Tag: Charles Dickens

formative years…

April 2, 2017 by Vickie Lester

In the living room, sitting side-by-side with the Mister, I noticed he was enraptured by his smart phone. I remarked that studies had shown infants (whose parents were always checking in digitally) weren’t developing language skills, emotional recognition, or social bonds as quickly as previous generations; because their parents weren’t looking them in the face. If you are thinking that was an extremely subtle (cough) nudge or shove for some realtime attention you’d be right. And this is why he’s […]

Categories: Art, Books, Culture, Design, Entertainment, fashion, Fiction, Film, History, Hollywood, Literature, Los Angeles, Marriage, Memoir, Movies, Photography, Relationships, Romance, Story, Truth & Rumors, Uncategorized, Writing • Tags: Charles Dickens, Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that., formative, future, lost art of conversation, marriage, Martin Luther King Jr., the Mister, There are two kinds of truth: the truth that lights the way and the truth that warms the heart.

I’m convinced that if Charles Dickens were alive and well and living in Los Angeles, he’d be the best producer-director-writer of movies ever. I think if anybody really wants to learn how to tell a story in images, they should read Dickens. At least once or twice a year.” Robert Mulligan

September 26, 2014 by Vickie Lester

Categories: Art, Books, Culture, Design, Entertainment, fashion, Fiction, Film, Friendship, History, Hollywood, Life, Literature, Los Angeles, Movies, Photography, Story, Theater, Travel, Truth & Rumors, Uncategorized • Tags: Alan J. Pakula, Atticus Finch, Charles Dickens, Gregory Peck, Harper Lee, Mary Badham, on the set of To Kill a Mockingbird, Robert Mulligan directed To Kill a Mockingbird, Scout, tell a story in images

This is the first of two posts for The Perfumed Dandy – a word on Bleak House, by George Kaplan

January 11, 2014 by Vickie Lester

Hello Fearless Readers, it’s time once again for a brief post from Beguiling Hollywood’s Perfidious Albion (that’s “England” for the sane among you!) Correspondent while Ms Lester recovers from viral nastiness. Sorry, I’ll try to make this as painless as possible! . As I mentioned in Wednesday’s Great Expectations post, Cinema has found rich pickings in the works of Charles Dickens but there’s another medium that has also repeatedly ransacked his bookshelves… Yes, Television, a medium that has been characterized […]

Categories: Art, Blogging, Books, Culture, Design, Entertainment, fashion, Fiction, Film, Friendship, History, Life, Literature, London, Los Angeles, Memoir, Movies, Perfume, Photography, Relationships, Story, Theater, Travel, Truth & Rumors, Uncategorized, Writing • Tags: BBC, Bleak House, Charles Dickens, coincidence, compelling, court of chancery, esther summerson, fog, Gillian Anderson, jarndyce and jarndyce, lady dedlock, mystery, perfumed dandy, secrets, serial, small pox, spontaneous human combustion, strange names, tragedy, tulkinghorn, victorian england

Great Expectations (1946) – a film review by George Kaplan

January 8, 2014 by Vickie Lester

GREAT EXPECTATIONS (1946) Dir. David Lean Scr. Anthony Havelock-Allan, David Lean, Ronald Neame, Cecil McGivern, and Kay Walsh based upon the novel by Charles Dickens Hello Fearless Readers, I’m here to briefly fill in with a guest post but, don’t worry, the incomparable Ms. Lester will be back very shortly! . Some movies stay with you. It may seem an obvious thing to say, but when you consider there are films that you can barely remember a thing about an […]

Categories: Architecture, Art, Blogging, Books, Children, Culture, Design, Entertainment, fashion, Fiction, Film, History, Hollywood, Humor, Life, Literature, London, Memoir, Movies, Photography, Relationships, Story, Theater, Truth & Rumors, Uncategorized, Writing • Tags: adaptation, Aged P, Alec Guinness, beauty, behind the scenes, black and white, characterization, Charles Dickens, Cinematographer, cinematography, classic filmmaking, convoluted plots, David Lean, design, Dickens, director, eating livers, escaped convict, Estella, fearless readers, film, film review, fire, fog-shrouded London, frozen in time, George Kaplan, Great Expectations, greatest movies, guest blogger, Herbert Pocket, history, Jean Simmons, love, Magwitch, melodramatic plots, memory, Miss Havisham, Old Hollywood, Pinewood Studios, Pip, revenge, screen adaptation, sheer shimmering beauty of the black and white photography, shimmering, unforgettable, wedding cake, what larks, wonderful

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO A GRIPPING LIFE

July 26, 2013 by Vickie Lester

The interwebs, like the world which they mirror, can be a vast daunting place. There are a lot of strange things out there as well as very strange people (of which, I may be one) and it can be quite scary. But then you discover places that are purely wonderful, and in those places are a few people that are even *more* wonderful. I and Ms. Vickie Lester would like to take the time today to garland one of those […]

Categories: Art, Blogging, Books, Culture, Design, Film, Friendship, Gardening, History, Hollywood, Life, Literature, London, Los Angeles, Memoir, Parenting, Photography, Relationships, Story, Travel, Truth & Rumors, Uncategorized, Writing • Tags: A Gripping Life, beloved, best wishes, birthday, bouquet, bright future, Charles Dickens, friendship, garland, George Kaplan, Great Expectations, happy, Lisa, love, That was a memorable day to me

BEGUILING BOOKS WITH GEORGE KAPLAN

July 9, 2013 by Vickie Lester

Booking A Show Adapting a book for the screen isn’t easy. No, really, don’t laugh at the obviousness of that statement! It isn’t. A screenwriter (okay, this is Hollywood we’re talking about…is there a word for a group of scripters, perhaps a Scribe of Sceenwriters?!) has to find the essence of the novel and attempt to bring it to the screen; novels and movies obviously aren’t the same, both can accomplish things of which the other is incapable. Then again, […]

Categories: Art, Blogging, Books, Crime, Culture, Entertainment, fashion, Fiction, Film, History, Hollywood, Humor, Life, Literature, Los Angeles, Movies, Photography, Theater, Truth & Rumors, Uncategorized, Writing • Tags: actor, actress, beguiling books, behind the scenes, Bogart and Bacall, book, Charles Dickens, Classic Movies, David Lean, director, film adaptation, George Kaplan, Great Expectations, hard-boiled detective, history, Hollywood, Howard Hawks, humor, Jean Simmons, novel to screen, novelist, Philip Marlowe, Pip, Robert Altman, screenplay, screenwriter, scribe, THE BIG SLEEP, The Long Goodbye