Magic town - 1947

I like it. Of course I do: James Steward, romantic comedy, happy ending…the only thing I don’t like about it is the girl (the character I mean, of course). I rather dislike her, she’s the bad-journalist-type :-/

It starts with news of Rip Smith - real name Lawrence (James Stewart) going out of business, because “getting opinion from the public” is difficult and expensive. He dreams of finding a new, better way to do it, and finally thinks he’s found it: “one small town that thinks exactly the way the Nation does”: it’s his utopia, his mathematical-miracle! 

The town must never know what he’s doing or they’ll change, so he looks for a cover up, and pretends to sell insurance policies. 

It’s Grandview, and he goes there with his two men. He already knows a man there, the one who took the first poll results. He’s an ex-sergeant now teacher. 

Rip doesn’t want the town to change one bit ( “let’s hope they stay average” ) so he speaks against a new civic center, ruining Mary’s plans (Jane Wyman). 

Being an ex-basket champion, he teaches the local kids team and they win.

Rip falls for Mary, of course. A few weeks and he’s part of the community, and the chief editor gives a nice speech about his ‘integrity’, and apologizes for an earlier piece on him, and welcomes him officially, says she’s glad that he decided to stop there… and he feels awful, you can see it clearly, because in a way he’s using them. After a brief reply he runs away. His friend tells him that he’s got friends now, there.. it seemed to me like he’s telling him to stop, to quit his old job/idea… what is he supposed to do then, next??

Anyway, he does one perfect poll but then Mary comes into his office to cheer him up, takes a look around and finds out everything he’s doing, hears him talking on the phone, no doubt thinking that he only cared about the job and not about her, and also hurt because now she understands why he didn’t want any changes, why he “hold back progress”…

She writes about it; he tries to stop her, promises he’ll go away, tells her it’s for the people too, because it’d change them… “what I was doing couldn’t do them any harm but they read that, they… I don’t know, they’re human, you can’t go around telling people they’re special, not even these people, that’s deadly; you love them Mary, don’t do it”.

She doesn’t listen to him, this is like her revenge I guess. The paper comes out with the big title “Lawrence Smith found to be poll expert - Grandview revealed as Miracle Town”. It soon becomes big, journalists from all over come for the story, things get crazy, people start making and selling their own opinion polls. Rip gets drunk, sees her walking and yells at her “how do you like your town now?” and she walks away. She doesn’t like it, of course.

Rip and his men go away, back to the city. They make big projects, but then their first personal poll comes out: you can read in the newspapers: “79% favor woman for president” - “result ridiculous” says expert, almost the opposite of the Nation’s real feelings (we know, nothing’s changed, anything but a woman president, right???)

A speaker on the radio says they lost their humility and “poor Grandview, they’re becoming the subject of ridicule throughout the Country”

Rip looks so sad and lonely. 

The town is ruined, all the new people go away, firms and stores close. The last journalist in town says “this is my last broadcast from this ghost town, and ghost town it is. The people have even locked themselves in the homes, in shame of their ludicrous behaviour”

Rip goes back to Grandview because he misses Mary: the people don’t even talk to each other anymore. Rip tells her that he loves her, but she says “we murdered a town, Rip, you and I” … well, she did it actually, not him. He may have been using it for his own profit, but the people didn’t know and were quite happy to talk with him about anything (people always like it when you ask their opinion and actually listen). But she did all the harm, not him. She felt hurt and wanted revenge, and it backfired on her, that’s how I see it.

Anyway, he loves her and wants to save the city for her. He wants the paper to print the “build the civic center, build our town with our own hands” weeks-old-story. He has it told everywhere, that “these people won’t give up”, and it gets the people talking to each other again, listen to the radio speaking of courage… Rip brings in the kids, all on his side “we don’t want to live in a town we have to be ashamed of”. The Mayor sold the civic center property without a council vote. The people get together, decide to work together and help rebuild  the town, and Mary and Rip can finally get together now that they saved the town together…

I know, 90% of what I like about this movie is James Stewart… 

ITA la città magica (credo)

Happy go lovely - 1951

This old, predictable film is just delightful :-D 41-year-old David Niven plays a good but uptight rich 35-year-old man who walks around with hearts in his eyes ever since he met Janet :-p and he’s just adorable. 

The story is very simple and very predictable, ten minutes into the movie and you know it all; maybe it wasn’t back then, but now we’ve seen this kind of stories lots of times. Still, it is enjoyable, funny and sweet. There is a couple of dance numbers, but I liked these more than the usual American musical numbers: very pretty and light and enjoyable. 

Let’s start from the beginning: 

Janet Jones (Vera-Ellen) and her friend Mae (Diane hart) are American chorus dancers. They work for Mr Frost (Cesar Romero). They are all broke and trying to build a show in Scotland and avoid all the creditors chasing them :-p One morning Janet is late and tries hitchhiking. A man gives her a ride, and then later very kindly goes back to the theatre because in her hurry she forgot her purse in his car. It all starts here: he’s B.G. Bruno’s driver, and Bruno is the multi-millionaire played by Niven. When they see him there, the rumour starts. Well, it’s one girl in particular who spreads it, but when she said it it was like a bit of gossip, like girls teasing themselves with ‘you like him you like him!’ you know, in that spirit she said that Janet Jones is dating BG Bruno.. and when Frost hears that he thinks it’s his big chance! All hasty and impulsive as it’s his usual, he makes up his mind to make her the star of his show so that Bruno will invest in the show. Frost hires Janet back after she quitted because offended by his words (something like you’ll never be anything more than a chorus girl..) and has her sign a contract. Suddenly she finds that instead of wanting her to pay her debts, people are glad to give her more… and she doesn’t understand why until Mae explains it to her. Janet is not happy about it but Mae convinces her that whatever the reason this is her big chance, so she goes along with it. Bruno learns of her existence when he receives a bill for her clothes (I guess she never knew about the bill). 

He goes to the theatre to talk to her and understand what is going on. That same day reporter Paul Tracy is there to write a piece about her, from chorus girl to star in one jump, but as it happens it’s Bruno that talks to her. She thinks it’s Paul, and he’s so enchanted by her that when he understands the mix-up he doesn’t correct her;  I think he’s rather amused by the idea of getting to know her  under a false identity, and is glad that she never pretends to be dating him, only to ‘have met him at a party in Egypt, near the pyramids, just a little to the left’… he’s very puzzled though when he sees his driver coming to get her… (now, how did that happen? Was he there specifically to drive her or she just happened to see the car and recognize the man? Either way she obviously knew the car and this puzzled him)

When Frost insists to meet Bruno at dinner, to show his creditors that he’s really interested in his show, Mae has the idea to ask Paul to pretend to be Bruno! He’s rather amused by the idea, although they seem to think that he’s doing a very poor job, not acting like a millionaire at all :-p he asks for a plain omelette or a soup, he doesn’t like cigars or lobsters or caviar “I think it’s very over-rated and much too expensive” :love: but I always love to see him dancing :-) 

Next thing you know BG goes to Frost and gives him a check for 10.000£, asking only that he says nothing to Janet about it. Frost is not exactly the guy  to pay any notice of those things, and when Janet sees ‘Paul’, she goes straight to Frost wondering what happened. Frost doesn't even try to hide it, despite his promise he lightly spills everything to Janet without a second thought, all cheerful. She tells Frost not to go to the bank because that man was not Bruno at all, it was just a friend pretending to be him… Frost takes it with dignity, I’d say, telling her it’s not her fault, because this is a 1951 British comedy, and everyone’s a gentleman… still, when Frost sees him in the theatre he thinks he’s still trying to ‘impersonate Bruno’ and wants him arrested. Janet does her best to help him escape, only he has no intention of going anywhere, he wants to see her show. He tells her that he’s really Bruno but she doesn’t believe him of course and she tells him that she can’t have him arrested “because I love you, you lunatic” , and he goes out the window saying “after the show I want to hear all that again about… about me being a lunatic”. The police get him, but the Inspector knows very well who he is, so now she believes him :-) Frost desperately looks for the check now that he knows it’s actually a good one, and the girl who started the whole thing finds it for him, and as a reward he finally pays attention to what she has been trying to tell him since the beginning: her father wants to invest money in the show! Frost almost faints :-p That serves him well for never listening, he always shouts :-p

Now, BG was the ‘all-work-and-no-play-makes-Bruno-a-dull-stiff-man kind of guy, and at first said to his man to deal with the matter of the bill he knew nothing about, but then I suppose he was hit where it hurts when his man Dodds came saying that “of course not ” and he “knew there must have been some mistake” and he “knew you couldn’t”, that he “wouldn’t..” … so Bruno makes up his mind to deal with it himself. He finds her immediately lovely, but is definitely won when she says “I find you most comfortable to talk to”  and he says “oh you do?” with that smile that he’ll have from that moment on every time he looks at her :-) I liked that light way he had, that smile and the way he always looked at her, with hearts in his eyes, and the way he kept saying “I’d do anything for you Janet” :-)  I really think that with other actors I wouldn’t have liked it so much, because: although as an actress she didn’t charm me, the dancing bits were lovely, much more than usual somehow, I liked this dancing moments, light and nice, less ‘grand’ but more interesting; other actors might have looked the part even more maybe, but wouldn’t have been so charming, wouldn’t have played it like that; when he went along with the misunderstanding he never looked like he was playing her, he always appeared to be gripped, totally charmed by her, simply taking advantage of the miraculous opportunity to get to know her, to see her again without the complications that his real identity would have provided. 

It was rather strange that he was the only one to call her Janet, everybody else, including her, always said “Janet Jones”, it was a kind of joke throughout the film. 

It is set in Scotland during a festival, but it could be set anywhere at any time of the year because that has no influence at all in the story.

It’s considered a musical, but the only dance numbers are for the theatre play where she dances with other dancers of the show, never with outsiders, never with Bruno - Bruno and Janet dance together at dinner, but it’s the normal kind of dancing, you know. There is never any ‘suddenly bursting into dancing or singing’ during the story. I liked that.

Things I could say against this film: as I said it was very very predictable; Frost was played too over the line to the point that he seemed to be on drugs sometimes, plus Frost had that annoying attitude of those who never listen to girls because he thinks girls never have anything important in their “little heads”. Well, he was wrong. 

I found it very unkind when the driver talked to Betty; she said “give my love to Mr Bruno” and he replied “Somehow I don’t think he’d appreciate it”.. of course she doesn’t know Bruno and as he is now he would Not appreciate it, but said like that it seems it’s because of her! 

 - when Janet came running into the house, her landlady called her Mae twice.

This film put me in a happy mood for a whole day, kind of a miracle really, and I’d like to talk about it more, and more, but unfortunately I think I’ve said it all. I hope I was able to explain what I liked about it :-)

Barney's version - 2010

I didn’t like it much. It was a good movie, well done and all that, but I didn’t like Barney. The character, I mean; the actor was good. Let’s not talk about his father now, I totally disliked him.

The story: 

In 1974 Barney (Paul Giamatti) is in Italy, living in Rome where he marries a girl because she’s pregnant, although his stoned friend Boogie (Scott Speedman) tries to convince him to walk out on her. Shortly after the marriage Clara (Rachelle Lefevre) delivers a stillborn child, and Barney finds out that he wasn’t the father: it was in fact another one of his ‘friends’. Barney is understandably shocked and upset and leaves Clara alone in the hospital and goes to stay with Boogie. A few days later he finds a letter from Clara. Boogie was so stoned all the time that he forgot to tell him about it. The letter sounded desperate, and when Barney goes home to her, he finds her dead: suicide. He meets her father (Saul Rubinek) and I was very glad that he threw him out, the guy was obnoxious, recalling how Clara was always weird, and had tried before to commit suicide and no matter how he tried to help her (with electroshock) not caring about expenses, she kept ‘embarrassing the family’…

After her Barney meets another girl (Minnie Driver) and they like each other and soon get married, but Barney hates her family, plus at the wedding he meets Miriam (Rosamund Pike) and falls in love with her!

He tells her that same day, but of course she tells him to go home, he just met her at his own wedding! Barney goes home, but keeps sending her flowers every week, until she tells him to stop it. He’s still married after all, so Barney plans to get a divorce. Boogie is staying at his place in Montreal apparently to clean himself up but it doesn’t look to me like he had any intention of staying away from drugs… when Barney finds him having sex with his wife, he’s not much upset because it’ll make it easier for him to have a divorce, yet he has a fight with Boogie. Barney asks him to testify in the divorce case, but Boogie doesn’t seem to agree with him on how many favours he owes him. Boogie’s always on something, and Barney is often drunk, so they have some words, then Barney stumbles on something and falls down, firing a shot with the gun that his father (Dustin Hoffman) had given him as a present, his old gun from his policeman days. 

We see Boogie falling down into the water while Barney lays unconscious. He later calls the police to search for Boogie, and a detective becomes convinced that he killed him, but can’t prove anything because the body is not found. 

As soon as he signs his divorce papers, Barney calls Miriam asking her out on a date. Miriam accepts, and even if the first meeting is a disaster because he’s so drunk she has to help him to his room after he throws up, she doesn’t go away. They walk, and talk, and like each other. 

The next years are shown very quickly: they get married and have two children, Kate (Anna Hopkins) and Michael (Jake Hoffman), and have a happy marriage. When the children grow up and leave home, Miriam wants to go back to work in a radio station. Barney is not happy about it, but it’s important for her, so she starts working in the radio where her friend Blair works (Bruce Greenwood). 

Barney doesn’t listen to her interviews on the radio because he spends his time drinking and watching games in bars: she’s hurt but still loves him. 

Barney is jealous of Blair without reason and tells him that she thinks he’s gay, and again Miriam is angry that he should act like that, saying such things and also getting drunk and falling asleep on the table when they have guests for dinner… 

One day she tells him that she wants to spend a week in New York, staying with Michael, but she doesn’t want him to go with her. They’ve been together every day since they got married, she simply wants a few days away. He seems unable to cope without her, and what does he do? He gets drunk in a bar and has sex with a girl. When Miriam gets home she says she missed him, she loves him, but when she finds out what he did she’s so hurt she leaves him. 

Now we’re back at the present, this was all a sort of flashback. The movie started with Barney calling Blair in the middle of the night to ask about Miriam, because some time after the divorce she married him. 

Barney is losing his head, he keeps forgetting things. At the tv studio where he works they realize the situation when he makes a scene, saying that he’s upset because his good friend Leo the painter just died, not remembering that he went to his funeral the year before. Kate cries when he breaks things up at home because he can’t remember Miriam’s phone number. Miriam meets with him and is heartbroken to see him like this. Both Kate and Michael stay with him in his last days, and shortly after, he dies. Very quickly indeed, only weeks, maybe a few months later (we don’t know how long for sure, but Leo died in 2009 and Barney died in 2010).

This is his story. One last thing: Boogie’s body was found, with no gunshot wounds. It’s not clear how he died, though. He thinks of him watching a canadair picking up water to extinguish a fire in the forest, so what happened? He got picked up with the water and dropped with it, and that’s why it looked as a parachuting accident??

Anyway, the movie was well made, but I despised his father completely and I didn’t much like Barney either. At the end they show that he was a good man, that he secretly wrote to Miriam’s radio under the name Alphonse of Montreal, and that he paid a guy to write good things on a paper to please her actress Solange (Macha Grenon), so she believed that they adored her in Bulgaria, and he also wanted Kate to keep it up under his death.. he always loved Miriam till the end and always hoped that Boogie would turn up alive one day. Ok, he had a heart, he was a good man, but I don’t like people who keep drinking so much all the time and then act like idiots and think that saying I’m sorry is enough to make everything ok again. It’s not.   

ITA la versione di Barney

Major crimes - season 5

1-Present tense

Rusty has a new haircut (good); he had a fight with Gus because when Gus took his hand in public he pulled it away, uncomfortable, and Sharon asks him what feeling is worse, “what you felt when he held your hand or being here alone now?”. Gus comes apologizing to Rusty, he seems in love but Rusty is not ready for that so he doesn’t say anything.

Andy talks to Sharon about selling his house and moving in together, and they dine together at her place: “table awaits my dear” :-)

Rusty wants his next identity-story to be about Buzz “I want my next identity to be about how a traumatic event in childhood can affect a person’s whole life and how they deal with it when they grow up” 

Fifteen-year-old Amanda is missing. She let homeless people stay at her parents other house, and her body is found there, in the basement. Her parents were about to adopt their foster son Tucker but they sent him back when they found out they were expecting a baby :-/  Now Tucker works with her at the homeless shelter; he didn’t want her to run away from home, from the house and the lovely parents that she had and he hadn’t, but she fought and “things got out of hand”, I guess he strangled her and then tried to revive her with a tracheotomy but she died anyway.

2-N.S.F.W.

Julio wants to become a foster parent.

Sharon Beck comes back to tell Sharon that she’s pregnant. Rusty tells his birth mother to give the child away for adoption. I understand him, it’s hard to trust someone that has let you down so many times: when she told him I thought she just wanted money from him…

Julio gets stood up while waiting to meet a girl, and the cop he meets at the hotel’s bar is found killed in the morning. 

Buzz’s father and uncle were killed when he was a child, and he wants to reopen the old case.

Some girls, just turned eighteen, did some porn videos and three of them died of overdose. The producer gave them drugs and the bartender who supplied the drugs killed the detective who was investigating them. Sharon also meets Bo, the man who found young girls online and convinced them to go to him at their eighteenth birthday: he says they agreed to the sex, but also admits knowing that many of them were on drugs, which means they could not consent to the sex!

3-Foreign affairs

A video appeared online showing a man being decapitated in the name of Isis, and the FBI thinks it happened in LA and ask Major Crimes to help find where it happened. 

One thing I didn’t understand: Julio says “the Military issued a worldwide alert bulletin to all members of the army services and veterans who served in Afghanistan and Iraq” and they all look weirdly at Amy who says “makes me feel special” … why? Maybe she should have received it too but didn’t? In that case, why?

They find the location and the body of ex-soldier Nickolas Greenbourne. The FBI is sure it’s terrorism and wants the case, but the doctor sends them away because he’s the authority in his lab and won’t release any body without a court order. 

The night he died Nick had been at a nightclub, heavily tipping a girl with banknotes that should have been destroyed in Iraq. 

Rusty can’t watch the video of Buzz’s father and uncle’s murder at the ATM machine because the tape is too dirty. 

When the FBI comes to collect all the evidence they have, Sharon gives them Buzz’s tape to clean up too. 

Nick and two soldier friends took the money instead of torching it. The friends killed him and took his share of the money. Vince says nothing and Miguel looks surprised that Nick’s dead but he admits to them taking the money; when pushed enough, he admits it all, I think, so the two friends killed him together, right? :-/ not sure…

The FBI gives them back the tape, cleaned, and they arrest Vince for terrorism, for decapitating his friend in the name of Isis. 

Rusty admits to doctor Jo that he doesn’t want Gary’s child in his life. 

Gus is having dinner with Sharon and Rusty, he cooked :-) Sharon and Gus get along well :-) Rusty insists that his mother should give up the baby for adoption. Sharon says: “Gus, you are very patient” and Gus: “with him it’s necessary but it pays off, don’t you think?” - “I do, I most definitely do” :-)

Rusty looks at the tape, Buzz sent him the link. 

4-skin deep

Andy is with Provenza and Buzz, looking for a house to buy when Buzz sees a body floating in the pool and jumps in. Why is everybody surprised that he did that? That he threw himself in the pool to ‘help’ someone? I thought it was very much like him!

Heather was a big name in the real estate business, but loved by nobody, she was not a nice person. Also, a lot of her body had been under plastic surgery. The doctor tells Sharon and Amy: “this gorgeous head of hair? Extensions” - Sharon: “really? this looks incredibly convincing. I can usually tell” :-p

She had been hit, then thrown in the pool alive to drown. Andy keeps making comments on Heather’s body-implants… Sharon doesn’t find it so funny :-p 

Heather’s parents have custody of her child. Heather also had illegal surgery from a doctor Yu, bred and born in America but playing with a fake Korean accent for business reasons, who is not really a certified doctor. When they interview Yu, he tries to bribe them offering surgery to Provenza and Andy :-p 

Rusty doesn’t want to change home, because “I never lived anywhere so long in my whole life as in my mom’s condo. It feels like home” - it always surprises me how easily he calls her mom. Maybe it’s because I don’t “feel” how long it has been, I mean, how long have they known each other? It feels to me sometimes like they just met, but it’s been a long time right?

Andy likes that new house, so Provenza releases an interview saying that the house in cursed, haunted, a doomed dwelling :lol: so that nobody else would want it :lol: it was very funny, and it worked, he promised Andy he’d get him that house :-p 

When they watch it, Provenza goes: “look, the news is interviewing George Clooney. Oh wait, it’s me” :lol: I love how he said that :lol

Andy tells him: “why don’t you just tell reporters we’re gonna dig up the backyard to look for more corpses?” and Provenza: “ooh you need to tune in at eleven” :lol:

Rusty asks Andy if he’s in the way but of course Andy reassures him, telling him that obviously he’s part of the picture. 

Provenza says to Buzz: “Spock, you’re wanted on the bridge” and to Rusty: “Chekov, you have the helm” :-p

Heather said to her boyfriend Greg that their eight-year-old-son was not his, but he kept caring for the child. Heather then said her other boyfriend, dentist Irwin, that he’s the father. 

Ethan’s grandparents wanted sole custody so Sharon: “to grandmother house we go” which made me think of the wizard of Oz :-D 

They had nothing to do with Heather anymore, but they liked Greg a lot before Heather pushed him away. Irwin confesses to the murder when pushed.

They do another paternity test and it turns out that Heather lied about this too, because actually Greg is the father, so they reunited a family, because Ethan, his grandparents and greg really like each other.

At the end, Andy Sharon and Rusty go to see the house together, but then they learn that there’s black mold in it, toxic mold, so they rush away, with a smiling Rusty following them…

5-cashed out

Julio’s late because Child Services showed up at his house, met his mother. They’ll also need statements from his colleagues before he can be a foster parent.

A man is cut to pieces and burned. When they identify the victim, Adrian Silva, there’s the additional problem that he’s been active on the internet the whole time. The guy who killed him posted for him. The team is waiting for him at his house but he shows up at work, with only Provenza and Julio there, and Julio runs after him. The guy took a girl hostage and Julio put his gun away and talked to him and convinced him to surrender. 

All through the episode, a woman has been interviewing them all to determine if Julio’s fit to become a foster parent. Rusty runs after her to give her his own. Nice.

The police investigation on Julio was simply to determine if he should receive a Medal of Valor for risking his life to save others.

6-tourist trap

Two English tourists are attacked, the man killed. He survived cancer to get shot in a parking lot in LA. The murderer threw the gun into a canal, and divers retrieve lots of weapons from down there, including the right one. 

The wife paid a man to kill him because after she had cared for him throughout his illness, now he wanted to leave her, and they did it in LA because it’s much easier to buy guns there, of course. 

They give the exclusive to a British reporter.

Badge of Honor has won the tv-choice award. Tao is late to the crime scene because he came in a limo from the show. Flynn keeps acting jealous of Tao’s tv success. At the end, there’s a cake with apple cider to celebrate Tao :-) but Flynn doesn’t look too happy :-p

Rusty’s mom tells him she’ll give the baby to Gary’s parents. 

7-moral hazard

A man shoots three people because they wouldn’t release to him his car after he parked it in a residential area and was taken away. The squad can see it all on camera. After shooting them, he takes a big bag out of his car, and that bag is full of weapons!

This Elliott had already killed the man who fired him. He kills another one, and plans to kill a lot of the people he blames for ruining his life (mortgage brokers or something). They surround him, he fires a lot against them then kills himself, throwing himself off from the fifth floor. Provenza got hit, but he had a vest.

Flynn and Sharon tell Taylor that they plan to move in together.

Rusty is obsessed with Buzz’ case, and Gus is veeeery patient :-/

Provenza’s first wife Liz is about to get remarried so he won’t have to give her money anymore, and Patrice wants him to retire :-p “I planned to die face down on my desk” :-p He wants to be honest with Patrice, so he tells her everything: “I got hit today and it hurt, but leaving here wouldn’t just hurt me, it would probably kill me, and that’s why I’m asking you to look at this from my perspective, just for a moment, try to see that even on a bad day, even if it’s not rational, even if it doesn’t seem reasonable, to me still, still, this is the greatest job in the world and I don’t know who I’d be without it” - “I get that honey, I do, but can’t we at least come up with some kind of compromise? Something we can both live with?”  - that’s a joke, of course she tells him he can stay at LAPD because she loves him for real. I love Patrice and Provenza :-)

8-off the wagon

Rusty takes Sharon (Beck) to the doctor: she’ll have a baby girl. Gary’s parents gave her a choice: go live with them (away from Rusty I guess) or give the baby up altogether. She chooses the latter to be near him, but at the end Rusty drives her to Gary’s parents to live with them. Before he leaves, Gus looks very strange (why? what was that expression supposed to mean? Did he think Rusty wouldn’t come back?)  so Rusty walks back and tells him that he loves him. Gus takes his hands “I’ll hold you to your words” - “I want you to hold me” awwww

An actor died, believed overdose, but Flynn’s daughter asks him to look into it so they all do. Andy’s daughter’s friend was right, Chris Walker was killed by his ex agent who wanted his new young client to get his role.

Andy keeps being jealous of Tao until he asks an agent how much money a technical consultant makes and he says 11-12000 $ so he’s relieved, he thought more :-p Later he finds out that it means “paid by episode” :-p

9-family law

A divorce lawyer is found dead at the Beautiful Greek Theatre run by Alfredo, a real Italian apparently! 

The lawyer saw an escort from time to time, and the young girl’s father killed him because he didn’t know of her job and thought he had seduced her.

Julio is given his first foster child, a troubled eight-year-old, Mark, who hates Mexicans. Mark’s mom is found dead, and Julio doesn’t know what to do with the kid.

Buzz found a match for the partial fingerprint and has the name of one of the men that might have killed his father and uncle. 

Andy has sold his house :-)

10-dead zone

They investigate the murder of Mark’s mother. Julio strongly opposes writing Mark as a witness, he wants to protect the boy. Mother and child had lived for a while with a dangerous group of crazy racist people, that’s why Mark talked that way, but it’s heartbreaking the scene when he asks for his mom, crying that he’s sorry and that he’ll be good if they take him to his mom…

Sharon calls the Doc to give Mark the bad news, poor kid.

They also interrogate Hecht and Buzz does a good job with him. 

11-white lies part 1

It’s Dwight Darnell’s trial, and in the middle of it he raises a loaded gun and starts shooting around, and before Shannon could shoot him he had already shot Doctor Joe :-( and Taylor!! and the DDA Rosen. What a scene!

Later Darnell dies in the hospital. Taylor died right away! This was a shock!

They investigate to find Darnell’s movement’s weapons and also how he managed to have a loaded gun in the courtroom.

12-white lies part 2

Sharon talks to a priest about her total lack of guilt about shooting Dwight. 

Everyone is absolving Sharon for what she did, she had to, even Dwight’s mother says she understands why she had to shoot him, and she feels a little better, but their investigation’s still a long way to go…

Buzz continues his investigation on his father’s murder. 

13-white lies part 3

They find who told Darnell to shoot all those people in the courtroom and they send Ms Darnell to him with a wire to get proof, but as soon as she has confirmation, she takes her gun out and shoots him because he has money and she’s afraid he might buy his way out. 

Julio has to give Mark away because his grandparents want custody 

:-( Mark is so touching, sweet little thing, saying that he’s sorry that he said bad things about blacks and mexicans but he’ll be good if they don’t send him away… poor thing, he has to go to his blood relatives, and Julio tells him that it’s also for his safety, because he knows some very bad people.

With Provenza, Buzz arrests the man who shot his father and uncle. Rusty thinks he must be happy now but he isn’t, because he arrested the father of two children who will now grow up without a father, like he did: “what have I done?”

At the end, Andy collapses in front of everyone…

p.s. I love that every time they use the printer they keep putting coins into Provenza’s jar :-p it’s a lovely continuity-symbol

14-heart failure

Fritz is assistant chief Howard now, and Agent Nolan is with them now. A woman is found murdered. The girl’s rich boyfriend is the first suspect because they think she rejected his marriage proposal and he killed her; they don’t have enough to hold him so Sharon provokes him until he punches her in the face. Rusty: “wow, my mom’s a badass” :-p

Andy is not on active duty, doc’s orders. 

Rusty is an intern at the DA’s office.

Deputy chief of operations is Winnie Davis (Delia from Ghost Whisperers), and she’s very unpleasant. But it was funny when she said: “go ahead, your boyfriend’s calling” :-p

She complained because Provenza cheated on a training exercise :-p

Gus texts Rusty that they need to talk and he’s afraid he might want to break up with him, or ask to get married and then break up when he says no… at the end, Gus asks Rusty to move in with him.

15-cleared history

A guy’s throat was cut in a usually quiet neighbourhood. Gavin had worked for a security company, but was much more: he stole things from the house he worked in, and then blackmailed the owners. The squad also finds child pornography on a computer in Gavin’s house. They find the owner of the computer and the pictures in it. The owner accepts the deal of 25-to-life for murder with no child-molesting charges in exchange for names and ip addresses of other people who have or who exchange those pictures.

Rusty told Gus he didn’t want to move in together and they broke up; later Rusty explains to him that after spending two years of his life letting guys pay him, now he needs to be able to support himself and not live with someone who pays for everything. Gus missed him badly too, so they’re back together..

16-Quid pro quo

Another episode where we are presently seeing the trial and their testimony, and seeing the case in the flashbacks. 

The what’s-her-name defense lawyer (Jeri Ryan) makes it look like Amy withheld evidence. They suspect the victim’s wife’s ex-husband, and he hires the what’s-his-name ex-cop-now-p.i. and Amy showed him the app and the photos she had on her phone. 

When Mark (?) waited for Amy in front of her house she acts worried that her boyfriend might see him… why?? I didn’t know she had a boyfriend, but any way why should he be angry?

Amy is sure that Mark told Linda (?) about her phone. All the squad supports her totally. 

Commander Mason runs the Criminal Intelligence division of LAPD. Everybody likes him but Andy, maybe because he’s a candidate for the same position as Sharon and Winnie, and I like him too :-)

They make a deal when they prove the guy hired his brother to kill the man.

The judge tells Rusty that he’s very proud of him for moving his interest from journalism to family-law :-)

Little Mark runs away and comes to see Julio.

17-Dead drop

Due to some problems, Mark’s grandparents want Julio to be his legal guardian. Grandma signs the document that grants Julio legal guardianship :-) 

Dr Morales brings his father Eduardo to the crime scene because as the only one of five sons who became a policeman, he kind of exaggerated and told him he was kind of in charge :-p Provenza has him climb a tree to observe the body then leaves him there :-p

Sharon is very indulgent with him, and very patient. The doc keeps insisting on taking people’s shoes every time they question someone :p

 Eduardo was a detective, and is also a fan of Mike’s show, so he also takes picture of his son with Tao :-) He records everything. Of course he knows the truth, but is happy that his son has many friends :-)

Andy wanted to take Sharon away for the weekend, but had to cancel. He asked Rusty to get him a reservation at the fancy restaurant where he took her on their first real date, but she can’t go. Andy reveals to Rusty that he has a ring and wanted to propose to her, so Rusty offers to plan it for him, something that Sharon might like. 

At the end, we see Andy on his knees giving her the ring :-)

18-Bad blood

Mary Conrad is murdered. She was a detective, and Provenza’s classmate from police academy but he doesn’t remember her at first. 

Sharon fired her because she stole things. A woman has been paying everything for her for years because Mary was her aunt (I liked this actress), but her husband got angry and killed her when he found out that she did have money!

Sharon’s son Ricky comes in to congratulate them on the engagement, but they had not told anyone yet, and he’s sorry he ruined the surprise.

Ricky already talk to Jack and a priest about getting an annulment so that she could marry in a church, but Andy’s divorced too! Rusty has a plan; somehow I guess he convinced Andy’s ex-wife Sandra to ask for an annulment herself! 

Julio gets permanent guardianship from a judge.

19-Intersection

There are so many hit-and-runs, so many bikers die in this city, that now Chief Howard considers hit-and-runs major crimes. 

William Sax was killed on his way back home on his bike. When they tell his fiancée the poor girl falls apart. 

Provenza and Patrice are at Sharon’s place to celebrate her engagement, with a healthy-cake Andy made :-p

Provenza is upset because this William was a good kid who attended law school and did nothing wrong, or so he thinks. He’s so upset with the senselessness of this death, he actually tells Patrice that he wants to retire!

William had changed his name from Malik Lewis after he killed a boy in a car accident: the boy suddenly ran into the street, he tried to avoid him but couldn’t. He stopped but there was nothing he could do. William wrote to Kevin’s mom to say how sorry he was for his death, but she blamed him completely and killed him. 

Mason gives Sharon advice on how to become the new chief. When Provenza is about to tell her about him retiring, she tells him that if she’ll become the new chief she’ll promote him and he’ll be the new captain of major crimes!

Sharon is worried that Straw might come back to seek revenge.

20-Shockwave: part 1

While they’re investigating the death of a man, Albert Luna, shot in his home, the crime lab van blows up and a lab girl, Haley Williams, is killed. The daughter of the dead man is brought to a hospital with a concussion but is later cleared by the doctors, and the patrol officer that was with her is now into a coma. The bomb was probably inside a radio that Tao thought suspicious and had it put in the van; he had ordered Haley to take it and process it. 

The bomber attacks a kid only so that he could call the cops, then he leaves his bike full of explosives. It is taken in as evidence and put in the evidence room. Christian Ortiz went to prison for manslaughter but kept saying he was innocent and blamed everything on his cheating wife. He killed her father, Luna, so she’d get back for his funeral. There, Ortiz takes pictures of the entire squad (except Andy who can’t take any part in action operations. Then, he makes his bomb explode before leaving.

Deputy chief Winnie Davis goes on tv talking about it. She keeps calling it terrorism, but the squad doesn’t agree. 

Gus is offered a promotion to chef and suggests Rusty might relocate and continue his studies there, only 30/40 minutes away, but Rusty gets upset, I guess he doesn’t like the idea at all, and Gus leaves, but then sends him a text “you win, I won’t take the job”.

Buzz keeps trying to help the family of the guy who killed his father, against Provenza’s advice. 

21-Shockwave: part 2

The bomb was in a flower vase by his grave. Ortiz spent 11 years in prison, saying that his wife killed the man and framed him, but the LAPD was to blame for his imprisonment as much as she was. His wife gives them the location of the storage unit where he keeps all the stuff he stole from the Marines, but he’s cleared the place already, leaving only their pictures and the writing “I was innocent” on the wall.

Andy realizes that the guy doesn’t know his face so he goes there, where he is, without saying anything to anybody. He stops him, but the guy has time for one last move, and makes another bomb explode before Andy knocks him down with the back of his gun. The wife’s luggage explodes in the squad department, but Sharon had just shouted for everyone to get out, so they’re ok enough. 

Rusty goes to talk with Aidan, Gus’ boss. Aidan is very disappointed that Gus turned down that great opportunity in Napa - “what can I do? Gus can’t see what’s in his best interest cause he’s in a relationship with a really really un-secure college student” - “does that come up a lot? Gus saying no to you because he’s already in a relationship, have you been turned down before?” - “more like ‘turned away’ but yeah.. I’m guessing that’s because of everything you did for his sister, why else would a needy boy like you call all the shots when he could be doing so much better?” - “like being with you?”  and Aidan: “ehi, why don’t you tell Gus that it’s not all his hard work or talent that I’m rewarding, that his promotions are just because I’m physically attracted to him, please tell him that, and if you  won’t, consider how Gus will be constantly weighing what he sacrificed to hang around you while you grow up. You think you’re done making mistakes?” …wow, that was something..

Rusty realizes that everything that went on between them was always on his terms, and he tells Gus, and also tells him to go to Napa, while he’ll stay here, and they’ll have a distance-relationship. Gus is touched and happy, but I think that for Rusty it’s over (he says goodbye after he goes out), he probably thinks that Gus will end up with Aidan..

At the end: Mason is the new Assistant Chief, not Winnie and for her relief not Sharon, but he promotes her to Cmdr. The last line: he tells her that he wants to change major crimes into something better…while outside everybody still probably thinks that she got the job :-p

The distant hours by Kate Morton

Very good, interesting and emotional and I liked it a lot. It’s one of those books that require a lot of words to explain; if someone asks “what’s it about?” you can’t just say “it’s a mystery novel” or “it’s a family drama” or else, although it’s a little of both. 

First of all: the title! Raymond would “think of all the people who’ve lived within these walls” and “if he didn’t go carefully about the castle, sometimes the distant hours forgot to hide”, or like I read in the back cover “ the truth of what happened in the distant hours has been waiting a long time for someone to find it”.

It’s a thick book, the cheap edition I have is 670 pages and in the first 500 or more pages, let’s be honest, not much actually happens, I will sum it up in a few lines: 

Edie Burchill loves books and works for an editor. She was never very close to her mother Meredith, until one day a fifty-year-old-letter arrives and Meredith cries reading it; Edie finds out something about her she never knew: during the war she was sent away to the country and was a guest at Milderhurst Castle and loved it so much there she never wanted to go back home. Edie can’t let it go, she wants to know who her mother was, and goes there. The castle belongs to the Blythe family: Raymond Blythe wrote “The true history of the Mud Man”: Edie read it as a young girl and fell in love with books because of it. He died a mad man many years ago, but his three daughters still live there: the twins Seraphina ‘Saffy’ and Persephone ‘Percy’ Blythe, and their younger sister from another mother Juniper. Percy loves the castle and is very protective; Saffy is sweet and used to dream about leaving and seeing London and the world, but never left the castle; Juniper requires constant supervision by her sisters because she went mad many years ago when her fiancée Thomas Cavill who was expected to dinner never showed up. Nobody knows what happened that night, Tom was thought to have deserted his unit but his brother never believed it and kept looking for him wondering on his fate. 

Still, it’s not a boring book because it doesn’t lose itself in long description of places or useless things, it’s so long because it describes emotions and gestures and looks… Meredith was always so private and appeared so cold because she never talked of the past that made her sad; Edie is so curious because she starts to know a woman she never suspected: not the woman who stuck to reality and never understood her dreamy world and her love for books but a very lively girl who wanted to read and learn and write instead. She also becomes fascinated with the Blythe sisters, their lives spent together in the big empty castle taking care of each other, and all the secrets they hid in their hearts and the deep feelings they shared with no-one.

In the last 200 pages everything is finally revealed, slowly, all their stories mingled together. Meredith who found in Juniper her first friend and who was in love with her teacher Thomas, the girl who send Juniper her first complete manuscript and never heard from her again, who felt betrayed when she learned that Juniper and Thomas loved each other and believed they forgot about her, but she was never forgotten. Despite her madness, Juniper kept her manuscript for all those years and gave it back to Edie believing she was her mother. 

Raymond, a spoiled child whose mother committed suicide after the death of her youngest son, a strange man full of himself and his art, a hard man who always wanted to have his way. He was so proud of Juniper’s art with words he made a selfish will: he thought that for female artists marriage was an obstacle to their art and wanted Juniper to be free of all that. He left the castle to Juniper so she’d never have to worry about money and included a selfish clause: if she ever married, it would all go to the Church. 

Saffy, her life marked forever by a traumatic event in her childhood, who had an episode of hysteria while watching a play on the Mud Man and was therefore never allowed to leave the castle alone. The truth about the Mud Man’s origins, and how Raymond came to write it. It is revealed at the end, when Percy tells Edie that she’s dying and wants to tell her the truth so she can put things right. Percy knows that Edie is Meredith’s daughter and therefore thinks of her of ‘family’, in a way. What happened was: when the twins were born their mother fell into depression for quite a while so they always stayed with daddy; he loved them so much he spent all his time with them, teaching them new words and things, so that when she found herself again she was a stranger in her house, her daughters didn’t want to stay with her and spoke a different language so she wouldn’t understand and she felt so lonely that in the end she took a lover. When Raymond found them together one day they fought and he accidentally started a fire that caught to her dress and she went up in flames like everything in the room. Raymond tried to save her, but never tried to save him, in his jealousy he left him there to die. His wife died too, however, she could never recover such deep injuries. Saffy was a little girl who woke up and went to the window and saw the dying man covered in mud, all blackened and screaming for help. She didn’t know what it meant, but from that night she kept having this nightmare of a Mud Man who tried to reach her. He used to talk to her sister about it, but when they were separated because Percy was ill, she had nobody but her father. In 1917 he had come back from the war a changed man, empty inside, but when his daughter told him of her nightmare he started writing again. Saffy was happy of her father’s attentions and didn’t realize what was going on, until he wrote the book and made her dream real for the world to read. Saffy never knew what the nightmare really was, of her father’s crime, but Raymond told Juniper all he had done because he thought she was like him, and Juniper told Percy and lived her life afraid to really be like him. 

Percy spent her life trying to protect her sisters, from the dangers of the world and from themselves. 

Her personal secret, never revealed but then understood by Edie when she sees a letter and recognizes her handwriting, was not a revelation to me. As I said before, for many pages it’s a book about emotions, not facts, so it was never said that she had been in love with Lucy who worked in the castle, but the emotions were there. How she was angry when Lucy married a man so she could have a family and children, how it hurt her, it was as if I could see the expression on her face. That’s what I found beautiful: I’m one on whom descriptions are often wasted, I can’t ‘really’ picture in my mind the places and faces usually described in books, and yet here I could feel the emotions so vividly it was as if I was looking into their eyes. Percy was the strong one, the cold one, the pragmatist, the family champion who always knew what to do, and nobody ever knew the sadness in her heart.

Thomas reached the house that night; a terrible, stormy night. Juniper had arrived much earlier with blood on her shirt, and they gave her pills to sleep. Saffy was very much agitated, she drank and fell asleep and had her terrible nightmare again. Thomas was very late, it was wartime after all, it had been an adventure to get there. It was dark, there was a storm, nobody heard him when he knocked. He saw a light at a window and went that way. He saw Saffy asleep, then she sort of woke up and saw the Mud Man in front of her and struck him on the head with something before falling again into sleep. Percy had tried her best to revive him but he was dead, so she buried him in the pet graveyard to save her sister who never knew what she had done. 

Juniper was always different, playing with imaginary friends who were real to her, writing things down in a frenzy to get the voices out of her head, who once attacked a boy with a knife after he had hurt her dog, and then she forgot all about it. They were all afraid of what she might do and then forget. She used to have these lapses of memory, and she had one that night when she came home waiting for Thomas. Juniper knew about the will, but her love was so strong and deep that she wanted to marry Thomas anyway, she didn’t want to lose him the way Saffy had once lost her fiancée because she couldn’t leave the castle and her sisters and her father when he was still alive. She knew she wasn’t supposed to leave the castle ever but she had run away to London where she had fallen in love.  That night, she was terribly agitated, it had been an adventure to get home and she had lost memory of what had happened and couldn’t explain the blood on her. She wasn’t hurt, but as much as she tried she couldn’t remember what had happened. Neither of them ever knew the truth: she had helped a woman who had suddenly gone into labour, she had helped her and by doing that she had saved the child’s life. The woman never knew who she was, but her family kept telling each other the story of the angel that saved her son’s life one stormy night during the war.

At the end, Percy gathered her sisters and after they were asleep she sat a fire that burned everything down, and they died together. Edie told the Chief Inspector where he could find the bodies of the two men and who they were, so that their story could have an ending like Percy wanted. Thomas’ brother finally had closure. Edie’s relationship with her mother is much better now that they know each other better and Meredith has found her old self again, taking lessons and writing again, feeling again how good writing feels like :-)

This is the whole story, but I want to add one more thing. I haven’t mentioned Edie’s father. He doesn’t have a big part in the story but he’s important to them and it’s a nice scene when he speaks to Edie and she’s surprised: he knows that for whatever reasons his wife is suffering, he says she always felt things too deeply, she was crying when he met her the first time so he took her out for some cake and they fell in love. Later on in the story, Meredith tells her how she kept writing for a while, sending her things to publishers, and once tried to apply for a job at the BBC, a dream coming true, but when she got there she saw a lot of younger girls, educated and confident, and she felt bad about herself, sad and lonely, and she entered a cinema so she could cry without being looked at. There she met her future husband… firm, solid, “honest, kind, reliable, there’s a lot to be said for that”  indeed there is. ❤︎❤︎❤︎

Intermezzo: a love story - 1939

I didn’t like it when I was younger, but now I really felt it, the hope of love and the melancholy.. the whole movie could be described with that one phrase that Anita says: “I have been an intermezzo in his life”… it explains everything, you could imagine it all without knowing anything else…

It struck me in this old movie how the two women were the strongest characters, compared to them Holger appears weak and volatile. The two women are both great, strong loving characters and I liked them both. 

It’s the story of Holger Brandt (Leslie Howard), a famous violinist, always on tour playing all over the world. He has a family: his wife Margit (Edna Best) and his children Eric and little AnneMarie (Ann Todd). He comes home from a tour and tells Margit to go away together, she might follow him during his next tour, but of course it’s not that easy for the wives: she thinks of her children, the boy should leave school and the girl is still so young… Holger barely notices the young piano teacher of his daughter, Anita Hoffman (Ingrid Bergman) until he hears her playing at AnneMarie’s birthday party. He’s like enchanted, he goes to accompany her with his violin and it all starts there. 

They meet on another occasion outside a concert that they both attended as spectators, and they go for a drink together.. he tells her to take Thomas (John Halliday) place (her piano teacher, and also the musicians that used to accompany Brandt with his piano on tour). She refuses, she says she applied for a scholarship in Paris… she also tells him how big a fan she’s always been. They drink champagne, they talk, they walk…  and the camera turns away… did they kiss? Likely. Next thing we see, Anita wants to run away, go to Denmark; she says so to Thomas and to Mrs Brandt, but can’t leave without meeting him one last time. She tells him they are guilty because they are in love and that she’s trying to be sensible.. he says that love isn’t sensible but she says they must end it…

Margit tells Holger she wants to go on tour with him, that she’s changed her mind, but she can see his reaction is not what she had hoped for. She’s not dumb, she saw what was going on, she understood Anita’s reasons and now understands his silence. He insists on talking to her, but we don’t witness their conversation… we understand what went on though because after that he runs to the train station to stop Anita. He tells her that he told his wife everything and wants her to stay. She does. They go on tour together, Italy and France… AnneMarie listens to his concerts on the radio, waiting for the “intermezzo” piece, and Margit cries when she doesn’t see her…

Anita is very happy with Holger, they have a place in France and she loves him madly. Thomas writes to her that she’s been awarded the scholarship: “I hope you will not let anything interfere with the fulfillment of the great career now within your reach”, but now she doesn’t want it anymore because she wants Holger more than anything: “if I can only be with Holger nothing else matters”.

Holger misses his family very much (although they always talk about AnneMarie, never about the son: ok he’s older, but he’s still his son!! )

He has found a substitute in a little French girl, Marianne. Thomas goes visit them, presenting Holger with the divorce papers, but he still hesitate to sign them because he says it’s not easy to “cut out the best part of one’s life”…  

Thomas tells Anita that they’re building their happiness on the unhappiness of others, and she understands what she has to do and says “we both know where Holger belongs” and “I have been an intermezzo in his life”; she does, but it’s very painful. She leaves while Holger is out with Marianne. She takes a train leaving him a note: “we have been pretending and hoping for too long Holger, pretending that what we had was splendid and good, hoping that we could make it so, but we know in our hearts that love like ours is wrong, that it drags itself down with remorse and fears, and the unhappiness of others. And so I am going away”. Talking to Thomas he says “you’re right, I must let her go, what can I do but spoil her life just as I’ve spoiled the lives of all those dear to me”. He has feelings for her, sure, but now he feels all alone, and here he said something that might be questionable, but was also worth of respect for once. He didn’t go back to his wife directly, he stayed alone saying to Thomas “I have no home, how can I go crawling back home just because I’m alone”… so he stays in France for a while, but days go by and he thinks of home, of his little girl waiting for him… until one day he buys a camera for her, the thing she wanted, planning to give it to her and then go away again. He doesn’t go home, he waits for her outside the school, but the little darling is so excited to see him that runs towards him, crossing the road without looking.. a car hits her, he takes her in his arms and takes her home. Poor Margit, can you imagine the emotions in her heart, to see her husband back and then to see her child in that condition…  

Of course Holger can’t leave without knowing first what will be of AnneMarie, so he waits there alone. When Eric comes home, he’s naturally angry at him, saying things every angry teenager could say, like why did you come back, I don’t need you, go away, things like that. Holger says a nice thing “you don’t need me but I need you” and that’s enough for the boy, although it wouldn’t have been for me because words are easy..

The doctor comes to tell him that AnneMarie she’ll recover and be alright, and very relieved he now thinks about going away without saying goodbye; not because he wants to leave but probably because he doesn’t think he deserves to be there. When he’s at the door (he’s so slow, I think you can see how painful every step is), his wife appears on the stairs and calls his name, and says simply “welcome home”. Once to stop him, twice to make him come back in. The door closes, and it’s the end.

ITA intermezzo

Fiddler on the roof - 1971

Well, one of the grandest musicals no doubt. Great. Good actors, good music, great singing, although the Chava business made me angry: saying “my daughter is dead to me” only because she married a guy who’s not jewish.. it seems so heartless, he was a good guy and she was a loving daughter who simply fell in love, she didn’t deserve such treatment :-/

That aside, it was a good movie. Very very long, but good.

It starts showing a fiddler playing is music on a roof, and our protagonist Tevye (Topol, really good) explains to us that we are all like fiddlers on a roof, trying to find our balance. He says that in their village called Anatevka they find it thanks to their traditions, and the “tradition” song starts, explaining how they do things: the papa is the master of the house and works for the money, the mama runs the home and works to keep it going, the children go to hebrew school and at the age of ten they learn a trade. Papas pick the husband or wife for their children, the sons hope she’ll be pretty, the girls are brought up to be good wives. “without traditions our lives would be as shaky as a fiddler on the roof”.

An old woman, Yente (Molly Picon), is the matchmaker of the village. Tevye and his wife Golde (Norma Crane) have five daughters, and Yente is looking for a husband for her eldest, Tzeitel (Rosalind Harris). Yente says “you shouldn’t be so picky, even the worst husband is better than no husband”. Yente is the classic old woman of whom you can find so many in the world, the ones always complaining and saying that they never complain, always talking and saying that she is a widow all alone with nobody to talk to… - she tells Golde that the butcher likes Tzeitel. The butcher Lazar Wolf (Paul Mann) is very well off, but also probably older than her father…

Tzeitel is in love with Motel (Leonard Frey), her friend since childhood, a poor tailor. Her two younger sisters, Hodel (Michele Marsh) and Chava (Neva Small) want her to get married so it’ll be their turn next, and they sing beautifully “matchmaker find me a perfect match”; Tzeitel makes them understand that “with no dowry, no money” they should stop dreaming they’d be matched with the prince of their dreams, and they keep singing how terrified they are. 

Tevye is a poor milkman, and sings “if I were a rich man” in one of his talks to God. 

There’s news around that in another village the jewish people have been evicted, sent away, but they don’t worry about it, they stick to their lives in Anatevka and don’t mind much with the outside world. Tevye meets Perchik (Michael Glaser - I knew I knew that face, Paul Michael Glaser:Starsky!). He’s a student from Kiev with revolutionary ideas about how people, ordinary people, will change not only Russia but the world. He teaches for a living, and Tevye promises him “food for lessons” and introduces him to the family. 

Tzeitel worries about Yente’s relentless matchmaking, telling Motel that if she finds a match it’ll be over for them, and asks him to talk to her father at once, but he doesn’t, he’s too scared of the big, yelling man, and she shakes her head… poor Tzeitel, we all feel for her at that moment.

They sing the Sabbath prayers, then Golde send Tevye to talk to Lazar Wolf. He has a rich home, says that he’s been a widower a long time and feels lonely and he likes Tzeitel, and asks him her hand, and Tevye agrees.

They celebrate drinking and dancing, and they also dance with some people, that at that point I wasn’t sure who they were, they seemed also Russians but many were without hats and beards, and I now guess they were not jewish. 

At home Tevye breaks the ‘good news’ to Tzeitel, but she isn’t happy. She says she doesn’t want to marry him; he says “if I say you will, you will” and “we made an agreement”; she says “is that more important than me papa?” and begs him on her knees. Motel comes running to ask him her hand. Teyve says “Are you crazy?” and adds that it’s very unusual to make a match for oneself, and sings “you gave each other a pledge” and “tradition, marriage should be arranged by the papa”. Motel insists and Tevye thinks about it in one of those funny scenes when he speaks to God and they are suddenly far away from him (because they don’t hear these reasoning), and then he says yes. Motel”you won’t be sorry” - Tevye”I’m sorry already” :-p

Tzeitel is very happy, Motel sings “wonder of wonders”.

There are four boys on the road bothering Chava when Fyedka (Ray Lovelock) tells them to stop. He then talks to her, introduces himself, and asks her if she doesn’t want to talk to him “because I’m not Jewish?” but then they have a love for books in common, and he lends her a book so that later they might talk about it…

To make Golde accept the idea of Motel and Tzeitel, Tevye tells her he had a terrible dream: she says “tell me your dream and I’ll tell you what it means” and there’s the piece with the dead people singing how grandma wants her to marry Motel and how Lazar Wolf’s dead wife will kill Tzeitel if she marries him. 

Tzeitel marries her Motel, and it’s a lovely wedding while a lovely song where basically they sing their thoughts: “I don’t remember growing older, when did they?” and “wasn’t it yesterday when they were small?” and “what words of wisdom can I give them, how can I help to ease their way?” and “now they must learn from one another” plus other thoughts from Perchik and Hodel looking at each other…

Then there’s a funny piece of dancing, and then Lazar Wolf and Tevye fight over “we had an agreement” then Perchik stops them with his usual words about the world changing and he dances with Hodel - which is considered highly unusual, men dancing with women, a sin! But the rabbi says it’s not exactly forbidden, so Tevye dances with his wife and Motel with his, and then Hodel and Chava dance with the rabbi, and they are all having a great time, until the Constable (Louis Zorich) and his men come (sent by that superior of his who called them “Christ-killers”=men will never stop finding excuse to fight, will they? :-/ )

They break everything until the Constable orders them to stop, telling Tevye that “orders are  orders” because he didn’t want to but he has to, but the men keep breaking stuff in all the village (well, only at the jewish side of it).

Time passes, Tevye tells us how Motel and Tzeitel are very poor and work very hard, but are also very happy, “they’re so happy they don’t know how miserable they are” :-)

Perchik tells Hodel that he intends going to Kiev to join others (in the revolution I guess) but also asks her to marry him, in a rather strange but somehow sweet way, and she happily says yes. Tevye meets them while they’re holding hands, and they tell him that they are engaged. Tevye says no because Perchik’s going away, but they tell him that “we’re not asking for your permission, only your blessings”, because they want to get married anyway. He sings “what do you want from me?” and thinks about it in one of his conversations with God, thinking that “our old ways were once new”… and so he gives them his blessings :-) when he tells his wife she’s angry at first, but then he points out “Hodel loves him, what can we do? It’s a new world”. Tevye and Golde met for the first time when the got married, and now Tevye asks her “do you love me?” - “you’re a fool” - “I know, but do you love me?” and I love this scene, I think it’s really beautiful, because neither of them has ever thought this kind of things, so she actually thinks about it “do I love him?” and finds her answer “I suppose I do” - “and I suppose I love you too” :-) “it doesn’t change a thing but after 25 years it’s nice to know…”

Perchik makes speeches: “we are the People, we are Russia” then the soldiers come riding, charging with swords. When Hodel receives a letter from him we learn that he was arrested and convicted, and she makes up her mind she wants to be where he is, so she leaves home to go there and work and wait for him. It’s a nice scene when she sings to explain to her father why she has to go, and it’s really beautiful the way he looks at her.

Motel finally got the sewing machine he always talked about, a revolution in the tailoring business for sure, he can work faster and better with it.

They already have a baby :-)

Chava wants to marry Fyedka, but he’s “a different kind” and “some things do not change”, and no matter how much she begs him Tevye tells her “are you out of your mind? Don’t you understand what that means, marrying outside of the faith?” and “never mention his name again, never see him again”… but she’s in love. She runs away from home, Golde looks everywhere for her, she even enters a church to talk to the priest, and he tells her that they got married! When Golde tells this to Tevye he says “Chava is dead to us, we’ll forget her” …. what?!?!?

He sings “little bird” thinking of her, but when she comes to him he goes away; she begs him to accept them, and he thinks about it in another one of his conversations with God that always turned in favours of his daughters, but not this time. “can I deny everything I believe in?” I say no, of course. “can I deny my own daughter?” an even bigger no, of course. I can’t understand why he has to choose one over the other, why can’t he keep his faith but still love his daughter? Nobody pretends he should agree with her choice, only that he keeps loving her, as a father should.

He makes his choice, tells her no and leaves, even tells the Constable “my daughter is dead” :-/

The Constable comes to the village to tell Tevye that he has orders, that all the jews have to leave Anatevka, not only that but all the surrounding villages as well. All of them have three days to sell their house if they can and leave. Of course they are angry, and many of them talk about staying and fighting, but the rabbi is a wise old man and says “let’s start packing”.

Lazar Wolf goes to Chicago where the brother of his late wife lives; Tevye goes to New York (I think he has a brother there). Chava comes to say goodbye, she leaves too, with Fyedka of course - they are not forced to but say they don’t want to leave in such a place where people do such things.

Tzeitel hugs her sister, but her father doesn’t look at her or talk to her. When Chava goes away Tzeitel shouts a last goodbye and Tevye mutters a “God be with you” that Tzeitel is happy to shout: I suppose in a way that’s a big step for him that means he’s not cutting her totally out of their lives. Chava says she’ll write to them and Tzeitel says they’ll be staying at uncle Avram’s. They all leave and the fiddler follows Tevye… this in undoubtably a moment of great uncertainty in Tevye’s life, but they will all keep going, stick together and find a new life elsewhere. 

the end.

ITA il violinista sul tetto