The Dresser (1983)

Stop...that...TRAIN!!!

Albert Finney's second best performance, right after Hercule Poirot.

Back in the days when we could still find intelligent movies at the cineplex...Now it's The Avengers 13 or Spiderman 44...

R3 Very true! The remade it with Anthony Hopkins and Ian McKellen, but it was not the same.

OP it is right here and streaming for free.

The remake with Anthony Hopkins and Ian McKellen has points of interest but seems to follow the original play while the 1983 movie really opens up the material (i.e. the scene in the train station "Stop...that...TRAIN!!!")

One point of interest in the remake: Emily Watson as Her Ladyship (based on Rosalind Iden wife of Donald Wolfit) is expanded and deepened. In the 1983 movie she is a fairly bland figure and secondary. The remake has her very bitter about missed opportunities and the critical scorn she has endured as the inevitable female lead overshadowed by her husband. Her character seems very liberated and not at all grieving at the end. Rosalind Iden had been pleased with a Donald Wolfit biography that Ronald Harwood penned. However she was less pleased with the veiled portrait as Sir in "The Dresser" and hadn't spoken to Ronald Harwood after the play premiered. After Iden died 1990, Harwood could be more frank about aspects of their marriage which he might have been more circumspect about while Iden was living and could sue.

R5 You are manna from Heaven!! Thank you!

I want the book. Wolfit was such a good actor. I wish we had more recordings of him performing Shakespeare. I wish he were in more movies, too. He was only in four "real" movies (Blood of the Vampire, Room at the Top, Lawrence of Arabia, and Becket).

He died too young (at 65).

Thanks again for the link! It is such an expensive copy to purchase.

There are soooo many streaming services. Here's a link to search for movies or TV on US streaming services. I swear I'd get rid of cable if some AI person could figure out a way to consolidate all my subscribed streaming apps into 1 easily searchable menu on my TV. Some streaming apps are a pain the ass to navigate.

If you use Amazon Fire Stick with voice command, it can search your streaming apps for content.

For something different, buy the play by Ronald Harwood and read the script. You'll see and hear it play in your head. I love reading plays. My personal favorite is The Entertainer by John Osbourne.

What a wonderful film! It makes want to see Albert Finney play King Lear.

Finney was also brilliant in “shoot the moon” I don’t know why that film isn’t more appreciated. It’s one of my favorites.