Michael Winner: not such a bad guy
The Graun‘s obit, here.
Here he has a go at the arsehole/asshole Littlejohn and defends lesbians.
But I still think his films are shite…
January 21, 2013 at 4:17 pm (celebrity, cinema, film, gay, Human rights, Jim D)
The Graun‘s obit, here.
Here he has a go at the arsehole/asshole Littlejohn and defends lesbians.
But I still think his films are shite…
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Jim Denham said,
January 21, 2013 at 4:24 pm
In fairness, it should be noted that Harry’s Place posted that clip before I did. You can believe me or not, but I found it off my own bat and have only just noticed that Harry’s Place have used it as well.
Robin Carmody said,
January 21, 2013 at 8:55 pm
If it makes you feel any better (I believe you, btw) several of my FB friends posted it. It’s a natural choice because it’s one of the ultimate “broken clock” moments.
Jim Denham said,
January 22, 2013 at 9:48 am
From Steerpike, blogging at the ‘Spectator’ yesterday:
Michael Winner’s family have announced that he’s paid his last bill and checked out. The 77-year-old director of Death Wish and world renowned food critic died at home in West London earlier today.
In what became his last Winner’s Dinners column, Winner recently gave his loyal readership a glimpse at his final days, recounting his trip to Switzerland where he stayed at Mr Steerpike’s favourite haunt, the Gstaad Palace, where his ‘bill for 12 nights was 47,900 Swiss francs (£34,963 at 1.37 Swiss francs to the pound, the rate I got at Marks & Spencer).’
Winner poignantly signed off with the observation:
‘Gstaad is packed with famous names, all fighting not to be in this column. I totally understand. It’s a miracle they speak to me. If it were known that they associated with me, they’d be barred from right-thinking society. Tell you about it later. Now I need a rest.’
Rest in peace, dear.
Roger McCarthy (@RF_McCarthy) said,
January 24, 2013 at 1:45 pm
His 60s and early 70s movies are actually not at all bad – Lawman and Chato’s Land would be regarded as good but minor revisionist late westerns like Ulzana’s Raid or The Great Northfield Minnesota Raid if the director had conveniently died or retired before Death Wish etc made him millions but ruined whatever reputation he had,
The Mechanic and Stone Killer are pretty good as well – particularly the long dialogue-free opening of The Mechanic.
And Hannibal Brooks deserves credit as one of the very few movies that depicts what routinely happened to non-officer POWs in WW2 – they were quite legally under the Geneva Convention all employed as slave labour in Nazi fields and factories while their officers alone were confined to closed POW camps and had endless films made about them and their jolly japes with wooden horses and tunnels (Oliver Reed’s Private Brooks is set to shovelling elephant shit in the Munich Zoo and then after an air raid destroys the zoo and kills the keepers is sent off with the last surviving elephant on a leisurely march to another zoo up in the Alps).
Roger McCarthy (@RF_McCarthy) said,
January 24, 2013 at 1:48 pm
Or looking at the full list of Winner movies maybe that first sentence should have been ‘His 60s and 70s movies are actually not all bad’…..