Of Time and the City: Terence Davies Goes Home Again

They had so many great character comedians back then.
Oh, yes, Eric Blore and Edward Everett Horton, and in Singin’ in the Rain, I live for the moment when Jean Hagen says, “I have more money than Calvin Coolidge — put together!”

In Of Time and the City, as soon as you mentioned radio comedy, I knew it was going to be the “Julian and Sandy” routines from Round the Horne with Kenneth Horne, Kenneth Williams and Hugh Paddick.
You know them?

Solon Papadopoulos

Terence Davies

Related Content

• Cannes Diary: What Are the Women in their Dresses Hoping For?
  May 16, 2013
• AFI Fest 2012: Who Will Win the Oscar for Best Foreign-Language Film?
  November 1, 2012
• Our 2012 Film Poll: Movie Critics Nationwide Pick the Year's Best
  December 20, 2012
• 20 Movies You Need to See at AFI Fest 2012
  November 1, 2012
• Terence Davies This Weekend at the Aero
  March 8, 2012

More About

• Terence Davies
• Liverpool
• Kenneth A. Williams
• Kenneth Horne
• Cannes Film Festival

Oh, yes. Considering the times, it’s amazing they got away with gay humor like that. Williams’ career was so amazing, and his life was so sad.
Well, he didn’t like being gay, and I don’t like being gay. It does ruin your life to a certain degree, because it’s something you have to fight against every day. A “Julian and Sandy” sketch I wanted to use but didn’t was one where Kenneth Horne goes into their shop and says he wants to go abroad. “I fancy Greece,” he says. And Kenneth Williams says, “I wouldn’t go to Greece if I were you, Mr. Horne. Julian had an experience at the Acropolis.” “How about Malaga?” “Don’t go to Malaga, Julian got stung there.” “Portuguese Man-of-War?” And he says, “Oh, I didn’t recognize the uniform.”

I love that bit you put in the film about the men arrested for “gross indecency” and the judge who complained that they did it “beneath one of the city’s most beautiful bridges.”
It’s true. That’s exactly what he said.

Yes, but it’s so absurd. Like something in a comedy.
British judges today I’m sure are different, but back then, they were living in the past. The prosecutor in the Lady Chatterley’s Lover obscenity trial said, “Would you allow your wife or your servants to read this?” And this was 1961!

The church, your old adversary, appears to be sinking now.
The sooner it sinks, the better.

Great sets, great costumes. But the book needs work.
No gags! Plenty of unintentional humor but no gags of its own. But I fear, like the monarchy, it will be with us forever.

Of Time and the City opens in Los Angeles theaters on Friday, January 30. For J. Hoberman’s review, see New Reviews.