Friday, February 19, 2010

Lionel Jeffries (1926 –2010)



It's a long clip (well, nearly 6 minutes - that's well beyond our alleged attention span in the Twitter age, isn't it?) but it is, of course, one of the greatest film endings in British cinema, and we owe it all to Lionel, RIP.

Hankies at the ready.

14 comments:

  1. Oh wow, I didn't know.

    My old man was in a Lionel Jeffries film.

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  2. I realised earlier tonight that in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang when he played Dick Van Dyke's dad (despite being younger than him) he was five years younger than I am now. Do 'character' actors still exist?

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  3. God you're right - he was 42!

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  4. That was lovely, just what I needed on return from the pub.

    Thank you Lionel, however I have no recollection of watching that film all the way through, although I must have.

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  5. I had the same realisation as Mick this afternoon, about Lionel's age. Scary.

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  6. Many Thanks for this. The scene where she runs down the platform shouting "Daddy my Daddy", never fails to bring a tear to my eye and a lump to my throat.

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  7. I watched the clip twice last night and cried both times, even without the context of the rest of the film. It's like Pavlov's dogs.

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  8. Not to diss Lionel Jeffries, but Edith Nesbit deserves a bit of the credit. Whenever I see this (and I do love the film) I can't forget that her own father died when she was three.

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  9. I've got the soundtrack story lp I will endeavour to rip the odd track have been meaning to as my nieces like the film .

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  10. Davy, I wrote about my Dad's involvement with Jeffries on my blog a while ago:

    http://www.londonlee.com/2008/01/my-dads-8-tracks.html

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  11. oh gawd. i've been trying to resist but i've just given in and am amazed the keybord works underwater
    x

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