RIP Angela Lansbury
Angela Lansbury has died just a few days shy of her 97th birthday. The linked article goes into a long list of her many accomplishments and roles, but it leaves out my personal favorite, in one of my favorite movies. In case you haven’t seen “The Court Jester,” here Danny Kaye is under a hypnotic spell that transforms him from meek into bold, and the trigger for the changeover is snapped fingers. Lansbury plays his royal love interest, when he’s in the bold state:
Interesting that her second role was opposite Liz Taylor. I imagine that a lot of people did not know that she was English, as was Taylor. A long career that brought joy and pleasure to many people.
A fine actress.
The Court Jester is one of my favorite movies as well. It has a treasured place in my collection. A delightful, satirical performance of a clever script by an ensemble cast.
RIP.
As Shirehome said, she brought joy and pleasure to many people. Who could wish for a better epitaph for an entertainer?
I was surprised to learn at some point that in her earlier career, she was considered quite a “bombshell”. I missed that somehow. Too bad. I am confident that she was a “classy bombshell”; and I am partial to classy bombshells. It would have been fun to compare that version with the later Angela Lansbury.
One of Angela Lansbury’s lesser-known roles was her performance as Miss Eglantine Price in a Walt Disney movie (1971, so you know it was family-safe!) titled Bedknobs and Broomsticks, based on a book by an English children’s author named Mary Norton. The movie (described as a musical fantasy film) is set during the Battle of Britain in 1940. Miss Price is the reluctant caregiver of three children evacuated from London during the Blitz. She is studying witchcraft through a correspondence school in the hope that she can use her spells as part of the war effort against the Nazis. Long story short, Miss Price meets Emelius Browne, the “headmaster” of the correspondence school, who turns out to be an ordinary street magician. The adults and the children have a series of adventures involving the magic spells Miss Price has learned, including an attempt to foil the arrival of some Nazi commandos. Miss Price has become attached to the children over the course of these adventures, and Browne struggles with his feelings toward her and the kids, but at the end he enlists in the army. He is escorted to the train station by members of the local Home Guard, whose marching song is one of the better-known musical numbers of the film. Here it is, with Lansbury appearing (along with a vocalizing black cat) at the reprise that concludes the film:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xack0sgq2-0&ab_channel=15master
Well she a queen of the british stage not quite a femme fatale but close in films like state of the union and manchurian you can see how subtle the latter performance was compared to meryl streeps hackneyed take 40 years later
It’s good to see in neo’s clip Angela Lansbury as a classy bombshell!
Back in the 80s my roommate was a theater guy, who knew a lot more about theater than I did. (A low bar.) He showed me the 1982 “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street” Stephen Sondheim musical.
My idea, then, of a musical was “Oklahoma” or “Singin’ In the Rain,” but “Sweeney Todd” was an entirely different bucket of straight razors — about a barber who felt compelled to cut the throats of his unlucky clients.
Anyway, Angela Lansbury had an odd singing role as a baker bragging to Sweeney that she makes “The Worst Pies in London” and pulling it off quite nicely, thank you. She won a Tony for her efforts.
Not the sort of role she is remembered for, but worth a look. She was versatile.
https://www.tcm.com/video/469605/sweeney-todd-1982-video-clip-worst-pies-in-london
https://www.tcm.com/video/469616/sweeney-todd-1982-video-clip-a-little-priest/
My roommate had entirely too much fun enjoying my confusion while watching “Sweeney Todd.”
oldflyer:
I think the clip I offered in this post shows Lansbury in her “classy bombshell” days.
“The Court Jester!”
I have a few, strong memories of seeing that movie on television when I was quite young, but had no idea what the title was. Thank you! I will have to find time to (re)watch it and try to learn why it stuck with me all these years.
PA Cat,
I saw, “Bedknobs and Broomsticks” in theaters (must have been around the same age when I saw “The Court Jester” on TV). I quite enjoyed it and have especially fond memories of the royal soccer game. As an adult I learned it was panned as several movies Disney released during a period of low animation standards. As an adult I can see what folks mean about the lower budget (for Disney) animation, but I still enjoyed the movie as a child. “The Aristocats” also gets panned as being poor quality around that same era yet it is one of my wife’s favorites.
Re: low animation standards
Rufus:
Full blown Disney animation was beautiful but muy expensive. The return to lower standards was inevitable, but as I understand the history, a big piece of that started with Frank Lloyd Wright and John Hubley, a Disney animator:
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On February 25, 1939, the architect Frank Lloyd Wright visited the studio with a copy of the Russian animated movie The Tale of the Czar Durandai (1934), directed by Ivan Ivanov-Vano, which he showed to the artists, among them Hubley. Wright thought that the different style and design, that was very different from the typical Disney animation, would inspire and give the animators new ideas. Hubley liked what he saw and was influenced by it.[4] He left the company during Disney animators’ strike in 1941, and found work directing films for Screen Gems and the Army’s First Motion Picture Unit until he joined United Productions of America which was founded by Stephen Bosustow, Zack Schwartz, Dave Hilberman. UPA soon became known for their highly stylized designs and limited animation.
In 1949 he was the creator of the Mr. Magoo cartoon character, based on an uncle, and directed the first Magoo cartoon with Jim Backus voicing Magoo.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Hubley
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Hubley’s studio, UPA, also produced “Gerald McBoing-Boing,” based on a Dr. Seuss character, which was absolutely marvelous and won the Best Animated Short Oscar for 1950.
–“Gerald McBoing-Boing” (1950)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNsyQDmEopw
I know I post a whole lotta links, but GMBB is a must-see for anyone with a love for animation.
Bill Scott and Ray Morita worked came up through UPA and went on to put their stamp on the Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoons.
I have always loved Angela Lansbury. I’ve watched every Murder She Wrote episode numerous times. Such a delightful lady. A life well-lived.
huxley,
That really was great. I even loved the font and coloration used on the opening credits slides. I’ve mentioned before I’m a huge, Ted Geisel (Doc Seuss) fan. I knew of Gerald McBoing Boing and felt certain I had seen it, but just watching it now I realize I hadn’t (until now). Thanks for posting that!
Rufus:
I have seen “Gerald McB-B” before and watching it tonight I’m impressed yet again!
My Sweeney Todd theater friend also exposed me to the Hubleys’ “A Windy Day”, which is quite magical:
–“Windy Day [John & Faith Hubley, 1967] (subtitulado)”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4O8VE4qB8-s
I couldn’t find a link without subtitles.
During the 70s and 80s I used to frequent the animation festivals at local rep houses. It’s a lovely form. I haven’t checked in since. I wonder what I’ve missed.
Such a delightful lady. A life well-lived.
Sharon W:
Well, I’m always looking for connections … but isn’t Angela Lansbury kinda like Queen Elizabeth II?
She did her job with competence and loyalty, she didn’t force herself as a center of attention, and she was, by what I’ve read, a decent, moral person.
She seemed to be a somewhat ordinary person in quite unordinary circumstances, yet acquitting herself admirably.
Which is, by today’s standards, extraordinary.
Lansbury was a remarkably versatile actress. I’ve seen her in The Court Jester, The Manchurian Candidate (what a wild difference in roles), Bedknobs and Broomsticks, Sweeney Todd (ditto), and of course Murder She Wrote.
And probably others that I’ve forgotten.
My contribution:
The film [Court Jester] contains three songs (all sung by Kaye), makes heavy use of slapstick comedy and quick-witted wordplay, and is best remembered for the tongue twister “The pellet with the poison’s in the vessel with the pestle; the chalice from the palace has the brew that is true!”
Wikipedia has the straight dope on her career. Movie fans sometimes forget she was just as big a star on the theater stage, although she started out with supporting roles in film. The first excerpt is for huxley.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angela_Lansbury
However, she was rejected for the movie, and the leading role went to Lucille Ball (who also started as at theater ingenue, and was quite pretty, just like Lansbury).
One of her early roles was in a Sondheim musical, Anyone Can Whistle, and she liked working with his scores.
IIRC, I saw a filmed version of that production, broadcast on tv (probably PBS).
She reprised that role several times in revivals at different theaters.
I played that same role in a summer production at our local college after my senior year in High School. It was great fun.
RIP indeed.
Lansbury was ironically a classy bombshell as a euphemistically called “music hall girl” in Harvey Girls from 1946. She played the romantic rival to Judy Garland. I think her singing was overdubbed because her voice was too refined for her character.
huxley,
In the ’70s and ’80s I too attended animation festivals at a local art house in Chicago. A lot of really interesting stuff. One that had something to do with a man living a rather mundane existence meeting a woman with a head like a dove or pigeon haunts me to this day. I have no idea what it was about, or what it was even titled, but something about it stayed with me.
And, of course, there was the classic, “Bambi Meets Godzilla.”
She was a great actress and made a good villain in “Manchurian.:”
Her daughter was hanging out with Charles Manson’s gang in the late 60s. Dame Angela felt that would never do, left Hollywood with her family, and moved to County Cork in Ireland for a years hiatus while her daughter got her head straight. Great parenting skills, as well as great acting chops.
Re: Animation festivals
Rufus:
The animation which stuck with me was:
–Sally Cruikshank, “Quasi at the Quackadero”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dH7LcVNusQE
Weirdo man-child from the future attends a time-travel amusement park with his manipulative girlfriend. Weirdness ensues.