Deborah Kerr

The Sunday magazine edition of the grey old lady, 'the New York Times' at year's end publishes short obits on famous people who died in 2007. Deborah Kerr's name was conspicously absent. She had a long and distinguished career in film; won an Oscar, and got an honorary one years before she died. She is remembered more notably for her scene on the beach with Burt Lanchaster in 'From here to eternity'. Yet she was not a sex symbol but a seasoned actress. This was brought home to 18Brumaire when he saw at the Museum of Modern Art 'the Innocents' based on Henry James' 'Turn of the Screw'. Kerr turns in a strong and stirring performance. Yet at the time the film came out in 1961, the film reviewers save one or two, shot it down, as too Freudian; as too influenced by the great American writer of belles lettres, Edmund Wilson. To today's public the film may seem quaint but it is suggested you see it for the work well done by Kerr. Truman Capote had a hand in the script as did John Mortimer who supplied additional dialogue. If you want to see another side of Kerr, do grab 'Night of the Iguana' with the strong cast of Ava Gardner and Richard Burton. And then there is that haunting and enchanting film based on Rumer Godden's 'Black Narcissus', set in the high mountains of India which offers the film goer the same frisson but in a different way that he or she would have in seeing 'the Innocents'.
To a great lady of the silver screen who has left us, 18Brumaire vous salue!