Saturday 13 June 2009

KNIGHTLY ENCOUNTERS

Congratulations to

CHRISTOPHER LEE


on his much-deserved and long-overdue

KNIGHTHOOD!

Being aware of Sir Christopher's well-known sensitivity to indiscriminate reference being made to his having played a certain film role based on a character created by Bram Stoker, we will limit ourselves to mentioning one or two of his other 258 film appearances - in itself an astonishing tally that has earned him a place in The Guinness Book of Records.

There is, for example, his performance as the creepy Lord Summerisle in the cult-classic, The Wicker Man, as the coldly calculating Francisco Scaramanga, title character in the 1974 James Bond movie, The Man with the Golden Gun...



And as Gandalf's corrupt wizard-boss, Saruman the White, in The Lord of the Rings...

Saruman

I have fond memories of working with Sir Christopher and in case you missed it the first time I blogged it, here's an ac-count of some en-count-ers with the sometime Count!

And, if you haven't yet discovered the joys of Sir Christopher the singer, well here's a reminder of his musical prowess in the 1983 musical-comedy-fantasy, The Return of Captain Invincible...



And a rather more recent operatic performance...



So, Sir Christopher, what can one add, except---

BLOODY well done!

Cartoons: Scaramanga by Peter Emslie; Saruman by Court Jones

8 comments:

SharonM said...

My favourite memory of SCFCL singing is in The Return of Captain Invincible, in which he played the baddie (no surprises there) Mr Midnight.
It was worth seeing the film for the song alone.

Brian Sibley said...

Thanks for the reminder of Sir C's lyrical turn in TROCI: I've duly added the song to the post.

I assume that the 'F' in 'SCFCL' stands for 'formerly'?

SharonM said...

F for Frank C for Carandini,
Thanks for adding the clip.

scb said...

Apparently I've not seen the right movies, but I commend Sir Christopher nonetheless. And I must say it was ver interesting to count the ways you didn't mention a certain character...


In other news, there's a meme over on my blog, she said, wondering if a certain person can resist a meme... mentioning no names...

Boll Weavil said...

I like him in 'The Wicker Man' as the spooky Lord. Apparently it's his favourite role too so if both of us think so, that must prove it !

Brian Sibley said...

SHARON - Thanks for clearing that up...

SCB - ME? A meme? I'd say no, but then it would be a (relatively) quick way of doing a blog post --- so I just might...

BOLL - Yes, I've heard him say that The Wicker Man is his fave, although I also know that he considers that his finest (but sadly neglected) role was as the eponymous Jinnah in the 1998 film about the founder of Pakistan.

scb said...

Brian -- hope I didn't insult you by mentioning a meme... I know you have lots of better things to post about, I just seemed to remember you doing them once in a while. Oops.

Brian Sibley said...

Of course, you haven't offended me! I should have added a :-) to show I was joking! Sorry!