her out of leading lady roles? Hard to see her as anyone sympathetic back then

She said it took her aa long time to get people to realize she wasn't the cunt she played in that movie.

Other 60s British gurls of note

Susannah York & Sarah Miles, Carole White...some people called Carole the New Julie Christie (see pic), which bugged her cos she'd been around before her. Carole didn't get great fame because she was always making the wrong choices.

but she was sweet

Carole wrote her autobiography and clearly she was told "Lots of sex" if you want it to sell and boy, was that gurl promiscuous - just reading it was exhausting.

If you like 60s London films see Poor Cow - but it's the sadder, poorer side of 60s London.

Isn't that Judy Geeson from To Sir With Love in that photo at r166? She and Suzy Kendall, yet another blonde from that film, were other would-be British It Girls of the 1960s who all seemed to be channeling Julie Christie with their blonde bangs, heavy black mascara and pale skin and lips.

I don't remember Carole White at all.

no, it's Carole, R168.

You can see what a nice film "Poor Cow" is from this intro to the film with the Donovan soundtrack >

Terence Stamp, Alan Bates and Oliver Reed were all the male equivalents to Julie Christie back then. Tom Courtenay to a lesser (or gayer) extent.

there was a book about them called Birds Of Britain ©1967

One of her most iconic appearances is in “Billy Liar,” when she’s first seen, as the camera follows her, strolling around town. She’s seen as the ultimate free spirit. It really creates her cinema persona right there, in those few minutes.

Director Schlesinger adored her, and it shows.

Sadly, it was “Far from the Madding Crowd” that ended their collaboration. Big Cinerama roadshow approach to Thomas Hardy. Major flop. Much underrated at the time, but it really holds up beautifully. It’s criminal that it will probably never be seen on that kind of mammoth screen again. Schlesinger transforms the vast countryside into a major element of the story. And Christie’s Bathsheba is the compelling force of nature that holds it together. A beautiful film with a deliberate pace. A success in Britain, but it fell flat with trendy 60’s Americans, who found it dull.

R172 Thanks for the reminder about Billy Liar, her first movie. "Luminous" is a word that's overused, to the point it has no meaning. But here slow movements, her knowing smile, black and white photography... my memory of her in that is "luminous".. I think she barely had lines, but was all you looked at when she was in frame.

And a good movie on its own terms...

Oliver Reed was the male equivalent to Julie Christie? Chris Christie, more like.

Did all movie posters miscredit Miss White?

OP, I don't get why you're saying it's not considered a classic.

It's considered a classic.

Not really.

Do you think it is meant to be about Grace Kelly? I just watched "Mank" and I'm interested in how much she inspired the character of Diana.

Young Oliver Reed was very much the sexy and charismatic equivalent of young Julie Christie. But I guess r175 has never seen Women in Love and his other early film performances.

I have. I've even seen "The Assassination Bureau."

R179 what does Mank have to do with either Darling or Grace Kelly?

Post Oscar win interviews.

R182, I apologize I was unclear due to still being drunk this AM. Watching "Mank" made me wonder when a filmmaker chooses someone to make a movie about, how deep do they dive. And I read that "Darling" was based on Princess Grace, and I guess I wanted to know if anyone could outline the parallels, aside from the obvious Princess part.

It's ... been a rough two days.

R184 The man in this interview wrote the story—

Except for fucking a lot of men, Grace Kelly's background and life couldn't be more different from the story told in Darling.

R184 & R186 this is true. I think the parallel is rather obvious, as you point out marrying a prince and becoming dissatisfied with that (trapped in a golden cage) at the end. Aside from that, I guess we should draw parallels in that they were beautiful women who make her way into high society through modelling (Diana) and acting (Grace).

It’s not clear what background Diana comes from, but I don’t see her as being moneyed like Grace was. At the beginning when she is performing in her school play, there’s no indication that she comes from a wealthy background.

Anyway that’s all I can think of off the top of my head.

Frederic Raphael (in R185) fornicated with the woman who became 'Darling'.

His stories in all those Youtube videos are quite entertaining.

R186 She married also royalty and became a real Princess, that was the comparison.

I guess I should actually watch Darling to the end, lol.

R188 does he say who the woman was? I mean was she famous?

Julie Christie almost didn’t get her breakthrough in Billy Liar, it was originally intended for the actress Topsy Jane. Billy liar probably changed Christie’s life, it certainly expedited her career. A side note is that Topsy had to also pull out of Schlessinger’s A KInd of Loving, it seems he was keen on the actress, I wonder if she would have been considered for Darling too, had she been successful in the other mentioned roles.

Since we've talking about it... here she is in Billy Liar.... she didn't even have to speak.

Also, I was good friends with someone who knew and worked with Frederic Raphael. No good gossip to share, though.

[quote]Aside from that, I guess we should draw parallels in that they were beautiful women who make her way into high society through modelling (Diana) and acting (Grace).

Diana was also an actress....lest you forget.

Though I can't remember the title.

I love the wall of photographs at her flat...of herself.

So many details of the movie - sets, art direction, costumes - were well done. I loved the montage/sequence of the mirror in the apartment they shared - photos and written messages to each other changing over the months- documented the story of a relationship that was inevitably going to meet its shelf life and expire.

"I don't take whores in taxis"

The opening titles:

[quote]"You're a whore, baby, that's all. Just a whore - and I don't take whores in taxis."

R45, And then she mysteriously died.

New-ish trailer for the 50th anniversary restoration

What are the gay elements?

My favorite line was when Diana asked Robert to flag down a taxi after he discovers her infidelity. “I don’t take whores in taxis...”. Always wanted an opportunity to use this line.

But I don’t date whores, so there’s that.

You THINK you don't date whores...

R205 Well, it stars gay actors Dirk Bogarde, Roland Curram and Laurence Harvey. Curram plays the gay best friend who Christie travels to Italy with and hangs out with a bunch of other gays. Curram gets picked up by a waiter (pic) one night and goes with him on his vespa for some fun.

[quote]For not only is the character of Malcolm funny, handsome, and a good friend, but Malcolm is that rare of rarities: a likable, non-tragic, non-campy, unapologetically sexual, gay character. In a film made in 1965, no less. As the only genuinely decent character in the film, his scenes with Christie are refreshingly convivial and the only times her character ever appears to relax into herself

[quote]Strangely, for a film with such a progressive attitude towards homosexuality, it seems the closets were full to bursting on the set of Darling. Matinee idol Dirk Bogarde was deeply closeted yet engaged in a brief fling with openly gay director John Schlesinger during the making of Darling (according to authorized Schlesinger biographer William J. Mann). Bogarde enjoyed a 40-year relationship with his agent, Tony Forwood, but invested considerable energy (throughout several autobiographies) in portraying himself publicly as a heterosexual. John Schlesinger harbored hopes that his friend, Roland Curram, might be inspired enough by his role in Darling to come out of the closet. Amused by his friend's presumption, Curram always insisted on his heterosexuality and went on to marry and later sire two children. In 1985, on the occasion of his divorce and ultimate coming out to his family and himself, Curram stated, “Of course, I told John later that he was right.”

That doesn't like Dirk was deeply closeted.

*That doesn't sound like Dirk was deeply closeted.

According to Wikipedia, Christie replaced Shirley MacLaine in DARLING. I wonder what that would have been like.

R212 can’t imagine that at all!

I don't take transcendentals in taxis!

Dirk was clearly a bit miffed. Perhaps he thought that HE was playing the title character.